Noodle Incident/Live-Action TV
- In the sixth season of 24, the mysterious "Denver Incident" follows Mike Doyle like a stray cat. In a break from the norm for the show, there is no Info Dump explaining exactly what happened.
- 3rd Rock from the Sun in the episode "A Nightmare on Dick Street", in an opening scene, Judith walks in with Mary and we get the tail end of the conversation that ends with "And when they found him, his body had been devoured by woodland creatures.."
- On an episode of 8 Simple Rules, Paul takes Kerry to see L'amour est l'eau de coeur, since her boyfriend didn't want to go. It includes the "very European" waterbottle scene. We don't actually see it, but the sound makes it quite clear that this is not the sort of thing Kerry or Paul would want to watch with their father or teenage daughter, respectively.
- Colbert Report has a running gag of giving his apologies to Doris Kearns Goodwin, implying she knows what he's talking about but leaving the audience only to speculate.
- The A-Team had a couple, usually as a result of Murdock and his fixations.
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Face: You're not professor Nuttybutty again are you? Rex the wonderdog?! |
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- How did Face get that '53 Cadillac convertible in the jungles of 'Nam?
- Professional secret.
- How did Face get that '53 Cadillac convertible in the jungles of 'Nam?
- The pilot of Action features a reference to Bruce Willis doing something unpleasant to a cat at a party.
- ALF - as part of Alf's backstory, you hear about his home planet of Melmac being destroyed in a "nuclear holocaust" without ever getting the exact details.
- One episode said it involved all the inhabitants of Melmac using their hair dryers all at one time.
- In the TV movie Project: ALF, which took up the story from it's unresolved ending in the sitcom, the fate of the Tanner family is a noodle incident involving relocation through the witness relocation program.
- In Allo Allo a running noodle-incident gag relates to Yvette is responsible for entertaining the German officers, upstairs at the café with the wet celery and the flying helmet and sometimes an egg whisk. It is never revealed exactly what happens, but the offer is always good for extra paraffin.
- Near the end of Angel, Spike misunderstands Illyria's archaic use of the word "intimate" and alleges that he is safe because he and Angel have never been intimate, but then adds "Except that one...." Enter drooling slashers...
- Also from Angel season 5: "El Diablo Robótico".
- In Are You Being Served, Mr. Humphries sometimes refers to an incident with a vicar (or possibly several incidents with different vicars).
- In the 1000th episode of Attack of the Show!, Kevin makes a reference to the first time he drove a backhoe, the first time he needed stitches, and the first time he caused 25,000 dollars in property damage. When Olivia points out that that sounds like one massive incident, Kevin replies by saying "Don't dig trenches drunk, kids!"
- The Babylon 5 episode "A Distant Star" has the following exchange:
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Sheridan: Well there was that one time you took leave on Mars, and that dancer as I recall... |
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- There was also a carbon copy of that exchange going the other way before the end of the scene.
- There was also the story about the ship's cat that Sheridan told Delenn over dinner... all we hear is that there was a lot of mess involved.
- Throughout the series, we hear about the Dilgar War and Earth-Minbari war. The latter is shown in the movie "In the Beginning" (made way after the series), the former wasn't shown (as of yet).
- There's also the canonical explanation for Garibaldi's baldness after the beginning of the fourth season. (In Real-life, Jerry Doyle shaved his head). It seemed to have involved some illicit substance smuggled onto the station by a smuggler who later became deathly afraid of Garibaldi.
- G'Kar's encounter with the Walkers of Sigma-957. We don't know what or when it happened, only that he considers humans and Narns to be like ants when compared to the Walkers and that he knew exactly what would happen if Cathrine Sakai went there (and sent a rescue party).
- Being Human (UK):
- "I'm not going paintballing. Not again. Not after last time."
- When Hal and his friends are preparing to move in with Annie, Leo provides Annie with a list of rules to makes Hal's stay comfortable, including keep him away from budgies (there was an incident once which required Hal to send a letter of apology to the circus), and don't let him drink Kia-Ora (for reasons his friends aren't willing to discuss).
- The Big Bang Theory - They'll always have that night when the heat went out.
- In all forms of Big Brother, they often reference events that had happened in the past but were not shown on the highlights show.
- Blackadder II has one for the history of Roman Catholicism:
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Baldrick: Stranger things have happened... That horse becoming Pope. |
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- "So, presumably, you won't be needing the unicorn tonight?"
- In Black Books, the characters return from a disastrous (unseen) holiday and allude to several unfortunate things that befell them. At a mention of sacrificing monkeys, Bernard cries "You said we wouldn't talk about Canada!"
- On Bones, in the episode "The Man in the Fall Out Shelter", Dr. Brennan warns Zack and Hodgins not to spike the eggnog at the Christmas party because of the 4th of July incident.
- Inverted in the episode "The Man In The Morgue" where the event is known to the audience, but not half of the cast. Brennan fails spectacularly in reassuring them due to treating it as a Noodle Incident.
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Angela Montenegro: Or better still, you could forget the whole thing and come home. |
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- And there's the one in "The Titan On The Tracks", when Booth is having trouble coming to terms with how Brennan's team found a particular bit of evidence...
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Booth: Great, you know Zack and Hodgins, they do an experiment with fake bones in spam. |
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- "The Verdict in the Story" opens with Booth bringing Brennan to a crime scene with an intact skeleton posed in such a completely bizarre position that Brennan breaks out laughing. Booth and Brennan are just getting started when the DA shows up and informs them that they will not be able to work together on any cases due to an upcoming murder trial. Brennan complains about not being able to work on the case since it looks interesting, and Booth promises to update her on anything he finds out. The implausible positioning of the skeleton is never explained.
- "The Woman In The Car" had a State Department agent questioning members of the Jeffersonian to ascertain their security clearance. At one point they questioned Brennan about a trip she is supposed to have made to Cuba:
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Pickering: When you were in Cuba, did you meet with a man named Juan Guzman? |
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- In the Season 7 opener "The Memories in the Shallow Grave", there's a reference to an embarrassing moment for Booth:
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Angela: Is it true that you were crying at the crime scene? |
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- Bottom has its share of these, including an unfortunate incident with Richie and Eddie's drunken friend Tubbs Lardy, a fire escape, a dustbin, and a very unlucky cat...
- The episode Apocalypse has "the incident with the oven-ready chicken" and:
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Eddie: I'm Death, I know everything! |
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- Boy Meets World had one in the episode where the characters go on their school's senior ski trip:
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Mr. Feeny: Now remember, I don't want another incident like last year's fiasco in the Amish country. |
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- Buffy the Vampire Slayer uses this a few times.
- Willow and Xander have these sometimes, having grown up together:
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Xander: Cordelia, man, she does love titles! |
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- Not to mention the fate of Miss Kitty Fantastico, which apparently involved an errant crossbow....
- There's also Xander's stripper experience...
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Xander: Basically, I got as far as Oxnard and the engine fell out of my car, and that was literally. So I ended up washing dishes at the fabulous "Ladies Night" club for about a month and a half while I tried to pay for the repairs. Nobody really bothered me, or even spoke to me, until one night, when one of the male strippers called in sick, and no power on this earth will make me tell you the rest of that story. Suffice to say, I traded my car in for one that wasn't entirely made of rust, came trundling back home to the loving arms of my parents, where everything is exactly as it was, except I sleep in the basement and I have to pay rent. How's college? |
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- In the episode "Him" Anya (under the influence of a love charm) is shown in front of the Sunnydale Bank, dressed in black, carrying a sack, and wearing a ski mask. Later, when a radio station announces something involving robberies, Anya abruptly switches off the radio and changes the subject.
- The Kindergarten incident Xander mentions to Dark Willow to calm her down, about how she cried her eyes out after breaking a yellow crayon.
