History Main / Padding

* Much of the events that transpired in ''Roleplay/DinoAttackRPG'' after the XERRD Fortress battle and before the journey to the Maelstrom Temple, especially following the Stromling attack on the camp, just seemed to drag on and on without much actually happening. This includes Rotor's trial and the Stromling infiltration paranoia. It speaks for itself that, ''in-universe'', Stromling!Zachary actually had to reset his "You Have Sixty Hours" ultimatum because Dino Attack Team was taking so long to get going.

* ''Anime/{{Voltron}}'' had over half a dozen pieces of stock footage. Two of them (forming Voltron and forming Blazing Sword) happen in pretty much every episode. How many of the others (generally related to getting the pilots to the lions, launching the lions, and getting the lions to the battlefield) get used is a function of how much time the studio had to use up to get the episode to the desired length after all the actual plot-related scenes were finished.

** One commercial for ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' had Mojo Jojo do this on a show that was an obvious reference to ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', though that's really his normal way of talking.

* Similarly, the ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' anime does this when it doesn't just decide to [[InactionSequence fill out episodes with nothing at all]]. For example, when Suigetsu joined Sasuke in the manga they went to the Land of Waves to get [[spoiler:Zabuza's {{BFS}}]] which was right where they expected it to be and it only took up a few pages. But in the anime someone else took it, and the two spend the episode retrieving it, eventually making a game out of it (as well as spending [[RuleOfFunny a rather amusing]] scene in a restaurant). This also serves the purpose of demonstrating Suigetsu's [[NighInvulnerable abilities]] much earlier than in the manga (where he doesn't get to properly demonstrate his power for nearly fifty chapters). The same thing happened with the other two members of their team, but with flashbacks. Earlier in the anime series, during the attempted rescue of Gaara, there were [[UpToEleven flashbacks to things that had been covered in previous and recent flashbacks,]] as well as flashbacks to things that had happened five real-time minutes earlier. While this is done in an attempt to not outpace the manga, it gets painful during fight scenes.

* The fourth and fifth books of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' take this UpToEleven. New Dornish and Ironborn [=POVs=] are introduced and most are largely unimportant to the main plot. Areo Hotah, Arys Oakheart and Aeron Greyjoy's chapters and especially the eight Brienne chapters in ''A Feast for Crows'', which are long sequences of traveling through the Riverlands looking for Sansa have almost no bearing whatsoever to the main plot aside from a bit of character development and world-building. ''A Dance With Dragons'' continues the padding with the Quentyn chapters, which follow the story of a completely inconsequential character whose only point is getting burned by Daenerys' dragons at the end.

** Really Gets taken UpToEleven for Season 8 with the last last episode in particular being an all-time low for the amount of dialogue spoken in an episode. It is packed with long and slow scenes of characters walking, character reaction shots and sweeping pans of Kingslanding. It's quite egregious as it's also meant to be the episode that wraps up 8 seasons worth of epic fantasy plot.

Padding is often frequently present in music, too. It can range from parts without the main melody or sudden stop periods. Examples are quite subjective. '''BUT!!!''' Despite the name, Padding has not even a smidgen to do with [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant diapers]].

** The first episode of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E1TheLeisureHive The Leisure Hive]]" notoriously opens with a slow, nearly two-minute pan across an empty beach. Reportedly, this was because the story was a holdover from Creator/GrahamWilliams' tenure as producer, and when Creator/JohnNathanTurner took over, he ordered all the comedy to be stripped out to fit the DarkerAndEdgier direction he had in mind.

*** In "The Masterpiece," there is a sequence of [=SpongeBob=] revving up the grill, slicing cheese, opening the restaurant, and Squidward watching a soap opera before Mr. Krabs sees the Sea Chicken Shack commercial that sets the plot in motion. There's then a scene of [=SpongeBob=] showing off his spy gadgets to Mr. Krabs, even though he only uses one of them. And ''then'' there's a scene of [=SpongeBob=] inside the Sea Chicken Shack before getting kicked out and noticing the statue that gives Mr. Krabs an idea to build his own. There's minutes of mundane conversation before Squidward agrees to building the statue.
*** "Kracked Krabs" starts with [=SpongeBob=] making fries in a rather long sequence.

* ''Film/FireMaidensFromOuterSpace'' barely runs 80 minutes, yet still manages to wear its plot really thinly. Filmmaker Cy Roth had to LeaveTheCameraRunning in a lot of scenes, and there are endless sequences of the men sitting around and smoking and of the maidens dancing to Borodin.

