History Main / NotSoCrazyAnymore

* The first scene of ''Series/GetSmart'' (the 1965 series) involves the ''absolutely crazy'' idea of a telephone ringing in the audience at a concert.

* ''Radio/TheShadow'' regularly included story lines intended to be as shocking and outlandish to the listening audience as possible; story lines such as... a town being afflicted with drug addicts (opium, from which the street drug known as heroin would later be derived), a politician being snagged in a bribery scandal (decades before Abscam), identity theft (with deceased people's passports rather than Social Security numbers) and counterfeit money plaguing a city. There was also a story about a shell-shocked veteran taking to shooting people with a silenced sniper rifle from high buildings, anticipating several all-too-real incidents of crime and terrorism by decades.

* In a 1998 installment of the web humor column ''[[http://www.bookofratings.com/ The Book of Ratings]]'', the "Mystical Creatures" rating contains a sarcastic quip about vampires going the way of the unicorn: "If it hasn't happened already, in a few months look for airbrushed posters of sad vampires in Wal-Marts everywhere, and in a decade look for female college students saying to each other "Were you into vampires when you were nine? Me too! We were such dorks!" Yeah, um, [[Literature/{{Twilight}} about that...]]

* One installment of ''WesternAnimation/DocMcStuffins: Toy Hospital'' revolves around a toy who doesn't want to be taken to the toy hospital because she's afraid she'll get sick there. The other toys reassure her that she has nothing to worry about, as a hospital is a place to help you get better, not someplace where you'll get sick. However, in the real world there's been a deepening public health crisis involving antibiotic-resistant infections people have picked up while staying in hospitals. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital-acquired_infection The Other Wiki]] has an article on the subject. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are as many as 90,000 deaths a year from diseases acquired in hospitals. Given this, adult viewers in the know could easily see this toy's concern as being very, very legitimate, especially given that they're taking her to a hospital she hasn't been able to personally check into see if it's up to standard, one that is run by, well, a 6-year-old kid. This has also caused recurring panics in Greece, with an alarming number of staff members, patients, and visitors dying from hospital-acquired infections, causing sections of certain hospitals to temporarily shut down while decontamination efforts were ongoing.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E8TheChase The Chase]]" begins with Ian bopping to Music/TheBeatles on the timescanner. When he jokingly remarks that future girl Vicki has probably never heard of the Beatles she is indignant: "Of ''course'' I know about them. I've been to their Memorial Theatre in Liverpool. But I never knew they played classical music!" The idea of a memorial concert hall doesn't seem so silly in the 21st century.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Chase" begins with Ian bopping to the Beatles on the timescanner. When he jokingly remarks that future girl Vicki has probably never heard of the Beatles she is indignant: "Of ''course'' I know about them. I've been to their Memorial Theatre in Liverpool. But I never knew they played classical music!" The idea of a memorial concert hall doesn't seem so silly in the 21st century.

* The ''Series/RowanAndMartinsLaughIn'' news segment featured news items twenty years in the future. In a late 1968, show they reported (for the lols, obviously) that Ronald Reagan would be president and that the Berlin Wall would come down. Twenty years later, give or take a month or so, guess what happened.

** Come to think of it, the titular GreatBigBookOfEverything from ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' series predicted both TheOtherWiki and ebook readers. About the only thing it got wrong was the Guide being a single-purpose device rather than software installed on a portable computer, although there ''have'' been occasional attempts at making a dedicated "Wikipedia browser" device using obsolete PDA and e-reader parts, and it must be said that even with current technology a handheld device storing a complete offline copy of what's implied to be a truly ''enormous'' amount of data wouldn't have the storage space to be useful for much else anyway.[[note]]To put it in perspective, a complete data dump of every English-language article on TheOtherWiki at time of writing is about 200GB including the browser app. Most tablets don't even have half that much internal storage even before being imaged with an operating system.[[/note]] The prop used in the TV series even looks a bit like the early laptop and handheld computers that would become available in the late 80s and early 90s.

* The ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story, "The Laughing Fish", where Joker tries to patent a fish, sounded utterly ridiculous when first released and still did even in the 1990s, when it was adapted by the animated series. But today, Joker's demand for a patent doesn't seem that unreasonable at all, considering that many corporations routinely use genetic mapping to patent animal species as a matter of course.