- Which was awesomely lampshaded later in the Season 7 episode "The Killer In Me". When Willow falls victim to a curse that makes her look like psycho-bad-guy Warren, and she has to convince Buffy, Xander, and the gang that she really is Will and not Warren or The First.
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Willow/Warren: I'm Willow. |
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- In the very first episode Xander asks Buffy if she's ever decapitated anyone and she brings up an incident where there was a Varsity quarterback with a really thick neck and all she had was a teeny tiny x-acto knife.
- In "All the Way", Dawn meets a creepy old man who proves to be a harmless designer of toys (although a few of the toys could fit in the Wednesday Addams Signature Collection). He was forced to retire when "that thing happened. One little mistake, and they took it all away from me."
- In "The Zeppo", Angel almost died, Giles did the bravest thing Buffy had ever seen and Willow the saw Hellmouth beast's "real" face. Too bad the viewer had to watch Xander stop a bombing instead.
- Double-parodied in that no one in the entire Buffyverse ever gets to know that Xander saved the world that night, in a reversal of what Buffy's audience is privy to, as Xander suddenly finds that he doesn't feel the need to prove to his friends how badass he is — knowing it himself is enough.
- The story of how Joyce ended up on her first date with Buffy's dad even though he brought another date is a much funnier story (than the date itself) that Buffy will never get to hear.
- Burn Notice had one in the very first episode:
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Michael: I haven't worked so hard for so little money since Afghanistan. Afghanistan... (shudders) But at least there my mother wasn't calling me thirty times a day! |
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- Another Burn Notice one is whatever happened to cause Michael and Sam to have to leave Uzbekistan in a hurry after a mission there.
- Or that "perfectly legitimate arms deal" involving Sam, Fiona, the IRA, and the Libyan border.
- The title character of the Canadian comedy series Butch Patterson: Private Dick occasionally had to deal with people who recognized him as "that guy from the petting zoo," expressing sympathy for "that poor llama." Exactly what happened is never fully explained, but one hint comes when Butch admits that he spent two years less a day in prison for indecent exposure over the incident... and it's probably better for all concerned that we don't get any more details than that.
- In Castle, Richard Castle has a tendency to cheerfully launch into tangential stories about how something mildly similar to his current surroundings or vaguely related to the case at hand either occurred to him or in one of his novels ("There was this one time..."), only to hastily wrap it up ("That'sneitherherenorthere.") when someone -- usually Detective Beckett -- glares at him to shut up. Usually because he's doing so at a crime scene or in the middle of an interrogation Beckett's trying to conduct.
- In "Under The Gun", though, Beckett gets one herself:
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Beckett: Ok, fine. But if you tell him about the karaoke stakeout, I'm gonna tell him what happened with the monkey. |
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- Parodied in a cold open on Cheers. Frasier and Lilith asked Woody to baby sit Frederick and Woody replied he like babysitting, at least before... The Incident. Then Rebecca asked Woody to look after her pet and Woody replied that he loves animals, in fact he always used to look after pets for his friends, at least before... The Incident. Rebecca was naturally worried by this and decided to ask someone else. After she left, bar regular Paul congratulated Woody on this trick to get out of looking after the pet, Woody agreed that it was a great trick, he only wished that he had thought of it before... The Incident.
- On Chuck, there's "the volleyball incident at last year's employee picnic," which John Casey was somehow involved in.
- Casey is also apparently banned from Fashion Week because of the "Yves Saint Laurent" incident.
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Casey: Stab one guy with a stiletto... |
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- The Community episode "Paradigms of Human Memory" is filled with nothing but "noodle incidents". It's a Clip Show showing flashbacks to adventures the study group was on that were never actually shown previously like trips to a western Ghost Town, a Haunted House, a camping trip, singing in glee club, running into drugrunners in Mexico, being locked in a padded cell after ingesting mercury, etc.
- Lampshaded in the episode "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" when Abed keeps obliquely referring to something Annie did with his noodles.
- Criminal Minds has a small one involving Garcia and just how she got funding for new technology for the team:
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Hotch (after Garcia hands out new tablets): Garcia, not that I don't appreciate your efforts, but just where did the |
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- From "A Thousand Words", the team was just about to go off on their vacations when JJ suddenly brings in another case file.
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Morgan: (groans) There goes my beach house rental. |
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- In The Crystal Maze, Series 4, Episode 10, when the team of the week is in the Medieval Zone, the host Richard O'Brien relates some anecdotes, as asides, about his "relatives" whose portraits adorn the walls. Whilst the team try to solve the Queens Puzzle, he tells us about "Uncle Carstairs", who "disappeared under a cloud of suspicion":
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"Least said, soonest mended, but, I have to say that the incident with the debutante, the chocolate eclair and the Irish wolfhound was blown out of all proportion..." |
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- In UK sitcom The Detectives there is a running joke about an incident involving the Bishop of Durham. Whenever it is mentioned both Briggs and Louis usually immediately protest that it wasn't their fault.
- In the third episode of the first season of Dirk Gently, Dirk browses his university file, which is full of noodle incidents.
- Doctor Who:
- In "The Five Doctors" , the Second Doctor, reminiscing with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, refers to an unseen adventure the two shared with the Terrible Zodin and something 'that used to hop like kangaroos'. Although only referred to once again in the series itself (in "Attack of the Cybermen"), Fanfic and the Expanded Universe have frequently played with what Zodin could be, with everything from an evil Monster of the Week to a terrible meal the Doctor once had being suggested.
- The Time War that destroyed Gallifrey and (supposedly) the Daleks in the new series is also treated in this fashion; we're given lots of intriguing hints and abstract reveals as to what happened and who did what (with mentions of the Fall of Arcadia and the burning of the Cruciform -- neither of which were ever seen in the series -- and it being strongly implied, if not outright stated, that the Doctor himself was forced to destroy Gallifrey), but we've never seen what actually occurred.
- In "The End of Time "we find out what happened to Gallifrey, and why The Doctor is the last Time Lord The Time Lords have changed in the war with the Daleks from the Police of Time and Space to the Masters of Time and Space. The Time Lords hatched a plan that would let them ascend to beings of pure energy and live on a different plane of existence, and then destroy reality. In order to stop them, The Doctor time locked all Time Lords in the Time War.
- It's also been outright stated a few times that we haven't seen anywhere near the number of actual places each companion goes with the Doctor in the episodes themselves. Mostly this is because nothing exciting happened those times (like one flashback from the beginning of "Army of Ghosts") but the Children in Need special with the Tenth Doctor convincing Rose he's actually the Doctor did have him referring to a time they ended up "hopping for our lives."
- "Silence in the Library" plays with this trope by invoking a little "future nostalgia": River Song mentions several escapades ("Right, picnic at Asgard. Have we done Asgard yet?") which are supposedly to have happened in the Doctor's future. One of these was shown in the following series, their adventure on the Byzantium in The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone
- River Song has provided numerous further examples. In one case, during the The Impossible Astronaut, she mentions "Jim, the fish," which becomes a bit of a Chekhov's Gun when the Doctor reappears later and she uses his ignorance of the incident to deduce that it's earlier in his timeline. One highly amusing account in "A Good Man Goes To War" involves her telling Rory that she had just returned from a birthday outing with the Doctor, which involved the Stevie Wonder playing at a frost fair in 1814, London, "But don't tell him, he must never know...".
- Similar to Zodin, there been several explanations outside the TV series about what the Perigosto Stick the Doctor mentions in "The Green Death" actually is, although I don't recall any about why you can't trust a Venusian Shanghorn with one.
- "Got to go, got a thing. Well, four things. Well, four things and a lizard."
- Relatedly, the Doctor saying he's "rubbish at weddings," especially his own. And this is before the Queen Elizabeth I incident!
- In one Third Doctor episode, it's mentioned that the Brigadier once somehow earned the gratitude of a woman named Doris; during the seventh Doctor's run, it's revealed "she finally caught him" and they are now married. (A comic explains this.)
