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  • 8-Bit Theater has a number of these:
    • A few involve Red Mage's book (in which he's writing, in D&D language, the things he's learning from the rest of the Light Warriors). The few pages we see begin with such things as "... my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college," and "that's when they made me their king."
    • Black Mage also alludes to quite a few less-than-family-friendly events in the past during the comic strip:
      Black Mage: Thief, your career as our leader reminds me of watching a blind child stumble through an uneven room filled with knives and tiger pits. Only not as interesting to watch because you can always push the kid if it looks like he'd make it. Who's mom's favorite now?!
      Red Mage: Wait. You murdered your own blind brother?
      Black Mage: It would have been cruel to let him live after what I did to his eyes.
    • The "shoe sandwiches", which are, perhaps uniquely among Red Mage's crimes against logic, sanity and basic human decency, not shown to the audience in detail.
      Red Mage: And they didn't kill us! You guys never thanked me for that.
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
    • The comic has never used Dr. McNinja's first name. Originally just a case of No Name Given, this is later handwaved in a conversation between Dr. McNinja and his clone (who goes by Old ... he has a farm, you see).
      Dr. McNinja: Hey! You uh... You never told anybody our name, did you?
      Old: Oh, no way!
      Dr. McNinja: 'Cause, you know... the wizard.
      Old: Oh, I know.
      • Chapter 29 gives us the full story: Doc's grandfather sealed away a ghost wizard that was about to kill Young Doc (because Young Doc was kind of an idiot). He used Doc's name and his own life force to cast the spell. Doc is the only person who remembers his name and if he ever says it, the seal will be broken.
    • Also, when a university-age Dr M. is talking to Benjamin Franklin about cloning:
      Dr. McNinja: A clone of my dad tried to kill him and take his place once. But Dad tricked it into believing my mom was a helicopter rotor. That took care of that!
    • Apparently something happened to Dan's dad. (Later revealed to have been that time he deflected the curse from the young Doctor in chapter 29: he ran out of life force.)
      Mitzi: Who would call us on Katakana? Your dad's still dead, right?
      Dan: Well, we'll never really know for sure, but I doubt he'd just call.
  • The Adventures of Sue and Kathryn! implies part of the reason everyone is so afraid of Sue is because of the block party massacre last year. All we know about that is that Sue claims she was "totes provoked".
  • Grant Kyokasho of Angel Moxie would prefer to keep "That incident with the water hoses and ketchup in in St. Louis" to himself.
  • Angels 2200: The "sexual exploits" Whiskey is talking to Pastor Sullivan about are never explained, which is probably for the better...
  • In an early Apple Valley, Doctor Hubris mentions that he is not allowed to enter Indiana ever again following the "Evil Corn" incident.
  • Basic Instructions:
    • The last panel of this strip employs it when explaining superhero origin stories.
    • They also had "The Unpleasantness" from Scott's hometown. Pretty much every comment is asking or guessing what "The Unpleasantness" was.
    • Another one is offhandedly mentioned in this strip.
      Scott: Rick, Ouija boards don't really talk to the dead. They just identify who the most gullible person in the room is.
      Rick: No, it's not that. I'm over that. Why would Hunter S. Thompson's ghost bother to call me a swine? He's gotta be busy.
  • Batman: Wayne Family Adventures:
    • While the Batfamily kids fight in a Big Ball of Violence in Episode 2, "The Last Cookie", one of them shouts "Hey! No biting!" Which of them is shouting this and which of them is doing the biting is never revealed.
    • Episode 7, "Vigilante Bingo", reveals that all of the kids in the Batfamily besides Duke have pranked Batman on the field in the past. One of these pranks involved Dick and Damian (the latter roped into the prank by the former) replacing Batman's smoke bombs with glitter bombs.
    • The three-parter episode "Crush" ends with Duke's girlfriend Ana breaking up with him for unknown reasons, with her only statement for why being that it isn't his fault. In that same episode, Dick informs Duke that Damian is currently holding off Bruce until Duke is ready for his "post-breakup pep talk". Why said pep talk is so bad that Duke needs to prepare for it is never explained.
    • Episode 11, "Not It", has Nightwing state that the last time he fought Condiment King, his suit smelled like mustard for three weeks.
    • Episode 30, "Driving Lessons", has Stephanie state that the Batmobile's autopilot was damaged during a fight with Bane, though no more context is given beyond that. In that same episode, Steph mentions that they don't fire missiles in the Batcave anymore. Also, near the end of the episode, Steph admits that her first time driving the Batmobile involved her almost bringing down a building.
    • Episode 67, "Branching Out", begins with Harley Quinn recuperating in bed after being injured while on a mission with Spoiler and Orphan. What the mission was, nor how Harley got injured, is never explained.
    • Episode 83, "Utility Belt", centers around Batman pulling out various items from his utility belt that just happen to be exactly what he needs at that very moment, implying that he's ended up in situations in which those items would have been useful. These include logical items like stun bombs and a katana, to more out there ones like fish treats and, of course, shark repellent.
    • Episode 99, "Kidnapping Clinic", has Dick claim that people attempted to kidnap him all the time when he was a child. He also remarks that this still sometimes happens even as an adult.
    • Episode 103, "Personal Growth", has Tim claim that Bruce once made him and Damian each say one nice thing to each other, for which Damian's compliment to Tim was "You have hair".
