Hindsight Cleanup

That second GTAV FAM example seems more like just complaining to me. I'm gonna delete it anyway.

Edited by PlasmaPower on May 27th 2020 at 7:17:02 AM

This is on The Loud House S 4 E 14 Good Sports Geri Antics:

• Harsher in Hindsight: Lisa learns that while we can’t live forever, we can enjoy what we have while we are alive. Now that Fred Willard has passed on, who knows what this could mean for Pop-Pop? Will they retire him? Will they recast him? Who knows?

That’s a very loose connection, and the topic there just runs off from the trope itself. Cut.

Yeah. I wouldn't call that a connection unless Fred Willard voice Lisa.

It's followed up with this on the same page:

• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Still, the bonding between Lisa and her Pop-Pop was sweet enough and it’s a pretty touching send off to Willard's career.

Seems like a Heartwarming Moment, but too general to be Heartwarming in Hindsight.

Bringing up these examples from RiffTrax:

• "Funny Aneurysm" Moment:
  • From their riff of Iron Man:
    Terrence Howard: Next time, baby!
    And Terrence locks up his role in the sequel!
  • In fact, a lot of listeners probably assumed it was an intentional reference — the riff was released the exact same day that Howard was dropped from the sequel.
  • From their riff of Raiders of the Lost Ark: When the Nazis carry the crate containing the Ark through the desert, the riffers say "The funeral of Gary Coleman was a sad affair." The riff was released about 2 and a half years prior to Coleman's death.
  • In the Red Dawn (1984) Riff, as the movie surveys some battle wreckage, they quip "Oh my gosh, they replaced our town with Detroit!" Guess where the 2012 remake was filmed?
  • During the announcement video of the Breaking Dawn riff Kevin falls in love with Bill's recently passed kidney stone, and after Bill "kills" it by throwing it away a heartbroken Kevin starts tearfully and loudly singing I will Always Love You while Mike makes an offhand comment about Kevin "mourning the death of his dearest love". However, barely two days later the joke got a HELL of a lot darker with Whitney Houston's death.
  • From their The Return of the King riff, they see a devastated, flooded city and say "The Jersey Shore, present day." A few years later, Hurricane Sandy hit.
  • In the Alien riff, they remark that "Ian's been chugging that Lance Armstrong energy drink stuff!" Five years later, Armstrong admits to using steroids.
  • All the riffs about Matthew McConaughey's acting skills are pretty ironic given his recent Career Resurrection. Hell, Mike is even a fan of True Detective. The riffers now emphasize the fact that McConaughey is The Stoner and a Granola Guy, such as their version of his eulogy to Evel Knievel.
  • The A New Hope riff has R2D2 telling Luke that he stood by his mother as she died. Flash forward to The Rise of Skywalker, where Artoo is by Leia's side as she dies.

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Any riff that makes fun of a specific celebrity that has died after the rifftrack was released can be considered this:
    • The commentary for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines includes a comment about Heath Ledger getting killed. It was released a little over a year before Ledger's death from a sleeping pill overdose.
    • "The death of Phillip Seymour Gaffigan" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Philip Seymour Hoffman's shocking death would come shortly after its release.
  • The live show of Anaconda listed "optimism for Ghostbusters 3" as a movie mistake. A few years later, thanks to a variety of factors, Ghostbusters (2016) ended up being one of the most controversial movies in recent memory.

• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the Iron Man Riff, while on a little tangent about how Robert Downey Jr. can improve the type of hat he is wearing, they suggest a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker. Cue the announcement for who plays the detective in the 2009 film...
    • Also in Iron Man, during the scene where Tony's suit ices up and he tells Jarvis to deploy the flaps, Mike quips: "You said we didn't need flaps, you installed spinning rims instead". Come The Avengers, when Jarvis claims that the new suit isn't ready yet, Tony actually says "Then skip the spinning rims."
    • And given how much Throw It In! was involved with Tony Stark's dialogue, courtesy of the pop-culture-savvy Robert Downey Jr being given a Harpo Does Something Funny free hand... It MIGHT have actually been a shout-out to the riff on his part.
  • In The Avengers the riffers spend some time pondering about Coulson's relationship with a cellist ... a character who later gets a whole episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and ends up being played by Amy Acker.
    • In a much darker example of this trope, the riffers constantly tease Samuel L. Jackson for not being able to throw around "MF bombs" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe like he can in other movies. In The Stinger of Avengers: Infinity War, Nick Fury's last words before being turned to ash are a cut-short "Motherfucker!"
  • During shots of the Home Tree in the Avatar riff, Bill references Disney's Animal Kingdom. Guess what movie is now getting its own land at the park?
  • During the podracing scene in The Phantom Menace; "It's like a live-action Speed Racer!" The Live-Action Adaptation of Speed Racer came out a year and a half after the riff was released.
  • During the riff of Captain America: The First Avenger, the riffers tell Cap "Don't let Ant-Man become an Avenger." Marvel has since announced an Ant-Man movie.
    • Yet Marvel Studios has been scrupulously obedient up to at least 2019's Avengers: Endgame. Ant-Man did team up with Cap in Captain America: Civil War, but that netted him a prison sentence rather than an Avengers membership.
    • Speaking of the aforementioned Captain America movies, one of the riffers has Red Skull express shock that his Death Ray kills people instead of shrinking them. Spider-Man: Homecoming would use a similar joke when The Vulture uses a similar weapon to vaporize a flunky who screwed up...and then chewing out his other subordinates for handing him the death ray because he "only" wanted to make him float around for a bit.
  • During the RiffTrax of Revenge of the Sith, they make fun of Padmé waiting for Anakin in one scene by saying "Mickey Mouse is waiting for him." to which Kevin says as Mickey Mouse "*chuckles* Hi, Anakin! *chuckles again*". Guess who bought Lucasfilm and is making Star Wars Episode VII?
  • A man went to court after throwing sand into Darth Vader's face.
  • During the riffing of ''Daredevil, Mike continues Matt Murdock's (Ben Affleck) narration by stating that he would become a hero called Batman until a rich kid from Gotham sued him for the copyright. Well, guess who is playing the rich kid from Gotham in the DC Extended Universe?
    • Jared Leto is named as one of the "charisma-free actors" Elektra has beaten up. He plays the Joker opposite Affleck.
  • During the climax of Dr. Who and the Daleks, Kevin jokes about how the Daleks are made to shoot each other. ("You shot me! You knew it was me, Carl! You looked me in the eye!") That was funny enough. Then, it got funnier when what the Doctor really did to the Dalek fleet around Gallifrey was revealed in "The Day of the Doctor".
    • Also, at one point they riff about the inside of one Dalek's armor being covered with posters of "the chick who plays Arya Stark". A few years later, Doctor Who introduced a character named Ashildr...
  • In the Revenge of the Sith riff Bill raises the possibility of three more sequels during the aftermath of Mace Windu's death. 2 years later ...
  • Some of the pre-show cards for the Starship Troopers live show had movie titles to unscramble. The answer card for one for Monsters University commented "At least it's not Cars 3". Months later, Pixar announces Cars 3.
  • In their riff on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when we first meet Gollum, Kevin quips, "Still, I'd take him over Jar Jar in a heartbeat!" which Mike replies, "Meesa, too.". On April 29th, 2014, Disney and Lucasfilm announced that Andy Serkis is part of the cast for the next Star Wars film.
  • At Jean Grey's death scene in X-Men: The Last Stand, Mike says "Yes, the bliss of freedom from the X-Men franchise". Since then, Famke Janssen has appeared in not just one, but two X-Men movies.
  • Their jokes about the Kansas City Royals qualify now that they've made it to the World Series for the first time since 1985.
    • And especially after they won the World Series in 2015.
  • Their riff on The Last Airbender becomes this when you learn that one of the guest riffers, Janet Varney, would later appear in the sequel to the show the movie was based on.
    • Especially after the Grand Finale of the aforementioned show, at least with regards to these lines: "So do you think they mean 'bender' the way British people use it?" "Google it, folks!"
  • Their gag in the first Transformers movie about Anthony Anderson being "the whitest black guy in the world" is even more appropriate since he became the star of a show called Blackish.
  • In X2: X-Men United, one of the gags has one of the guys call Iceman "gay" and says "Same difference" when corrected as "mutant". A few years later, the comic character is actually revealed to be gay.
  • The intro to the riff of The Lord Of The Rings The Fellowship Of Ring has Kevin disappointed and frustrated that the film doesn't include Radagast the Brown, among other characters. Radagast would later appear as a supporting character in The Hobbit trilogy.
  • A walrus was born at Sea World and named Ginger. She even looks like the main character from "Get That Job"!
  • In their Live Show for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Santa makes three Base Ball Bats, with the Riffers commenting; "One for each hit the Royals will get, next season!". The Royals made it to the World Series, the following year!
  • A Running Gag in the Jurassic World review involves insinuating that Zach and Gray's actors (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) aren't especially invested in their performance or acting in general and plan to ditch the business as soon as the film is wrapped. Naturally, both continued acting in real life, but Robinson's career in particular took off and he soon garnered critical acclaim and popularity for his lead role in Love, Simon, which can make the riff hilarious for those recognizing Robinson via Retroactive Recognition.
  • The "Red Wedding" joke in Fun In Balloon Land becomes even funnier knowing the crew would later do a Rifftrax of the infamous episode.
  • The "give Bowser an erection" joke in The Wizard becomes oddly prophetic in the wake of the Bowsette meme.
  • In their riff of High School Musical, one of the riffers ask "Didn't Chris R. threaten Denny up here?" This becomes even more hilarious when you realize that Zac Efron, who plays Troy in the High School Musical movies, later played the actor who played Chris R. in The Room in The Disaster Artist.
  • During the Cloverfield riff (recorded in 2008), the riffers urge the monster to knock down Trump Tower. Flash forward a decade or so later, and they're still making riffs at now-President Trump's expense.
  • In their riff of Attack of the Puppet People, at one point a man suddenly walks in on Franz. One of the riffers, as Franz, shouts "For God's sake, no coffee!" This brings to mind a similar gag 6 years later in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) where Agent Stone interrupts Robotnik to offer him a latte. Unlike the Rifftrax version of Franz, though, Robotnik actually wants the drink.

