| 1 | %% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=ywxqkehm |
| 2 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1613896749057967500 |
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| 4 | %% |
| 5 | [[quoteright:300:[[ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/snowflame.png]]]] |
| 6 | [[caption-width-right:300:[[XCalledTheyWantTheirYBack The '80s called, they want their leisure suit back.]]]] |
| 7 | %% |
| 8 | %% Caption selected per crowner in the Caption Repair thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/CaptionSuggestions7 |
| 9 | %% Please do not replace or remove without further discussion in the thread: |
| 10 | %% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900 |
| 11 | %% |
| 12 | ->''"The '80s are ''never'' over. You don't just ''turn off'' the '80s!"'' |
| 13 | -->-- ''Jack Howitzer is Jack Howitzer in: Jack Howitzer'', ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' |
| 14 | |
| 15 | We can understand having trouble coping with change. The realities of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, for instance, were a very hard change for the veterans of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to accept. In fact, there might even be the urge to revert some of those changes, or at least live as though those changes never happened. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Yet to do ''that'' with pop culture? |
| 18 | |
| 19 | It's one thing if you have trouble getting over Music/TheBeatles breaking up. This trope would be about people who act as though they are still around, plaster posters all over their homes, compare every other rock song in existence unfavorably to Beatles songs, and may only listen to other music as long as it's nothing past 1980 (or by ex-Beatles). These people are basically trying to [[IRejectYourReality bend reality back to the way they want it by sheer force of will]]. And that's with a band who are still relatively popular and influential; those who are besotted by something that is CondemnedByHistory can be even worse. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Usually, this is PlayedForLaughs. We get a funny character, who is a walking anachronism by simple virtue of denial. Bonus points if this character forces other people to act as though this reality is true. Curiously enough, more than a few of these characters have an affection for disco music, hence the title. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Most likely has a FunnyAfro, and would not take it kindly if told that DiscoSucks. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Compare BornInTheWrongCentury, FishOutOfTemporalWater, OutdatedOutfit. Contrast FanOfThePast, NewAgeRetroHippie. See also AwesomeAnachronisticApparel, which is wearing what should be absurdly outdated outfits and making it ''work''. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Not to be confused with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ford "Disco Dan" Ford,]] the former major league baseball player, ''[[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001400 Disco Dan,]]'' the '80s ZX Spectrum computer game in which the player fixes nuclear reactors by jumping around inside them, or with [[http://cooldiscodan.net/ Cool "Disco" Dan,]] the Washington, DC graffiti artist. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | ---- |
| 30 | !!Examples: |
| 31 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 34 | * In a series of Wendy's commercials advertising the return of their taco salad -- a huge hit in the '90s -- middle-aged adults celebrate by bringing back slang and fashion from the decade while their children watch and cringe. Neon ''everything'', frosted tips, saying "bomb diggity", etc. |
| 35 | * One 2024 Spectrum ad claimed everyone wants to update their phone... except Ryan, a dude in a neon track suit whose cell phone is a chunky 90's relic, because that's just his "life choice." |
| 36 | [[/folder]] |
| 37 | |
| 38 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 39 | * Played with in ''Anime/SonicX''. The Chaotix still have one of those old-timey video projectors, and they try to play an [[ProductPlacement HD Dolby Digital 2.1 Sonic X DVD]] on it. Then, Espio is assigned to go "borrow" a DVD player for them. Charmy is in awe. |
| 40 | * In ''Anime/SpiderRiders'', one episode has Prince Lumis trying to impress a girl he likes. Hunter comes up with a disguise that he actually calls Disco Dan. HilarityEnsues. |
| 41 | * In ''[[Anime/HisCooolSehaGirls Hi sCoool! SeHa Girls]]'', Mega Drive has an undying love for old cellphones. This also results in her despising smartphones. |
| 42 | * ''Manga/SeitokaiYakuindomo'' parodies this with Sachiko, Shino's predecessor as president of the student council. As such, she can be no more than two years older than Shino, yet her slang and fashion choices come right out of the 1980s (the anime is from 2010), and she's so clueless when it comes to modern tech that she carries a pocket abacus around. |
| 43 | [[/folder]] |
| 44 | |
| 45 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 46 | * ''Franchise/TheDCU'': |
| 47 | ** Snowflame, the infamous [[AddictionPowered cocaine-powered supervillain]] who premiered in ''ComicBook/TheNewGuardians'' series, was revamped as an '80s-themed villain who dresses like Don Johnson in ''Series/MiamiVice'' in a 2020 ''Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'' storyline after more than 30 years since his initial appearance. |
| 48 | ** Briefly happened to ComicBook/GreenArrow after he was resurrected. His soul (which opted to remain in the afterlife) only allowed [[ComicBook/GreenLantern Hal]] to bring back a previous version of himself, one from before his life fell apart. The reborn Arrow doesn't know what year it is, thinks a man is a super-villain simply for owning a modern (for 1999) computer, and mistakes a cellphone for a walkie-talkie. By the end of the story, his soul rejoins his body, bringing him back up to date. |
| 49 | ** The Mad Mod from ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' was, in the original comics, a contemporary 1960s character. ComicBookTime led to the version in [[WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003 the cartoon]] and the [[RecursiveAdaptation cartoon-based comic]] ''ComicBook/TeenTitansGo'', where he became a Disco Dan type instead, still obsessed with 1960s pop culture even though the 1960s were long gone. |
| 50 | ** In ''ComicBook/WonderWomanBlackAndGold'', Cathy has reopened the shop she ran with Diana [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 in the 1960s]] when she was a teenager despite being middle aged now. She dresses the same way and seems to be trying to relive her glory days. This ends up justified since she is dying of cancer, and only staving off death by using a magic talisman that requires her to be in the place she felt most alive. Understandably having adventures with Wonder Woman and saving people is what she went with for that. |
| 51 | * In Creator/ImageComics' ''ComicBook/DeadlyDuo'', Kid Avenger mixes this with FanOfThePast; He's actually from the very end of time, but for some reason loved the 1970s and only knows about culture and politics and technology from that era. |
| 52 | * The main character of independent comic ''The Griffin'' is a slightly {{Jerkass}} high school student who, in 1967, is met by [[TouchedByVorlons aliens who convince him to join their galactic war]] in exchange for FlyingBrick powers (including freezing his aging at 18), since humans are one of the few species the superpower procedure works on. He agrees, leaving behind his best friend, girlfriend and family. Twenty years later he deserts and goes home. Although he'd accepted that society would have probably changed, he had assumed everyone he met would have put their lives on hold and stayed the same. Therefore, he's actually shocked to discover that, in the intervening years he'd been declared dead, his best friend and brother had grown up into mature adults, his parents had another child and his girlfriend (who he'd always assumed would wait for him) got married. He takes ItsAllAboutMe to a whole new level. |
| 53 | * ''ComicBook/{{Icon}}'' features a ComicBook/LukeCageHeroForHire parody named [[http://www.writeups.org/fiche.php?id=1349 Buck Wild Mercenary Man]], who showcases all the most ridiculous aspects of '70s "{{Blaxploitation}}" superheroes because the experiment that gave him his powers also literally froze his brain in 1973. |
| 54 | * Indigo from Creator/ImpactComics. Because he's been in jail so long, he's unaware of the leaps and bounds made in technological developments in the last three decades. |
| 55 | * ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': |
| 56 | ** Thanks to the circumstances of his resurrection, Jimmy Woo from ''ComicBook/AgentsOfAtlas'' still acts like he's in the world of the 1950s. |
| 57 | ** ComicBook/CaptainAmerica gets hit with this after he's unfrozen in both the comics and the movies. Subverted in that while Cap does eventually catch up with the times enough to function in society, his values system remains rooted in the 1930s and '40s (which usually serves as a tool for the writer to contrast Cap's idealism with the cynicism of the world around him). The ComicBook/UltimateMarvel version from ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'' plays it straighter, since the writers figured it would be more realistic to play up the DeliberateValuesDissonance between someone yanked from the end of UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2 and dropped straight into the vastly different world of the early 2000s. Reaction was mixed, especially when some authors began adding in more ''modern'' negative American values, like anti-French attitudes or anti-intellectualism or playing up '30s attitudes toward the appropriate behavior of racial minorities and women. |