    • Episode 105, "Trivia Night", shows that this isn't the first time the Trinity have done trivia night, but also has Clark and Diana claim that Bruce's competitiveness causes him to lose it anytime they get a question wrong, to the point that he apparently caused a scene the last time they played.
    • In Episode 110, "Don't Be Mad", Stephanie claims that the series of events that led to them losing a drone began when a flock of seagulls performed a "shocking betrayal" on Orphan and began attacking her. Why the seagulls began attacking, nor why Steph refers to this event as a "betrayal" is ever explained.
  • Something happened to Beaver and Steve last Halloween.
  • Best Friends Forever: The crux of the plot starts with one, as a certain unknown event took place in Vincent and Teddy's summer break. Characters spend much of the plot speculating about what happened, and why it affected their relationship, but neither character wants to talk about. It gets resolved later on, when it's revealed that while they were alone, Vincent finally realized he was in love with Teddy and tried to make a move on him, multiple times, during the entire break, but Teddy rebuked him, and that made things awkward.
  • Boy Aurus: Aurus is traumatized from an unspecified event that involves jiggling and makes him feel dirty but does not include sex.
  • Bram & Vlad has a few, almost all of them regarding the Van Helsings' dabblings in Mad Science.
    • Ellen's list of the weirdest things she saw the Van Helsings doing has five entries censored 'for the sake of the children'. Two of those even have exclamation marks sticking out of the censored part.
    • This reaction of the Third (Bram's father) suggests that he knows how slashed eyes look like, but how he knows is anyone's guess.
    • This makes you wonder what an "eventful" Sunday Club party looks like.
  • Cheer!: Alex King denies all knowledge of how that moose got in the dance club's room...
  • Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures had Jerk with a Heart of Gold Abel stuck with Dan at SAIA... with the former being unable to give him a tour of the library, as some incident had taken place there that was so bad he's permanently banned. Given the SAIA librarian's actual identity and appearance◊, one has to wonder just what happened....
    • Note the Abel feather in the inkwell on the SAIA Librarian's desk.
    • There was also a Running Gag in earlier strips where Aslan would allude to his chaotic wife's many incidents.
      Aslan: ... and that was the last time I took Neni to the [X].
    • Another Running Gag involves Dan turning the lake pink.
    • And the time Dan took out about a dozen Death Knights with a spork.
    • Back in the "Warrior for Hire" arc, an old friend of Dan's reminiscences:
      Kannikah: Remember the time you took out that horde of ice-orcs while wearing only a loin-cloth?
  • Darths & Droids:
    • The Sashimi Incident.
    • And at the player level, whatever it is that Annie didn't want to talk about, after having dated Jim for a couple years between Episodes II and III. We do learn what it was much later; Annie was working as a waitress and didn't tell Jim, Jim took her out to the same restaurant not knowing this, he made a scene, and she got fired. She realized after saying it out loud that a) the firing was unrelated since she was terrible at her job, and b) she was being completely unreasonable.
    • Lampshaded by Jim when he mentions another Noodle Incident with Annie, occuring at an art museum.
      Jim: I know we said we'd never mention it again, but I just wanted to mention it to show you I hadn't forgotten that we agreed not to mention it.
    • In the final confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin in Episode III, the comic manages to have a noodle accident actually happen within the story with Pete's cursed d20. However, since the comic always only shows what's happening in the game, we're only left to guess what's actually going on when they roll the die to see the outcome of Anakin trying to salto over Obi-Wan. Also a Noodle Implement; by the description it's not really a die at all, and rolling it ended in fire.
  • Daughter of the Lilies: Brent met Orrig, the Team Dad mercenary who became his current boss, when he punched Orrig in the face under circumstances that they decline to explain.
    Orrig: Vas good punch.
  • According to a Deep Fried story, Beepo and Roadkill are bound together by a terrible secret that they can never tell anyone, and for which Roadkill can never, ever forgive Beepo. The only explanation we get is:
    Beepo: Hey! That gross out contest was your idea!
  • The Hyena adoption ceremony in Digger consists of several complicated steps, one of which is described by Boneclaw Mother as "that stupid thing with the cactus spines".
  • In Dragon Tails:
    Corlis: Well Moppy thinks it's a Kaar'Latch, a giant psychic five-eyed exoskeleton clad creature that is said to feast on the souls of young dragons.
    Lemuel: Yeah, but Moppy thinks everything wants to feed on young dragon souls these days.
    Corlis: Well, he was right about your sandwich wasn't he?
  • Dresden Codak: "Remember when Reverse Moses parted the city to escape Aqua-Pharaoh?"
    • Much later, Kimiko states that she's never been convicted of a felony in the state Nephilopolis is in, and insists that she gave the bones back. Then she gets distracted before explaining exactly what that means.
  • At some point prior to the start of the story in Drowtales, Laele'aell Val'Sarghress was (apparently) possessed by a demon and an attempted exorcism resulted in her becoming an Empty Shell, which created a situation where the Sarghress clan had no heir apparent and made her mother Quain'tana resort to desperate measures. There was going to be a story at one point clarifying what exactly happened but it was never made for unknown reasons.
  • Dumbing of Age: During the fall/winter Time Skip, Billie and Ruth broke up. All we know is that it happened at Halloween, and it does not appear to have been amicable.
