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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Out-of-Holiday Episode

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Out-of-Holiday Episode (trope)
Christmas at the beach? What is this, Australia?
Kang: Pathetic humans. They're showing a Halloween episode...in November!
Kodos: Who's still thinking about Halloween? We've already got our Christmas decorations up!
The Simpsons lampshading this trope in "Treehouse of Horror XIV"

Seasons happen at different times per year in different parts of the world. Add in the various different Time Zones, and chances are episodes of various different shows can come out at different times per year.

This occurs when a work is originally released at a time of year in Real Life that is different from what is depicted in-universe.

A seasonal variant of (but not entirely related to) Out of Order, and occasionally causes/is caused by Release Date Change or Short Run in Peru.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 

    Anime & Manga 
  • While Cat Planet Cuties's final three episodes take place during the Christmas season in Japan, they premiered on AT-X in September 2010.
  • Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
    • The movie is set during the lead up to Christmas. While the original Japanese release was during December, it briefly aired in theaters internationally on the following Valentine's Day (though it admittedly still fits thematically given that it is a romance story).
    • The manga tends to do this in general due to sticking to an internal timeline rather than whatever time of year it happens to be in the real word at the time of publishing. The aforementioned Christmas arc came out in spring, New Year's Day in September, and Valentine's Day was during July.
  • The Halloween and Christmas episodes of Mewkledreamy aired after their respective holidays due to Schedule Slip.
  • Season 1 of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid came out in the Winter 2017 season, so the Christmas and New Year's episodes both aired in March, while the Valentine's Day OVA came out in September.
  • Multiple holiday episodes of Pokémon: The Original Series aired in Japan far from the holidays that inspired them thanks to the four-month Series Hiatus following the seizure-inducing "Electric Soldier Porygon". The Christmas Episode "Holiday Hi-Jynx" was scheduled for December 23, 1997, the week after "Electric Soldier Porygon", but aired as a special episode on October 5, 1998. The American broadcast rectified this by airing it on December 11, 1999. The episodes about Hinamatsuri (March 3) and Children's Day (May 5) aired back-to-back on July 9, 1998.
  • Pretty Cure:
    • The sixth episode of Suite Pretty Cure ♪, which dealt with the girls making desserts for White Day (a holiday held a month after Valentine's Day on March 14th), aired on March 20th, 2011 as a result of all Japanese programming being interrupted by non-stop coverage of the Tohoku earthquake on every major Japanese channel except TV Tokyo the day it was supposed to air. The hiatus also gave them time to re-animate a sequence in order for it to be Distanced from Current Events where Hibiki's brother is trapped in cake mix by Siren.
    • The 26th episode of Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure is an episode about a Japanese summer festival. However, due to Schedule Slip, it wound up airing in September.
    • The 24th and 25th episodes of Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure were about summer vacation and aired in late August, when summer vacation was almost over. This was due to a Schedule Slip caused by an employee of Toei Animation accidentally downloading malware in March 2022, which caused delays to multiple Toei Animation shows, including this one.
  • Toradora!'s OVA, which was released in 2011 (3 years after the anime first aired) is about Ryuuji trying to challenge Kitamura's grandmother in cooking skills without success. This episode is placed between the episodes 12 and 13 (after the summer vacation), but apart of the misplaced season (anime episodes occur in summer and the OVA is in spring), the OVA itself was released on December, being winter in Japan.
  • Witch Watch features a multipart Christmas story involving the Otogi household crafting an elaborate scheme to convince the de-aged Nico of Santa Claus' existence, with the relevant chapters being published in late January/early February.

    Asian Animation 

    Comic Books 
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): The Spring Broken! one-shot was originally planned for an April 26, 2024 release, which is within the month of Spring in North America. This comic got delayed and had its release date changed a few different times before it settled on a June 26, 2024 release, which put it out of the Spring season and into the beginning of Summer in the same region.

