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{{trope}}
While a [[Wham! Episode]] can change a single series forever... sometimes, something comes out that forever alters an entire genre. It wasn't the first entry into the genre, nor was it the last, but things were never the same after it came out. This
However, it doesn't always have to be a Deconstruction. Some shows, such as ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', can radically redefine a genre without taking it apart.
Compare [[Wham! Episode]], [[From Clones to Genre]], [[Follow the Leader]]. Good chance of being a [[Trope Maker]] or [[Trope Codifier]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime]] ==
* The [[Harem Genre]] was invented by ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'', but was ''re''-invented in [[The Nineties]] by ''[[Love Hina]]'', which set new rules for the genre: namely, an [[Unlucky Everydude]] male protagonist who lives with a bunch of girls (the violent [[Tsundere]], the [[Bottle Fairy]], [[The Ojou]] with the [[Hime Cut]], the [[Shrinking Violet]] and the Exotic Foreign Girl) who all fall in love with him simply because he's a nice and sensitive guy, with the gaps in the plot smoothed over with dollops of fanservice. Almost every harem series since has followed its lead. Haters of this cannot forgive Ken Akamatsu.
** Akamatsu can rest easy knowing that actual credit for re-inventing the genre goes to ''[[Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki]]'', which refined and popularized the "harem anime" formula a full six years earlier. ''Love Hina'' was one of the first to apply the formula to a pure comedy with no fantastic elements, though.<ref>Well, no fantastic elements aside from Motoko's chi-enhanced swordplay, Suu's [[Clarke's Third Law|Clarkean]] technology and red-moon [[Transformation Sequence]], a flying turtle... Okay, forget we said "no fantastic elements".</ref>
* It was [[Men Don't Cry|
* The original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' basically revamped [[Humongous Mecha]] genre, single-handedly invented most [[Real Robot]] plot devices, and, along the way, ushered the [[Otaku]] subculture into existence (though to be fair, other shows helped it in the latter).
* ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' marked the shift from fantasy to sci-fi in the Digimon series.
* ''[[Yami to Boushi
* ''[[
** Ironically, ''Akira'' was released by Macek's Streamline Pictures studio.
* Originally, the [[Magical Girl]] genre was about cute girls using magical powers to help friends' social lives, meet boys, or make it big as [[Idol Singer]]s. However, after Naoko Takeuchi mixed [[Magical Girl]] and [[Sentai]] in equal proportions to create ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', "Magical Girl" became all but synonymous with [[Magical Girl Warrior]].
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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** Point of order: it is generally accepted that [[The Flash|Barry Allen, the second Flash]], was the character that kicked off the Silver Age, complete with sleek, form-fitting, cape-less costume, more [[Science Marches On|scientific...ish]]...origin, and a [[Rogues Gallery]] of gimmick villains.
* [[Jack Kirby]]'s move to DC. [[The New Gods]] is often considered the beginning of the [[Bronze Age]].
* ''[[Watchmen (
* ''[[
** And again with ''[[
* Harvey Pekar's ''[[
* ''[[The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright]]'' was an independant New Wave style [[Science Fiction]] comic made by Bryan Talbot in the 70s, the techniques and story telling he used have had large impact on many other writers and artists. [[Warren Ellis]] has said "LUTHER ARKWRIGHT invented the tools. ARKWRIGHT informs Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, me, and all the rest of us. It's probably Anglophone comics' single most important experimental work."
* R.Crumb and others started the alternative and art comix movement in the late 60s.
* The French ''Métal Hurlant'' magazine and its American equivalent, ''Heavy Metal'', introduced a lot of influential science fiction and fantasy comic book creators like [[Moebius]], Enki Bilal and Richard Corben.
* ''[[
** More than just them, too. Chances are if there's a significant British creator from the last 30 years, he's almost certainly done something for 2000AD, even if it was just a one-shot Future Shock.
* [[Alan Moore]] starts writing [[Swamp Thing]]. From one writer no one in America had heard of on a dying thrid-string title at DC we eventually got the whole of [[Vertigo Comics]], Marvel's Max Imprint and not a few smaller publishing houses (Avatar, for example).
