History Main / ShaggydogStory

* [[spoiler: CitizenKane]]: The FramingDevice ends with Thompson not only giving up to found what ''Rosebud'' means, but admiting that knowing it will not explain Kane.

* William Henry Harrison was elected President of the United States in 1841, gave the longest inaugural address in history in absolutely hideous weather, started in on his campaign promise to reform executive appointments... then caught pneumonia three weeks later and died. Since his VP, John Tyler, completely opposed the party Harrison was hard-line for, the only thing to come out of his Presidency was an amendment to the Constitution clarifying what happens if the President dies in office.

* Kevin J. Anderson's ''[[Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy Darksaber]]''. At least, the part about the eponymous superweapon. To make a long story short: the BigBad built it using shoddy labor and substandard material, and the first time he tried to use it, RocksFallEveryoneDies (literally, in this case). All the good guys had to do was show up, and their contribution to the finale was complete.

** An alternate Aesop overlaps with CharacterDevelopment - the woman in question was bitchy, and used money that her husband would have used to go on a holiday to buy a dress for herself for the party (she didn't borrow it, just the necklace), and borrowed the necklace because she couldn't stand the thought of people seeing her in anything less than stunning attire -- all her self-worth came from her appearance and what people thought of her. After having to move down a couple social classes to pay back their debts, she learns to sympathise with others, to value herself for who she is, not what she looks like, and becomes a much nicer person as a result. An alternate Aesop could easily be that hard work builds character and looks aren't everything.

** Another Deep Space Nine example is the popular BottleEpisode "Duet". The whole episode is spent confronting the Cardassian war criminal Gul Dar He'el for his brutal actions during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. [[spoiler:Throughout the episode, Kira figures out that the Caradassian in custody is, in fact, Aamin Marritza, a humble file clerk trying to pose as Dar He'el to get Cardassia to own up to its actions. At the end of the episode, Kira releases Marritza, telling him that Cardassia needs people like him if it's going to reform, and the episode is all set to end on a happy note. Marritza is promptly stabbed to death by a Bajoran, who that he only killed Aamin because [[FantasticRacism he was a Cardassian.]]]]

*** Technically, you can throw the "Sasuke Retrieval Arc" into this list either - the only thing the Konoha group accomplished was killing off Orochimaru's EliteMooks squad, the Sound Four (Kimimaro doesn't count since he would've died anyway), while Orochimaru gets his hands on Sasuke. On the other hand, it ''is'' the CharacterDevelopment that drove the arc, and all the involved major characters (including Sasuke himself) receive defining moments during the mission.

** In "Slam Dunk", Mordecai and Rigby wage an escalating basketball war with Muscle Man and High-five Ghost for the rights to use the computer so that Mordecai can make a website for Margaret. After a climactic duel for control of the basketball in space leading to a from-orbit slam dunk for the final point, Mordecai approaches Margaret... and finds out Margaret already had it made, since she asked two months ago

** In "A Bunch of Baby Ducks", Mordecai and Rigby have to find someone to whom they can give a bunch of baby ducks that have been following them around so that they can clean the park fountain. In the end, they fight a climactic battle with a duck poacher to help reclaim the ducklings with the help of their rightful mother. As they reported to Benson, the good news was they got rid of the baby ducks, but the bad news was that the fountain was destroyed

* The ComicStrip/{{Luann}} story with her latest {{Love Interest|s}} Quill seems to be ending up as one of these. After constant WillTheyOrWontThey, they finally decide to get romantic... and just then his phone rings with news that he has to move back to Australia. He leaves to pack, and decides not to even see her again to say goodbye.

** In "The Star-Child", the title character is a foundling who is adopted by a poor woodcutter, and grows up beautiful but vain, cruel, and arrogant, convinced he is the son of a king and queen. When a beggar woman shows up claiming to be his mother, he rejects her and is [[KarmicTransformation turned into a hideous cross between a frog and a snake.]] He becomes an outcast and frantically tries to find his mother again. Eventually he is sold into slavery, and on three successive days his master tasks him with finding a piece of gold in a forest. Each time he fails in his quest until a rabbit (whom he springs from a trap on the first day) leads him to the gold, and each time he encounters a beggar on his return to the city whom he decides needs the gold more than he does. On the third day, he is told he will be killed if he fails in his task, and once again he gives the gold to the beggar instead of his master, but upon his return, his looks are restored and he is acclaimed as the heir to the throne of the unnamed country in which the story is set, and is not only re-united with his mother (who is both the beggar woman he rejected and the nation's queen) but discovers that the beggar to whom he gave the gold is his father (and the nation's king). His reign as king is described as a happy one... but he dies after just three years, and his successor proves to be a sadistic tyrant.