    Films — Animation 
  • Barbie in the Nutcracker, being an adaptation of The Nutcracker, is naturally set around Christmas. However, it was released on video and DVD in October. When it got a special television airing on CBS, it was on Thanksgiving.
  • Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem takes place on Halloween, but was released on August 18, 2015.
  • The Boss Baby: Family Business, which takes place on Christmas, was released on July 2, 2021, five months before the holiday. It was originally scheduled for release on March 26 of the same year, three months after Christmas, and later for September, three months before it.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A major scene is Greg, Rowley, and Manny going trick-or-treating. The movie released on December 3rd, 2021, over a month after Halloween.
  • This may be the reason why Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation was re-titled "A Monster Vacation" in some regions, since its release didn't always coincide with Summer vacation.
  • The use of green in the marketing and focus on luck and leprechauns would make one think of Luck as a Saint Patrick's Day film, yet it released in August. It had originally been planned for February, where it would have fit much better.
  • Lady and the Tramp starts and ends on Christmas, despite being released in June 1955, 6 months before the holiday.
  • Monster House is a Halloween movie that came out in July.
  • Rise of the Guardians was released in November 2012. While Santa Claus and Jack Frost are two of the main characters, and most of the movie features snow-covered locations, it's actually set in the Easter period.
  • Poupelle of Chimney Town, which takes place on Halloween, was released in Japan on December 25, 2020, and in America on January 7, 2022.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Batman Returns takes place during the Christmas season, but was released in June of 1992.
  • Cobweb is set during the last week of October, with plenty of reminders that Halloween was fast approaching. It was released in July of 2023.
  • Die Hard and Die Hard 2 were released in July and June respectively. While neither seem to have been designed as Christmas movies, the plots of both take place in the build up to Christmas, and the first film in particular has a fair few festive reminders. Over the years, they have become Christmas movies in the eyes of many.
  • Invoked with Gremlins (1984): the movie features a Mogwai Christmas present as the Inciting Incident, the titular monsters wrecking havoc over a snowy town filled with Christmas iconography, opens with "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"... but was deliberately released in June 1984, in order to compete against Ghostbusters. Critics at the time thought this was odd.
  • Ghostbusters II was released in June 1989, but takes place during the December holiday season, with the climax taking place on New Year's Eve 1989 and ending on New Year's Day 1990.
  • Films in the Halloween franchise had a good track record of October releases, tying in with the franchise's general theme of the holiday. However, there have been exceptions.
  • Hocus Pocus takes place on Halloween, but was released in July 1993. Disney didn't release it in October because the slot was already taken by The Nightmare Before Christmas, and because they wanted it to come out when kids were off school for summer vacation.
  • Iron Man 3 is set during Christmas, but it was released in April.
  • Late Night with the Devil is about a broadcast from Halloween night 1977, but a bunch of the movie’s release dates were not around Halloween.
  • Despite starring a man who may or may not be Santa Claus, Miracle on 34th Street was originally released in May. This was because the summer was seen as a more profitable time of year, and resulted in the marketing focusing on the romance sub-plot rather than the main off-season festive story.
  • Reindeer Games, a heist film starring Ben Affleck, very clearly takes place during the Christmas season. References to Christmas are peppered all throughout the dialogue, and many characters even have Christmas-themed names. It would have avoided this with a planned Christmas 1999 release, but a poor test-screening and the resulting reshoots pushed it back to February 2000.
  • The Ref takes place during Christmas Eve 1993, with decorations, Christmas music galore, and a guy dressed like Santa giving the (unwanted) gift of fruitcake. Despite all that, it was released in March of 1994. This was lampshaded by its teaser that was shown around the 1993 holiday season:
    The Ultimate Christmas Movie
    is coming This Spring
  • SHAZAM! (2019) takes place in December and is Christmas-themed, but it was released in April.
  • Son in Law, with a scene taking place on Halloween and the remainder of the movie Thanksgiving, was released in August 1993.
  • Surviving Christmas was released on October 22, 2004. It originally was slated for a Christmas 2003 release, but it was pushed back to avoid competing with another Ben Affleck film, Paycheck.
  • Trading Places was released in June 1983, but takes place over the whole period between Thanksgiving 1982 through New Year's Day 1983.

