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alt title(s): Put On The Bus; But I Must Go A character is written out of a series in such a way that they can easily be returned later, if the producers so choose. They are Put On A Bus.
A staple of the Prime Time Soap and particularly Soap Opera where casts are large and actor turnover is frequent. Conveniently, when such a character is brought back, it can be with a case of SORAS or The Other Darrin.
If the character doesn't return, this becomes a variant of a Brother Chuck. If there's obvious malice involved in the character's departure, then they've been Put On A Bus To Hell. Of course, there's always the chance of a Bus Crash, or dying on the bus.
The polar opposite of Dropped A Bridge On Him. Compare with Long Bus Trip, Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Misty/Kasumi in Pokémon, replaced by May/Haruka, who later got put on a bus to make way for Dawn/Hikari and, if an interview with the anime director is anything to go by, she'll be put on a bus too once the next Pokémon generation comes out.
- Brock experienced this a while back as well. Unfortunately, his replacement was poorly received so he was put on a bus himself and Brock was brought back with arguable success.
- This trope also applies to most of Ash's Pokémon. Some, like Squirtle and Charizard, are left with other trainers but will occasionally reappear, while others, like Pidgeot, Butterfree, Primeape, and Lapras, disappear entirely. In fact, Ash has made it a habit to leave behind all of his Pokémon except Pikachu in Professor Oak's lab when he travels to each new region.
- Also applies to many of Team Rocket's Pokémon, such as Weezing, Arbok, and Dustox.
- In the most recent season of Pokémon, Ambipom is literally put on a bus.
- Sailor Moon did this to Chibiusa whenever they sent her back to the future, though after the first time the reasoning was dubious. Mamoru was literally put on a vehicle for an entire season (a plane, not a bus), and whose fate remained unknown until the final showdown with the Big Bad. The Outer Senshi themselves have a habit of showing up for arbitrarily specific dangers, mostly so the writers can prune down the cast manageably.
- Tenma went overseas and essentially out of the mainstream storyline of School Rumble.
- In Mai-HiME, Akane Higurashi gets Put On A Bus after her boyfriend and MIP Kazuya is killed as a side-effect of Miyu destroying Akane's CHILD. She's shown twice afterwards in a particularly heartbreaking Heroic BSOD state, which she doesn't recover from until the end of the series... when Mashiro revives Kazuya and restores her powers just in time for her and the defeated HiMEs to join Mai and Mikoto in the last battle.
- It happened to her Mai-Otome counterpart, as well. She disappears after the midway point of the series to run off with her newfound lover, only to return for the final showdown.
- The military structure of the Space-Time Administration Bureau in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha makes this easy. Don't need someone for now? Just ship them off to a post that the current arc isn't focusing on. Need them back? Either reassign them to the main characters' branch or have their department help out on the current crisis.
- Happens quite a few times in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
- The most blatant example would be Fugo leaving Giorno's group in the middle of Part 5 (because he thought their mission was suicide) and never gets mentioned again. (The real life reason being that Araki made his Stand too cheap to write good fights for.)
- Joseph after leaving Morioh at the end of Part 4 is never so much as mentioned again. Now, seeing as he was about 80, it's safe to assume he's dead, but it's still pretty odd that it's never been brought up for a main character.
- Giorno is last shown at the end of Part 5 and was later stated by Word Of God to be in Florida during Part 6 after Pucci gained the Joestar birthmark. He should have been drawn to Pucci by the bloodline connection, but still doesn't appear.
- If this editor remembers correctly, he wasn't necessarily stated to be there, just implied: "Maybe he is already in Flordia??!!" or something similar. As for why the birthmark didn't bring them together, this editor also remembers some nonsense about how since Giorno had already "fulfilled his destiny," Pucci didn't draw Giorno to him. Or something to that effect.
- In Hitohira, Mugi's best friend Kayo announces out of the blue that she will be studying photography abroad—which is a bit strange, since she didn't even finish her high school education yet. No further details are given, not even where she will be going, and her disappearance is obviously used as a device to cause Mugi large amounts of angst.
- In the Card Captor Sakura anime, Meiling returns to Hong Kong just before the climax of the first arc. She makes guest appearances near the end of the second arc and in the movie epilogue.
- Daichi/Bastion Misawa of Yu-Gi-Oh GX got... er... spectacularly... Put On A Bus. He left the school (and series) in a parody of the original eureka moment... complete with streaking through campus. (Edited in the dub — he stripped his uniform, but left on his boxers.)
- Chocotto Sister has Ayano written out so seamlessly that Haruma's heartbreak over her seems rather pointless in the end.
- In "Neon Genesis Evangelion", when Pen-Pen literally gets put on a bus, you know that the show won't have any more comic relief.
Comics
- Between the late 1960s and his return in the early '80s, J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter of the Justice League, went off to find "New Mars" with the rest of the Martian people. This has since been retconned — along with the existence of other Martians in general.
- Cruelly, cruelly subverted in the New X-Men series post-House of M. As a result of House of M, most of the non A-list mutants lost their powers. Several of the characters in the series were getting ready to leave the school on an actual bus... and then it was blown up. A few supporting characters and a number of minor characters died.
Films
- The exit of Scarecrow in Batman Begins was pretty much putting him on a bus until the director could find out if he was reusable for the next installment.
- In the movie There Will Be Blood, the main character's son is Put On A Train by his own father (however, he does return).
- Major subversion: the end of the first Godfather movie has Michael pretending to put his brother in law Carlo on a bus, but he's actually just getting him into a car with his assassin.
- An offhand line in Hellboy II mentions that Myers, The Watson in the first film, has been reassigned to Antarctica.
- In the movie The Truman Show, about a man whose entire life is run by TV executives (see "Hell"), Truman's father supposedly dies. However, he eventually shows up again as an extra, and just as Truman recognizes him a pair of generic men in suits grab the old man and actually put him on a bus. Since Truman saw him, though, the producer decides to reveal that, the whole time, Hes Just Hiding.
- The ending of Ghost World.
Literature
- In Harry Potter, Cornelius Fudge is never seen again after the first chapter of the Sixth book, and the Dursleys are literally put on a bus (well, all right, a car, to be exact, but same thing) in the third chapter of the final book.
- As it's the final book, it doesn't really count as being "Put on a bus" since that technique is used so they can bring them back later.
- Cornelius Fudge does come back at the end of the sixth book to attend Dumbledore's funeral.
- This happens to many different characters in War And Peace, as there are so many of them, but the one who stands out most is Dolokhov, who is Put On A Bus after crushing Nikolai Rostov and stripping him of nearly forty thousand roubles, only to return later after having taken a level in Badass.
- Bean at the end of Shadow of the Giant is put on a relativistic spaceship with his genetically modified children so that they can live until the development of a cure.
- Father Callahan from the Stephen King novel Salem's Lot went off on a literal bus near the end of the book, and rather unexpectedly reappeared years later in the loosely related The Dark Tower series as a church pastor in another dimension. It is explained he spent a lot of the intervening time killing vampires.
- This is sort of a thin example, but the Great A'Tuin has not been mentioned in the Discworld books lately. It cannot actually disappear since it is part of the world, but if you only read the later books you would never suspect that the world was resting on the backs of four elephants standing on the shell of a turtle swimming through space, because that would be silly.
- Makes a certain amount of sense, since there Great A'Tuin is just a fact of life. How often does the fact that the Earth is round really come into play on a day to day basis?
- In A Song Of Ice And Fire the character Rickon gets put on a bus — or sent off with a wildling woman of dubious allegiance — at the end of Book 2 and hasn't been heard from since, mainly because the author found writing for a four-year-old difficult. It is anticipated he will return, possibly badassed up, with his psychotic direwolf, in later installments.
- In The Wheel of Time the character Hurin, having played a major role in events in Book 2, disappears at the start of Book 3, cheerfully announcing he's heading home to the Borderlands to let people know what's been going on. Whilst he hasn't appeared now for eight books, there's been a nice subversion of the trope since the Borderland rulers are later revealed to have mysteriously learned all about Rand al'Thor's adventures, raised a 200,000-strong army and marched south to find him, causing political chaos in the lands they pass through and forming an important subplot through the last four books in the series. Before he passed away Jordan later confirmed in an interview that Hurin's news was the catalyst for this and we will see him at the end of the series, presumably in the book Brandon Sanderson is finishing off.
Live Action TV
- This is the standard way for Law and Order franchises to write out characters, especially over the last several years. Dick Wolf is said to regret that Jill Hennessy's Claire Kincaid was Killed Off For Real, and thus could not be brought back.
- More examples from the Law and Order realm: Jamie goes back to criminal defense, Alex goes into Witness Protection, Abbie goes to work for the feds, Serena is fired, etc.
- Alex was then brought back in season ten of SVU; since Michaela McManus is not returning for the eleventh season, she may well stay, too.
- Boner on Growing Pains went off and joined the Marines. He never did return, and was never even mentioned again.
- Doctor Who
- In "The War Machines" Dodo is sent off to the country to recuperate after being brainwashed in London, and is never seen again.
- In "Age of Steel", Mickey decides to stay in the Alternate Universe and fight the Cybermen. He comes back in "Army of Ghosts", and, along with entire supporting cast, is put back on a bus in "Doomsday".
- Happens in the next season with the return of Rose.
- This is also the standard way that companions have exited the series throughout its existence. Exceptions include Katarina and Adric, who were killed off for real.
- Having reintroduced K-9 in the Poorly Disguised Pilot of The Sarah Jane Adventures, the entire first season was then obliged to trap him in a black hole, since the Robot Buddy's creator had sold a K-9 animated series elsewhere. (He gives a token appearance in the season finale and Comic Relief special though). Also, K9 is due to return for 6 episodes of season three.
- Then there's Sarah Jane herself, who left Doctor Who for a total of 30 years. Longest. Bus. Ride. Ever.
- The Sarah Jane Adventures is not immune either. Maria Jackson and her dad left for America as the former's actress was in her GCSE year and wanted to concentrate on her studies (However, the fact she appears in "Mark Of The Beserker Part 2" suggests that they have simply been downgraded to minor characters).
- Jack Harkness was put on a very short bus ride at the end of the first season of Torchwood. He runs off to catch the doctor and returns the next season in episode one.
- In Lost, the character of Walt had to be written out of the show because the actor who played him, 12-year-old Malcolm David Kelley, would have aged several years while his character would have only aged three months. Walt and his father Michael were written out of the show after Michael sold out his friends to get off the island at the end of season 2. However, Michael returned for Season 4, and Walt has made guest appearances in every season since.
- The OC actually cleverly subverted this (believe it or not). Everyone knew Mischa Barton was leaving the show at the end of the third season, and the episode had the plotline that she was going away to live with her dad, seemingly being Put On A Bus. However, on her way to the airport, she was in a car accident and died.
- Pete Ross on Smallville was sent off this way. Interesting because he was the show's sole prominent black character, and because, despite being a main character, he hasn't been missed by the viewers. This may be because Television Without Pity calls him "Product Placement Pete" for his annoying tendency to shill stuff.
- Interesting. This troper hadn't noticed it while Pete was a regular, but the episode in which he visits is basically an hour-long commercial for Stride gum.
- Don't forget Whitney Fordman, who is literally Put On A Bus at the end of Season One.
- Lana Lang was Put On A Bus at the end of season seven. And there was much rejoicing.
- Rimmer went off to become the next "Ace Rimmer"(What A Guy!)in series seven of Red Dwarf. The Rimmer seen in series eight is a clone created via nanotechnology, and the original Rimmer was never heard from again.
- Andie of Dawsons Creek was written off the show by sending her to Italy. She returned only once, for the gang's high school graduation.
- Similarly Kid Genius Janice on Head of the Class, who between seasons 3 and 4 got a scholarship to MIT, but showed up in the series finale because she forgot to pick up her high school diploma.
- 7th Heaven was famous for this, writing characters off by putting them on buses (sometimes literally) to New York (Mary, Matt), college (Simon), etc., only to continue the characters' plotlines offscreen.
- Kate in Slings And Arrows is put on a limo to Hawaii at the beginning of the second season.
- Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG-1 gets put on a bus by being promoted out of the SGC (this was so actor Richard Dean Anderson could spend more time with his family). He still made a few appearances later in the series and in its spinoff Stargate Atlantis. General Hammond also gets put on a bus the same way.
- Jonas Quinn (yes, that Jonas Quinn) was put on a bus after season 6 (he returned to his home planet) and was never mentioned again at all after season 7.
- When Peter MacNicol did a stint on 24, his NUMB3RS character was Put On A Space Station.
- Sara Sidle of CSI was recently Put On A Bus, leaving with the possibility that she'll return if actress Jorja Fox and CBS change their minds.
- Jorja Fox and show execs virtually guaranteed in interviews that she would be popping in for a guest spot sometime in the near future - and did just that in season 9.
- And Grissom followed her off of CSI, too. Since both roles have been Jonas Quinn'd by new rookie CSIs it's probably safe to assume that the bus will not be returning anytime soon.
- In the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Tommy was depowered and sent off, as per the arc of his Japanese counterpart, though Dragon Ranger died. When Haim Saban ordered an extra half-season of footage, Tommy came back, a change probably also required by the ratings.
- Similarly the original Red, Yellow, and Black Rangers; Jason, Trini, and Zack, were sent to a peace conference. The joke among the cast and crew of the show was that if you ever saw in a script that your character was going to a peace conference, you were never coming back. Jason did, however, becoming the Sixth Ranger of Power Rangers Zeo and making a couple more guest appearances. Trini, sadly, Died On A Bus.
- Also note that in this case, the three actors had been in the process of leaving the show since around the first appearance of the White Ranger- at first they continued to play themselves outside of fight scenes, with their Ranger forms voiced by Other Darrins, then they left the show entirely and were given excuses not to be around, or played by body doubles or Stock Footage from earlier episodes, while the replacement Rangers were introduced, before finally being written out.
- Oz of Buffy The Vampire Slayer put himself on a bus... twice in one season.
- Buffy puts herself on a bus at the end of season 2, setting up her self-exile at the beginning of season 3.
- Also in Buffy, Faith gets put in a coma, then later rides the back of a truck (which is almost a bus).
- Cordy and Angel shared a bus to Angel.
- After Tony Head expressed a desire to spend more time with his family in England, Giles was put on a plane in Season 6. The character's flimsy reasoning for this departure was Buffy's need to grow into a stronger, more stable person and Slayer, and he cited his presence, the fact that she often relied on him, as a hindrance to her self-reliance. Given it was his job as her Watcher to let her rely on him and the mountain of trauma she had recently suffered, many fans let out a collective "Huh?!" at his decision to abandon her "for her own good". This departure did allow him to be a Big Damn Hero at the end of the season, but Buffy and the team would suffer for his absence for the rest of the series. The character played a somewhat larger part in Season 7, but he was still constantly on and off the bus in the form of searching the world for Potential Slayers, leaving the rest of the team to try (and fail) to carry on effectively in his absence.
- While it doesn't quite fit in with this trope, seeing as how it's the last episode and all, it's interesting to note that the final episode of Buffy ends with all the surviving heroes being literally put on a bus. They leave Sunnydale for good on an actual bus after The Hellmouth's collapse causes the entire town to fall into a giant sink hole. Indeed, Joss Whedon loves to play with tropes.
- This is the fate of the Number Three Cylons in the Battlestar Galactica remake. After a Number Three Cylon disobeys the consensus of the other Cylon models, it's decided that the Number Three models are inherently flawed. The Number Threes are then "boxed up" and their memories and consciousnesses downloaded into cold storage indefinitely. At least one number three is "unboxed" later on in season 4.
- In East Enders characters are regularly Put On A Train and go to live in Manchester or Spain so that the writers can bring them back. That's not to say that dead characters can't be brought back anyway, such as Den, who was shot and drowned 14 years previously. Sometimes they're Put On A London Black Cab, or (in the case of Official Couple Kat and Alfie in 2005) Put On A Ford Capri.
- The second season of Charmed introduced Jenny Gordon, neighbor to the main characters. Beyond living with her hot uncle (a convenient love interest for Piper), she was apparently important enough to get mentioned in the opening credits, but moved away to live with her parents before she actually did anything important, while her uncle remained a recurring character throughout the rest of the season (after season two, he also inexplicably disappeared).
- In Babylon 5, commander Ivanova was put on a bus (given her own ship to command) when the actress left the show. She appeared a year later in the last episode, which was however filmed as the last episode of the season when the actress was still part of the cast.
- Well before this, the station's original commander, Jeffrey Sinclair, is put on a bus at the beginning of the second season by being reassigned to a diplomatic post on the Minbari homeworld, and is replaced by Captain Sheridan. Sinclair reappears to make guest appearances every now and then during the remainder of the show's run.
- Chano Amengual was put on a bus on Barney Miller, but viewers weren't told for several seasons. Following his disappearance, no one mentioned him until a few years later when a new detective was transferred to the precinct to replace him, causing Barney to marvel at how long it took the department to send anyone.
- Also Barney's wife Liz, who had been unseen on the show for several seasons after being played by Barbara Barrie in Seasons 1-2. (The producers actually came up with the separation storyline as a way of bringing Barrie, whose character had been deemed as not "working" in the context of the show, back before the viewers.)
- On Greys Anatomy, Addison Montgomery was put in a convertible to LA so that she could rediscover herself in her spin-off, Private Practice. Theoretically she was going to involve herself in more mature things than hospital Love Dodecahedrons, but whether that actually happened is doubtful.
- The first time Katey Segal became pregnant during her time on Married With Children, the producers worked it into the storyline, only to have to backtrack when Segal tragically suffered a miscarriage. When Segal became pregnant again later in the show's run, the producers had Peg set out to try and reunite her parents, and she was only shown speaking to the other characters in situations that only showed the top part of her body and didn't require her to do anything strenuous. Once Segal was ready to return to work, Peg returned home, much to Al's chagrin.
- This happens to Foreman, Cameron and Chase in the 3rd season finale of House. Foreman later returns in season 4, while Cameron and Chase make cameo appearances. Interestingly enough, Amber is literally put on a bus in the 4th season finale, although this probably doesn't qualify for tolerably obvious reasons...
- In Blues Clues, to help its impressionable young viewers cope more easily with the resignation of host Steve Burns, he supposedly leaves to go to college and is quickly replaced by a brother, Joe.
- In the last season of The Avengers, writers dealt with Tara King's uselessness by putting her in drugged sleep for an entire episode and sending her on vacation for another (in which she was replaced by a much more interesting character).
- After her actress' departure from the show at the end of the third series, 'Allo Allo! opted to explain why Maria had suddenly vanished when she was trapped in the prison camp for British soldiers with the majority of rest of the primary cast by explaining that she had attempted to escape by disguising herself as a package and getting mailed out. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough stamps and was as such "returned to Switzerland."
- First-Season character of the series Big Wolf On Campus Stacy Hansen is a prime example of this trope. It's revealed at the start of the Second Season that she had left for college. Though, she never did return and was never mentioned again. This is somewhat based on real life in that the actress who played Stacy really DID go to college.
- Stan in On the Buses departs the series to drive buses Oop North. So he literally was Put On A Bus.
- Alexis Meade of Ugly Betty was recently put on a bus. Reportedly, Rebecca Romijn didn't like the way the character was being written.
- Also the fate of Ashley Jensen's character Christina.
- Heroes does this a lot. Season 2 did it to the spouses and children of every married character, plus Matt's FBI partner. DL had a bridge dropped on him instead, though, in one of the show's biggest wall bangers. Season 3 alone has:
- Sent Molly off to India with a passing throwaway line
- Removed Maya's power and had her depart for... somewhere, although she is later shown to be living in an apartment (likely in America, given how Mohinder tried to visit her).
- Micah was after one episode, apparently not in the least curious after a woman identical to his dead mother appears and asks for his help. He returns in Volume 4, though....
- The one with the best execution was Claude's departure in Season 1: it's built into his character since he's an Invisible Man. After HRG and the Haitian attack him and Peter, he turns invisible and runs out of Peter's apartment and he hasn't been seen on screen since. But he did play a major role in one of the recent online graphic novels and they've subtly alluded to him a few times onscreen, so his fans are pretty sure that the writers are bringing him back.
- One of the most notorious and self-influential incidents in Beverly Hills 90210's narrative history was putting Brenda Walsh, the show's powerhouse, on a plane to London after actress Shannen Doherty was fired for repeated unprofessional behaviour. Brenda was only supposed to stay in London for a year, but never reappeared in the original show. Charmed, the next Aaron Spelling product that Doherty starred in, went one further when the actress was dismissed (again) and killed off her character.
- In Hustle season 5, Danny and Stacie are revealed to have gone to America after season 4, hence their absence from the gang. Though, given that the gang was in the US at the end of season 4 (more or less) this might be more a matter of "didn't catch the bus home".
- News Radio sent Catherine on a
bus plane to London in Season 4.
- In MacGyver, Pete Thornton casually comments at the start of one episode that Nikki Carpenter (The Poochie of the series) is on assignment in South America. She is never heard from or mentioned again in the show.
- An NCIS example is Gerald, Ducky's first assistant who is shot in the shoulder, requiring several months of rehab. And just as he is about to come back, he is kidnapped by the same man who shot him. He never returns and we don't find out what happened to him.
- In The Wire, Omar is literally put on the bus by McNulty at the end of Season 1 for the express purpose of him lying low in New York City after he helps the police bring down a major drugs ring. This was seen as a move to allow the writers to bring Omar back when they needed him.
- In Blakes Seven the entire cast is scattered after having to bail out of their ship in the opening episode of Season 3 after a massive space battle involving thousands of ships. Most of the regular cast reunite, apart from Blake and Jenna. The characters spend much of the next two years trying to find Blake, but Jenna gets forgotten about. When Blake does return in the series finale, he says Jenna is dead. However, in the closing moments of the show he reveals that all of his actions in the finale were a morass of deception and lies to see if his old crewmembers were still loyal to his ideals and test their reactions, so the fate of Jenna is very much left up in the air. If she was still alive, that makes her the sole regular castmember of the show not to be killed off (with the possible exception of ORAC, who vanishes before the final scene).
- There was some ambiguity about all the deaths except that of Blake himself (the actor requested that it be clear that Blake be decisively killed), making it something of a Bolivian Army Ending.
- Requisite X-Files example: David Duchovny decided to leave after its seventh season. Like Gillian Anderson's pregnancy six years before, this decision changed the entire future of the show: Mulder went on the run, Agents Doggett and Reyes joined the cast, and Mulder and Scully finally get their happy ending (until the movie six years later, when they're both dragged out of hiding to help the FBI, which Scully really doesn't want to do...)
- This trope ought to be named Mandyville, after The West Wing's Mandy Hampton, whose portraying actress displeased the producers enough that she vanished from the show literally overnight (the gap between the first and second seasons is a matter of minutes, during which the character vanishes and is never referred to again).
- In That 70s Show, main characters Eric Forman and Kelso are both written out due to their respective actors working on other projects. Eric leaves in the seventh season finale to teach in Africa; Kelso remains among the cast for the first few episodes of Season 8 before leaving for Chicago. Both make guest appearances in the finale episode.
- The Dukes Of Hazzard: When stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat held out in a salary dispute pior to season 5, their characters of Bo and Luke were (rather infamously) Jonas Quinned by cousins Coy and Vance. Once Schneider and Wopat resolved their contracts, Bo and Luke were brought back to the show while Coy and Vance were quickly and unceremoniously shown the door.
- Sheriff Roscoe was also Put On A Bus (back to the Police Academy) for a few episodes in season 2 due to James Best having his own dispute with producers. Ironically, one of the two men who replaced him at the time was the actual Other Darrin, Dick Sargeant.
- All In The Family: Henry Jefferson was devised as a sort of "placeholder" character to stand in for George Jefferson until actor Sherman Helmsey (who had been offered the role of George but wasn't available due to his commitment to the Broadway show Purlie) finally became available in season 4. Once that happened, Henry "moved upstate" and was never heard from again, either on All in the Family or the spinoff The Jeffersons.
- On M*A*S*H, Henry, Trapper, Frank, and Radar were all discharged and Put On A Plane back to the states. In Henry's case, of course, the plane crashed.
- On Spooks, Zoe Reynolds is exiled to Chile.
- When actress Lynda Day George was pregnant during Season 7 of Mission: Impossible, her character was said to be working "deep cover" in Europe. A character played by Barbara Anderson filled in for several episodes.
Radio
- The character of Trillian got a one-sentence send-off at the start of the second series of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Thanks to a Reset Button, she was brought back for the three much-belated series made after Douglas Adams' death.
Video Games
- In the end of Half-Life: Opposing Force, G-Man stores the main character, Adrian Sheppard away for an undisclosed period of time. This allows for reinstating the character in any future story, even if it is in a completely different era.
- Similarly, Gordon Freeman, the hero of the original Half-Life, is put away in the end of Half-Life, and in the end of Half-Life 2.
- Although he swiftly returns for another couple of episodes, with a third on the way...
- One could almost say the player is put on a bus at the end of the first game, as a great many significant events occur in the game's narrative between the first and second game, but events in the Half-Life universe are only ever viewed through Gordon's eyes(well, mostly.)
- Played near-literally yet reversed in Mega Man Zero 4. The ones who are written off the script are the majority of the Red Shirt Army La Resistance, while the main characters now travel around by a truck convoy, which acts as the new Player Headquarters for the game.
Web Animation
- Spoofed on Homestar Runner with the Show Within A Show Cheat Commandos. In the short "The Next Epi-snowed", voice actor Crack Stuntman gets bossy and uncooperative while recording an episode of Cheat Commandos, and director A. Chimendez eventually gives up and has Gunhaver sent "on a secret mission to the moon for an undisclosed period of time", replacing him with Author Avatar Agent Chimendez. It's also mentioned that "when [Gunhaver] gets back, his voice might have changed."
Web Comics
- Happens a lot in Sluggy Freelance due to the sheer number of characters it's introduced over its long run. Characters very rarely stay on the bus, however. Even if it takes over a decade, it seems like every character who isn't explicitely killed off is bound to make a second appearance.
- Kevin And Kell has done this with several of its supporting characters over time. Candice and her family were once nearly as important to the strip as Kevin and Kell themselves, but eventually she was outsourced to New Zealand and hasn't been heard from since. The Ursuls, of whom Marjorie was Kell's best friend for the early years of the strip, moved to Florida and new best friend Aby moved into their house - they've also not been seen since. Lindesfarne's best friend Tammy Tussock and her husband Ray moved to a lighthouse, and while they were important to one more storyline after the move, they have been MIA since. Then again, longtime readers of Bill Holbrook's two syndicated strips should be well aware of his tendency to rotate the cast - both of those strips have managed almost a complete cast turnover, including their main characters.
- Done to pretty much every character at the end of Boy Meets Boy, to make room for two side characters who got their own spinoff in Friendly Hostility.
- In 8-Bit Theater, Dragoon was teleported to the Moon and has not been seen since.
- In Questionable Content, it looked like this was going to happen to Steve. Turns out, he's back. However, the side characters Dave and Meena caught that bus. Also, Ellen, Amir, and Natasha.
- In Darths And Droids, one of the players, Sally, wants her character Jar Jar to be hit by a bus. In the next strip she is playing Guitar Hero, and has mostly been playing bit part NPCs.
Western Animation
- The Earth king in Avatar The Last Airbender goes off to explore the world with his pet bear between Seasons 2 and 3. More details on why are given in a comic bridging the gap between seasons 2 and 3.
- One could say the entire story starts with the Avatar himself coming off the bus. When the Fire Nation starts the war, he goes and gets stuck in a glacier...and comes out 100 years later when the war is finally starting to take over the world and trying to stop it would be more impressive.
- Justice League features a perfect example of this trope in its second season finale when Hawkgirl resigns from the Justice League and flies off to go soul searching. Sure enough, she returns at the end of season three when she discovers Solomon Grundy may have come back from the dead.
- More permanently done with A.M.A.Z.O, who's still out on the edge of the universe trying to figure out how to beat Solomon Grundy.
- Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law takes this to the extreme by having the character, Phil Sebben, not only be Put On A Bus, but be hit by it as well.
- You should see what he does when he's done being hit by it.
- You mean hijacking the bus and driving it back to Sebben & Sebben? In reverse?
- Ha ha ha! Bus.
- William Dunbar of Code Lyoko gets put on a very interesting (and painful) sort of bus. After being attacked and possessed by XANA on his first mission as a Lyoko Warrior, he's effectively put out of commission for the entire season. He does return, but only just in time for the series to end two episodes later. There's no real explanation as to why this happened, though the conspiracy theorist within this troper suspects it was because he was... erm... disliked a bit.
- Transformers Animated has a rather weird use of the bus. At the end of the third season opener "Transwarped" Sari is shut down by Ratchet in a desperate attempt to keep her over-upgraded body from destroying both herself and the city. Not only did she not appear for the next four episodes, no one even seemed to think about her — including her own father.
- As of Human Error she's back off the bus, now taller, more mature, and able to make blue balls of floating electric... stuff. The coma hasn't been mentioned again.
- Ultra Magnus was also put on the bus in season 3. If by 'bus' we mean the ICU.
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