Whole-Episode Flashback

"""On the Next..." Dai-Guard, Ibuki has a really long flashback. I mean a really long flashback.""

- Akagi

An episode consisting mainly of one or more Flash Backs.

Sometimes this is used to tell a story that takes place before the series began. Other times this is used as a variant form of Captain's Log to allow the character to comment on the action with the benefit of hindsight.

When the action takes place before the beginning of the series, the flashback is often used to show how the characters met. Occasionally, it will be combined with A Day in the Limelight, showing the true depths of a character while at the same time letting the audience see what made this person be like they are.

When the flashbacks consist of previously recorded footage, you get a Clip Show. If someone is telling the episode's story because they're being interrogated about it, you have Interrogation as Framing Device.

Specific variants: How We Got Here and The Rashomon.

Anime and Manga

 * Burst Angel had an episode about how Meg met Jo and what they used to do before becoming mercenaries.
 * Bleach had a habit of throwing these in on a semi-regular basis during the Soul Society arc. Even more so, the recent manga chapters start an entire flashback arc, showing the events occurring in Soul Society about 100 years before the first chapter of the manga.
 * Detective Conan has featured quite a few episodes showing Shinichi solving cases before he was shrunk at the beginning of the series.
 * In Digimon Adventure 02, Ken's flashback story in "Genesis of Evil"/"Digivice ga Yami ni Somaru Toki."
 * In Dragonball GT, there was a flashback episode about Vegeta's character development as a whole. Basically about how he was always outclassed by Goku, a low level Saiyan, despite being the prince of the near-extinct race.
 * The Fullmetal Alchemist manga has a Whole Volume Flashback, in which the Ishval massacre is told in all its bloody horror. Or rather, three simultaneous flashbacks to the same time, but told by and to three different people (Riza's to Ed, Dr. Knox's to Al, Lan Fan, and May Chang, and Dr. Marcoh's to Scar).
 * When the manga was adapted into the first anime, the anime compressed most of the Elric Brothers' childhood (told in parts in the manga) into the third episode of the anime, then moved several events that happened in the present a couple years in the past so episodes 4-9 were flashing back to the first year after Ed and Al lost their limbs and body.
 * Gundam: The Origin, the Adaptation Expansion manga version of Mobile Suit Gundam, had an extended flashback detailing the death of Revolutionary Zeon Deikum, the Zabis' rise to power, Char and Sayla's childhood, Char's enrollment in Zeon's military school, espionage and the development of Humongous Mecha between the EFF and Zeon, the events leading up to the One Year War, the Battle of Loum, General Revil's capture by and escape from Zeonin short, all the events alluded to in the backstory of the original Gundam showcollected in six volumes, a third of the series published thus far.
 * Gungrave has this for about half of the series (at least in the anime).
 * His And Her Circumstances or Kare Kano has this in volumes 18 and 19 of the manga to explain the past of the Arima family.
 * The latter half of the two-parter "It Was A Small Wish" of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which has Signum and Shamal reminiscing how they met their master and the events that led to the plot of the second season. There's also the supplementary manga chapter "Lightning Hearts", which has Fate, Erio, and Caro narrating the stories on how they met each other to various members of Riot Force 6.
 * In Mariasama ga Miteru, Satou Sei (Rosa Gigantea) got one of these in both the first and second seasons.
 * About half of Mermaid Saga consisted of these. Then again the main character was something like 700 years old so it was kind of inevitable.
 * In Neon Genesis Evangelion, there is an episode devoted to the backstory of Shinji's parents, as well as Professor Fuyutsuki.
 * In One Piece, each member of the crew has gotten at least one Whole Episode Flashback to show their backstory- as the series progresses, these flashbacks have gotten longer and longer, sometimes reaching three episodes of nothing but flashbacks.
 * Ouran High School Host Club had not one, but two flashback episodes, the first one being about how Hikaru and Kaoru met Tamaki, and the second one being about how Kyoya met Tamaki.
 * Naruto Shippuden not only has whole episode flashbacks, there are sometimes multi-episode flashbacks about things we already know, and let's not forget the filler arc that consisted of flashbacks. Also, how about sasuke having multi-episode flashbacks to the same flashback mulltiple time!
 * Seirei no Moribito has two of them that explain Balsa's childhood and how she became a bodyguard.
 * Roughly half of the Tenjou Tenge anime consists of these.
 * Trigun had the episode "Rem Saverem", which revealed both how humanity ended up on Gunsmoke and revealed Knives, who had never been featured or mentioned in the series up to that point. It also revealed Vash's connection with Rem, who thusfar had been an ambiguous character mentioned several times.
 * Elfen Lied uses one of these to explain Lucy's Start of Darkness.
 * Twin Spica has several of these, emphasizing the Slice of Life nature of the show, rather than the space exploration part.
 * The last episode of the Hyakko anime shows the lives of the main cast before they met at high school.
 * There is a fan manga that could be called Linux Flashback due to more than half of it being flashbacks. Every chapter or so, it switches point of view.
 * The Slam Dunk anime is known for several flashbacks happening during the game. One of the most poignant, however, was an entire episode featuring Kogure's flashback to his and Akagi's three year history on the basketball team. An episode-long flashback that somehow managed to occur between his taking a three-point shot and said shot going in the net.
 * Baccano!! is kind enough to devote a whole episode to flashing back to 1711 and explaining just why there are immortals in the first place.
 * Done a number of times in Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
 * Shakugan no Shana has a multi episode flashback. Apparent in story reason is to explain why Shana likes melon bread but it ends up covering her Origin Story as well.
 * The final episode of the first season of ×××HOLiC shows part of Watanuki's childhood (though they called it a sidestory).
 * The first episode of Yakitate!! Japan is a Whole Episode Flashback origin story.
 * Wolf's Rain had a couple, although they were more recaps with some commenting from present- than purely flashbacks.
 * Volumes 4 & 5 of the Lupin III manga have a few stories starring a teenage Lupin.
 * The "Mobius Klein" episode of the Silent Moebius TV series details a disaster caused by the main character's father that's very important in the backstory. The first movie is also mostly flashback, as is the corresponding volume of the manga.
 * In the Until Death Do Us Part manga, pretty much all of the Next arc is a flashback to the main character's past in Chechnya, leading up to how he was blinded.
 * The World God Only Knows has a two-chapter flashback showing Keima and Tenri's first meeting.
 * Two episodes of the second season of Birdy the Mighty Decode were about the title character's past and origins.
 * Tenchi Universe was a Whole Series Flashback; the series started at the end and had Tenchi remember everything that happened.
 * Episode  of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of these.
 * RahXephon had one of these, focusing on the childhood of Helena, Itsuki, and Makoto. It gave Makoto some much needed character depth, adding a new dimension to his otherwise rather flat Smug Snake-ness.
 * In the manga, Berserk had a few volumes dedicated to Gut's past. The anime? The entire series save for the first was dedicated to Gut's past.
 * Chihayafuru so far has 2.5 episodes gone this way, starting midway from the first episode.
 * Towards the end of the Kyoto arc of Rurouni Kenshin, the multi-episode battles against Anji and Soujiro each had a flashback episode showing their Start of Darkness that pretty much took up the entire episode.