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 
  • At Home with Amy Sedaris: In the A24-produced seasons, loony Amy and her crew celebrate holidays in both the wrong month, and the wrong order:
  • The Bob Newhart Show bicentennial episode, "Caged Fury", aired three months after Independence Day on October 2, 1976.note 
  • The Book of Pooh: "My Gloomy Valentine" is (unsurprisingly) a Valentine's-themed episode where the gang tries to find Eeyore a gift to celebrate. The episode premiered in April 2002, after the holiday.
  • The Carrie Diaries: "Endgame", set on Thanksgiving, aired in February.
  • When Community's fourth season was delayed, that year's Thanksgiving ("Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations") and Christmas ("Intro to Knots") episodes aired in March and April respectively.
  • Doctor Who:
  • Ghosts (US): Due to a Writers/Actors strike delaying the start of filming the third season, the episode "Halloween 3: The Guest Who Wouldn't Leave" didn't air until March 2024.
  • Full House had an episode where Danny, Joey, and Jesse compete in a race, with the winner getting to pick their Halloween costumes. The episode aired a little after Halloween.
  • The Glee episode "Thanksgiving" aired a week after the titular holiday.
  • A season 3 episode of Halt and Catch Fire takes place during the 4th of July weekend, however, the episode aired three months later in October.
  • Invoked in an episode of Haven. A Christmas episode, released around Christmas in Real Life but taking place in July in-universe. Someone's Trouble was creating Christmas in Haven by trapping the town in a snowglobe, and only Audrey, who is immune to the Troubles, knew something was wrong. Everyone else just assumes she's a Grinch for not liking Christmas (and thinks she's crazy when she says Christmas is not in July).
  • Both iCarly and Victorious made an April Fools Day episode for 2012...and both debuted on March 24, 8 days before the holiday. It would have been closer, but the Kid's Choice Awards that year fell on March 31, pre-empting their normal timeslots.
  • The last two episodes of Jeopardy! that were hosted by Alex Trebek were originally supposed to air on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, respectively, but that entire week's shows aired two weeks later. They aired completely unedited, so those two episodes still make plenty of mentions to Christmas.
  • The Legends of Tomorrow episode "Turncoats" was set on Christmas Eve, even though the episode aired in February.
  • The Lost episode "The Constant" takes place on Christmas Eve. However, because Season 4 began midseason in the 2007-2008 TV season, the episode did not air until February 28th, 2008.
  • The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode "Not a Christmas Story" is this in and out of universe, as it aired in early November and involves the cast attending an in-studio dinner for Sue Ann’s Christmas special (which is being taped well ahead of the holiday) and finding themselves Snowed-In by a freak blizzard.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000: Since the show moved to Netflix for season 11, all the episodes of that season went live on April 14, 2017 — including The Christmas That Almost Wasn't. Kinga Forrester even lampshades that Netflix programs are made for binge-watching, so hardly anyone is going to watch this episode near Christmas.
  • The Orange Is the New Black episode "Fucksgiving", a Thanksgiving special, premiered in February due to Netflix's premiere scheduling system.
  • Both of the Christmas themed episodes of The Outer Limits (1995), "The Conversion" and "The Revelations of 'Becka Paulson", aired in June, in 1995 and 1997 respectively.
  • Pretty Little Liars has Halloween episodes during October, while its seasons air between January-March and June-August.
  • The final episode of British drama series Ralph & Katie, "The Motherships have Landed" is set at Christmas, but aired on BBC One on October 19, 2022.
  • Series 2 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK featured a Monster Mashup runway with a unique stage and lighting setup, something the show's runway presentations don't typically do. This episode aired in February 2021, but given that the series was originally set to air in late-2020 before COVID delayed things, it is very plausible that this episode was originally meant to be a Halloween Episode.
  • The Schitt's Creek episode "Merry Christmas, Johnny Rose" is part of the regular rotation for airings of that show.
  • The final episode of series one of British reality program Stacey & Joe happened to be set at Christmas, but aired on 6th May 2025.
  • Ted Lasso's Christmas Episode premiered on August 13, 2021, over four months before Christmas.
  • A Thanksgiving episode of Webster called "Thanksgiving with the Four Tops" aired in January 1989, two months after Thanksgiving.
  • Often happens with Wheel of Fortune, which will often theme entire weeks around a certain holiday (Valentine's Day, Christmas, Halloween, etc.) even if said holiday occurs early in the week. As the show also tends to tape six episodes per session and air the sixth episode later on (usually as part of "America's Game"), this may mean that the set decorations will reflect a very out-of-season feel.
  • Whose Line Is It Anyway? aired a special Valentine's Day episode... on August 7, 2004, about as far from Valentine's Day as you can get.

