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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"You've seen it all before, folks, and you're seeing it all again!"''
|'''The [[Narrator]]''', ''[[Samurai Pizza Cats]]''}}
A shot or series of shots that are frequently reused in a show. Copies of this footage are kept on hand and spliced into a show as needed.
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Occasionally, stock footage from other sources is used in cartoons for comedic effect; a series of stock footage clips are shown, each one more absurd than the last.
See [[Dawn of Flight Failures Montage]] for one example.
Compare [[Limited Animation]].
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*** Another favorite is the footage from a camera on a missile launched (from White Sands?) into the upper atmosphere.
** In ''[[Santa Claus Conquers the Martians]]'', stock footage of military planes (some of it used later for the opening credits of [[Dr. Strangelove]]) is used several times to represent the government either searching for the Martians or for Santa Claus after the Martians had kidnapped him (missile footage for space takeoffs is also used), prompting this timeless riff:
{{quote|'''Crow: (As Martian)''' Woah, there's a ton of stock footage out there!}}
** ''[[Missile to The Moon]]'' (1959). When the first men <s>in Bronson Canyon</s> on the Moon take off on their return trip to Earth, superimposed stock footage of a V2 launch is used... including the launch gantry. Guess those Moon girls built it for them.
** Similar to ''Invasion of the Neptune Men'' (using actual aerial bombardment footage from WWII, to the dismay of the show's writers), ''[[Invasion U.S.A.]]'' used the real German bombing of London to stand in for a fictional Soviet bombing of New York.
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** A more recent attempt at this was made with ''[[Kung Pow! Enter the Fist]]'', where Steve Oedekirk inserted himself into a 1976 kung fu movie called ''Hu hao shuang xing'' ("Tiger and Crane Fists"). He also added silly dubbed voices and a new story involving French aliens.
* In the film ''Ed Wood'', [[Johnny Depp]]'s Ed Wood makes a statement about how he could make a whole film from Stock Footage. Ed Wood himself used a lot of stock footage, which led to amusing continuity errors.
* An example of absurd Stock Footage comes from the Zucker brothers' classic ''[[Airplane!]]!'' Ted Stryker has continuous flashbacks to his Vietnam experience, which behind the cockpit, which are shown by old-time World War II footage of airplanes being shot down... then, eventually, by [[Dawn of Flight Failures Montage|pre-Wright Brothers footage of some of man's unsuccessful attempts to fly an airplane]], all with the same "plane being shot down in a dogfight" sound effects.
** This is an intentional lampshading; the majority of the movie is taken verbatim from a '50s-era movie in which Stryker ''did'' fly in [[World War II]]. They also use Stock Footage of a jet plane... with the sound of ''propeller'' engines.
*** Which they did because they weren't allowed to use a propeller plane.
* The "good ending" long-shot footage in ''[[Blade Runner]]'' consisted of unused scenes from ''[[The Shining]]''. [[Executive Meddling]] forced the ending on [[Ridley Scott]], so he did it without having to shoot any new footage. Notably, the scene is absent in the Director's Cut and the later editions, all of which end with the elevator doors closing (Scott's original ending).
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* The movie ''Midway'' used a lot of stock footage, as well as footage "borrowed" from other [[WW 2]] films, including ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' and ''The Battle of Britain''.
** It's a good example of how over-use of stock footage can cause problems. After you've seen the same clip of an airplane approaching a carrier and bouncing to a halt four or five times, you know something's up when you see a ''different'' clip of an airplane starting its approach.
*** It gets worse, the producers were not very picky about the stock footage they used. No, let me rephrase that, they were not picky at all. One of the ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' shots used has a battleship mast in the background (no US Battleships at Midway, let alone having one MOORED NEXT TO THE ISLAND!) The aircraft shots don't even attempt to get the types of aircraft the same, a pilot takes off in a dive bomber and crash lands in a fighter. No editing for models either as most of the aircraft shown were not even in production at the time of the battle.
