->''"Hey! We're allowed to watch [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968 this]], because it's public domain!"''
-->-- WebVideo/{{Phelous}}, in his review of ''Film/{{Thankskilling}}''

When movies or TV shows need an establishing shot of the characters watching TV, especially when it has no bearing on the plot, the producers will often try to save money by having the characters watch something whose rights they don't have to license.

So all too often, what you'll see is people incongruously watching old, old, ''old'' programming that hasn't even been shown in UsefulNotes/{{syndication}} since the late 1980s, like silent movies or, more often, ancient [[Creator/FleischerStudios Max Fleischer]] or [[Creator/{{Terrytoons}} Paul Terry]] cartoons for that extra visual kick. For bonus incongruity, sometimes it will be out of character for the character to even be watching the show in question.

However, this can be justified if the movie or TV show takes place during a specific time period, and the producers choose a film from that place and time that is ''now'' public domain to further emphasize when and where the story is set.

In a related move, many TV documentaries and biography shows will use footage from a theatrical trailer rather than the film itself. Even if studios carefully protected the copyrights for their movies, most of the trailers were ignored and fell into public domain.

Though they often occur for different reasons, this trope is sometimes related to PacManFever. May sometimes overlap with UnabashedBMovieFan, as cheapie genre films from before 1964 are particularly likely to have lapsed into the PublicDomain. So have some telefilms, such as ''[[http://www.archive.org/details/The_Woman_Hunter.avi The Woman Hunter]]'' from 1972.
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!!Examples:
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[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
* Will Ferrell's character in ''Film/WeddingCrashers'' is introduced watching old cartoons in his mother's house.
* ''Film/KillBillVol2'' ends with a character watching a 1946 Heckle and Jeckle cartoon.
* A kid watches the old cartoon "Balloon Land" in ''Film/MerlinsShopOfMysticalWonders''.
* A teenager watches Creator/HaroldLloyd's ''Film/{{The Freshman|1925}}'' in an early scene in ''The Haunting In Connecticut''.
* Many characters are seen watching ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' in ''Film/HalloweenII1981''.
* Laurie Strode watches more PDTV in Rob Zombie's ''[[Film/HalloweenII2009 Halloween II]]''.
* In ''Film/TheGarbagePailKidsMovie'', the title characters sneak into a movie theater showing the [[Film/TheThreeStooges Three Stooges]] short ''Malice in the Palace''. The movie was made (and set) in 1987; the short's copyright was not renewed.
* In the movie ''Film/KillingZoe'', during the early sex scene between protagonists Zed and Zoe, the hotel television plays the silent classic ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''.
* Creator/AnthonyHopkins is seen watching ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' in the film ''Film/{{Proof|2005}}''.
* The Three Stooges short ''[[Recap/TheThreeStoogesBridelessGroom Brideless Groom]]'' (one of the four that fell into public domain) is seen in ''Film/PulpFiction'', being watched by Eric Stoltz's character. Interestingly enough, Quentin Tarantino wasn't allowed to show The Three Stooges onscreen since their likenesses were copyrighted; he used the scene where Emil Sitka has a birdcage smashed on his head. Sitka even gets a mention in the closing credits as "Hold Hands, You Love Birds!" (his line in the excerpt shown).
* In ''Film/Scream2'', Cici Cooper (Creator/SarahMichelleGellar) watches the original silent ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''.
* ''Film/GhostDogTheWayOfTheSamurai'' has old cartoons playing somewhere in almost every scene featuring [[TheMafia the Vargo family]], symbolic of their bumbling and (relative) toothlessness. [[spoiler:After Louise takes over and has Ghost Dog killed, her last act in the film is to turn them off.]]
* ''Film/BubbaHoTep'' has an interesting example. At one point, a TV is showing an ad for a marathon of Elvis movies. But the movie was too low-budget to afford Elvis movies, and so it's a bunch of clips featuring Elvis-lookalikes.
* Appears near the end of ''Film/{{Thankskilling}}'', where the protagonists are watching ''Night of the Living Dead''.
* Two segments in ''Film/CampfireTales1991'' feature public domain films playing on television sets. The one about the dangerous weed appropiately has the characters watching ''Film/ReeferMadness'' at one point.
* ''Film/{{Skinamarink}}'' has a TV that plays exclusively public domain cartoons.
* ''Film/TwilightZoneTheMovie'' features a clip from a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon on TV at one point. This one is a bit more justified, due to the fact that [[RealityWarper Anthony]] could just will the TV into automatically playing old school cartoons.
