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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]s in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* In ''[[Community]]'' Abed has a whole subplot entirely in the background in the Psychology of Letting Go towards the beginning of the season - he refers back to this in one of the last episodes, Applied Anthropology, when Shirley goes into labor, to widespread confusion among the rest of the study group, and proceeds to coach Britta and Shirley through the delivery.
** In the second episode, when they are working on their presentations, Jeff complains that the Spanish skit Pierce wrote is, among other issues, "really, really specifically, surprisingly, and gratuitously, critical of Israel." Pierce replies that he will rework it. Then at the end of the episode when they are presenting the skit, at one point they are standing standing side by side waving the Israeli and Palestinian flags together.
* In the ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]'' episode "Time On Our Hands", while he tries to get Rodney to talk about Cassandra's miscarriage as they sort through their garage, Del picks up a random piece of junk and remarks that he wishes he could just put his hand into life's lucky dip and "go 'da daaa, there you are, Rodney, I've changed our lives'", and then discards it onto a nearby cooker. Later in the episode it turns out to be a priceless pocket watch that they sell for over £6 million.
* ''[[The Good Guys]]'': Played straight... and literally, in the episode "$3.52". At the start of the episode Dan vows to take down the drug smuggling ring with the $3.52 in his pocket. Fast-forward to {{spoiler|the last minute of the episode, when everyone believes that the brick of Heroin is long gone. In comes Dan with a flashback to where he buys a brick for three bucks and a nougat bar for fifty cents, loses the two pennies somewhere along the line, and swaps the bricks.}}
* Oh ''[[Babylon 5]]''. If you haven't done your homework before watching it, you'd see nothing but self contained story lines filled to the brim with unanswered questions in the early seasons. Of course, this being the [[Trope Codifier]] for the [[Myth Arc]], ''everything'' comes back in some way, shape, or form later on.
* The original ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' had lines in the opening monologue "There are those who believe that life here began out there." In the 2000s revival series "life here began out there" are the first words of the Sacred Scrolls, referring to the colonization of the twelve worlds by people from Kobol. In the original series, Earth was another such colony, humans not having evolved there at all. In the new series, with the revelation in "Sometimes a Great Notion" that the planet called Earth in this series is not our Earth, it seems that the words cannot apply to us. In the very, very last episode, {{spoiler|it is revealed our Earth is named after the original, and we are descended from a combination of humans who evolved there and Kobol-descended humans and Cylons who arrived 150,000 years ago.}}
* ''[[Friends]]'', "[[The One With...]] George Stephanopoulos". In the middle of the episode, Rachel is sitting on the balcony and drops a pillow over the side. She waves it off, and the audience chuckles. In [[The Tag]], there is a knock on the door. It's a stranger returning Rachel's pillow.
* In the opening scenes of the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Stoke Me A Clipper", Ace Rimmer ([[Catch Phrase|what a guy!]]), his Nazi opponent and the villain's pet crocodile "Snappy" all fall out of an airplane while in flight. Ace manages to reach the villain and steal his parachute, only to land in a base full of more Nazis. He kills most of them, rescues the local captured princess and flies away on a sky-bike. Two surviving Nazis watch him go:
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*** Conversely, ''Timeslides'' contains another [[Brick Joke]]. Do you remember Hitler's lunchbox which contains a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a bomb planted by an assassin? Guess where {{spoiler|Rimmer gets his first meal from after finally returning from the dead... and guess how long that lasts when the bomb finally goes off.}}
*** Actually, {{spoiler|Lister drop-kicks the bomb back into the past as soon as they identify it as Stauffenberg's (it goes off shortly afterwards), and is later seen reading a paper with the headline "HITLER AVOIDS ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT". Although he eats Hitler's sandwich, Rimmer offs himself at the end of the ep by slamming his fists in joy down on a pair of crates that turn out to be full of explosives}}.
** In the episode ''Polymorph'', at one point the band fires heat-seeking [[
* A variation in ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'': In the pilot, Emerson uses the word "narcoleptic" when he means to say "necrophiliac". Three episodes later, the characters run across a narcoleptic woman, and Emerson says "''That's'' a narcoleptic. Necrophiliac's the ''other'' one."
* In the ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode "The Marine Biologist", Kramer decides to hit golf balls into the ocean, then later returns to the apartment complaining that his swing had deserted him, as he only hit one good shot all day. At the end of the episode, George relates the story of how he saved a beached whale from suffocating by removing an obstruction which was lodged in its blowhole. He then pulls out the obstruction to show it to the group- none other than Kramer's golf ball.