- The Sixth Doctor serial "Timelash" references an unbroadcast adventure the Third Doctor and Jo Grant had on the same planet.
- "I told you we should have turned left!" (A phrase which takes on a deeper meaning a couple of series later, quite possibly on purpose, given the trend for significant words and phrases throughout the new series.
- There's also a humorous Sixth Doctor example:
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Peri: You even managed to burn dinner last night! |
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- The Waters of Mars: Ed did something for which Adelaide "never could forgive" him. Russell Davies says in the background interviews that he likes hinting at this mystery that will never be solved.
- The Vampires of Venice had an appropriately brief mention of one.
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Doctor: That's okay, 1580. Casanova doesn't get born for 145 years. Don't want to run into him. I owe him a chicken. |
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- The Doctor's laser spanner was stolen by Emily Pankhurst.
- Cheeky woman!
- And how about the Seventh Doctor's worryingly-throwaway line about the Hand of Omega in "Remembrance Of The Daleks" - "...and didn't we have trouble with the prototype..."
- The Shakespeare Code ends with one, when Queen Elizabeth shows up, recognizes the Doctor, declares that he is her "sworn enemy", and has arrows fired at him. As the Doctor hadn't met her (yet) he had no idea what was going to happen. The End of time Part 1 clarifies this a bit. Apparently he married her.
- Or, as clarified in "The Wedding of River Song" left her waiting in a glade to elope with him.
- Speaking of the Doctor's rather odd relationships with famous people, how about the three founding fathers that fancied him? Or Marilyn Monroe?
- Or, as clarified in "The Wedding of River Song" left her waiting in a glade to elope with him.
- Space Florida, anyone?
- "An Egyptian goddess? Loose on the Orient Express? In space? Don't worry, Your Majesty, we're on our way!"
- Apparently, the Doctor has used the sentence "I've got to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose," twice. Of course, we've only seen one.
- The Night and the Doctor mini-episodes have two. One involves the Doctor and River at a party, a cricket bat, the Queen of England being turned into a goldfish, a pet shop, and a rioting commonwealth. The other involved the Doctor rescuing a possessed orchestra on the moon with River's help, which apparently involved Marilyn Monroe and a biplane.
- He also references various events in Earth's history, such as the "Twelfth British Empire", and "The Nineteenth Reich," and several future World Wars.
- Played for Drama in the two-parter The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, in which something claiming to be the devil keeps taunting the chief of security about an incident which it claims his wife never forgave him for.
- The Doctor's laser spanner was stolen by Emily Pankhurst.
- Used bizarrely and non-humorously in Dollhouse. Echo is trapped in the Attic with Dominic, and points out surreal snippets of her past life, including a tree from one of her childhood homes... and a man in a white suit, a mustache, and glasses, surrounded by wicker chairs, holding a rabbit, with his head swiveling disturbingly. She describes that as a "long story" and it's not brought up again.
- The Drew Carey Show. He mentioned that Oswald's Mom is the first woman he ever saw naked.
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That was one crazy cub scout meeting! |
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- "The Pinecone Incident" on Drake and Josh. The only thing we're told is, "That squirrel had it coming!"
- Also, the first time that Josh met Helen after making Crazy Steve quit.
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Helen: You made Crazy Steve quit? |
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- Josh interrupted Drake while he was telling a very ludicrous story.
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Drake: So my foot's totally stuck in there, right? I'm freaking out, the dogs having a seizure, and I still have half a pie left. |
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- An episode of Ed and Oucho's Excellent Inventions has Ed declare they can make anything. Oucho then starts mentioning to Ed a couple of inventions they weren't actually able to build (in his tongue of Cactinese so the audience doesn't hear what they are). On the second one Ed cuts Oucho off saying they don't talk about it because of the "police investigation".
- Eureka has one that's easy to miss: After a time jump, Jack looks at his new car and comments that he misses his old Jeep. Allison replies, "Well, maybe next time you won't ignore the 'Tornado Crossing' sign."
- The Fast Show has Rowley Birkin QC, who speaks in nothing but noodle incidents, rambling incoherently before occasionally spouting out phrases such as "one girl was very badly burned" or "her husband had been entombed in ice", before always concluding with "I'm afraid I was very, very drunk."
- Also Patrick Nice, whose various outlandish statements are frequently not put into any kind of context.
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And so they named the hospital after me. Which was nice. |
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- Multiple instances in Father Ted, including: Dougal's exile to Craggy Island following the "Blackrock Incident", never explained but involving "irreparably damaged" nuns; an incident on a SeaLink ferry possibly involving Dougal playing with the ferry's controls; Jack's exile to the island following a never-described but presumably disastrous wedding he performed in Athlone.
- For a while, there was "but [the money] was just resting in my account." Bishop Brennon explained that one in one episode; that's why Ted's on the island.
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Bishop Brennon: You shut up Crilly! You're not going back until all that money's accounted for. You were living it up in Vegas, while that girl should have been in Lourdes! |
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- Also subverted, when describing a strange off-screen incident in all its ludicrous detail:
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Father Ted: Dougal, Dougal, do you remember Sister Assumpta? |
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- Ted: You let Dougal do a funeral?!
- Not to mention the numerous references to a mysterious "Father Bigley". And "those fires..."
- Father Jack being: "First priest to denounce the Beatles - he could see what they were up to."
- The finest one refers to Jack's teaching days in St Column's seminary:
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Ted: A friend of mine had him. Father Jimmy Ranaville studied under him for couple of years, and he told me once, he said no-one no-one had as big an influence on him as Father Jack. |
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- And on Firefly:
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Early: You know, with the exception of one deadly and unpredictable midget, this girl is the smallest cargo I've ever had to transport, yet by far the most troublesome. Does that seem right to you? |
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- Also seen in the pilot, where an incident involving Patience is mentioned.
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Zoe: Sir, we don't want to deal with Patience again. |
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- Later in the same episode:
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Mal: Did you send word to Patience? |
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- And later still:
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Patience: I have to say I didn't look to be hearin' from you anytime soon. |
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- Though this may be less noodly than it seems. We know she shot Mal, and when she tries to do it again she states that she makes it a policy not to pay for things she can get for free; it's not unreasonable to assume that this exact same scenario has played out before between Patience and Mal, minus Mal's first-hand knowledge of what to expect from Patience.
- And lest we forget....
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Jayne: Six men came to kill me one time. The best of 'em carried this. |
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- And of course there is:
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Inara: Explain to me again why Zoe wasn't in the dress? |
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- Brilliantly done in Frasier.
- The series' reputation for hilarity ensuing had one episode opening with dinner guests and the chef storming out of Frasier's apartment in disgust, Frasier attempting to save it by pretending to have Tourette's Syndrome, Martin entering the room dressed as an Italian Count, a flaming toupee in the middle of the room, and goats throwing up in the kitchen.
- In the episode "Author Author", Martin recalls a painful family fishing incident in which a young Frasier and Niles were supposedly "at it tooth and nail". He gets so distracted trying to remember the name of the lake that he never actually gets round to telling the story.
- In another episode Kenny says, "I know it seems like a monkey could do my job, but it couldn't. True story."
- Daphne once asks Frasier if he has any idea how uncomfortable a strapless bra is. "Well, thanks to my fraternity days, I do!"
- Frasier's Trekkie workmate Noel Shempsky has a restraining order against him, taken out by William Shatner, for some unspecified incident in the past.
- When Daphne asks an influential Theatre Director if Peter O'Toole will be at His party,He responds "No and He knows why"
- Friends had a "Pictionary incident":
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Monica: That was not an incident! I was gesturing and the plate... slipped out of my hand. |
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- In another episode Phoebe references the time a peacock bit Chandler in the zoo.
