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This can be hard to tell from [[Shown Their Work]], and can often only be seen in context with the rest of the work--[[Shown Their Work]] would prove to have all research shown, [[Accidentally Accurate]] is pretty much hit and miss.
 
If research not available at the time of the writing proves them right, that's a case of [[Science Marches On]] meeting this trope. If the theory would never have been accepted by researchers working in whatever field (e.g. Professor [[wikipedia:Alexander Abian|Alexander Abian]]'s theory that we should blow up the moon to stop Typhus), it's just the writers fertilizing some [[Epileptic Trees]]. If the writer was just showing off an obscure fact that he or she knows, that's [[Shown Their Work]]. Compare: [[Right for Thethe Wrong Reasons]]. For the same principle applied to tactics, see [[Strategy Schmategy]].
{{examples}}
 
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== Film ==
* [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|Any paleontologist watching]] ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' could, among other things, [[Dan Browned|call out the movie]] for its depiction of velociraptors as man-sized monsters when ''real'' raptors were about the size of turkeys. Only two years prior to the movie's release, however, paleontologists discovered ''Utahraptor'', which really ''was'' about the size of the raptors in the movie. And at the time the book was written, Gregory Paul had proposed reclassifying Deinonychus as ''Velociraptor antirrhopus'', believing the species to be similar enough to ''Velociraptor mongoliensis'' to justify it being a different species in the same genus, rather than in its own genus. Crichton chose to follow Paul's nomenclature, rather than the standard.
* The creators of ''[[Ice Age (Animation)|Ice Age]]'' made Scrat, the sabre-toothed squirrel, as a joke. [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/11/03/141997834/scientists-unveil-fossil-of-saber-toothed-squirrel-that-lived-among-dinos Recently, scientists unearthed a sabre-toothed squirrel.]
 
== Literature ==
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Sea QuestSeaQuest DSV]]'' had an episode where a character claims to have found something in the handwriting of the Greek poet Homer. This has to be incorrect, because it would be impossible for a blind man to write something that wasn't written down for many years. While it's not clear whether the writers knew it, there is a significant amount of scholarship debating whether Homer was actually blind and whether ''The Odyssey'' was written, as opposed to an oral narrative.
* ''Se Lo Que Hicisteis'' made a joke where they referred to the [[DragonballDragon Ball|Dragon Balls]] as "Chinese balls", which refers to.... huh, anal beads. ''[[DragonballDragon Ball]]'' is a Japanese series, but of course, [[All Asians Are Alike]] and All of Asia is China, so the show ''must'' hail from China, right? Except the balls are originally named in Gratuitous Chinese (A fact all Spanish dubs removed), so they're technically right. It's unlikely the guys who keep on saying the [[Maneki Neko]] is Chinese knew this...
* The season 34 episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' had a sketch about people who would benefit from the 2008 bailout that happened when the global economic meltdown was still fresh. Darrell Hammond and Casey Wilson played a couple named [[wikipedia:Herb Sandler|Herbert]] and [[wikipedia:Marion Sandler|Marion Sandler]] (no relation to [[Adam Sandler|Adam]]) who screwed Wachovia Bank out of a lot of money and profited from the economic meltdown. Now, considering that there were two other fictional characters introduced before them, you'd expect Herbert and Marion to be fakes, too, right? Not in this case: turns out Herbert and Marion Sandler were real people who did exactly what the sketch said they did ([[Lorne Michaels]] didn't realize this until after the sketch aired), making the brief clip of them being described as "People who should be shot" by a lower-third graphic tasteless (which explains why the NBC website video and the televised reruns got rid of that scene in the "2008 Bailout" sketch).
* On an episode of ''[[Wheel of Fortune (TV)|Wheel of Fortune]]'', host Pat Sajak joked that the show had only used the category Fictional Family eight times when it came up in one round. At the end of the show, the research department found out that it actually ''had'' been used only eight times.
* In a game of the original ''[[Hollywood Squares]]'', Buddy Hackett was asked which country has the most doctors, to which he jokingly answered "The country with the most Jews! I would say Israel. you have a doctor in every family, it's a cousin, could be an uncle. Couple of specialists...". The contestant agreed, prompting Buddy to ask "You agree with that?" before host Peter Marshall revealed the correct answer was indeed Israel, much to Buddy's amusement.
** Only as a proportion of the population. Numerically, the US has the most Jews, and Russia has the most doctors.
* Something like this happened in ''[[The Wire]]'' with the character Kenard, who's seen briefly in season 3 and comes back in season 5 where he {{spoiler|assassinates Omar}}. The writers didn't actually realize that it was the same kid and only realized he'd been cast in both roles later, making it an unintentional case of [[Chekhov's Gunman]].
* [[In -Universe]] Example: ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' had an episode called "Future Imperfect", in which Riker supposedly woke up sixteen years into his future, but it was actually {{spoiler|a hologram created by Barash}}. As it turns out...
** ...Riker commented that it's unlikely to have a Ferengi helmsmen. [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV)|Nog became an ensign nine years later]].
** ...Riker noted that there were more Klingons in Starfleet, notably a female that he passed on a deck. [[Star Trek: Voyager (TV)|B'Elanna Torres, a female Klingon/Human Hybrid worked as a chief engineer on a Starfleet vessel four years later]].
** ...Picard tells Riker that peace talks with the Romulans began four years ago (from the future that Riker was in), and that Riker's ship was instrumental in doing so. [[Star Trek Nemesis (Film)|It's pretty much just that, right down to the date]].
** ...and finally, Troi is seen wearing a Starfleet uniform, although she didn't wear one in the show at the time. [[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|She started doing so two years later, although it was during the same series]].
* Chevy Chase on ''[[Sereis/Saturday Night Live|Saturday Night Live]]'' had a joke on Weekend Update about the murder of performer "Professor Backwards" (who was able to read, write and speak backwards written words). Chase said he wasn't saved because people ignored his cries of "Pleh Pleh". Chase later apologized, saying he had no idea there was such a performer and that he had actually been murdered.
* ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'' had a joke where [[Butt Monkey|Britta]] is said to have a favourite superhero character called ''[[X -Men|X-Man]]''. It's presented in-universe as a joke, with Britta either not knowing the names of the actual X-Men character she likes and calling the character X-Man instead. However, there's actually a real character named 'X-Man' in the Marvel continuity. The character, X-Man, is an alternate-universe version of Cyclops’ future son, Cable.
 
== Mathematics ==
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** ''The Simpsons'' did this in "Treehouse of Horror XI".
** ''The Pet Professional'' also did this.
** As did ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (Webcomic)|The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]''.
** [[MST3KMystery Science Theater 3000]] also plays on this, as dolphins attack the Satellite of Love with interplanetary dolphin warships.
** ''[[King of the Hill]]'' did it with Hank getting raped by the dolphin at the La Grunta resort.
** It's worth noting that the Dolfury from ''[[Mortasheen]]'' is almost definitely ''not'' a case of this. The setting and monsters are created by a biology enthusiast fascinated with the so-called "dark side" of nature, and who often seems to hold "cutesy critters" like dolphins in open contempt. The chances that he ''didn't'' know that making his dolphin-derived monsters violent sadists who are popularly (and not necessarily incorrectly) regarded as one of the only monsters that are genuinely evil was [[Truth in Television]] to some degree closely approaches zero.
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