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Glory Days (view source)

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* The [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] were going through this in ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)|TMNT]]'', which is odd, since there was no indication from the last movie that things would turn out this way.
* ''[[Rocky Balboa]]'' was also meant to remedy such a situation caused by ''Rocky V''.
* "Fast" Eddie Felson in ''[[The Color of Money]]''. We saw his Glory Days in ''[[The Hustler (film)|The Hustler]]'' but when ''The Color Of Money'' opens, he's a bitter burnout selling booze and ends up working as a stakehorse to a younger player. Subverted when he makes a comeback towards the end of the film.
* Mr. Incredible from ''[[The Incredibles]]'' exemplifies this trope. After a forced retirement from his career as a super-hero, he settles down and becomes a typical cubicle dweller. While his wife has adapted to their new circumstances, he is stuck re-living his past glories, {{spoiler|a fact which the villain exploits to get Mr. Incredible to unknowingly help him.}}
** He is even on the cover of a [[Lampshade Hanging|''Glory Days''' magazine]].
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** Actually, the central theme of the entire movie is adapting to new circumstances without losing your sense of identity. So, in a way, it both embraces and disregards the idea of Glory Days.
* Parodied in ''Hamlet 2''; Elizabeth Shue plays herself as a survivor of the [[Hollywood Hype Machine]] having decided to quit acting and become a nurse instead. The main character is a huge fan of hers and invites her to the school to give a talk about acting to his drama class—which ends up embarrassing for all concerned, as the kids have no idea who she is.
* One of the main themes in ''The Turning Point.'' Emma was once a great dancer, but now she's in her mid-forties and can barely execute a double pirouette. Her old friends Wayne and DeeDee, also once on their way to ballet stardom, abandoned their performing careers shortly after having their first child. And Michael, the artistic director, has devolved from a great choreographer into an administrator.
 
== Literature ==
* Tan'elKoth in ''[[The Acts of Caine|Blade of Tyshalle]]'' literally fits this trope to a T. He used to be a ''god''. As [[Glory Days/Quotes|a line points out]], his very name was changed to an unwilling admission that he no longer is that being. Hari also longs for the glory days of his career, when he was an unstoppable assassin instead of a paraplegic bureaucrat. See also [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Orbek's]] obsession with reviving the Black Knife nation in ''[[The Acts of Caine|Caine Black Knife]]''
* One of the main themes in ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]'', at least for the characters associated with the secret societies that were crushed in 1825 (the book is set in 1828). The main character's glory days are seemingly still in full swing, but a) [[Genre Savvy|he has great and well-founded fear of suffering this trope in the future if he doesn't take some risks]] and b) while his political and social career has been doing well, [[Lonely Atat the Top|he has become increasingly detached from many of his old friends]] and has also hit a major writer's block, which leads to a lot of regret and nostalgic reminiscing on his part.
* Bavragor Hammerfist from ''[[Dwarves]]''. He created some of the finest stonework in the world, before his love of drink took over.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' story "A Phoenix on the Sword", Thoth-amon's days when he owned the [[Ring of Power]].
* Many characters in ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', but especially Tom Buchanan, who used to be a star football player for Yale. Nick's impression of Tom is as a restless man who goes about his entire life looking for another football game to win.
** Gatsby himself inverts this. He never had such pure happiness in his past, but he's ignoring reality in order to try and make the ''future'' glorious and perfect and lovely.
* Subverted in ''Children of the Lens'', last in the ''[[Lensman]]'' sequence: the surviving crew of the battleship "Dauntless", now top brass, cast off their regalia and revert to their original roles aboard ship of twenty years before in order to re-enter a strange universe and craft the ultimate weapon. They literally get to ''relive'' their glory days, even as they are living a second set.
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* A witch in an episode of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' ([[Trope Overdosed|who didn't see this coming]]) never got over her glory days as a cheerleader, so forcibly switched places with her daughter to relive "her glory days".
** Buffy has moments of this, at least at the beginning of the show, missing her popular cheerleader days, back when she didn't have to be a slayer.
* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'', episode 2x24, "The Ultimate Computer," had Dr. Richard Daystrom who invented the duotronic computer system used on Federation starships when he was 24, and spent the next 25 years trying to recapture that moment of brilliance (leading to the disastrous results of the M-5 computer). However he seems to have made some historical impact, as by the 24th century a prominent scientific institute is named for him.
* Did you know that Al Bundy of ''[[Married... with Children|Married With Children]]'' once scored four touchdowns in one game of high school football? Al sure wants you to know.
* Illyria, a Cthulu-esque goddess demon from ''[[Angel]]'', awakens from millions of years of stasis to find herself trapped in a human body, her cult all but extinct and her armies long since turned to dust. She spends a lot of time moping about how powerful she used to be. It's actually quite poignant to see how she deals with the modern world.
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* Deconstructed in [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s "Glory Days"
* Also deconstructed in [[U2]]'s "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
* [[Bryan Adams]]' ''Summer of 69'', by way of employing [[Nostalgia Filter]]. "Those were the best days of my life."
* [[Mike Oldfield]] - After the surprisingly huge success of his debut album "[[wikipedia:Tubular Bells|Tubular Bells]]", he tried to reproduce it [[wikipedia:Tubular Bells II|again]], [[wikipedia:Tubular Bells III|again]] and [[wikipedia:The Millennium Bell|again]] to save his decreasing popularity, which didn't help much.
** Nor did [[wikipedia:Tubular Bells 2003|completely re-recording it]].
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== Web Original ==
* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance]]'', after Agarwaen becomes the king of Manster, he gradually grows bored with his kingly duties and yearns for the days when he was a free adventurer.
* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', it's often argued that Version 1 was the Glory Days of the board, and that people preferred the old system.
** This was subverted in a recent thread on the board, in which ''both'' V1 and V2 were criticised - V1 for being too spontaneous and for a lesser writing quality, and V2 for being overplanned. To quote the Admin of the site, "for the most part, V3's found a good mix of both planning and spontaneity". Read the thread [http://z10.invisionfree.com/SOTF_V2/index.php?showtopic=2707 here].
* The main theme of ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]''. Mario, Link, and a few other characters in particular seem to have taken it hard.
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== Real Life ==
* Some people in the United States when it comes to [[World War II]]. Now both the left and the right agree it was a good thing we were involved.
* The pre-[[American Civil War]] south for some.
* Some see communist Russia as this (one aspect of [[Why We're Bummed Communism Fell]]).
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[[Category:Drama Tropes]]
[[Category:Fame and Reputation Tropes]]
[[Category:Glory Days{{PAGENAME}}]]
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