** The show unintentionally predicted Disney buying Fox in the 1998 episode "When You Dish Upon a Star".
** The FlashForward episode "Bart to the Future" from 2000 had Lisa Simpson becoming President of the United States, struggling to resolve problems caused by her predecessor, Donald Trump. In 2016, Trump was elected president, defying all expectations. [[http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/17/simpsons-president-trump-prediction-was-meant-as-warning-to-us Writer Dan Greaney said in an interview]] that he'd chosen Trump as president because it "just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane."

* Egon saying "Print is dead" in ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}''.

* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' is an AlternateTimeline where the existence of costumed heroes and superheroes have a dramatic impact on the 20th century. One of the "Golden Age" heroes, Hollis Mason, a.k.a. Nite Owl, publicly retires and says he's going to run a car repair shop because it's simpler and car engines aren't going to radically change anytime soon. Dr. Manhattan, whose powers include matter manipulation, casually states that he is working on improving battery quality and synthesizing massive quantities of lithium and in the next few years (remember it's the '60s) electric cars make their way on the market. The idea of electric cars was seen as every bit as fantastical as genetic engineering and Dr. Manhattan himself.

* ''Film/{{Heathers}}'' got made in the first place only because the idea of white, mid- to upper class high-schoolers killing each other was considered patently absurd. Post-UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}}, the movie turns into DudeNotFunny.

* ''Radio/TheShadow'' regularly included story lines intended to be as shocking and outlandish to the listening audience as possible; story lines such as... a town being afflicted with drug addicts (opium, from which the street drug known as heroin would later be derived), a politician being snagged in a bribery scandal (decades before Abscam), and counterfeit money plaguing a city. There was also a story about a shell-shocked veteran taking to shooting people with a silenced sniper rifle from high buildings, anticipating several all-too-real incidents of crime and terrorism by decades.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'': InUniverse, Doc Brown ridicules the notion that Ronald Reagan will become President of the United States, which would've been far-fetched in the 1950s but becomes an intentional bit of irony for viewers from the 1980s.

* George Orwell's ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' seemed rather absurd when it was published in 1949 and for many decades after. Now, not so much.

[[folder:Comicbooks]]

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'' graphic novel ''Recap/TintinDestinationMoon'', Captain Haddock spends a lot of time ranting about how crazy Professor Calculus is for seriously attempting to send people to the moon. To anyone reading the book after 1969, Haddock is the one who sounds like a raving maniac.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Film/{{Heathers}}'' got made in the first place only because the idea of white, mid to upper class high schoolers killing each other was considered patently absurd. Post-UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}}, the movie turns into DudeNotFunny.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'': InUniverse, Doc Brown ridicules the notion that Ronald Reagan will become President of the United States, which would've been farfetched in the 1950s but becomes an intentional bit of irony for viewers from the 1980s.

* The novel ''Literature/ATaleOfTimeCity'' features a 42nd-century treat called a "butter-pie."[[note]][[Music/PaulMcCartney Butter pie? The butter wouldn't melt so I put it in a pie...]][[/note]] It is essentially a chilled cake on a stick, with a warm, buttery center. Not long after the book's writing, the "lava cake" became popular--a cake with a solid exterior and molten interior. The only true difference between the two is the stick.
* A Creator/JulesVerne example is the posthumously-published ''Literature/ParisInTheTwentiethCentury''. Part of the reason the publisher rejected it whilst Verne was alive was that it was too unbelievable. Many modern commentators love to point out, however, just how accurate and resonant it is. (At the same time, others point out the things he missed, as well as the unbelievably pessimistic outlook, part of the reason the book got rejected in the first place!)
* In the third ''{{Literature/Deathworld}}'' book (published in 1968), when Jason talks about how rich the uranium ore on another planet is, Meta says that a certain detail he mentions is obvious nonsense, and Jason admits he exaggerates. The detail is... that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor the ore can be used in reactors unrefined]].
* One of the tales of Creator/HansChristianAndersen was entitled "In A Thousand Years". In it a couple on an aircraft visit the ruins of Europe. Do remember this was a long time before anything like an aircraft existed, and reads so naturally, some editions with drawings include a picture of a couple in a modern airplane seat with this story.
* In the 1946 short story "A Logic Named Joe" by Murray Leinster, the network of "logics" (i.e. computers) suddenly develops greatly enhanced information processing abilities and starts providing information on everything from how to cure hangovers to how to commit [[ThePerfectCrime an untraceable murder]], which threatens to create problems much like those associated with the darker aspects of the modern Internet.
** On a lighter side, one popular use of "logics" is to rewatch past episodes of TV shows and/or cartoons. Video streaming, anyone?