Comics

 * The Strontium Dog story "Portrait of a Mutant" was 18 issues long, 16 of which made up one long flashback to when Johnny fought in the mutant army as a teenager.
 * The ragnorak job from the same series is 21 episodes long all but two of which was one huge flashback of Johnny met his norm partner Wulf. Which leads into the series second biggest wham ending.

Literature

 * In William King's Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novels, both Space Wolf and Grey Hunter have brief introductions and epilogues in the "current date", but the bulk of both novels is what he is remembering. Grey Hunters is presented in the same format, but as something he is recounting.
 * Frankenstein is the journal of the captain, mostly recounting Frankenstein's story of how he came to head toward . In turn, for part of his narration, Victor quotes the creature's flashback story. And in said flashback story, the monster tells the story of a family he acted as a Mysterious Protector for.
 * The whole Part II of It's Kind of a Funny Story is a How We Got Here-style flashback—subverted in that the book starts in the present, goes back to the past, and then continues on in the present.
 * A large section of The Odyssey is Odysseus sitting in Phaeacia telling his story. All the iconic adventures (Polyphemus, Circe, consulting the shade of Tiresias, the Sirens and so on) are in here since the main action picks up with Calypso releasing him.
 * The Time Machine is mostly based around this trope, as the story is told to the narrator (who notes it down and writes the book) and some of his friends by the time traveller after he came back from the future. For this reason, the book is mostly in dialogue from the aforementioned time traveller.
 * The Xanth book Crewel Lye is narrated mainly as a flashback, in the first person as apposed to the third person of most Xanth books.
 * The Lost Thing by Shaun Tam is told in first person past tense; the narrator couldn't remember any stories to tell the reader, so he talks about the time he found the lost thing instead. Or should that be Lost Thing?

