Basic Trope: An embarrassing old photo of someone.
- Straight: While Charlie takes his girlfriend Diane to meet his parents, Alice and Bob, they show Diane an old photo of Charlie as a baby in the bathtub.
- Exaggerated:
- There are a whole bunch of embarrassing old photos that Charlie's parents show Diane.
- The old photos are of Charlie naked in his high school hallway, being laughed at by other students.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob show Diane a picture of Charlie's slightly embarrassing emo phase.
- Charlie is slightly amused by the picture, but still thinks it's embarrassing.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob want to show Diane that their son is Not So Above It All.
- Alice and Bob are already Amazingly Embarrassing Parents.
- It was right next to the one they wanted to show to prove that Charlie did meet 'Captain Jean-Luc Picard' at that age.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob show Diane a really cool picture of Charlie.
- Subverted: Charlie looks uncomfortable when his parents first show the picture to Diane. However, he later privately admits to them that he found it Actually Pretty Funny, but intentionally played up his embarrassment.
- Double Subverted: Later, Alice and Bob show Diane a picture of Charlie when he was in middle school, which legitimately embarrasses him.
- Parodied: The old picture of Charlie somehow becomes a instant viral hit in seconds, to the point in which everyone in the world has seen it.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: There are no embarrassing old photos.
- Enforced:
- "We should show just how embarrassing Charlie's parents really are!"
- "If there's anything related to Charlie's past he'd prefer no one knows about, it would certainly be a naked baby picture or a photo of him being toilet-trained."
- Lampshaded: "Oh, you had to show my girlfriend the picture of me in the bathtub!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Charlie doesn't let his parents show anyone any embarrassing old photos of him.
- Discussed: "When I first brought my girlfriend to meet my parents, they showed her a picture of me doing something really stupid when I was a kid, and I wanted to crawl under a rock."
- Conversed: "Why are fictional parents always showing crappy old pictures of their children?"
- Implied:
- The photo isn't shown onscreen, but Alice, Bob, and Diane are laughing at it while Charlie seems embarrassed.
- Charlie brings up a Noodle Incident involving his parents showing people a picture of him in his younger days.
- Played for Laughs: Cringe Comedy
- Played for Drama:
- The photo is of a traumatic memory that Charlie is trying to forget.
- Charlie disowns his parents over them showing that photo.
- Charlie destroys the photo and murders his parents so no one will know about it.
- Charlie is killed or goes missing and the photo becomes a Tragic Keepsake for his parents.
- The photos are child pornography of young Charlie being molested.
Back to Embarrassing Old Photo... oh, you just had to show them that one!