    Jason: What happened on Halloween? WHAT HAPPENED ON HALLOWEEN?
  • In Earthsong, Zaebos threatens to tell of Felucca's role in a literal Noodle Incident.
  • El Goonish Shive:
  • EVIL: In an early comic, Gabriel blackmails Jezebel with pictures from "the waffle incident".
  • Evil Diva threatens her mother with one. Vaguer than usual. All we know is that the threat to reveal it is enough to make the mother go up against The Big Guy
    • Probably has something to do with her mother's own family background, which Diva knows about because she read her mother's diary.
  • Evil Overlords United has, in the sequel at http://eou.comicgenesis.com/d/20100303.html, a reference to "a toilet plunger, a beaver, and 10 rolls of duck tape". When asked (http://www.dragoneers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=16149#p16149), the reply was "You Don't Want to Know".
  • There's a reason Virus in Exterminatus Now is officially prohibited from handling any vehicle larger than a pair of shoes. Not that the readers will ever know what it is.
  • Ichabod from Far Out There tells Kiki about a very strange incident, but we only hear a small part of it. The rest of us will probably never know where that epileptic pig came from.
    • Ichabod brings up another one later on. SHOULD he have known those Space Whales had "mommy issues"?
  • In The Fourth, we know that Skärva's great-grandfather and the first's partner did something to bring the curse upon Skärva's line, but every time WHAT they did otherwise naturally comes up in exposition, the speaker talks around it.
  • Freefall:
    • The Calvin and Hobbes incident is referred to, with Sawtooth reminding Sam of the incident, saying "You know, the one you blamed on the spiky-haired boy with the stuffed tiger." Florence apparently gets to hear the details, but readers aren't privy to that particular piece of conversation. This is actually fitting, because on at least one occasion Calvin claims to have been framed by aliens for assorted mayhem.
    • Florence also found herself in such an incident at her college graduation ceremony: It involved herself, a forklift, and her go-to-sleep-instantly remote control.
    • There is even a Noodle incident with Noodle Implements, The royal family is not too happy with Sam due to an incident involving a zeppelin, a "Loop the loop" maneuver, and pudding. Lots and lots of pudding. This indirectly led him to leave his home planet, somehow.
    • "Lost Truck Lake"
    • Not very enigmatic, but "they looked so cute..."
    • "This isn't the first time I've had to negotiate while duct-taped to a chair."
    • Sam and Helix have bad luck combining works of art and ignition sources.
    • When Florence is woken up in her pajamas, tied to a chair, with two angry humans and a robot standing over her, she mentally notes that it's the fourth worst awakening she's ever had.
    • "If I tie your facial tentacles to the overhead rack, it will take you three minutes and forty seven seconds to get loose." "That is something I wish you didn't know from experience."
    • Sam exists in only three dimensions and has a certificate saying so.
    • Florence had an "embarrassing" incident at a pond when she was a puppy.
      Florence: I've never lost a fight to a duck since.
    • Sam's previous "snipe hunt".
      Chief: For your information, a snipe is not "anything valuable I can fit into my mouth"!
    • The temporary fate of Winston's truck.
      Sam: That's not my fault. The bridge was out.
      Helix: It was fine until we got there.
      Sam: Still partially not my fault.
    • Ultimately, Sam might as well be made of these. This time, it's the reason why he's running from a mob of police officers. (It's not all bad. Being a one-squid crime spree, he almost single-tentacledly keeps them in business.)
  • Forestdale: According to Rita Kendricks, an incident occurred the 1954 Forestdale snowball war that involved the Red Scare, the FBI, and multiple accusations of people being communists. To this day it's still regarded as the greatest spy play in the history of the game.
  • A Game of Fools: Tomato's main gimmick (besides repeated crossing of the Moral Event Horizon) is telling horrible, traumatizing stories of his bizarre, awful deeds, the most of which we only ever hear the last few sentences of.
    Tomato: ...so, I tried to explain that she DID give consent, but apparently that only applies when they're alive.
    • Once Sylvester gets a job as Tomato's... assistant, he gets in on the act too when telling work stories.
  • Referenced almost by name in General Protection Fault when Trudy blames Dex's clumsiness for "the noodle cube incident" (all food on the Grey ship comes in cubes). This is referenced again much later by Patsty, and apparently Planck was involved as well.
  • Girl Genius loves this gag.
    • Vanamonde makes a scheduled nightly Jaegermonster fight sound tame compared to Poetry Slam Night.
    • We're never quite let in on what happens in the "risqué" play The Socket Wench of Prague, but Agatha seems a bit shellshocked. All we know for sure is that it had a famous Mae West line in it:
      Abner: ... I only had her rehearse her lines. There was no context.
      Agatha: [stunned] ... and when I asked him if that was a wrench in his pocket....
    • The other Heterodyne plays and stories are just as bad. Why does Race to the West Pole end with Klaus in a barrel?
    • Also, while the members of Master Payne's circus plan their next performance:
      Payne:...and then Dame Aedith will do her knife throwing act.
      Abner: And this time, do not ask if there are any vampires in the audience.
      Dame Aedith: Hey! How was I to know that guy was joking? Who'd joke about vampires!?
    • In one town, Agatha worked as a fortune teller.
      "She ... tea cozy ...forty-three hours ... only one spoon ... how ... eek!"