- Another has Ross and Chandler getting ready for a night out with their college buddy Gandalf. One of them states that he has Canadian money, a snakebite kit and an extra pair of socks. The other warns him that it won't be exactly the same as last time.
- "Vomit tux! VOMIT TUX!"
- Joey never got to explain how he met Sarah Ferguson.
- The time Phoebe stabbed a cop.
- What happened between Jason and Bryn on the fishing trip in Gavin and Stacey is never described, but heavy hints are dropped.
- In The George Lopez Show, a running gag is Vic constantly bringing up his life back in Cuba. In one episode, George just asks him to skip to the end of a story, which is "The chicken was okay, but she had to wear an eye patch for the rest of her life" and the next story ends with "You know what, it was the same chicken".
- Also, when George confronted Benny about not visiting him in jail.
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Benny: I didn't want to be framed for some thirty-year-old crime in El Paso that might have been committed with my fingerprints.
George: We were on the run that Summer? There's no game called "gas-station peel-out"! |
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- Get Smart - one of Max's catch phrases - "That's the second biggest [unlikely big item] I ever saw!"
- The Glades has the main character quit the Chicago police department and move to Florida after getting shot. In the pilot he explains that he was shot by his old police captain who thought that he was sleeping with the captain's wife. Conversations later in the episode and in the following episodes, however, indicate that there is much more to that story since the simple version does not make sense in the context of those conversations.
- The events of the pilot are quickly becoming an in-universe Noodle Incident with the supporting characters referring to them to illustrate to others how insufferable the main character is.
- Glee has moments like this. An example from "Sectionals", when Will tells the kids Emma will be their chaperone. Emma walks in and ... :
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Brittany: She's the one they made me talk to when they found that bird in my locker. |
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- Brittany in particular has several one-liners that seem like Noodle Incidents, but since it's Brittany, there is no way to know if any of them actually happened.
- In an episode of The Golden Girls Sophia makes a reference to a Noodle Incident, when trying to get an annoying girl to leave Rose alone.
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Sophia: "Excuse me Abby, I would like to inject some candor here. I would also like to inject a tranquilizer dart into your backside, but my dart gun was confiscated after the incident with the trick-or-treaters. In my defense, it was dark and I was unaware of this Ninja Turtle craze." |
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- Rose usually is all too happy to tell an entire story, no matter how little anyone wants to hear it; but one instance simply is too painful to talk about. The titular girls are on the patio grilling and she simply says, "We never had a barbecue in St. Olaf after the tragedy." After questioning, she says she doesn't want to talk about it but will say it involved "barbecuing elk, a big fire, and someone who lost his balance."
- Rose says it's impossible to paint St. Olaf in the fall after the "falling leaf incident". According to Rose, the story has a surprise ending... "Splat!"
- There's yet another episode where we continually hear people mentioning increasingly more ludicrous things that are occuring, and Blanche's response is simply to say "I got arrested for that once in Chattanooga," without further explanation. It leads to this great exchange:
- Rose usually is all too happy to tell an entire story, no matter how little anyone wants to hear it; but one instance simply is too painful to talk about. The titular girls are on the patio grilling and she simply says, "We never had a barbecue in St. Olaf after the tragedy." After questioning, she says she doesn't want to talk about it but will say it involved "barbecuing elk, a big fire, and someone who lost his balance."
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Dorothy: Blanche, are you ever allowed to go back to Chattanooga? |
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- Blanche also has "the greyhound terminal incident", and something involving the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
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So? 80,000 people had to wait twenty minutes. The torch got lit eventually, didn't it? |
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- Greek has one in 1x13 when Cappie starts talking about an incident involving corn and the upstairs bathroom. A pledge is asked to clean it but we never get to know what really happened.
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Eric Idle: And your lines from 'frig the vicar' to 'bouncing up and down on the bed with a melon'...all out. |
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- A fairly creepy example. Teen psychopath Luke from Heroes, when asked about his powers, tells Sylar that he should "See what it does to pacemakers" the implication being that he spends his time killing people with heart conditions. Yeah, the kids got problems.
- Danko was mentioned by Angela Petrelli (as well as a case file) to have been involved in something known as the Angolan Incident. Exactly how he was involved or even what the incident was was never explained.
- In Home Improvement, there's mention of an incident the last time the boys tried to share anything. It's pretty self-explanatory, but it's never elaborated on.
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Jill: Did you forget what happened the time you guys tried to share that Nutty Buddy Bar? |
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Wilson: Every time I go to one of your parties, I end up embarrassing myself in some new and unexpected way. |
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- Used once again in the episode Known Unknowns, in which Wilson repeatedly makes negative references to some past occasion on which he apparently gave House an advance copy of a medical conference address for proofreading. The incident is never explained or elaborated on.
- How I Met Your Mother
- The "Pineapple Incident." In a way, it subverts the trope, as there's a whole episode explaining how the incident occurred. It does, however, have one detail missing: How the pineapple got onto the bedtable.
- Another episode has the Story of the Goat. The first time it's mentioned, Ted gets almost to the point of the story, before mentioning a detail that causes him to realise that it must have happened later than he thought. The story is concluded a year later. The goat beat Ted up.
- We also don't know if Marshall was mugged by the monkey or not.
- There's also a (likely) temporary one from a recent episode where Barney and Lily have a fight. Future!Ted flashes forward to when they make up, and in comes Ted wearing a dress and shouting "Now we're even!", which Future!Ted says he will explain when the time comes.
- There's also quite a few more temporary ones peppered throughout the seventh season, which haven't been revealed yet: Marshall and Barney wind up in a casino full of Chinese businessmen, where Marshall is winning loads of money, completely smashed, and wearing a t-shirt reading "Marshall + Steph 4-eva", and Barney is wearing the ducky tie again and recieving a shocking phone call. No context whatsoever is given, but Future!Ted says it's a few months after the events of "The Naked Truth".
- A brief flashforward to Lily giving birth to her baby has her screaming "where the hell is Marshall?" We have no idea where he is, but Future!Ted promises it's a crazy story.
- You could say the entire seventh season is a slow explanation of the Noodle Incident that made up the last scene of the season six finale. We know that somehow, Barney winds up getting married and Ted meets the Mother at said wedding, which has something to do with a yellow umbrella and the fact that Ted accidentally went into her Econ class three years ago. The only thing we know for sure is that Lily's no longer pregnant by the time it happens.
- There's also the time that Robin was briefly a bullfighter. Future Ted promises he'll get to that sometime, which he seems to say a lot these days. It's pretty understandable though: while the stories mainly take place in the present, the actual show takes place in the year 2030, so from his perspective, there's nothing wrong with making comments about events that happened after our out-of-universe present day.
- In "Blitzgiving," Ted misses a night out with the rest of the cast. Most of it is explained, but why they keep throwing top hats on people's heads and yelling "The Gentleman!" or where the traffic cones and parking meter that were in the apartment in the opening are never explained.
- Human Target has a lot of these, usually referencing Chance's previous jobs.
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Allyson: What's the plan? Please tell me it doesn't involve driving the ambulance right through the front of the building. |
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- Averted on iCarly in the episode iRocked the Vote. Spencer claims he's a bad liar, and Carly begins to tell a story about a time Spencer lied very badly. Spencer yells, "Don't tell the story!" - but then Carly stands up after a moment and declares that she will tell the story, and does so. The story is about how Carly and Spencer wanted to take the day off to go to an amusement park. Spencer shows up to her class, tells the teacher Carly has to go to the doctor. The teacher asks what doctor. Spencer says Doctor Rollercoaster.
- What did the goat do to Carly on her last birthday? How did T-bo's sister fall off a ladder while helping Spencer?
- Gibby's "Texas Wedgies", we see the end result but we never know the details. Makes him one of few examples to happen to the same person twice.
- Gibby's has an on-screen noodle incident, when he goes into the bathroom of the Groovy Smoothie, at least twice, a semi-elderly asian man runs out with a look of horror on his face.
