The Hindsight tropes, Hilarious in Hindsight, Harsher in Hindsight, and Heartwarming in Hindsight, are among the most misused Audience Reaction tropes on this site. Many people don't understand that the tropes require more than just "This happened, so that happened", and end up adding examples which either lack connection or the substance that makes them funny/serious/not-so-funny/heartwarming. Some of them may be suited better for other tropes (ex: Life Imitates Art), while some may not belong on TV Tropes at all (such as ones involving politicians, due to Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment).
Please report any Hindsight example that you feel are questionable, and we'll analyze them to see if they are actually examples or not.
Remember that the Hindsight tropes are Audience Reactions. That means if an example under review discusses significant fan response pointing out the hindsight, the example can't be cut solely for being too tenuous for this thread.
- Creator's character/portrayal dies in work and then creator dies in real life, unless their fictional death is closely similar to their real one (such as Billy Bob Joe portraying a character who dies from pancreatic cancer, then Billy Bob dies from pancreatic cancer himself)
- Mundane word related to something terrible (such as "corona" or "Epstein") unless there's more to the connection (such as someone named "Corona" having the flu)
- Creator appears in work then becomes more controversial later on.
- A common event (such as a typical natural disaster) happens in work, then happens in real life (unless they are closely similar, such as the event happening to the same area in both reality and fiction around the same time) For once, not everything related to disease has to do with COVID-19, not everything related to racism and Police Brutality has to do with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, and not everything related to sexual abuse has to do with #MeToo.
- A common/generic concept was used in this work and then later reused in that work (too loose for a connection, unless the concept is so unique it's identified with the work)
- Two actors appear together then do so in another work
- Hindsight examples involving recent events, due to them often being shoehorns. Specifically:
- COVID-19 examples, before 75% of the population has returned to normal
- George Floyd/2020 Black Lives Matter examples, before protests have declined
- Examples which fall guilty of Older Than They Think, such as "Make X Great Again" slogans. Aside from violating the ROCEJ, this slogan has been in use since the 1940s.
- Characters using slurs which are treated as annoying at worst in the work, but is now harsher due to how severe the slur is made now. Discrimination has always existed with that slur. (May qualify for Values Dissonance if work is at least 20 years old.)
Note: As of January 2022, "Funny Aneurysm" Moment is no longer separate from Harsher in Hindsight.
- The former redirects to the latter and all wicks to the former (with the exception of ones on archive pages and the YMMV Redirects index) must either be moved to the latter (if they're valid) or removed (if they're invalid).
- The subpages for the former are still accessible from this page
. After a subpage for "Funny Aneurysm" Moment has been completely cleaned up, turn it into a redirect to the Harsher in Hindsight subpage for the same medium to preserve inbounds.
Edited by Tabs on Jun 21st 2023 at 11:51:25 AM
1.Not sure if he's lying, but it's most likely just a one-time joke that would be forgotten in other episodes (although we never saw Lindsay with a phone). 2.The host's comment implies that you can't use anything with buttons after you get electrocuted. Old phones had buttons, but touchscreens don't. Since it's hard to write accurate hindsight examples, I'm not sure if this is an example or not.
Edited by Dghcrh on Jun 10th 2020 at 11:14:23 AM
I'm mainly a fan of underrated media.
Chris is a troll. He said that specifically because he wanted to mess with Lindsay. The majority of the contestants receive an electric shock but are shown to be just fine afterwards.
I would argue the joke became less funny over the course of the years, as the existence of touch screens makes it feel dated.
These are on ER under Harsher in Hindsight:
- The show's creator Michael Crichton (though he largely left the production after the first season) died shortly before it finally ended.
- J. Madison Wright, best known as True on Earth 2, played a little girl who died in the celebrated "Hell and High Water." This was the first death of a child in the show's history. Wright died of a heart attack shortly before her twenty-second birthday.
The following are from the Buso Renkin YMMV page:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In the Beach Episode, after Kazuki and Tokiko see Captain Bravo surfing, he responds with "YES! I AM!", which is the catchphrase of Mohammed Avdol from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's even funnier after Captain Bravo's seiyuu voiced Avdol in All Star Battle.
- The first arc involves a teenage boy and a powerful, teenage, blue-haired girl fighting against humans who have been turned into monsters by a butterfly-themed villain (with a french name, no less) that the boy knows in his non-heroic life, with all three gaining power from transformation trinkets about the size of a deck of cards. Sounds like someone did Ladybug and Chat's story a few years early!
First one: I am not familiar with JoJo but I think YES! I AM! is quite a common phrase. Second One: Again, I am not familiar with Ladybug but again I feel this is a relatively common plot
Because of all the controversy and anxiety surrounding Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox (ie, Disney building a monopoly, movie theaters losing access to old Fox movies, etc.), I either edit or delete Hilarious in Hindsight entries that seem to paint the merger in a hilarious (or at least not-scary) light; does this entry from YMMV.The Simpsons Movie need either of those treatments?
- Bart's joke about being "the mascot of an evil corporation" and the gag about Homer and Marge being prepared for love-making by being undressed by forest animals that look like they came straight out of Bambi become this as of March 20, 2019, when Disney ended up buying 20th Century Fox, the studio behind The Simpsons. This becomes even more hilarious when, during a Disney+ ad, a frustrated Bart is forced to dress up as Mickey Mouse.
I'd leave the Simpsons Disney examples, if only because of the retroactive Biting-the-Hand Humor. Not that they didn't see it coming...
