Accidentally-Correct Writing in Live-Action TV.
- The infamous line uttered by a character from Baywatch: "I love playing Mario on my Atari!" There were in fact, games featuring Mario available on the Atari 2600, such as Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. (i.e. ports of pre-NES arcade games).note The line was outdated, but not inaccurate.
- After the revelation that British Prime Minister David Cameron had maybe stuck his penis into a dead pig's mouth during a debauched fraternity initiation, many, many people compared it to the premiere of Black Mirror, where the (fictional) British Prime Minister is blackmailed into having intercourse with a (live) pig. Even series creator Charlie Brooker was flabbergasted at how close the episode was to reality.
- Boardwalk Empire: Nan Britton, the mistress of Warren G. Harding, appears in Season 1. She meets Nucky during a Republican convention in Chicago, who decides to have her lay low in Atlantic City until the election is over in order to avoid a scandal. At the time the season was written, the historians' consensus was that Harding had no children, and that Britton's claiming his paternity of her child was part of her delusion. The show portrayed Harding's paternity as real for the sake of drama. In 2015, a DNA test validated the show's stance as it found a match between descendants of Britton's daughter and members of the Harding family.
- In an episode of the UK version of The Chase, the question "Which card games shares its name with a famous French manufacturer of fine glassware?" came up. The contestant, when given the choices, accidentally blurted out her answer, leading to a brief spot of laughter. When her answer proved to be wrong, host Bradley Walsh joked that it would be great if that episode's Chaser, Mark Labbett, didn't know it either and got it wrong himself by deliberately taking her lead from the flub. Walsh recovered long enough to see what Labett put for his answer...only to lose it hard when he said the same wrong answer, openly admitting that Walsh's joke scenario was exactly what happened.
- Community:
- There was a joke where Britta is said to have a favorite superhero character called X-Man. It's presented in-universe as a joke, with Britta not knowing the names of the actual X-Men characters she likes and calling the character X-Man instead. However, there's actually a real character named "X-Man" in the Marvel continuity, albeit a fairly obscure and Out of Focus one. The character, X-Man, is an alternate-universe version of Cyclops's time-traveling son, Cable.
- The episode "G.I. Jeff", about a fever dream Jeff has about G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, sees Wingman (Jeff's dream self) go on trial for accidentally killing Destro when he fired at him while Destro was parachuting out of a damaged plane to keep the villain from escaping. While the show played this as a joke about how the show would never acknowledge anyone dying, the Geneva Convention forbids shooting at enemies ejecting from downed aircraft, thus Jeff committed a war crime that he really would be put on trial for.
- Show continuity version: One of the CSI: NY tie-in novels had Mac recall that Claire liked opera. Several years later, "Indelible" had Mac surprising her with opera tickets on the morning of 9/11/2001, to her delight.
- Doctor Who:
- In "An Unearthly Child", aired in 1963, Susan doesn't know how to use 1960s money because she only knows decimal currency. The episode was pre-decimalization by more than seven years, and while decimalization was being discussed in deep political back rooms in 1963, it only became a popular Ripped from the Headlines topic towards the late 1960s.
- Doctor Who had the Doctor refer to a sauropod dinosaur as Brontosaurus in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs". Although the correct designation at the time was Apatosaurus, the issue of the type specimen's proper genus was later re-opened, and Brontosaurus ended up becoming its own genus again. Being a time traveler, the Doctor could have already known the name would change when he called the animal that.
- After the E-Ring episode "The General" aired in 2006, depicting an American general kidnapped by Basque separatists in Spain, a user on a Spanish forum criticized the lack of research, pointing out among other things that none of the Basque separatists had Basque names, just common Spanish ones. "The leader of the Etarras is named Miguel Carrera. Not even Mikel Korrika." Four years later, an ETA leader named Miguel Carrera was arrested in France for the murder of a Gendarme.
- The ABC finale of Family Feud had the question "Tell me how old you think Ronald Reagan looks" and Richard Dawson guessed that he looked 74. At the time the episode aired — June 14, 1985 — Reagan actually was 74 years old.
- A much-criticized scene in Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" had Jayne place his beloved rifle Vera in a spacesuit in order to fire in space, with the given reason that it needs oxygen to fire. Bullet propellants contain all that's needed for combustion, meaning that normal guns should be able to fire in the airless environment of space. However, there actually is a valid reason for putting an atmosphere around it: exposure to hard vacuum can cause many types of non-specialized lubrication to flash-evaporate, causing the working parts to quickly wear out to inoperability.
- Another possibility is that the weapons has air pressure sensors that are used to adjust aim, which would be a great feature to have on a sniper rifle that is to be used on multiple planets.
- Rachel on Friends joins a book club where they discuss Jane Eyre and she doesn't bother to read the book. When another character asks Rachel what her favorite part was, she immediately outs herself by saying: "The part with... the robot?" In actual fact, the titular character in Jane Eyre has this quite memorable line to Mr. Rochester: "Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?"
- Some of the hidden gadgets the writers of Get Smart came up with for the agents of CONTROL were accidentally close to what was being developed for actual spies, to the point that the CIA called them in, demanding to know where the writers were getting their information.
- On Hannibal and the book it's based on, Will Graham's "empathy disorder", as it's called by the writers, is stated as being fictional, though on the same spectrum as autism and Asperger's Syndrome, but being characterized by an overreading of social cues that overwhelms him rather than the difficulty instinctively reading those cues that occur in real life. However, several newer theories of autism suggest that what's described in Will's case may in fact be true of more people on the autism spectrum than previously thought, something that both the original author Thomas Harris and series writer Bryan Fuller were likely unaware of, the former especially since the book was first published in 1981.
- An occasional Running Gag on Have I Got News for You is for Paul Merton to give an answer that he clearly doesn't intend to be serious, only for it to turn out to actually be correct.
- In a game of the original The Hollywood Squares, Buddy Hackett was asked which country has the most doctors proportional to population, to which he jokingly answered "The country with the most Jews! I would say Israel. You have a doctor in every family, it's a cousin, could be an uncle. Coupla specialists...". The contestant agreed, prompting Buddy to ask "You agree with that?" before host Peter Marshall revealed the correct answer was indeed Israel, much to Buddy's amusement.
- This
I've Got a Secret episode, which had Neil Armstrong's parents with the secret that their son had just been chosen as an astronaut. Host Garry Moore asks how they'd feel if their son became the first man on the Moon. - Little Britain: Unscrupulous hypnotist Kenny Craig hypnotises his grandmother into believing "cupboardy" is a real word, meaning "cupboard-like", in order to cheat at Scrabble. As it turns out, "cupboardy" is attested as far back as 1877, and it really does mean "cupboard-like" (in the sense of being small and fusty, like the inside of a cupboard).
- In an episode of One Foot in the Grave, Victor Meldrew tests positive for blood in the stool after eating blood pudding. Obviously, this is the sort of crazy contrivance that could only happen to a sitcom character who is the Chew Toy of a cruel universe... except that a couple of years after this episode aired, a study discovered that eating blood pudding really can and does cause false positives. Nowadays, they tell you not to eat black pudding before a colonoscopy for this reason.
- The Outer Limits (1995): "Gettysburg" (which aired in 2000) accurately predicted that the U.S. President would be an African-American man in 2013.
- In the Quantum Leap episode "All-Americans" (which aired in 1990), Al tells Sam that the Pittsburgh Steelers are down by three points in Super Bowl XXX. When Super Bowl XXX was played in real life in 1996, the Steelers were down by three points on two occasions during the game, which they ended up losing to the Dallas Cowboys.
- On The Real O'Neals, about teenager Kenny coming out as gay to his Catholic family, this happened because of the episodes being aired Out of Order. His mother Eileen would have varying levels of acceptance depending on the episode because of this. Critics noted that it made the depiction of Eileen's struggle to come to terms with having a gay son oddly realistic, as it comes off as a messy hodgepodge of conflicted emotions rather than the straight line to acceptance that had been intended.
- Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In made a joke in 1969 about the future news, setting California governor Ronald Reagan (who had run in the 1968 Republican primaries) as president of the U.S. in 1988.note
- In a 2007 episode of Scrubs, the Janitor, who is more than he appears to be, predicts that terrorist in hiding, Osama bin Laden will be found in Pakistan. Four years later, in 2011, US Navy Seals killed bin Laden while he was hiding in a safe house with his wives in Pakistan.
- Seaquest DSV had an episode where a character claims to have found something in the handwriting of the Greek poet Homer. This has to be incorrect, because it would be impossible for a blind man to write something that wasn't written down for many years. While it's not clear whether the writers knew it, there is a significant amount of scholarship debating whether Homer was actually blind and whether The Odyssey was written, as opposed to an oral narrative.
- The short-lived 1987 series Second Chance had a throwaway joke involving Muammar Gaddafi arriving at the Pearly Gates which listed the date of his death as July 29, 2011. Gadaffi ended up dying on October 20 of the same year, less than three months away from the "predicted" date. They also correctly predicted that Gaddafi would die from multiple gunshot wounds, although given that he was a dictator, that had a high chance of being true regardless.
- Seinfeld: In "The Conversion", the writers didn't know that the Latvian Orthodox Church was a real religion, since they were trying to make up a fictional one. They ended up receiving many thank-you letters from the church for bringing attention to the denomination.
