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  • Adventure Time:
    • In the episode "The Creeps", Finn gets freaked out by this terrifying ghost-creature. By the end of the episode he assumes it was a prank by his friends, but they swear they don't know what he's talking about, and its never explained. It later turns out its a vision from a past life, trying to send him a message.
    • Also, the snail. Appears in every single episode as a "where's Waldo" type of deal. Then he gets possessed by the Big Bad and spends about two seasons trying to destroy all life.
    • Two major villains, The Lich and GOLB, first appear in brief glimpses before they become villains; one as a past conquest of the hero Billy, and one at the end of the concept episode "Puhoy".
    • In addition, a minor character introduced very early on in the series, Gunter, turns out to be yet another Big Bad much later down the line.
  • In the second season of Archer, Cheryl mentioned in passing that she had brother named Cecil. Cecil finally appeared in the fourth season as a major character in the two-part Season Finale.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
      • In the episode "The Storm", you see a younger girl standing close to Iroh and smiling as Zuko gets scarred in the Agni Kai. This lets you know two things: One, she's family, and two, she's gonna be trouble when she finally shows up. Ladies and gentlemen, you just met Princess Azula.
      • Even before that, she was the firebender in the opening.
      • Azula is just one of many examples; the show loves this trope. The Giant Lion-Turtle who finally unlocks the 11th-Hour Superpower for Aang was mentioned as early as the pilot, appeared several times as a statue, and showed up on a suspiciously conspicuous scroll in the ancient library.
      • The regular opening of the show has a bender for each element: The airbender is Aang; the waterbender is Pakku, who wouldn't show up until episode 18, the firebender is Azula, who wouldn't be seen until episode 12 and wasn't properly introduced until episodes 20 and 21; the earthbender was meant to be Toph, but Toph was changed into a small girl by the time she actually appeared (though the model was reused for the Boulder and Roku's earthbending teacher, Sud).
      • June appears as an apparently one-shot bounty hunter character, but becomes crucial to the plot in the finale, where she helps Zuko and the rest of the gang find Iroh and the Order of the White Lotus.
      • The two koi fish in the pond that Aang stared at when meditating into the Spirit World in part 1 of "The Seige of the North" turn out to be the Ocean and Moon Spirits, as Aang realizes when speaking with Koh.
    • In The Legend of Korra, Kuvira, the primary antagonist for the fourth and final season, actually makes several small cameos throughout Book 3 as a seemingly random Zaofu solider, though she was an important ally to Korra in the Book 3 finale.
  • One of the early episodes of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes briefly shows a female S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot that is working under Hawkeye and Black Widow. Much later, this agent becomes Mockingbird, who ends up playing a major role in the HYDRA Island episode and the Secret Invasion adaptation.
  • Batman: Mask of the Phantasm has a mobster that appears in the back of an old photo and is seen when Andrea and Bruce are about to talk to Andrea's father about the engagement. Turns out that's the man that would later become the Joker.
  • In the first season of Bob's Burgers, there was a brief scene where Tina mentioned having fantasies about Dr. Yap, the family's dentist. Dr. Yap finally appeared in the second season in a self-titled episode.
  • In Code Lyoko, William is introduced as the token "bad boy", played to be a romantic rival for Ulrich and not much else. However, in the third season finale, he's inducted into the Lyoko Warriors, gets possessed by XANA, and ends up being the enemy for the next season.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Leaky Leona appears briefly in the crowd of kids attending the DC's party in "Operation: Date" a whole season before getting her very own story ("Operation: Fountain"). The future fourth-grade president appears briefly in "Operation: Archive" trying to eat a candy bar and forgetting he's wearing a fishbowl helmet (he's on the moon).
    • Said president would Face–Heel Turn into an Expy of Darth Vader, courtesy of Father.
    • A handful of episodes have a very wimpy adult man show up in flashback. Come Operation Z.E.R.O., we find out that he's Father without the shadow suit.