- Most of Sam's life is composed of multiple examples of Noodle Incident, like the time she had to knock out a truck driver with a carton of milk and most of her visits to juvie. Even her birth was a Noodle Incident. We also don't find out much about the lives of her family, we never do find out why most of them are in prison. Then there's what happened to Sam's grandpa refering to his "heart of a bull":
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Carly: That's what they said about Sam's granddad. |
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- Sam's mother is another matter entirely. Like what was that thing on her back she'd been squeezing since Christmas, the time Carly ended up helping Sam rub lotion on her when she got chicken pox. And her love life is a mystery to everyone.
- Spencer is a frequent source of these. Reference is often made to incidents that Spencer just doesn't want to talk about, like when Gibby got sent home from summer camp for being too old:
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Spencer: That reminds me of the time I got kicked out of camp. |
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- May have been a Brick Joke, as later on Spencer tells Freddie about how people at the camp told him it was naked day, and he got a severe rash. That spread to places.
- What did Sam draw on Gibby's forehead at the last lock-in? "READ THE COMMENTS!"
- The I Love Lucy episode "The Kleptomaniac" reveals that Lucy had to promise Ricky she wouldn't run any more of her Women's Club events after what happened at the 4th of July party last year.
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Ethel: Poor Ricky - his eyebrows didn't grow in for a month. |
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- In Jeeves and Wooster, after the titular characters jump off a cruise ship to evade several irate people, we suddenly find them arriving home at their London flat, looking travel-worn, bearing heavy facial hair and Wooster is carrying a spear. They never really tell the story, but the Panama Canal, the Great Barrier Reef and a badly-made compass are all mentioned. And then, one takes into account that they had to be swimming at least part of that...
- One Law and Order episode has an interview with a doctor interrupted by a nurse informing the doctor that, "That man with the cucumber problem is back again."
- There have also been several reference over the series to that time Detective Lenny Briscoe took a 3 hour lunch.
- Leverage has several, including what Nate did at the Russian border (Word of God says that he "may have technically hijacked a train") and lots of the unexplained cons, like the "Apple Pie," which is a "Cherry Pie" but with lifeguards.
- In another episode, the team has been apart for a while and discusses what they were doing during that time.
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Hardison: I hacked the White House email, 'cause I was bored. No buzz. Although we are up to some hinky stuff in Pakistan. Hinky, man. |
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- A flashback shows Eliot being dragged down a dark hallway while men yell at him "where's the monkey?" We never find out what was going on.
- Parker's introductory flashback involves her blowing up a house because the man in it took away her stuffed bunny when she was a little girl. Word of God has it that the man was her foster father, but how she blew up the house and whether he was inside at the time is left up to our imaginations.
- Lie to Me: "Cal? Promise me you'll never go back to Vegas?" In "Fold Equity", we get a little more of an explanation. Apparently after hustling one too many people at poker and doing something with a casino owner's wife, Cal's banned from Vegas.
- There was also some really shady business in Northern Ireland that has been repeatedly referred to but never explained thouroughly-- Cal is former MI 6 and worked in (among other places) Ireland and Bosnia as an interrogation expert.
- Apparently, Cal once tricked his way into the White House, all the way through security. Why or how is unknown.
- Especially worthy of note is the literal Noodle Incident mentioned by Loker.
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Gillian: "Initiation for you MIT mathletes was pretty hard-core, huh?" |
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- Life On Mars: Whatever it is Mrs Luckhurst does that's "illegal in some parts of Wales," although subsequent dialogue might provide a hint for the suitably creative-minded:
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Ray: Guv! Mrs. Luckhurst. |
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- Lost has several such incidents, but due to the nature of the show (flashbacks and time travel), some of them end up being shown to the viewer later on:
- The most notable is the creatively named "Incident" that resulted in the need to push a button every 108 minutes in the hatch. The event is described vaguely in the season 2 finale, and shown onscreen due to time travel in the season 5 finale, which, of course, is called "The Incident."
- The event that resulted in Locke being paralyzed before the crash. Eventually shown onscreen in season 3 (Locke's father pushed him out a skyscraper window).
- One of the most infamous in the Lost fan community is the "Tampa job" mentioned by a one-off character in season 1, regarding Sawyer. The event has never been mentioned again, but some fans believe it is of pivotal importance to Sawyer's character. The season 2 episode "Adrift" was originally going to feature Sawyer flashbacks to the Tampa Job, but the scenes were cut and replaced with Michael flashbacks.
- Juliet mentions a "Basra incident" regarding Sayid in season 3. Due to the name and the way Juliet introduces it, this is almost certainly the writers screwing with the abovementioned Tampa job theorists.
- This bit from season one episode "Raised By Another" :
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Hurley: My name isn't Hurley! It's Hugo Reyes. Hurley's just a nickname I got. Why? I ain't telling. |
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- Malcolm in the Middle:
- An episode has Reese being punished for a horrendous prank which the audience never really hears about. The only thing we learn about it is that it involved multiple cats (although it's not clear what they were for), that a full evacuation of wherever it happened was required, and that Reese could name third world countries where it regularly happens.
- And produces an epic fit of spastic Angrish from Hal.
- In "Malcolm vs. Reese", Hal and Dewey are charged with taking care of Craig's cat Jellybean, who runs off and cannot be found, but evidently stops by the house when they aren't there. In an attempt to make Jellybean stay put, they accidentally drug up all of the neighborhood cats and a opossum, but Jellybean is still not to be found. At this point they finally call Lois for help. Cut to the charred remains of the house, and Hal commenting that she sure made those cats get out in a hurry.
- There is also an episode where Hal is put in charge of the living will of a neighbor who is in a persistent vegetative state. After hearing the man's relatives debate furiously as to whether or not he should be kept alive, Hal makes a decision that we are never shown. At the end of the episode, Lois tells Hal that he did a great job because he realized that there were more than just the two choices of life and death. Hal remarks that it was easy because, once he found out that the man was a bird lover, everything he needed was at the electronics store down the street, except for the hat. He then tells Lois that he would like to never discuss it ever again.
- The first episode had Malcolm telling the viewer that his older brother Francis has been sent to military school due to his bad behavior. The scene then cuts to Francis giving a lengthy apology in three parts: part one had him at the front door with a police officer behind him, part two had a naked girl in his bed getting dressed, and part three had a car engulfed in flames (with Malcolm adding at the end of the flashback that the car that was on fire wasn't theirs). There is no further explanation as to what happened (though the second scenario is pretty obvious).
- It is heavily implied, although not outright stated, in regards to the first and third parts that Francis broke curfew and was brought home by a police officer, and that he stole a neighbor's car and proceeded to constantly wreck it until it stopped at his house where it was left as a burning wreck, respectively.
- Who are we kidding? The show practically lived off of this trope. Exhibit A
- The Cold Open of one episode had Hal bursting into the room, offering the boys money to take the blame for some terrible thing he had done. We never find out what it was, all we hear is Lois screaming "Oh my God!" in an increasingly angry tone from offscreen.
- Cats ate her face.
- An episode has Reese being punished for a horrendous prank which the audience never really hears about. The only thing we learn about it is that it involved multiple cats (although it's not clear what they were for), that a full evacuation of wherever it happened was required, and that Reese could name third world countries where it regularly happens.
- Married... with Children
- In the episode where Steve and Marcy end up homeless and Kelly has a slumber party, there's a Noodle Incident where Al tells Kelly that she can't have another slumber party because of the one she had when she was eight. It's not clear what happened, but Al said "The judge wanted to try you [Kelly] as an adult" and in Al's promise letter, it mentioned that Al was shaved bald.
- Then there was another Noodle Incident on Married... with Children, where Officer Dan (the black cop) becomes Al's friend in the later episodes after Officer Dan promised never to report Al for an unnamed incident that happened at a strip club.