* [[Chris Claremont]] starts writing the [[X
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* "A Fragment out of Time" published in ''Spockanalia'' (a ''[[
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[
* [[Wes Craven]] made ''[[Scream (
** Before that, ''[[Halloween (
* ''[[
* A decade later, ''[[The Matrix]]'' did the same thing, introducing mainstream Western audiences to [[Heroic Bloodshed|Hong Kong-style gunplay]], fight choreography living up to Asian action film standards of sophistication, and [[Trope Codifier|codifying]] the use of [[Bullet Time]].
* And just a few years after that, ''[[The Bourne Series (
* ''[[
* [[Sergio Leone]]'s [[Dollars Trilogy]]. These films weren't the first [[
* ''[[Star Wars]]''. While ''[[Jaws (
** Furthermore, ''[[Star Wars]]'' fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.
* The ''[[Superman (
* Although there have been occasional big budget [[Comic Book Adaptation|comic book movies]] dating back to ''[[Superman (
** ''Blade's'' influence can be seen thusly: Prior to ''Blade,'' the ''only'' theatrically-released movies based on Marvel Comics-owned properties, ''ever'', were a [[Captain America (comics)]] serial from the 1940s, ''[[
* In an amazing coincidence, just as ''[[Watchmen]]'' and ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'' took comic books in a [[Darker and Edgier]] direction, ''[[Dark Knight Trilogy|The Dark Knight]]'' and [[Watchmen (
** Whoa whoa, ''[[Batman (
*** Both films have marked major turning points for the comic book movie. The influence of Tim Burton's ''[[Batman (
* While we're still on the subject of comic book movies, the notorious ''[[Batman and Robin (
* ''[[
** Each of those films also helped to launch their own sub-genres of horror -- ''Psycho'' is considered to be the [[Ur Example]] of the [[Slasher
* ''[[Shrek]]'' ushered in a period of [[Deconstruction]] for fairy tales, resulting in [[Fractured Fairy Tale
** Shrek is also blamed by fans of traditional animation for [[Genre Killer|ending the dominance of traditional animation]] and about the rise of [[All CGI Cartoons]] laden with [[Shout
* ''[[Snow White and
* The ''[[Harry Potter (
{{quote|
** The ''Potter'' films most clearly sparked a trend towards more faithful and straightforward adaptations of novels, particularly fantasy novels aimed at children and/or young adults. The prior trend of combing seperate installments of a novel series into one film was killed in favor of adapting each novel individually in the hopes of creating a money-spinning movie franchise. When the live-action ''[[Chronicles of Narnia]]'' movies were first planned, [[Executive Meddling]] was aimed at relocating the story to America. But after the success of the first ''Potter'' film, the executives suddenly didn't have a problem with keeping the British setting of the novels.
* Together with the aforementioned ''Potter'', the ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
* ''[[Blade Runner]]'' was a disappointment in a crowded summer box office when it came out. Repeated showings on cable and its release on video not only made it one of the first films to develop a strong cult following that way, but introduced the first entirely new way of visualizing the future in sci-fi films since ''[[Metropolis]]'' a half-century earlier. Not only did its wet streets reflecting neon signs at night get copied widely in other films, commercials and music videos during the 1980s, it arguably influenced the look of urban space in the ''actual real-world future'' ([http://www.flickr.com/photos/59303791@N00/2518314792/ See Times Square, ca. 2008]).
* The ''[[Alien]]'' series firmly established in futuristic stories, any major female character is expected to pull their weight in the face of danger or combat like Ellen Ripley.
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' wasn't the first fantasy novel, but it set up most of the devices of modern fantasy.
** And of what Tolkien didn't start, [[
** Terry Brooks was the first
* [[John W. Campbell]], a popular science fiction writer and magazine editor, is generally credited by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and other science fiction writers as being responsible for nurturing their talents and for bringing higher standard of storytelling to the science fiction genre, which had previously consisted mostly of [[
* ''[[Neuromancer]]'' more or less ''created'' the [[Cyberpunk]] sub-genre of [[Sci Fi]].
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[
* Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' brought the end to the era where epic fantasy = trilogy by showing that very long series can be very profitable.