This is on Bugs Bunny under Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In "Rebel Rabbit", Bugs finds out that the reward for Foxes is $50, but the reward for rabbits is $.02. When he goes to Washington to complain about this, he's told it's because Foxes are destructive, but rabbits are harmless. Maybe Bugs decided to prove them wrong by sending some relatives down under...
Just when you thought Tropers would come to their senses, i found this in YMMV.Judge Dredd.
- A virus that spreads quickly with flu-like symptoms, causing mass panic, is tested for using a nasal swab, and had certain elements of society hampering the authorities' attempts to deal with the situation. Are we talking about the Chaos Bug or Covid-19?
This is on YMMV.King Of The Hill:
- In "Hillennium" Hank and Bobby go to the Mega Lo Mart to find people panic buying due worrying about Y2Knote . Two men are seen fighting over toilet paper and Bobby worries that his brand isn't available. Thanks to 2020's COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of panic buying and worrying about toilet paper shortages doesn't feel so much like a joke.
These are on HarsherInHindsight.Western Animation:
- On The Loud House , the episode "Geri-Antics" focuses on Lisa trying to extend the life of her grandfather Pop Pop. The episode then ends with a message on living in the moment even if you won't live forever. Pop Pop's voice actor, Fred Willard , would die 6 months after the episode aired.
- In Phineas And Ferb In The Second Dimension, the second dimension is filled with kids (and adults) who couldn't go outside because of the government and they couldn't meet people or make friends, resembling the events of COVID-19 back in The New '20s.
- One of the major reason many despised Johnny Test is because it was aired constantly by Cartoon Network, and viewers were so sick of seeing it every day that it was considered "the worst cartoon ever" despite actually being an average show. Flash forward several years later and in comes Teen Titans Go!, which likewise aired daily. However, between the two, Johnny Test was at least restrained to prime time and weekend slots, letting some of the other shows on the network at least air. Teen Titans Go, on the other hand, was showcased to the point where, at one point, it filled up almost every slot for an entire month, much to the detriment of other shows like Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe, or Mighty Magiswords.
- Danny Phantom: Unlike The Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom was never renewed after cancellation, making it the only series developed by Butch Hartman during his time at Nickelodeon to not see development or release of new episodes in the 2010's (not counting a promotional video for Bunsen Is a Beast). In the 2010's, however, Hartman's shows were notably not as favorable as they once were, with Flanderization and unlikable main characters being major complaints, coupled with Hartman himself becoming a very divisive figure. In some ways, Danny Phantom may have avoided an even worse fate thanks to Phantom Planet.
Let's see:
1: Actor mortality. Cut the entry
2: Classic COVID-19 example. Kill the entry
3: One show is overplayed and then another show years later is even more overplayed. Doesn't sound like a good entry to me
4: Sounds like it's saying the show would have gotten Seasonal Rot if it were renewed. Doesn't sound like a good entry to me either
Edited by KingofNightmares on Jun 13th 2020 at 2:18:44 AM
"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"The two actors in the same work type of Hindsight would be one of these tropes:
- Production Posse: Specific people from a past production work together on another production.
- Those Two Actors: A studio constantly pairs actors together because they like their dynamic.
These are on The Simpsons Movie, this on under Harsher in Hindsight:
- It's a bit of a reach, but Springfield's reaction to being trapped under a dome has been eerily similar to the long-term repercussions to lockdown conditions during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic
And this one under "Funny Aneurysm" Moment:
- Tom Hanks states at the end credits, “This is Tom Hanks saying, if you see me in person, please leave me be”. Thirteen years after the film’s release, Tom Hanks was placed in isolation, after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Took care of the Simpsons one, but could you be more specific where the Tom Hanks one is?
Edit: Oh, okay, they're both under the Simpsons movie. Got them both.
Got one that had been commented out in FunnyAneurysmMoment.Family Guy while I was at it.
- In "Death Has a Shadow", a cutaway shows Peter watching Philadelphia after drinking an Irish coffee, laughing after it's revealed that Tom Hanks's character had AIDS. On March 11, 2020, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita were tested positive for the coronavirus.
Edited by sgamer82 on Jun 15th 2020 at 7:31:46 AM
This is on King Of The Hill S 3 E 23 Wings Of The Dope:
- Harsher in Hindsight: An episode that's already something of a tear-jerker becomes more depressing when Brittany Murphy passed away in 2009. And got even more worse when her husband died 5 months later.
Judging by the plot summary on Fandom, the episode is about Buckley's death, so like, I can kinda see it, but Luanne doesn't die in the episode and Brittany Murphy's husband isn't his voice actor. There needs to be something more than "yet another actor turns out to be mortal, continuing a pattern that has never been broken since the beginning of time".
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.Found both of these under "Funny Aneurysm" Moment on Persona 4:
- Towards the end of the game, mass hysteria erupts in Inaba over the fog, with many of its citizens fearing illness and viruses, leading to panic-buying of gas masks. Come the pandemic of 2020, this segment is a lot harder to sit through. (An optional night-time conversation with Chie even mentions that some people are hoarding gas masks to re-sell at inflated prices, which became all too common regarding surgical masks) It doesn't help that the Steam port for Golden was released around this time.
- Adachi's lines regarding police became much worse considering the Steam release was during the protests in response to George Floyd's death (as well as other racism issues), and that's all that will be said on that matter.
The first one I'm going to cut as it falls under COVID misuse but it's the second one I'm more concerned about. Right now the example doesn't have any context and is misusing Ro CEJ so I'm just going to cut it, but I feel like we're going to see George Floyd brought up more in hindsight examples which might need to be watched for.

~Dghcrh
I'm not sure I understand the entry. I have two questions: