History Main / WraparoundBackground

* ''VideoGame/LethalEnforcers'' has a level where a car chase happens alongside a never-ending block with "a lot of National Rubber Stamp Co.'s", as WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd points out in his Sega CD review.

It's rarely found in anime, where the tendency is to [[InactionSequence avoid long-running sequences]] to begin with, or to instead use an abstract background when doing so ([[SpeedStripes speed lines]], pastel versions of cityscapes, and other easy-to-draw things) in order to cut costs.

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* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' is guilty of this in nearly every episode, as are quite a few other Hanna-Barbera shows from the sixties and seventies. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_av-E6LHoU Cartoon Network promo]] [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] in which, after running across such a background, Barney Rubble taps Fred Flintstone on his shoulder using the "wraparound". Another promo is a music video of Music/SoulCoughing's "Circles," where Fred, Barney, and other Creator/HannaBarbera stars are literally "walking around in circles" when they get stuck in the Wraparound Background and try to get out. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-coASIjkQ Check it out]]!

** One especially blatant example occurs in one of the ''Flintstones'' {{Christmas Episode}}s, where Santa arrives at a party and Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm lead a large group of children across a stationary background to meet him. This large group is then followed by... Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. That's right, Wraparound [=FOREGROUND=].

* Parodied in one ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' episode, "A Room With A Moose". To keep his class distracted while he sends them to pocket dimension containing a moose, Zim puts them on a bus and has a wraparound background playing on the windows.
* Some of the really cheap [[Creator/DCComics DC Superhero cartoons]] are very guilty of this. The worst example is in a Flash short in which Flash and Kid Flash chase Zoom throughout the world, including a chase in Egypt in which they pass by thirty pyramids. Note: there are only three "True Pyramids", and about half-a-dozen failed attempts. It's not just the cheap DC toons, either - the Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse does it, too.

* In ''Film/TheMatrix'', if you watch closely, you can see the background wraparound as Neo is being driven to the Oracle for the first time. Like ''Speed Racer'' above, the scenery is the same on both sides. This is an intentional to show off how the Matrix is just a simulation.

This trope was lampshaded even ''before'' it saw widespread uses, with some older WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes having the camera zoom out for us to see the characters running on a treadmill powering the background, before the characters themselves notice and jump off the treadmill to continue the chase properly.

It's rarely found in anime, where the tendency is to [[InactionSequence avoid long running sequences]] to begin with, or to instead use an abstract background when doing so ([[SpeedStripes speed lines]], pastel versions of cityscapes, and other easy-to-draw things) in order to cut costs.

Today, largely a DiscreditedTrope. Compare CutAndPasteEnvironments for video games, and UnnaturallyLoopingLocation, for locations looping in-universe. Modern-day cases can be found in video games involving scenarios where the background is always moving--the development team must use this trope so the scenario can play out as long as needed for the player to resolve it.

* German "Bernd das Brot" is captured this way in the night loop of KiKa. He chides the gag as dated, he lampshades it...but in any case, he can't escape.

* There's a subtle visual lampshading of this trope in an episode of ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' in which Ed and Mustang are in a carriage with a wraparound background of factory buildings. When they get out of the carriage the perspective shot shows dozens of identical factory buildings receding to infinity.

* In the documentary ''Film/TheHollywoodClowns'', this was used in silent film, and one shot shows a chase taking place on what's almost a carousel with a background painted onto it, and another with a cowboy riding on a mechanical horse, with a wraparound backdrop like the one that would be seen decades later in the music video ''Shiny Happy People'' mentioned below.

* Music/{{REM}}'s music video for "[[https://youtu.be/YYOKMUTTDdA?t=148 Shiny Happy People]]" features an old man on a bicycle powering the soundstage's wraparound backdrop.

* This was PlayedForLaughs in ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]''. The SOS Brigade's film showed Mikuru running through the same shopping district several times in a [[PlayBoyBunny bunny suit]], growing increasingly exhausted in each take.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[Music/SoulCoughing I don't need to walk around in circles,\\
Walk around in circles, walk around in circles, walk around in...]]'']]

* Some of the really cheap [[Creator/DCComics DC Superhero cartoons]] are very guilty of this. The worst example is in a Flash short in which Flash and Kid Flash chase Zoom throughout the world, including a chase in Egypt in which they pass by thirty pyramids. Note: there are only three "True Pyramids", and about half-a-dozen failed attempts. It's not just the cheap DC toons, either - the Franchise/{{DCAU}} does it, too.

[[folder:Film]]

* This occurs several times in the first ''Franchise/{{Asterix}}'' movie ''WesternAnimation/AsterixTheGaul''.

->''"Hey, didn't we already pass that couch, chair, and lamp?"''

* ''Film/{{Werewolf}}'': The security guard's driving rampage passes the exact same gas station four or five times.

* Some theories suggest the universe itself may work like this, being finite and recursive. Which means if you went in the same direction long enough you would end up in the same place where you started.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' is guilty of this in nearly every episode, as are quite a few other Hanna-Barbera shows from the sixties and seventies. A Cartoon Network promo [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] in which, after running across such a background, Barney Rubble taps Fred Flintstone on his shoulder using the "wraparound". Another promo is a music video of Music/SoulCoughing's "Circles," where Fred, Barney, and other Creator/HannaBarbera stars are literally "walking around in circles" when they get stuck in the Wraparound Background and try to get out. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-coASIjkQ Check it out]]!
** Lampshaded again in this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_av-E6LHoU Cartoon Network ident]] for ''The Flintstones''.

if the cut between the end of the loop and the beginning isn't as smooth as it should be. In the industry, this is known as a "repeat pan."

* Parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'' episode "The Big Round Pink Sticky Fish Thingy". Norb tries to get away with the eponymous "fish thingy" (a rare sturgeon egg) after tricking Dagget into looking for it elsewhere. Norb finds himself going past [[NonSequiturEnvironment a repeating background of absurd images]], including a reproduction of "Washington Crossing The Delaware", and realizes he's running on a treadmill with a scrolling background hastily constructed by Dagget.