- On a later episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye relates to B.J. a joke that he considers the funniest ever told. This is shown onscreen, and ends with B.J. chuckling wryly, apparently only considering the joke passable. Throughout the rest of the episode, Hawkeye finds himself unable to go anywhere in camp without encountering fellow officers who are all still in hysterics after hearing B.J.'s version of the joke, which is never shown.
- In the two-part episode "Comrades in Arms," Hawkeye Pierce and Margaret Houlihan become trapped behind enemy lines. The pair end up drinking and opening up to each other. The audience sees them kiss, but the episodes are edited in such a way that what happens next is never revealed. It is established by subsequent scenes that the pair spent a night together, and that Margaret doesn't remember much because she was so drunk. It is strongly implied that more than kissing went on, but the details are left to the imagination.
- When Wendy asks Lacey if she can keep a secret on The Middleman, Lacey points out that she's never told anybody about "that thing with the blueberry pudding pops and the elliptical machine."
- The The Mighty Boosh episode "Party":
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Vince: Are you talking about the incident with the binoculars? |
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- The Monk episode Mr. Monk Goes to an Asylum Lampshaded this trope during the tour of the asylum with Monk's roommate.
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John Wurster: This is the Monkey Room. Funny story about how it got its name. |
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- Season 5's "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert" begins with Monk and Natalie at the police station, and Natalie presents Stottlemeyer a $34 drycleaning bill for a shirt and jacket she says Monk ruined during a previous case. Of course, Natalie insists on getting entitled to compensation for the dry cleaning bill.
- And in another Randy mentions "Besides, there's no such thing as a working jetpack. Please don't ask me how I know that."
- Monty Python's Flying Circus has a few:
- "...turn the paper over keeping your eye on the camel, and paste down the edge of the sailor's uniform, until the word 'Maudlin' is almost totally obscured. Well, that's one way of doing it."
- "...'discipline'?...'naked'??...'with a melon?!?'"
- The title character of Murphy Brown did something at the 1980 Republican convention that not only got her banned from all future ones but is still being mentioned way into the 90's.
- My Family, with Ben and Susan going over why Ben hates Christmas:
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Susan: We all had a lovely time. |
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- NCIS
- It's actually a Noodle Reference, but in the episode "Silver War", Tony and Ziva reference a specific page of a fictional men's magazine, culminating in this line:
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Ziva: You were thinking that you want to "page 57" me right now. |
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- Ducky does this pretty much every time he rambles. It's usually because he gets interrupted, though sometimes he just doesn't elaborate. From the episode "Hiatus, Part 1":
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Palmer: Who would sit on an explosive? |
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- And the season five episode "Family," when Tony has just discovered that a dead petty officer has been moonlighting as an exotic dancer:
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Tony: I'm going with stripper. |
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- And there's the time Ducky pushed a French police officer off a cliff. In his defense, there was water at the bottom.
- In the same episode as this is mentioned, the man who found the body of the week tells Gibbs that this is the first time he's found a human in a chimney, though he's used to finding all sorts of animals in there, including cats and birds "and once even a St. Bernard!"
- There's also a bachelor party that Gibbs would really rather that Palmer would not know about.
- Abby has one from "Ships in the Night" when she is downing her twentieth Caff-Pow during a multi-day all-nighter.
- And there's the time Ducky pushed a French police officer off a cliff. In his defense, there was water at the bottom.
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Agent Borin: Is this a record? |
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- In the season seven episode "Code of Conduct", Gibbs wants to know why Abby doesn't have a costume for Halloween this year:
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Abby: After last year's Jonas Brothers debacle, Vance banned costumes. McGee? Skinny jeans? Didn't work. |
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- The king of all NCIS Noodle Incidents is a Crowning Moment Of Funny. Tony, in a daze with Ziva gone, hears Gibbs say this.
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Gibbs: Some idiot smuggled a koala onto a submarine. Grab your gear. |
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Moze: This is your worst idea ever! (Beat) No, wait. Cheese pants was your worst idea ever, but this is close. |
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- Harry's mentally-unstable father on Night Court, played by John Astin, often mentioned incidents that kept him the mental institution, like "the Mister Potato Head" and "that little setback with the Cheez Whiz". But, as he always said afterward with Astin's trademarked smile, he's feeling much better now!
- The Not Going Out episode with the art exhibition has Tim berating Lee:
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Lee: It's not my fault! |
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- On an episode of The Office, the character Dwight remarks that his cousin Mose has had nightmares "ever since the storm".
- In the British version of the show, David Brent is invited by to speak at some seminars. The seminar representatives mention having had Brent recommended to them by a guy named Andy Hitchcock...
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Brent: Oh my God...Cockles. Cocky. The Big Cock. Hey, do me a favor: next time you see him, ask if he got the grass stains out of his trousers. But not in front of his wife because...[looks at the camera then immediately goes into an awkward silence]] |
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- A running noodle-incident gag in On the Buses was Arthur's operation.
- Outnumbered is full of hints at Ben and Karen's wacky antics - for example, a reference to the fact that Google Maps' aerial photographs of the family's house show Ben on the roof.
- 8-year-old Ben asks why they can't have the same babysitter as last time; "You know why," his dad says darkly. Later Ben's little sister says that the last babysitter "went home to Poland, where children are nice."
- There are dozens and dozens of these, that apply to every member of the family, and the family as a whole. The episode they went on the outing to the farm resulted in about 4 references to outings that went worse than that one, and the same applied to the holiday episode.
- Peep Show has quite a few. In one episode, Sophie returning from Bristol after a few weeks, and spent her time there under the assumption Mark was having an affair. When he probes after revealing the girl in question was mentally unstable, she only says of her time in Bristol: "it was complicated...nothing happened, really".
- Mark and Jeremy also make reference to a friend of theirs named Pej who had his houseboat confiscated by the Port of Rotterdam Authority.
- Sophie's brother Jamie isn't allowed a gun on family hunting trips.
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Mark: Don't ask why. Don't ask, don't tell. |
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- Power Rangers has the great war 10,000 years ago and a lesser, likewise unnamed war 3,000 years ago. Numerous unrelated characters in numerous unrelated seasons make reference to signifiant wars occuring on those two "dates", but no flashback or explanation is ever given for either.
- It could be a reference to the Super Sentai source material; in Zyranger there was a war between Bandora and the dinosaurs and in Dairanger there was a war between the Gorma tribe and the Daos tribe.
- Press Gang had several people making comments in its first episode about Spike's "incident at the school dance."
- In the first season of Psych, the chief tries to dissuade Juliet O'Hara from throwing a surprise birthday party for her partner, Carlton Lassiter, because he doesn't like surprises. Further explanation includes the mention of a "Secret Santa Debacle of 2005."
- In a later episode, Chief Vick cites the "Prosthetic Nose Debacle of 2005" as the reason why Detective Lassiter won't be going undercover for the present case.
- There was that time Lassiter made Shawn and Gus duck when they were snooping around The Chief's desk when a woman passed by.
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Lassiter: I made out with her on the company picnic. Duck! (a long-haired man walks by) |
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- QI had Stephen Fry mentioning something about fanmail he'd received.
