Robot Chicken
Hilarious in Hindsight in this series. open/close all folders
Star Wars
- When an Imperial Officer tries to rally his fleet to attack the rebels in retaliation for blowing up the Death Star and killing Emperor Palpatine, one of his peers shoots him down, citing that those two events means the Empire lost and they all have to throw down their guns and go home. While Star Wars Legends already turned this into a case of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome (where the Imperial Remnant was a fractured but still real threat), this trope hits even harder now that The Force Awakens has come out, where the First Order basically takes the Empire's place not twenty years after the events of Jedi.
- A Revenge of the Sith skit has Palpatine lament that if Anakin had saved him before he was disfigured by Force lightning, he "could have gotten laid one more time". The Rise of Skywalker revealed that Rey was his granddaughter, (more specifically Rey's father was the cloned "son" of Palpatine).
- All those skits of Boba Fett surviving the Sarlacc? While they may have been a Shout-Out to his escape in the Legends EU, now he's been announced to appear on season two of The Mandalorian. Even better, when he finally regains his armor the resulting action scene actually lines up well with the skit
where Boba took out a bunch of Ewoks yelling that he is back from the dead. Even the Framing Device of the Nerd playing with his action figures seemed to fit after Robert Rodriguez revealed that the animatic for the scene consisted partially of him making his own figures fight each other. - As Palpatine descends to his doom, he decides to make amends with Jar Jar and apologizes for manipulating him into giving him the emergency powers which did a great deal of paving the way for the Empire. Jar Jar responds by laughing at the idea that Palpatine manipulated him, and dons a Sith cloak and laughs maniacally. In the days leading up to the release of The Force Awakens, an incredibly detailed theory suggesting that Jar Jar was the true evil Sith antagonist of the franchise reached huge Memetic Mutation standards.
- The "Gary the Stormtrooper" skit has Gary falling prey to Obi-Wan's Jedi Mind Trick because of the stress of his job. In the From a Certain Point of View short story "Bump", it's revealed that the Stormtrooper Gary was standing in for was susceptible to the Mind Trick's influence because of the stress of his job.
- After Lando calls Boba Fett's Slave I ship a "beauty", he admits that the name makes him feel uncomfortable; neither men even say it aloud. In 2021, Disney would begin phasing out the name, "Slave I".
- The post-credits scene of the third special has Boba Fett take over Jabba's palace, dance in his underwear a la Risky Business, and threaten to return to the movies in "Episode Siete". The real Boba would take over Jabba's palace in the post-credits scene of the Mandalorian Season 2 finale, and appear almost naked whenever The Book of Boba Fett, the first season of which has seven episodes, shows him either recuperating in or emerging from a bacta chamber.
- The Book of Boba Fett features Max Rebo performing at a Mos Espa cantina, even though some viewers thought he died in the explosion of Jabba's barge. Max don't never miss no gig, man! The sixth episode even has Max conspicuously absent at the Sanctuary Cantina the night that the Pykes bomb the joint, meaning that Max has escaped yet another death!
- Episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett has Din Djarin utter the word "wizard" after taking his new ship for a test flight, proving that Vader did bring the term back!
Other examples
- A season 4 sketch featured Dakota Fanning challenging Triple H to a wrestling match in John Cena's place, claiming she was only at the event to promote her new movie. The sketch debuted on an episode of WWE Raw, where Seth Green had placed himself into a tag team match with Cena & Triple as his partners, when he was only at the show to promote Robot Chicken as one of Raw's first Guest Hosts (celebrities appearing on the show in order to promote their latest works, or because they were Local Sporting Heroes).
- The "Transporter 3" sketch, released a few years before the actual Transporter 3 came out.
- Roger Ebert sees "Schindler's List 2: Schindler's Pissed" where Liam Neeson goes on a violent rampage against Nazis. This was well before the movie Taken, and all the other later similar movies Neeson has been in.
- How about the "3 Fast 3 Furious" sketch? There's now ten movies in the franchise.
- The "Grand Theft City" sketch, where Mario and Luigi go to Vice City. In late 2016, the Nintendo Switch was announced, and among the games included in the presentation was Super Mario Odyssey, in which Mario explores an American-style metropolis.
- This sketch is made even funnier by the fact that Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, which includes a remastered version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, would be released on the Switch in 2021. This also makes Vice City one of the first three Grand Theft Auto titles to be ported to a Nintendo home console.
- The same sketch also showed a maximum of five wanted stars instead of six like all the 3D Grand Theft Auto titles that were released up to that point. Grand Theft Auto V, released years later, would also have a maximum of five wanted stars.
- The "Lizzooney Tizzunes" sketch, where Daffy says that he and Bugs are going to appeal to the demographic by being more hip. The following decade after this sketch premiered, The Looney Tunes Show came out, where Bugs and Daffy are roommates living in a suburb and plenty of pop culture references and adult jokes are in there.
- In the GPS Dating sketch, Scarlett Johansson provides the voice of the navigation system attempting a relationship with her driver. This was seven years before she provided the voice of another A.I. attempting a relationship with a human male.
- In the season 6 Thomas & Friends sketch "Blow Some Steam", Harold the helicopter flies through a railway tunnel, and his blades hit the side of the tunnel wall, causing him to crash and explode. A year later, a Thomas episode aired where Harold did go through a railway tunnel, and his blades hit the wall (though with less deadly results).
- All the sketches relating to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become this when you find out that not only is Seth Green voicing Leonardo, but shortly after it was announced, there was a sketch with Greg Cipes reprising his role as Michelangelo.
- In a sketch spoofing The Fast and the Furious, there's a moment where Batman threatens to give Robin a "bat bitchslap" when he chastises him for cheating. Later on, an image of Batman slapping Robin became a popular meme.
- The Lance Armstrong sketch where he dreams of becoming president of France if he wins the latest Tour De France, which ended in him cheating by kicking over a fellow biker. A few years after the sketch, it was revealed that he took steroids.
- The "Hall of Memory" sketch is pretty much Dark Souls in all but name.
- The "1776" sketch, a parody of 300, becomes funnier with the announcement that Zack Snyder wants to do a film about George Washington.
- One episode has two meth cooks killing a blue-colored crystal alien and smoking his shattered remains. This aired several months before the premiere of Breaking Bad, in which its protagonist would become famous for blue crystal meth.
- The season 8 episode "Ants on a Hamburger" has a multipart sketch involving Sadako/Samara finally getting around to having The Tape digitally transferred over to DVD and then uploading it to YouTube. The episode came out in November of 2015, about fifteen months before Rings hit cinemas.
- There is a sketch where Grover of Sesame Street meets up with Hannah Horvath from Girls and it's made clear that their lifestyles don't mesh; the finale of Girls has Hannah giving birth to a baby boy named Grover and having to make some adjustments to function as a mother to him.
- A spoof of Disney's Beauty and the Beast has the "Be Our Guest" numbernote get interrupted by a singing chamberpot, who reminds Belle that she'll need him after dinner. Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast (2017) almost added a living toilet, as shown in the deleted scenes.
- The "Children of Lego Men" skit had a gag with a Lego soldier forgetting to put on his pants. Cut to 2014 and The LEGO Movie... "Honey, where are my paaaaaaaaaants?"
- Famine Pony from the "Apocalypse Pony" skit strongly resembles Princess Luna.
- The Harry Potter spoof "Wizards in Heat" has Dumbledore portrayed as African-American, to the initial confusion of Harry. Come Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and an HP character usually portrayed as white — Hermione, in this case — really does become played by someone of African descent.
- When Harry questions why Dumbledore is suddenly a Jive Turkey, the explanation given before glossing over the question entirely is "I'm a different actor in every movie!" Amusing in light of the later film adaptations, where Michael Gambon remained the current-day Dumbledore's actor for the rest of the series.
- Seems like "The Muppets Murder Mystery" brought some form of inspiration to Brian Henson, because now he's made his own movie about somebody killing puppets.
- Mark Hamill voices Chucky in a couple of their sketches. It's a lot more amusing now considering Hamill served as the official voice of Chucky in the 2019 reboot. Even more hilarious is that one of those sketches has him vaguely remembering what Chucky's origin is, as the reboot has a different backstory for him.
- Even more hilarious is that Mark Hamill claims he forgot he already played him.
- The "Welcome to the Golf Jam" skit has Tiger Woods staring in a Space Jam-style movie with characters from DIC called Golf Jam. Just a couple years later, Space Jam director Joe Pytka revealed plans for a sequel that would've included Woods in a leading role.
- The Teen Titans/Beavis and Butt-Head crossover skit has Robin admonish Beavis and Butt-Head for their immaturity and irresponsibility as superheroes. Said foible would later become one of the main complaints about Teen Titans Go!.
- In a Looper parody, Old Elmer Fudd laments that they don't let him have a gun in the future, something that is indeed the case in modern iterations of the character such as Looney Tunes Cartoons. It could also be Harsher in Hindsight for those who are against this change.
- In a sketch where Man-E-Faces goes into an acting career, one of his projects is a buddy cop movie named Monster Cop where he stars, wearing his monster face, alongside Will Smith as his partner. The sketch aired three years before Bright, an actual buddy cop movie with a similar premise, where Will Smith is partnered up with an orc.
- One sketch was about several movies based on board games like "Hungry Hungry Hippos", "Chutes and Ladders", and "Slip 'N Slide". Years later, there was a movie loosely based on a board game released; Battleship, and it appears that Hollywood thought that a Hungry Hungry Hippos movie was a good idea.
- One sketch features Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold until a money shark decides to eat him. Cue the reboot, where one of the villains summons forth a money shark to eat everyone, Scrooge included.
- The He-Man sketch where He-Man is accidentally killed has Evil-Lyn wanting to change her ways and says that she will be called Good-Lyn. Come Masters of the Universe: Revelation, and Evil-Lyn teams up with the heroes to save the magic in Eternia, although she and Beast Man return to Skeletor's side when the latter comes back into the picture.
- One Jurassic Park segment from 2012 is about two female velociraptors creating a male velociraptor. Come Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom six years later, we have a male dinosaur, the Indoraptor.
- The segments with Pinky and the Brain are funny to watch as one of the Pinky & the Brain segments in Animaniacs (2020) features an Art Shift giving the show a style similar to Robot Chicken.
- In a sketch spoofing World War Z with LEGO and Shoddy Knockoff Products, a minifigure gets lured into a KRE-O attack by Bumblebee, due to the lack of official LEGO Transformers sets. In 2022, LEGO unveiled their own Optimus Prime.
- A sketch from season 6 (aired in 2012) involved people trying to do a musical based on The Avengers (2012) with hilariously cheap sets and narmy songs. Come Hawkeye (2021), where an in-universe musical based on the events happening in The Avengers (2012) does exist, followed by Disney California Adventure presenting a longer version of the musical to real-world Marvel fans. It's almost just as cheap and cringeworthy as in the sketch.
- A Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers sketch has Gadget going around bottomless causing the guys to do something else including Zipper who was doing it right on Gadget which would become prophetic as Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) has Gadget and Zipper hooking up and even having children.
- The Bitch Pudding special has her encounter Captain Ersatz of The Smurfs named Shlorps.
- In a Christmas-themed skit parodying Dragon Ball Z, the episode starts with Gohan asking Goku if he could kick an Angel's ass, which Goku proudly proclaims he could. Come Dragon Ball Super, this boast becomes pretty funny as Whis, an Angel who serves the God of Destruction Beerus, can effortlessly defeat Goku.
- The "Halo Kong" skit has Spartans use grappling hooks to navigate through the first level of Donkey Kong. Come Halo Infinite, where the gauntlet-mounted Grappleshot is introduced as a new addition to Master Chief's arsenal.
- One sketch features "Macho Man" Randy Savage facing off against Kool-Aid Man in a wrestling match. DEATH BATTLE! would also pit these two characters against each other 15 years later.
- A Hocus Pocus spoof requires the Sanderson Sisters to fly without their missing brooms, resulting in Mary (voiced by her original actress, Kathy Najimy) suggesting they ride Roombas instead. In Hocus Pocus 2, Mary indeed flies on Roombas.
- One Scooby-Doo segment involves Lisbeth Salander filling in for Velma while she's in the hospital. Lisbeth and Daphne end up kissing. Come the 2023 Velma series, and Daphne and Velma kiss.
- The "Heimlich Begins" sketch features a Practically Joker villain called the Choker. Years later, a one-shot taking place in the Just Imagine continuity titled Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee was published, with Batman's story having him fight a villain called the Choker who was also blatantly based off of the Joker.
- The "Dilbert Hard with a Vengeance" sketch deals with Dilbert dealing with Scott Adams trying to fix his reputation after making racially-charged comments online. In 2023, multiple newspapers would drop Dilbert from their funny pages after Adams declared black people a "hate group" that white people should "get the hell away from".Dilbert: (pointing a gun at Adams) Buddy, there's not enough reader good will in the world to shield you from your own whack-ass.
- In a sketch about a Behind the Music profile on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Janice mentions that she got hepatitis C from sleeping with Tommy Lee. In the first episode of The Muppets Mayhem, Lee himself made a guest appearance.
- In "The Wild Thornberrys: Wild as F***," a Discovery Channel executive considers no longer televising Nigel's documentaries, which he finds clashing with the channel's trashy reality shows. When Warner Bros. Discovery rebranded HBO Max as Max, including a larger selection of reality shows from Discovery's library, several Robot Chicken episodes disappeared. However, they didn't stay gone from Max for good.
- The "Inside Out 2" sketch is about brand new emotions joining the fray. Come the actual sequel's announcement, and the premise is about brand new emotions joining the fray such as Anxiety.
