Line #44 Main/PrematureEncapsulation


1	->''"Also, and I know this is minor compared to everything else, but why isn't this episode called the Bart of War? Oh, wait, oops, they already used that one in season 14. Well that's not confusing."''
2	-->-- '''WebVideo/PieGuyRulz''' on "''[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons No Good Read Goes Unpunished]]''", which involves the book, "''Literature/{{The Art of War\|SunTzu}}''", unlike the former.
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4	Sometimes when a show is trying to come up with a title for an episode, they have to take short-cuts, such as RuleOfFunny, settling for a stock title, or just generally using an old pop-culture reference to create some sort of {{pun}}. This trope is what happens when a show, usually a LongRunner, ends up later coming up with a HighConcept that actually works much better with the earlier title of a previous episode.
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6	This is very common in shows that use, or gradually adapt to, a WorldOfWeirdness setting. While in the earlier episode the title may have been a metaphor for what was actually going on, say, "Shoot the Moon" being about a character trying to win a game via SpringtimeForHitler, the later episode will involve the characters actually building a ray gun and trying to shoot the Moon with it.
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8	Use of this trope is almost always accidental, and as is such, it functions mainly as an oddity while the viewers wonder why, in retrospect, the writers used the naming conventions they did.
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10	Those curious about inner wiki working like renames will find that a lot of them are motivated by this trope. A well-meaning troper will name a trope after an abstract concept, and several months later there will be inaccurate [[PotHole Pot Holes]] everywhere assuming that the trope means something completely different. This is a large part of the reason why wiki policy encourages new tropes to have more easily understood names.
11	----
12
13	!Examples:
14	[[foldercontrol]]
15
16	[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
17	* Prolific fanfic writer Stefan Gagne first wrote ''[[http://pixelscapes.com/twoflower/fanfic/PulpFanfiction.txt Pulp Fanfiction]]'', a fanfic which borrowed a single scene from ''Film/PulpFiction'' and then goes on to parody Ranma 1/2 FanFiction in general. Then he had the brilliant idea for ''Pulp Fiction'' using the Ranma 1/2 characters and had to title this one ''[[http://pixelscapes.com/twoflower/fanfic/QTRanma.txt Quentin Tarantino's Ranma 1/2]]'' to avoid confusion with his earlier fanfic.
18	[[/folder]]
19
20	[[folder: Film - Live Action]]
21	* ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' is the film where the protagonists stop Judgment Day from happening. ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' is the one where it happens anyway.
22	[[/folder]]
23
24	[[folder: Live Action TV]]
25	* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
26	** Series 1 does this deliberately. Episode 7 is entitled [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E7TheLongGame "The Long Game"]], which only vaguely describes the events of the episode. [[spoiler:The Doctor finally confronts the villain playing a "long game" in episode 12, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E12BadWolf "Bad Wolf"]], and the events of episode 7 turn out to have been part of the plan]].
27	** The very title of the show -- at first a simple RunningGag -- became this trope ''48 years'' after its first broadcast, relevant to the Eleventh Doctor's MythArc. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong "The Wedding of River Song"]] discloses that "Doctor who?" is "the question that shall never be answered", and [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]] fully reveals why: [[spoiler:it's the question asked by the Time Lords trapped in the bubble universe on the other side of Trenzalore, and if answered with the Doctor's real name Gallifrey would return back to the main universe and cause the Time War to start anew.]]
28	* On ''Series/SportsNight'':
29	** The episode entitled "Kafelnikov" is the episode ''before'' the one where Dan can't pronounce Yevgeny Kafelnikov's name. This could be considered FridgeBrilliance, since "Kafelnikov" is the episode in which we get the reason why Dan can't say Yevgeny Kafelnikov's name in the following episode.
30	** Also notable is "How Are Things in Glocca Morra", which was an episode a whole season before the song was a B-plot. However, that B-plot was originally intended to be a part of "How Are Things in Glocca Morra" before [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Real Life Rewrote the Plot]].
31	* "Point of No Return" would have made a better title for the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Fail Safe", (AKA the episode where an asteroid is headed for Earth) but they already used it. And "Fail Safe" is what "Tangent", (the episode where O'Neill and Teal'c run into issues testing the X-301 Interceptor) should have been called.