** "The Remarkable Rocket" features the title firework, the planned centrepiece of a display in honour of a royal wedding. However, while boasting to the other fireworks about how much greater he is than they are, he proves his "sensitivity" by bursting into tears, so that his fuse is soaked and he doesn't go off as planned. The next day he is thrown into a muddy ditch by the disappointed palace staff, and after several encounters with unimpressed forest animals, he is found by two boys, who mistake him for a piece of firewood. He stays on the fire for long enough for his fuse to dry out, and he finally soars into the air and explodes in a shower of gold... before an audience of precisely zero (even the two boys have fallen asleep by the time he goes off).

** To be fair, the game IS a trilogy, so not having a definitive ending is kind of to be expected. Plus, it doesn't seem like sealing Ahriman was actually the point, but rather what mattered was the Prince's transformation.
** I thought that was the [[MultipleEndings bad end]], i.e. you have the option to walk away from the can to get the good end. Or is [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption Stupidity your only option]]? Or, worse yet, is it CutsceneIncompetence?
*** To elaborate a bit, here's how the ending plays out - when you [[spoiler:pick up Elika's body and slowly walk outside while carrying it,]] the credits start rolling. When you [[spoiler:put Elika's body back down outside the temple,]] the credits stop. The official strategy guide for the game even states outright that this is a good place to stop if you don't want a bad ending. The player still controls the Prince, but there's nothing left to do aside from [[spoiler: destroying the tree of life and freeing Ahriman]] - which the player must do themself, without any coaching from the game. Doing so leads to the downer ending where [[spoiler: The Prince frees Ahriman and revives Elika, who responds to this by asking "Why?"]]
**** The epilogue expansion turns this around. [[spoiler: The prince does not believe that Ahriman can be properly sealed anymore so the choice ultimately came down to fight Ahriman now with Elika and Ormazd's help, or fight him later without them. Elika still thinks he's an idiot for making that choice.]]

** "The Remarkable Rocket" features the title firework, the planned centrepiece of a display in honour of a royal wedding. However, while boasting to the other fireworks about how much greater he is than they are, he proves his "sensitivity" by bursting into tears, so that his fuse is soaked and he doesn't go off as planned. The next day he is thrown into a ditch, and after several encounters with unimpressed forest animals, he is found by two boys, who mistake him for a piece of firewood. By this time, his fuse has dried out, so he finally soars into the air and explodes in a shower of gold... before an audience of precisely zero (even the two boys have fallen asleep by the time he goes off).

*** Of course that wonderful story was tossed in the garbage and this really DID become a Shaggy Dog story as of Volume 5 when Hiro went back to save Charlie and was successful. He somehow managed to get his past self to go back in time to fall in love with Charlie, get Past Ando to hang around until Past Hiro gets back AND talked Past Sylar into using his powers to cure Charlie's blood clot (DontAsk)... only to have Charlie get "lost in time" by this Volume's BigBad!
**** To cap off in a way that probably reaches ShootTheShaggyDog levels, in the season ([[LeftHanging and series]]) finale Hiro meets Charlie again. She's old, and asks Hiro not to go back in time, because she's built a family during 65 years and doesn't want to lose that. Doubleyoo. Tee. Eff.