| 58 | ** ComicBook/StarLord from ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' loves retro stuff and classic '60s to '70s music, even designing his costumes to evoke Buck Rogers-style pulp heroes. This was partly caused by the fact that he was taken from Earth when he was only a kid (which occurred in either the '70s or '80s, depending on the continuity); all he had to remember Earth by was his own memories and the stuff he had on, which included an old Walkman. This used to not be brought up very often, but after the [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014 film adaptation]] made it a major source of characterization, it's since become one of his most well-known character traits. |
| 59 | ** DependingOnTheWriter and artist, Klara Prast from ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' sometimes still dresses like a lower-class immigrant from the early 20th century. |
| 60 | ** The (somewhat) serious ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' villain Hammerhead talks and acts like he's a member of Al Capone's mob; he liked to go to the movies as a kid and the gangsters he saw on the big screen left a big impression on him. Hammerhead even has a vintage limo in ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', which is kind of badass. |
| 61 | ** The ridiculous ''ComicBook/SpiderWoman'' villain Turner D. Century acts like he lived in [[TheGay90s the 1890s]], and his entire motivation is making things more like that period. |
| 62 | * ''ComicBook/{{Phonogram}}'' is about a "phonomancer" who draws power from music comes into conflict with a group of "retromancers" who wish to reshape the cultural memetics of Britain just so that they can clutch on to their {{Britpop}} youth. |
| 63 | * ''ComicBook/{{Revolutionaries}}'': When [[WesternAnimation/SgtSavageAndHisScreamingEagles Sgt. Savage]] is brought into 2017 by the Revolutionaries, it transpires that after having been brought forth from 1944 to 1994 thanks to [[MacGuffin the Talisman]], he ''embraced'' [[TotallyRadical '90s culture]], becoming a [[Creator/RobLiefeld Liefeld]]-style hero who fought ninjas and skateboarders. He at one point yells "[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Eat my shorts!]]" at an enemy completely seriously. [[NarmCharm And he's also]] ''incredibly awesome'' (what with being a SuperSoldier and all). |
| 64 | * In Creator/HowardChaykin's ''ComicBook/TheShadow'' miniseries, Lamont Cranston is a little... well, let's just say that well into the 1980s, he still feels that women should speak when spoken to or else risk a good thrashing. |
| 65 | %%* Dozier D. Daze and his Nostagianator from ''ComicBook/TomorrowStories''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/VampireTheMasqueradeVault'': {{Justified|Trope}} with Cecily Bain in ''Winter's Teeth'' as she is a vampire and stuck in her decade of Embrace (the late 1970s). Cecily was a hardcore GothicPunk rebel for the first three decades of her life and is adjusting to the fact her scene has been dead since the 1990s. |
| 67 | [[/folder]] |
| 68 | |
| 69 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 70 | * Jon from ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' is a fan of disco. In the animated special, ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldGetsALife'', he's not even aware that it isn't popular anymore. In ''1991''. ("You learn a dance, then zango! -- 14 years later, they change it!") Funnily, this even works as a ContinuityNod -- there are early comics where Jon was interested in disco back when it was still popular. |
| 71 | [[/folder]] |
| 72 | |
| 73 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 74 | * In ''Fanfic/WhiteDevilOfTheMoon'', Luna still acts like the Moon Kingdom exists, which causes conflict when she refuses to explain to Fate why she had to speak to Nanoha. Not to mention she's ''horrified'' that Nanoha (who in this fanfic is the reincarnated Princess Serenity) defers to Hayate (her commanding officer in the TSAB), sees the Moon Kingdom as nothing more than an old relic, and has no intention of claiming her birthright as the Moon Princess. [[spoiler:She literally runs away when Nanoha formally announces the dissolution of the Moon Kingdom, and the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue states that she constantly tries to find a way to convince Nanoha to claim her birthright. Compare that to Artemis, who basically saw the dissolution as a chance to retire and become a normal housecat.]] |
| 75 | * In ''Fanfic/TheNewManAnAdamSmasherSI'', Adam absolutely hates modern fashion and styles, especially for women, griping about how ugly it makes everyone look. His very first words to Rogue Amendiares after she shoved a gun to his face is to insult everything but her pants. This is also why he finds Chiri Tanaka attractive, because she has a classic Japanese OfficeLady look. |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 79 | * ''WesternAnimation/AnExtremelyGoofyMovie'' has Goofy's Empty Nest Syndrome cause him to lose his job, forcing him to go back to college. [[ContrivedCoincidence Of course he attends the same school as his son Max]], and [[AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents embarrasses the crap out of him]], showing up in a FunnyAfro, bell bottoms, wide lapels and platform shoes. Ironically Goofy eventually ends up being perceived as seriously cool by the other students, partly due to the sincerity of his Disco Dan status [[spoiler:but mostly because of his hot date and how his moves are considered mindblowingly cool]]. |
| 80 | * Mother Gothel from ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'' wears clothing that is hundreds of years out of date from when the film takes place, reflecting the time when she started using witchcraft. |
| 81 | * In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe3'', Gru and Lucy tangle with Balthazar Bratt, a FormerChildStar turned super-villain who seems obsessed with The80s, when he was at the height of his popularity. He wears a purple suit with shoulder pads, he has a mix-tape of "heist music" that includes "Bad" by Music/MichaelJackson, and his arsenal includes trick bubble gum, a bomb disguised as a Rubik's cube, and [[MusicalAssassin a keytar that fires blasts of weaponized sound]]. |
| 82 | * Before being retconned by [[WesternAnimation/TrollsWorldTour the sequel]], [[WesternAnimation/{{Trolls}} Trolls]] from the film were categorized in supplementary mobile games by [[GangOfHats "families"]]. One of these families were the Retro trolls, who true to their name were styled in retro fashions like mod or disco clothing and their hair done up in afros and beehives. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 86 | * ''Film/ImGonnaGitYouSucka''. Fly Guy, a pimp who got out of prison in the 1980s (after being a big shot in the 1970s), decides to hit his old stomping grounds in [[PimpDuds full pimp regalia]]: a white tiger-striped suit, a giant hat with a pink feather, six inch platform shoes with goldfish inside, and a jeweled cane. He gets laughed off the street in a second. He ditches his outdated pimp gear by the end of the film. |
| 87 | * ''[[Film/TheBradyBunch The Brady Bunch Movie]]'' has Series/TheBradyBunch living in the 1990s but still acting and dressing like their idealized 1970s sitcom selves. |
| 88 | * The themed Disco boys from ''Film/MysteryMen'', who emerge from prison and refuse to believe that Disco is dead: "Disco is Life!" Bonus points for Tony P, the head of the Disco Boys, being played by Creator/EddieIzzard. |
| 89 | * ''Film/BillyMadison'' returns to high school fully decked out in 1984's idea of cool, with an acid-washed denim jacket over his REO Speedwagon shirt and Billy Squier blasting out from the speakers in his Trans Am. He immediately becomes a laughingstock ''and'' a target for the next O'Doyle bully. |
| 90 | * Uncle Rico from ''Film/NapoleonDynamite'' is a [[JadedWashout washed-up former high school football player]] who still films himself throwing his football around and forces people to watch the videos. When Kip buys a "time machine", Uncle Rico sets the year to 1982, his prime year of football playing in high school. Luckily, his whole backwater town has just [[RetroUniverse caught up to the '80s]] in terms of style and culture as well. |
| 91 | * In ''Film/TheWrestler'', Randy "The Ram" Robinson seems to be stuck in The80s, the time of his GloryDays. He plays Nintendo games with neighborhood kids and talks about how much he hates modern music, preferring hair metal from the eighties. |
| 92 | * A rather dark example in ''Film/{{Kalifornia}}'', as it involves not outdated fashions or fads so much as outdated ''attitudes''. Early Grayce (Creator/BradPitt) is an [[DeepSouth "unreconstructed redneck"]] type who speaks in a slightly animalistic Southern accent. One of his more reactionary beliefs is that women should not only be inferior to men, but should be ''kept in a state of perpetual childhood''. As such, his female companion, Adele, is forced to wear baby-doll dresses at all times and doesn't smoke cigarettes because "Early broke me of it." In addition, she's often seen playing with a yo-yo and speaks in a ''very'' whiny voice. When Adele finally starts acting like a grown-up and gives Early a ShutUpHannibal speech, [[spoiler:Early kills her; he then abducts the hero's more modern, liberated female companion and turns ''her'' into a sex toy, with a halter top and cutoff shorts. (Of course, since Early is also an unapologetic serial killer, his PoliticallyIncorrectVillain tendencies are just the tip of the iceberg.)]] |