    • Another one from the circus, discussing the former puppeteer for Moxana:
      Abner: Originally, she was run by a dwarf named Kurtz. He was killed three years ago by some bad clams.
      Krosp: Bad clams?
      Abner: They had axes. Anyway...
    • One cannot afford to forget the Nuremburg Pudding Incident, an event alluded to in the past of one of the authors, in-universe.
      "While the Nuremburg Pudding Incident has been largely hushed up and reduced to tantalizing snippets of rumor and hearsay after the fact, the two things most sources agree on are that the Professoressa Foglio was probably mostly responsible (whether this was intentional or not), and that it smelled DELICIOUS."
    • It's been implied that Oggie did something that may or may not have caused Baron Wulfenbach to keep a personal grudge towards him.
      Ognian: Shoddop 'bout dot!
    • "And that was the last time Professor Phosphorous visited the fireworks factory. Or anything else, really."
    • About half the things Gil, Tarvek, and Zola did in Paris.
      Gil: [delirious] Hum— Zola? Did Professor Belette get away? We've got to stop him before he steals the Moulin Rouge.
    • The entire concept of the Island of the Monkey Girls was one for a long time. It was eventually confirmed to be a night club in Paris... but when a fan asked what Zola thought Gil could have done to get himself imprisoned in the Castle, where the Empire sends people it wants to disappear, the only explanation supplied was "Zola was Head Waitress at the Island of the Monkey Girls Theatre and Showbar in Paris." So that's still an enigma.
    • The castle evidently still has damage from The Great St. Valentine's Day Riot.
    • Judging by the fact Martellus isn't too surprised about the fact his grandma's old party sleigh is equipped with a Wave-Motion Gun, one can infer Grandma von Blitzengaard had some interesting parties.
    • Apparently Zeetha's cousin turned out to be the prophesied holy one of a race of people.
    • We get a interesting one while the group is in the the hidden library. Even Agatha remarks that she has "much to learn about the rich and varied history of Jägers."
      Agatha: Maybe it's a Jäger Shredding Machine!
      Dimo: No vay. Dey melted dot down.
    • The story of Baron Wulfenbach's exile. He suddenly disappeared before Lucrezia and Bill got married and came back with an infant son a few years later after Bill, Lucrezia and the Other are gone. Finding everything is in chaos, he resolved to impose order by amassing forces and built his empire. What happened between he disappeared and he got back is ripe source for gossips. (Though in real life, thanks to a sketch drawn by Mr. Foglio, fans at least know where he was sent: Skifander, where he fathered Gil and Zeetha with the queen.
    • The novelizations are full of vague references to bizarre things done by various Sparks. This made the Baron's surface cover story for Gil's background of "family killed by Sparky sausage-making machine" seem perfectly reasonable.
    • Downplayed in a side-story comic with regard to the extra deadly sins invented by the Heterodynes: "Gomorrity" is apparently not all that unusual, but we still don't get to know exactly what it is.
    • Exaggerated when a conversation between Rakethorn, Maxim and Dimo reveals that, since the previous strip, they have fought giant aggressive sea cucumbers, mutant bilge rats, and evil doppelgangers from another dimension (the ghost pirates were on-panel). And also that this has taken slightly less than three minutes. Maxim states these sorts of barrages of random nonsensical madness aren't that uncommon when a Spark's lab is raided and they start losing (while revealing at some point during the whole thing Rakethorn got a Puppeteer Parasite spider shoved in his ear).
    • Even very early on, as Agatha is first encountering Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, we get two Jägers debating their strategy, in such a way that implies a measure of experience with plans that start with them killing everyone who notices they're killing people and end with everyone dead, the dirigible on fire and the Jägers unable to find their hats. The last part, of course, is why they decide not to go through with the plan.
  • Girls Next Door:
    • Girls Next Door makes use of this trope, with a never-elaborated upon Prom Night Incident.
    • There is also the Sushi incident which barred Erik from the cast's favorite sushi bar.
  • A rare almost-on-screen example in Godslave — we don't know just what trap Anpu sets up for Turner and Blacksmith's curses and electric flashes are the only clues.
  • Grrl Power:
    • Sydney, the main character, was once arrested for aggravated assault (although it was dismissed as self-defense). However, it is a little unclear what she actually did. While we do see a possibility in the form of an Imagine Spot by Maxima, the actual police report merely reads, "Oh the humanity!"
    • Later on, Sydney gets some extremely spicy noodle whiplash in her eye. Peggy states in the next comic, "There was an incident."
    • Maxima is referred to by General Faulk as "Destroyer of Mosques," to which she corrects angrily it was "only one mosque." And it was an accident... mostly.
  • Guilded Age: The events leading up to the Flooding Prison Incident seem to have turned into this.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court:
    • "Two Strange Girls":
      • Annie's science fair proposal, which isn't seen. All we know is that the rest of the class was absolutely disgusted.
      • Zimmy's science fair entry. Antimony calls it an "abomination" and it is eventually taken away by men in hazmat suits despite Zimmy's insistence that it's not dangerous, but what she made was never explained.
    • "S1" provides the main trope image, with the Cursed Teapot Incident.
      Kat: There is no way you could make an android that looks that good.
      Annie: We have seen stranger. Remember that cursed teapot?
