The Artifact: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (→Advertising: fixed unconverted CamelCase link) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 2:
{{quote|"Every time the TARDIS materializes in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing it analyzes its surroundings, calculates a twelve-dimensional data map of everything within a thousand mile radius and determines which outer shell would blend in better with the environment... and then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963."|'''[[Doctor Who|The Doctor]]''' }}
Sometimes, a character or gimmick seems to no longer fit with the mood or design of a story according to a writer, but is kept because there seems to be no way for the writer to get rid of them without causing some serious disruption (unrelated to [[Retcon
Sometimes it's due to being tied in closely to the mythos or that
The general way to solve this problem is to avoid it, or rather, them. You can bet anyone considered
Very common in [[Web Comic|webcomics]] and print comics with a rotating circle of writers. Less common on television given the emphasis on demographics and [[Ratings]], although [[Filler]] occasionally trots out old premises.
Line 12:
Occasionally this ''is'' caught early enough, though in [[Long Runners]] this results in a odd [[Bleached Underpants]] situation ''within'' a series, usually from [[Author Appeal]] tastes.
Compare [[Grandfather Clause]]. Contrast [[Canon Immigrant]], [[Pinball Protagonist]], [[Breakout Character]] and [[Creator's Pet]]. See also [[Artifact Title]]. See [[Network Decay]] when this happens to an entire channel. On occasion
This [[Trope]] has nothing to do with magical items or similar ancient objects of power; for that, see [[Ancient Artifact]] or [[Artifact of Doom]].
Line 29:
* Geico began a campaign in which Gecko the gecko was complaining to the company about the confusion between the company's name and his (unimaginative) name. Later ads feature Gecko as an employee of Geico (with a different accent).
** This may have been more of a shift in angle, since the first commercial with Gecko working for Geico said that he basically just threw up his hands and got a job there, since if they were gonna be calling him for Geico, it might as well be somewhat accurate.
* Duke the talking dog from the Bush's Baked Beans commercials. Originally, the joke was that company spokesman Jay Bush had told the secret family bean recipe to his dog Duke, naturally expecting the animal to keep
== Anime and Manga ==
* More than a few fans have commented that [[Sailor Moon]]'s boyfriend, Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask, tends to become useless to the writers outside of major [[
** For the first three seasons, the Monsters-of-the-Day actually did something relevant to the [[Plot]], but in the fourth and fifth seasons, their only purpose was to give the girls something to fight before the end of the episode. It became especially bad in the last season; the targets were supposed to be potential Sailor Senshi (hence why they're attacked very early in the original comic) but no attempt is ever made to target those that ''show up to every single fight, in costume''.
* [[The Lancer|Brock]] from ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' became this during "Johto Journeys" and stayed that way for a ''loooooong'' time. The writers seemed to have forgotten all about his stated goal of breeding Pokémon, and were probably keeping him around just to avoid the fan backlash that might result from removing him.
** It seems the writers have taken notice as he finally left the show in ''Best Wishes''/''Black and White''.
** Suprisingly [[Lampshaded]] in the last three episodes of "Diamond and Pearl" where Brock realizes that while Ash and Dawn are advancing towards their goals he has made no progress with his. It is also in these episodes that he learns he can put the skills he does have to good use by becoming a Pokémon Doctor leading to his departure.
* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' features many characters from the earlier [[Dragon Ball]] series (such as [[Talking Animal
** An even better example would be the [[Dragon Ball
*** This actually started earlier in the [[Dragon Ball]] run. While they were being actively sought through most of [[Dragon Ball]], by the time of the Red Ribbon Saga they were effectively just a [[MacGuffin]] and the battles with the badguys became more prominent. By the King Piccolo Saga, they became little more than a means to how Piccolo gained eternal youth and damage cleanup thereafter, while in the Piccolo Junior Saga they weren't even featured at all. They played a limited role in the Saiyan Saga of Z, while they played a much more prominent role in the Namek/Frieza Saga. The Android/Cell and Buu Sagas all but forgot about them. Basically, the importance of the Dragon Balls themselves started to wane heavily as early as half way through the original [[Dragon Ball]] years - in other words, for about 3/4 of whole story they were little more than a slightly justified [[Deus Ex Machina]] to hit the Cosmic Reset Button.
* One of ''[[Slayers]]'''s most famous running jokes is the otherwise overconfident Lina Inverse's [[A-Cup Angst|sensitivity about her endowment]]. While it's reasonable in the novels and comic, it seemed a case of [[Hollywood Homely]] in animated form only rationalized by her bawdy and [[Gag Boobs|ridiculously curvy]] cohort Naga. As the show usually compensated by enlarging everyone ''else'', one suspects it was [[Executive Meddling]] in order to make a heroine a bit more cute to the television audience.