| 93 | * Gary King, the main character in ''Film/TheWorldsEnd'', still lives, acts and dresses like he's a eighteen-year-old living in 1990 despite him being 41. For instance, he still drives TheAllegedCar that his friend sold him for £300 as his first car, [[ShipOfTheseus even though he's had to replace almost everything of it]], and he apparently has never taken the mixtape that his friend made for him out of its cassette player. He also has unflattering dyed black hair despite his obvious blond eyebrows and beard, to an extent that his character development by the end of the movie is signified by [[ExpositoryHairstyleChange him being shown clean-shaven and with his natural blond hair]]. |
| 94 | * In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'', Peter Quill was abducted from Earth in 1988 and hasn't been back since. Consequently, he acts like he's in the '80s and constantly listens and dances to a mix tape of old music. The mix tape was a gift from his late mother and is his most prized possession. Peter's mother might also be one; all the songs on Awesome Mix 1 are from the '60s and '70s, with the most recent one (Escape) being from 1979. For some reference, that's the same year that Peter's actor was born, so he's nostalgic for music older than he is. |
| 95 | * In ''Film/AngryVideoGameNerdTheMovie'', WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd uses a Platform/{{Commodore 64}} to access the internet and play an MMO with Cooper, which is rendered with flashy modern graphics on Cooper's PC but looks like a 16-bit platformer on the Nerd's Commodore. The Nerd also uses a massive bulky microphone for voice chat as opposed to the sleek headset that Cooper uses. Later, the Nerd brings along a huge record player for music to listen to on a road trip. |
| 96 | * Miss Hannigan in ''Film/{{Annie 2014}}'', subtly. Her hair and clothing style is more suited for a young woman in the '90s-early 2000s, another way she's living in the past. |
| 97 | * One odd version is Debbie from the 1992 movie ''Film/{{Singles}}''. Set in early '90s-era Seattle, the film is absolutely drenched in the early grunge and alt-rock scene ([[UnintentionalPeriodPiece almost painfully so]]). Debbie, though, still dresses like she takes all her cues from mid-to-late-'80s MTV trends. However, due to how much it clashes with the look of everyone else (plus the fact that, fashion-wise, the '60s and '70s made several small comebacks in the '90s and 2000s, which means ironically that hearkening back to older trends would blend in better), Debbie comes off as bizarrely anachronistic even though her fashion is, at most, seven years out of date. |
| 98 | * ''Film/KingsmanTheGoldenCircle'': Poppy is not only nostalgic for the 1950s, she's ''built a '50s-themed main street''. And apparently, her grasp of current affairs [[TwoDecadesBehind is still stuck]] in The80s as she complains about being persecuted for peddling marijuana (which, while still illegal, it's not seen as ''that'' threatening) while execs of alcohol and tobacco companies get to appear on magazine covers (something that hasn't happened since the mid-1990s). |
| 99 | [[/folder]] |
| 100 | |
| 101 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 102 | * One of Creator/HPLovecraft's inspirations, Creator/LordDunsany, was archaic in his language use and wrote his extensive works with a quill pen. Lovecraft's own distinctive style belonged to an age about 30-40 years before most of his writing was done as more mainstream writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway were championing minimalist prose. |
| 103 | * The novel ''Literature/WickedGame'' features a radio station run by [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], all of whom are musically stuck in the era that they died in. |
| 104 | * The characters in Toby Litt's ''Beatniks'' are determined to live the Beat lifestyle, refusing to acknowledge modern technology or music -- even though [[BornInTheWrongCentury they were born in the 1970s]]. |
| 105 | * Creator/AnneRice's vampires are so afflicted by this trope, holding onto the eras in which they were alive, that many commit suicide in a world they no longer recognize. Armand asks for Lestat's and later Louis' help in connecting to the present, so that he doesn't die of culture shock in this way. |
| 106 | * Deconstructed with the title character of ''Literature/DonQuixote'' who is a borderline example: his obsession with ChivalricRomance leaves him mentally stuck in an era that barely even existed, and in 1610, few people in Spain know, and even less care, what an KnightErrant is. So, Don Quixote has to explain himself time and again throughout the first part of the novel. His {{Character Filibuster}}s are each time shorter, [[{{Deconstruction}} until chapter XLVII comes and he gives up]]: |
| 107 | -->''"Haply, gentlemen, you are versed and learned in matters of errant chivalry? Because if you are I will tell you my misfortunes; if not, there is no good in my giving myself the trouble of relating them;"'' |
| 108 | * ''Literature/ElbowRoom'': Butler from short story "The Faithful" simply refuses to cut or trim Afro hair and as a result his clients are abandoning him (this is the 1970s). He's pretty mean about it, too; when a small boy gives him a dollar to get his hair trimmed into an Afro he gives the boy a schoolboy cut anyway. |
| 109 | * Jon L. Breen wrote an Series/ElleryQueen pastiche where a head injury caused him to be mentally stuck in the '50s. When he solved a case requiring knowledge of US presidents, several of whom were elected post-1959, his father made a remark about him being back to normal. He replied that he had no idea what his father was talking about and that "President Winkler" had better do something about the moon colonies before it was too late. |
| 110 | * In Andy Weir's ''Literature/TheMartian'', the crew of Ares 3 each brought their favorite entertainments on thumb drives (or something similar). Commander Lewis brought disco, and complete runs of shows like ''Three's Company''. During an Earth flyby she gets to chat briefly with her husband, who reports buying an authentic ABBA eight-track. |
| 111 | * In "Literature/TheEndOfThePierShow", Brigadier Sir Giles Gallant and a committee of like-minded townsfolk attempt to restore the town to what they regard as the glory days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Too late they discover that they cannot bring back the good parts of the war without bringing back the bad parts as well. |
| 112 | * James Donovan Halliday from ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'' is an EccentricMillionaire and [[MediaNotes/VideoGameDesign game designer]] that was obsessed with the 1980s (the decade that he lived in as a teenager). He had an encyclopedic knowledge of nearly all movies, tv shows (animated and live-action), anime, books and games (be they video games, tabletop games and so on) and [[MeanBoss would impulsively fire employees that did not share his obsessions]] (though his friend and partner Ogden Morrow would discreetly rehire them). |
| 113 | * Mathias Martel, the main protagonist of ''Literature/MagikOnline'' is an understated teenage version. His hatred of Concordia -- which conquered Earth -- leads to him preferring pre-Conquest pop culture like Marvel comics and the Disney Aladin movie, never mentioning any form of entertainment that was created post-Conquest. The only exception being video games made by Dynamis, where he works. |
| 114 | * Shifted back nearly two centuries, Luc-Esprit Gillenormande (Marius' grandfather) in ''Literature/LesMiserables'' apparently found his groove in the 1760s (the novel is set in 1832), and never left it, while time transformed him from a rakish "bad boy" and man of the Enlightenment to a hopelessly unfashionable, reactionary old grump. |
| 115 | [[/folder]] |
| 116 | |
| 117 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 118 | * An episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock'' featured Andy Richter as Liz's brother who, thanks to a "really bad skiing accident", thought it was still 1985 and that he was still a teenager despite him being a 40-year-old man. At the end of the episode, he found out the truth and held up a cocktail, complaining "I could've been drinking these for ''years''!" What's sad is that it's based on an actual form of amnesia, in which the afflicted victim is unable to remember information for very long i.e. ''minutes''. The only discrepancy is that the brother would only forget everything at the end of the day. |
| 119 | * Episode three of ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'' gave us Gilbert, dead since 1985 and less than willing to move on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Ihw4mCmOM in more ways than one.]] |
| 120 | * In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'''s pilot episode, Buffy recognizes a vampire by his disco-era clothing. Creator/JossWhedon later said he considered having vampires generally dress according to when they died, but regretfully discarded that idea as too cumbersome and silly. |
| 121 | -->'''Buffy:''' Only someone who's been under the ground for decades would think ''that's'' the look. |
| 122 | * In one episode of ''Series/TheChrisRockShow'', there was a fictitious TV movie called "Daddy Still Has a Flattop", about a black man, played by Creator/ChrisRock, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin who still wears an '80s flattop hairdo by the late '90s]], embarrassing his wife and son. |
| 123 | * ''Series/CobraKai'': Johnny Lawrence is permanently stuck in the bubble that is the '80s. He drives an old Pontiac Firebird, only listens to hair metal music, and constantly watches old movies like ''Film/IronEagle''. He's also hopeless with modern technology and social media; he uses a five-year-old LG flip phone, and doesn't even know what Website/{{Facebook}} ''is''. |
