History Main / WhatYearIsThis

One variation on this trope is for the character to ask for "the date", then clarify, once given the day or the month and day, that the character needs the ''year''. Another is for an exchange to involve a confusion between the year and the time of day, which works for a certain set of years before 2400 (assuming 24-hour time).

* In the Series/{{Firefly}} / Series/DoctorWho crossover fanfic Fanfic/TheManWithNoName, the Doctor spends much of the story confused about where/when he is and eventually simply asks. It does nothing to help get the ''Serenity'' crew to think he isn't completely bonkers.

* Happens ''a lot'' in those godawful {{Film/Pirates Of The Caribbean}} fanfics in which a random fan/21st century girl finds herself in the movie/back in time. It's one of the ways you can tell how bad the fic is; if the main character asks this question, press the 'back' button '''immediately'''.

* ''HaruhiSuzumiya'' example: While fixing the FUBAR Yuki created due to emotions, Kyon uses her [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Emergency Escape Program]] to get out. He lands in summer, feeling extremely warm in his sweater (it was winter then), and he realizes he has traveled through time. His first instinct is to find out where he is, followed by when is it. And since nobody would feel happy about being assaulted by an apparently delusional guy in a winter coat, he decides on NewspaperDating instead.

** What happens a few hours later that year is [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome absolutely not dull]].

* Back when people used to write checks (and dinosaurs roamed the earth), this kind of thing happened in early January.
** Huh? I wrote a check yesterday... what year is this again?
** Or when those [[OfficeSpace TPS]] reports have to be faxed.
** Also when dating homework assignments in January.

* Back when people used to write checks (and dinosaurs roamed the earth) this kind of thing happened in early January.

* DangerMouse tells Penfold he's going to find out "when we are" as the two traverse time in a grandfather clock in the episode "The Hickory Dickory Dock Dilemma."

* Blokey British TV channel Dave is currently (2012) running a self-advertisment in which a time traveller in full Flash Gordon-esqe costume pops out of nowhere on a present day street, strides dramatically to the nearest passer-by and demands "What year is it? Quickly man!" He then goes on to explain that Dave is doing so well and introducing so many cool new programmes and features, that in the future they will rule the entire world.

* ''Film/FlightOfTheNavigator'' is a rare case where [[InvertedTrope it's the time traveler who's asked this question]], as at the time he didn't know he had traveled 8 years into the future.

** Less common in the new series: the Doctor and his companions prefer to determine the year by [[NewspaperDating picking up newspapers]] or otherwise deducing it from the environment. When he tries this trick straight (in "The Long Game"), he is mocked. Luckily to him, he happens to be talking to news reporters, who, after his insistence, have him MistakenForSpecialGuest and thus provide all the exposition he requires.

* The series finale of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' opened with Captain Picard asking this
* Also in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the last episode of season one "The Neutral Zone" had a guest character (who had just been woken from cryonic freeze) ask it; Data replied that it was 2364 -- the Trek universe's first mention of the actual year.
** Somewhat different in that, since they were in cryonic suspension, everyone would expect them not to know the year, so it wouldn't be seen as a strange question.
** This also happened at the end of this series's GroundhogDayLoop episode. The ''Enterprise'' asked the ship it had been crashing into what year it was. Subverted somewhat because the ''Enterprise'' already knew, from a time-base beacon, how long they'd been trapped; they wanted to know how long the ''other'' ship (which was painfully obsolete) had been in Groundhog Day.
** And in the final episode, Picard bounces between his past, present, and future self via Q, and the first scene(repeated towards the end) has him approaching Worf and Troi and asking for the date. A confused Worf gives the stardate.

* And in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', we have "Eye of the Needle," where a Romulan on the other side of a wormhole was asked this question through a communications beacon. He gave the year as 2351, when in fact the year was 2371, which tipped the main characters off that they shouldn't go through the wormhole, or else they'd end up in the past.

* Played straight when Team One in SuburbanKnights released Chuck Jaffers from a magic book. When he asked what year it was, it turns out that he had been trapped in 30 years.

[[folder:Films]]

* In [[{{Bakemonogatari}} Kabukimonogatari]], Koyomi and Shinobu intended to go back just one day in time, but when Koyomi asks a local schoolgirl if it's a certain day, she tells him that it's actually about three months before that day. ''Then'' he asks her the year, and realizes that he's gone back eleven years.

* In ''LestDarknessFall'' Martin Padway asks this (in broken Latin) of a passerby in Rome in the year 535. The man responds with the year in the old Roman calendar (from the date of the founding of the city). Padway then specifically asks how many years it's been since Jesus was born.

* Parodied in the film of ''TheSpirit''; when asked what year it is in the AnachronismStew setting, the title character replies "This year!"

* Subverted on TouchedByAnAngel, when a man wakes up from a coma. The first thing he says after "I sure could use a cheeseburger" is to ask the nurse how long he was asleep. "Counting today...twelve years."

* ''HaruhiSuzumiya'' example: While fixing the FUBAR Yuki created due to emotions, Kyon uses her [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Emergency Escape Program]] to get out. He lands in summer, feeling extremely warm in his sweater (it was winter then), and he realizes he has travelled through time. His first instinct is to find out where he is, followed by when is it. And since nobody would feel happy about being assaulted by an apparently delusional guy in a winter coat, he decides on NewspaperDating instead.

* Averted in the film ''TimeAfterTime''. H. G. Wells travels through time to 1979 San Francisco. He runs down the street and asks random people what year it is, but they all think he's some kind of kook and don't answer. Eventually he finds a newspaper with the date on it.
** Marty [=McFly=] also uses newspapers as his way of determining the year he's in during ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' Parts I and II.

One variation on this trope is for the character to ask for "the date", then clarify, once given the day or the month and day, that the character needs the ''year''.

!!Examples

[[folder:Comics]]

* Appears in ''{{Terminator}}'', although questioning under gunpoint is required to receive the (incomplete) answer.
** The questioned police officer, whom Kyle Reese has just disarmed, gives him the date and day of the week, but balks and looks confused when Kyle demands to know the year.
* A variation appears in the movie ''{{Jumanji}}''. Finally released after spending twenty six years trapped in a board game, Alan jumps on the hood of Carl's police car and demands, "What year is it?". Carl replies, "It ''was'' brand new", referring to the make of the car.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Film/FlightOfTheNavigator'' is a rare case where it's the time traveller who's asked this question, as at the time he didn't know he had travelled 8 years into the future.

* In [[BlazblueContinuumShift Blazblue Continuum Shift]], Relius Clover asked Terumi, who is in spirit form, this very question in the beginning of Relius's story mode after he got consumed by the black beast and trying to understand his current situation.

-->--[[http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=491 tailsteak.com]], "Basic Time Travel Etiquette"

->'''Stewie:''' ''"Now we just got to figure out where we are."''\\
'''Brian:''' ''"Or WHEN we are."''\\
'''Stewie:''' ''"[[LampshadeHanging Oh, that's such a douche time traveler thing to say.]]"''
-->-- ''FamilyGuy''

Of course, that's what most people do. In SpeculativeFiction you would be surprised just how helpful random passers-by are. Asking them suddenly "WhatYearIsThis!?" or "Where am I?", rather than scaring them and convincing them of your lunacy, elicits, "Why, sir, it's the year 30025; we are in the heart of the Great Space Empire. And did you notice that massive explosion the other day, and how strange everyone's been acting since?"

* A non-time travel example that may also be the UrExample occurs in ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'': during his time in prison, Dantes has lost track of the time passed, and so when he escapes he needs to ask WhatYearIsThis to the sailors who pick him up from the sea.

** Huh? I wrote a check yesterday... WhatYearIsThis again?