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' is largely responsible for moving contemporary fantasy to the gritty end of the [[Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty]].
* ''[[Star Trek:
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
** ''[[
▲* ''[[Star Trek the Original Series (TV)|Star Trek the Original Series]]'', despite it not doing spectacularly well in the ratings, spawned numerous short-lived imitators (a few coming from [[Gene Roddenberry]], ''Trek'''s creator) in comic books and television. During the '70's it served as ''the'' template for [[Science Fiction]] television in America (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the world) until the advent of ''[[Star Wars]]'', though the clones tended to only last for a season or two. Even the original ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Classic]]'' and other works influenced by ''[[Star Wars]]'' showed its influence. Its impact lasted as late as the '90s, though more in the form of television reacting ''against'' the series.
* ''[[
▲** ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'''s influence, however, would go on to shape far more than science fiction as a genre; not only is it the [[Trope Codifier]] (and [[Trope Namer]]) for the [[Power Trio]], but things like automatic doors, Kindle, iPods, bluetooth, cell phones and laptops were all first conceived for ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]''. Its impact even goes beyond pop culture and technology; Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to work in space, was inspired to become an astronaut after seeing Lieutenant Uhura on television as a little girl.
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' had a similar status in the [[United Kingdom]]. It, too, spawned numerous homages, ranging from the long-running but much-mocked ''[[The Tomorrow People]]'' to the dark and cerebral ''[[Sapphire and Steel]]'', as well as many other less well-known examples. Similariy, the 2005 revival is credited with restoring Saturday night family dramas to British television as others began to capitalize on its success.
▲* ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' and ''[[Star Wars]]'' were (and still are) considered the bastions of American [[Science Fiction]], both being notable for their 'optimistic' views. ''[[Babylon 5 (TV)|Babylon 5]]'' and ''[[Star Trek Deep Space Nine (TV)|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' started taking sci-fi in a new direction, away from the space opera/Western in Space concept and made them more character driven dramas, in the vein of cop shows almost. This started a slow but steady shift in the television sci-fi genre that later yielded ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', ''[[The X Files]]'', and culminating in the reimagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' and ''[[Stargate Universe (TV)|Stargate Universe]]''.
* In turn, ''[[Babylon 5]]'' can arguably be credited for the current boom in [[Story Arc|serialized storytelling]] on TV.
* ''[[
* In the late '90s and early '00s, [[HBO]] shows like ''[[The Sopranos]]'', ''[[Series/The Wire|The Wire]]'' and ''[[
* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' changed the the way [[
* For better or worse, ''[[Lizzie
== [[Music]] ==
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* [[Eric Clapton]]'s short, but legendary stint with John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers produced only one album [[Fan Nickname|often called Beano]]. The album is credited to be the first album to feature modern rock guitar. Eric Clapton was the first guy to dare to crank up his amp and take his space. Many people say [[Jimi Hendrix]] was the first modern rock guitar player, but he got his inspiration from hearing this album.
* Eddie Van Halen's 80 second guitar solo on Van Halen's first album was the "Eruption" heard round the world. Shredding was born and rock guitarists became virtuosos in their own right. While the style fell out of favour in mainstream rock in the early 1990s, it's still a major element of various metal and progressive rock scenes worldwide.
* The [[Grunge]] band [[
* Rap music received plenty of media attention for most of [[The Nineties]], but most of it was on the back of [[Gangsta Rap|the controversy it generated]]. Then [[The Notorious B.I.G.|Biggie]] and [[Tupac Shakur|Tupac]] got shot, and Sean "Puffy" Combs released his hit album ''No Way Out'', and suddenly [[Glam Rap]] became the dominant form of "urban" music on the radio for the rest of the decade and the start of [[Turn of the Millennium|the next]].
** [[The Nineties]] as a whole were a turning point for rap music. The decade introduced a large array of sub-genres that showed that rap could be more than just block party music, and that it could also have strong messages and themes (much to the chagrin of fans who were use to it just being "fun"). It also saw the growth in rap's popularity outside of [[New York City]], resulting in what is arguably the climax of the Golden Age era.
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** Bob's early output in general has often been cited as a major influence in bringing true art and poetry into pop music writing. It can't be a coincidence that his rising popularity in the first half of the 60's coincided with something of a move away from the up to then ubiquitous hot cars and fast women thematics, when people started listening to songs like "Blowing in the Wind" and "Mr Tambourine Man" instead.
* Almost all of Metallica's first three albums could count as this for thrash metal, being [[Trope Codifiers]] for the genre in different ways.
* [[
* Venom may have been the trope namers, but it was [[Mayhem]]'s album ''De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas'' that really defined what [[Black Metal]] would come to be known as.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* [[ECW]] brought hardcore wrestling to North America, made luchadores popular in the United States, and made professional wrestling [[Darker and Edgier]] at a time when the two biggest promotions, the [[
* The [[
* Similarly, at and before Wrestlemania X-Seven, the [[Attitude Era]] ended. Vince purchased WCW, the company's chief rival, and at Wrestlemania, one of the greatest PPV's in history, Austin faced The Rock for the WWF Championship, unbelievably, Stone Cold turned heel in his hometown and sided with McMahon to beat Rock. The central feuds of the Attitude Era, both in real-life and kayfabe, had ended within a week of each other.
== Sports ==▼
* This has happened multiple times in [[Useful Notes/Baseball|Baseball]].▼
** In the 1920s, Babe Ruth popularized the idea of the home run, shifting much of the game's offensive focus from baserunning speed to long-ball power.▼
** Jackie Robinson's breaking down the color line was this for more than just the sports world. Not only did it create interest in successful Negro League players, it was also an early turning point in white America's acceptance of the idea that [[Civil Rights Movement|black people weren't so different from them]].▼
** The airing of Major League Baseball games on television in [[The Fifties]] destroyed most of the minor leagues, who couldn't compete with the bigger games being shown on TV.▼
** The move of the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers to, respectively, [[San Francisco]] and [[Los Angeles]] in 1957 will probably never be forgiven by [[Big Applesauce|New York]] sports fans, but it helped popularize baseball outside the East Coast and the Midwest and led to a surge of teams moving to sunny Southern and Western cities, securing the sport's national viability for the rest of the century. It also effectively destroyed the Pacific Coast League (which was, until then, seen as a growing rival to Major League Baseball), pushing it down into the minors and securing MLB's position as the dominant baseball league in the US.▼
** Maury Wills helped repopularize the stolen base in the early 1960s.▼
** Rollie Fingers was central to the idea of the dedicated relief pitcher/closer in the 1970s, paving the way for the modern game's reliance on the bullpen.▼
** The 1975 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox, one of the most exciting matchups in sports history, was the moment at which television finally understood how to broadcast baseball. Carlton Fisk's iconic home run in Game 6 provided a catalyst in getting camera operators to focus most of their attention on the players themselves. It's no coincidence that, after the '75 World Series, a new lucrative TV deal involving not just [[NBC]], but [[ABC]] was made.▼
** The early success of Hideo Nomo paved the way for Major League Baseball's interest in Japanese players.▼
* In [[Australian Rules Football]], the 1970 VFL Grand Final is often seen as the point at which a major shift in the game occurred. Carlton, 44 points down at half time, came back to defeat Collingwood after a rousing half-time speech by coach Ron Barassi in which he exhorted the players to handball - and ever since then, the handball has been a much more prominent feature of the game, sometimes more common in a match than kicking the ball.▼
* Several players have shifted the way Ice Hockey gets played. Highlights include:▼
** Bobby Orr popularizing the concept of defensemen supporting offensive plays▼
** Patrick Roy is credited for popularizing the butterfly goaltending style▼
** Wayne Gretzky for his use of the behind-the-net goal setup.▼
* In [[American Football]], initially field goal kickers kicked the ball towards the goal posts straight on, the results being that most field goals didn't have much distance and their accuracy was iffy at best (60% or so). Then Pete Gogolak and others introduced the angled, soccer-style kick for field goals, increasing distance and accuracy and immediately improving the viability of field goals tremendously. As of today the soccer-style kick is used professionally almost exclusively.▼