{{quote|'''Kramer''': What, is that a ''Titleist''?! ''(George nods)'' Well, a hole in one, huh?}}
** Midway through season four, Jerry's father finds his wallet gone after a visit to the doctor, and accuses the doctor of stealing it. In the season finale, Jerry finds it between his couch cushions.
** At the end of the series finale, Jerry gets in a [[Seinfeldian Conversation]] with George about how his shirt's buttons are positioned wrong, with the conversation ending with "Haven't we had this conversation before?" {{spoiler|They had. It was the first conversation in the first episode.}}
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* In [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/127755/october-31-2007/hallo-weening this clip], for [[It Makes Sense in Context|perfectly rational reasons]], [[Stephen Colbert]] sets a live mousetrap on his desk. Then he forgets it's there. [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/127665/october-31-2007/obama-s-grit-off-challenge Hilarity Ensues.]
* ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' did a season long version of the gag. In an episode, Dewey learns that the class hamster that he is charged with watching for the weekend will go to the class bully (who makes a vague threat towards the hamster's life). So Dewy releases the hamster in a food pellet filled hamster ball, thus solving the problem. Later, as Malcolm and Reese leave a party towards the end of the episode, the hamster ball rolls by. After that, every episode in that season had, normally towards the end of the show, a hamster ball rolls by, unnoticed by anyone in the scene. It was last seen heading into the wilds of Alaska.
* ''[[Home Improvement (TV series)|Home Improvement]]'' has a [[Once an Episode]] type of Brick Joke in which Wilson tells Tim something, and later in the episode, Tim gives a hilariously garbled version of it to someone else.
* ''[[Bottom]]''. In the episode "Hole", one exclusively for the in-studio audience when Ade Edmondson was doing his bit in the warm-up he threw his brick up by saying "I'd just to start by saying; fucking, cunty, bollocks! These are words we are not allowed to use in the show, so it's best to get them out of the way now." Then the brick comes down towards the end of the episode with this exchange between the two characters, which did make it to broadcast, albeit censored:
{{quote|'''Richie''': Hey, Eddie. We know how to swear don't we...?
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** Episode 12B, ''How to tell different types of trees from quite a long way away''. "Number one, the larch. The larch." Starts off as a running gag linking sketches. Returns in the end credits.
*** Makes one more appearance ''seven episodes later''.
* ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'': very early in "Jaynestown", there's a scene where Kaylee is poking fun at Simon for his apparent utter lack of cursing (he claims he swears "when it's appropriate"). The joke ''seems'' to be finished by his stunned silence at the mess Jayne's making in the med bay. Until...
{{quote|'''Simon''' ''(having just discovered the statue of Jayne)'': Son of a ''[[Precision F-Strike|bitch!]]''}}
* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the newly-minted Tenth Doctor has his hand cut off in a sword fight, which he is able to regrow due to his Timelord-y Phlebotinum. It just seems a cute plot trick at the time, but the lost hand manages to turn up and be a useful [[McGuffin]] at least three more times - until {{spoiler|the hand regrows itself a duplicate Doctor, who gets banished to a parallel world}}. This brick element spanned ''three series'' of [[Doctor Who]] and one of Torchwood.
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** One that's 47 years in the making just hit, thanks to [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E04 The Time of Angels|Time of Angels]]. You see, thanks to River Song, we now know that the noise the TARDIS makes when it goes flying means {{spoiler|'''that the brakes are left on.'''}}
*** Which makes a throwaway line from Ace in ''Ghost Light'' funnier: "You're still a lousy parker."
** In [[Doctor Who/Recap/
** Speaking of River Song, when we first meet her, she's trying to figure out how much of their relationship has happened to the Doctor, and she asks him if he's already done the crash of the Byzantium. It sounds like a random phrase thrown in to sound cool, but next season, the Doctor meets River Song again, on board a ship named the Byzantium, which promptly proceeds to crash.
** In "Robot", the Brigadier famously comments that just once, he'd like to face an alien menace that isn't immune to bullets. Fourteen seasons later, in "Battlefield", the Brig {{spoiler|takes out the alien menace known only as "The Destroyer" with a silver bullet}}.
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** In the beginning of Series 1, Gwyneth see the future and talks about "the oncoming darkness." It doesn't show up again until the fourth season finale, when {{spoiler|Rose}} tells Donna [[The Stars Are Going Out]].
*** Actually, 'the darkness' is mentioned several times in passing over the course of the first four seasons.
** One of the more memorable ones is from ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S8/E04 Colony in Space|Colony In Space]]''. Near the beginning of the first episode, the first time the Third Doctor manages to get the TARDIS off the Earth, the Brigadier walks into the empty room and demands that the "Doctor, come back at once". After six episodes of facing hostile ancient aliens, homicidal industrialists and a late arrival by [[The Master (trope)|The Master]], they take TARDIS back to Earth... landing immediately after the Brigadier finished saying this line.
** Or how about the recently solved mystery of who River Song is? {{spoiler|She's Amy Pond's daughter, Melody Pond.}} The writers set us up for that one ''three years ago.''
* In ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Volume One, we hear that Angela Petrelli has been caught shoplifting socks. In Volume Four, she confesses {{spoiler|that she's stealing them to remember her sister who she thought was dead.}}
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* On ''[[The Daily Show]]'', Jon Stewart plays a clip related about a pep talk in which the coach screams at the teams that they "will go out there, and rip their heads off!" Later, when talking about a political candidate who believes illegals are leaving headless bodies in the Arizona desert, he wonders who is really doing it, and replays the clip.
* [[Warehouse 13]] has an almost literal example in the first episode when Pete and Myka discover the Long Distance Football, which when thrown will circle the [[Overly Long Gag|entire planet]] and return to the thrower.
* One episode of ''[[
* In [[The Basil Brush Show]] the [[Cold Open]] of an episode features [[Butt Monkey|Mr. Steven]] being asked by a [[Star Wars|Darth Vader]] parody if he has seen his bees. The main episode begins and goes on with a different plot with no reference to the bees. Then during the credits, {{spoiler|Basil and Steven hear a noise while in their beds and Steven checks under his covers when Basil asks him about missing bees...}}
* One episode of ''[[The Office]]'' has Michael and Dwight drop a watermelon onto a trampoline [[It Makes Sense in Context|for reasons that make perfect sense]]. It bounces off and hits a car, with Michael telling Dwight to find out whose car it is. The episode ends with Stanley at his now messy car, only able to stare confused.
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** One scene can defiantly be described as a Brick Joke, one episode has Eliot inform Hardison that he has a tell when playing [[Rock-Paper-Scissors]]. A season later, he mentions it again
** The stuffed bunny Parker went after in the first episode flashback, is seen again in her so called "house"
== copied from the front page - need to be checked for duplicates ==
* In ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'', Dewey releases the hamster in a ball full of food so he has a chance at survival and won't be taken care of by the class bully. Throughout the rest of the season, you can spot the Hamster Ball rolling in the background. By the end of the season, you can even see it roll by as Francis and Piama leave Alaska.
* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' was ''full'' of these.
** As does ''[[Curb Your Enthusiasm]]''.
* ''[[Father Ted]]'', "Speed 3", has a literal brick joke - twice. Father Jack has become to be affectionate to a brick, which later Father Ted trips on because Jack left it in the middle of the room. This, however, gives Ted the inspiration to use the brick to hold down the accelerator of a milk trolley ([[Speed|rigged to explode if the trolley falls below 4 miles per hour]]) to keep it going. The trolley explodes. Post-credits, Father Ted is taking out the trash when he spots something in the sky—and is struck head-on by a charred and smoking brick.
* ''[[Friends]]'' "The One With Frank Jr" has Ross consider adding Isabella Rosselini to his list of celebrities he can sleep with but eventually bumps her because she's "too international". At the end of the episode, guess who walks into the coffee house?
** Also, in one chapter the girls are in the balcony, drinking and telling stories of older times, when Rachel accidentally drops a cushion to the street. At the end of the chapter, someone calls to the door, and Chandler opens. A man returns the cushion.
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]:'' Near the start of the episode "It Happened One Night", Hawkeye puts a can of beans on a stove in post-op, to heat it up. At the end of the episode, after a busy night dealing with patients, and shelling, and other things, just as things are settling down, the can of beans explodes.
* ''[[Community]]'': A brick joke three years in the making: over the course of three episodes across three seasons, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19FMU3M7Jtk a certain word is said three times]. [[Beetlejuice|Only on the third time]] does the brick [[Shout-Out|pay off]].
* ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'': While Randy is fishing junk out of the river that a storm drain flows into, he says, "Another dolls head, Earl! That makes four." Eight episodes later, in the next season, an orphan girl tells Earl, "I used to live in a storm drain, rain washed my doll heads away."
* In one episode of [[That '70s Show|That 70's Show]], Jackie has Kelso reading Cosmo magazine, hoping that it would give him insight into women (specifically, Jackie, and what she wants at any given moment). A bit later, Eric is griping about Donna to Kelso, and Kelso spouts off some helpful wisdom, and, when Eric is [[OOC Is Serious Business|incredulous]], Kelso explains that he's been reading Cosmo, and offhandedly mentions that there are some diagrams to women's internal organs that look like a map to Six Flags. This isn't mentioned for the rest of the episode, until the very end...