      Kat: Yeahhhhh… but that was... I don't even know what that was about.
  • In Head Trip Mal has a party that involves alcohol and Disney movies and when she comes to she finds she's taken over Disneyworld with superpowers granted by costumes and Disney movies. Aurora costume gives sleeping powers, Belle costume can turn anyone into furniture but they decided using the magic mirror for surveillance was more practical, Megara has Hade's power as a loophole states any power from the movie is granted by the costume, Snow white has the ability to summon animals to do her bidding. However when they get to Alice they have no idea what her power is as she showed Mal when Mal was under the influence of "The Shot" and Mal made her sign a contract to never use or speak about her power again. All the other ladies know is "it involved hearts" Considering how Mal has repeatedly been wooed by the Devil himself because of how horrible she is one can only wonder what power would be forbidden.
  • Homestuck:
    • Dad Egbert has a restraining order on record against him from Cirque du Soleil, for an incident that's never explained outside of John having found it incredibly embarrassing.
    • Future Dave (now Davesprite) gave John the code for the epic FEAR NO ANVIL, claiming he got it through "shenanigans". "Shenanigans" is a general Dave-speak (Jade uses it later, as well) term for "the story is long and complicated to the point of comprising a whole novel on its own" with a dash of "I'm almost certain you would disapprove of my methods on either moral grounds or that making your friends worry is generally considered a Bad Thing". Karkat considers it "infuriatingly vague".
    • The "little moment" during which Terezi (GC) got close enough to Karkat (CG) to smell his blood color.
      GC: PL34S3 K4RK4T, DO NOT PR3T3ND TH4T YOU FORGOT 4BOUT OUR L1TTL3 MOM3NT
      CG: WHOA
      CG: YOU MEAN
      CG: DURING
      CG: FUCK.
    • Due to the Anachronic Order of the series, a lot of incidents that start out as examples of this end up explained later on. For example, the FLARP accident that crippled Tavros and blinded Terezi.
    • Jack Noir's Jailbreak Adventure gave us the line "You've never once been disappointed to receive a pumpkin full of knives, and you're not about to make an exception."
    • The final battle between the Trolls and the Black King of their session is mentioned a few times, but never actually depicted beyond one or two still frames, which establish two things: 1. the Black King was utterly enormous and 2. Aradia and Sollux used their telekinesis to throw meteors at him at some point. The noodliest part of the fight, however, is Gamzee's contribution: at some point he snapped and did... something to the Black King that caused more damage in a single hit than anything else the Trolls did (including Vriska, who was the only one among them who achieved God Tier). Whatever happened, it terrified the crap out of the Trolls, and none of them seem able to explain just what exactly Gamzee did, or more importantly, what it was that set him off.
  • Jupiter-Men: Quintin and Jackie make overtures toward "the Incident" where Quintin consumed coffee. When he's borderline hysterical about his arm turning into slime, the first thing Jackie asks is if he's consumed any coffee. He denies this and says he hasn't drank any since then.
  • Karin-dou 4koma has a few references to a fight between various characters in the comic and an Evil Organization, during which — among other things — Shizuki fell in love with Tamaryu and Meguru got a major breast enhancement as a side effect of being aged down and back. This comes from an H-doujin the author privately circulated among friends but never released.
  • Kevin & Kell: The ex-human Danielle is asked if the family's human counterparts are also seen as unique within their world. She says yes, but doesn't explain why, saying there's no point dwelling on such silly differences:
    "What could be more frowned on than a rabbit and a wolf?"
    "Humans are resourceful."
  • Knights of Buena Vista is a Campaign Comic covering Disney films such as Frozen (2013). When the Game Master notes how much Min-Maxing Adriana did to her character, Elsa, her reminds her of the last time she did that, which only alludes to The Sword in the Stone, and than the GM had to use divine intervention to prevent a war.
  • Lackadaisy: Years ago, Rocky took the fall for something so heinous that it shattered his relationship with his family (besides Calvin) and got him kicked out.
    Rocky: But then came one of those little family tragedies ... and it had an author ... and with already ink-stained hands, I signed my name on it. It won me a long trip, so the reliable lad could finish school undisturbed ... and so time could dull my fresh reminder face.
  • Leaving the Cradle: When Dan is shown for the first time, he's in the middle telling Val and Mark a story about how he left somewhere undetected and did...something. We aren't given any details (other than it involved the government in some way and he would've gotten arrested if he was spotted) before he gets interrupted by the alien shuttle crashing near them.
  • The Macaroni Incident in Legostar Galactica.
  • In one Megamanspritecomic strip, Zero shows Megaman his new disc player, which can play anything. Megaman suggests a shrimp disc, but in the next comic it has Megaman and Zero agreeing to never do that again.
  • MegaTokyo: Piro and Largo's roadtrip to Canada: "Hey come on... we got handcuffed by real Mounties! That was cool."
  • Every single Comments On A Postcard strip from mezzacotta is based on this principle.
  • Double-U Tea F of The Middle Ground frequently refers to an incident where Lyger did something horrific to his father's car. Every time someone brings it up, Lyger is prone to increasingly bizarre outbursts about it.
    Lyger: I did not know metal could shred into pieces that small!
  • Narbonic:
    • Zeta briefly mentions a certain visit to the Mall of America.