* Several films from the Showa series of ''[[Godzilla]]'' made use of stock footage. The footage was frequently used to save money for fairly standard scenes of buildings being destroyed by monsters and military attacks on said monsters. King Ghidorah in particular was a favorite subject of this, seeing as he appeared in several movies. As a result, the creators frequently reused the same footage of King Ghidorah soaring over his victim city, raining destruction from above. Another favorite was reusing footage of the army or navy firing shots at Godzilla or other monsters.
** ''Godzilla vs Gigan'' was one of the worst offenders, as much of the scenes of Gigan and King Ghidorah attacking Tokyo, and the battle between the space monsters and Godzilla and Anguirus (up until the Godzilla building is demolished) is lifted from ''Ghidorah The Three-Headed Monster'' and darkened considerably to make it appear to be happening at night. You can even briefly spot Mothra in one part of the footage! And the less said about ''Godzilla's Revenge'', the better.
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* The Turkish film ''[[The Man Who Saves the World]]'' stole footage from the original ''[[Star Wars]]'' (earning this film the internet nickname ''[[Turkish Star Wars]]''): The explosion of the Death Star is used to represent [[Earthshattering Kaboom|the destruction of Earth]], and the protagonists are shown piloting TIE fighters. When the protagonists later duck into a café full of aliens, it's [[Special Effects Failure|quite obvious]] which of the aliens were from ''Star Wars'' and which were original.
* For ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'', footage of the airplane flying over Nepal was taken from the 1973 version of ''[[Lost Horizon]]'' and the [[Establishing Shot]] of 1930s [[Washington DC]] was from ''The Hindenburg''.
* The opening credits of ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future
** In the original ''Back to the Future'', there's a [[Driving a Desk]] scene in which Marty says "Okay, McFly, get a grip on yourself. It's all a dream! Just a... very... intense dream..." On the DVD, the filmmakers mention that they think the landscape rolling by outside the window in this shot was pulled from the Universal archives, though they can't remember for sure.
* ''[[Casablanca]]'' uses brief stock clips (probably from newsreels) during the opening "refugee trail" montage, and again during the invasion of France. The latter, especially, are noticeably specklier than the rest of the film.
* ''[[Sgt. Kabukiman
* ''[[Cool Runnings]]'' uses footage from the real team's bobsleigh runs.
* ''[[The Room]]''. Good God, ''[[The Room]]''{{context}}
* Parodied in the climax of ''[[Texas Across The River]]'', where the same Indian gets shot and falls of his horse no less than three times (by the same character nonetheless - well the third wasn't even a gunshot, he threw his revolver). Then there's a wounded Indian who gets dragged away from the fight by his comrades at least twice. You got to hand it to him. He's a persistent fellow.
* [[Plan 9 from Outer Space]] used obvious stock footage of rocket artillery firing in the scenes that are supposed to depict the army fighting the alien invaders.
* Australian films set in the 1930s that require shots of a train (such as ''[[Rabbit
* CGI example in ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]]'': Peter Jackson realized too late that he needed to show Gollum's reaction to Sam's "because we all fight for something" Aesop, and having no time left to animate it, they took two shots from previous scenes and replaced the background.
* [[So Bad It's Good|Hilariously overused]] in [[Steven Seagal]]'s vehicle ''[[Flight of Fury]]'', where all the flight scenes (secret military jets being vital to the plot) are stock footage from the Cold War. Seems that the story was written around these scenes (like portraying age
* The [[Dawn of Flight Failures Montage]] is (as seen with ''Airplane!'' above) a common piece of stock footage anywhere early attempts at flight are involved, be they documentaries or comedies. For instance, ''[[Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines]]'' includes clips from the montage as part of the opening [[Mockumentary]]-style narration.
== Live Action TV ==
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* Most live-action Saturday morning programs produced by Sid and Marty Krofft included stock footage, usually in transition scenes.
* Taken to something of an artform by the production staff of [[Farscape]], and by the end of its run something like 10% of the series was recycled footage from previous episodes. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|It was usually done intelligently]] to fit in with the episode, and overall turned out incredibly well, especially since the savings allowed them to produce some of the most elaborate season finales ever made for a tv show.
