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Continuity Cavalcade

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The very first page of Don Rosa's very first story, and he's already throwing several references to Carl Barks's stories at you.

A single shot, scene, line or panel full of Continuity Nods. This gives long-time viewers satisfaction that the previous exploits they saw are in this entry's canon, and encourages newer readers to Archive Binge to see what they missed, without getting in the way of the current plot too much.

Sometimes shows up as an extreme form of Back for the Finale, where everybody in the show comes back for the Grand Finale.

When a work is made primarily of these, or is driven by continuity concerns, it's known as Continuity Porn.

Superhero Trophy Shelf is a sub-trope. Fully Automatic Clip Show is a Sister Trope, where previous events are shown, instead of referenced, in rapid succession. This is one way an author can Pander To The Base. May be driven by a Fighting Across Time and Space sequence where several previous locations are revisited. Compare Cameo Cluster, which is instead rapid-fire cameos. See All the Worlds Are a Stage for a video game version of this concept.

Example Subpages:

Other Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A 2017 Disneyland commercial, which promoted the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade, takes place in a warehouse filled with remnants of various former attractions, including the original park entrance sign, Skyway cabins, RX-12 from the original Star Tours, and Sam the Eagle from America Sings.
  • One of the "What Happens In Vegas...." commercials shows a bus leaving the city. All the riders are characters from previous commercials in the series.
  • A Toys R Us commercial in 1996 showed all the kids (except one, who was played by Jaleel White) from a 1982 commercial (now 14 years older) doing the same stuff they did in the original, showing that growing up doesn't mean you grow out of Toys R Us.
  • The opening for Nickelodeon Home Video features nods from older commercials.

    Anime and Manga 
  • In Assassination Classroom, nearly every minor character from previous mini-arcs (who wasn't a major Arc Villain) shows up at Class E's cafe at the school festival: the high school punks from the Kyoto field trip, old rivals from the main building, Yuuji and the assassins from the island hotel, and the old man and his daycare kids, to name a few.
  • In episode 25 of Best Student Council, almost every one-shot character from the previous episodes shows up to act as a distraction when the Student Council storms the Jinguuji Conglomerate.
  • Doraemon
  • The second OVA of Fairy Tail has snippets of the series in a High School AU setting.
  • A series of reaction shots over the multi-episode finale of Fairy Musketeers eventually features everyone ever seen in the series that's still alive and not an enemy.
  • Naruto features Kabuto resurrecting nearly every deceased character in the series, along with nearly every living character fighting in the Shinobi War.
  • In the Crayon Shin-chan episodes based on Star Wars, the Cantina scene has appearances of many characters from the Big Damn Movies, who otherwise never appear on the series proper.
  • Persona 4: The Animation, like the Video Game example below, has a scene in episode 15 filled with callbacks to Persona 3.
  • A mini cavalcade occurs at the end of the first arc of Digimon Adventure, with a bunch of characters from across the arc showing up to help the chosen children build a raft.
  • Almost all the one-shot characters from Digimon Data Squad, and more, can be seen helping in episode 47.
  • In Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time, characters from all the previous seasons' universes return to help in the last two episodes.
  • In Trigun Maximum, right before Vash heads out for the final battle against Legato and Knives, he has a brief 3-page flashback to everyone he's met over the course of the series... and even some characters that only appeared in the anime!
  • As Yahiko prepares to face off against Kenshin in the final chapter of Rurouni Kenshin, he is instructed to "think back to all the battles he's fought" before striking; this of course is an excuse for a two-page spread with portraits of nearly every villain and supporting character to have appeared in the series (even ones Yahiko never met).
  • The final chapter of Franken Fran features Fran's Dying Dream (almost), in which she dreams to attend a party where the guests are every single character who ever appeared during the manga. When she's about to meet her "father", Professor Madaraki... she is saved and wakes up.
  • Medaka Box has had the various one off characters or defeated villains show up every so often in a neat example of the creator remembering the entirety of the story, but chapter 187-189 have every single named character, no matter how small, show up. Chapter 190 goes a step further and shows each one of them left individualized well wishes for Medaka. A true accomplishment for the creator, to have made and juggled the personalities, no matter how shallow, of all of these characters. For those not in the know, this totals to a stupendous one hundred individual and easily recognizable characters.
  • The Pokémon Best Wishes ending theme, "Te o Tsunagō" (lit. "Let's Join Hands"), has nearly every major character and nearly all their Pokémon making an appearance.
  • Gundam Build Fighters is filled with references to previous Gundam series, with main characters from previous shows making cameos in the background of scenes, every robot in the series being based on mobile suits from older Gundam shows, and numerous characters repeating quotes from previous series. This is justified in part by Gundam being a popular media franchise in-universe, and the premise of the show meaning every character involved is a Gundam fan — you’d get a similar experience if you attended a Gundam convention in real life.
  • A chapter of Black Jack (possibly intended to be the series finale, but eventually new chapters were written) has the titular Black Jack board a train and meet every recurring character he's come across during the series.
  • In the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, old cards may be used as "extras" in crowd shots of duels, and any other situation where random cards would be shown. The last OP of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, for example, begins with a bunch of cards flying across the screen, all of which are famous cards from the first two series.
  • In Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!'s second-to-last episode (which began a two-part finale) gave a cameo to each student who had been transformed into a Monster of the Week in a previous episode. Other than that they were each a One-Shot Character.
  • Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
    • In chapter 100, Kaguya thinks back to all the photos that were lost when her phone was destroyed. Every single one of them had been previously seen by the reader. And when the rest of the student council forms a group album so she has photos to put on her new smartphone in the following chapter, every single one of them is new, but they can all be identified at a glance for which chapter they came from and (for all but one) who took them.
    • The ending for episode 3 of the anime is a song sung by Fujiwara with most of her poses and lines taken directly from the manga.◊
    • The opening for the TV version of the movie takes this even further. Not only does it directly reference all of the past openings and endings, but it also features every character who appeared at some point in the show (almost fifty in total), recreates iconic scenes from four chapters that were previously unadapted, and makes subtle refereces to events that happen much later in the manga's timeline.
  • In Heavy Object, the Grand Finale sees the return of nearly every side character who had survived their previous appearance, most of them joining the Together By Chance unit to avert a world war.