    PBS Kids 
  • Mister Rogers' Neighborhood debuted an episode about Santa Claus in February 1973.
  • The Elinor Wonders Why episode "More Than One Right Way", a Halloween Episode, premiered in January 2022.
  • Six episodes of The Noddy Shop take place on holidays. Of those six, five of them aired well before the holidays they were about:
    • "We All Say Boo!", a Halloween Episode, aired on September 23rd, 1998. It's not bad compared to most of these examples, as this aired a month before the holiday in question.
    • "Secret Valentines" aired on October 12th, 1998, four months before Valentine's Day.
    • "Jack Frost Is Coming To Town" takes place on the first day of winter, but first aired on October 17, 1998, when it was still fall.
    • "April Fool", which had an April Fools' Plot, aired on September 16th, 1999.
    • "Part Of The Family", a Very Special Episode that took place on Mother's Day, aired on November 8th, 1999.
    • The lone aversion for the show is "Anything Can Happen At Christmas", a Christmas special which aired on December 6th, 1998.
  • Rosie's Rules had this happen with several of the episodes aired during its October 2022 premiere:
    • "Rosie's Seashell Museum" is a summer-themed episode.
    • "Rosie Maps It Out" is themed around Mother's Day.
    • "Mom's Snowy Day" is a winter-themed episode.
    • "Rosie's Christmas In Mexico" actually aired in December, but is now part of the regular rotation for the show.
    • "Rosie's Family Tree" is a Valentine's Day Episode despite premiering on September 29, 2023.
    • "The Lucky Dragon Dance" takes place on Lunar New Year, a holiday celebrated in January or February. The episode came out on October 23, 2023.
  • Sesame Street
    • From the late 80's up until the early 90's, the show had two Sesame Street News Flash segments involving Santa Claus, airing at different times of the year. The first of them, which also involves the Easter Bunny and a witch, first aired in January, while the second, which has Kermit watching for Santa to come down the chimney, first aired in April 1989 (but was originally taped on December 20, 1988, just five days before Christmas).
  • Thomas & Friends:
    • The aptly titled "Halloween" premiered on PBS on November 20, 2004, when Halloween already passed.
    • "Thomas and Percy's Christmas Adventure" was initially broadcast in the UK on 14 July 1992, five months before Christmas.
  • Ready Jet Go!: The series had Christmas, Halloween, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Earth Day, and St. Patrick's Day episodes, and they all aired around their respective holidays. But one episode, "Asteroids, Meteors, and Meteorites", premiered in April 2016; it was a Father's Day episode, and that holiday is in June.
  • The Donkey Hodie episode "A Lot Of Hot", which takes place during summer, aired in May of 2021, a month before the summer solstice.
    • "Someplace Cold" takes place in summer, but aired in February 2024.
  • Work It Out Wombats! has an episode called "Summerween", where the Wombats celebrate a summer version of Halloween. It aired in February 2023, four months before summer and eight months before Halloween.
  • Happened twice with Wishbone during the first season: "Hot Diggety Dawg", which takes place on Arbor Day (which is in April) premiered on November 1, 1995. Later "¡Viva Wishbone!", which takes place around Mother's Day, premiered on November 24th the same year.
  • The Postcards from Buster episode "Sugartime" takes place during Mother's Day, but came out on February 1, 2005.

    Podcasts 
  • Unwell Podcast has a Halloween episode and a Thanksgiving episode, both released months before their respective holidays.

    Video Games 
  • Bloons Tower Defense 6: A Daily Challenge themed after the 4th of July, titled "Red, White, and Bloon", was featured on August 15th, 2022, over a month after the holiday.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Due to complications brought on by COVID-19, the Halloween event of 2020 was cancelled and was later brought back for 2021 on November. It was delayed again because of complications of Endwalker's release moving the event to January 2022.
  • Home Safety Hotline: The Seasonal Worker DLC is Christmas-themed and explicitly set during the week of December 21st to 25th, but it was released on September 20th, 2024, more than three months before said holiday.
  • Persona 5: The Phantom X: The JP/Global version of the game's first Summer event launched on September 22, 2025, which is already past Summer vacation in most regions, including Japan. During the livestream covering the event, MC Hyakka Ryouran and Tomoko's voice actor Satomi Akesaka both joked about how "in season" the event still is, wearing tropical shirts in September.
    Ryouran: We've got a different vibe going on today.
    Asekawa: Yeah, our outfits match the season, right?
    Ryouran: It's perfect! Right, everyone? It's still hot out, isn't it?
    Asekawa: In Japan, summer vacation may be over, but we are totally in vacation mode.
  • Undertale was going to have an alarm clock companion app, as a vehicle for various humorous monologues from the characters. Development of this app was halted to focus on Deltarune, so in September 2020, Toby Fox took the Christmas Episode portion of the dialogue, polished it up, and published the dialogue by itself. At the end of Asgore's page, Flowey pops in to incredulously wonder how nobody noticed the date.

    Web Animation 
  • Minor example: HourofPoop's YouTube Poop Wallace's Christmas Conundrum came out on January 3rd. Lampshaded:
    Merlin You are a bit late you know...
  • Shrapnel: A Side of Shrapnel: Valentines Day came out on February 15, the day after the holiday.

    Webcomics 
  • Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff does this as part of its Stylistic Suck, deliberately releasing all holiday-specific comics on the wrong day. For example, the Christmas comic going up on May 1, the Halloween comic on December 26... and even a comic that had as a punchline "It's Tuesday, you fat nasty trash!" came out on Monday.