| 124 | * ''Series/{{Community}}'': |
| 125 | ** In the episode "Modern Warfare", Jeff encounters an afro’ed, rollerblading Disco Dan trying to bring disco back, and mocks him. Later in the episode, when it turns into a [[PaintballEpisode Paintball Apocalypse]], the guy has apparently succeeded in bringing disco back, and now leads an army of rollerblading, disco-dancing paintballers. |
| 126 | ** There's also Abed's fixation on ''Series/WhosTheBoss'' despite it dating from before he was born. |
| 127 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 128 | ** Some people from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E2InvasionOfTheDinosaurs Invasion of the Dinosaurs]]" plan to literally revert modern-day Earth back to prehistory using TimeTravel technology. |
| 129 | ** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E3Gridlock Gridlock]]": The Cassinis are a pair of old women who live over five billion years in the future, yet decorate their FlyingCar with stereotypical '30s-'40s décor. |
| 130 | ** HollywoodMidlifeCrisis jokes are nothing new for the Doctor, but when the Twelfth Doctor starts going around playing electric guitar, wearing a hoodie and swapping his sonic screwdriver for a pair of sonic sunglasses, it comes across like he's desperately wishing he was still in the late '70s. (Which, considering his personality is RevisitingTheRoots to a more distant and moody '70s-style Doctor after the dorky {{Hipster}} boys of the previous decade, he is doing on a meta level, too.) |
| 131 | * In the ''Series/FrontierCircus'' episode "The Courtship", the T & T Circus arrives in the town of New Atlanta, which is controlled by a pair of sisters who are attempting to live as if they are still in the antebellum south. |
| 132 | * Dan Stark in ''Series/TheGoodGuys'' lives and breathes this trope. To him, the whole world still works like it did in Eighties cop action shows. At times, he seems to make the world around him work this way by sheer force of will. |
| 133 | * In the [[JumpingTheShark post-shark]] seasons of ''Series/HappyDays'', when the show was encroaching into The60s, Fonzie refused to let go of his Greaser ways. He's scandalized when Chachi and Joanie take an interest in folk music instead of rock n' roll. In an earlier episode, he even {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this himself: "If it was up to me, it would stay 1955 forever!" |
| 134 | * Kath from ''Series/KathAndKim'' still perms her hair and dresses as though it's still the '80s. She doesn't even seem to realize that times, and fashions, have changed. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in 'Da Kath and Kim Code' where Kath arrives at an '80s-themed party dressed in her everyday clothes... |
| 135 | -->'''Kim:''' Oh, Mum! What a great costume!\ |
| 136 | '''Sharon:''' Oh wow, Mrs D. You look hilarious. You're gonna win for sure. Where'd you get that?\ |
| 137 | '''Kath:''' ''[wearing an over-the-top '80s-style pink outfit]'' Oh, from my wardrobe, Sharon. Costume?\ |
| 138 | '''Kim:''' Yeah, it's an '80s party.\ |
| 139 | '''Kath:''' Oh, no! Nobody told me! I would have put something funny on! |
| 140 | * ''Series/MadMen'' |
| 141 | ** It's clear that Don's still stuck in the '50s as the series go on. In the final season he still has the classic look going into the '70s. |
| 142 | ** Joan became this as The60s went on. At the beginning her look was the embodiment of the Pin Up girl and SexySweaterGirl look of the Postwar Era and admired, then later her updos, pencil skirts, wiggle dresses, stilettos, and attitude are found passe and garner some ridicule from younger men. While she updates her look slightly after becoming wealthy (she is after all in her mid- to late 30s, so dressing like Twiggy is a no-no) and wears floatier fashions, she still hasn't let go of her stilettos, elaborate hairdos, super-curve hugging clothing, and her '50s era apartment decor. |
| 143 | * ''Series/TheMagician'': The villain in "Illusion of the Lost Dragon" is a Chinese warlord who has set up a compound where he lives as if it is the 16th century; the time of his ancestors' greatest power. All of his guards, servants, concubines, etc. dress in appropriate period Chinese garb. |
| 144 | * Catalina's uncle in ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' is obsessed with American culture, or at least what he saw of it before his satellite broke...in the late 1980s. |
| 145 | ** Most of the residents of Camden (including Earl) are stuck in the late '80s or early '90s. Most of the men (and some of the women) wear flannel shirts, bands such as Music/DefLeppard and Music/{{Metallica}} are still hugely popular, and most are HopelessWithTech (until Season 4, when everyone has high-speed Internet and computers out of nowhere) Justified in that Camden is on the WrongSideOfTheTracks; most of its residents are uneducated past HighSchool (if even that), and many of them are older (and therefore less likely to develop newer tastes in music or adopt new technology). This leads to Camden being a kind of RetroUniverse. |
| 146 | * ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' looked and sounded almost exactly the same at the end of Bob Barker's tenure in 2007 as it had in 1972. Same sets, same music, same graphic fonts for the credits. Once Drew Carey took over (and much of the old staff left or was were replaced) plenty of stuff got modernized, though not to the point of unrecognizability (ie. the Contestants' Row displays are now run by a computer, but still look like the old eggcrate displays). |
| 147 | ** This meant it fit right in with ''Gameshow Marathon'', a 2006 summer series that saw reproductions of classic game shows; they didn't need to make anything new as they did with the other shows (''Series/BeatTheClock'', ''Series/MatchGame'', ''Series/CardSharks'', ''Series/LetsMakeADeal'' and ''Series/PressYourLuck'') |
| 148 | * Buzz Sherwood from ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'' is still a [[NewAgeRetroHippie hippie]], despite the '60s being long over. |
| 149 | * ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': |
| 150 | ** A 1997 episode took a look at the "Superfans" after Mike Ditka became head coach in New Orleans. Chris Farley's character Todd O'Conner, having had a nervous breakdown and now believing it was still 1985, fit this trope to a T: he mentioned he had to get home "to see Creator/JimmyStewart on [[Series/TheTonightShow Carson]]." (If he was told it wasn't 1985, he'd have a HollywoodHeartAttack.) |
| 151 | ** The Ladies' Man sketches aired in the 1990s, but Leon Phelps, the eponymous Ladies' Man, was a deliberate relic of the 1970s with his afro, wide-collared shirt, and outdated sexual politics. In short, he ''looked'' as out-of-touch as he ''was''. |
| 152 | * Tommy Saxondale in Steve Coogan's ''Series/{{Saxondale}}'' has a bit of this going on; an ex-roadie from The70s convinced he's still bucking the system, he's a bit stuck in the past and not quite the rebellious spirit he thinks he is. |
| 153 | * One of the recurring jokes about James May on ''Series/TopGear'' is that he is stuck in some point in the past, usually sometime between 1910 and 1960. |
| 154 | * ''Series/WhatWeDoInTheShadows2019'' plays with vampire stereotypes by having the main cast be an extreme version of this -- stuck in the VictorianLondon time period of classic vampire icons like Dracula -- but then, hilariously, has a much more literal version of this trope with a menacing vampire family nearby who are stuck in The70s (called "the Hustle Dynasty"). |
| 155 | * ''Series/TheWindsors'' has Fergie being unable to get over the '80s, when life was going particuarly well for her, and has her repeatedly try to recreate the era via things like disco. |
| 156 | * Johnny Fever on ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' is a borderline example of this trope. Having been a DJ for over a decade, he's settled into a preferred playlist (especially once he was liberated from the "Beautiful Music" straitjacket of WKRP's previous format) and so would much rather play deep cuts of Carl Perkins or Pink Floyd than the top-40 pop and rock hits that Andy Travis, the program director, has to all but order him to play. He later becomes an almost literal example of this trope in the persona of "Rip Tide" when he was hired under false pretenses to do a disco-revival show (the episode aired in 1981, soon after Disco had [[DiscoSucks passed its expiration date]]), and became the personification of every cheesy '70s disco trope rolled into one stoner DJ, which ends up [[SplitPersonalityTakeover causing him to lose control and turn into his disco persona while on the air at WKRP]]. |
| 157 | * Neil of ''Series/TheYoungOnes'' dressed and behaved like a hippie well into the 1980s, and once stubbornly declared that "Flares are coming back in! I read it in my horoscope!" |
| 158 | [[/folder]] |
| 159 | |
| 160 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 161 | * SR-71's song "1985", [[CoveredUp made famous by]] Music/BowlingForSoup, is about a middle-aged soccer mom who [[JadedWashout thought she could become a world-famous actress back in the '80s]]. Instead, her life has been anything but what she imagined -- a dull routine suburban life with a family, and even ''they're'' sick of her inability to get over it. |