    Audio Plays 
  • Big Finish Doctor Who: In "The Screaming Skull" from the UNIT: Tales From the Vault subseries, on Captain Yates' first visit to the Vault he recognises various things from his own UNIT career including plastic daffodils and the Devil's End gargoyle. There's also things he doesn't recognise, including a chess set that plays by itself. He also mentions that the Vault used to be run by C19 and that it's a sister site to the Black Archive. There's another rundown of his UNIT career when Rees attempts to take over his mind, which also mentions Mrs. Wibsy and Nest Cottage, confirming that the AudioGO Fourth Doctor stories are still canon.

    Comic Books 
  • The cover of JLA/Avengers #3 shows everyone who had ever been an Avenger or JLAer to that point, even if they're not otherwise involved in that particular Intercontinuity Crossover. Although the plot was as such that every one of them was technically involved in the conflicts of issues 3 and 4. Especially 4, which is filled with these — it's George Pérez drawing a battle that involves every Avenger, every Leaguer, and possibly every supervillain ever culled from the timestream.
  • The cover for issue #24 of Batgirl (2009), the final issue before the DC relaunch in September 2011, contains every single character to ever appear in the series. This includes villains, allies, civilians and people who only appeared in individual issues.
  • Batman (Grant Morrison) takes this to new heights in every panoramic shot of the Batcave, showing almost every Batmobile, numerous helicopters, and trophy cases with outfits worn for only a few comics (including Stephanie's Robin outfit).
  • The comic for Buffy the Vampire Slayer restarted with issue #51. The storyline Note From The Underground, running from #47 to #50, brought nearly everyone Back for the Finale. Angel and Faith played major parts and the rest of Angel Investigations got cameos. There were references to Riley Finn, Spike and Maggie Walsh, and a splash page of former foes included the Mayor, the Master, former Slayer Yuki, the Gentlemen and Glory. A vampire from the first issue of the comic was brought back from the dead to fight Buffy again, which was acknowledged in-universe but not explained. Kendra and the First Slayer appear as part of a vision sequence also featuring the historical Slayers from Tales of the Slayers, and there's a flashback recap of the TV show. There's even the return of Pike as a major character, and the Big Bad leading the Scourge turns out to be Adam.
  • In the Fear Itself tie-in, The Deep, Doctor Strange summons a two-page spread of "Defenders, Secret Defenders, even those who were only Defenders-for-a-Day" to stop Attuma from crushing Namor and his allies.
  • Having previously established that Superman villain Dominus has the power to create pocket universes around Superman (in his first appearance, he created four, homaging The Golden Age of Comic Books, The Silver Age of Comic Books, The Bronze Age of Comic Books, and Superman-of-the-Future Imaginary Tales), their final battle in Superman: King of the World is an Alternate Continuity Cavalcade, in which Superman briefly becomes Kingdom Come Superman, DC One Million Superman, and others.
  • The first volume of The Sandman (1989) has a scene where Morpheus goes to an old storage room of the JLA to recover one of his missing regalia. It is full of references to other JLA adventures.
  • The celebration in the first part of Asterix in Corsica brings back friends from a wide range of earlier Asterix adventures, and includes numerous references to those stories. In order of arrival:
    • Petitsuix, the Helvetian innkeeper from Asterix in Switzerland.
    • Huevos y Bacon, father and son, leaders of the lone Hispanian holdout village against the Romans from Asterix in Spain.
    • Instantmix, the Rome-based Gaulish restaurateur from Asterix the Gladiator.
    • From Asterix in Britain, Asterix' cousin once removed Anticlimax, Hibernian chieftain O'Veroptimistix, Caledonian chieftain McAnix, Anticlimax' village chieftain Mykingdomforanos, and British innkeeper Dipsomaniax.
    • From Asterix and the Banquet, resistance leader Jellibabix from Lugdunum (Lyon), innkeeper Drinklikafix from Massilia (Marseilles), and boat captain Seniorservix from Gesocribatum (Le Conquet).
    • Winesanspirix, the Arvernian innkeeper from Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield.
  • An issue of Adventure Time: Candy Capers has Peppermint Butler recruiting a ridiculously large number of Z-list characters from different episodes of the TV show to go on a quest which turns out to be to reclaim Princess Bubblegum's dry-cleaning.
  • Little Annie Fanny from Playboy had an installment celebrating the strip's 20th anniversary, which featured appearances by many minor and back-ground characters from previous strips.
  • In one of newer volume of Polish series Kayko & Kokosh the heroes meet a barkeeper who collects wanted posters. When he show them his collection on the wall tunrs out it is made of almost all of the one-shot villians from the series. He even ask the character shave they even seen such rouges gallery.
  • The climactic scene in the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday Morning Adventures has the Turtles confront an impressive number of their Rogues Gallery from the first seven seasons of the '87 show, while they're trapped in a VR simulation game. This ranges from established mainstays like Shredder, Krang, Baxter Stockman, Bebop and Rocksteady, to minor recurring villains like Tempestra, Groundchuck and Dirtbag, to obscure one-shots like Smash, Alpha-One and Turtle Terminator.