Live Action TV

 * The Season 4 Finale of Babylon 5 had a being from the far future looking at data archives of events from the station's near future.
 * On Buffy and Angel, the fact that several important characters are centuries old provided plenty of opportunities to base episodes around looks into their complicated histories.
 * The episodes "Fool For Love" and "Darla", which aired the same night, were companion pieces, showing many of the same events from two different perspectives (Spike and Darla).
 * Used repeatedly in The Dick Van Dyke Show in episodes about Rob and Laura's courtship and wedding, as well as their son's birth.
 * The Farscape episode "Scratch and Sniff", though with the added element that the story Crichton tells Pilot may not be entirely true. The episode "Dream a Little Dream" is another example.
 * DALD wasn't written as a flashback, though; it was originally shot as the season opener. Then it was decided that it didn't work well as the opener (not enough explosions, probably), so it got pushed back and framed as a flashback.
 * The reason DALD got pushed back was because . Production was subsequently nervous and moved up "Mind the Baby" to compensate. This is ironic considering the beginning of Season 4, though.
 * Firefly features the episode "Out Of Gas", which consists of one extended flashback, which shows how the crew came to abandon the ship, leaving Mal alone, and a series of other, shorter flashbacks that tell how they met in the first place.
 * Forever Knight and Highlander the Series, which were filmed and aired at roughly at the same time, had very similar formats (the several-hundred-years-old hero would be reminded of events from his past, either by the current situation being directly relevant to the past flashback, or the two having thematic similarities. (Highlander tended to the first while Forever Knight tended to the second.) In at least one case in Forever Knight and two in Highlander ("1966" in Forever Knight and "The Stone of Scone" and "The Unusual Suspects" in Highlander) the bulk of the episode is the flashback, with the modern day little more than an excuse.
 * The third-to-last episode of Frasier, "Crock Tales", comprised a series of flashbacks, recreating the set-up of six previous seasons in reverse chronological order.
 * Friends did several Whole Episode Flashbacks, which taken together largely explain how Everyone Met Everyone (although Rachel meets Chandler for the first time on about three occasions).
 * The Golden Girls
 * The Secret Life of the American Teenager has one in the episode where Amy's in labor. She and Ricky flashback to the day they met and got their babymaking on. There are also a few snippets showing what other characters were doing that same summer.
 * Everybody Loves Raymond had a few of these.
 * The Heroes episode "Six Months Ago" plays with this by having one character actually going into the past. The episode serves as a flashback for all other characters. The second-season episode "Four Months Ago" also does this.
 * The third season had the episode "Villains", which comprised of flashbacks of different characters at different times, including events happening at the same time as "Six Months Ago", and events taking place at the same time as the series pilot. Hiro, who in season 1  had a type of hallucination in which he went back to witness.
 * The entirety of Good Morning, Miss Bliss was repackaged as a series of flashback episodes to Zack's junior high days in Saved by the Bell.
 * The House episodes Three Stories and The Mistake.
 * Arguably, How I Met Your Mother is a Flash Back Series, but let's not go there, especially considering the prevalence of flashbacks during some episodes. In one episode, while Ted tells Robin about how he told her sister how he lost his virginity, we end up (in essence) with a flashback in a flashback in a flashback in a flashback. (The last episode before the writers' strike one upped this with Future Ted talking about Robin talking about Lily talking about Barney talking about his relationship with Wendy the Waitress: that's five levels of flashbackiness! Maybe this needs its own trope...)
 * A second-season episode of JAG uses the technique to incorporate an episode which was produced for the first season but never aired due to the show's cancellation by NBC (JAG was later picked up by CBS). Harmon Rabb thinks his colleague Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie looks familiar as Catherine Bell plays both Mac and Harm's murdered girlfriend from the original episode.