    Websites 

    Web Videos 
  • Economy Watch: Several, especially during Season 3.
    • The New Years' special, "New Year Token", released on January 8, 2023, 7 days after the holiday.
    • The Super Bowl special, "The Economics of American Football", released on February 19, 2023, 7 days after the holiday.
    • The Halloween special, "Stock Stabber", released on November 2, 2023, 2 days after the holiday.
    • The Thanksgiving special, "Black Friday", released on December 24, 2023, 31 days after the holiday.
    • The Christmas special, "'Twas The Night Before Payday", released on December 27, 2023, 2 days after the holiday.
  • A Loud House Christmas: Behind the Scenes: The series documents the production of A Loud House Christmas, a Christmas movie, and yet the episodes were released between August and November 2021. Justified in that the series was meant to promote the film before it came out on November 26, 2021.
  • The Nostalgia Critic:
    • His review of Santa Claus: The Movie was released on January 3rd, right after Christmas ended. This was acknowledged during the beginning of the video:
      Critic: Well, as we come to the end of December, we look at our last Christmas movie.
      Douchey McNitpick: But Christmas is over!
      (The Critic nonchalantly grabs a gun and drives Douchey away with it)
    • The Nostalgiaween videos rarely involve the holiday of Halloween; in many cases they are reviews of regular horror movies, something the Critic will sometimes review outside of the Halloween season, and the only signs of Halloween in said videos are the Critic's Nostalgiaween outfit.
  • Allison Pregler and Phelous' review of Casper's Haunted Christmas came out in January 2024, a month after Christmas ended. This was lampshaded at several points during the video.
  • Scott The Woz: The Season 6 Halloween and Christmas specials were released about a week after their respective holidays.
  • Thorgi's Arcade: This trope happened more than once to Thorgi's Thorgiween videos as a result of a Schedule Slip.
    • With the exception of his review of Haunting Ground (which was uploaded on Halloween), almost all of the 2023 Thorgiween videos were uploaded during the first week of November.
    • For the 2024 videos, due to being unable to upload any of them on time for October, Thorgi decided to put them all in one single compilation that he uploaded on New Year's Eve.