    Comic Strips 

    Fanfiction 

    Films — Animation 
  • In the The Adventures of Tintin (2011), which was based on the Tintin comic books, the walls of Tintin's room are covered with newspaper clippings referencing his previous adventures, and the opening credits are animated into a sequence referencing many characters and landmarks from the books.
  • Po's room in Kung Fu Panda 3 is filled with references to the previous films, including the old dummy from the training hall, the Furious Five action figures, the drawings of Tigress and the Five from Po's old room, and a painting of Master Thundering Rhino and the Tower of Sacred Flame, among others.
  • The 1981 featurette Once Upon a Mouse features all kinds of Call Backs to previous Disney efforts from the 1920's upward, culminating in a parade of characters and clips from Disney cartoons from Mickey Mouse up until The Fox and the Hound.
  • Toy Story 3 has quite a few scenes filled with hardly anything but references to the first two movies. Most notably, the opening scene consisted of a combination of Toy Story's "Andy playing with toys"-themed opening and Toy Story 2's fake-out action opening, with references to another short scene in Toy Story 2 where Andy played with his toys.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle features appearances from every single significant character of the previous six books (the exception is Susan, who is mentioned but doesn't appear).
  • The Chronicles of Prydain: In the final book, The High King, almost every character that's appeared in the series comes back, a few characters that have only been spoken of up to that point actually appear, and almost every dead character is referenced in some way. Everyone that comes back does something, except for Glew, who comes back and does nothing.
  • All the Discworld witches from previous books (and a few other major characters from other lines like Ridcully and Vetinari) react to the death of Granny Weatherwax in The Shepherd's Crown and most of them return for the final battle against the elves.
  • Dragaera: Practically every friend, ally, or frenemy Vlad Taltos has ever met in the previous books plays a role in Hawk, whether by taking direct action, providing necessary equipment and materials, or by inspiring Vlad's plan through something they'd taught him years ago.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe: Near the start of the Time Lord Victorious novel All Flesh is Grass, it's mentioned that Brian the Ood has made various modifications to the flagship of the Vinctis Fleet, each one salvaged from a different Dark Times race. These include a Racnoss web-gun, a Jagaroth warp thruster, Uxaerian doomsday particles and Daemon shielding. And the Soul Orbs of Grelsh, which might be a reference to a throwaway line in a Bernice Summerfield audio.
  • Franny K. Stein:
    • The fourth book The Fran That Time Forgot had Franny see glimpses of the Pumpkin-Crab Monster, the 50-Ft. Cupid and the two-headed robot from the previous three books when she goes back in time to change her Embarrassing Middle Name.
    • In the eighth book Bad Hair Day, Franny's mom hears about Franny's pigtails (having come to life and grown gigantic from engorging themselves on Franny's growth formula) from a news report on TV and asks her daughter if she knows anything about this. Franny answers that of course she does because rampaging creatures are her thing. The accompanying illustration shows Franny remembering her encounters with the Pumpkin-Crab Monster, the 50-Ft. Cupid and the two-headed robot like in The Fran That Time Forgot, with the addition of the titular creature from the seventh book The Frandidate.
  • Harry Potter
    • The final task of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire featured an obstacle course / maze in which Harry was forced to recall many different spells and creatures he'd been shown to have learned about in the previous three books.
    • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, every single surviving character from previous books comes back and does something. The most major exception is Gabrielle Delacour, who comes back but does nothing. The audiobook broke the world record for "most characters performed by one voice actor in an audio book".
  • The Once and Future King
    • In the ending of The Sword in the Stone, all the animals Wart had met during his lessons under Merlin show up to advise him on pulling out the sword.
    • The ending of The Ill-Made Knight has all the knights from the novel react and cheer as Lancelot manages to pull off a miracle after all.
  • Every book in the series Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot ends with the villain getting thrown in jail next to the villains from the previous books.
  • The Rotten Ralph book The Nine Lives of Rotten Ralph has Ralph reference the events of several previous books when he explains to his owner Sarah how he lost eight of his nine lives.
  • The final trilogy in The Sword of Truth brings back a significant number of characters from throughout the series in major and minor roles. Even dead characters and some that barely got a mention after their book play a part.
  • In Warrior Cats, during the big battle in the then-Grand Finale The Last Hope, most characters from the original series, several minor characters who hadn't appeared for a while, and a ton of other characters from the backstory of the series, all show up as Backup from Otherworld.
  • In the final book of The Wheel of Time series, Rand and Mat reunite after spending many books apart, and almost immediately begin bragging to each other about all of their accomplishments since they'd last met. Rand's feats are certainly more impressive in the grand scheme of things ("I cleansed saidin, I win."), but Mat's the one who gets the last word ("By the way, I'm the one who rescued Moiraine.").