 * Just Shoot Me had an episode where Dennis, Elliot and Nina recount how they first met Jack and how he hired them on the spot. (Nina's flashback is not of their first meeting, however.)
 * Several episodes of Lost employ this trope. Season 2's "The Other 48 Days" is one long flashback showing what the Tailies (crash survivors from the tail section of the plane) were doing during the entire first season, while we were all watching the folks from the front end of the plane. Season 3's "Flashes Before Your Eyes" and season 4's "Meet Kevin Johnson" are almost entirely flashbacks, from Desmond and respectively. Both have a brief frame story featuring only a few of the cast before plunging into flashbacks. Season 5 has two episodes like this, "316" (opens with  and flashes back to the night before) and "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". The incredible season 6 episode "Ab Aeterno" takes place almost entirely in Richard's past, showing how he came to the island and how he became immortal. Season 6's "Across The Sea" is a flashback to the origins of Jacob and the Man In Black, which ends with a narrative Flash Back but chronological Flash Forward to season 1's "House of the Rising Sun".
 * Season 6's "Happily Ever After" is almost a Whole Episode, with only a few minutes of frame story.
 * A first season episode of Prison Break, 'Brother's Keeper' employed this trope to reveal backstory on most of the main characters.
 * The Shield featured a flashback episode called "Co-Pilot" that was dropped into the middle of the second season because the makeup crew on the series needed time to figure out how to create a certain injury effect. The episode follows the formation of the Strike Team, and how all the main characters met.
 * Star Trek, on frequent occasions:
 * In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "In the Pale Moonlight" and "Trials and Tribble-ations" used the Captain's Log variant.
 * The finale of Star Trek: Enterprise is framed as a holodeck flashback by characters who weren't even there, hundreds of years in the future; this was accomplished through use of Star Trek: The Next Generation's holodeck and two of its cast members.
 * Star Trek: The Original Series has "The Menagerie", in which the flashbacks consist of footage from the unaired first Pilot.
 * Two Guys and a Girl
 * Ugly Betty skipped an early episode but, due to the necessary plot points in it, it was repackaged as a Whole Episode Flashback. (In overseas distribution, some countries used the edited version as the eleventh episode, some removed the repackaging and showed it as the fourth episode, while in Australia, Channel Seven removed the repackaging but kept it as the eleventh episode. No, I'm not upset about that...!)
 * The West Wing
 * The Wonder Years is, by default, a flashback series.
 * Most of a season of I Love Lucy consisted of quickly framed frames for reruns of previous episodes. This was so Lucy could complete her pregnancy off-camera.
 * The Sliders episode "Post-Traumatic Slide Syndrome" is a story told by Rembrandt. Another example is "The Last of Eden" produced before John Rhys-Davies' firing (thus, Arturo's death), but aired after it, which was introduced by Wade and Rembrandt remembering and talking about the events of the episode.
 * Some of My Name Is Earl episodes, like "Frank Factor" or "No Heads and a Duffel Bag", when Earl is in jail or in a coma and can't continue with his list, feature whole episode flashbacks.
 * The Fugitive episode "The Girl from Little Egypt" has Kimble recalling the circumstances of his wife's murder, and the subsequent trial that led to his conviction of the crime, while recuperating from an automobile accident.
 * Mash had a number of these, as in the episodes where a character is writing a letter home or the one where Hawkeye is filling out his last will and testament.
 * Dads Army was a flashback series, insofar as the first episode began in the present (ie 1968) and then flashed back to 1939.
 * Ideal did this with The Past.
 * Dirty Sexy Money had an episode called "The Facts" that seemed to be made up almost entirely of cut subplots from the show, aired after those plot elements were relevant.
 * The 1986 season of Doctor Who consisted of two Four Episode Flashbacks (the latter of which was actually tampered with - we never find out what really happened), a Four Episode Flash Forward, and a two-part finale to wrap it up.