  • In Danny Phantom, a girl named Valerie appears a couple of times. She gets maybe four lines of dialogue at max and seems to be nothing more than a standard Rich Bitch who wouldn't give the main character any time of day. Then her "debut" episode came. From that point on, she becomes the series' Anti-Hero.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy often makes references to Eddy's brother, but he never appeared himself and, with a few exceptions, had nothing to do with the plot. Then The Movie, which served as the Grand Finale to the series, came out, and Eddy's brother finally made an appearance. His constantly abusing Eddy in the past shaped Eddy's entire character, as the reason Eddy acted like a Jerkass was to emulate his brother.
  • Fillmore!: Several minor characters from earlier episodes later have guest starring roles later on, although whether the creators always meant to use them that way or not is unclear. For example, episode 2, "Test of the Tested," has Augie Salmon (who is put in witness protection as the main plotline of episode 24, "This Savior, a Snitch") as a minor suspect and also features background cameos from Lorranie Almaden (a major suspect in episode 7, "Nappers Never Sleep") and Maryanne Green (a cheerleader who witnesses the opening crime in episode 15, "The Shreds Fell Like Snowflakes", and is the best friend of the girl who goes missing in episode 22, "Codename Electric Haircut").
  • In Futurama, Leela's parents are in the background of a large crowd of Mutants in an episode some time before they were revealed in the plot, Nibbler's shadow appears in the first episode, and the Number 9 Guy from ITWGY appears at various points during the series...
    • The Number 9 Guy was actually planned to be important in a canned storyline before that major appearance.
    • Also, Amy Wong, Dr. Zoidberg, Hermes Conrad, Kif Kroker, Zapp Brannigan, Scruffy, and Smitty all flash past during the opening credits of the first episode. Smitty shows up with Url later in the episode, Amy, Zoidberg and Hermes don't show up until the second episode, Kif and Zapp don't show up until the fourth, and Scruffy doesn't appear until the sixth.
    • When Nibbler is introduced as a character, he just appears to be a pet for Leela and we're led to believe his eventual significance is to make fuel for the ship, as his bodily waste comes out as dark matter. But that's still not it. Not even close. He is an alien from a highly advanced ancient race that has been at war with the floating brains. And he was responsible for making Fry get frozen.
  • Garfield and Friends: In the U.S. Acres segment "Mystery Guest" we have Bo. He first appears as a character who can easily grow vegetables already in salad bar form, an opposite of Wade who in the episode has a subplot about not being able to grow vegetables, however when Orson's brothers steal the tractor that Roy has as the prize for guessing the Mystery Guest (Garfield) Bo stops the tractor by literally growing a stop sign.
  • In Disney's Gargoyles, a lot of characters would be introduced like this. For example, Elisa Maza appears for a few seconds in the first two episodes before being formally introduced in the third. Matt Bluestone can be seen driving the police chief Maria Chavez around, one episode before we're actually told who he is. The Archmage at first seems like a one-time villain to use in a flashback, until he returns with a vengeance. The uber example of this, however, has to be Vinnie, who is occasionally seen in the background having bad things happen to him thanks to the gargoyles, until he is focused on in an episode where he decides to get revenge by shoving a pie into Goliath's face.
    • Titania is first introduced as Anastasia Renard, Fox's mother, several episodes before she appears on screen, where she comments that Goliath earned her favor due to previous services rendered. About two episodes later, Anastasia and Titania are revealed to be the same person. Similarly, in his debut episode, Puck mentions that he works for humans, one in particular ("the human" in Demona's words), because they are fun. Nearly 40 episodes later he is revealed to be Xanatos' right-hand man, Owen Burnett, who had been a recurring minor character since episode two. Word of God insists that many of these developed around mid-season 2, mostly after the writing staff realized how much stuff said offhand came together with the newer stories.
    • And you have Brendan and Margot, two recurring victims of events involving the gargoyles. Margot then later becomes adviser for the NYPD Gargoyle Task Force when the clan is revealed to the world, and she is an Assistant District Attorney in the Goliath Chronicles.
  • At the end of the Gravity Falls opening theme, a strange triangle creature surrounded by seemingly random symbols will appear on your screen for a split second, and its likeness also appears in the background consistently throughout the show. The characters finally meet the being, who turns out to be a dream demon named Bill Cipher, towards the end of the first season (in the episode "Dreamscaperers"). The second and final season has the demon turn out to be the Big Bad.
    • The crazy old inventor, Fiddleford Mc Gucket, has played a huge role in the past, being the best friend of Stanford Pines, who is the twin brother of Stanley and the Author of the Journals.
  • Mildly subverted in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, with Bill Ken Sebben, Phil's twin brother. His introduction is so brief that it is even accompanied by the voice-over, "... and his twin brother, Bill, who was not worth mentioning up until this point." However, many episodes later he is mistaken for Phil, who supposedly died in the previous episode.
  • The Horrid Henry episode "Happy Birthday Peter!" plays this straight. Halfway through the episode Henry pulls out a magic hat, and a bunny comes out of it. Henry, Peter and Ralph later come in the kitchen to eat Peter's birthday cake only to find the bunny, who has eaten the cake already.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures lives off this trope. Villains who made first appearances in filler episodes of one season usually ended up becoming the Big Bad of later seasons.
  • Kim Possible has a few of these. When Ron Stoppable had a speech Dr. Vivian Porter was briefly seen in the audience; in the next episode she got a main supporting role. Also in that episode Justine Flanner was scene in another set of an audience, and she got a main supporting role several episodes later.
    • Warmonga appears in an early episode in the final season, and then becomes one of the main antagonists along with Warhawk in the Grand Finale, "Graduation".
  • In several Looney Tunes and Tex Avery MGM Cartoons, a silly little character who keeps walking by on every other scene is revealed at the end to be the hero.
  • A case very literal to the trope name happens in an episode of Metalocalypse. The video for the tourists approaching Mordhaus has a mention of how the place is guarded by snipers. The final scene reintroduces them opening fire at two Dethklok fans that were blackmailing the band.
  • Molly of Denali: In "King Run," an otter shows up to wait for the fish wheel to produce some free food. And also to taunt Suki. Later on, the same otter leads Suki and the kids to the fish wheel after it's washed downstream by a storm.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • "Mare in the Moon": When Twilight first arrives in Ponyville in the series premiere, a pink mare gasps and bolts. Turns out that she's bolted to organize a welcome-wagon party, and thus Twilight (and the audience) are introduced to Pinkie Pie, a member of the show's core cast, whose help Twilight will need to defeat Nightmare Moon.
    • "A Friend in Deed" introduces a donkey named Matilda early on. She turns out to be Cranky's lost love, and reintroducing the two is key to Pinkie solving the episode's plot.
    • "Keep Calm and Flutter On": Near the beginning, Discord casts a spell that causes a group of beavers to become mean-spirited. They later appear near the end and build a dam that causes Sweet Apple Acres to flood.
    • After fleeing at the end of her debut episode, Starlight Glimmer makes several fleeting background appearances throughout season 5. These tie together in "The Cutie Remark" two-parter. In "Amending Fences", she saw how one missed event soured Moondancer on the idea of friendship. In "What About Discord?", she overheard the suggestion about using time travel to witness an event that had been missed. Finally, in this episode, Twilight recounting how the Sonic Rainboom brought the Mane Six together gives Starlight the information she needs to potentially stop their friendship before it ever starts.
    • "Scare Master": Fluttershy is seen with a number of animal friends in the opening scene, who largely disappear from the rest of the episode but all show up later when they're revealed to have been part of how she put on her horror attraction: her birds float around in ghost sheets, Harry the bear dresses up as the cave monster, and Fuzzy Legs the spider makes the giant web that her friends get stuck to.
  • Over the Garden Wall: In "Schooltown Follies", an anguished schoolteacher named Miss Langtree, seemingly abandoned by her boyfriend Jimmy Brown, is greatly distressed to find that there is a gorilla on the loose wreaking havoc on the school. At the end of the episode, it is discovered that the wild gorilla was just Jimmy in a circus costume he couldn't get out of. He never meant to leave Langtree permanently, but went to join the circus so he could earn some money for a ring to propose to her with.
  • The Owl House: When reminiscing about her times playing grudgby in "Wing It Like Witches," Eda looks at an old photo of herself and a companion who's face is obscured; the picture is signed with an R. In "Hunting Palismen," the heads of the witches Covens appear and in "Eda's Requiem" R's name and face are revealed in full. They're revealed as Raine Whispers, the head of the Bard Coven, and Eda's ex.
  • Scooby-Doo, as a comedy/mystery series, makes heavy use of this trope; most renditions of the franchise following Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island often lampshade or avert it; but they'll still be surrounded by episodes that do it straight. Typically, if there's more than one suspect, whoever is the most polite and helpful is the crook.
  • The Simpsons has both a gunman and a gunwoman.
    • Sideshow Bob, who started out as simply being Krusty's assistant during Season 1 of the show, until a certain episode later in that season ("Krusty Gets Busted" Which featured Bob framing Krusty for robbing the Kwik-E-Mart in order to supplant the clown from his own show.) introduced the now-familiar mad criminal genius angle that's been Bob's forte from that point on.
    • Manjula first appeared as a little girl in Apu's flashback in the seventh season episode Much Apu About Nothing, in which Apu tells her that he is sorry that their arranged marriage will not happen, before he travels to the U.S. She comes back in The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons where Apu finds that he can't escape his arranged marriage with her.
    • In "Homer’s Barbershop Quartet", Barney initially appears as part of a random joke where he’s the only one watching the Be Sharps perform and throws flowers— among other things —at them. He eventually joins the group and replaces Chief Wiggum.
  • South Park: In the Coon and Friends saga: who'd have thunk that Mint-Berry Crunch, who came out of nowhere, had no real significance to the plot, and was a noticeably lame superhero, would wind up being the one to fix everything? Even Cartman's surprised.
    Cartman: (in disbelief) "Fucking Mint-Berry fucking Crunch..."
  • The frequent Early Bird Cameos in The Spectacular Spider-Man function this way for a viewer unfamiliar with the Spider-Man mythos, as ostensibly tertiary characters are developed into supporting cast and antagonists.
  • Done to great effect in Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the early 90's. Nearly every character who later becomes important as a villain or another hero appears first as an acquaintance of Parker. Dr. Connors, Felicia Hardy, etc. Eddie Brock in particular appears often in the first few episodes, and becomes Venom later in the season.
  • A minor example in Star vs. the Forces of Evil. The character Festivia the Fun, one of Star's ancestors, was first mentioned in side material alongside several other members of the royal family. While another ancestor of Star's (Eclipsa) has a major role in the series, Festivia and the others were just treated as extra information about Star's lineage, with Festivia just being Eclipsa's daughter. Until it's revealed halfway through the third season that Eclispa only had one daughter and that Festivia wasn't her.
  • Fans of Steven Universe correctly guessed that the girl who watches in awe as Greg's van goes by in the original opener would turn out to be Steven's love interest.
    • In episode 35, "Lion 3: Straight to Video", Steven discovers there's a pocket dimension within his pet Lion's mane. This dimension consists of a sea of grass with a hill holding a tree being the only other thing there. On this hill is a Mr. Universe t-shirt, a sword, a flag, a treasure chest, a bubbled Gem (which is the actual body of the alien race known as Gems, with the humanoid form around it being a light construct), and a video tape. It's not until 65 episodes later that the bubbled Gem comes back and is revealed to be the episode's titular "Bismuth".
  • In Teen Titans (2003), Trigon has a minor appearance in the first season episode "Nevermore". He shows up again in the fourth season as the Big Bad, commanding the loyalty of the previous Big Bad and preparing The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Porter C. Powell in Transformers: Animated is an accidental example. He was twice in the first season: the first is as one of Prometheus Black's financiers letting him know that his funding is being cut and he's not getting anymore test subjects, the second is as a random bystander when Professor Sumdac unveiled the improved Dinobots. In the first episode of season two we find out that he's Chairman of the Board of Sumdac Systems and proceeds to take over the company in Sumdac's absence and kick Sari out of her home for using money to try and find her dad, solidifying his role as both a Corrupt Corporate Executive and the most important human villain. However, his role and his position on the board only came into being when the show's staff members took a liking to his character design and bugged the head story editor into featuring him in a larger role.
  • The Venture Bros. practically runs on this trope. At the end of season one, The Monarch's cocoon base is destroyed. It is rebuilt surprisingly quickly at the start of season two, and this is handwaved by having Monarch say he used parts he stole from an unknown character named Sargent Hatred. At the end of the season, Hatred makes an appearance at The Monarch's wedding, but it's essentially a one-off gag. Shortly after that, in the episode that reveals Billy Quizboy and Phantom Limb's shared backstory, the shouty, red-haired NCO who demotes Brock to Operation: Rusty's Blanket is shown putting on a Guild of Calamitous Intent signet ring, revealing that he is, in fact, Sergeant Hatred, before he got his distinctive tattoos. Then in season three, Hatred becomes Dr. Venture's new arch-enemy, and it turns out his entire motivation for doing this is to get back at the Monarch for stealing from him (by stealing Monarch's nemesis.) This leads directly to Hatred becoming the new Venture bodyguard and a main character in season four.
    • Then there's Captain Sunshine, who is given a passing mention in season one (Monarch tells his mooks to "send the charred remains of Wonder Boy to his beloved Captain Sunshine.") More than two seasons later, that line of dialog spawns an entire episode, in which we meet Captain Sunshine, and see that the loss of Wonder Boy has caused him all sorts of mental problems.
    • Phantom Limb started off as a throwaway character attending the Venture yard sale, but he ended up coming back and becoming season two's Big Bad.
  • Wakfu
    • Amalia's older brother Armand was mentioned near the beginning of Season 1, and ultimately made his appearance when the Brotherhood of the Tofu head to Sadida late in the season to warn them of the coming attack by Nox.
    • Similarly, Sadlygrove's master Goultard was mentioned several times early on in Season 1 before making his appearance near the end of the season to help Dally earn Rubilax's respect (much to even Dally and Rubi's surprise, since they both thought he was dead).
    • Evagelyne's younger sister Cleophelia made an Early-Bird Cameo near the end of Eva's dream sequence in Episode 20 of Season 1 before she receives her first proper mention in Season 2, Episode 17, and makes her actual appearance as the Brotherhood of the Tofu's Sixth Ranger in the following episode.
    • In the same episode Cleo is finally mentioned by name, Ruel muses on a time when he was in love and "almost married", which Amalia and Yugo laugh off. Said estranged wife Arpagone makes her own appearance in the series proper in Season 3.
    • Ogrest is mentioned by name from near the start of the series, and makes a brief appearance during the Season 1 finale at the climax of Yugo and Nox's battle. He steps up to become the Big Bad of the OVAs set after Season 2.
  • W.I.T.C.H. has Elyon, who even introduced themselves alongside another character who would remain a background extra. The character's identity as Meridian royalty and the rightful heir to the throne serves as a focal point for the first season. Averted in the original comics, which made it very clear from issue one that said character would be very important.
    • In the second season finale, a character is introduced that would have served as this, but due to the series not getting renewed (and thus being unable to adapt the relevant story arc), caused their appearance to be a Continuity Cameo instead.
  • In Young Justice (2010), the audience is introduced to Barbara, a minor student at Artemis' school who has only one line of dialogue in the entire first season. At the start of season 2, she's joined the main cast as Batgirl.
    • There's also Karen Beecher (Bumblebee), Mal Duncan (Guardian II), and La'gaan (Lagoon Boy), all bit characters and classmates of the team, with less than six lines in the previous season who joined the team for the second.

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