* How about a ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' sketch about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK92NYwBMts furries]]? Which was a parody of documentaries at the time about homosexuality using a 'ridiculous' invented alternative subculture.
* ''Series/NotTheNineOClockNews'' later did the same thing but with fat (or [[InsistentTerminology stout]]) people as an oppressed group, and much the same defictionalisation has since happened with the obesity debate.
* Back in the day, ''Series/TheTwoRonnies'' did a sketch about the absolutely ludicrous idea of people paying money for bottled water, and paying large amounts for 'expensive' bottles of water. WhoWouldBeStupidEnough? Bottle water was also popular for centuries during the Enlightenment and Victorian eras. This was mainly because city water supplies were also as bad as dehydration. It was only around the time that water purifcation was done on a large scale that bottled water fell out of popularity. Or in other words, someone drinking from a public fountain is an example of this.

* The 2004 ''Series/JonathanCreek'' episode "Gorgon's Wood" had David Renwick satirise {{Reality Show}}s by imagining the most grotesquely unpleasant and gratuitous progamme for Adam Klaus to be stuck on. In ''Animal Farm'', Klaus literally has to live like a pig. A mere five years later, BBC Three created ''My Life as an Animal''.

* Music/TomLehrer wrote a song called "George Murphy" in 1965, including it on his album ''Music/ThatWasTheYearThatWas''; it's a satiric mockery of an ex-showtunes star turned (Republican) senator and his statements about importing cheap Mexican labor to displace American farmers. Fifteen years later UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan was president and illegal immigration "taking jobs from Americans" had become a hot topic in American politics.
** In fact the lyrics to "George Murphy" include the opening lines:
---> Hollywood's often tried to mix\\

To ... [laugh] ''Ronald Reagan''?!

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* An even more extreme example is a 1920 British newspaper cartoon which considers the impact of mobile phones, which had just been announced as a possibility in the future, and has them going off during weddings, in theatres, etc.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Originals]]

** The FlashForward episode "Bart to the Future" from 2000 had Lisa Simpson becoming President of the United States, struggling to resolve problems caused by her predecessor, Donald Trump. In 2016, Trump was elected president, defying all expectations. [[http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/17/simpsons-president-trump-prediction-was-meant-as-warning-to-us Writer Dan Greaney said in an interview]] that he'd chosen Trump as president because it "just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane".
* One installment of ''WesternAnimation/DocMcStuffins: Toy Hospital'' revolves around a toy who doesn't want to be taken to the toy hospital because she's afraid she'll get sick there. The other toys reassure her that she has nothing to worry about, as a hospital is a place to help you get better, not someplace where you'll get sick. However, in the real world there's been a deepening public health crisis involving antibiotic-resistant infections people have picked up while staying in hospitals. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital-acquired_infection The Other Wiki]] has an article on the subject. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are as many as 90,000 deaths a year from diseases acquired in hospitals. Given this, adult viewers in the know could easily see this toy's concern as being very, very legitimate, especially given that they're taking her to a hospital she hasn't been able to personally check into see if it's up to standard, one that is run by, well, a 6-year-old kid.
** This has also caused recurring panics in Greece, with an alarming number of staff members, patients, and visitors dying from hospital-acquired infections, causing sections of certain hospitals to temporarily shut down while decontamination efforts were ongoing.

Showbusiness and politics\\

* One installment of ''WesternAnimation/DocMcStuffins: Toy Hospital'' revolves around a toy who doesn't want to be taken to the toy hospital because she's afraid she'll get sick there. The other toys reassure her that she has nothing to worry about, as a hospital is a place to help you get better, not someplace where you'll get sick. However, in the real world there's been a deepening public health crisis involving antibiotic-resistant infections people have picked up while staying in hospitals. In fact, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital-acquired_infection Wikipedia]] has an entry regarding the subject and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are as many as 90,000 deaths a year from diseases acquired in hospitals. Given this, adult viewers in the know could easily see this toy's concern as being very, very legitimate, especially given that they're taking her to a hospital she hasn't been able to personally check into see if it's up to standard, one that is run by, well, a 6-year-old kid.

