Sequel Snark

This fall: Help! My Mummy's a Werewolf! 3: Another One?!

"God willing, we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money."

— Yogurt, Spaceballs

Comedies in general (and parodies in particular) often target popular genres and the conventions thereof. Of course, one of the many reasons these genres are so ripe for parody in the first place is because the conventions of them have been repeated to the point of ridiculousness by sequel after sequel after rip off after remake.

As a result, it's not uncommon for parodies of these genres to make a joke about having a sequel. Oddly enough, works that make these jokes rarely if ever end up actually having sequels made to them. This is probably because the jokes are inserted for the purpose of making fun of sequels, and actually creating one after that would be missing the point.

As part of Lucian of Samosata's 2nd-century True History, this trope is Older Than Feudalism.

Compare Ridiculous Future Sequelisation and Sequel Hook. Reboot Snark gives this treatment to remakes, reboots, and "reimaginings".

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The anime adaptation of Hetalia: Axis Powers uses this as a Running Gag with the phrase "To Be Continued... maybe..."
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt has a bizarre ending with about 6 completely unforeseen plot twists in the last 60 seconds. This was followed by a splash screen stating "TO BE CONTINUED IN SEASON 2!" Of course, there was no Season 2 planned, and like 95% of the show it was somewhere between outright parody and just messing with the fans. (Just to up the ante of the trolling, at one point we did get a splash image showing what that hypothetical season would have looked like, and it was drawn like an action movie poster, complete with Enemy Mine.)

Films — Animation

• Maggie Simpson's second (and currently last) word, spoken at the end of the credits in The Simpsons Movie, is "sequel?".
• Occurred in the outtake of Toy Story 2 when Stinky Pete said to the Barbie doll twins that he could get them a part in Toy Story 3 (which Barbie did play a substantial role in, 11 years later). Also just before the mentioned outtake above when Flik from A Bug's Life thought to Heimlich that they were shooting for A Bug's Life 2 what turns out wasn't, cut to Buzz Lightyear clearing the bushes.

Films — Live-Action

• Very common in the films of Mel Brooks:
  • History of the World Part I even implies a sequel in its title — apparently, a play on an old historian who intended to write a history of the world in two volumes but was executed before he could finish the second one. The film even includes a couple of "previews" of a putative Part II (including "Hitler on Ice" and "Jews in Space"). While the film was clearly made with no intention of a sequel, an actual History of the World Part II television series started development in 2021, decades after the first film.
  • In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the rapping Greek Chorus jokes about reappearing in Robin Hood 2, which doesn't exist and is not likely to any time soon.
  • In Spaceballs, Yogurt (played by Brooks himself) jokes that he and Lone Starr will meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money, as part of the character's Running Gag about merchandising. No sequel has been made, although there was a short-run animated series in the mid-2000s. Honestly, why would you make a sequel when there's a built-in reason to decry it as "the search for more money"? Brooks himself, in an interview with Clive James, vehemently denied that he would ever make Spaceballs 2 but joked that he might consider making Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2.
• Airplane II: The Sequel, in addition to demonstrating the trope in its own title, ended with the announcement "Coming Soon from Paramount Pictures: Airplane III" followed by William Shatner saying "Wait! That's exactly what they'll expect us to do!"
• Characters from Kevin Smith's movies will sometimes make jokes about sequels or about the type of films and the order they're made in: "No, first you do the safe picture, THEN you do the art picture, then sometimes you have to do the pay-back picture because your friend says you owe him!" Cue characters casting a glance at the camera.
• In the sports movie parody The Comebacks after winning the climactic football game and vowing to leave the sport forever, the main character is offered a job coaching basketball at "Sequel University". There have been no plans to make a sequel to The Comebacks, and considering its quality, that's probably a good thing.
• I'm Gonna Git You Sucka: During the climax, Mr. Big acknowledges that his character is an exploitation villain in a movie.
  Mr. Big: I'm sorry, boys, but there ain't gonna be a sequel to this one.
• The original Jackass movie pulls out a final skit after the credits, hinting at a sequel dubbed Son of Jackass, where the now-elderly cast runs a march of death while getting maimed and killed in increasingly gory ways. While there was a sequel, it wasn't called Son of Jackass. For that matter, in the credits of Jackass 2, Bam begs, "Please, God, don't let there be a Jackass Three!" There was. And then there was a fourth one, including two made-for-tv specials for Discovery Channel's "Shark Week".
• Kung Pow! Enter the Fist spent a good deal of time at the end of the movie showing a full trailer for the sequel, made up mostly of scenes deleted from the first movie. Naturally, it didn't happen (though a sequel is currently in Development Hell).
• Chris Tucker, in an outtake from Rush Hour 2, upon seeing a bad guy plummet to his death, declares: "Damn! He ain't gonna be in Rush Hour 3!"
• An odd case involves the Scary Movie franchise. The Tag Line of the first movie was "No mercy. No shame. No sequel.", but this didn't stop a sequel from being released the very next year (with the Tag Line "We Lied"). Similarly, the Tag Line of Scary Movie 3 ("Great Trilogies Come in Threes") didn't stop a fourth ("The fourth and final chapter of the trilogy"), and fifth movie from being released.
• Scream is a series of horror movies all about lampooning horror tropes, so naturally, given the horror genre's love of franchises, this comes in for ribbing.
  • The first film had Casey in the opening scene say that the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie was the only good one and that all the sequels sucked (doubling as a bit of a Take That! on the part of Wes Craven, who wrote and directed the first Nightmare). Later in the film, when Tatum runs into Ghostface in the garage, she mockingly tells him "no, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!"
  • Naturally, Scream's own sequels themselves dived in head-first. In the second film, a classroom debate has the students arguing over whether or not sequels are ever as good as the originals, and a later scene has Randy deliver a set of "rules" for surviving a horror sequel that mostly revolve around Sequel Escalation.
  • In the third film, Randy delivers a new set of rules for trilogy closers posthumously via videotape, which include how Anyone Can Die, how the killer is now supernatural, and how there will be Ass Pulls concerning characters' backstories.
  • In the fourth film, we see that the in-universe Stab series has descended into Franchise Zombie territory after Sidney Prescott sued to stop the producers from continuing to base the films off of the actual Ghostface murders. The fifth Stab film had an inane Time Travel storyline, and the seventh was a Real-World Episode where all the previous Stab films existed within that film's universe, both signs of a series that had run out of ideas. Much of the snark this time around, however, is directed at horror remakes, with the new killings inspired by the events of the first movie and the killer's motive a metaphor for remakes that try to overshadow and replace the originals in the public eye.
  • In the fifth film, the jabs are aimed at "re-quels", the film's term for Un-Reboots and Soft Reboots that try to take their series back to their earliest films, typically after either a Contested Sequel (which it purges from continuity) or a failed Continuity Reboot. A major plot point is that the eighth Stab movie was extremely divisive, with many fans declaring the series Ruined FOREVER as a result. It's said to have been directed by "the Knives Out guy," a thinly-veiled reference to the similarly contentious reception that The Last Jedi received in real life, and one scene has Richie watching a pair of rage-bait Caustic Critics on YouTube utterly eviscerate the film. Richie and Amber hated it so much that they staged the latest Ghostface killing spree over it in order to provide new source material for a film that will bring the Stab series back to its Based on a True Story roots.
• In the British slasher spoof Unmasked Part 25 (whose very title implies this trope), several snarky comments are made throughout regarding the probability of another sequel.
• In an outtake of the original ending for Little Shop of Horrors, as Seymour is about to be devoured by Audrey II, he shouts, "The sequel! What about the sequel?!"
• The Live-Action Adaptation of Japanese anime Yatterman ends with a phony preview for "next week's episode".
• Doctor Detroit ends with the stinger "Doctor Detroit will return in Doctor Detroit 2: The Wrath of Mom."
• The final exchange of the film Geek Charming is the two protagonists, Josh and Dylan, discussing whether or not Josh should make a sequel to his documentary. Dylan vetoes it because "sequels are never as good as the original."
• The end of 22 Jump Street has an extended gag in which increasingly outlandish and lazily made (judging from the posters) sequels are presented even past 29 Jump Street until it finally stops at ∞ Jump Street.
• Die Hard 2: John McClane's anguished rant about "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?" must surely qualify as this trope on a meta level.
• The sequels to the viral monster campfest Sharknado are Sharknado 2: The Second One; Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!; Sharknado: The 4th Awakens; Sharknado 5: Global Swarming; and the very aptly named The Last Sharknado: It's About Time.
• Bubba Ho Tep ends with a tease for a follow-up called Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires, in true grindhouse fashion. It actually was in production, but ultimately got cancelled.
• Be Cool's Happy Ending Override of Get Shorty starts with some of this. Chili Palmer's film Get Leo was a hit, so the studio demanded he make a sequel, which flopped so hard Chili is now thinking about leaving the film industry entirely. The conversation positively reeks of Biting-the-Hand Humor and is doubly hilarious because Be Cool flopped for much the same reasons Get Leo apparently did.
• Back to the Future:
  • In Part II, Marty's reaction to the holographic shark used to promote Jaws 19 is to remark that, even in 2015, the shark still looks fake.
  • In Part III, at the drive-in where the 1955 Doc sends Marty on his way to 1885, the movie marquee in the background lists three sequels. This was a Take That! by the writers against the complaint that Hollywood was making too many sequels at the time, visually showing this was always the case in the industry.
• The song "I Want It All" from High School Musical 3 has a minor example; one line mentions how "sequels pay better".
• Friday the 13th:
  • In Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, the film that brought Jason Voorhees Back from the Dead as a Revenant Zombie, the scene where the gravekeeper Martin is filling Jason's grave back up has him delivering the following line, with fairly obvious satirical intent given that this is the sixth Friday movie.
    Martin: Why'd they have to go and dig up Jason? <looks into the camera> Some folks have a strange idea of entertainment.
  • In Jason X, as Rowan tells the story of how the government eventually chose to have Jason cryogenically frozen once they realized he was unkillable and too dangerous to keep around, she notes that there were other members of the scientific team who wanted to exploit Jason instead.
    Rowan: But unfortunately, some people who were too smart for their own good thought the creature that couldn't be killed was simply too valuable to just file away. <smirks> In the end, it always comes down to money.

Live-Action TV

• One poster seen in Hell in The Good Place is Pirates of the Caribbean 6: The Haunted Crow's Nest Or Whatever, Who Gives A Crap?, "now playing everywhere forever".
• Mythic Quest:
  Ian: Theyv'e made, like, 20 of [Star Wars]. They're still makin' em.
  C.W.: Really? Why?
  Ian: Nobody knows.
• In Red Dwarf, when mail from Earth finally catches up with the Dwarfers ^note Three million years later, one item in the mail-pod is a video of Friday the 13th, Part 396

Literature

• As mentioned above, the ancient Greek satirist Lucian plugged a second installment of A True History, having ended the grandiose first installment (and only) after his purported shipwreck onto an island of little told importance.

Music

• The last line of Mitch Benn's "Macbeth (My Name Is)".
  "Shakespeare": So last you hear from me all things are bein' equal.
  Unless some dumb motherfucker decides to write a sequel.
• From "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Nature Trail to Hell":
  No, you'll never see hideous effects like these again!
  (Until we bring you "Nature Trail to Hell, Part 2".)

Puppet Shows

• The very first song of Muppets Most Wanted is about how they're doing a sequel to the last Muppet film. It includes a line about how the sequel's never quite as good, a spoken bridge about trying to find a half decent plot, among other things.
  Bunsen Honeydew: I don't mean to be a stickler, but this is the seventh sequel for our original motion picture.

Video Games

• Banjo-Kazooie:
  • The 100% completion ending of Banjo-Kazooie shows snapshots of the eponymous characters obtaining items inaccessible in the main game. When asked what they're for, Mumbo Jumbo tells them they'll have to wait for the sequel (which was made a few years later).
  • Playing it straight, after defeating her in Banjo-Tooie, Gruntilda exclaims that she'll have her revenge in Banjo-Threeie (which wasn't made for nearly a decade).
• In the Game Boy Advance port of Donkey Kong Country, after the Kongs jump overboard and King K. Rool sails off, Cranky Kong the Meta Guy remarks, "Call that an ending? Looks like a cheap stunt setting up the story for the sequel!" In the Hero Mode ending, he tells Diddy, "You have really surpassed yourself! Who knows? Maybe you'll make the sequel."
• In Duke Nukem Forever, Duke meets on a dying character and merrily quips that he won't be in the sequel. He showed up again in the DLC.
• EarthBound (1994) joked about a sequel, and then it took it 11 years to actually get made. And it was Japan-Only.
• In Eternal Darkness one of the insanity effects was an advert for a sequel appearing, implying that the game was over.
• A joke teaser for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots titled "Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser" depicts Raiden (the surprise protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty) traveling back in time to the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in order to assassinate Naked Snake and prevent his clone Solid Snake from existing so that he could be the main character of the fourth game. However, every time he warps back to the past, he always ends up arriving at an inconvenient moment and repeatedly makes an embarrassment of himself. Raiden gives up on this endeavor and goes back to the present, where his girlfriend Rosemary reassures him that even though he's not the main character of 4 anymore, "there's going to be a 5." Raiden eventually did get his own game again, even though it wasn't exactly Metal Gear Solid 5.
• The Monkey Island games made a Running Gag out of referring to the franchise as having five games, even when there were only three or four. This became a Noodle Incident in Tales, which apparently skipped it over.
• The very last line in No More Heroes is Sylvia lampshading the bizarre ending of the game with "Too bad there won't be a sequel!" This, of course, turned out to be a lie.
• In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Murfy leaves saying that he'll see us in Rayman 4. As of this writing, there has not been a game titled Rayman 4, or, indeed, any true sequel to Rayman 3.
• At one point in The Stinger to Kid Icarus: Uprising the final boss suggests that he may return if they make a sequel 25 years from now, a reference to the passage of time between the first NES game and Uprising.
• The Developer Room ending of Chrono Trigger has one of the members of the development team ask "Do you want a Chrono Trigger sequel? YES/NO". A sequel was made sometime later, with only a few members of the original team.
• In Spyro: Year of the Dragon, if you refuse to pay Moneybags for access to the ice rink in Icy Peak:
  Moneybags: What? You don't want to pay? What are you saving your money for, another sequel?

Web Original

• The "Despacito 2" meme, which became popular around mid-2018 and parodies Hollywood's obsession with sequels and the public's overblown reaction to them.^explanation Despacito was an extremely popular Spanish song released in 2017, garnering over 5 billion views on Youtube. The meme features "confirmations" about a sequel to the song, along with people treating these reveals like the second coming of Christ.

Web Videos

• In one Game Grumps video, Dan reacts with faux horror at the idea of Adam Sandler sequels: "That's My Boy 2: That's Also My Boy?!"

Western Animation

• The Simpsons:
  • "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs", the first episode after The Simpsons Movie ran in theaters, had Bart writing, "I will not wait 20 years to make another movie."
  • "The Yellow Badge of Cowardge", aired nearly seven years after the movie had a Couch Gag where the Simpsons hold a panel along with Matt Groening at the "San Diego Comic Fest". Comic Book Guy asks if there will be another Simpsons movie. Cut back to the stage, where only Maggie remains, sucking her pacifier in confusion.
  • "Kamp Krustier", a direct Sequel Episode to "Kamp Krusty" 24 seasons ago, joked about another followup called "Kamp Krustiest", 24 seasons later.
• Gravity Falls features an in-universe example in "Into the Bunker". A list of B-movies in The Stinger includes both "Help! My Mummy's a Werewolf" and "Help! My Mummy's a Werewolf 2: This Again".
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "The Chronicles of Meap", the ending features a promo for the next Meap episode, "Meapless in Seattle". Subverted in that, due to popular demand, they actually made "Meapless in Seattle", which itself includes a promo for "Meap Me in St. Louis".
  A long time ago in a studio in Burbank, California, a ragtag group of animators made a fake trailer for a Meap sequel they never intended to make. Unfortunately, everyone wanted to see that episode so the animators were forced to write it and incorporate all these seemingly unrelated scenes. I guess the joke was on them. We now present... Meapless in Seattle.
• Despite its name, the Rick and Morty episode "Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender" is the only one of its kind, as the first two Vindicators adventures happened offscreen. Rick later says that he'll see them again in "Vindicators 4", but all of the Vindicators besides Supernova die before the end of the episode.
• Men in Black: The Series: In "The Star System Syndrome", the worms write a movie treatment for MIB, which gets produced, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones... and the CGI version of the worms who look more like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than their actual selves. J complains that Will Smith looks nothing like himself.
  K: (sighs) We're going to have to neuralize all of Hollywood. AGAIN.
  J: So that's why they keep making the same movies over and over!
• The Patrick Star Show: In "Movie Stars", SpongeBob and Patrick go to see a Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy Spin-Off movie about their pets: in particular, episode 6, part 2. The title is so long that SpongeBob can barely say it in one breath.

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