Hilarious in Hindsight

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"Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away."

— Chuck Palahniuk

Harsher in Hindsight is when a tragic event, either in Real Life or in-universe, makes something more disturbing, upsetting, or at the very least more uncomfortable, than it originally was.

This is the opposite. It's when a later event, such as a current event or something that happened in the series, makes something funnier than it originally was. This is what your literature teacher would call "Life imitating Art". There's a decent list in this College Humor feature and another one in this Cracked.com feature.^note As of the end of 2016, the article has become its own ninth example.

Note this is not merely something that seemingly predicts something else. For example, Black US presidents in fiction are not this trope. A Black US president in fiction who has an Embarrassing Middle Name would be.

Also note that some examples that might not seem funny to one, might seem funny to another. It depends on attitudes towards Black Comedy and Gallows Humor.

Additionally, "hilarious" doesn't just mean "BLAH-HAH-HAH! gut-busting," either. If you go by the word's original definition, it can mean "amusing" or "charming" as well. So any belated lighthearted coincidence would fit under this trope.

Almost all examples of Have a Gay Old Time and Recursive Inspiration are examples of this trope. Some examples of Actor Allusion and/or Role Association are.

Compare Fridge Brilliance, Heartwarming in Hindsight. Also compare Narm if this happens immediately.

Contrast Dude, Not Funny! (when something is considered in bad taste to mock or even mention, no matter what the circumstance), Hilarious in Flashback (where a glimpse of the characters' past contrasts amusingly with their established personalities and situation), Harsher in Hindsight (when something is now worse due to a Real Life or in-story tragedy, though there are cases where Black Comedy makes some overlap possible), Unintentional Period Piece (in the cases where a work that was current when made almost only makes jokes that no current reader can understand), Writer Behind the Times (when the writer thought it was current but wasn't), "Seinfeld" Is Unfunny (where something that was funny or witty at the time has since become cliche due to it being prevalent in comedy or was the original basis of the idea) and If It Was Funny the First Time... (in cases where a Running Gag is overused or a joke is only funny once). A "dated reference" is when a single joke (or only a handful) in a series is no longer funny because nobody alive remembers why it was funny, but is Not a Trope as it is mostly covered by Unintentional Period Piece and Writer Behind the Times.

Note: Examples can only be added once the event that makes them hilarious has ended. In particular, anything related to a widespread disease, hoarding of any kind, or something similar to social distancing doesn't inherently mean that there's a connection to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Please don't add examples of this nature.

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Other examples:

Asian Animation

• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf:
  • In episode 28, Wolffy uses a fake friendship peace negotiation in an attempt to eat the goats.^note which means, the goat tribe and the wolf tribe can be together in peace without fighting, but in actuality, it calls the goat tribe to serve Wolffy and sent one goat into his mouth everyday. And when Weslie makes a different negotiation in which Wolffy's family promises to give up the right to attack the goat tribe and disappear from the Green Green Grasslands forever, Wolffy's plan backfires. However, several years later in real life, the season Mighty Little Defenders started airing, which actually DOES involve a peace negotiation between the goats and wolves as a plot device, just without Wolffy adding any sneaky schemes to it.
  • In Joys of Seasons episode 31, Wolnie gets amnesia after Wolffy feeds her forgetful grass. Near the end of the episode, Paddi's tears are enough to water a remembering flower that Wolffy wants to grow so he can feed it to Wolnie and restore her memory... except when she actually does eat it, she also develops a friendship with Paddi since it was Paddi's tears and not hers. This gets taken further in the later season Love You Babe, where Wolnie gets amnesia again and spends the season thinking Paddi is her child.
  • According to this DeNA China article, the three Sega-produced Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf games for the platform Mobage were released alongside a Chinese translation of Puyo Pop Fever from one of Sega's flagship series, Puyo Puyo, in 2011. This accidentally predicts the Pleasant Goat season The Season Towns, where the blob creatures Weslie and his friends find look a lot like the Puyos from that series, right down to coming in green, blue, red, yellow, and purple like the Puyos do.
• In episode 4 of Happy Friends, Careless S. gets his weapon working properly for once and jokes that he should call himself "Careful S." from now on. Fast forward to the Season 1 finale, a fifth Superman who actually is named Careful S. joins the team. (Careful S. makes an Early-Bird Cameo in the Season 1 intro, so this could be a case of Foreshadowing.)