** And the place kick (straight on) replaced the drop kick, where the kicker dropped it like a punter and let it hit the ground before kicking it. The last time it was used was by Doug Flutie as an homage.▼
* Certain single games and/or series have breathed life into otherwise stagnant or dying leagues. The 1979 NCAA basketball championship between Larry Bird's Indiana State team and Magic Johnson's Michigan State team breathed new life into college basketball. Five years later, the 1984 NBA Finals between Bird's Boston Celtics and Magic's Los Angeles Lakers helped spark a revival in the NBA, which had languished in popularity before the pair entered the league.▼
** The New York Jets' upset victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III arguably lent the American Football League credibility against the more established National Football League. It helped that Jets' quarterback Joe Namath's "guarantee" that the Jets would win added to the pregame hype (unheard of in the previous two games). The Kansas City Chiefs' win over the Minnesota Vikings the following season proved that it wasn't a one shot, fluke deal for the AFL leading up to the eventual merger in 1970.▼
* The High Jump was revolutionized by Dick Fosbury in 1968. It's weird as heck to watch someone do a Fosbury Flop (It involves turning around at the point of the jump and going BACKWARDS over the bar), but it manages to allow jumpers to jump as much as 25% higher than they would be able to jumping straight forwards over the bar.▼
* The 2005 fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonnar on the undercard of the The Ultimate Fighter finale, the first ever live-televised MMA event. Their legendary, back-and-forth brawl over a UFC contract made instant fans almost overnight, and it's been documented that ratings spiked during the fight as fans were frantically calling other people to point them to this fight. UFC president Dana White credits this fight as perhaps the most landmark moment in MMA history, and the turning point that launched it to such great, mainstream heights.▼
* In [[The Beautiful Game|Soccer]], the 1953 match between England and Hungary is widely regarded as being the point when the modern game came into being. The Hungarians playing a then unknown tactical style totally outclassed the English, who until that point had never been defeated at home by a team from outside the British Isles. In the aftermath the old English formations and tactics vanished entirely, and the continental tactics, training and equipment became the standard around the world.▼
== [[Theatre]] ==
* ''[[Oklahoma!]]'' changed the musical theatre genre from fluffy entertainment into legitimate theatre.
** Well, ''[[Oklahoma!]]'' gave musical theatre the format of the use of song, dialogue, and dance, but it was ''[[Show Boat]]'' that first made musical theatre into legitimate theatre.
*** ''[[Oklahoma!]]'' was not the first musical to use song, dialogue, and dance - those three things were in every musical. What ''[[Oklahoma!]]'' did was integrate those three elements in a mature and realistic fashion (well, as realistic as breaking into song ever can be.)
* [[Aeschylus]] did this for drama -- [[Older Than Feudalism|2500 years ago]]
** [[Euripides]] reinvented theater again, by focusing more on the characters and their motivations, adding larger casts, and making the dramatic aspects much less subdued.
* [[Cirque Du Soleil]] accomplished this trope twice over:
** Starting with its 1987 tour ''[[Le Cirque Reinvente]]'', Cirque did a lot to raise circus out of the kiddie entertainment ghetto it had fallen into in North America. Now, not only are there many successful "contemporary circus" troupes/companies that play to a wide variety of audiences, but [[The Mockbuster|blatant imitators]] of Cirque's style (which was derived from European and Asian circuses) have sprung up.
** Their first Las Vegas resident show, ''[[Mystere]]'', helped change that city's entertainment scene. Siegfried and Roy's magic show at the Mirage had opened four years prior and was also a big game changer after years of increasingly stale showgirl revues, but ''Mystere'' was actually taken seriously as theater, to the point that [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]]'s theater critic named it one of the best shows of 1994. While it would lead to many acclaimed sister productions in the city, other Vegas casino-hotels imported such productions as Blue Man Group, ''Jersey Boys'', and ''[[The Lion King]]'', often with huge success, resulting in a much more diverse range of entertainment for tourists.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In the field of video games, ''[[Super Mario Bros.]].'' defined the 2D platformer, as well as ensuring the resurrection of the video game home console in the United States after [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]].