* The first scene of ''Series/GetSmart'' (the 1965 series) involves the ''absolutely crazy'' idea of a phone going off at a concert.

* ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'' (1997): Despite the fact that [[TechnologyMarchesOn this movie doesn't mention the Internet at all]], this film paints a surprisingly accurate picture of mass media scaremongering tactics today. Elliot Carver's line "Words are the new weapons; satellites, the new artillery" seemed plain hammy when first released, but the rise of 24-hour news networks, TV political pundits, increasingly polarized news judgments, and electronic warfare make it harder than ever. In addition to that, the major reason why the villain launches his whole scheme is because China refused to allow him access into their markets, similar to how many Western companies are either banned or must submit to heavy Chinese regulation to be able to operate within China today.

* Back in the day, ''Sereis/TheTwoRonnies'' did a sketch about the absolutely ludicrous idea of people paying money for bottled water, and paying large amounts for 'expensive' bottles of water. WhoWouldBeStupidEnough? Bottle water was also popular for centuries during the Enlightenment and Victorian eras. This was mainly because city water supplies were also as bad as dehydration. It was only around the time that water purifcation was done on a large scale that bottled water fell out of popularity. Or in other words, someone drinking from a public fountain is an example of this.

* The novel ''Literature/ATaleOfTimeCity'' features a 42nd-century treat called a "butter-pie."[[note]][[Creator/PaulMcCartney Butter pie? The butter wouldn't melt so I put it in a pie...]][[/note]] It is essentially a chilled cake on a stick, with a warm, buttery center. Not long after the book's writing, the "lava cake" became popular--a cake with a solid exterior and molten interior. The only true difference between the two is the stick.

* On ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'', Dick Dastardly had essentially the World War I version of the cell phone. The short "Ice See You" implies that it's a ''video'' cell phone.

** This is largely an example of CultureClash -- the character was from a Muslim background in which alcohol was proscribed and coffee filled a similar social niche.

* ''Anime/{{Gasaraki}}'' managed to do this ''three'' times, first with the US invading a Middle Eastern country similar to Iraq on the basis of them having weapons of mass destruction (which turned out never to have existed), the use of unmanned flying drones becoming popular for use in the army, and the idea that the US could be nearly crippled by a global economic collapse. The only thing that hasn't happened yet is the MiniMecha for use in urban combat — and we're not that far from them either: many developed nations have the active research programs about them.

** Except that he wanted to patent ''all'' the fish, regardless of species, because he had put Joker-grins on them. If he had tried to patent a species he created through genetic engineering, he might have had a case - at least if he wasn't a wanted criminal. This way, it's just crazy.
*** It's actually ''less'' crazy because then it's just a product of a process instead of a new species. The fact that we might consider it ''more'' crazy [[SelfDemonstratingArticle is actually this trope in progress]].
** Ironically, while patent law has marched on, the Joker was trying to ''copyright'' the fish and get royalties from every food product derived from them, which you can't do even today. Fish are a natural product, as the poor clerk he tries to extort points out, and not a creative work. Different set of laws involved there.
* ComicStrip/DickTracy had a seemingly far-fetched wristwatch video cellphone called the 'Two-Way Wrist TV' that looked fantastical at the time, but now...
* In the {{Tintin}} graphic novel ''Recap/TintinDestinationMoon", Captain Haddock spends a lot of time ranting about how CRAZY Professor Calculus is for seriously attempting to send people to the moon. To anyone reading the book after 1969, Haddock is the one who sounds like a raving maniac.
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' is an AlternateTimeline where the existence of costumed heroes and superheroes have a dramatic impact on the 20th Century. One of the "Golden Age" heroes, Hollis Mason aka Nite Owl, publicly retires and says he's going to run a car repair shop because it's simpler and car engines aren't going to radically change anytime soon. Dr. Manhattan, whose powers include matter manipulation, casually states that he is working on improving battery quality and synthesizing massive quantities of lithium and in the next few years (remember it's the 60's) electric cars make their way on the market. The idea of electric cars was seen as every bit as fantastical as genetic engineering and Dr. Manhattan himself.