- Stargate SG-1:
- In the episode "Orpheus", Jack O'Neill mans a sniper rifle during a rescue operation against a Goa'uld POW Camp. He aims for center of mass. Falls here because the showrunners' reasoning for doing that was because headshots are messy and they didn't want to have to argue with the network censors, but trained snipers in real life aim for center of mass because it's an easier target.
- In the episode "200", when Martin is giving another one of his derivative movie pitches (this time a thinly-veiled Star Trek parody), his version of Carter delivers the line "the singularity is about to explode". In the following scene when the team is criticizing the scene, the real Carter specifically mocks that line for being ridiculous. However, in real life, singularities gradually lose mass via Hawking radiation, and if the mass of a singularity becomes low enough, it will rapidly evaporate and release a tremendous amount of energy in a short period of time as it dies, much like a nuclear explosion or matter-antimatter annihilation.
- In Star Trek:
- From two Star Trek: The Original Series episodes where the Enterprise travels back in time to the contemporary 1960s:
- In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", it's mentioned that three astronauts are taking part in a manned moon shot on Wednesday. Two years after the episode aired, Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969 (a Wednesday) carrying three astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins).
- In "Assignment: Earth", Spock discusses how chaotic the time period is and mentions that "there will be an important assassination today". Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated six days after the episode aired. Also, the episode's plot involves stopping the U.S. from launching a nuclear weapon into space, which involves plenty of Saturn V Stock Footage. A Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 6 was launched on the same day that King died. The exact date the Enterprise traveled to is not stated, but the year was the year the episode aired.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- Jean-Luc Picard mentions that his brother Robert operates the family vineyard in La Barre, and keeps a couple of bottles around for special occasions. There is in fact a "Château Picard" in Real Life, though the real one is in Saint-Estèphe rather than La Barre.
- In-Universe example: episode called "Future Imperfect", in which Riker supposedly woke up sixteen years into his future, but it was actually a hologram created by a lonely alien orphan named Barash. As it turns out...
- ...Riker commented on how odd it felt to have a Ferengi helmsman. Nog became an ensign nine years later (and served as the helmsman of the Defiant in the final battle with the Dominion).
- ...Picard has been promoted to admiral. He would accept such a promotion over a decade later.
- ...Riker noted that there were more Klingons in Starfleet, notably a female that he passed on a deck. B'Elanna Torres, a female Klingon/human hybrid, worked as a chief engineer on a Starfleet vessel four years later.
- ...Picard tells Riker that peace talks with the Romulans began four years ago (from the future that Riker was in), and that Riker's ship was instrumental in doing so. It's just that, right down to the date.
- Though it's probably down to prop reuse rather than intended to mean anything in-universe, the future combadge will be the norm in one of the parallel universes seen in a later episode with Worf shifting between dimensions.
- The nurse in the sickbay Riker wakes up in will appear in the present, and come to be known as major recurring character Alyssa Ogawa.
- ...and finally, Troi is seen wearing a Starfleet uniform, although she didn't wear one in the show at the time. She started doing so two years later, during the same series no less.
- Star Trek: Voyager: In "Scientific Method", Voyager is studying a binary pulsar or double pulsar in the Delta Quadrant. In 2003, the first confirmed double pulsar, PSR J0737−3039, was discovered by astronomers.
- From two Star Trek: The Original Series episodes where the Enterprise travels back in time to the contemporary 1960s:
- In the 2007 Still Game episode "Hootenanny", Navid switches on the TV to This Morning and says "Hello Phil, you big poofter". Presenter, Phillip Schofield came out as gay in 2020.
- One Supernatural episode had Crowley, a demon born in the 17th century, mentioning his and Naomi's "time in Mesopotamia". This led to a lot of fan theories involving Crowley being older than he claims, while Word of God is that it was just a mistake... except that the name "Mesopotamia" was still sometimes used to refer to the area encompassing most of modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and parts of Syria until after the Second World War.
- An episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt features a fake sequel to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark called Spiderman Too: 2 Many Spidermen, in which dozens of Spider-Men swing around and fight it out to see who gets to be the main one. A lot of comic fans remarked that, while the writers probably didn't realize it, it's actually a very apt parody of The Clone Saga, an infamous Spider-Man arc that also featured multiple Spider-Men and the main plot revolving around which one was "the real one." In the years to come, two major Spider-Man films, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: No Way Home, involved multiple versions of the character interacting, themselves adaptations of the Spider-Verse concept that dates back to the 1990s.
- On an episode of Wheel of Fortune, host Pat Sajak joked that the show had only used the category Fictional Family eight times when it came up in one round. At the end of the show, the research department found out that it actually had been used only eight times. (However, a fan has found out that it was actually the category's 10th appearance.)