32	* The original-series ''Series/{{Star Trek\|The Original Series}}'' episode "The Children Shall Lead" makes repeated thematic reference to the "enemy within". Too bad "The Enemy Within" was already the title of an episode two seasons earlier...
33	* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' does this several times.
34	** The Season 4 episode "Krypto", which does ''not'' deal with the actual [[WesternAnimation/KryptoTheSuperdog superdog]], but rather an actual stray dog that Clark ''briefly'' considers naming this. "Stray" technically would have been a better title for the description, but this had been used in Season 1, and referred to a person.
35	** The episode "Mercy" from Season 5, roughly two-and-a-half years before character Tess Mercer was introduced. She both occasionally goes by the nickname "Mercy" and is based in part on [[Characters/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries Mercy Graves]].
36	** Season 5 also has an episode centered around two characters who can telekinetically manipulate glass, but had already used the title "Shattered" back in Season 3, so used the name "Fragile" instead.
37	** Clark meets at least three separate people who either have immortality, or some form of longevity, including TheAgeless, BornAgainImmortality, and CompleteImmortality. By the time the last two appeared, the episode title "Ageless" had already been used, ironically because the guest character suffered from RapidAging.
38	** Clark, Lex, and Lana all have [[NearDeathExperience near death experiences]] during the shows time, and all of them come following the episode "Hereafter".
39	[[/folder]]
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41	[[folder: Music]]
42	* The third album by Music/TheDoors bore the title ''Waiting for the Sun'', but the song by that name wasn't released until two albums later, on ''Morrison Hotel.''
43	* Ditto Music/LedZeppelin's ''Houses of the Holy'', whose title track had to be held until their next release, ''Physical Graffiti''.
44	* Ditto Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer's ''Brain Salad Surgery'', recorded for the album of the same name in 1973, but was only released as part of an album in 1977, in ''Works Volume 2''.
45	* Also the Burzum album ''Det som engang var'': the song by that name didn't appear until the next album ''Hvis lyset tar oss''.
46	* Flogging Molly. Their first album was the live compilation ''Alive Behind the Green Door'', which featured a song named "Swagger". Their next release was the studio album named ''Swagger''... which for some reason did not include the song "Swagger". Their next studio album was ''Drunken Lullabies'', which ''did'' include the song "Swagger". It's like they were trying to be confusing.
47	* [[Music/{{Queen}} Queen]]'s ''Sheer Heart Attack'' was released in 1974, but the song by that name wasn't released until 1977, on ''News of the World''.
48	* Two Music/CaptainBeefheart albums fell prey to this problem:
49	** "Safe As Milk", was written in 1966 though never considered for the album of the same name, instead being recorded for "Strictly Personal" the following year.
50	** ''Shiny Beast'' takes its title from a line on "Dirty Blue Gene", which was held over for the next release "Doc At The Radar Station".
51	* Music/MeatPuppets' ''Golden Lies'' was originally going to have a TitleTrack, but it was ultimately left off the album... Five years later, Curt Kirkwood recorded a version of the song for his solo album ''Snow''.
52	* Music/CamperVanBeethoven's box set ''Cigarettes And Carrot Juice'' was actually named for a lyric from "Big Dipper" by David Lowery's other band, Cracker... But years later the Camper Van Beethoven song "Long Plastic Hallway" would also mention "cigarettes and carrot juice" in its lyrics.
53	* The first album by Jets To Brazil was titled ''Orange Rhyming Dictionary''. The song the album was named for appeared two years later on the followup album, ''Four Cornered Night''
54	* [[Music/RobZombie White Zombie]]'s self-released debut was called ''Soul-Crusher''. Four years and a shift in genre from NoiseRock to GrooveMetal later, their major label debut ''La Sexorcisto'' included a song called "Soul-Crusher".
55	* {{Music/Beck\|Musician}} has an album titled ''Midnite Vultures'', but the song of that name appeared as a BSide a year later. Interestingly, "Midnite Vultures" wasn't even written until after the album of the same name was finished - Beck wrote it specifically to be a b-side and named it after the album just because he couldn't think of a title.
56	* Former guitarist/vocalist for {{Music/Jellyfish}} and later The Grays, Jason Falkner's debut solo album was 1996's ''Jason Falkner Presents Author Unknown''. The ''song'' "Author Unknown" was released on his next album, 1999's ''Can You Still Feel?''.