    Western Animation 
  • The 101 Dalmatians: The Series episode "Valentine Daze" premiered on September 23, 1997.
  • The Abominable and the Invisible City special "Chinese Nian Year" takes place on Chinese New Year, which is celebrated in either January or February, but premiered on October 5, 2022.
  • The Action Pack episode "Rakhi Rundown" came out June 6, 2022 even though Rakhi is celebrated in August.
  • The Ada Twist, Scientist episode "My Messy Valentine" takes place on Valentine's Day, but came out on April 22, 2023, which is 2 months after Valentine's Day.
  • The Alice's Wonderland Bakery episode "The Puff Pastry Palace" is a Mother's Day episode, but came out on June 28, 2023.
  • American Dad!:
  • The Amphibia episode "Froggy Little Christmas" premiered on November 27, 2021, four weeks before Christmas. This was the last episode before the show went on a sixteen-week hiatus.
  • Animaniacs:
    • "My Mother the Squirrel/The Party/Oh! Say Can You See/The Twelve Days of Christmas Song", which contains a segment about Christmas, was aired on January 27, 1996, a month after Christmas ended.
    • "Cutie and The Beast/Boo Happens/Noel", which also had a Christmas-themed segment, aired on September 7th, 1996, three months before Christmas.
    • "The Christmas Tree/Punchline (Part I)/Prom Night/Punchline (Part II)", whose first segment revolves around Christmas, aired on April 25, 1998.
    • The 2020 revival had a Halloween episode in its first season despite premiering on November 20, 2020, a few weeks after said holiday.
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force: In the Season 1 episode, "Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future", the titular character breaks into Carl's home claiming he's the Ghost of Christmas Past and comes to show Carl what Christmas was like for him in 1968. Carl reminds the Ghost that it's not Christmas at all, but in fact February. Hilariously enough, the episode actually aired on December 29, 2002, four days after Christmas and definitely not in February.
  • Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures has two examples of this:
    • "A Delicate Situation" takes place on Chinese New Year, but came out on September 13, 2018.
    • "Nothing To Fear" and "A Dreamhouse Holiday" take place on Halloween and Christmas respectively, but came out March 21, 2020.
  • The Barbie: It Takes Two episode "Turkey Trouble" is a Thanksgiving episode, but it premiered in April 2022 (April 3 in the UK and April 8 in the US).
  • The Batman (2004) has two examples:
    • "Grundy's Night" takes place on Halloween, but came out on August 27, 2005.
    • "Seconds" takes place on New Year's Eve, but came out on February 10, 2007, which is roughly 6 weeks later.
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • The Christmas Episode "Christmas with the Joker" originally aired on November 13, 1992—weeks before the Christmas season even started.
    • "Holiday Knights", the first episode of The New Batman Adventures, is a Three Shorts episode that takes place through Christmas-to-New Year's Day that originally aired on September 13, 1997.
  • Downplayed in Batman: The Brave and the Bold Season 1 "Trials of the Demon!", the episode starts with a Batman Cold Open that takes place during Halloween, but the episode first aired during March. The main plot doesn't actually take place during Halloween, but it might as well have been considering the dark atmosphere of the episode.
  • Big City Greens has 2 examples:
    • "The Gifted" is a Father's Day episode, yet it aired on July 11, 2020.
    • "Big Resolution" is a New Year's Eve episode, yet aired on January 30, 2021.
  • Big Nate: "The April Fool", an episode which took place on April Fools Day, premiered first on Paramount+ on December 26, 2022, and made its Nickelodeon premiere on September 27, 2023.
  • Bob's Burgers: "Romancing the Beef" is a Valentine's Day episode, and was set to premiere on February 14, 2021, but instead aired on February 21 after it was preempted by the Daytona 500.
  • ChalkZone:
    • "Pop Goes the Balloon" is a Valentine's Day Episode, but premiered on June 27, 2003.
    • "The Gift of Good Intentions" takes place on Father's Day, however it premiered on June 22, 2005, just a few days past the holiday which was on June 19 that year.
    • "The Day ChalkZone Stood Still" takes place on New Year's Eve, but premiered on August 23, 2008. As the episode was the final of the remaining season four episodes to be "burned off" in early morning timeslots without advertisement, Nickelodeon didn't see any reason to air it near the correct holiday.
  • "Critter Sitters" from The Chicken Squad takes place on Mother's Day, but came out on June 4, 2021.
  • The Deepa and Anoop episode "Fix It Father's Day" came out on August 15, 2022 despite Father's Day taking place in June.
  • The Dew Drop Diaries episode "The Secret Ingredient" is a Mother's Day episode, but came out on December 4, 2023.
  • The Doug Unplugs episode "Botty Holidays" takes place on Christmas, but was released on September 17, 2021.
  • Elena of Avalor normally avoids this, but the episode "Dia De Los Madres" plays this straight. It would've come out in May, when Mother's Day takes place, but due to the coronavirus pandemic hindering production, it was moved to July 26, 2020.
  • The Fairly OddParents!: April Fools' Day episode "Fools Day Out" premiered on October 11, 2002 and it only had a Halloween moment for a few seconds.
  • Family Guy:
    • "Boy (Dog) Meets Girl (Dog)", set on Valentine's Day, aired on January 7, 2018, due to pre-emption.
    • "Family Goy" aired on October 4, 2009, despite the second half taking place on Passover/Easter.
    • "Papa Has a Rollin' Son", which takes place on Father's Day, aired on October 4, 2015. Justified, since Father's Day is in June, and Family Guy follows the usual September-to-May premiere schedule.
  • On Fancy Nancy, "Nancy's Ooh La La Spa", a Mother's Day episode, aired on July 20, 2018, while "Nancy's Favorite Grandpa", a Father's Day episode, aired on April 26, 2020. These are the only cases of this happening due to the other holiday episodes airing in their respective months.
  • The Father of the Pride episode "The Thanksgiving Episode" aired on December 28, 2004, 3 days after Christmas and almost a month after Thanksgiving.
  • Most of the Futurama "Xmas" episodes were aired around December. However, the first such episode of the Hulu run, "I Know What You Did Next Xmas", has the airdate of August 28, 2023.
  • The Ghost and Molly McGee: The double length episode "Frightmares on Main Street" takes place on Halloween but first aired in May 2023. However, this was included as part of Disney Channel's "Halfway to Halloween" event.
  • Inverted in Gravity Falls. The show is set during the course of one summer, so to facilitate a Halloween Episode, they explain that people in Gravity Falls also celebrate "Summerween". The episode aired in October.
  • The If You Give a Mouse a Cookie episode "Mother's Day Mouse", which obviously takes place on Mother's Day, came out March 26, 2021.
  • Jorel's Brother: Season 1 concluded with the episode "Meu Segundo Amor", which takes place during a Festa Junina (lit. "June Party"), a Brazilian festivity celebrated in the month of June or, sometimes, July. However, the episode first aired in November 2015.
  • The Justice League Action episode "Trick or Threat", which takes place on Halloween, aired in the UK on December 24, 2016, and the US on March 18, 2017.
  • Kamp Koral: The Halloween episode "Are You Afraid of the Dork?" premiered on Nickelodeon on July 10, 2023, 3 months before Halloween.
  • The Kindergarten: The Musical episode "You're a Good Teacher, Ms. Moreno" takes place during Teacher Appreciation Week, which is during the first week of May. The episode came out March 7, 2025.
  • Little Dracula: The Christmas Episode "The Bite Before Christmas" originally aired on September 6, 1991.
  • The Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episodes "Secret Cupet" and "Littlest Pet Shop of Horrors", which respectively take place on Valentine's Day and Halloween, aired on June 21, 2014 and November 28, 2015.
  • The Loud House:
    • The Valentines Day Episodes "Singled Out; Brave the Last Dance" were supposed to premiere on February 8, 2020, but Nickelodeon moved the premiere to February 15, 2020 in order to compete with Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2, which premiered that same weekend, causing the episode to air the day after Valentine's Day.
    • The episode "A Dark and Story Night", which is about a winter storm causing a power outage, first aired in May.
  • The Madagascar: A Little Wild episode "Happy Snooze Year" takes place on New Year's Eve, but came out on May 27, 2021.
  • The Magic Adventures of Mumfie episode "Pinkey's Garden", which was about Mother's Day, aired on September 15th, 1998.
  • The Valentine's Day episode "Dark Cupid" from the first season of Miraculous Ladybug first aired on TFOU on October 29, 2015.
  • My Adventures with Superman:
    • The season one finale, "Hearts of the Fathers", is a Thanksgiving Episode released three months before the actual holiday.
    • The season 2 premiere, "More Things in Heaven and Earth", is a Valentine's Day Episode released three months after the actual holiday.
  • My Little Pony:
  • The Phantom Investigators episode "The Year of the Snake" took place around the Lunar New Year (which is around January or February), but premiered in June of 2002.
  • Phineas and Ferb:
    • In the episode "Phineas And Ferb Family Christmas", the brothers intentionally had a Christmas episode in mid-summer, and televised it in-universe.
    • On April 30, 2025, the final episode of the series to air on the Dutch feed of Disney XD before it was shut down was, bizarrely, Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!.
  • Polly Pocket 2018 has a few examples of this:
    • "A Little Fright" is a Halloween episode, but it came out in Canada in August 2018, and came out in the United States in August 2019.
    • "Halloween Queen" is a Halloween episode that came out 2 weeks after the holiday, November 15, 2020.
    • "Polly Drops The Ball" is a New Year's Eve episode, but came out on January 9, 2022.
  • Primos has two examples of this:
    • "Summer Of Herramientas" is a Father's Day episode that came out on July 27, 2024.
    • "Summer Of Sueños" takes place on The Fourth Of July, but came out on April 27, 2025.
  • The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder has "O Mother Where Art Thou". It takes place on Mother's Day, a holiday that takes place in May, but was released August 6, 2025.
  • Punky Brewster: The episode "Christmas in July" aired October 19, 1985, three months after July and two months before Christmas.
  • The Pupstruction episode "Happy Maya's Day" takes place on Mother's Day, but came out on August 18, 2023, which was 3 months later.
  • The Recess episode "Yes, Mikey, Santa Does Shave" aired the day after Christmas. It was supposed to air the previous week, but ABC's entire Saturday morning lineup was preempted for Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.
    • "My Funny Valentines", a Valentine's Day Episode, premiered on November 13, 1999, nowhere near the holiday. This is a somewhat justified example as it and "That Stinking Feeling" (the episode it was paired up with) premiered as part of "Crush Day" on the One Saturday Morning block, airing romance-themed episodes of all their shows at the time.
  • Red Fish, Blue Fish (2025) is a show that premiered on September 8, 2025. However, some holiday episodes aired far from their respective holidays, those being "Loose/Tight" (which takes place on Halloween) and "Awake/Asleep" (which takes place on Christmas Eve).
  • The Rick and Morty Thanksgiving episode "Rick and Morty's Thanksploitation Spectacular" premiered in July 2021, four months before said holiday. A subsequent Thanksgiving episode "Bethic Twinstinct", again, came out nowhere near Thanksgiving, airing in mid-September 2022.
  • Ridley Jones has two examples of this:
  • RoboGobo has two examples of this:
    • "Allie-Oops" takes place on Groundhog Day, but came out March 14, 2025.
    • "Happy Dad's Day" takes place on Father's Day, but came out April 18, 2025.
  • The Halloween and Christmas episodes of The Rocketeer came out in July 2020, months before their respective holiday seasons.
  • The short lived 80s cartoon Rubik, the Amazing Cube had both a Halloween and a Christmas episode, both of which each aired a month before the respective holidays.
  • Rugrats:
    • "Candy Bar Creep Show", a Halloween episode involving the Pickles family setting up a "haunted house" for trick-or-treaters, originally premiered in January 1992, well over two months after Halloween.
  • The Simpsons:
    • Due to Fox's coverage of Major League Baseball's World Series, during seasons 12 through 20 and occasionally since, they would air the "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween episodes around the first week of November, which got Lampshaded in later years. (Now the network airs the episodes in mid-October.)