** And then another Mario game, ''[[
** Yet another Mario game, ''[[New Super Mario Bros
** ''[[Prince of Persia]]: The Sands of Time'' made platforming "realistic" with its use of [[Le Parkour|parkour]], and set the stage for, among other things, the ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' reboot and ''[[Uncharted]]''.
** Back in 1989, the first [[Prince of Persia]] did the exact same thing, with its realistic platforming and fighting.
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* The FPS genre seems to be as impressionable as wet clay. After ''Half-Life'' it was once again redefined by ''[[Halo]]'', bringing in regenerating health and losing the massive weapon inventories of older contenders.
** And a year later, ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' also helped redefine the FPS by successfully fusing it with the Adventure genre, creating a first-person shooter where the focus was not on combat, but rather exploration and puzzle-solving. Those had long been staples of video games, but ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' really was the [[Trope Codifier|codifier]] for their inclusion in the FPS genre. To this day, almost every modern FPS plays [[Follow the Leader]] trying to catch up to ''[[Halo]]'' and ''[[Metroid Prime]]''.
** [[Accidental Pun|Rarely]] does [[The Problem
** ''[[Doom]]'' was the first FPS to offer multiplayer (via LAN or dial-up modem). This new mode of play proved to be hugely popular. Because of ''Doom'' virtually every FPS released since then includes a multiplayer mode, and many FPS fans buy games solely for the multiplayer and never play the single-player.
* ''[[Castle Wolfenstein]]'' invented the stealth game genre, but it wasn't until the success of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' and ''[[Thief]]'' that the genre began to attract attention. Other stealth game series, like [[Splinter Cell]] and [[Hitman]], have continued this with quirks of their own.
* PC gaming was generally seen as inferior to console gaming until the advent of ''[[Doom]]'', which was made by, of all things, a [[Shareware]] company, causing gaming companies everywhere to rethink their business model.
** On that note, shareware in general (where you gave away part of your program for free, and the user would pay you money for the full thing if they liked it) was seen as a really stupid idea that could never possibly make money. Apogee Software and Epic MegaGames came along and proved that the model ''could'' be profitable, at least with games. Apogee made a lot of money with the game series ''Kingdoms of Kroz'', and Epic with ''ZZT''. Keep in mind this is way BEFORE the days of the Internet, which made distributing shareware easy. Apogee later changed their name to 3D Realms and created ''[[
*** Game-wise, ''[[Duke Nukem]]'' (Apogee), ''Jill of the Jungle'' (Epic) and ''Commander Keen'' (Id) popularised Shareware. One from each major company.
** Similarly, ''[[Quake (
** ''[[Gears of War]]'' seems to have lead third person shooters as a genre to strategic cover-based gameplay.
* ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' took RPGs down a completely different path. Its emphasis on story and simplistic combat was a major culture shock for US gamers when they got their hands on it (western RPGs at the time consisting mainly of [[Excuse Plot|shallow stories]] and cripplingly complex gameplay), but it definitely had a following, and it spawned the subgenre we now refer to as the [[JRPG]].
* The [[
* For the [[Interactive Fiction]] genre, ''[[Photopia]]''. Before ''Photopia'', games often used [[Mind Screw]] surrealism or [[High Fantasy]] loosely bound by a huge [[Story Arc]]. After ''Photopia'', plot and puzzles became more important to the feel of a game, and slice-of-life realism overtook surrealism as the most popular environment in [[Interactive Fiction]].
** The release of Inform (and ''much'' more so Inform 7) revolutionized the medium, if not the genre. It made it possible for non-programmers to write [[Interactive Fiction]] software.
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** Steam also helped to create the market for indie gaming by offering a way for small developers to get their games to consumers without the costs and hurdles associated with retail stores. [[Xbox Live Arcade]] and [[Playstation Network]] quickly followed its lead, spreading the indie love to console gamers.
* You have ''[[Tokimeki Memorial]]'' to thank for [[Dating Sim]] girls who actually have personalities beyond "living love doll".