I found this "Funny Aneurysm" Moment gem in YMMV.World Of Warcraft.

• In September 2005, there was a bug that caused the Corrupted Blood incident^note It was a debuff that the player character spread to other party members, leading to a wipe if it was not mitigated in time from Hakkar, the last boss in the then-newly released raid, Zul'Gurub. Because of griefers immediately taking advantage of the debuff, it led to major cities becoming ghost towns, causing lower level players to die almost instantly. It left these cities with corpses and skeletons all over the major cities on both factions. Now, nearly 15 years later, it is happening in real life with COVID-19/Coronavirus, which has over five million cases worldwide and is to blame for nearly 350,000 deaths. Like the Corrupted Blood, it is contagious and passed on to others, resulting in major cities becoming ghost towns and having quarantine measures, just like in World of Warcraft.

Edited by GeneralGigan817 on May 27th 2020 at 4:14:24 AM

Good lord, cut away at that. I swear, do these people think covid was the first pandemic in history? Not every example of The Plague in fiction should be connected to it. I should not have to say this, but now I have to.

Like I said, I think the fact that this is happening to us, rather than as a historical thing we only learned about in school, makes it feel more personal and serious. So people are thinking about it a lot and are more inclined to make connections that aren't there, just because it's in the back of everyone's minds.

That's why I think some sort of waiting period between events would help. If we manage to get examples after the pandemic ends and things turn back to normal, most likely they're valid examples and not knee-jerk reactions.

I admit that I added on the Western Animation subpage for FAM an entry related to another pandemy (the Swine Flu). The entry is about how a comical, fictional disease shares its name with the Swine Flu, an uncomical real disease. Is that valid?

Edited by Dghcrh on May 27th 2020 at 1:09:18 PM

The thing with the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic is that it’s stretched over a relatively long time, lasting for a solid 1/4 of a year (nearly half if you count pre-quarantine).

By comparison, events like hurricanes or mass shootings go over quickly, most of them don’t even reach a week, meaning it’s over by the time we start editing about it.

With all this in mind, we see a lot of piss-poor Hindsight examples relating to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic, and thus I elect that Hindsight examples can only be listed after the event that makes it Funny/Harsher/Heartwarming is over.

Edited by GeneralGigan817 on May 27th 2020 at 6:07:19 AM

To be honest I'm still shocked there isn't a One Piece hindsight entry for toilet paper hoarding. Once it occurred to me I fully expected to see it.

Here's my look at the Hilarious in Hindsight examples on YMMV.Diary Of A Wimpy Kid:

• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the 3rd book, Greg said that in the future, everyone will have a personal robot that tells you whatever you need to know. Virtual assistants and smart speakers, anyone? I believe "personal assistant robots" were a quite common thing in fiction before stuff like Alexa became a thing; likely too general.
  • In the first movie, Rowley rejects Greg's offer to get ice cream. Fast forward to the next time he ran into ice cream... Ice cream is a common dessert, so this is probably too general.
  • On top of that, Rowley breaks his arm. Robert Capron would later play another character in a Haunting Hour episode who breaks his arm...and then ANOTHER one who does so. This one might actually be valid.
  • In Cabin Fever, Rowley asks Greg if he wants to build a snowman. This is some ridiculous shoehorning.
  • In the 11th book, Greg is planning on making a movie. What's next, befriending a girl with leukemia against his will? From what I can tell, the main character in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl just happens to have the first name "Greg" and films low-budget movies... yeah, this seems like a stretch.
  • In the expanded do-it-yourself book, there's a section called Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid which showcases some diary entries from Rowley's perspective. Eight years later, it would become a fully-fledged book. Unsure about this one.
  • Geese being unusually aggressive in Double Down becomes much funnier after a certain indie game gave geese a Memetic Psychopath status. Geese can actually be aggressive towards humans in RealLife (especially while having goslings), so this isn't valid.
  • A comic strip called Wacky Dawg stopped being funny when the creator started using the dog to voice his own personal opinions and stopped focusing on jokes. Sound familiar?
    • This also seems to be the case with the books themselves in the eyes of several longtime readers. This just seems like shoehorned complaining about both Family Guy and the books themselves.

Edited by jandn2014 on May 29th 2020 at 5:53:24 AM

This is on Other:

• The Neat Freak archetype Played for Laughs in any media before the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic that sees people having to take up neat-freaky ways in order to survive.

Edited by fragglelover on May 27th 2020 at 6:21:46 AM

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Cutting that one myself; I'm sick of these incredibly-shoehorned COVID-19 connections.

Edited by jandn2014 on May 27th 2020 at 6:22:59 AM

I wonder if we should make a form letter type note to put on any pages with COVID entries saying "hey, these don't count, knock it off", but more diplomatically.

When I first heard of it, I thought it was a Crappy Trope Definitions example I couldn’t find.

This is on Angels in the Outfield:

"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: The 1994 version may have been a bit difficult to watch after the real-life deaths of Angels pitchers Nick Adenhart and Tyler Skaggs.

So more "the actors' deaths make their works retroactively sadder?"

Seems a pretty straightforward cut.

I repeat.

Edited by sgamer82 on May 28th 2020 at 3:01:36 AM

YMMV.Monty Pythons The Meaning Of Life

• Harsher in Hindsight: During the Death segment, Graham Chapman answers the door for Death. He was the first Python to die. And to keep you from brushing that off as just a coincidence, 31 years after his death in 1989, he was the only Python to have died until Terry Jones passed away as well in 2020.

I especially love the part where it tries to insist this isn't a coincidence because other Pythons didn't die as quickly. As if that somehow makes the connection stronger or something.

YMMV.Codename Kids Next Door under Harsher in Hindsight:

• A relatively small one, but Numbuh 274's real name becomes this when, recently, "Chad" has come to be a stereotypical name for jerks.
• In the finale, Numbuh 74.239 reveals that adulthood is a disease sweeping the universe at an alarming rate. Come 2020 and we have the Corona virus which has affected nearly if not the entire world in a relatively short time.

The first one is ridiculous enough. The second one... I don't even think Mr. Fantastic can reach that far.

On the subject of Kids Next Door and because I'm not sure what counts for this trope anymore, is this example I added a few months ago at "Funny Aneurysm" Moment used correctly?

• The pilot episode of the unproduced series Kenny and the Chimp, which aired alongside the aforementioned show's pilot, features the titular Kenny getting the "Swine Flu". Initially a fictional disease that turns your head into a pig, it later became the name of a real and serious pandemic disease that spread around the world.

Might as well ask about this entry as well.

• Numbuh 5's father is a very clear parody of Bill Cosby, which might be a little uncomfortable after the multiple allegations against him of sexual assault.