* An InUniverse example comes from ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'', Big Head's son who wanted to get out of his contract with the TV Studio so he purposely made episodes that just showed a single image of a jar of mayonnaise for the entire run or just a black screen from exposing the film to sunlight. However each time he did so [[SpringtimeForHitler the episode was praised]].

* ''Fim/TicklesTheClown'': Expect the cast to do a lot of talking, oftentimes just to stretch out the movie's run time.

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', a lot of the duels suffer from this, which generally also makes them less epic than if they just focused on the duels and saved everything else for after the damn card games... In particular, the Battle City Arc is full of padding. The duel between Yugi and Kaiba, for instance, is ''six episodes'' long, one of which is dedicated to nothing but Osiris/Slifer and Obelisk destroying each other. Also, duels tend to be stretched out longer compared to the original manga.

* A huge amount of ''ComicBook/CountdownToFinalCrisis'' is this, with each issue jammed with [[FourLinesAllWaiting snippets of several different storylines spread across the entire DC universe]] introducing plot points that are forgotten three issues later, with special mention to everything having to do with the Monitors [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall ("We should do something!" "Should we do something?" "We should do something!" "Should we do something?")]]. Also, many of the events happening in Countdown were completely unrelated to the series' plot lines themselves, and were instead random intersections with all the other (and better) stuff happening in the DC universe at the same time, reducing the event to a series of advertisements for plots in dozens of other comic titles. To top it off, ''Countdown'' was so incredibly bad, nonsensical, confusing, and unpopular that everything that happened in it with the exception of a few plot points was immediately shunted into CanonDiscontinuity, and ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', the event Countdown was supposed to be, y'know, ''counting down to'', latched on to entirely different events to act as its lead-up, meaning that the [[ShootTheShaggyDog entirety of Countdown wound up as one whole year of padding]] for Final Crisis.
-->'''Linkara:''' ''(singing)'' This is padding! This is padding!

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' storyline ''ComicBook/TwoForTheDeathOfOne'' is eight issues long. Four of those issues have Superman fight villains unrelated to his plight, as well as cross over with the ''Omega Men'' and the ''Teen Titans'', and do little to push the main plot forward. Most of it could be cut to fit the few relevant scenes in the remainder issues. It may come across as Marv Wolfman using Superman as a self-promoting vehicle since the Omega Men are his own creations and he was writing ''New Teen Titans'' back then.

* ''WebAnimation/DoubleRainboom'' was first envisioned as standard-length fan episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''. Unfortunately, the project's director was made it as his final project for animation school, and said project had a minimum length of 30 minutes, while the episode script was intended to be a 22-minute episode. In the end, this trope ensued.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' takes this UpToEleven. New Dornish and Ironborn [=POVs=] are introduced and most are largely unimportant to the main plot. Areo Hotah, Arys Oakheart and Aeron Greyjoy's chapters and especially the eight Brienne chapters in A Feast for Crows, which are long sequences of traveling through the Riverlands looking for Sansa have almost no bearing whatsoever to the main plot aside from a bit of character development and world-building. A Dance With Dragons continues the padding with the Quentyn chapters, which follow the story of a completely inconsequential character whose only point is getting burned by Daenerys' dragons at the end.

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1650812546048378600

%% Please see current thread to discuss a new image.

%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!

%%
%%
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1576528131070930800
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_shutterstock_384844018.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[ExactWords NOW with 30% bigger bag!]]]]
%%

* ''Music/MitchBenn's 24 Hour Album'' was written and recorded in 24 hours for charity. The final song, "Party Animals Need Not Apply" is about the difficulties of doing this, and ends with an extended riff on how this song needs to be three minutes long if he's going to fit the criteria.

* Director [[Creator/NeilBreen Neil Breen's]] debut feature, ''Double Down'', would be roughly 30 minutes long had he not made extensive use of stock footage and not inserted unused takes of previous sequences throughout the runtime.

--->'''Theme Song:''' ''Anyone who counts loves Ned Flanders!''

* Another [=NBC=] game, ''Series/TheWall'', is another offender. In one episode, the contestant's father inadvertantly padded the game further by constantly monologuing in the SoundProofBooth about personal stories related to the question subjects (to the point that when a question about cars came up, the ''contestant'' warned host Chris Hardwick that he was [[ThisIsGonnaSuck likely going to tell a long story about their old Dodge Caravan.]] Which he did.)

** Another trick involves having an audience being invited to play an abbreviated or modified version of the game for a nominal prize. This often happens when there isn't enough time to begin a new game (or if played more regularly, on Friday episodes). Some examples: