Basic Trope: A character appears, delivers An Aesop, and is never heard from again.
- Straight: Alice learns from her uncle Bob in a Very Special Episode that Drugs Are Bad, but Bob is never heard from again.
- Exaggerated: Bob isn't there even though the next episode is about Alice's family reunion.
- Downplayed: Bob is mentioned but not seen after he delivers his Aesop.
- Justified: Bob dies in the episode.
- Inverted: Bob is The Ghost up until he teaches his niece that Drugs Are Bad, then he becomes one of the main characters.
- Subverted: Bob shows up in the next episode.
- Double Subverted: But that was All Just a Dream.
- Parodied: Bob's last name is Moral.
- Zig Zagged: Bob delivers the drug Aesop, then is never heard from again, but four episodes later, he shows up, only that was All Just a Dream, but he does show up briefly at Alice's family reunion.
- Averted: Bob sticks around, or there are no Aesops, or Bob is never introduced.
- Enforced:
- The writers want Bob to die but they don't want to kill off anyone important.
- (Lighter version) The writers don't want Bob to stick around because he does drugs and they've just taught that Drugs Are Bad.
- Lampshaded: "My uncle taught me a valuable lesson, but where is he now?"
- Invoked: Charles tells Bob to leave and never come back.
- Exploited: Bob knows that he isn’t going to appear ever again, so at the end of the episode, he begs for the cast to never forget him. They don’t.
- Defied: Bob decides to stick around to make sure Alice remembers what he taught her.
- Discussed:Alice: Remember my uncle Bob, who taught me about drugs?
Charles: Vaguely, but it's a bit fuzzy.
Alice: Yeah, and where is he now? - Conversed: "Why do the writers Shoo Out the New Guy whenever said new guy is teaching a lesson?"
- Implied: Alice is hosting a birthday party and claims to invite "the entire family", yet Uncle Bob doesn't show up. The narrative does not make it clear whether he was invited or not.
- Deconstructed: Bob is not seen because his family are alienating him and he develops a psychological problem.
- Reconstructed: But The Shrink cures him and he still just doesn't feel like showing up.
- Played for Laughs: Bob appears, says "Drugs Are Bad, okay?", and disappears, in three seconds.
- Played for Drama: Bob dies in the episode and it's very Angsty.
- Played for Horror:
- Bob takes a batch of bad Krokodil and spends the last two minutes of his life twitching in agony in Alice's family's bathroom bleeding from a dozen wounds caused by his veins dissolving, and Alice sees it all.
- Bob is gunned down by pissed-off Mexican drug runners he owed money to and then they try to kill Alice (who got Bob's brain splattered all over her face) because she was a witness. Alice learns the lesson that Drugs Are Bad, all right, although she may end up going on antipsychotics for the rest of her life.
Back to Long-Lost Uncle Aesop