* Billy lived in a boring little town, the only attraction being a run-down old zoo with nothing but run-of-the-mill farm animals. One day, when passing by the zoo, he spots a huge, shiny, brand new enclosure. Running towards it he discovers it houses a bright purple gorilla. The zookeeper sees him admiring it, and he tells him, "Ah, this is the Pan-Pan Fandango Gorilla. Imported him for Nicaragua only this weekend. He's a great animal, and very intelligent: cleans his own enclosure, builds his own shelters, sometimes I think I see him reading the signs! He's really friendly too, you can wave at him and he'll wave back, he plays ball with visitors. Amazing creature. Just one thing - don't touch him." And the zookeeper walks off. Naturally intrigued, Billy sneaks towards the enclosure, and the bright purple gorilla walks up to him. Billy reaches out to touch, and the gorilla reaches back... But the zookeeper arrives and shouts, "What did I tell you! No touching!" and chases him out of the zoo. Billy comes back late that night while the zookeeper's asleep, and finds the purple gorilla just sitting there in the cage, waiting for him. They reach out, and finally touch, and the gorilla lets out a huge roar, suddenly ferocious. Billy runs in terror, but the gorilla leaps out of the enclosure and gives chase. Now, here's where the really long part comes - essentially, the joker describes a round-the-world trip, the gorilla chasing Billy. Maybe he gets on a plane, only to see the purple gorilla piloting a biplane after him. Perhaps he hides in a cave and speaks to friendly animals, but the purple gorilla brings his own animal friends and the boy only just escapes. Maybe they go to China and battle ninjas on the Great Wall. Whatever really - my primary school teacher went for the whole year, telling us ten minute snippets of this at the end of each lesson. Anyway, eventually they reach some suitably climactic dead end - Billy's stuck on a rock jutting over Niagara Falls as the immense and angry purple gorilla closes in, maybe they make it back to Billy's hometown where he falls into the enclosure, maybe they make it to the very edge of the universe and the final confrontation happens on a space station. The purple gorilla finally closes in, and this time Billy cannot see any way out. The purple gorilla closes in, eyes ablaze, [[spoiler: taps him lightly on the arm and shouts, "Tag! You're it!"]]

** "Three Latvian are brag about sons. “My son is soldier. He have rape as many women as he want,” say first Latvian. “So?” second say, “My son is farmer. He have all potato he want!” Third Latvian wait long time, then say, “My son is die at birth. For him, struggle is over.” “Wow! You are win us,” say others. But all are feel sad."
* Nate and the Lever is a story that can take very long amounts of time when done right. A popular example of it is hosted here [[http://longestjokeintheworld.com/]]. A shorter version: One night a man was driving along an old country road in his beat up old car. He was a decent man, though no where near rich and barely able to keep one month's rent in savings. The car was more rust than anything and he was afraid to have it washed and buffed, not that he could afford to, because the rust might have been the only thing holding the beat up pieces together. The car broke down on a particularly deserted stretch of the road. The man called for a friend to pick him up because he could not afford to be towed. He figured he could come back out with a mechanic he knew the next day when it was light out. While waiting for his friend, he heard a gravely voice "Tough luck pal."\\

* ''Literature/FinnegansWake'', if it even has a plot, is this. Due to possibly being AllJustADream, the "story" winds through its almost incomprehensible brogue only to, [[spoiler: begin on a sentence fragment and end on the other half of the same fragment.]] If anything at all was accomplished, it was probably the dreamer waking up and thus the book ending where it did.

* ''Literature/FinnegansWake'', if it even has a plot, is this. Due to [[YourMileageMayVary possibly]] being AllJustADream, the "story" winds through its almost incomprehensible brogue only to, [[spoiler: begin on a sentence fragment and end on the other half of the same fragment.]] If anything at all was accomplished, it was probably the dreamer waking up and thus the book ending where it did.

* ''Literature/FinnegansWake'', if it even has a plot, is this. Due to [[YMMV possibly]] being AllJustADream, the "story" winds through its almost incomprehensible brogue only to, [[spoiler: begin on a sentence fragment and end on the other half of the same fragment.]] If anything at all was accomplished, it was probably the dreamer waking up and thus the book ending where it did.

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* NormMacDonald every time he's interviewed ''so the guy says to me he says to me the guy says...''

* The first series of ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'' has the three main characters working for the entire series to become witches- and succeed- only to give up their powers [[spoiler:to save Onpu]]. This is then turned into a ''double'' ShaggyDogStory when the first episode of the second series has them regain their powers anyway. Then in the finale of the last series, [[spoiler:they decide not to become witches after all]].

** The Hunt for the Bikochu Filler Arc. Four or five episodes of build-up, a few cool fight scenes, and a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Hinata, all over a beetle which can supposedly sniff out Sasuke. Then Naruto farts on the Bikochu, ruining its ability. Really? ShaggyDogStory ''and'' BottomOfTheBarrelJoke? Wow, Filler Writers. Wow.