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Stephen: Such as one I received in which... *looks at audience* Well, you know who you are. And I tried it, and it was horrid. |
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- On Raising Hope, Sabrina asks Maw Maw how she lost her virginity. We don't get to hear the whole story, but it includes a lot of weird faces and gesturing, and ends with:
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Maw Maw: ...and then, the four of us put our clothes back on, put the horse back in the stable, and agreed never to speak of it again. It's probably my favorite Christmas memory. |
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- On Reba, it's hinted that Lori Ann, Reba's friend, and Brock, Reba's ex-husband, actually dated each other before. Brock never mentions it, and Lori Ann reacts defensively when Reba even tries to refer to it once. And then there's this verbal exchange between Reba and her son, with regard to Reba's "dating", while they are at the front porch:
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Jake: Mom, am I going to have a new daddy? |
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- Red Dwarf:
- Subverted with the Gazpacho Soup Incident which tormented Arnold Rimmer, who blamed it for stalling his career and ruining his chances of promotion to such an extent that his last words were "Gazpacho soup!" It turned out to be merely an incident where Rimmer, sitting at the captain's table at a formal luncheon, sent a bowl of Gazpacho soup back to the kitchen to be warmed up because he didn't know it was supposed to be served cold. Of course, the reality didn't live up to the imagination, but that was the point; both that it was an extremely minor embarrassment that the insecure Rimmer blew up to insane proportions, and that it was just yet another example of him blaming something else for his own screw-ups and failed life.
- A straight example occurs in the first episode when Captain Hollister, in reference to smuggling animals on board spaceships, makes angry reference to what happened "on board the Oregon with the rabbits".
- One other instance of a noodle incident occurs when Lister, believing that his crew members have seen his thighs, describes an evening with another crew member, Peterson, in which he got so drunk that he got a tattoo proclaiming his love for Peterson.
- Another possible incident is referred to in "Emohawk: Polymorph 2" when Lister is trying to avoid getting marrying a GELF bride so the crew can get a part for the Starbug. Rimmer tries to convince him to go marry the yeti creature because "you've dated worse." Lister angrily retorts "Only due to bad disco lighting!"
- On an episode of Richard Hammond's Blast Lab, we are told that You Don't Want To Know what the catapults from the game were originally designed for, but "Suffice it to say, the cats were not pleased."
- The "Bad Language" sketch in Rutland Weekend Television has a script for the beginning and end of one of these, while they discuss what they have to remove. It takes up 4 pages, making it an In-Universe example of an Overly Long Gag.
- In The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "Mona Lisa's Revenge" has Clyde mention to Luke he does not want to know how he was thrown out of Cub Scouts.
- In the Zack Galifanakas episode of Saturday Night Live, there was a skit in which Galifanakas and Kristen Wiig had a strange fixation with a hotel bidet. At the end of the sketch, they gave the bellboy a tip of wet dollar bills. They explain "It had something to do with the bidet."
- Also frequently used as the opening gag in the Celebrity Jeopardy sketches, with Alex Trebek apologizing for "what happened before the commercial..."
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"I would like to apologize now to all blind people and children." |
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- On the Ben Stiller episode from season 37, Stefon (Bill Hader's Camp Gay city correspondent character) returns to Weekend Update. Seth Meyers mentions that the two had a bizarre summer together. When Stefon asks Meyers how his back is doing, Meyers dodges the question completely. Subverted in that Meyers' vacation with Stefon actually was set up at the end of the Justin Timberlake episode from season 36 (making the mention of it in season 37 the punchline to a Brick Joke), but what happened after that is never mentioned any further (or ever again).
- In Saved by the Bell, every time Zack says "Screech, I have a great idea!", Screech replies with something like "Gee, I dunno, Zack. The last time you had a great idea, I ended up (in a very odd and improbable situation)". Examples include "naked in a jar of jelly beans" and "with my tongue stuck to a moving airplane". Of course, none of these scenarios are shown on the show, or discussed ever again.
- Scrubs: The episode "My Absence" is seen from another POV and when the regular hero (only heard on phone throughout the whole episode) goes through one of his visions, he only says about it "And that's why you should never trust a camel".
- There's an earlier one in the third-season episode "My Self-Examination," in the scene wherein J.D. and Elliot are getting ready to attend Turk and Carla's wedding rehearsal dinner, and the latter remarks to the former that she cannot recall the last time she had seen him in the suit he was wearing.
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J.D.: How can you not remember that time we were with those-- |
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- There's also the story of how the game "Play-Doh Pants" became all about the money...
- Seinfeld: The time Jerry opened for Kenny Rogers.
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Elaine: Didn't he throw you off the bus in the middle of Alabama? |
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- There was that time Sherlock came home, covered in blood and carrying a harpoon. Apparently, it had something to do with dead pigs, and was very "tedious." [1]
- Sherlock's many experiments would probably also apply. We know they are experiments because Sherlock says so, but what sorts of experiments requires you to put human eyes in the microwave, or store thumbs in a plastic bag in the fridge?
- The main characters in Sliders frequently mention Earths they've slid to that were never seen onscreen.
- Sons of Anarchy featured one. When one character is captured by Bounty Hunters, he finds out he's been grabbed for a warrant involving 'Indecent Exposure in a Livestock Conveyance'.
- In the first season of Spaced we constantly hear about "The Deal" between Brian and Marsha, and at least once per episode Tim and Mike start to go into a childhood flashback about an incident involving them and a tree (utilising music reminiscent of the flashback themes in Final Fantasy VII) before being interrupted. However, both get fully explained at the end of the season (Brian paid Marsha her rent in the form of sexual favours when his benefits were late and Tim encouraged Mike to jump from a high tree branch, resulting in his retinas detaching, preventing him from fulfilling his life's ambition of joining the army).
- In Special Unit 2, Nick mentions a job he had waiting tables... until the pastrami incident, which got him banned from Rhode Island and a very limited number of neighboring states.
- Sports Night when Casey's son Charlie visits:
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Dan: Who's your friend? |
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- In Stargate SG-1, Vala's entire past is made up of Noodle Incidents. It probably doesn't help that it's difficult to tell when she's lying, especially in her earlier episodes. Later on, it's mostly that she rambles and over-exaggerates:
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Mitchell: How many times have you been married? |
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- A smaller incident in the episode "Emancipation":
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Jack O'Neill: Remember that time on P3X-595, and you drank that stuff that made you take off.... |
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- Before the start of "Window of Opportunity", Daniel asked Jack a question, and we hear the tail end of the question every time the timeline resets. Only problem is, Jack wasn't listening to the question the first time around.
- Anubis was exiled from the Goa'uld Empire millennia ago for unspecified crimes the other System Lords considered unspeakable. Given that the Goa'uld think nothing of depopulating planets, the specifics of something even they considered out of line was probably too much trouble for the writers to think up.
- Star Trek
- Star Trek: The Original Series
- In the pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", after Gary Mitchell is zapped by the mysterious energy field on the edge of the galaxy and sent to sick bay, Kirk visits him, where they share this exchange:
- Star Trek: The Original Series
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Gary: Hello Jim! Hey, you look worried. |
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- No further references to the incident, the girl, or just what Gary meant when he said "nova" (or after-effects, for that matter) are made. Later on in the scene, Gary admits to having secretly set Kirk up with "a little blonde lab assistant," and "planning her whole campaign." Shocked, Kirk declares he almost married that woman. Though certain revelations from Star Trek movies have led to speculation that this blonde was Carol Marcus, nothing is ever concluded.
- In "Wolf in the Fold", Kirk on several occasions mentions that he knows a cafe on Argelius "where the women are so-" before someone cuts him off. We never do find out what is so amazing about these women.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- There were several references to a "Cardassian Neck Trick" that Odo could perform, but tantalizing hints of how amazing it is to see and a vague suggestion of what it might be are all the audience ever gets.
- Almost as tantalizing as the many mentions of bar patron Morn being quite the talker whenever a camera isn't on him.
- Being over 350 years old, having lived eight lives, and a particularly naughty and fun seeking mind in each of them, Dax is somewhat of a grand master of Noodle Incidents. Having raised nine children, mastered countless skills, and done lots of really stupid just for the fun, she always has an amusing story for any situation. Even if people don't want to hear it. And sometimes especially if people don't want to hear it.
- Lots of them are about something that happened with Curzon Dax & Sisko. Usually involving a woman & liquor on some planet or space station. Like that time Curzon burned down that bar...