| 162 | * Inverted with Music/JamesBrown and his [[OldShame ill-advised]] late-1970s "Original Disco Man" period. With album sales flagging by 1979, Brown sought to put himself back in the limelight by changing his sound from his trademark soul-funk to straight up disco, using the angle that his classic hits were responsible for the genre's existence. However, this trope was subsequently played straight when the album was released literally the same month that the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park made the style unpopular essentially overnight, and Brown found himself yet again on the back foot until 1985's "Living in America." |
| 163 | * There are many popular musicians out there who will do a "throwback" number every once in a while, but then there are also some musicians who make that their ''entire gimmick''. Exhibit "A" would probably have to be Southern California's Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, who not only refused to acknowledge that swing music went out of fashion in the late 1950s, but actually succeeded in hauling it back into the mainstream media for a short while. |
| 164 | ** While there are people who dislike music (or certain genre of music) made after a certain year, there are others who perform in styles that have since long fallen out of favor except by their hardcore fans, not as a gimmick but as a core part of their style because they are uncomfortable with newer styles or dislike the newer, updated sounds. One example toward the end of his career (and, as it turned out, life) was country singer Faron Young. "The Singing Sheriff" (as he was known to his fans) Young -- a hardcore honky-tonk singer who occasionally added elements of pop music into his material -- enjoyed the peak of his popularity from the mid-1950s through mid-1970s, after which radio began turning toward younger acts. Young, as the story goes, did not take kindly to the changes in the music he loved, and his sound (rooted mostly in the 1960s) was beginning to sound dated with his new material recorded in the 1980s. Young grew increasingly bitter and held closer to ''his'' sound by the early 1990s, when a bright young country star named Music/GarthBrooks set new records for sales and concert attendance... and not always with sounds that were even remotely considered country, and certainly what Young perceived to be the true sound of country; Young was outspoken about his criticisms about Brooks and others, but few were listening or even interested in his opinions by now. In December 1996, with health problems and his increasingly bitter attitudes toward country music and life in general setting in, he took his life. |
| 165 | ** While other older country singers have never grown as bitter as Young, singers such as Music/GeorgeJones and Merle Haggard have been or were outspoken about what they regard(ed) as non-traditional country sounds (i.e., adult contemporary and straight-ahead pop) encroaching on their sounds of country music; acts like Music/TaylorSwift and Rascal Flatts, and more recently Lady Antebellum, have taken the brunt of that criticism. While they continued to record new material for the rest of his life that has been critically acclaimed, their sounds remain rooted in traditional sounds. |
| 166 | ** Singer-songwriter/guitarist ''Leon Redbone's'' music is primarily covers of early 20th-century jazz, blues, and Tin Pan Alley classics, as well as some self-penned songs in those styles. He is probably best known for his musical appearances on ''SNL'' in the '70s and as the singer of the theme song for the TV show ''Series/MrBelvedere'' in the '80s. |
| 167 | ** ''The New Vaudeville Band'' was a '60s retro-jazz group created by British songwriter Geoff Stephens who in 1966 recorded a hit novelty composition "Winchester Cathedral", a song inspired by 1920s Dance Band and with a Rudy Vallee megaphone-style vocal. They would later release the ''On Tour album'', with the hit single ''Peek-A-Boo'', later followed by the hit singles ''Finchley Central'' and ''Green Street Green''. |
| 168 | ** ''Creator/RobertCrumb'', best know for his underground comics, formed a retro string band in the 1970s called R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders. On the three albums they released in the 1970s, they played songs from, and in the style of, the 1920s: old-time music, ragtime, "evergreen" jazz standards, western swing, country blues, hokum, vaudeville and medicine show tunes. They where also know for releasing their albums also on the then long defunct 78RPM record format (in addition to standard 33 1/3 RPM records). |
| 169 | * On his album ''Life is Good'', ''Music/{{Nas}}'' of all people invokes this on the track "Loco-Motive", intended as a throwback to the '90s [[GangstaRap gangsta rap/boombap]] of the start of his career, explicitly both for the enjoyment of and a shot at those FanDumb who think he should remain in that style and not evolve as a musician -- declaring "this for my trapped in the '90s [[NWordPrivileges niggas]]". To be fair, the whole album, to a degree, is a throwback to '80s and '90s hip-hop, but "Loco-Motive" especially. |
| 170 | * While most ClassicalMusic fans enjoy other forms of music as well, many can be extremely stubborn this way (some to the point of referring to classical music simply as "good music" with the exclusion of all other genres implied). Subverted in that there is still new music made today in the classical style and the genre continues to grow, but even then [[BrokenBase some fans get very critical]] [[FanDumb and even outright hostile over new additions.]] |
| 171 | * The ''schtick'' for Big Daddy (note: ''not'' Big Bad Voodoo Daddy) was that they were a 1950s/early 1960s group that crashed on a desert island during a USO tour. When they were "rescued" many years later, they didn't know the new styles, so when they covered contemporary songs like "Superfreak" it came out sounding a bit like "Crimson and Clover" and their version of "Dancin' in the Dark" owes a lot to "Moody River". They've actually released several albums of this stuff, including one that's a tribute to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. |
| 172 | * The song "Parents Just Don't Understand" by the rap duo [=DJ=] Jazzy Jeff and [[Creator/WillSmith The Fresh Prince]]: the first verse -- about a mother and son going shopping for clothing for the upcoming school year -- has the main protagonist complaining that the clothes he'll be made to wear are, in his opinion, hopelessly outdated... more appropriate for 1963 or ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' instead of realizing that grunge and hip-hop fashions he hopes to wear (to make him look "cool" and "popular") to school are inappropriate for any educational setting. On the first day of school, he is disconsolate, claiming that he was scorned and mocked for the clothes he was made to wear. |
| 173 | * In the mid-to-late [[The70s 1970s]], on both sides of the pond, there was a resurgence of 1950s rock-and-roll style music that most people who were young at the time found puzzling and anachronistic. In the UK, acts like Showaddywaddy made appearances on shows such as ''Series/TopOfThePops'' in crepe shoes, Teddy-boy suits and ducktail hairstyles, performing songs that felt twenty years (at least) behind the times. In the US, Sha Na Na, who rose to fame with a '50s covers set at the iconic Woodstock festival, became one of the most popular musical acts in America, and even had their own syndicated variety show that showcased both '50s rock 'n roll acts that were still touring as well as more "modern" acts. Viewers of the normally intended demographics were puzzled, but their parents -- who'd been young in the 1950s -- basked in the warm glow of recognition and nostalgia. Pan forward another twenty years and note there was a surge of popular music that evoked the [[The60s 1960s]]. It was even ''called'' the "second summer of love" [[note]]The first Summer of Love having been 1967)[[/note]]. It has been speculated that the programme-shapers and opinion-formers of both periods had been going through a collective mid-life crisis pining for their own lost youth, and had generated a revival of the music of their youth which appealed not so much to the young as to those of their own generation. |
| 174 | * In his Music/TheBeatles' pastiche "The Long Medley", Music/MitchBenn calls {{Britpop}} "All of my seventies baby friends/Kicking themselves that they missed the sixties/So they did the sixties again". |
| 175 | * The singer of Creator/JoeIconis's "Yesterdays / I Can't Relate" enjoys old records and other fads from decades ago, which prevents him from relating to his more modern peers who find that strange. |
| 176 | [[/folder]] |
| 177 | |
| 178 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 179 | * [[CuteGhostGirl Evelyn]] from ''Podcast/LessIsMorgue'' died in 2004, and pretty much all of her interests originated around that time. She also has an obsession with 1980s cartoon Middle-Aged Tree Men. |
| 180 | [[/folder]] |
| 181 | |
| 182 | [[folder:Pro Wrestling]] |
| 183 | * Wrestling/{{WCW}} had [[Wrestling/GlennGilbertti Disco Inferno]], whose gimmick was ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. In his later years, in an attempt to be more current, he became PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy and changed his name to Disqo (a play on Sisqo, a rapper who experienced faddish popularity around the turn of the century). That didn't work out for him, and so he went back to being Disco Inferno until WCW closed. |
| 184 | ** Not nearly as entertaining as Disco Inferno, [[IncompetenceInc WCW]] attempted to cash in on the popularity of ''Series/That70sShow'' by turning Wrestling/MikeAwesome into "That 70s Guy". |
| 185 | ** And then, of course, there was Johnny B. Badd, wherein Marc Mero was done up in an almost perfect [[CaptainErsatz clone]] of Little Richard. |
| 186 | * Wrestling/JoeyRyan had a gimmick as a CasanovaWannabe who acted like it was the '70s. |