    • The comic is full of these gags, but the most literal one would be when Helen first went mad in an Italian bistro and caused nine casualties — somehow — with a "killer pesto".
      • Actually, that one's explained. You need to take the last word of the file names of every comic from November 12, 2002 onward, and they give you the text-only description of events from her lawyer's point of view.
    • Artie the gerbil gets turned into a human, and then realizes he can go in person to accept his Macarthur 'genius' grant. He says: "It won't be like that time we sent Mell to lecture at Caltech for me!"
  • Nodwick:
    • Yeager invented an eighth deadly sin. All we know about it is that Yeager found it entertaining and called it "blasphotrociterra-o-rama".
    • In another strip he is confronted by four people he bullied as a child. Two of the incidents are pretty self explanatory but one is only described as ruining a girl's first date with a "fish catapult" and another is considered so heinous it is only referred to as "the cheese incident".
  • The Order of the Stick
    • Elan to Nale: "Are you hitting on me? Because, whatever you heard about what happened at Summer Camp-"
    • Strip #488, a deva reviewing Roy's life mentions that Roy's grade school principal had quite a few choice things to say about him, leading Roy to exclaim, "It was just a joke! We didn't know Mrs. McNulty was allergic to weasels!"
    • A few comics later, the scene cuts in on a story (an apparently humorous one to boot) that Roy is telling the same archon.
      Roy: —so I'm like, "But you told me we didn't want to turn right!" and Durkon says, "No, I told ye we dinnae want ta turn wights!" Man, we had to make a lot of Fortitude saves the next day.
    • Two on the same page: the MitD isn't allowed in Tsukiko's room because of 'that thing with the peanut butter.' And the crypt thing incident with Tsukiko (though this one is rather transparent, especially given her...inclinations).
    • Tarquin still hasn't figured out how Thog managed to flood his palace with lemon pudding.
    • The incident with the Rajah. All we know about it is that Tarquin spent the entire coronation with his mouth full of creamed spinach, as the punchline to some elaborate joke.
    • Nale refers to something happening when he was five that drove him to spend twenty-odd years planning to murder Malack. Given Nale's animus at the time it seems likely it either involved damaged pride, childhood trauma, or a mix of the two.
    • Just a little later, Vaarsuvius is shortly banished to the Semi-Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing. When rescued some strips later, Durkon asks if they had any exciting adventures. Cue a Cut Away Gag about them saving Princess Gootrude from the sauce dragon for Prince Oozalot. Lampshaded as V responds they had no "exciting" adventures, to which Belkar breaks the fourth wall and replies that "Hey, maybe we will see that as a bonus story in one of the books." V suggests that maybe they'll never speak of it again.
  • There are a couple in Our Little Adventure. The first being something that happened to Rocky and Angelika in Limbon River, and the second having to do with Angelika's first familiar. These incidents are not talked about, though many people make references to the familiar one in Norveg's company, which frustrates him to no end.
  • Out There: Miriam makes a list of wild things she's done and shows it to Chuck. We never see what they are but we learn that some of them seem impossible and require at least two people. Fifteen of them involved Sherry in some way, much to her embarrassment (and attempted denial). Another one (which also involved Sherry) was "stupid", but apparently fun enough that Sherry would be willing to do it "once more", but "only once". Chuck responds by writing down some things he did, one of which makes Miriam's eyes widen and results in this exchange:
    Miriam: You are so doing that with me tonight.
    Chuck: I don't think we can. The supplies are usually on back order.
    • Some or all of these "Noodle Incidents" could also be examples of Comic Sutra.
  • Ozy and Millie had a different one of these for each joke that calls for one. Notable examples include Millie learning some kind of lesson about baking soda, and Llewellyn getting caught doing something with a queen involving whipped cream.
  • Paranatural:
    • The comic uses some of these for drama: the death of Max's mother, Spender's defeat of a very powerful spirit and the event that led to Dimitri leaving the Activity Club and Isaac concluding that everyone hated him over it are all left extremely vague.
    • Isaac is prone to getting involved in offscreen adventures, with one chapter having Max arrive at school to see the end of one.
    • Even as a lot of mysteries related to Mr Garcia are revealed, his reasoning for lying in a stream in an early chapter remains concealed.
    • Stephen hints at one by complaining that the Principal hates him after he drove her hatchback through an open house.
  • Persona 4TW has several people telling a story about how their shirt got covered with blood and other people assumed it was theirs, but the readers are never given any details about what happened in each case.
  • Platinum Grit. We'll never know what happened to Jeremy when he was carried away by Mexican strangers because it was "El Secreto del Corazon", a secret of the heart, and his silence was a matter of personal honour and great trust and faith. And because he'd been slamming mescal nonstop and didn't actually remember much of it.
  • Precocious:
    • Whatever the Sapphire kids did preceding their hiding out at Kaitlyn's birthday party. One by one, supporting characters learned the details in tiny whispers indecipherable by the audience.
    • Or how about the time they set the lake on fire?
    • Almost all of the children's unseen escapades are treated as Noodle Incidents unless the joke or plot specifically requires otherwise, as well as wealth of Noodle Implements in play when their schemes have yet to come to fruition.
    • Subverted with Tiffany's aging. Strip 893 presents the accident that halted Tiff's aging as a Noodle Incident, but strip 896 provides an explanation.
    • The "Orlando Incident" let the adults in on the fun.