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Jadzia: He kinda burned it down. |
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- There's also the incident which lampshaded the sudden change in Klingons' appearance between the original series and the later series. Worf just says, "We don't talk about it with outsiders." This was (unfortunately) resolved in a 4th season episode of "Enterprise" where the change was due to the Klingons experimenting with genetic enhancements which nearly wiped them all out.
- Perhaps a Noodle Object; we never learned what a self-sealing stem-bolt is. Presumably a stem-bolt that seals itself, but what it's used for is never made clear.
- A much more serious example (not sure if this belongs here) is Garak's reason for being exiled. We never get to hear why, though his stated reasons (all lies, of course) include failing to pay his taxes. We eventually find out he "betrayed" Enabran Tain--his father, and the head of the Obsidian Order. When confronted with this, Garak claims "I never betrayed you! At least... not in my heart!" We never find out what the "betrayal" actually entailed. Cue Wild Mass Guessing.
- Andrew Robinson actually wrote a detailed history for Garak to help him stay in character, and thus explaining many of his noodle incidents. The show's producers were impressed and(apart from some bits that went against established Cardassian history) incorporated much of his history in the show. Andrew Robinson later incorporated his Garak notes in an Expanded Universe novel, "A Stitch in Time"
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- In several episodes, we hear mention of a Federation-Cardassian war (Cpt. Maxwell is supposed to take revenge because of it), but in terms of details all we get is O'Brien's story how he accidentally killed a Cardassian soldier by overpowered phaser.
- During "Tin Man", the telepath reveals that in an earlier mission (which became known as the "Gorushda Disaster" due to having resulted in several deaths, including two of Riker's friends) he "was completely attentive, and if the captain had listened to me, it would have been fine".
- In "The Big Goodbye", the viewer never learns exactly what horrible thing(s) the insectoid Jarada did to a visiting Federation ship which offended the Jaradan sense of diplomatic protocol. Even though Data is ready and willing to share.
- Miscellaneous:
- Also, we never actually see the Eugenic Wars.
- Or the Earth-Romulan War! That conflict is the ultimate Noodle Incident of the Trekverse.
- Nor do we learn the details of the Tomed Incident, a disaster which made the Federation decide to ban the use of cloaking devices and caused the Romulans to become quite isolationist for 50 years until they reappeared in TNG. (The Lost Era novel Serpents Among the Ruins explores it in detail, though.)
- Many of these Noodle Incidents have been the subjects of the novels, however. See Star Trek Expanded Universe and Star Trek Novel Verse for more details.
- In an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody where Jesse McCartney guest stared, London is forbidden by her father from seeing him because 'he doesn't want a repeat of the Orlando Bloom Incident.'
- Suits:
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Donna: June third, 1997. |
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- In an episode of Superhuman Cyber Squad, three of the protagonists kidnap their friend via stuffing him in a sack and hauling him off when they believe he is in love with an ugly substitute teacher. His response?
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Amps: Help! I'm being abducted by aliens again! Someone call the air force! |
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Sam: This is the dumbest thing you've ever done. |
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- It's now generally assumed that the waitress in Tampa was the "truck stop waitress with the bizarre rash" Dean refers to in the Season 4 episode Yellow Fever.
- Another example shows up in "When the Levee Breaks" when Bobby receives a phone call from Rufus:
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Bobby: Suck dirt and die, Rufus. You call me again and I'll kill you. [hangs up phone] |
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- On a somewhat more serious note, whatever happened to Martin in Albuquerque that landed him in a mental ward for the next several years, and that time Bobby got someone killed that Rufus has never forgiven him for.
- In the terribly edited twenty second season of Survivor, there were a couple that were referenced but not aired:
- The plan to throw a challenge to get rid of Russell. Whose idea was that? Nope, it actually wasn't Steve - it was Sarita.
- Jeff Probst says that Dave is good at challenges, but we don't know from the editing.
- Steve hitting Phillip's Berserk Button off-screen, making it seem like he had just exploded onto Steve for almost no good reason.
- We never do find out how Fez ended up naked in that episode of That '70s Show, although he keeps trying to tell the story.
- It was revealed in the series finale that Red Foreman did in fact put his foot in someone's ass, once in Iwo Jima. Red does not want to go any further details.
- In one episode of Top Gear, the second part of The Stig's introduction mentions a super injunction to prevent them from mentioning an incident that is mostly blanked out but involves "an enormous goat".
- In the Too Close for Comfort episode "Don't Shoot the Piano Movers", Monroe suggests that they use butter to get a piano unstuck from the back stairs, saying that is how he got his toe out of a bowling ball, leading to this exchange:
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Henry: "No, no, no. I refuse. I'm going to fight the impulse to ask you what your big toe was doing in a bowling ball." |
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- In the Torchwood episode "Everything Changes", Captain Jack is complaining about contraceptives in the rain. Then he adds, "Still, at least I won't get pregnant. Never doing that again."
- Two and A Half Men gives us this exchange in one episode after Alan cripples himself falling off a ladder:
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Alan: Do me a favor and call Judith and tell her not to bring Jake over. |
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- Ugly Betty has an episode where Daniel nearly kisses Molly in the Mode closet. Marc manages to acquire CCTV footage of the incident and tells Wilhelmina that she does not want to know what he did to get it. He then decides to start telling but Wilhelmina tells him to shush.
- Warehouse 13 had this with the "Denver incident" that involved Myka and her former partner. There are some details revealed in "Regrets", though.
- Another episode begins with Pete angrily claiming that "The next time we find an object in a zoo, we leave it there!"
- Pete did not start that fire which got him kicked out of the Scouts.
- In The West Wing Sam is repeatedly told by other characters to 'stay in the boat this time' or 'hang onto a rope' when he has plans to spend his weekend off sailing. We can infer he had an incident the last time he went sailing, but nothing more is said about it.
- In the fourth season episode "Guns Not Butter", Donna mentions some things that Josh has had her do over the years. It's all stuff we've either seen or are aware of... until she mentions a time he made her dress as an East German cocktail waitress.
- White Collar gives us the Antioch manuscripts, first mentioned in the Season 1 episode "Vital Signs."
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Neal: Remember the Antioch manuscripts? |
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- Neal clarifies in Season 2 that the pigeons carried codes, not the manuscripts themselves, but everything else remains a mystery.
- Mozzie was kicked out of Boy Scouts. Pinewood derby, magnets, it was a whole...thing.
- The players on Whose Line Is It Anyway? love to make the process of getting onto the show sound like this. They usually fall into the same vein though.
- Wings did this more than once:
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Brian: Relax. I will take care of everything. Trust me. |
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- In The Wire, we never get any specifics on a certain misdeed that Daniels committed early in his career. It only matters to the story as something to blackmail him with at the end, when he refuses to play ball with the politicians after becoming police commissioner.
- The Wizards of Waverly Place episode "Saving Wiz Tech Part I", Justin is being mocked by Dean for being a teenager wearing a suit without any special reason --he thinks. Justin then replies that he could tell people he was going to advocate him, for what Dean happily answers:
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"Would you do that?! Great! Now we just have to prove I couldn't throw that thing so far..." |
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- There was the time Alex accidentally sucked the substation into a black hole.
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Alex: What's the worst that could happen if we're not chaperoned for four minutes? |
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- In a 2006 X-Play episode, we learned that they've made fun of Adam Sessler since "The Tommy Tallarico Incident", which apparently happened on April 19, 2003. Blair Butler still has rayon burns.
- The Young Ones: What do you know about the beans?
- On an episode of The Nanny, Fran claims her mother ate half an Oreo cookie before realizing it was a refrigerator magnet; seeing as Sylvia did have a major Sweet Tooth in other episodes, this does make sense.
- Back to Noodle Incident
- ↑ Not explained in the series, but presumably he's just solved the Black Peter case, which in the original books provides a perfectly rational explanation.