{{quote|'''Fez:''' Oh look! Six flags!}}
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' had a particularly long lasting one. At the end of the serial ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S14/E02 The Hand of Fear|The Hand of Fear]]'', The Doctor is forced to drop Sarah Jane Smith on Earth. When last we see of her, she realizes she isn't in her home city of Croydon. Cut to [[Doctor Who/Recap/S28/E03 School Reunion|30 years later]], we find out that she'd been left in Aberdeen, Scotland instead.
* ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show]]'' did this in the third season premiere episode, "That's My Boy??" Mel's sister-in-law has just had a baby, which prompts Mel to make a [[Switched At Birth]] joke. Laura prods Rob into a [[Whole-Episode Flashback]] retelling of how, a few days after Ritchie's birth, he became convinced that they took the wrong baby home from the hospital. They contact the other parents—who have the similar last name of Peters—and invite them over to discuss the possibility. The doorbell rings, Rob opens the door and is stunned at the sight of them. Then he invites the Peters in. Their entry is the brick joke. {{spoiler|They're African-American.}}
** ''[[Kenan and Kel]]'' did an episode based on that Dick Van Dyke episode, but because the show is made up of {{spoiler|African-Americans}}, the brick changed. {{spoiler|The parents are Asian.}}
* On ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', Marshall's {{spoiler|slap bet}} with Barney turned into a Brick Joke spanning the entirety of the series to date. {{spoiler|As of season 7, Marshall has been granted three additional slaps (one of which he used immediately), leaving him with three slaps remaining.}}
** There's a lot of them in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]''. In S2E02, Ted enthusiastically tells Robin that he found a 1945 penny in the subway. Many episodes later, we see a flashback of Ted and Robin buying ice-cream with the money they just got from selling a 1945 penny Ted found on the subway.
** In "The Pineapple Incident", Marshall is curious about why is there a pineapple in Ted's bedroom. In "The Third Wheel", we see a flashback fom that night where Ted and Trudy are licking the pineapple while having sex.
** Also from "The Pineapple Incident", Ted claims he's "vomit free since '93". In "Game Night", Ted confesses that he threw up on Robin's carpet:
{{quote|'''Marshall:''' I knew you weren't vomit free since '93! }}
* The cold opening for one ''[[All That]]'' episode has Kenan blowing up a scarecrow, causing the Big Ear Of Corn to be kidnapped by Elvis and professional wrestlers. Later on, Lori Beth Denberg (as Miss Fingerly) kisses a stuffed monkey despite the superstition about what happens... then Elvis and the professional wrestlers come out and beat her up.
* ''[[The IT Crowd]]'': Roy gets caught in the handicapped bathroom at a theater and pretends to be disabled so he won't get in trouble. He tells the theater staff and police that his wheelchair was stolen by a bearded, [[Evil Redhead|red-haired]] man with glasses. Later, the police see a man matching that description leaving the theater and quietly take him away. In the same episode, Moss is caught using the employee bathroom and is mistaken for a new employee. Later, Jen goes to a party at the theater to find Roy in a wheelchair and Moss tending bar.
* On the last episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'''s 36th season, [[Seth Meyers]] leaves for summer vacation with Bill Hader's Stefon character. About three episodes into season 37 (the episode hosted by [[Ben Stiller]] with musical guest Foster the People), Stefon returns and Seth mentions that the vacation they took last summer was bizarre ([[Noodle Incident|and when Stefon asked Meyers if his back was okay, Meyers quickly changed the subject]]).
* One episode of ''[[Corner Gas]]'' had Davis and Oscar trying to catch a mouse in the gas station. Oscar was going for the traditional mouse trap, while Davis was advocating being humane and letting the mouse go. He mentioned that, once, he'd nursed an owl back to health and released it. At the end, they catch the mouse, they let it go, they watch it scamper off into the world...and the same owl Davis rescued swooped down and carried off the mouse.
* Over three seasons, characters on ''[[Eureka]]'' occasionally refer to something called an "Einstein-Grant Bridge" until in the season four opener, when they accidentally pull Dr. Grant into the future from his original timeline in 1947. Thereafter, they use the term we normally use for that object, the [[wikipedia:Wormhole|Einstein-Rosen Bridge]], thereby proving that the timeline they had been in was different from our own.
* In the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "The Fifth Race", Jack spars with Teal'c in a boxing ring. Teal'c knocks Jack over with one punch. Fast forward to "Upgrades", where with the benefit of a bodily-capabilities-improving Atoniek armband, Jack KO's Teal'c.
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