Arts

• In 1947, Isamu Noguchi created a model for a sculpture called "Sculpture to be seen from Mars", which depicted a giant face staring up at the sky. In 1978, Viking 1 captured an image of a mountain which resembled a face on Mars.

Game Shows

• On Task Master, during the Episode 2 opener of Series 7, Greg proudly declares the winner of the Taskmaster Trophy will get to do "whatever they want, whenever they want" to his head. Kerry Godliman wins that trophy, and much later in Series 9 Greg finds out what Kerry wanted to do with it: toss it on a shelf in her garage to be forgotten about.
  Greg: THIS IS AN OUTRAGE, GODLIMAN!!!

Jokes

• There was a Tolkien/Harry Potter joke in Russian from 2005, which said "I already know what will happen in book 6: The Invisibility Cloak will turn out to be the One Cloak". Well... off by one book.
• The following Soviet joke on the city now called St. Petersburg has aged interestingly...

  Official: Where were you born?
  Old man: St. Petersburg.
  Official: Where did you grow up?
  Old man: Petrograd.
  Official: Where do you live?
  Old man: Leningrad.
  Official: (menacingly) Where would you like to live?
  Old man: St. Petersburg.

• In the 1970s, people said that there would be a black U.S. president when pigs fly. Eventually in November 2008, we got Barack Obama, and sure enough, swine flu.

Myths & Religion

• The Amazons of Classical Mythology. In the myths, they were just about the only civilization at the time where women oppressed men instead of the other way around. What part of the world do you think they lived in? Ukraine and Russia (according to Herodotus, that is).
• Norse Mythology:
  • Loki is a jotun, or troll. During the age of the Internet, the term "troll" took on a whole new meaning: a person who sows chaos and discord (sometimes For Great Justice, sometimes For the Lulz), which is Loki's raison d'être. But wait, it gets better: trolls are known for "flaming" others, and guess what color Loki's hair is? Here's a hint: one of his kennings is "Flame-Hair." Bow before your god, all ye Internet trolls.
  • One of Thor's kennings is "Troll-Basher." What do administrators use to get rid of pesky trolls? The banhammer, of course!
• In Mayan Mythology, Quetzalcoatl is portrayed as a "feathered serpent", which is also what his name means in the Nahuatl language. Millennia later, paleontologists discovered that theropod dinosaurs, among the largest reptiles that ever lived, were feathered.
• "Satan", despite popular belief, was actually a title, meaning many things including "the prosecutor". In 1935, a Disney short titled Pluto's Judgement Day came out, in which Satan himself literally is the prosecutor of a trial in Hell.

Pinballs

• In the early '90s, Data East produced pinball machines based on two of the biggest names in science fiction, Star Trek and Star Wars. Stern would later make their own tables also based on these two franchises.

Podcasts

• Discussed in Fat, French and Fabulous: the notably inbred Charles II of Spain's royal monogram◊ looks a hell of a lot like the modern international bio hazard sign.
• The We Hate Movies podcast:
  • While ripping on The Matrix Revolutions, the guys say that Neo suddenly being able to control robots in the real world is as stupid as if Luke were to suddenly teleport in Return of the Jedi. Two years later, in The Last Jedi, Luke suddenly astral projects to another planet, a move that drew a mixed reaction from audiences.
  • In their The Day After Tomorrow episode, the gang imagines that old sitcoms will be brought back to life in the post-disaster world. One of those shows mentioned to be revived is Roseanne, which was revived in 2018.
• In Episode 48 of The Scathing Atheist, the hosts talked about an Adventist Pastor named Ryan Bell, who decided to "Try Atheism for a Year", with them being Tongue-in-cheek about his sincerity. About a year and a half later, he is a notable figure in the atheist movement, and is interviewed in the show.
  Heath: It's like a white person trying out being black for a year by dancing better.