    • Subverted with "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", an episode that first aired on April 27, 2003. It begins during Christmas, but after about three minutes, all the trappings that indicate that it's Christmas (up to and including the presence of snow) disappear.
    • Part of episode "Summer of 4 Ft. 2" took place during the Fourth of July. It first aired on May 19, 1996, which is more than six weeks before the holiday. It's justified, as all Simpsons seasons follow a normal TV premiere schedule by starting in September and ending in May (with the exceptions of "Blood Feud", which aired in July 1991, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes", which aired in August 1992, and "Lard Of The Dance", which aired in August 1998).
    • "Diary Queen", a Valentine's Day episode, aired on February 21, 2021 due to its original airdate being pre-empted by the Daytona 500.
    • "The Last of The Red Hat Mamas" which begins on Easter, aired on November 27, 2005, three days after Thanksgiving.
    • "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes", a St. Patrick's Day Episode, aired on September 28, 2008.
    • "The Yellow Badge of Cowardge", which takes place on the last day of school and has a sub-plot involving a Fourth of July fireworks celebrating, premiered on May 18, 2014; a month and a half before the Fourth of July.
    • The 700th episode, "Manger Things", which takes place on Christmas, premiered on March 21, 2021, nearly three months after the Christmas season.
    • "Mothers and Other Strangers", a Mother's Day episode, premiered in November 2021.
  • Smiling Friends does this several times in part because every season includes both a Halloween and Christmas Episode, despite being only eight episodes per season.
    • Season 1's original planned start date was sometime in November of 2021, which would have been too late for its Halloween episode to be on time, but would have put its Christmas episode right around the holidays. Instead, the season was held back until January 10th, 2022, putting both episodes out of date.note 
    • "The Smiling Friends Go to Brazil", an extra ninth episode for season 1, is set during Mardi Gras, which is usually in late February or early March. It aired in August 2022, about as far away from Mardi Gras as you can get.
    • Season 2's Halloween episode was even more out of date than season 1's, airing on May 26th, 2024. Its Christmas episode lampshades this, however: though the episode starts around Christmas, the final act takes place some time later, clearly in the summer and close to Independence Day in the US, and as such, when Mr. Boss wishes everyone a Merry Christmas at the end, Pim points out that Christmas was "six months ago", matching up with its airdate of June 23rd.
  • Sonic Boom had the episode "New Years Retribution", which aired in August 2015, four months before New Years 2016.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man has a few examples of this:
    • Season 1 aired new episodes from March 8-June 14, 2008. However, two of the episodes in this season, "The Uncertainty Principle" and "Nature Vs Nurture", take place on Halloween and Thanksgiving respectively despite airing months beforehand.
    • The season 2 episodes "Reinforcement" and "Shear Strength" take place on Christmas and New Year's Eve respectively, but came out months earlier on June 29 and July 6, 2009.
  • Spidey and His Amazing Friends has two examples of this:
    • The episode "Mother's Day Mayhem" came out September 3, 2021, which is 4 months after the holiday.
    • "Groundhog's Day Out" came out April 11, 2025, which is 2 months after the actual Groundhog Day.
  • Spirit: Riding Free has a few examples of this:
    • The episode "Lucky And The Christmas Spirit" is a Christmas Episode that came out on September 8, 2017. It's averted with the second Christmas special, which came out December 6, 2019.
    • "Lucky and the Ghostly Gotcha" is a Halloween Episode that came out on May 11, 2018.
    • "Lucky and the Resolutionary Fever" is a New Year's Eve episode that came out on August 17, 2018.
    • "Lucky And The Jam Jam" is an April Fool's Day episode that came out November 9, 2018.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: The season 8 special "Frozen Face-Off", which is heavily winter-themed, premiered on July 15, 2011.
  • The Star Beam episode "Mother's Day Mayhem" came out on September 8, 2020, which is 4 months after Mother's Day.
  • Steven Universe: "Horror Club", clearly treated like a Halloween Episode, aired on February 12, 2015. (It has to be noted that, according to Word of God, some festivities don't exist within the show's Verse, Halloween included.)
  • In the United States, the Supernoobs episode "Noob-O-Ween", which centered around Halloween, aired on December 29, 2015.
  • Season 2 of Team Zenko Go, which came out on August 8, 2022, has "Holiday In Harmony Harbor", a Christmas Episode.
  • Teen Titans Go!: "More of the Same" premiered long before New Year's Eve, which was the episode's subject, on July 29th, 2015.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures: Night Ghoulery was originally intended to premiere in October of 1994, but ended up premiering on Fox on May 28, 1995.
  • The Tom and Jerry Tales episode "Ho Ho Horrors" takes place on Christmas, but came out February 10, 2007.
  • Transformers: Animated aired a two-parter "Human Error", set on Christmas Eve and Day, in the midst of April 2009. It doesn't look like the show's creators had too much say in the matter though, since the series had to wrap up quickly before the release of the highly anticipated Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen that summer, which was intended to be Hasbro's real breadwinner that year.
  • The Transformers: EarthSpark episode "Bear Necessities" is a Mother's Day episode, but came out March 3, 2023 on Paramount Plus (which is 2 months before Mother's Day) and August 19, 2023 on Nickelodeon (which is 3 months after Mother's Day).
  • Tuca & Bertie:
    • The entirety of Season 1 came out on Netflix on May 3, 2019, including the season finale "SweetBeak", which takes place during the bird equivalent of Christmas, Molting Season.
    • Season 2 has the bird equivalent of a Halloween Episode in "Corpse Week", which came out on August 1, 2021.
  • VeggieTales: The episode "Sumo of the Opera", which contains a segment about Saint Patrick's Day, was released on August 31, 2004, five months after the holiday.

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