| 187 | * The afro warrior of Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH, Mohammad Yone, and The Funky Weapon of Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, Ryusuke Taguchi. |
| 188 | * Wrestling/{{WWE}} {{tag team}} Wrestling/DeuceNDomino were a pair of '50s greaser throwbacks complete with pompadours, leather jackets, [[Wrestling/KaraDrew a valet]] who dresses in a poodle skirt (albeit ''[[{{Fanservice}} much]]'' [[{{Stripperiffic}} shorter]] than actual ones of the period) and rollerskates, an entrance that involves them driving out in a classic convertible, and a theme song that wouldn't be out of place on the ''Film/{{Grease}}'' soundtrack. This got a brief subversion from play-by-play commentator Michael Cole, where he mentioned that they admitted in private with him that they realize it's not the '50s, but they like the look. They may have been prescient when it comes to rollerskates, though. Roller derby is currently making a comeback in large to medium-sized American cities, complete with the "retro" pre-1990s skate style. |
| 189 | * Wrestling/WrestlingSocietyX had the Old School Express, Jock Samson and Marion Fontaine. This got worse when they were joined by an ''unfrozen'' old school wrestler [[Wrestling/ColtCabana Matt Classic]], 'old school' '50s/'60s moves such as a head vice or an abdominal stretch as finishers despite these moves generally no longer being taken seriously. Even the website listed him as having won the championship in 1952. |
| 190 | * In 2010, Wrestling/JayLethal of [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] did a gimmick that entailed pretending to be "Macho Man" Wrestling/RandySavage (including the wraparound shades and the JiveTurkey accent) and literally acting as if it were still The80s. The gimmick was dubbed "Black Machismo." |
| 191 | * Taken to ridiculous lengths by Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}} tag team The Vaudevillains, who style themselves after, as the name implies, {{Vaudeville}}. |
| 192 | * In Wrestling/{{Progress Wrestling}} there's Flash Morgan Webster who dresses up like a [[ScooterRidingMod Mod]] (for those unfamiliar Mod's have their roots in the 1960s, at least 20 years before he was born) |
| 193 | * The Federalists were the very first political party of the United States Of America. In 2018, Marion Fontaine ran for public office as one. Despite his [[{{face}} local popularity]], he didn't do too well, what with the party no longer existing. |
| 194 | * In 2019 Wrestling/ImpactWrestling redebuted Johnny Swinger, a 25+ year veteran by that point, as a delusional out-of-touch goofball who thinks it’s vaguely sometime between the mid-'80s and 1993 [[note]]when he was just a teenager, let’s not think about it too hard[[/note]] and speaks only in inside wrestling references and lingo from that period. |
| 195 | [[/folder]] |
| 196 | |
| 197 | [[folder:Roleplay]] |
| 198 | * In ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' v4, we have Joshua Krakowski, who has been literally described as "The Living Anachronism" due to his clear '90s influence, right down to using [[TotallyRadical '90s slang]] and looking like a SurferDude. Daniel Vaughan also has tendencies of this, as he clearly is a little too fond of the '80s. Naturally, he and Josh get along quite nicely. |
| 199 | [[/folder]] |
| 200 | |
| 201 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 202 | * One the villains in ''Dark TabletopGame/{{Champions}}: The Animated Series'' is Beatlemania; a criminal who is obsessed with the Beatles (despite having been born after they split up) and who fashions all of his crimes around Beatles themes. |
| 203 | [[/folder]] |
| 204 | |
| 205 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 206 | * ''Theatre/TheDrowsyChaperone'' features Man in Chair, a lonely recluse who is obsessed with Broadway musicals of the 1920s-1940s, and who proceeds to narrate a recording of the titular show to the audience (making it a PlayWithinAPlay). |
| 207 | [[/folder]] |
| 208 | |
| 209 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 210 | * Franchise/{{Barbie}}'s {{Childhood Friend|s}} Midge expresses an interest in fads from The60s, the decade in which dolls of herself first entered production. |
| 211 | [[/folder]] |
| 212 | |
| 213 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 214 | * The titular character of the ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry'' series is permanently stuck in the 1970s in terms of style; in his case, it's partially {{justified|Trope}}. At the start of the series, Larry is a 38-year-old virgin who's been completely out of touch with the modern dating scene for most of his life; when he finally decides to remedy the situation, his idea of "cool" is over a decade out of date, more due to ignorance than willful disbelief. Later games, however, establish that even after coming to his senses, he maintains his "classic" look and tastes simply because he personally likes them. |
| 215 | * ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' has an entire clique of Greaser throwbacks who believe they're still in the 1950s and are opposed to the preps -- [[ShoutOut a reference]] to the classic Young Adult novel ''Literature/TheOutsiders''. |
| 216 | * EnsembleDarkhorse [[DanceBattler Miror B.]] in ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'' and [[VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness its sequel]] is one of the main bosses in the first game (and a minor crook in the second) who has an afro ''bigger than his head'' (and colored in a way that makes it look like a Poké Ball, no less) and has his own unique battle music -- salsa in ''Colosseum'', real disco in ''XD.'' |
| 217 | * Tiger in ''Franchise/{{Tekken}} 3'', a hidden character who is merely a different outfit for Eddy Gordo. As such, he uses the same fighting style (Capoeira). |
| 218 | * Eddie from the ''VideoGame/{{SSX}}'' games. He has ''an Afro'', come on. Oh, and he's [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy a white guy]], so he really has no excuse apart from "I really never let go of my childhood." And yet, while his style is stuck in the '70s, his personality is stuck in TotallyRadical '90s mode. |
| 219 | * Charles in ''VideoGame/SpaceColony'' is described as an officer in the Royal Navy during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. He keeps a stiff upper lip, lies back and thinks of England, and won't take any sass from those Indian fellows. But he was actually born sometime in the 22nd century and currently lives in outer space. His official company profile says it's a complete mystery how the Hell he got the way he is and stayed that way. |
| 220 | * The ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' series has the identical but seemingly unrelated Jimmy T. and Jimmy P. The former's parents, brother, and sister joined him in later games. |
| 221 | * ''VideoGame/PaperMario'': |
| 222 | ** A minor character in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' is a Disco Dan of indeterminate species with a French accent who flirts with Goombella. Even more random than usual for the Mario-verse. |
| 223 | ** Somehow, ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'' managed to give this personality to a ''[[AnimateInanimateObject yellow hole puncher]]''. They ''love'' disco, dances non-stop during their boss fight, and their [[BossSubtitles Boss Subtitle]] is the "Disco Devil". However, [[BewareTheSillyOnes don't let their kookiness fool you,]] their disco obsession makes them a ''very'' legitimate threat. [[spoiler:After all, they [[FaceStealer stole the faces]] of ''forty'' Toads to have them dance with them all the time and punched out the Sun to use it as their disco ball while also forcing a Toad DJ to play disco music for them under the threat of removing his face too.]] |
| 224 | * Disco Kid in ''VideoGame/PunchOut'', although it can be argued that the game actually takes place in the '70s, meaning that Disco Kid grew up during the days of disco. |
| 225 | * ''VideoGame/SeriousSamTheFirstEncounter'', ''[[VideoGame/SeriousSamTheSecondEncounter The Second Encounter]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SeriousSamII II]]'' have Dancing Denzell and Groovy Gregory as characters the player can choose. |
| 226 | * Toni, the Flashback FM DJ in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII''. People ask her if she remembers anything after the 1970s and the '80s, and she doesn't, but she also thinks there isn't anything worth remembering after those times. You also hear her in ''Vice City'' (set in the '80s) as the DJ of Flash FM. |
| 227 | * Konstantin Brayko of ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' has an obsession with the '80s and is basically a Russian [[Film/{{Scarface1983}} Tony Montana]]. Hell, his boss music is even Turn Up The Radio by Autograph. |
| 228 | * ''VideoGame/ChibiRobo'''s Funky Phil, who is actually a [[LivingToys living dancing flower]]. |
| 229 | * [[BunnyEarsLawyer Milla Vodello]] from ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}.'' Her Mental World is a giant technicolor dance studio with disco music blaring. (Unless you stray [[SurvivorGuilt into her]] [[KillItWithFire nastier memories]], anyway.) Possibly inverted as the game's aesthetic and the timeline shown on the camp log seem to put the game's setting somewhere in the '60s. Apparently, [[MySignificanceSenseIsTingling clairvoyance]] can [[MundaneUtility let you enjoy musical trends a full decade before they hit.]] |
| 230 | * One of the zombies in ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' is a disco dancer, dressing in stereotypical white leisure suit and afro hairstyle, as a VisualPun on how [[DiscoSucks disco is dead]]. (This was originally a Michael Jackson expy but legal issues forced a change.) |
| 231 | * The Radioman from ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''. Guy sounds like he just came back from a Vietnam War protest and plays lots of tracks from that period over his speaker systems, including Music/JimiHendrix and Deep Purple. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Not that anyone's complaining]]. |
| 232 | * The Justicars of the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe live according to a code that was formulated thousands of years ago when the asari were the only known sentient life in the galaxy and there was little or no law enforcement to contend with. It can create... problems for the Justicars in the 22nd century. |
| 233 | * ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone 2'' has Advertising/SegataSanshiro, who hasn't gotten the memo that the Sega Saturn has been defunct for years. |
| 234 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' has the unusual example of Tott, an example of this trope in what is otherwise a MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting. He's a dancing-obsessed guy dressed in 1970s disco clothes who is constantly dancing in front of a tombstone trying to remember a song that can let one change the InUniverseGameClock; his inability to do so references the whole "out of step with the times" element of this trope. |
| 235 | * The PlayerCharacter of ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is, appropriately enough, a huge disco fan, or at least was, before [[AmnesiacHero he lost his memory]] after a massive drinking binge -- although the fact that he must have been a fan of the genre is one of the few things that he quickly discerns, judging from the outfit he finds strewn around his trashed hostel room, which consits of [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes a forest green blazer, a wide collar satin shirt, mustard-yellow bell bottom pants, a pair of high-heeled green snakeskin loafers, and a really horrible necktie]], and the fact that the smile that is frozen into his face is a imitation of the one a famous disco-star wore on his face back in disco's hayday. It is later shown that, in Revachol, disco is not seen as merely a music genre, but a state of mind similar to SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll. It also can be used as an adjective (e.g., ''"That is so Disco"'') |
| 236 | * [[spoiler:Pyramid]] from ''VideoGame/EnslavedOdysseyToTheWest'' is a very dark example of this, being [[spoiler:a survivor of the old, pre-RobotWar world who is so hopelessly trapped in the past and unwilling to let new generations of humanity [[FutureImperfect forget]] said past that he's built a horrifying slave empire devoted almost entirely to [[LotusEaterMachine forcibly sharing his idea of the good ol' days]] with the people of [[AfterTheEnd the wasteland]].]] |
| 237 | * ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'': Recurring zombie enemies Bodyconian[[note]]"bodycon" is short for "body-conscious" and refers to the style of dress she's wearing, which was extremely popular in Japan before the economic bubble burst[[/note]] and Maneater are references to the Japanese disco dance culture of the 1980s[[note]]While disco died in America, it continued to persist in other countries for a little while longer[[/note]]. As the ''Shin Megami'' games were released in the late 1980s, it is a joke that the subculture was on its way out at the time. |
| 238 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'': Recurring radio interviewee Jack Howitzer is an '80s action star who has difficulty accepting that the days of TheAhnold are over. |
| 239 | [[/folder]] |
| 240 | |
| 241 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 242 | * Averted with the protagonist of ''VisualNovel/{{Melody}}''. Although he's much older than Melody, he's not out of touch with the music scene, and he goes out of his way to learn Melody’s taste in music. |
| 243 | [[/folder]] |
| 244 | |
| 245 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 246 | * In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' there is a character literally named ''Disco Bear'', and as he name would suggest he is all about groovy music, big hair, and boogying down. |
| 247 | * ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': |
| 248 | ** Technology and music-wise, Strong Bad seems stuck in the 1980s or 1990s. Considering how he's been slowly upgrading his computers, it's possible that he is changing with the times, but he's fifteen years behind the curve. He marvels at his [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCustomaryMeasurements 45-pound]] laptop's 5-minute battery life and has no idea what a mouse is. Old Timey Strong Bad is worse; he's still using the telegraph in 1936, decades after it had been rendered obsolete by the telephone. Strong Bad's latest computer, the Compé, appears to bringing him a bit closer to the present, but only slightly: while it has a flat-screen monitor, it has what looks like 256 colors and pixels as big as fists. Which means it's, what, 1991? When the Compé was compressed by [[ScheduleSlip six years worth of dust]] into an older-style computer, he considered it a step up. He also seems to be in a state of denial about how outdated the tech he uses really is; when The Paper begins to fail, he cries out "Why do all my 30 year-old electronics keep breaking on me?" |
| 249 | ** Then there's the Videlectrix guys, who release Platform/Atari2600 style games in the present day without realizing that they're ridiculously out of touch until they're tasked with developing the ''Homestar Runner'' game and try controlling a Platform/Commodore64 with a Platform/{{Wii}}mote. |
| 250 | %%--->"[[{{Anime}} It's]] called Japanimation! At least it was last time I checked... which was 1987."%% Quote need to be attributed. |
| 251 | %%* ''Disco Bear'' from ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends''.%% Zero-context |
| 252 | [[/folder]] |
| 253 | |
| 254 | [[folder:Web Comics]] |
| 255 | * ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'': |
| 256 | ** Bob has a collection of vinyl records, an entire basement full of VHS tapes with a working VCR, an Platform/Atari2600, a rotary phone, and of course wears his trademark bellbottom pants. It's probably not so much that he's actively defying change as just that he'd be the last person on Earth to ''care'' about fashion trends, including technology fashion. |
| 257 | ** His [[YoungerThanTheyLook artificial daughter]] Molly learned much of what she knows about the world from that VHS collection, causing her to pepper her speech with decades-old cultural references. |
| 258 | ** Then of course there's CloudCuckooLander Mr. Bystander, who thinks rock and roll will never catch on, thinks Sputnik is still up there, and considers heavy metal punks to be hippies. |
| 259 | [[/folder]] |
| 260 | |
| 261 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 262 | * Website/TheOnion's "[[http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-mans-popculture-references-stop-at-1988,469/ Area Man's Pop Culture References Stop at 1988"]]. |
| 263 | ** Website/TheOnion's original publisher, T. Herman Zweibel, is stuck in the early years of the 20th century, regularly complaining about the imminent threat posed to the United States by the Spaniards. |
| 264 | * Rolfe from [[http://showbizpizza.com/ Showbiz Pizza]] is this quite a bit. He sings Disco during shows and repeatedly says it's his favorite genre. Often made fun of by his hand puppet, Earl, because of it. |
| 265 | * The character of the blogger running ''Blog/YoIsThisRacist'' is a TotallyRadical [[The90s '90s]] "out-of-work rapper" who refuses to get an [=iPhone=] as he prefers his pager, hangs out at the mall and still thinks yelling "[[Music/DrDre DEEEEEEEEZ NUTS]]" is the cutting-edge of meme-based comedy. Possibly justified as one update implied he was actually a HumanPopsicle "unfrozen in the future to spread the message about racism". |
| 266 | [[/folder]] |
| 267 | |
| 268 | [[folder:Web Videos]] |
| 269 | * "90s Kid" on ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' is out of touch and obsessed with Creator/RobLiefeld-esque [[MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks 1990s comic books]]. Note that he met with WebVideo/EightiesDan (see below) to trade soft drinks, so for one crossover you got twice the Disco Dan fun! |
| 270 | * Creator/BradJones of ''WebVideo/TheCinemaSnob'', has created a character called WebVideo/EightiesDan. His videos are parodies of '80s-style sitcoms, with canned laughter and a feel good theme song, and feature the time displaced Dan subjecting his less than enthusiastic roommates and neighbors (including a R.O.B. the Robot) to the joys of '80s pop culture. Bonus points for him actually being named "Dan". |
| 271 | * ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'' lives in a basement full of old video game consoles, doesn't own anything made after The90s and uses a Commodore 64 and a rotary phone. [[RuleOfFunny The former can browse the internet and play modern games (they just take about five years to start up), and the latter can play smartphone games despite not having any kind of screen.]] The ''Franchise/MegaMan'' episode, made in honour of his 10-year anniversary on Website/YouTube, later reveals that he's "kept up with the times" by updating his vinyl collection and getting a cell phone. The vinyls are now on cassette tapes, and the cell phone is a forty-year-old Motorola digital personal communicator. |
| 272 | * WebVideo/GameGrumps' Danny is an example [[{{Downplayed}} to an extent.]] He's not stuck in the past; however, he does seem to prefer that age, constantly bringing up songs, references or slang of the time. Also, he sucks at modern games, with [[HilarityEnsues hilarious results]] considering what his show is about. Arin put it best. |