Poetry

• Longfellow's The Jewish Cemetery at Newport which discusses the plight of the Jews, ends with the stanza "But ah! what once has been shall be no more! / The groaning earth in travail and in pain / Brings forth its races, but does not restore, / And the dead nations never rise again." He did not foresee the creation of the modern State of Israel.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppet Show:
  • Not long after A New Hope's original release, Mark Hamill made an in-character appearance in a sketch. At the end of the sketch, Mark Hamill and all the Muppets sing "When You Wish Upon a Star", which has become so much more hilarious because both Star Wars and The Muppets are now under the Disney banner.
• Sesame Street:
  • In a quote featured in the book Street Gang that's either this or Harsher in Hindsight depending on your perspective, Kevin Clash (partially) says most people expect him to be white with glasses. While, of course, Clash is African-American and clear-sighted, it pretty accurately describes Ryan Dillon, his replacement as Elmo.
  • This quote from "Don Music Rewrites Mary Had a Little Lamb"
    Don: No, I don't think that will work. Lambs aren't yellow. I mean, who ever heard of a yellow lamb!?
  • With Herbert's friendly demeanor and mustached, bespectacled appearance, he actually bears a strong resemblance to Ned Flanders. deviantART, anyone?
  • Back in 1987, Cookie Monster accurately predicted the whole "Veggie Monster" kerfluffle that would happen in a couple decades in the opening lines of "Healthy Food":
    Well, me known for eating cookie
    When I don't they shout "Look, he
    Tryin' to throw loyal fans a curve!
    What he doing eating fish?
    Or vegetable dish?
    Man, he sure got lot of nerve!"
  • Speaking of veggie, the chorus to "This is How I'm Made" sounds like the theme to VeggieTales.
  • An early song had Lefty the Salesman asking Ernie, "Would You Like to Buy an O?" a few years before Wheel of Fortune offered vowels for sale.
  • One skit features a family called the Loud family. Years later, a cartoon called The Loud House came out, which also featured a family with the last name Loud.
    • Speaking of which, the Cobblestones' frontman is named Mick Swagger, just like Luna's idol in The Loud House.
  • The Season 4 premiere begins with the characters mentioning names of people on Sesame Street according to the letters of the alphabet. When they get to Z, Big Bird can't think of anyone whose name begins with Z... That is until 1993, with the introduction of Zoe.
  • "When You Wish Upon A Pickle" had a plot where Chris and Elmo switch bodies. In other words, Chris Knowings' vocals come out of a character puppeteered by Ryan Dillon. Cut to the 50th anniversary special, where Roosevelt Franklin makes a cameo, and it has the same acting arrangement, with Chris Knowings voicing Roosevelt Franklin while Ryan Dillon is the puppeteer.
  • The parody of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air featuring Bert and Ernie is now even funnier, since both shows are now part of the HBO Max streaming service (and feature heavily in the service's ad campaign).
  • Episode 3340 in 1995 features a segment where Amy Tan reads her children's book Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat to Elmo and Zoe. Come 2001 and Sesame Workshop co-produced an animated adaptation of the book.
  • At the end of episode 847, the Wicked Witch says she'll leave Sesame Street with her broom and never come back. Considering the episode was withheld from further reruns and unseen by fans again until scenes were screened in 2020 and then available for viewing at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in 2022, the line could be either this or Harsher in Hindsight.
  • One episode has Danny DeVito playing a character named Vincent Van Trash, a curator for the Grouch Museum of Trash. So you could say that he's the Trash Man.
  • The show did a parody of High School Musical called "Pre-School Musical". In 2024, Disney released a Disney Junior show called Kindergarten: The Musical, which has a similar premise.