* ''Film/ShockTreatment'' is a strange 1981 film and sequel to ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' (just barely, you could watch ''Shock Treatment'' without ever seeing ''Rocky Horror'', but why would you do that?) dealing with an everyday man being put through televised therapy and his girlfriend going fame-mad after appearing on it. While there's something of a game show feel to the whole thing, it is otherwise a freakishly close to home prediction of reality TV.

* The film ''Film/{{Network}}'', which revolves around the exploitation of a mentally unstable newscaster by a TV network for ratings, reveled in over-the-top satire with events that would have been viewed as far-fetched back in the 1970s. Fast forward to the 21st century, where RealityTV shows [[PointAndLaughShow ridicule and shame]] their contestants for sensational TV, and [[TwentyFourHourNewsNetworks 24-hour news networks]] have commentators ranting about the state of the world and what's wrong with it, and ''Network'' comes off as far less outrageous. Even the darkly comedic ending, which has the network executives [[spoiler:deciding to kill off the madman because the ratings for his TV show are dropping, and making his killers the stars of one of the network's reality shows in order to boost that show's UsefulNotes/{{ratings}}]], seems scarily plausible. Just look up what happened to R. Budd Dwyer.
** In an early 2000s interview, Sidney Lumet steadfastly maintained that ''Network'' had never been intended as a satire, claiming that it was "sheer reportage", drawn from his and Paddy Chayefsky's shared experiences working in television. Apparently such shenanigans had been going on for decades, with the general public only now starting to get a good look at them. Lumet concluded the segment saying "the only thing that hasn't happened is we've never seen [[spoiler:[[BloodSport anyone killed]] [[CondemnedContestant for ratings]]]]."
** While not as detailed, ''Film/AceInTheHole'' delivered essentially the same message as early as 1951 - and was panned in US as an "impossible exaggeration".
* ''Film/DemolitionMan'' presents the absolutely absurd idea that Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger became President of the USA... and when the main character asks how it happened, they say that he became Governor of California first. It's still unconstitutional for an immigrant to be president, though. (''Magazine/TheEconomist'' magazine proposed a change in that law, for that very reason, although they may have only been half serious.) In the movie there was a Constitutional Amendment made specifically to let him in.
* ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' came out in 1998. The first ''Series/BigBrother'' premiered a year later, and ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' came two years later. Clearly, some network executive watched that movie and thought, "What a great idea!"
** Of course ''The Real World'' had been on for six years at that point. ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' was a commentary on the rise of reality TV, not the source. (But it should be pointed out, the people on today's reality TV actually volunteer.)
** ''Film/EDtv'' [[DuelingMovies did the same around the same time]], but played more realistically as Ed volunteers to go on TV, [[CelebrityIsOverrated and regrets doing so]].
** Considering ''An American Family'' had aired almost 30 years before ''The Truman Show'', and Albert Brooks' ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079781/ Real Life]]'' was released in 1979...
** ''Series/TheJoeSchmoShow'' is a closer example, as the show features a single or two people who don't know that pretty much everything else going on around them in the supposed "reality show," is, in fact scripted and that all of their cast-mates are actors.
* As late as the early TurnOfTheMillennium (see the Creator/ChrisRock film ''Head of State''), works of fiction that featured [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama black presidents]] in a contemporary setting were often ridiculed for being unrealistic or overly optimistic about attitudes towards race.
** ''Head of State'' came out in 2003. The idea of a black President at that time was ridiculous. What people did not know was that the next President would be a black man.
** Creator/EddieMurphy [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThveuipUe14 on the subject in 1982]].
* ''Film/TheSiege'' was about a terrorist attack against New York City... three years before 9/11. However, the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993, so the film had a precedent.

** ''Film/{{S1m0ne}}'' from 2002 waves "hello".
** [[Anime/MacrossPlus Sharon Apple]] (1994) and [[Anime/Megazone23 Eve Tokimatsuri]] (1985) [[OlderThanTheyThink say "that's cute"]].

* ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' (1987) has the joke about the [[ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish silly password "12345"]] (which is the code to BOTH Druidia's air supply and President Skroob's luggage) that even some of the villains [[LampshadeHanging mock]]. Today it is one of the [[http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-passwords-of-2014-2015-1 most common passwords]], to the chagrin of network security experts everywhere.
* ''Film/{{Americathon}}'' (1979) predicted several things: the rise of China as an economic superpower, the growth of US public debt (in the film it was 400 billion dollars, the writers couldn't have imagined a debt of '''[[RealityIsUnrealistic 15 trillion]]'''), high energy prices, the decline of tobacco and the growing acceptability of marijuana, and the collapse of the USSR.

* George Orwell's ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' seemed rather absurd when it was published in 1949 and for many decades after. Now, not so much. (There are video screens ''everywhere''! Even in shopping malls!)
** Although, we're probably closer to Huxley's ''[[Literature/BraveNewWorld Brave New World]]'' than ''1984''.
** While never reaching ''1984''-level of total control, the totalitarian regimes had certainly existed prior to (and served as major inspiration for) Orwell's novel, so it was never exactly ''crazy'' to begin with.

** In the book, some rooms had gigantic TV screens covering every wall so you could feel like you were "in" the program. Fortunately, that hasn't caught on--yet.
** The small, white, hand-sized music players that everyone owned. That they used to close out the world outside. Ray Bradbury himself commented on this around the century-shift.

** And as of 2009, the butter-pie [[LifeImitatesArt pretty much exists now]] as a carnival treat, with the advent of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_butter deep-fried butter]].

* Back in the day, ''Sereis/TheTwoRonnies'' did a sketch about the absolutely ludicrous idea of people paying money for bottled water, and paying large amounts for 'expensive' bottles of water. WhoWouldBeStupidEnough? Bottle water was also popular for centuries during the Enlightenment and Victorian eras. This was mainly because city water supplies were also as bad as dehydration. It was only around the time that water purifcation was done on a large scale that bottled water fell out of popularity. Or in other words, someone drinking from a public fountain is an example of this trope.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode ''The Chase'' begins with Ian bopping to the Beatles on the timescanner. When he jokingly remarks that future girl Vicki has probably never heard of the Beatles she is indignant: "Of ''course'' I know about them. I've been to their Memorial Theatre in Liverpool. But I never knew they played classical music!" The idea of a memorial concert hall doesn't seem so silly in the 21st century.

* An even more extreme example is a 1920 British newspaper cartoon which considers the impact of mobile phones (which had just been announced as a possibility in the future) and has them going off during weddings, in theatres, etc... OlderThanTheyThink, indeed!

** In an even earlier Rating for "Constellations," he complains about the names of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor: "The Big Bear and the Little Bear sounds like a heartwarming Disney feature." [[Disney/BrotherBear About that too...]]
** There's ''another one'' (the man has a lot of these) where he notes that he's bugged by beer commercials that show off fields of wheat. One of the most integral parts of beer is hops, but he says that beer commercials would never show off hops vines/buds, because the fact that beer is made from ''flowers'' would be too ''unmanly.'' Of course, now Samuel Adams beer makes a very big deal out of the fact that they use lots of hops in their beer (and, yes, even show off the vines in bloom).

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' from the early 1990's, Doug's grandma, who is presented as a wild and crazy CoolOldLady with a taste for the exotic, takes Doug to the most unimaginable and unusual place possible for lunch: a sushi restaurant. Fast forward to the 2010s, and sushi has become a mainstay of American cuisine, so much so that it would be more unusual for a kid of Doug's age to ''not'' know what sushi was.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The FlashForward episode "Bart to the Future" from 2000 had Lisa Simpson becoming President of the United States, struggling to resolve problems caused by her predecessor... Donald Trump. In 2016, Trump was elected president, defying all expectations. [[http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/17/simpsons-president-trump-prediction-was-meant-as-warning-to-us Writer Dan Greaney said in an interview]] that he'd chosen Trump as president because it "just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane".
** ''The Simpsons'' also unintentionally predicted Disney buying Fox in "When You Dish Upon a Star" from 1998.

** Hilarious when the 1998 Sydney water crisis happened (the water supply of the entire Greater Metropolitan Sydney area was suspected to be contaminated by dangerous microscopic pathogens) and made everyone who didn't boil or buy their water extremely sick.

See also: FunnyAneurysmMoment, HilariousInHindsight, HarsherInHindsight, ScienceMarchesOn, StrawmanHasAPoint, ItWillNeverCatchOn, ValuesResonance TheCuckoolanderWasRight.