It Will Never Catch On/Western Animation

Examples of It Will Never Catch On in Western Animation include:

In Code Monkeys, which takes place in the Atari era, Mr. Larrity shoots down ideas for games that have become big in real-life (like God of War}} and Doom), pitched by young versions of their creators. Also, Dave thinks home computers will never be successful.
- Also in Code Monkeys: Dave sells his movie ticket to ET to a young M. Night Shyamalan so he can go to the strip club. Dave blows the kid's mind when he says: "Do you think this is a good idea for a movie? A guy doesn't know he's a ghost until the very end."
- Subverted when one of the programmers creates an 8-bit version of Halo that would have launched the Space Marine genre. Larrity admits it could have been one of the best-selling games of all time, but won't publish it because it was created by a woman and he's a first-class misogynist.
In Jimmy Neutron, Jimmy's dad reveals that he could have invested in the local Burger Fool years ago but declined. Jimmy, scheming to be rich, time travels and convinces him to. It turns out he'd actually refused so he could buy Judy an engagement ring.
In a Gummi Bears episode, Sunni competes in a fashion contest on Folly Day, a costume holiday where she wears a variant of 1980s Cyndi Lauper costume. The audience and even the MC laugh derisively at the sight of a girl apparently dressed as a Gummi Bear in a ridiculous costume and all Sunni can do is protest "Someday, everyone will be wearing this!"
Used extensively in the syndicated series of |Hercules. For example, during a crossover with Aladdin, which has Pain and Panic traveling to Agrabah and wearing their clothing:

Panic: What do they call these again?
Pain: Ermmm... "pants."
Panic: I like! No drafts!
Pain: Eh, it'll never catch on.

The Simpsons
- Professor Frink, in a flashback from the 70s, states that within a hundred years, computers will be twice as powerful<ref>The joke there being that it's a colossal understatement, as even PCs available when the cartoon was released had millions of times more memory than the type he was demonstrating.<ref>, so expensive that only the five richest kings in the world could own them, and will be the size of a baseball stadium. This was, in fact, an in-joke to a quote attributed to Thomas J. Watson of IBM, "I think there is a world market for about five computers."
- In an episode where Smithers is taking a leave of absence to star in a musical based on the Malibu Stacy doll, Mr. Burns thinks it's ridiculous, "A musical about a doll? Why not one about the common cat? Or the King of Siam?" This isn't a flashback; Burns is just that out-of-touch.
- In "That 90s Show", a young Comic Book Guy is heard declaring, "and that is why The Lord of the Rings can never be filmed!"
- Spoofed in an episode where, during Homer's youth (in a sequence parodying Stand by Me), Carl asks if the others have heard about this "Internet" thing...only to reveal he's talking about the inner "net" lining they're starting to put in swim trunks.
- During Super Bowl III, Abe Simpson says "If people don't support this thing, it might not make it."
- In the 1991 episode "Bart Gets Hit By A Car", the devil tells Bart "you're not due (in hell) until the next time the Yankees win the World Series." That would be 1996. And they've won it four other times since then.
This was brought up in The Critic (in a scene which is a parody of The Graduate):

Franklin Sherman: Son, I've got one word for you: Snapple.
Jay Sherman: Oh, Dad, you and your made-up words.

This is used twice in the Looney Tunes short What's Up, Doc? First, when Bugs is considering plays to appear he, he flings aside Life with Father saying, "Eh, this will never be a hit"; Life with Father went on to become (and still is) longest-running non-musical play on Broadway, ever. Later, he is sitting in a park with a number of out-of-work caricatures of some of Hollywood's biggest variety stars, Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, and Bing Crosby—of whom Elmer says to Bugs, "They'll never amount to anything."
In the animated series based on The Mummy:
- The kid protagonist utters the line when some island tribespeople try and teach him to surf.
- It's also uttered by the father in response to an early TV set in a "World of Tomorrow" exhibit.
In one episode of The Venture Brothers, in a flashback, Dr. Venture was listening about one of his dorm-mates talking about going into robotics after seeing a new film, Blade Runner. Dr. Venture then tells him that there is no future in robotics, and that he might as well major in Betamax.
In one episode of Tale Spin, a kooky scientist tells the main cast about this idea he had for "radio with pictures: TELEVISION!" The main cast, of course, laughs him off.

Rebecca: "What an odd little man."
Baloo: "Yeah! And what a dumb idea."

- The trope is lampshaded by the iris out of the episode being a classic television test pattern.
On Arthur, Muffy tries her hand at fashion design. Her chauffeur Bailey, off-hand, comes up with the idea of multicolored plastic shoes with holes in the top. Muffy says it's too ridiculous to work.
In an episode of The New Batman Adventures, Killer Croc reveals a newspaper with Bruce Timm's picture on the front, along with the headline "B.T. Quotes: DVD the Next 8-Track." That's a swing and a BIG miss there.
In the TV Christmas Episode of Ice Age, Manny assures Sid that Christmas trees will never catch on, instead using Christmas rocks.
Pinky and The Brain: There was one episode set at the time television was being recently invented. Brain didn't believe it would ever replace the radios.
Garfield and Friends: In one episode where a Wild West tale was being told, a Wild West counterpart of Garfield said Television would never catch on.
In an episode of Histeria!, Nostradamus boasts about several of his more famous predictions, and then mentions how he predicted that Titanic would be a colossal box office flop. "Can't win 'em all!" he says, jovially.

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