    Music 
  • Frank Zappa was fond of doing this. He made a Continuity Nod to his previous albums on the album covers and lyrics of most of his later albums.
  • The Beatles' song "Glass Onion" is full of references to previous Beatles numbers.
  • Katy Perry's "Wide Awake" video is a cavalcade of callbacks to her previous videos, including "California Gurls", "One of the Boys", "Firework", "The One that Got Away", "ET", "Hot & Cold", and "Teenage Dream".
  • Taylor Swift crammed a lot of references to her older events, appearances, and music videos in her "Look What You Made Me Do". Not even the most diehard Swiftie could catch them all on the first viewing.
  • Yes' "Tempus Fugit" from Drama, the first album not to feature Jon Anderson on lead vocals, nevertheless contains lots of references to previous Yes songs.
  • Pink Floyd has had two of them:
    • The front and back cover photos of their "Best Of" collection, Echoes.
    • The "Back Catalog" poster, depicting their album covers painted on the backs of models.
  • It's common for the CD booklets of Greatest Hits Albums to have lists of an artists other albums to entice more back catalog purchases.
  • Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP 2:
  • Origami Angel: In Somewhere City, near the end of "The Air Up Here", verses from almost every previous song on the album are played in succession, sometimes overlapping, finishing on a reprise of "Welcome to..."'s opening.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering's Time Spiral expansion. Nearly every card in the set contains a reference to one or more famous (or not-so-famous) older cards. Its sequel Planar Chaos could also count, though it instead focuses on Alternate Universe versions of things. Even the third set in the block, Future Sight, built on the theme of exploring possible futures, managed to get in on the act. All three sets are themselves named after cards from earlier sets.

    Theme Parks 

    Video Games 
  • The GCPD evidence room in Batman: Arkham Knight holds most of the gadgets/weapons/other personal items of the various villains of the previous games.
  • In Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, the "Greatest Five" Dual Crush attack summons the five Belmonts: Richter, Leon, Trevor, Juste, and Simon to attack all enemies. Occasionally, Trevor and Simon would appear in their original NES sprites.
  • Dragon Age is fond of this trope.
    • The final battle of Dragon Age: Origins includes this; several of the characters you met earlier in the game will show up to help you kick the Archdemon's ass, in addition to the many unnamed Red Shirt members of your army.
    • Depending on choices made throughout Dragon Age II, a number of characters you encountered earlier in the game will show up to fight at your side during the final battle, possibly including Nathaniel Howe, Zevran, and Hawke's surviving sibling.
    • As the heroes prepare to march on the Arbor Wilds in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the player is treated to an extensive cutscene which shows various allies preparing to participate. This includes dozens of the Inquisition's own soldiers and scouts, masked soldiers in the Orlesian army, and members of the Blades of Hessarian (a warrior cult who consider the Inquisitor their leader).
    • The second and third games contain a slew of references to the first and second games, which seasoned players will recognize, including many cameos by and letters from familiar characters.
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • The Twinning in Shadowbringers is the culmination of a number of previous plot arcs, with the common thread being the involvement of the Garlond Ironworks. It reveals how exactly the Crystal Tower was able to come to Norvrandt: the Ironworks of the Bad Future took Cid's notes and research on Alexander and Omega to enable the tower to traverse through time and space. The dungeon's music even emphasises this, with its main theme combining the Crystal Tower theme and Omega's theme eScape with the bass line from Alexander's Rise, and the final boss's theme being a rock cover of Locus, the first boss theme from the Alexander raids.
    • Early in Endwalker, a volunteer contingient is formed to march into Garlemald as part of a humanitarian mission and part to stop the machinations of the Telophoroi. The scene that introduces them is a crowd shot featuring, among the characters named and voiced in the main storyline, characters from the various Class and Job quests, such as members of the Marauders', Thaumaturges' and Pugilists' guilds and your partners during the Bard, Dragoon, Scholar, and Machinist quests. If you've completed these quests, talking to them independently will have them all reference your past exploits together.
  • In Grand Theft Auto V, you can visit a recreation of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which lists almost every in-universe entertainment personality from the entire series.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy features several references and callbacks to characters and events from the series, such as Billy's dad Harold being playable as his Mogar persona from "Battle of the Bands" and the tree from "The Taking Tree" appearing as a background hazard in the level taking place at Billy's house. In addition, Boogey's Mojo Meltdown, his alternate costumes, the Boogey Bay level, and the alternate costumes Billy and Mandy get from completing two of the missions in mission mode allude to the TV Movie Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure (even though the movie was released less than a year after the game).
  • Hitman:
    • At the end of the tutorial in Hitman (2016), we're treated to a montage of various targets from the past four games, being assassinated in the most popular ways, while narration talks about 47's past success.
    • The Hitman 3 mission "End of an Era" has you go through the ICA's files and dissolve the ICA, and you're treated to a slideshow of pretty much every previous target from Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2, including the 2016 games' Elusive Target roster, which finally cemented those as canon contracts.
  • The pawn shop in King's Quest VI contains loads of items that reference puzzles from the previous games—and would have easily solved them had you come here first.
  • Mass Effect dove head-first in this direction, judging by all the effects of importing your Old Save Bonus from the first game into the second, which then pass into the third.
    • From major decisions affecting the overall plot, to receiving emails from one-off characters who were previously Quest Givers, you have a very good reason to continue a given version of Commander Shepard in his/her quest to save the galaxy. Unfortunately, bugs or designer oversight do tend to show up in these situations. In Mass Effect 2, regardless of how you handled him in Mass Effect, Conrad Verner will claim that you shoved a gun in his face. Other than that and a few other examples the writers have been very diligent about transferring your decisions from the first game to the second and third. Some bugs in the first two games have since been addressed in Mass Effect 3. If in the original Mass Effect you did not threaten him, he will apologize about making the claim that you did.
    • There's the instance just before the final battle sequence in Mass Effect 3, where you can call up all of your former party members and chat with them about their role in the upcoming fight.
    • The final DLC, Citadel (set before the finale), climaxes with Shepard and every surviving party member from the series getting together and throwing a party. The rest consists almost entirely of Call-Back jokes and Lampshade Hanging.
  • In Max Payne 3, one of the Nostalgia Levels takes Max through a cemetery where four dead characters from previous games are buried. In addition, the title of every achievement is a quote from the first two games.
  • Mother 3 features a boat ride through a museum of sorts filled with items from the previous game (EarthBound (1994)).
  • In Mr. Saitou, several characters from the previous game are hanging out inside the Kinoko Matsuri Club. Most notably, NO HOLDS BARD!!! is now a famous band that performs there regularly, and Tony and Christina are sitting together at the same table.
  • Persona 4 has the characters go on a trip to Tatsumi Port Island, including a jaunt to Gekkoukan High School.
  • Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 brings back almost every Gym Leader and Champion up to that point as part of the Pokémon World Tournament.
  • Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus: In the last world, there's a museum that features not just some of the worlds visited and weapons used, but all the (canon) villains and even some animals from all the series.
  • Final Remixes in the Rhythm Heaven series are usually a Final-Exam Boss in that they're made entirely of short moments in every stage in the game (excluding other remixes). The Final Remix of Rhythm Heaven Megamix becomes this trope in its latter half, with the music turning into a medley of the main themes of each Rhythm Heaven game in order of their release (including Megamix), with stages from those games as the main themes play.
  • Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier:
    • Roger's quarters on the SCS DeepShip 86 features mementos from all his past adventures, including the Xenon Army Knife from SQ1, the Labion Terror Beast Mating Whistle from SQ2, and the SQ4 Hintbook.
    • Another part features a database which has entries for all the races and creatures previously encountered in the other five games, no matter how minor they are.
  • In Tomb Raider III, in Lara's mansion, there's a trophy room with several artifacts from the previous Tomb Raider games.
  • The museum in Ultima IX is a repository for artifacts that had fallen from the Avatar's Bag of Spilling over the Ultima series.
  • Upon beating the Final Boss in Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, six souls from series protagonist Adol Christin's memories appear to help him end the titular Grimwald Nox. While the game doesn't explicitly name these souls, Word of God states they are Feena, Reah and Dark Fact from Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished - Omen, Eldeel from Ys Memories Of Celceta, Tia from Ys SEVEN and Dana Iclucia from Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, all of whom are central characters from their respective installments.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Burnie Burns describes the finale of Red vs. Blue: Revelation as a scene where the protagonists "win by saying Red vs. Blue quotes to each other."
    • Happens again in the penultimate episode of season 10, with the references (ranging from the first to the current season) taken up a notch or two. It's quite effective.