 * Sofa, the last episode of Men Behaving Badly (before it was revived for three specials) consists largely of flashbacks: at first these deal with the history of the titular sofa, but then they branch out into pretty much being Gary's entire biography (and a bit of Tony's), climaxing in the scene where Gary and Dorothy first met, which had been obliquely referred to in previous episodes (trousers on the head) but never seen.
 * All in The Family had a couple of these. One recounts the day Archie and Mike first met, while another (a two-parter) revisits Mike and Gloria's wedding.
 * In the second season of White Collar, the episode Forging Bonds uses the frame device of Peter giving Neal full immunity for one night to tell him everything he knows about Vincent Adler, Neal's old boss, who they're trying to take down. It goes back eight years and shows us how Neal first met Mozzie, Kate, Peter, and Alex. We also find out that Peter himself put together the white collar division of the New York FBI office, the plan that led to Neal's arrest was Diana's idea, and Jones was the one who handcuffed Neal when the bust went down.
 * And also, Mozzie had a toupee and goatee.
 * The X-Files episode "Per Manum" was one of these, with an attempt at telling the audience how baby William could have been conceived...but wasn't.
 * In "Cigarette Smoking Man", we get an important part of the backstory for the eponymous character.
 * In season five's "Unusual Suspects," we learn all about how the Lone Gunmen met each other and Mulder and became...the Lone Gunmen.
 * Also in season five, "Travelers" flashes back to a 1980s Mulder asking Arthur Dales about his father's involvement in a case, and then flashes back even further to the 1950s as Dales tells his tale.
 * The Big Bang Theory episode "The Staircase Implementation" flashes back to when Leonard became Sheldon's roommate, and explains the events leading to the elevator breaking.
 * Mad About You had one of these showing how Jamie and Paul first met, and another one depicting their marriage.
 * The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was a Whole Flashback Series as well, with an old Indy telling us of his past adventures.
 * Fringe did this with the episode "Peter", and season 3's "Subject 13".
 * Bones - the 100th episode was a flashback to a case Bones and Booth solved before the pilot (and the UST that sizzled from day one), with a framing device of Booth and Bones telling Sweets about the innacuracies in his book. The case itself was pretty mediocre, but the anvil drop at the end? Classic.
 * Bewitched uses this trope as a flimsy excuse for a rerun, where an entire episode will be replayed under the guise of a flashback
 * FlashForward plays with this trope. At first the episodes are split between new scenes in present day and new scenes in future day. Then episodes became split between new scenes from present day and Flash Backs of the Flash Forwards and Flash Backs of scenes from the 'present day' timeline, so that about each episode is half new footage and half old footage.
 * Criminal Minds:
 * Season 4's "Tabula Rasa" had the team investigating a serial killer who just woke up from a coma. The episode drifts back and forth between the present: trying to determine whether he really had amnesia as he claimed, and the past: the initial investigation. Bonus points for it being the first time Garcia worked with the team.
 * The 100th episode features the cast explaining their actions (and Hotch's. Mostly Hotch's) at the culmination of the Reaper arc. Each explanation will be followed by a flashback of the characters doing exactly what they have to justify to their boss.
 * The season 7 premire ("It Takes a Village") had the return of and the team explaining their actions in a simliar fashion to the 100th episode except that they were talking to a Senate commitee this time.
 * Sanctuary: The Season 3 episode "Normandy" is set entirely in 1944, and shows how The Five (and Will's grandfather) were involved with D-Day.
 * Kamen Rider Double's section in Movie Wars Core was dedicated to Sokichi Narumi/Kamen Rider Skull's Origin Story.
 * They also have a Whole Movie Flashback to Kamen Rider Eternal in Kamen Rider Double Returns.
 * Torchwood: Miracle Day episode Immortal Sins consists primarily of flashbacks to Jack's relationship with a man named Angelo in 1920s New York.

Radio

 * The Navy Lark has done a few, including one chronicling Navigation Officer, Sub-Lieutenant Phillips' naval training (he was intending to join the army, but got lost looking for Military Academy at Sandhurst and arrived at HMS Dartmouth by accident), and one which set the cast in the Napoleonic Era as Nelson's and his Crew.

Theater

 * The Glass Menagerie
 * Stephen Sondhiem's Follies.
 * The Phantom of the Opera

Video Games

 * Hitman: Contracts. The entire game is an extended flashback that remakes the first Hitman game (Contracts is the third) with updated graphics and gameplay enhancements, as well as retelling some of the events in a different light to reflect the unreliable memories of the protagonist or him seeing it in a different light after all this time has passed. The framing story between missions, and the final mission after the flashbacks are over, is set in what would later be revealed to be the middle of Blood Money.
 * The first case of the third Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game is one flashback to when Mia and Phoenix first met. Later,.
 * Similarly, in Apollo Justice, the fourth case has you going back to.
 * And in Ace Attorney Investigations the second and third cases are flashbacks to the day before the first case, and  It's less confusing in context.
 * And the second Investigations game goes all the way back to
 * Halo 3: ODST is mostly about the rookie finding pieces of destroyed equipment, and then the flashback of how the equipment ended up that way.
 * Halo: Reach has a beginning scene where the player character's helmet is found on the ground, which sets up the rest of the game climaxing with
 * The first chapter of Final Fantasy Tactics is Ramza retelling the events in his past that got him to the point of where he is now, and Delita's backstory, to Agrias and Gafgarion.
 * The Call of Duty series has a few in later installments:
 * Modern Warfare features a two-mission long flashback - where Captain Price talks about how he first met the now-identified Big Bad as Lefttenant Price under Captain Mc Millian.
 * Black Ops is mostly (like Halo 3: ODST) the protagonist talking about where he was stationed before under torture. However, there is a rare triple flashback. Alex Mason, in 19 tells his interrogator how he was in a Russian gulag in 1963. While there, his prison buddy Reznov tells Alex about an event that happened in 1945. Within Victor's flashback, Victor is talking to his friend Dimitri about what happened in Stalingrad in 1942.

Webcomics

 * Gunnerkrigg Court, Chapter 16, "A Ghost Story", shows young Antimony's first meeting with The Guides, and the first time she helped a ghost move on. It's presented with the framing device of then-current-day Annie telling the story to Kat.
 * Chapter 22, "Ties", shows a day in the lives of Annie's and Kat's parents (specifically, the day that group photo was taken). This time, there is no framing device.
 * How I Killed Your Master appears to be setting up for a Whole Webcomic Flashback.
 * Chapter Five of Everyday Heroes, where Jane tells the story of why she gave up being a villainess.
 * Chapter 13 of Rumors of War shows a scene from after the events of the first Story Arc, during the Time Skip.
 * Dragon Ball Multiverse has one every even chapter since chapter 8. Each one focusing in one (or more) different universe.
 * Act 5 Act 1 of Homestuck is a whole act flashback focusing on the trolls, without any input from the kids until the very end.