| 273 | -->'''Arin:''' Game Grumps, starring Arin "Sucks at games" Hanson and Dan "hasn't played a video game since 1987" Avidan. |
| 274 | * ''WebVideo/NightmareTime:'' Miss Holloway is an immortal witch with a love for the '80s, keeping the same teased hair and leather jacket even as the decades pass. |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 278 | * Even though ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' exists in a bizarre AnachronismStew of a world, Rip Riley stands out as one of these. Archer even calls him on it during a plane ride, accusing him of trying too hard with his "Sky-captain of yesteryear" look. |
| 279 | * Eddy from ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' keeps a disco ball, polyester suits, and various Music/TomJones and Music/BarryWhite records in his room. While the show takes place in an AmbiguousTimePeriod (however it's heavily implied to be in the 2000s), it's clear that Eddy is still way behind the times. Eddy is unusual in that he is only 12 and thus is likely too young to have even experienced the '70s. |
| 280 | * Quagmire from ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' lives by the swinger lifestyle of the [[The50s '50s]] and [[The60s '60s]] (or, he used to, before [[{{Flanderization}} they amped up his sexual perversion]] and made him Brian the dog's SitcomArchnemesis). It makes sense when it's revealed that [[OlderThanTheyLook he was actually born in 1948 and stays young by ingesting carrots]]. |
| 281 | * The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' character known only as [[{{Yuppie}} "That Guy"]] who lives his life like [[Film/WallStreet Gordon Gekko]] despite his perfect grasp of his temporal location. He even gets Fry to embrace his lifestyle while performing a hostile takeover of Planet Express and nearly pulls off a flawless pump-and-dump to Mom Corp. Only his sudden death from boneitis stops him from succeeding. The DVD commentary for the episode reveals that his name is [[spoiler:Steve Castle, an appropriate name for an '80s business guy]]. |
| 282 | * Finn, one of the Dark Hand enforcers from ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', dresses in a '70s disco suit and displays some Disco Dan tendencies at times. This aspect of his personality really shines through in an episode where he travels back in time to the '70s, where he actually has to be physically dragged out of the time period while he shouts "I wanna stay!" |
| 283 | * Motor Ed from ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' behaves like an [[The80s '80s]] rocker, [[VerbalTic seriously]], often goes into air guitar riffs, seriously, and even quits his job because he loves his mullet, [[OverlyLongGag seriously]]. |
| 284 | * Michigan J. Frog in the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes short ''WesternAnimation/OneFroggyEvening'' is a Disco Dan from TheGay90s brought up to The50s and later TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. He dances around in a top hat and sings the popular Tin Pan Alley music of his era. |
| 285 | * One-off character(s) Get Thee Hence from ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}''. Whose NuMetal gimmick and music was already about 6 years out of date when their episode first aired. Nathan sums it up for them. |
| 286 | -->'''Nathan:''' Rap rock band with a DJ? |
| 287 | -->'''Lead Singer:''' That's us, motherfucker. |
| 288 | -->'''Nathan:''' Somebody tell this band what year it is. |
| 289 | * ''WesternAnimation/MuchaLucha'' has Senor Hasbeena, a teacher at the '''''[[NoIndoorVoice FOREMOST WORLD-RENOWNED INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF LUCHA]]''''' who constantly spouts '70s slang in a rather [[LargeHam hammy]] voice. He even has a signature move called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Funky Disco Ball]]. According to the episode "Woulda Coulda Hasbeena," he was actually a pretty successful luchador in the 1970s until a mysterious flash (later found out to be [[spoiler:his future self performing his signature move]]) distracted him during a championship match with Kid Up And Coming, resulting in him losing the championship; hence why he's stuck in the '70s. |
| 290 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'', the Boogie Man (as in, ''the'' Boogie Man, [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight the nocturnal demon who scares children]]) is like this. In fact, the most vital part of his EvilPlan to plunge Townsville into eternal night involves blocking out the sun [[ItMakesSenseInContext with a Disco ball the size of the Death Star]], and turning Townsville into an eternal disco night club. [[DontExplainTheJoke Because he is]] [[{{Pun}} the Boogie Man.]] |
| 291 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheProudFamily'', Uncle Bobby still performs to this day as an old-school Funk singer straight out of the Seventies, complete with the characteristic heavy rhythmic "Owwww!" tone in his voice (which even Lionel Richie quit doing by the '80s) and which he uses even when speaking "normally". |
| 292 | * The gang from ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'', of course, didn't upgrade [[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou their '60s-era clothing or slang]] for decades, until the latest batch of TV movies and ''WesternAnimation/WhatsNewScoobyDoo'' series gave them a makeover. This is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheCyberChase'', where the gang meets video-game doubles of themselves who still dress like in the original ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou'' series. Shaggy's wardrobe never ''did'' catch up with the times, a fact he comments on himself in ''Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders''. The revival ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' has several characters very much rooted in disco-styling and the era, including Shaggy himself. But the whole setting sort of exists in the 1970s and the 2010s at the same time (it's heavy on the RetroUniverse aesthetic), so it may be perfectly justified. |
| 293 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 294 | ** Disco Stu's a recurring joke character who's eternally stuck in [[The70s the mid-1970s]], but he's a fairly positive portrayal of this trope. In fact, one episode reveals that he is actually fully aware that disco is dead and admits that he doesn't even like disco anymore--however, Stu's worried that he's become "a one-note guy" after letting it define him for so long. Most Springfield-residents seems to like Stu just fine--one episode reveals that he was married to Marge's sister, Selma, at one point (Stu was Selma's fourth husband) and Marge claims that Stu's the only one of Selma's ex-husbands she actually liked. |
| 295 | ** C. Montgomery Burns, whose values and [[HaveAGayOldTime vocabulary]] are still stuck on October 27, 1929 (just before Black Tuesday and the start of TheGreatDepression). His antiquated demeanor and ideas are a recurring source of humor in the series, as is his on-again off-again ignorance of history after the 1930s (he still thinks there's a Negro League in baseball...). |
| 296 | ** Otto Mann (the bus driver for Springfield Elementary) has become this in the later seasons of the show--he still talks/dresses like a teenager from the 1980s and [[TechnologyMarchesOn even still uses a portable cassette player (which he wears on his hip), even though anything to do with cassette tapes has been obsolete since the early-2000s.]] |
| 297 | ** Much was made in older episodes (when the passage of time in the real world made the show's sliding timescale less noticeable) of the early '70s as Homer's teenage years, his love of bands long past their sell-by date, most infamously Music/GrandFunkRailroad. Nowhere is this clearer than in "Homerpalooza", where his attempts to sell the kids on his old favorites fall flat and he's left to express confusion because, "Everyone knows that rock achieved perfection in 1974!" |
| 298 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' has a few of these. The animated series gets around the painful TotallyRadical nature of old Titans villains like Mad Mod by making them old men who hide behind illusions to make themselves appear "young" and "hip" again: |
| 299 | ** Mad Mod uses mind control to impose his vision of an Anglicized US (at least one seen through the lens of ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'' and [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Monty Python]]) on Jump City. |
| 300 | ** Ding Dong Daddy rides a hot rod and abuses the living crap out of phrases like "Daddy-O". He's got round sunglasses and a beret. |
| 301 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' gives Cyborg some shades of this, with a love of [[The80s '80s]] sitcoms and a preference for cassette tapes and VCR over more modern forms of media. |
| 302 | * Since many of the people behind ''Teen Titans'' also created ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'', this also applies to some of the lower-scale human villains the Autobots fight. Headmaster is a nerd heavy on late-2000s internet slang, Angry Archer talks in medieval lingo, Prometheus Black/Meltdown looks like he never got over the '70s (same with [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Porter C. Powell]]), and Slo-Mo is an evil version of a 1930s ScrewballComedy lead. The difference here is that they're in a futuristic, robot-heavy UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, making them contrast even more. |
| 303 | [[/folder]] |
| 304 |
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