History Main / ViewersAreGoldFish

** The Chaos Emerald four parter had Sonic getting a new time travel gizmo in each part, and is told each time that they'll "enable him to circle the planet at the speed of light and enter the time warp". A little more grating in the sense that the audio for the line was pretty much recycled for the other episodes.

* Chainsawsuit came up with [[http://chainsawsuit.com/2010/08/11/goldfish-memory this little representation]] of the trope.

* ''The Babysitters Club'' books would give a run down of all the characters and how the club worked at the start of every single book.

* Any of those commercials that include the phrase "act now and you'll also receive [insert product here], absolutely free!" They inevitably list all of the great bargain items you'll be getting if you act now about five times before the commercial ends.
** [[ButWaitTheresMore BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!]]
* Radio commercials that repeat phone numbers as many as four times in a row. This might have been effective in the old days, but it's almost become a DiscreditedTrope, because now people mostly listen to the radio in situations where they can't write a number down (like driving), and the commercials that use it are always for really shady-sounding businesses (get-rich-quick schemes, predatory lenders).
* [=HeadOn=], apply directly to the forehead. [=HeadOn=], apply directly to the forehead. [=HeadOn=], apply directly to the forehead.

* ''YuGiOh TheMovie'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] this during the Pegasus Versus Kaiba duel, where Pegasus started to ramble off the effect of his recently-played card (Cost Down) -- only for Kaiba to butt in and say that he already knows what the card does (though while this would normally be a subversion, Kaiba goes on to give a Cliffs Notes version of the effect, thus making it a LampshadeHanging instead).
** Even though you really only need to see one duel to know what Pot Of Greed does, they ''still'' go through the trouble of saying "I play the Magic Card Pot Of Greed, which allows me to draw two cards from my deck" every damn time the card is played.

** The ''YuGiOh'' {{anime}} did the same thing in the Battle City arc, with Marik explaining [[spoiler:"Those fools don't realize I am Marik!"]] in an internal monologue. At least three times an episode.

* "YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries" parodied this in Episode 35 where Kaiba and Yami have flashbacks of the events of the entire Abridged Series including the opening of the episode.

** If you watch all the dubbed episodes all in one go, you get very tired of hearing the story of how Kikyo and Inuyasha died... especially since they replay Inuyasha's death scene ''every single episode''.
*** Those scenes weren't dub additions...

* In ''[[TalesofSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World]]'', literally about 80% of the occurrences of anyone saying or Emil remembering Richter's phrase "courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" follow [[FlashbackToCatchPhrase with a flashback to when he first said it]], despite the fact that it was unusual for a guy like him to say that kind of thing it would be impossible to forget he said it even if you tried.

* Parodied in the musical version of ''TheProducers'', where Max's eleventh-hour solo recaps the entire plot up to that point (including the intermission in the stage version).

* For TwilightPrincess, Nintendo must've believed the players were incapable of remembering or re-figuring the values of the different colored rupees. Every time you start a new session (i.e., resume a saved game or start a new one), for each non-green rupee you pick up, the game will tell you the value of it.

[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Executives think]] [[ViewersAreMorons viewers are stupid]], [[SelfDemonstratingArticle and they also think you have the]] [[DidNotDoTheResearch memory of a goldfish which lasts about three seconds]].Sometimes a necessity in video game plots, due to the possibility of the player saving the game, taking a break of, say, two or three months, and then coming back, [[NowWhereWasIGoingAgain having forgotten important plot points during that time]]. In this case, the flashbacks will only seem insulting to the player's intelligence during a non-stop play, in which case they only have themselves to blame. (Some recent games try to avert this by putting plot summaries or scenes that otherwise show what has happened up to that point in the LoadingScreen.)

*** As a result, combined with all the {{padding}} and {{filler}}, you only needed to watch every fifth episode or so to keep up with the plot.
**** Or alternatively, watch ''DragonBallKai'', which removes most of the padding and filler and shortens each recap to a more reasonable length.

** This is mainly so that they don't overtake the manga again, and they don't have to resort to godawful filler. Instead, they stay behind the manga a little bit, and they resort to SoBadItsGood filler.

** And parodied it in the first episode. "Last time on ''Clerks:'' * long beep* "

** And again used in ''AlanWake.'' The episodes, however, are quite long. This troper found each episode just the right amount of playtime for each day and turned the game off before the previously on segments. Though getting that timing right so you both finish the previous chapter and don't start the new one is so you can save your progress and not start the new chapter(so you don't skip the previously on segment when you start the game up again), respectively, is...tricky, to say the least.

** And again used in ''AlanWake.'' The episodes, however, are quite long. This troper found each episode just the right amount of playtime for each day and turned the game off before the previously on segments. Though getting that timing right so you both finish the previous chapter and don't start the new one is so you can save your progress and not start the new chapter, respectively is...tricky, to say the least.

Sort of like how executives think [[ViewersAreMorons viewers are stupid]], they also think you have the [[DidNotDoTheResearch memory of a goldfish, which lasts about three seconds]][[hottip:*: actually, real life goldfish have been proven to have actually a longer memory; a study concluded a maximum limit of seven months]]. Because remembering what happens over the course of a ''whole thirty minutes'' or, god forbid, ''an hour'', is too difficult for [[ThisLoserIsYou your general media consumer,]] there is a handy little device called a {{Flashback}} that can be used to rewind, oh, five minutes or so to say, "Hey! This just happened, moron!" [[hottip:*:It may also be the case that a viewer has tuned in partway through the program or series, and therefore has no memory of what happened even moments earlier.]]

* The first episode of ''{{The Wire}}'' features a flashback in its final scene to remind us who the newly discovered dead body is, in a show that typically eschewed any such artificial storytelling techniques. David Simon didn't want to do it but HBO insisted, and it actually is justified: the episode introduces the viewer to so many characters and situations that odds are they actually will have forgotten the dead character, who only appeared briefly in an early scene.