    • Heck, there are so many Noodle Incidents in the comic that it's even addressed in the FAQ!
      Question: Will we get to see what happened when _____?
      Answer: Probably not. I think some things are funnier when you have to imagine what crazy stuff went down yourself!
  • Prequel has recurring references to a "pretty interesting party trick involving a yoyo and a pineapple" that is never explained — we are merely informed that it's not appropriate for most parties. Which still doesn't keep the main protagonist from performing it in the middle of the town square, although in her defense, she was completely plastered at the time.
  • PvP has a variant where Brent and Cole choose revenge randomly, producing a result that even Brent thinks is excessive.
    Brent: No, not Happy Birthday. That's too far.
    Cole: It landed on Happy Birthday!
    …
    Brent: I can't believe you were willing to go through with Happy Birthday.
  • Questionable Content is evidently another comic that's in love with this joke:
    • Apparently, Pintsize has a large file in his hard drive of all the chaos he's caused. #472 is his favorite, because "Those preschoolers will remember that day for the rest of their lives." Knowing Pintsize, it's some kind of unholy wacky terror. A guest strip has another: "There's not time to explain but we're out of eggs and the cops are on the way." And he isn't welcome in Canada (actually the second time the comic has used that line — see below). He's also banned from Switzerland for something involving CERN.
    • Sven's friend Wil leaves a pornographic piece of poetry in the coffee shop. Wil has the "brilliant" idea of getting Sven to go apologize for him, and the following conversation takes place.
      Sven: What am I supposed to say? "I'm sorry that my friend is a creepy motherfucker, but will you please go on a date with him anyway?"
      Wil: Remember Elenore?
      Sven: Aw man, don't call in that favor now. Please.
      Wil: I'm calling it in.
    • And, of course, with the reappearance of Steve we have only vague hints into what secret agent-ish things he was doing while he was gone.
    • Jimbo has an interesting example of one where not even the participants know what happened: "All's I know is we went to a literary convention, I started drinkin', and next thing I know my agent's drivin' like a bat outta hell with me hid in the trunk and I ain't allowed in Canada. ever again." (It later turns out that Canada has seen two such incidents — see the notes on Pintsize, above.)
    • #1499 claims the existence of a real world noodle incident involving the strip's creator.
    • June 14th, 1987 Never Happened.
    • When Dora is looking for a new apartment.
      Realtor: By the way, you're not a witch or wizard or anything, right?
      Dora: Uh... no? Why do you ask?
      Realtor: We had to institute a strict no-sorcery policy because of our last tenant.
      Dora: What? Why?
      Realtor: Let me show you the kitchen.
    • Marten's dad gets remarried, and the entire reception becomes a Noodle Incident.
    • Faye and Bubbles' first client
      Claire: Why do you have a detachable butt?
      Melon: Why wouldn't I?
      Claire: Fair enough. How did you lose it?
      Melon: I didn't MISPLACE it, so much as it was DESTROYED.
      Claire: O-oh. What happened?
      Arthur: Actually, I did some calculations and it could theoretically be in low earth orbit.
      • However, her wallet didn't end up in space. Arthur saw the leopard seal eat it.
    • Why Sam isn't allowed to work at her father's bakery:
      Faye: I'm surprised you don't have her punchin' dough in your shop for the summer.
      Jim: She's not allowed to work at the bakery. Not since the Chaos Loaf incident.
      Sam (off-panel): Chaos Loaf was great. The world just wasn't ready for Chaos Loaf.
  • Randomly Assembled: Birthdayboy's arm injury was *not* a result of the infamous "noodle inceedeent* (which, apparently, everyone has heard of), it happened much earlier, when he was apparently hit by a motorcycle.
  • In Sandra and Woo, do we really want to know how playing "Truth or Dare" with Larisa can cause psychological trauma?
  • Sandusky has the railroad bridge incident.
  • Apparently some time before the events of The Sanity Circus, Bee the circus clown was involved in a magic accident that left her with Floating Limbs. She's surprisingly ok with it.
  • Schlock Mercenary:
    • It's mentioned that Der Trihs used to be a tactical genius before part of his brain was eaten by a Borthwog torturer, but no more detail is ever provided. The whole story was actually a fabrication implanted by the military to cover the fact that they botched a surgery to "upgrade" his brain. The full details are still unclear, and we never even find out who the Borthwog are.
    • We don't know what happened during the Celeschul Terraforming Wars, just that a faction tried to kill Karl Tagon in the opening salvo. Maxim 35: That which does not kill me has made a tactical error. (And a footnote states that, while he disagrees with historians that 'his side' would have lost without his involvement, making him an enemy is poor planning.)
    • During Petey's career running around conscripting galactic troublemakers to fight in the Andromeda conflict, the only ones we actually see being dealt with are the Tohdfraugs and the Qlaviql Tricameral Assembly, dealt with at about the same time, but others are mentioned as having happened offscreen.
    • How Para Ventura became The Dreaded to a lot of UNS military robots is never explained, although considering some of the ways she messes with robots on-panel that's probably for the best.
    • While the details are explained in a side story in the print editions, the joke format is used for the online version, when the Reverend talks about Schlock's bad experience with the last circus he went to, which involved shovels and evil clowns.
