History Main / SpinTheEarthBackwards

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'', the Earth is hit by an asteroid that two aliens are using to play a game, causing it to spin much faster than normal in its usual direction, sending Courage, Eustace, and Muriel 1000 years into the future. At the end of the episode, it gets hit by the Asteroid again and spins really fast in reverse, sending them back to the present. This one also seems to require SpaceFriction, since if anything caused the Earth to start spinning faster, it would keep spinning at that same speed until something else made it slow down, per Newton's First Law of Motion.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'', Captain Hero manages to turn back time this way, despite being in a wheelchair and paralyzed from the neck down. The Superman example is explicitly referenced.

* Parodied affectionately in ''ComicBook/TinyTitans'' #6 when the ''Franchise/TeenTitans'' ask ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} to reverse time by flying around the Earth backwards in order to not get grounded (long story).

* One issue of ''ComicBook/{{Viz}}'' had the drunk superhero ''The Brown Bottle'' thinking he could reverse time by spinning around. He passed out and wakes up thinking he's successful after finding the previous day's newspaper.

* In the [[Franchise/XMen X-Men]] fanfic, ''The Blood & Tears Progression'', Wade is disappointed that time travel does not involve reversing the Earth's rotation. Or even a [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture DeLorean]] for that matter.

* In ''The Scarlet Speedster'', a fanfic set in [[Franchise/TheDCU the DCU]], the villainous Professor Zoom tries to use his Super Speed to reverse the rotation of the Earth, sending the planet back to the beginning of time. His end goal is to remake the Earth in his image.
* In ''Fanfic/SupermanAndMan'', Pre-Crisis Franchise/{{Superman}} gets to watch the 1978 movie. When he gets to the part where his cinematic incarnation reverses the Earth's rotation, he lampshades that time-travel ''doesn't'' work like that (and he would know).

* ''The Secret History of AA Comics'', by Bob Rozakis, deals with an AlternateHistory of the comic book industry. A 1978 Franchise/GreenLantern movie that came out in this alternate world, a reference to the 1978 ''[[Film/SupermanTheMovie Superman]]'' motion picture, is discussed at length. In it, Green Lantern (instead of Superman) uses his power ring to make the world spin backwards and reverse time.

* ''The Secret History of AA Comics'', by Bob Rozakis, deals with an Main/AlternateHistory of the comic book industry. A 1978 Franchise/GreenLantern movie that came out in this alternate world, a reference to the 1978 ''Film/{{Superman}}'' motion picture (See Film section), is discussed at length. In it, Green Lantern (instead of Superman) uses his power ring to make the world spin backwards and reverse time.

* In a series of advertisements with Superman and Jerry Seinfeld hanging out together, Superman suggested doing this to keep Jerry's stereo from being destroyed by a mugger. Jerry asked him not to, saying that doing that seems to take the meaning out of everything they do together.

[[folder:Film]]

* [[http://xkcd.com/162/ This]] Webcomic/{{XKCD}} comic gets about as close to this trope as realistically possible, which isn't very much. The young woman in the comic is spinning counterclockwise to try and increase the length of a day just a bit so she can spend more time with her boyfriend.

* Inspired by Superman, the main character of Mohagen, a goldfish, [[http://mohagencomic.com/2013/06/23/turning-back-time-can-show-us-the-future/ tries]] to turn back time by changing the rotation of the water in his fish bowl, but ultimately fails.

* [[http://xkcd.com/162/ This]] Webcomic/{{XKCD}} comic gets about as close to this trope as realistically possible, which isn't very much. The young woman in the comic is spinning counterclockwise to try and reverse time just a bit so she can spend more time with her boyfriend.

* [[http://xkcd.com/162/ This]] Webcomic/{{XKCD}} comic gets about as close to this trope as realistically possible, which isn't very much.
* [[http://trollscience.com/troll/view/1415 This]] Troll Science comic claims that it would be simple to halt the rotation of the earth, stopping time and allowing people to live forever.

* {{Creator/Plato}}'s ''Timaeus'' and ''Critias'', which discuss {{Atlantis}}, have been interpreted in a myriad of ways by proponents of the lost continent. One interpretation, which locates Atlantis at the South Pole, uses similar reasoning to the above example from ''Cast Away at the Pole''. According to this analysis, the mention of a "true ocean" is actually a reference to the "cosmic ocean of time." Time was considered linked to the rotation of the Earth and since the poles are at the extremities of this rotation, they are "free" from its effects. Symbolically, the poles are where time can be said to "stand still."

-> ''"[[ComicBook/{{Superman}} SUPER]]-[[Creator/ChristopherReeve CHRIS]] flies off into SPACE and, as much as it's still impossible to believe that this was a thing that actually happened in an actual major motion picture, he FLIES AROUND THE EARTH so fast that THE EARTH STARTS SPINNING BACKWARDS, which somehow, SOMEHOW, causes TIME TO REVERSE ITSELF."''

-> ''"[[ComicBook/{{Superman}} SUPER]]-[[Creator/ChristopherReeve CHRIS]] flies into SPACE and, as much as it's still impossible to believe that this was a thing that actually happened in an actual major motion picture, he FLIES AROUND THE EARTH so fast that THE EARTH STARTS SPINNING BACKWARDS, which somehow, SOMEHOW, causes TIME TO REVERSE ITSELF."''

* ''Film/TheHouseWithAClockInItsWalls'' starts with the 70s-era [[Creator/{{Universal}} Universal Pictures]] logo, playing backwards, so the Earth is spinning backwards. [[spoiler:This LogoJoke foreshadows the titular clock's power, to turn back time.]]

A subtrope of ArtisticLicensePhysics and ArtisticLicenseAstronomy.

* ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' is well-known for including this toward the end of the movie. Superman flies around the earth at absurd speed, and somehow this seems reverse the earth's spin and turn back time. Fans have rightly pointed out for years that this makes ''no sense whatsoever''. (However, according to WordOfGod, the scene [[AllThereInTheManual was misunderstood]]: it wasn't this trope at all. Superman was actually flying so fast that he went ''faster than light'', thus going backwards in time as per the rules of special relativity. The earth's rotation reversed because, from Superman's (and the viewer's) perspective, time was flowing backwards and we were watching it in reverse.

The nefarious Dr. Dino, a fearsome TyrannosaurusRex that spent eras [[SealedEvilInACan trapped in ice]] hundreds of miles beneath ground level and gained massive scientific intelligence through exposure to radiation from the planet's core, is hard at work with his evil scheme in his secret lab at the center of the Earth. He knows his people are long extinct, but he plans to undo that: he's installing a heat-powered, super-strong revolution motor in the center of the planet. When he finally switches it on, it will force the Earth's rotation to stop and reverse direction, thereby rewinding time to the Cretaceous period where the dinosaurs reigned supreme! [[EvilLaugh Mwahahaha...]]