Radio

• Way back in The '40s, there was a children's fantasy radio program named Land of the Lost (no relation) that featured in one episode a character named "Mac Fleetwood". Even better, this was a series dedicated to Puns and Shout-Outs, making the coincidence extremely fitting.
• The Navy Lark:
  • In "A Watch on the Initiative Test", Mr. Phillips hears Lieutenant Price buzzing and tells Heather, "Frankenstein's found his monster again". Dennis Price later played Dr. Frankenstein twice in The '70s — in Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein and The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein.
  • In "Tug-of-War", Mr. Phillips manages to wedge Troutbridge in the Manchester Ship Canal, blocking all shipping. 80 years later, the Suez Canal would be blocked in the same manner. One wonders if the Ever Given's navigator also gave it the old "Left hand down a bit"...
  • "Onabushkan Flu" sees half of Troutbridge struck down with the titular Eastern-originating disease. This is saved from becoming Harsher in Hindsight in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic as it is all Played for Laughs, coupled with a hilarious scene of Mr. Phillips struggling to correctly put on a mask outside of Captain Povey's office.
  • When the series was briefly Retooled into The TV Lark, Michael Bates played Troutbridge Television's Controller of Programs, Jervais Batsford Shaw. Nine years later, Bates starred in Turnbull's Finest Half-Hour, as Major Clifford Turnbull, who was in charge of Pentagon Television.
  • In "The Ghost Ship", the Admiral snarls at Rear Admiral Ironbridge to "shut your cakehole". This line given by Tenniel Evans' character to Bates' character would become the Character Catchphrase of a later Evans character, Admiral Ffont-Bittocks, while the Phrase Catcher would be another Bates character, Flag Lieutenant Dingle — the two characters that replaced the Admiral and Rear Admiral.
  • Before the Carry On... Series produced Follow That Camel and Carry On Spying, mention is made of the films Carry On Lawrence of Arabia and Carry On Goldfinger in "On the Carpet" and "Smugglers in the Solent".
  • The Portarneylanders had to be Demoted to Extra as the series went on due to fears from The BBC that the stereotypical Indian accents Ronnie Barker and Bates used to play them made it hard to sell their episodes overseas. It seems Bates didn't get the memo and used the same accent to play Rangi Ram in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum, which found him more fame in three years than The Navy Lark did in sixteen!
  • The voice Barker used to play Lieutenant Queeg was such a good impression of Scottish comedian Chic Murray that when Series 7 and 8 aired, Continuity Announcements after the episodes had to remind listeners that it was not actually Murray and instead one of the many voices of Barker. When Barker left the series, Queeg was Put on a Bus until Series 14, when the role was finally recast with who else but Murray himself!
  • "The Newhaven-Dieppe Smuggling Run" has a line where Miss Twitchley (a One-Shot Character played by Heather Chasen) disparages Crossroads. Six years after The Navy Lark ended, Chasen became a Crossroads regular as Valerie Pollard.
• A 1977 episode of The Burkiss Way had a sketch about the impossibility of having a radio comedy series without Deryck Guyler... who would ironically never end up appearing in The Burkiss Way.
• In the first series of You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal, in 2002, reference is made to the "Red Hot Chili Pipers. When first broadcast, it was a simple pun on Red Hot Chili Peppers. Repeated later, it sounds like a reference to the actual Red Hot Chilli Pipers, who formed in 2004.

Sciences

• In 1989 palaeontologists chose the name Revueltosaurus for a new species of dinosaur discovered in Revuelto Creek, New Mexico. Years later, it was determined that the partial skeleton used to describe this species was actually a mix of bones from different animals and that the most of them probably belonged to a basal crocodilian, not a dinosaur. It just happens that "revuelto" is Spanish for "messed up".
• The asteroid Antiope was discovered in 1866, and named after one of two characters in Classical Mythology with that name (there's some dispute about which one). Fast forward to 2000, when it was discovered that Antiope is in fact a double asteroid (two pretty equally sized bodies orbiting a point between them), and it takes on another dimension.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: In the 4th edition Player's Handbook, a section on why you'd want both melee and ranged weapons says: "When the flying monster makes its getaway, you don't want to be hurling insults at it." The Player's Handbook 2 released the Bard...which can kill enemies by insulting them.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • 2ch users once created a hoax so convincing that managed to trick Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! fan sites, claiming that Lightsworn were dolls who were slaves of an evil force. Later on, the game introduced an actual archetype based on enslaved dolls, known as Shaddoll.
• An obscure board game called Road to the White House features a "playable character" card named "Donald Grump," with a caricature of Donald Trump. This would be expected if not for the fact that the game came out in 1992.

Theme Parks

• From 1989 through 2004, Disney/MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida had an attraction called The Magic of Disney Animation which had a short film at the beginning called Back to Neverland (not to be confused with Disney's direct-to-video Peter Pan sequel Return to Never Land), starring Robin Williams and the late Walter Cronkite. In it, Robin is a huge fan of Peter Pan (1953) and becomes an animated Lost Boy, and he defeats Captain Hook with a little help from both Tinker Bell and his quick improvisational comedy skills. Doubly hilarious in hindsight in that not only would he later get a chance to really show off his improvisational skills in a full-length Disney film^note where that video even had a Shout-Out, as the Genie dresses like Robin did in a scene, but first he would also get the chance to actually be Peter Pan himself (courtesy of Steven Spielberg and TriStar Pictures).