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[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Faith was often watching old movies in her motel room.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie TV movie]] shows the morgue guard watching ''Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}'', which seems to match the trope, but the movie was used for a reason (to compare to the Doctor coming back to life) and the movie is not public domain — the rights are owned by Universal, who produced the TV movie.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight "Midnight"]], the entertainment screens on the shuttle bus only show old black-and-white movies and music videos from TheSeventies. Unlike most examples of the trope, the characters are aware that they're old movies, and aren't especially entertained.
** In the opening of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]], Rory is watching a Creator/LaurelAndHardy movie, ''Film/TheFlyingDeuces'', which is out of copyright. Presumably this has something to do with the fact that the Doctor shows up in it briefly to wave at him — getting permission to alter something under copyright is going to be a lot more difficult than merely getting permission to show a clip from it. The other reason is probably because of the fezzes.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
** When they hold Jack prisoner, The Others let him watch an old Heckle and Jeckle cartoon on a TV set they provide.
** In the fifth season premiere Aaron is shown watching an episode of the public domain [[WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons Superman]] shorts.
* This was a regular occurrence on ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'', with the "King of Cartoons" (although some early season one episodes called him "King Cartoon"), although he was eventually dropped towards the end of the series, with later episodes just playing cartoons.
* Bobbi Stakowski is shown watching an old Three Stooges clip in the pilot episode of ''Series/{{Profit}}''. The creators admit it wasn't a likely choice for her character but they didn't have a licensing budget.
* ''Series/TheSopranos'': Christopher Moltisanti watches an episode of ''Film/TheLittleRascals'' while getting high.
* On ''[[Series/{{Starstuff}} Starstuff]],'' Chris is a huge fan of Creator/LaurelAndHardy, and he shows Ingrid one of their shorts from his video collection OnceAnEpisode.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' pulled this all the damn time. In the episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E13Syzygy Syzygy]]" the televisions in Mulder and Scully's hotel rooms play nothing but ''[[Creator/KeystoneStudios The Keystone Kops]]'' 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on every single channel. This is implied to have been caused by the [[MonsterOfTheWeek supernatural forces of the week]], and gives the distinct impression that the TV is deliberately mocking our heroes.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheDarkness'', there are several televisions around the area. On one of the channels, an old Max Fleischer cartoon is playing. Near the start of the game, you can watch the ''entirety'' of ''Film/ToKillAMockingbird'' in the love interest's apartment. You can watch ''Film/TheStreetfighter'' in its entirety as well.
* ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'' features a snippet of ''Film/PlanNineFromOuterSpace'' and the entirety of ''Film/TeenagersFromOuterSpace'' as an unlockable extra (which was inexplicably removed in the remake). Justified example, since the game takes place in 1959, the year that both of these movies were originally released.
* In ''VideoGame/TheXFilesGame'', you could turn on televisions which showed ''The Keystone Kops'', which is a [[CallBack reference to a much earlier episode]], "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E13Syzygy Syzygy]]". There, the old movie was actually a metaphor for how off-base the agents were in their investigation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* The opening title sequence of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' always included a different clip of an old cartoon.
** Though in one episode they used a clip from ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'' era ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' shorts, and in another they used the TitleSequence of the show itself.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' episode "The Incredible Shrinking Town", everyone tries to adjust to their new heights in various ways. One scene has Jimmy's parents watching a "drive-in movie" in a toy car, [[CrystalBallScheduling the movie being]] ''WesternAnimation/GulliversTravels''.
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[[folder:Real Life]]
* American Creator/{{PBS}} stations in the 1980s and early '90s effectively became this trope around Christmastime, thanks to the constant broadcasts of ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'', which was in the public domain at the time. This tradition ended when it was found that the story on which it was based, ''The Greatest Gift'', is still copyrighted. Now Creator/{{NBC}} is the sole home of the film, which only plays it around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
* ''ChillerTV'' sometimes ran ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' and ''Film/HouseOnHauntedHill1959'' to plug in time slots.
* Some particularly small, shoestring-budget channels that can be found at the very bottom of your TV's electronic program guide will resort to this in order to have ''something'' to fill the airtime between commercials.
[[/folder]]
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