Western Animation

 * Aladdin: The Series had an episode about how Aladdin and Abu first met.
 * Numerous episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * The first one would be 'The Storm' which goes a long way to prove that Aang and Zuko are Not So Different, as we see Aang coping with the pressure of being the Chosen One while Iroh narrates how Zuko gained his scar.
 * Next we had 'Zuko Alone' which gives us even more of the prince's history; his competition with his sister, the deception of the court, and his father's willingness to murder him, which resulted in the death of his grandfather and the disappearance of his mother.
 * Then we had "Appa's Lost Days" which flashed back to when Appa was kidnapped, and results in a real Tear Jerker as we watch the bison become lost and abused.
 * Finally, the episode "The Avatar and The Firelord" which shows the once-friendship of Avatar Roku and Sozin, the man who started the war.
 * The E/I cartoon Cro consisted entirely of such eps, with a Framing Device of a mammoth named Phil telling a Hispanic scientist and some kid about the good old days with the titular Cro.
 * Spoofed in the Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy episode "Every Which Way But Ed", which featured a series of flashbacks-within-flashbacks, and the Eds getting lost among them in one of the show's No Fourth Wall moments.
 * The Simpsons has featured episodes about each of the children being born. In addition, a contested episode about how Marge and Homer first met and fell in love was also made.
 * Every episode of Back to The Future The Animated Series was a Whole Episode Flashback, as Doc would tell the audience about past adventures.
 * The Legion of Super Heroes and the Teen Titans series (episode "Go") each had a Whole-Episode Flashback regarding how the teams were first formed.
 * Most of the events in the Futurama episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" are being recounted by the three main characters at a trial (a spoof of the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Menagerie", mentioned above). Ironically, the flashback only begins a few days beforehand and eventually catches up with itself.
 * The hour-long SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Truth or Square" (made in celebration of the show's tenth anniversary) has the characters reminiscing as they celebrate the Krusty Krab's "eleventy-seventh" anniversary. Thankfully, it avoids going the Clip Show route.
 * Mama? MAMA LUIGI?
 * Gargoyles did this often, most notably with the four-part "City of Stone" story arc that explained the back stories of Macbeth and Demona.
 * Any episode of Life with Loopy.
 * "Rudy's First Adventure" and "French Fry Falls" from ChalkZone, to be specific, they're shorts from Oh Yeah Cartoons, which has the same storyline, but two years before.
 * The Danny Phantom episode "What You Want" is an entire flashback told from Tucker's point of view.
 * The Venture Brothers episode The Invisible Hand of Fate details the origin of Phantom Limb, among other things, from the point of view of Master Billy Quizboy.
 * In Super Secret Secret Squirrel episode "Scirocco Mole", Secret and Morocco appear on The Newlywed Game parody Platonic Partners gameshow (along with Yogi Bear/Booboo and the Two Stupid Dogs), where when Morocco is asked where he and Secret met up, he says "at the gelatin store", when they really met in Morocco. Secret then uses a machine to knock the two unconscious with a giant mallet to trigger a flashback. In this flashback, Secret mistakes Morocco for his Evil Twin brother Scirocco, who made Morocco dress up as Scirocco to lure Secret into a trap. Secret asks Morocco why his brother is like that, then Morocco goes into a flashback where as babies, Scirocco is beating Morocco with a baby rattle. Morroco asks Scirocco why he's doing it, and Scirocco explains that it's because he's evil, and goes into a flashback to when they were embryos, and embryo Scirocco is beating Morocco with his tail. When Morocco asks why, Scirocco prepares to go into a flashback "back when our parents met". Before the flashback can proceed, Secret says "that's enough" and ends Morocco's flashbacks. Apparently a flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback was just too much.
 * The Galaxy Rangers episode "Supertroopers" is framed by Killbane and his fellow renegade Artificial Humans kidnapping Senator Wheiner and stealing a biological weapon. Most of the episode, however, is told in flashback as Shane remembers the events that destroyed the project.
 * The Generator Rex episode, "Promises, Promises", focuses on how the title character jonied Providence
 * The X-Men episode "Descent" is mainly set in Victorian Britain and deals with the origin of Mister Sinister. Said origin is seen via flashbacks, as an aged ancestor of Professor Xavier's explains to law enforcement the threat posed by Sinister and what he himself witnessed. Notably, at the very end, the episode jumps to the present-day and Xavier is seemingly reflecting on events viewers had just seen.
 * The Eek! The Cat episode "The Whining Pirates of Tortuga", about a younger Eek's life with pirates.
 * The first season of Babar consisted of an adult Babar telling his kids stories about the founding of Celestville and his adventures as a boy king.
 * The Recess episode "One Stayed Clean" was a flashback in the form of a letter from T.J. beign sent to Gus's dad, and "The Girl was Trouble", when Gretchen explains to Sue Bob Murphy about how she got in trouble.