* ...and ''[[Kanon]]'' to thank for giving the ''male protagonist'' a personality, as well as (and the two are connected) making [[Porn
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The Disney version of ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' was a surprise sensation in 1989, revitalizing interest in animated features. For years afterward, its musical fantasy structure was the default setting for Western animated features. It was eventually overtaken by the [[Pixar]] CGI boom, but arguably no CGI film has had the kind of positive impact on the entire genre that ''Mermaid'' did.
* Speaking of ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'', it spawned the entire [[All CGI Cartoon|CG boom in animation]], which eventually took over Western animated film.
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' struck a huge blow against the [[Animation Age Ghetto]], proving that animated shows based around adult humor can be successful.
* ''[[The Dover Boys]]'' is a double turning point for American animation. It marks the point were [[Warner Bros]]'s animators stopped aping [[Disney]] and started experimenting with much more stylized action. It also marks the point when [[Chuck Jones]] went from the junior director who did the ''Sniffles the Mouse'' cartoons to a major innovator.
* Speaking of [[Warner Bros|Warner Brothers cartoons]], [[Tex Avery]] revolutionized both the Warner cartoons and the animation industry itself. At a time when Warner and almost all other studios were hell-bent on imitating [[Disney]], and in which Warner cartoons in particular were suffering from deathly mediocrity, Avery came along in 1936 with his zany, faster-paced, smartassed, [[No Fourth Wall|fourth-wall-breaking]] comedy, and cartoons haven't been the same since. If you watch the Warner cartoon library in sequence and look at what the studio was doing by 1937 or '38, it's amazing to think that this same studio had been producing terminally boring cartoons just two or three years earlier. When Warner cartoons finally became funny, they had Tex to thank for it.
* The short lived ''[[Mighty Mouse|Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures]]'' completely overhauled the expectations of what a television cartoon could do and began the practice of cartoonist-controlled animation and en-masse pop culture references.
* ''[[Batman:
* ''[[Doug]]'' started a trend for many [[Slice of Life]] shows in the 1990s.
▲== Real Life ==
* The Great San Francisco Earthquake for [[California]]. Before the quake, [[San Francisco]] was the largest city on the West Coast, and [[Los Angeles]]' population was less than a million, nowhere near the second largest city in the United States. The quake and the Hollywood boom were instrumental in shifting the population southward.
* The Hurricane of 1900 that struck Galveston, Texas sent it into a long decline while turning [[Greater Houston|Houston]] into a booming port town. NASA and oil would finish the job.
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* On the 13th of September, 1989, a non-Communist government was formed by the Polish parliament, and the Soviet Union declined to force them to do otherwise. This kicked off the [[Great Politics Mess Up]]: within ''weeks'' that force variously called the Eastern Bloc, the Warsaw pact, the great enemy everyone had been planning to fight in World War III...simply went away. In just over a year later Germany was reunited, and a year after that the Soviet Union itself finally went into the dustbin of history, and the western democracies were stunned to discover that the Cold War was over, had never turned hot, and they'd won.
* The American Revolution decisively changed international politics forever. It was the first modern democracy, and thus the Trope Maker for much of what we now think of as Western democracy. It directly or indirectly inspired revolutions for nearly a century and a half (from 1776 to 1918) - in particular the anti-monarchist nature of most of these revolts. It arguably represents the point at which guerilla warfare and firearms first met. And finally, it was the first time that an imperial European power was defeated by a non-European one.
* The US Constitution's Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, both of which were first drafted in 1789, are the [[Trope Codifier
▲=== Sports ===
▲** In the 1920s, Babe Ruth popularized the idea of the home run, shifting much of the game's offensive focus from baserunning speed to long-ball power.
▲** Jackie Robinson's breaking down the color line was this for more than just the sports world. Not only did it create interest in successful Negro League players, it was also an early turning point in white America's acceptance of the idea that [[Civil Rights Movement|black people weren't so different from them]].
▲** The airing of Major League Baseball games on television in [[The Fifties]] destroyed most of the minor leagues, who couldn't compete with the bigger games being shown on TV.