  • In Seiyuu CRUSH!, we learn at the beginning that the CRUSH! agency was the only agency willing to hire Kaji "after what happened", but it isn't revealed what actually happened.
  • A few in Sharp Zero, mostly involving Elliot. There's the story about him getting banned from two IHOPs (a goat was involved in one),and when Elliot comes in contact with the titular toxic chemical substance he says, "Somehow this isn't as bad as the Ikea incident."
  • Skin Horse:
  • Sleepless Domain: The members of Team Alchemical can all use their respective Elemental Powers to achieve something close enough to flight — with the exception of Alchemical Fire. The alt text at one point notes that she had once tried using her fire abilities as a jetboot, but "never again."
  • Slightly Damned has a couple, such as how J lost his last job or what happens when wind demons drink.
  • Happens in Sluggy Freelance when Riff unveils his new robot, the Mark-5, even though only the Mark-1 and Mark-2 had been shown previously.
    Torg: Why did you jump to "Mark-5"? I don't remember Mark-3 and 4!
    Riff: I don't want to talk about it.
    Torg: And why are lots 189 through 205 closed for repair?
    Riff: I don't want to talk about it.
    Torg: And lot 206 looks like it's been partially liquefied!
    Riff: Drop it already!
    • Happened again, with the Mark-19 robot.
  • Something*Positive: "Hey! I go along with all of your drunken brainstorms!"
    • The end of a news report in a later strip: "... let's just say it was a Boston Baby Beauty Pageant nobody will forget any time soon! The gunman's identity has not yet been released by police."
    • Davan at one point opens up a spreadsheet of evil things he's done on purpose or accident. Most notably, this list inexplicably includes 'bake a pie' as well as an entry entitled 'Harness the power of kittens for evil'. This second one has happened 13 times.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent:
    • The Västerström is several times mentioned to have undergone a Riches to Rags episode some years earlier due to its relevance to their current situation, but the cause has yet to be mentioned three real-life years and thirteen chapters into the story.
    • The piece of Blackmail that Trond used to convince the captain a merchant ship to make a detour into the Silent World to deliver food to the crew. All that gets shown is the reaction of the captain as Trond reminds her of the information.
  • It's probably better not to ask what Marissa and Max from Sturgeon's Law need a wombat and a bone saw for. It’s also unclear what exactly happened at the Helen Keller Museum.
  • Sunbird: Whatever happened to that mill in Kandia.
  • Supernormal Step has the baby carriage bonfire debacle.
  • In the Devo webcomic, Tired O' Tourin', Bob 1's reaction to Mark's Freak Out at the beginning of the story implies that something similar has happened before.
    • It's never explained where Mark got a gun.
    • It's also lampshaded that no one ever finds out how General Boy finally puts a stop to Mark's behaviour.
  • Name-dropped in Twice Blessed (read the last line on that page).
  • Twin Dragons:
    • In Chapter 4, on the page where Rex is introduced, he says that he already told the teachers that he had nothing to do with the exploding pie incident.
    Benji: Exploding pie?
    Rex: Don't Ask!
    • In Chapter 11, Rex recalls the last time he played basketball with Nate's cousin Charon, a bat hybrid. Charon somehow destroyed half of the gym, which took the entire year's worth of the basketball club's budget to fix. Rex is still bitter about it despite knowing it was an accident.
  • Unicorn Jelly: two characters need to create a distraction, so they do the most shocking thing they can think of. The act is described by an untranslatable glyph. We never find out what it was, but later one of the characters says "Such a forbidden act, and it wasn't even all that interesting."
  • Whatever got Sydney, Mia, and Luthor arrested in Unintentionally Pretentious is banned from conversation.
  • Unshelved has the chess club.
  • Unsounded: Apparently at some point before Duane joined the army Lemuel was locked in the medical cart for "head crackery".
  • Monica of Wapsi Square once tried to use her dog to pick up guys in the park. It apparently resulted in her handbag catching fire.
  • Weak Hero:
    • Before the battle with Hyeongshin, Alex is hanging out separately from Ben. When asked why, he only says that Ben is a "traitor" without ever elaborating.
    • Whatever Myles Joo did to get excommunicated from the Union. It involved crossing Donald in some way, but the details have yet to be elaborated on.
  • The "Project Noodle incident" in Weapon Brown. Which is (naturally) part of the origin story for that comic's version of Calvin and Hobbes.
  • The potato juice incident of 2005, Kitti and Dries's "legendary" anniversary, and everything Zac did on the Fleischmann account in What the Fu.
  • The Whiteboard: Michaels will never look at an electric toothbrush the same way ever again.
  • In The Wotch, this rather hilarious exchange alludes to some past event that soured Kate to Jason. While the two discuss it in the actual comic, their words are covered up by the background events.
  • The Wretched Ones has a conversation between Charlie and John where they discuss what happened last time John visited Charlie at work to 'make use of his break'. It involves a plate of flying Linguini.
    • In another page, John mentions that Charlie once burned his ass on their cooker. When trying to elaborate what happened, Charlie keeps telling him to shut up until he stuffs a napkin in his mouth.
  • xkcd uses this a few times:
  • What, exactly, the lyrics of "that one about the lady and the sausagemaker" are in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic will likely remain forever a secret. All we know are the reasons it was written (to slander a woman the songwriter hit on and failed to score with) and that it takes about two years to clear the mental images out of one's head.

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