57	* In 2001, punk rock cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes put out a compilation EP called ''Turn Japanese''. Many of their other albums have titles with thematic references to the content (for instance ''Love Their Country'' has them doing covers of country songs), but this time the title was chosen simply because it was released by Japan-based record label Pizza Of Death. Ten years later, they actually ''did'' put out an EP featuring covers of songs written in Japanese, and called it ''Sing In Japanese''.
58	* The second album by ''Concrete Blonde'' was 1989's ''Free''. Their song of that title was not released until their 1994 rarities collection ''Still in Hollywood''.
59	* Music/MarcyPlayground's ''Shapeshifter'' was released in 1999, but the title track was left off the album... It wasn't released until 2012, when it appeared on the BSide/rarity compilation ''Lunch, Recess & Detention''.
60	* All, who are basically {{Music/Descendents}} without usual lead vocalist Milo Aukerman, released an album called ''Mass Nerder'' in 1998. In 2004, the Descendents album ''Cool to Be You'' included a song of that name. Unlike a lot of such cases, "Mass Nerder" was apparently a new song, not an outtake left off of the album of the same name: The songwriting is credited entirely to Milo Aukerman, who didn't have any involvement in writing the All album.
61	* The title track of Music/BlindMelon's ''Soup'' was left off the album: A live version was released a year before the album came out (on the ''Woodstock 94'' compilation), but the studio version was on ''Nico'' the year after.
62	* The title track for Music/TheMarsVolta's second album, ''Frances the Mute'', was left off the album due to time constraints, only to later be released as a B-side on the single release of "The Widow", a track from ''Frances''. Fans nonetheless group it with the album, often listening to it as an opener before the rest of the album.
63	* Jimmy Urine released a solo album titled ''Mindless Self Indulgence'', a few years before starting the band Music/MindlessSelfIndulgence.
64	* Sean O'Hagan, formerly of Microdisney, put out a solo album named ''High Llamas'' ([[VisualPun featuring cover art of llamas in a hot air balloon]]). Shortly after, he started a band named The High Llamas.
65	[[/folder]]
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67	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
68	* TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons 5th edition introduced a background called “Secret Identity” for playing non-human Player Characters in disguise as humans in an early Adventurers’ League supplement. The later adventure ''Descent Into Avernus'' added a background for playing a more traditional masked superhero/supervillain with a SecretIdentity, but because that title had already been used, it was called “Faceless” instead.
69	[[/folder]]
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71	[[folder: TV Tropes Itself]]
72	* Looking at the title of GoodIsDumb, most people would probably assume it's something like the quote from ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' -- a character decides to trust a villain, not for any particular reason, but because they're a good guy who's holding the IdiotBall. For an extremely long time, this trope was the primary title of RedemptionDemotion, which had nothing to do with that idea. Regrettably, we still don't have a proper GoodIsDumb article -- it's an index.
73	* FemaleGaze sounds like the DistaffCounterpart of MaleGaze. Actually, for some time it was the trope now known as EatingTheEyeCandy, which didn't deal with {{Gaze}} theory at all, instead relating to character reactions.
74	[[/folder]]
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76	[[folder: Western Animation]]
77	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' had a season 1 episode named [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E3HomersOdyssey "Homer's Odyssey"]] where he crusaded for more stringent safety regulation. It would still be several more seasons before they made the episode "Lemon Of Troy" that ''actually mirrored'' the plot of ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' (well, ''Literature/TheIliad'')... and [[FleetingDemographicRule another stretch of years]] before they did it again with a literal re-enactment with Simpsons characters acting parts from the story of the Odyssey. Lampshaded at one point. When he reads the title "Homer's Odyssey", he wonders if it's about one of his previous adventures (wrong one, but still). Specifically, he wonders if it is about that time he rented a [[DontExplainTheJoke Honda Odyssey minivan]].
78	* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode [[Recap/SouthParkS5E10HowToEatWithYourButt "How To Eat With Your Butt"]] revolves around a couple who have butts where their faces should be; at one point we do see them eating, but it's a rather minor gag. The later episode [[Recap/SouthParkS6E8RedHotCatholicLove "Red Hot Catholic Love"]], though, has its whole B-plot about people eating through their butts (and subsequently defecating from their mouths).
79	[[/folder]]

Context Main / PrematureEncapsulation