▲** The move of the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers to, respectively, [[San Francisco]] and [[Los Angeles]] in 1957 will probably never be forgiven by [[Big Applesauce|New York]] sports fans, but it helped popularize baseball outside the East Coast and the Midwest and led to a surge of teams moving to sunny Southern and Western cities, securing the sport's national viability for the rest of the century. It also effectively destroyed the Pacific Coast League (which was, until then, seen as a growing rival to Major League Baseball), pushing it down into the minors and securing MLB's position as the dominant baseball league in the US.
▲** Maury Wills helped repopularize the stolen base in the early 1960s.
▲** Rollie Fingers was central to the idea of the dedicated relief pitcher/closer in the 1970s, paving the way for the modern game's reliance on the bullpen.
▲** The 1975 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox, one of the most exciting matchups in sports history, was the moment at which television finally understood how to broadcast baseball. Carlton Fisk's iconic home run in Game 6 provided a catalyst in getting camera operators to focus most of their attention on the players themselves. It's no coincidence that, after the '75 World Series, a new lucrative TV deal involving not just [[NBC]], but [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] was made.
▲** The early success of Hideo Nomo paved the way for Major League Baseball's interest in Japanese players.
▲* In [[Australian Rules Football]], the 1970 VFL Grand Final is often seen as the point at which a major shift in the game occurred. Carlton, 44 points down at half time, came back to defeat Collingwood after a rousing half-time speech by coach Ron Barassi in which he exhorted the players to handball - and ever since then, the handball has been a much more prominent feature of the game, sometimes more common in a match than kicking the ball.
▲* Several players have shifted the way Ice Hockey gets played. Highlights include:
▲** Bobby Orr popularizing the concept of defensemen supporting offensive plays
▲** Patrick Roy is credited for popularizing the butterfly goaltending style
▲** Wayne Gretzky for his use of the behind-the-net goal setup.
▲* In [[American Football]], initially field goal kickers kicked the ball towards the goal posts straight on, the results being that most field goals didn't have much distance and their accuracy was iffy at best (60% or so). Then Pete Gogolak and others introduced the angled, soccer-style kick for field goals, increasing distance and accuracy and immediately improving the viability of field goals tremendously. As of today the soccer-style kick is used professionally almost exclusively.
▲** And the place kick (straight on) replaced the drop kick, where the kicker dropped it like a punter and let it hit the ground before kicking it. The last time it was used was by Doug Flutie as an homage.
▲* Certain single games and/or series have breathed life into otherwise stagnant or dying leagues. The 1979 NCAA basketball championship between Larry Bird's Indiana State team and Magic Johnson's Michigan State team breathed new life into college basketball. Five years later, the 1984 NBA Finals between Bird's Boston Celtics and Magic's Los Angeles Lakers helped spark a revival in the NBA, which had languished in popularity before the pair entered the league.
▲** The New York Jets' upset victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III arguably lent the American Football League credibility against the more established National Football League. It helped that Jets' quarterback Joe Namath's "guarantee" that the Jets would win added to the pregame hype (unheard of in the previous two games). The Kansas City Chiefs' win over the Minnesota Vikings the following season proved that it wasn't a one shot, fluke deal for the AFL leading up to the eventual merger in 1970.
▲* The High Jump was revolutionized by Dick Fosbury in 1968. It's weird as heck to watch someone do a Fosbury Flop (It involves turning around at the point of the jump and going BACKWARDS over the bar), but it manages to allow jumpers to jump as much as 25% higher than they would be able to jumping straight forwards over the bar.
▲* The 2005 fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonnar on the undercard of the The Ultimate Fighter finale, the first ever live-televised MMA event. Their legendary, back-and-forth brawl over a UFC contract made instant fans almost overnight, and it's been documented that ratings spiked during the fight as fans were frantically calling other people to point them to this fight. UFC president Dana White credits this fight as perhaps the most landmark moment in MMA history, and the turning point that launched it to such great, mainstream heights.
▲* In [[The Beautiful Game|Soccer]], the 1953 match between England and Hungary is widely regarded as being the point when the modern game came into being. The Hungarians playing a then unknown tactical style totally outclassed the English, who until that point had never been defeated at home by a team from outside the British Isles. In the aftermath the old English formations and tactics vanished entirely, and the continental tactics, training and equipment became the standard around the world.
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