* The overhead pan shot of Princeton Plainsboro Hospital's exterior in ''[[House (TV series)|House]]''.
* The [[Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)|original ''
** They also used stock footage this way for Viper launches, exterior shots to establish which ship the plotline was advancing on for scene changes, and so forth.
** Additionally, ''Battlestar Galactica'' also recycled Stock Footage of ICBM launch tests to represent firings of heavy anti-capital-ship missiles from Battlestar launch tubes, as well as one actual nuclear exchange between less-technologically-advanced nations.
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** Basically, in the original ''Galactica'' you probably saw '''every single''' space-related effect in the first 10 minutes of the opening pilot movie, except the rag tag fleet of ships at the end.
** More recently, a 2008 commercial for fast-food chain Jack in the Box used stock footage from the series to promote spicy popcorn chicken.
** The [[Battlestar Galactica
** There was also another shot of zooming in on battle
* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' uses stock footage for scenes of parachutes dropping, bombing raids, submarines, and so on. However, it appears to actually be WWII-era footage, which fits well with the WWII-set show and probably saves a lot of money on renting fighter planes, anti-aircraft guns, and tanks.
** However, this led to multiple occasions where Hogan and his men needed a supply drop, only to show a parachutist jumping out of a plane, before being replaced by a parachuting crate in the next shot.
** This troper watched the show a lot in in reruns the
* The 1960s show ''[[The Time Tunnel]]'' relied heavily on Stock Footage from the studio's film vaults for depiction of various historical periods, and also used the same stock footage of the leads returning through the vortex each week. Some [[Lampshade Hanging]] was used to explain why they were wearing the same clothes every time.
** [[Irwin Allen]] was a master of using stock footage. He also made sure that anything he filmed in the first season of ''[[Lost in Space]]'', that he might want to reuse, was filmed in colour so he'd still be able to use it when they switched over to doing the whole series in colour.
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* The scene of Gomez blowing up the trains in ''[[The Addams Family]]'' was only filmed once, but was used every time they had Gomez playing with his train set.
* One of the most blatant ever uses of Stock Footage was the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Revenge of the Cybermen", where a video of a Saturn V taking off was used to represent the launch of a rocket that looked nothing like it.
* The HBO miniseries of ''[[Angels in America]]'' uses some of this in the opening scene, when Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz is talking about the turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants.
* The ''[[Power Rangers]]'' franchise uses footage borrowed from its Japanese counterpart ''[[Super Sentai]]'' for about 80% of its action sequences. Thanks to the differences in production, for the first eight seasons, the fight scenes looked about twenty years older than the rest of the show (despite the fact that they had only been filmed a year earlier). Such footage often includes Japanese text (or barely-coherent [[Gratuitous English]]). To this day it's not rare for a crowd of fleeing civilians to inexplicably become momentarily Asian.
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* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' used the same few stock shots of the ''Enterprise'' in orbit, but they were blue-screen composited over footage of a different planet in each episode.
** Planets which were frequently the same planet footage recolored to represent different worlds. If you watch the show in order, you can actually see the degradation of the negative over time.
** Several details on the Enterprise were changed from the way the ship originally [http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/constitution-pilot.jpg appeared] in the two pilot episodes to [http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/constitution.jpg its appearance] in the series proper. Due to budget problems, the producers often wound up using Stock Footage of the prototype model during the series. Take note of scenes were the familiar white spheres on the ends of the nacelles have disappeared with a pattern of holes in their place, as well as unlit
** Also they used such stock footage for things like firing phasers, photon torpedoes (and sometimes even mixing them up!), which is quite reasonable considering the immense costs of the special effects back then—even if they look rather silly compared to today's standards. Consider that their budget was often low, meaning even the best of 1960s special effects couldn't be brought to bear every week.
** They also reused establishing shots of the bridge, particularly in the third season when the budgets were stretched very tight. On occasion, the crew in the establishing shot was different from the crew in the episode (the [[Star Trek: The Animated Series|animated series]] was even worse in this regard).
** There's also the Guardian of Forever, which shows you history via stock footage from old films.
** Don't forget how the Romulans and Klingons tended to fly around in the same stock footage.
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** The episode "Thief of Budapest" reuses the entire car chase from ''The Italian Job'' (1969).