    • Any time we see Malcom Hargrove's trophy room in Season 13. There are a number of items in there from past seasons, including the Grif Shot, the Monitor that Epsilon-Church inhabited in seasons 7 and 8, the magnum that the Director killed himself with, and the Meta's armor. Turns into a massive Chekhov's Gun come the season finale, with our heroes getting a Lock-and-Load Montage in this room.
  • Near the end of the "Bob Ross vs. Pablo Picasso" episode of Epic Rap Battles of History, Pablo Picasso flips through the channels on his TV to bring up PBS, where Bob Ross is rapping from the TV screen. Along the way, we see him flip past Billy Mays (from "Billy Mays vs. Benjamin Franklin"), Mr. Rogers (from "Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers"), and the Fourth Doctor (from "Doc Brown vs. Doctor Who").
    • In the "Lewis and Clark vs. Bill & Ted" episode, most of the historical figures that Bill and Ted encountered on their adventure (Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Kahn and Joan of Arc) had already been in at least one previous rap battle, so for the end of Bill and Ted's first verse, all five of them appear to support B&T.
  • In Multiverse Mayhem, the interactive first anniversary special of The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, the player character visits the locations of several previous stories, and basically all of the Cupids' allies introduced thus far (including ones from stories not otherwise referenced in the story) are mentioned to be present at the Dance Party Ending.
  • In the "Darkwing Duck for the TurboGrafx-16" review of The Angry Video Game Nerd, the Nerd reveals his "Shit Scale", which measures how horrible a game is. All the examples represent his previous reviews. On the lowest end are debatably bad games (Metal Gear for Nintendo Entertainment System, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES, and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest), followed by games that are horrible yet still playable (Dick Tracy for NES, Super Pitfall, and Top Gun for NES), then the more traumatizingly horrible ones (most of the LJN Toys lineup, the Virtual Boy, and Link: The Faces of Evil), then games that he claims could kill a person (Action 52, Dark Castle for Sega Genesis, The Wizard of Oz for Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the many handheld LCD games from Tiger Electronics), then a section dedicated solely to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the NES, and finally, games that don't even qualify as games (Desert Bus from Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors, CrazyBus, Hong Kong '97, and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties).
  • Taco-Man Plays a Video Game:
    • Taco-Man Plays Atari 2600 begins with Taco-Man drinking at a bar populated by characters from previous episodes of Taco-Man Plays a Video Game, as well as the girls from his Night Trap parody.
    • Taco-Man's 2015 Halloween special has characters who appeared in some of his other cartoons and reviews stop by while he waits for part two of the game (the aforementioned Night Trap parody) to load, and after he completes the game. He naturally Lampshades this, with Flat Joy, after Blobert from A Boy and His Blob pops up to request some jellybeans:
      Taco-Man: Oh, look. It's a character from a previous episode. How original.
  • The brief animated segment at the beginning of episode 6 of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is covered with items and characters from the previous episodes. The episode also features Red Guy reprising the "creative song" from episode 1. Additionally, all of the previous teachers make short cameos near the end, as Red Guy is messing with a machine that controls them.
  • When Ruby tries to settle herself into the correct frame of mind for invoking the power of her silver eyes in the Volume 6 finale of RWBY, she tries to think of her family and friends to evoke the feelings of the beauty and preciousness of life and how it must be protected. The images that flash across the screen cover family scenes that predate the show as well as happy or bonding scenes from the show itself, such as the Volume 2 food fight or when Teams RWBY and JNPR are eating noodles during the tournament. When she struggles to maintain the happier memories and begins drifting into unhappier moments, traumatic scenes from previous episodes also appear, such as Pyrrha and Penny's deaths.
  • In the Father Tucker short "Judgment Day", several of the children Father Tucker has molested or shown interest in in the previous shorts can be seen in the background during his trial.