* The entire mini-arc revolving around the [[SerialKiller Johnny Hunter]] in EdenOfTheEast, where one of her kidnapped victims starts using a cell phone to post photos and messages on an internet singles board asking for help. After the Eden of the East team discover that the victim has the same bag as Ohsugi, who also isn't answering his phone, and that Ohsugi also frequents the singles board, they come to the conclusion that Ohsugi was the one was kidnapped. After two episodes of the group and Akira trying to track down his location, they finally discover that [[spoiler: the victim is actually a serial rapist who stole Ohsugi's bag, and Ohsugi was somewhere else entirely (and the Johnny Hunter escapes with the victim anyway.)]] About the only thing to come of the situation is Akira meeting a fellow Selecao and learning that [[spoiler: he has something to do with the Careless Monday attack.]]

* The ''BloodBowl'' comic is about Morder, an assassin undercover in the Bad Bay Hackers Blood Bowl team, hired to kill opposing players. Until he gets a contract to kill his ''own'' team's star player, Dunk Hoffnung, and make it look like an in-game accident. His attempts to kill Hoffnung are constantly foiled by the chaos of the game, and the both of them narrowly escape death several times. Eventually Morder doesn't care about the contract anymore and wants to kill Hoffnung out of personal spite. When the Hackers win the championship and Hoffnung is distracted by his amorous fiancee, Morder sees the opportunity to finally finish it -- and is killed by the team's coach, who has decided to "cut" him from the team.

* In the Disney [[RogerRabbitEffect live action-animation mix]] ''Film/BedknobsAndBroomsticks'', most of the movie is spent searching for a powerful spell which could help the English in WorldWarII, [[spoiler:only to find out near the end that it was all in the children's book, making their excursion into cartoon land pointless.]]

* Creator/RogerEbert described ''Creator/MNightShyamalan's Film/TheVillage'' as a ShaggyDogStory, saying "Critics were enjoined after the screening to avoid revealing the plot secrets. That is not because we would spoil the movie for you. It's because if you knew them, you wouldn't want to go."

* ''BurnAfterReading'' ends with the CIA director and Palmer sitting in an office contemplating what the heck happened. The only thing they learned, they muse, is to not do it again, if only they knew what, if anything, they did to cause the whole thing in the first place.

* ''MySistersKeeper'' by JodiPicoult: Anna was conceived to be a donor match for her sister Kate, who has had aggressive [[LittlestCancerPatient leukemia]] since she was 2. When her parents ask Anna to donate a kidney when Kate's kidneys fail, she [[spoiler: sues them for medical emancipation. It is successful and she gains medical emancipation, only to be in a car accident on the way back from court one day with her lawyer. Anna is brain dead, so they pull the plug and give Kate her kidney anyway, thus rendering Anna's court case useless.]]

* In MichaelCrichton's ''{{Sphere}}'', the main characters are investigating a most-likely alien ship that landed on the bottom of the ocean. Inside they find [[spoiler: a perfect sphere with strange markings on them, and after they've entered the Sphere, they can do stuff with the power of their minds! Which results in the underwater research facility being attacked by among other things, a giant squid. All but three of them die and at the end they figure out what's happening. When they are finally rescued, they decide that the power to do anything with just your thoughts is too dangerous, so they decide to forget everything that's happened, explain the deaths of everyone by a leak or something and just by thinking this, it becomes reality. So basically, everything that happened in the entire book has become irrelevant in the last paragraph or so.]]

* The ''WarOfTheSpiderQueen'' is a series of six novels set in the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' world. The plot revolves around a small group of elite warriors, priests, and wizards who are sent to investigate the sudden and total disappearance of the chief dark elf goddess Lolth. After traveling the world for months and visiting no less then three hellish dimensions, they have finally located her whereabouts. But as they approach the demonic temple in Hell, where her physical form is located [[spoiler:it turns out that she was just undergoing a metamorphosis, from which she awakens all by herself only minutes before the protagonists reach her. Without anything that happened on the last two thousand pages having anything to do with it.]] After they've returned home, even the leader of the group is completely frustrated about the fact, that all she did was for nothing.

* The tragedy of ''DaisyMiller'' ultimately (intentionally) comes from this trope. Winterbourne realizes he misjudged Daisy and should have trusted his own opinion of her rather than everyone else's [[spoiler:after she dies. There is nothing left for him to do but return to Geneva and continue to live just as he was at the beginning of the story.]]

* OlderThanDirt: ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' is not only one of the oldest written stories still in existence, but also an ancient ShaggyDogStory, in which we learn about this epic (if [[MoralDissonance often cruel by modern standards]]) hero, who slays monsters, challenges gods, dares seek immortality... then fails in his quest due to sloppy packing, and dies of old age.

* In the Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon series by SpiderRobinson shaggy dog stories and puns are the common thread through the entire series. Most shaggy dog stories in the series are elaborate build-up to a mindnumbingly horrendous pun to the delight of the crowd (once the BSOD wears off).
* While ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo'' itself is not a ShaggyDogStory, it's made of them. For example, the protagonist Yossarian is a bombardier in WWII. He asks his friend Doc Daneeka to ground him. Yossarian has flown dozens of combat missions and is due to be replaced, but his PointyHairedBoss of a commander insists on sending his men into greater danger and more missions than any other bomb group. Yossarian asks on the [[StealthPun grounds]] that he's crazy. Doc Daneeka points out that anyone who is crazy must be grounded. Of course, they have to ask to be grounded in order to be grounded. Asking to be grounded in the face of danger is a sign of sanity. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Anyone asking to be grounded must therefore be sane, which means they ''cannot'' be grounded.]] Doc Daneeka informs Yossarian of all this and sends him back up to fly. This is where we get the colloquial expression Catch 22 for a situation where the rules of an organization result in damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. The book is full of similar scenes. It works as a rich source of BlackComedy and as a means of delivering the book's Aesop.

* In the {{Spellsinger}} novel ''The Day Of The Dissonance'', Jon-Tom travels hundreds of dangerous miles to fetch medicine for the ailing wizard Clothahump. Not only does it turn out that the "life-saving" medication is just ordinary aspirin, but Jon-Tom ''already had'' several identical tablets in the pocket of the jeans he was wearing when he arrived in Clothahump's world.

* While it doesn't seem so if you read the book as a standalone, to anyone familiar with the RiftwarCycle, the novel ''Murder In Lamut'' is one. This is due to the fact that the murder is largely irrelevant to the plot, and in fact happens roughly three quarters of the way through the story. The actual plot of the story is about three mercenaries trying to survive the various intrigues of a group of Barons who have realized that since their Earl is engaged to the only child of their elderly Duke, he's going to be the next Duke, which means that he'll have to appoint a new Earl (Presumably one of them). Unfortunately, anyone who has read the first novel in the series, which was published ''thirty years'' prior, already knows who the next Earl of Lamut is going to be - somebody who isn't in the book, and who none of the squabbling Barons have ever heard of or knowingly met.

* New characters Nikki and Paolo from season three of ''Series/{{Lost}}'' turned out to be one big ShaggyDogStory; after an entire episode spent setting up their circumstances and motivations, they are killed off (horribly) before they can affect the plot in any way. This is mostly the viewers' fault, though- they'd been planned to be more important but nobody liked them so they were quickly written out.

** This one's a big case of RealLifeWritesThePlot: Talia's actor, Andrea Thompson, had recently divorced Jerry Doyle (who played another major character, Michael Garibaldi), and was being offered a much juicier gig on ''{{JAG}}''. She dropped out, and Talia's arc (except for the [[spoiler:[[HoYay relationship with Ivanova]]]]) was picked up by Lyta Alexander (who had been established in the PilotMovie but hadn't joined up for the first season over some contract dispute).

* An example with a twist from ''TheTorkelsons'': One character is in a contest to spend time in Paris with a family. [[StatusQuoGameShow As would be expected]], she loses. But it's ''how'' she loses that makes it a ShaggyDogStory: She had the highest scores... but the French family wanted to have a boy spend time with them, and there was only one boy in the finals. Meaning the finals had been meaningless before they had even started (Which counts as a CrackDefeat as well).

* TheVelvetUnderground song "The Gift" is a long, detail-rich spoken-word story about a guy who mails himself in a crate to his ex-girlfriend. The ending is very sudden.
* TomWaits' spoken word piece "Missing My Son", which is apparently his telling of a well-traveled shaggy dog joke: Tom relates a long, involved story that starts with him getting in the checkout line at a grocery store and being convinced by a woman ahead of him, who thinks he looks like her late son, to tell her "Goodbye, mom" before she checks out. After he does so, he brings up his own small amount of groceries, and it turns out the woman stuck him with the bill, telling the cashier that her son was in line behind her and would pay for everything. The story climaxes with him running out of the store, seeing the woman just about to climb into her car, grabbing her leg, and pulling on it... [[spoiler: just the way that he's pulling yours]].