** The episode "GX-1" opened with an aerial dogfight which was made of footage from ''Top Gun'' (1986).
* On ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' the spectacular stargate opening "kawoosh" effect was filmed by placing a camera in a pool, and then quickly blasting a jet engine down into it. While they initially had to do new takes for every angle, they soon got the visual effects crew to work around that, also creating a digital effect for the later seasons and
** In one episode when Sam (Major Samantha Carter) visits the Air Force Academy, a shot of cadets marching is shown. Unfortunately, the drill sergeant can clearly be heard shouting "kiri, kiri, kiri kanan kiri" and there are statues of garudas in the foreground, leading to the conclusion that the clip is from Indonesia.
** The [[Establishing Shot|establishing shots]] of Cheyenne Mountain were shot before ''SG-1'' began and were not supplemented with new shots until the season 8. It becomes very noticeable when watching the show on DVD as there were less than a dozen shots, the film was degrading and in one of the most used shots a guard is mysteriously holding his rifle while at the same time having it slung over his back.
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* ''[[Knight Rider]]'' (both 1982 and 2008) live off of stock footage.
** The 1982 series used it for Turbo Boost (takeoff and landing), and Super Pursuit Mode transformation (to revert to Normal Mode, the transformation sequence was literally played backwards) regularly. There were also a few one-time uses, such as KARR's demise in ''Trust Doesn't Rust'' (the actual footage used was from a different TV show filmed years before).
** The canyon flooding visuals in "Not a Drop to Drink" came from the first [[Christopher Reeve]] ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]]'' film.
** The 2008 series uses it for Turbo Boost (the CGI combustion takeoff), as well as when KITT enters and exits the SSC headquarters.
** Both old and new series use stock footage of Michael and KITT cruising along highway and canyon roads as they [[Walking the Earth|drive across the Earth]]. In fact, one of the criticisms of the new series from the old series fans is that ''there isn't enough stock footage cruising''.
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* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' used stock CGI footage for its establishing shots of the titular station.
* ''[[The Goodies]]'', in the vein of ''Monty Python'', used stock footage all the time for jokes, especially news presentations. For example, footage of shoppers scrambling for bargains was used to show public response to [[The End of the World as We Know It|the imminent destruction of Earth]].
* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' did a series of sketches about the fictional assassination of [[The Little Rascals|Buckwheat]], played by [[Eddie Murphy]]. Stock footage was used to make it look like the world was making a ridiculously large deal out of his death, splicing in shots of state funerals and world leaders tearing up or making emotional speeches. See [https://web.archive.org/web/20100209044542/http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/buckwheat-dead-america-mourns/2754
* ''Ice Road Truckers'' uses the same under-ice shot of a passing truck's wheels in nearly every episode, whenever a trucker moves out onto frozen lakes or seas. If they're building suspense, this is followed by the same clip of a big rig breaking through and sinking, which is especially jarring if the vehicle now in danger looks nothing like the stock-footage vehicle. Even more so, if it looks ''exactly'' like the one in danger. Justified, as having divers shoot scenes under such frigid circumstances is too darned dangerous, never mind expensive, to do repeatedly.
* ''[[The Prisoner]]'' used establishing shots of the Village. Towards the end of the series, when money was beginning to run out and access to Portmeirion (where the series was filmed) was minimal to non-existent, the Village would be represented entirely by stock footage, all other scenes being shot indoors and often requiring the story to be taken out of the Village setting by various means.
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== Pro Wrestling ==
* In September 1990, the AWA ran out of original footage and could no longer afford to run TV tapings. They filled their shows by airing old matches with new commentary and pretending that they were new. Luckily no one was watching by this time, or it could have been a huge embarrassment.
* Sometimes, wrestlers will feud with somebody they've already feuded with before. [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] will often use stock footage of their previous feuds alongside more recent footage in the promo packages. It happened a lot between [[Triple H]] and [[Shawn Michaels]] who feuded on and off between 2002 and 2004.
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