    Real Life 
  • On historical anniversaries, civic groups sometimes organize gatherings of all surviving holders of a particular office, many of whom may have not been seen in a public forum for many many years. For example, see this 2009 photo-op◊ featuring all the surviving governors of Alaska. It became standard for the new President of the US to get a photo taken with all the living former presidents.
  • Other times, people do big group photos of related individuals simply because it's cool. The most notable is probably A Great Day in Harlem, a 1958 image of 57 of the greatest Jazz musicians alive at the time.
  • This picture from the 1927 Solvey conference◊ is a similarly gobsmacking collection of great physicists from Albert Einstein to Marie Curie.
  • At some sports Halls of Fame, they will introduce all the living Hall of Famers who made the trip. The most notable of these is the Baseball Hall of Fame, since they usually get the most people to show up, including some in poor health and others who rarely make public appearances.
  • At the Academy Awards ceremony in early 1998, the Academy celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Oscars by having all still-living Oscar-winning actors and actresses (including Best Supporting winners) stand on the stage together, with that year's winners taking their places last. Amusingly, Jack Nicholson won his third acting Oscar that year, so he essentially joined...himself.
  • Similarly, the 2010 Junior Eurovision Song Contest featured all of the previous winners performing a medley of their winning songs. These kids returned at the end of the night to hand the trophy to that year's winner, Vladimir Arzumanyan.
  • It is popular in the culture to portray Heaven this way, especially if it is a Fluffy Cloud Heaven (or Hell, for all of history's villains).
  • Photo albums.
  • The 50th Super Bowl, in 2016, began with a personal appearance of every previous Super Bowl MVP who was still alive and the NFL could get a hold of. Notably, when Tom Brady came out, the crowd booed him.
  • The unveiling of the 2022 FIFA World Cup mascot La'eeb in 2022 had him go to an animated world where all the past mascots lived. The opening ceremony eight months later had something similar by bringing in floats of the mascots. (it should be noted that in the former La'eeb direct predecessor Zabivaka is absent, probably because 2018 hosts Russia had just invaded Ukraine)

 
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Video Example(s):

Charlie Brown's Insecurities

When pressed to think of his fears and frustrations, Charlie Brown remembers all the times he's been put through the wringer. These include a number of moments taken from past Peanuts strips, including the very first.

Example of:
Butt-Monkey

The Seventh Doc...

Roger Can't Be ...

Room to Grow

Hitman 3s Conti...

A Walk in the Park

Onto Something

SMG4s Anniversa...

Die Trying Cont...

School Reunion

Time Paradox

Miraculous Ladybug

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Charlie Brown's Insecurities

When pressed to think of his fears and frustrations, Charlie Brown remembers all the times he's been put through the wringer. These include a number of moments taken from past Peanuts strips, including the very first.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (3 votes)

Example of:

Main / ButtMonkey

Media sources:

Report

Charlie Brown's...

The Seventh Doc...

Roger Can't Be ...

Room to Grow

Hitman 3s Conti...

A Walk in the Park

Onto Something

SMG4s Anniversa...

Die Trying Cont...

School Reunion

Time Paradox

Miraculous Ladybug