Toys

• One of the motivations creator Pleasant Rowland gave for making American Girl is that she wanted to have a brand out there that didn't focus on fashion and dress up like Barbie. She ended up selling the brand to Barbie's maker Mattel in 1998 and Mattel has now owned American Girl longer than she did.
• Multiple new fashion doll lines are hyped (both by media and the brands themselves) to be the Barbie-killer, such as Lammily, Bratz, Dusty in the 1970s, and Happy To Be Me in the 1990s. Barbie's outlasted them all except Bratz, which has been in and out of availability.
• Speaking of Bratz, when the line first launched in 2001, Tomy distributed them under the name "Cool Bratz." However, in 2003, Bratz were rereleased in Japan again, this time distributed by Takara. 3 years later, in 2006, both companies that distributed Bratz in Japan merged to become Takara Tomy.
• Furby: This video released in 2013 parodies many movie scenes using 2012 Furbies. The video ends with a Furby customized as Chewbacca. Two years later, Hasbro would release an official Furbacca.
• Around the time the third generation of Popples toys was launched, Spin Master made a wanna-be Popples toyline called Fur Berries. Guess which company acquires the rights to produce Popples toys 7 years later?
• LEGO Minifigures:
  • The Series 2 Witch is often regarded as an unoffical minifigure of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fast forward to 2015, when LEGO Dimensions includes the Wizard of Oz film as one of its licenses, and an official Wicked Witch figure is made as part of a Fun Pack.
  • The Series 6 Genie is seen as an unofficial minifigure of the Genie from Aladdin. When the Disney line came along in 2016, The Genie from Aladdin got his own official Lego minifigure.
  • In the late 60s, Nintendo produced their own of Lego-like building blocks, known as the N&B Blocks. Starting from 2020 Lego began releasing sets based on Nintendo properties such as Super Mario Bros. and Animal Crossing.
• The world of Teddy Ruxpin features a race called the Grunges. They're known for being very musical, as shown in a Teddy Ruxpin storybook, released in 1985, titled Grunge Music. A few years later, that book's title would start to refer to a completely different musical genre.
• Tamagotchi:
  • Akihiro Yokoi, the creator Tamagotchi, initially wanted to scrap Mametchi because he felt it was too "cute" compared to what he thought the Tamagotchis should look like. Decades later, Mametchi would be overshadowed by new Tamagotchis that were even cuter than him.
  • The Tamagotchi Mesutchi's introduction of a winged, ridiculously cute pet named Pipotchi could give Ape Escape fans a good chuckle, as Ape Escape 2 introduces a pet for its protagonist Jimmy that fits all those details, down to the name Pipotchi.

Real Life

• After the revelation that General David Petraeus had an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, the title of her biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, took on a whole new meaning. Not to mention all the publicity touting how Broadwell was "afforded extensive access by General Petraeus."
• During a press interview for Maleficent, Elle Fanning made a joke that Disney should adapt Dumbo into a live-action film. Later, Disney indeed did that.
• On the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they laid siege to an island called Snake Island. One of the Russian warships assigned to the action attempted to get the outnumbered and incredibly outgunned defenders to surrender and got "Russian warship, go fuck yourself" in response, which became a mixture of a rallying cry and meme in the war as a whole. Not long after, the Ukrainian postal service launched a stamp design competition on the theme of that message, and was won by a design featuring a Ukrainian soldier Flipping the Bird to the Russian cruiser Moskva, the lead ship in the Snake Island operation, and Black Sea Fleet flagship. The day after the stamp was launched, the "Moskva" was hit by two Ukrainian anti-ship missiles and sunk.
• In 2013, Google released Google Glass, a smart-wearable device that provides the user with a small user interface via a screen placed in front of the wearer's right eye. In response, Apple's Siri voice assistant program was updated so that saying "OK Glass" to them would result in snarky one-liner responses, with one notable example being "Stop trying to strap me to your forehead. It won't work." In 2024, Apple launched Apple Vision Pro, an augmented-reality wearable with Siri integration, meaning that you can now indeed strap Siri to your forehead.
• During CBS coverage of the 1980 Presidential election; CBS News commentator Bill Moyers (a former Press Secretary to Lyndon Johnson) began referencing the changes he predicted as it became evident Ronald Reagan was on his way to blowing out Jimmy Carter, with one of the changes including Donny and Marie Osmond replacing Waylon Jennings and Charlie Daniels as after-dinner entertainment falling into this due to Daniels becoming a very outspoken conservative in his later years as well as Reagan's running mate, George H. W. Bush, being an avid country music fan.

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