* Wrestling/{{WWE}} one - Wrestling/JohnCena made a shocking comeback to win the 2008 RoyalRumble just four months after an injury that was said to put him down for at least seven months to a year. He invoked his title match against Wrestling/RandyOrton (who was awarded the WWE Championship upon Cena's injury) at ''No Way Out'' instead of WrestleMania... and then won by DQ, wich meant he didn't get the title. Then he got another two title shots, and lost both of them before moving into another feud without ever getting any revenge on Orton.
* The 1/21/13 episode of ''RAW'' held a "Beat the Clock Challenge," the winner of which would choose their own entry number in the upcoming Royal Rumble match. The winner was DolphZiggler, however when he goes to turn in his victory and choose his place as the last guy to enter, Vickie Guerrero informs him that he would only have his choice of entering the Rumble first or second, which function exactly the same except for how it goes into the record books. So it turns out that after three matches to determine the winner, the winner's prize is literally being given the worst possible entry in the Rumble.

** [[TropesAreNotBad Which is the point of the play...]]

* The endings of both ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' games, of the comedic kind. In the first game, [[BrickJoke the cow launched by the hero in the first level]] suddenly plummets into the ending and crushes the newly rescued DamselInDistress. In the second, it turns out the LoveInterest, the BigBad and the eponymous earthworm -- [[TomatoSurprise were all cows in disguise]].

** Although actually, [[spoiler:most of the characters, including the player, survive]], allowing for the sequel ''Mask of the Betrayer''. However, one of the endings of that is also a ShaggyDogStory, as you [[spoiler:send the curse back into the world, after you were given it in the first place for the sole purpose of getting rid of it]]. Fortunately, the other three endings do have varying degrees of meaning to them.

* In the ''A Crystalline Prophecy'' add-on scenario for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' was a cross between a ShaggyDogStory and AllJustADream. You can [[AndYourRewardIsClothes get some actual decent gear rewards]] from the missions, but the story itself would have resolved in the same manner had you not been involved, not to mention that none of the [=NPCs=] involved remember anything that happened or mention it ever again.

*** ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' is a ShaggyDogStory. The overall story, ''Bougetsushou'', is not. The full ending is in ''Cage in Lunatic Runagate'', where it turns out that this was all a plot to [[spoiler:put the fear of youkai (mostly Yukari, really) into Eirin]], and the sake was a perfect choice for doing that.

** The Expanded Cut DLC expanded upon the endings, making them better. However, it added a new ending that is a TRUE ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:[[TheBadGuyWins The Reapers win]], meaning that essentially all the crap Shepard goes through was for nothing. At least in this cycle]].

* While ''VideoGame/MondoMedicals'' was a ShootTheShaggyDog story, the sequel, ''VideoGame/MondoAgency'', settles for just a plain old ShaggyDogStory instead, with the player going on a mission to stop an assassination attempt on the president [[spoiler: and ending up accidentally killing him themself and getting fired.]]

** Another episode parodied the phrase: Moe comments on how tired he is of hearing the barflies' [[ShaggyDogStory shaggy dog stories]], which prompts an offended Barney to leave the bar - a literal shaggy dog in tow.

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' episode "Decepticon Air" focuses on the Elite Guard returning to Cybertron with the Decepticon Prisoners. Sentinel Prime orders Jazz to fly at full speed through an ion storm in order to get there faster. What results is Swindle, who was previously [[ShapeshifterModeLock Mode Locked]], becoming free, who frees the other Decepticons, who take over the ship. This leads to Optimus Prime, answering Sentinel's distress signal, transwarping onto the ship as the Autobots and Decepticons fight which leads Lugnut being knocked away and Swindle escaping with parts to the Elite Guard's ship. The episode ends with Optimus being dropped off back on Earth (Implying that it took them ''even longer'' to get back), and Sentinel's coronation as Magnus on Cybertron. What makes this a ShaggyDogStory is that not only did taking the shortcut to get back to Cyberton become meaningless, but they're now missing two Decepticons.

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* The Finnish AffectionateParody film ''StarWreck: In The Pirkinning'' ends with [[spoiler: Pirk, Dwarf, and Info trapped in Hawaii during Earth's Ice Age. Info says that if he goes into low power mode he can survive until modern day, at which point he will prevent everything in the film from ever happening... pan out... credits.]]