Line 44:
* Kinkotsuman & Iwao from ''[[Kinnikuman]]'', parodies of stereotypical [[Toku]] villains introduced when the series was a straight up spoof of [[Ultraman]] continued to show up long after the [[Genre Shift]] to [[Pro Wrestling]].
* Main character Ginko from ''[[Mushishi]]'' wears recognizably modern clothes despite the story's setting suggesting a [[Pre Meiji]] Japanese location. The author eventually admitted that Ginko was made during the early design period where the story was supposed to take place in modern times, with him simply being left unchanged.
* Likewise Chrono's very distinctive outfit in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' is back from when he was designed to be a more important lead
** The name of Raising Heart also qualifies, since [[media:Nanoha.jpg|its original design]] was a fairly normal-looking [[Magic Wand]] with a [[Heart Symbol]] on it.
* Although ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' was the first [[Real Robot]] anime, it still carried a lot of baggage from the [[Super Robot]] genre, mainly the design aesthetic for Zeon vehicles and an [[Aerith and Bob]] naming scheme for their people that evokes the Alien invaders common to Super Robot antagonists, and a number of gimmicky weapons and [[Merchandise-Driven|accessories]] for the Gundam like the G-Armor, Beam Javelin, and Gundam Hammer. The latter were quickly retconned out of existence in the Movie adaptations, and later Zeon designs have tried to evoke a image closer to [[World War II]] Germany.
Line 71:
* [[Orient Men]] was originally basically a superhero parody, who battled crooks and giant apes and ghosts. Then the comic switched to more eclectic humor and plotline, and though Orient Men still wore his superhero cape and [[Flight|flew around]], his "superhero" status became more and more ignored.
* In the superhero genre, the [[Secret Identity]] trope often exists as an artifact, used whether or not it makes sense for the individual hero in question. Many early superheroes had secret identities pretty much because [[Superman]] had one, and [[Follow the Leader|if he did it, that must be a trope worth copying]]. Notably, many adaptations and "new" incarnations of superhero characters either dispense with the [[Secret Identity]] altogether or use it, but have it known to a large number of friends and family:
** Reading [[Wonder Woman]]'s early [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] stories, one gets the distinct impression the standard "secret identity protection" tropes are used mostly due to the [[Follow the Leader|"Superman does it"]] school of [[Executive Meddling]]. The tropes are there, but usually dealt with in a perfunctory manner, and you can practically sense that writer William Moulton Marston is bored with them and eager to move on to the fun stuff. Notably, apart from sheer physical strength, Diana Prince is almost indistinguishable from Wonder
** In [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] ''[[Iron Man]]'' stories, it often seems like keeping his identity a secret causes Tony Stark more problems than it solves. At the very least, it seems like letting his fanatically loyal employees Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts in on the secret would be a good idea. [[Iron Man (film)|The movies]] dispensed with any notion of a secret identity by the end of the first one.
** Many modern writers have found [[The Mighty Thor|Thor]]'s "Dr. Donald Blake" secret identity to be dispensable, and it's only used in [[Thor (film)|the 2011 movie]] as a brief [[Continuity Nod]] (and because, well, were the scientists ''supposed'' to say, "hey, this is a guy who fell from the sky and says he's a depowered god" or "this is my brother Donald"?)
Line 115:
** The radio version's differing plot for the second season kept Zaphod in a fairly important role, and he was a popular character; so they gave him an expanded role in the adapted series.
*** Zaphod's role is likewise expanded in the book written by [[Eoin Colfer]].
** Ford Prefect's name. The joke is not only lost entirely on American audiences, but modern British audiences as well, as the Ford Prefect car that was once so popular in Britain has quietly disappeared. (The joke was that Ford, when coming to Earth, had mistaken cars for Earth's dominant life form due to insufficient research.) The German version fixes this by calling the character "Ford Escort", while all other versions keep his name the same. The US film got around the problem by showing Ford and Arthur's first meeting (Ford steps into the street to greet an oncoming
* In the first ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' book, the House Cup championship was such [[Serious Business]] that Harry, Hermione and Neville became the most unpopular kids in school after losing Gryffindor a hundred and fifty points and the awarding of the Cup was important enough to almost be a second climax. Later in the series, no one seems to care much about the House Cup anymore and, from the fourth book onwards, it's not even mentioned which house won the Cup at the end of the year. And yet [[The Snark Knight|Snape]] stubbornly continues to punish our heroes by taking points from Gryffindor.
** Then again, when it's becoming clearer and clearer that Magical Hitler has returned, the fight over who gets the shiny trophy for another year probably starts to seem silly.
Line 129:
* ''[[Herman's Head]]'' went through this in its later seasons. Once the show had used up all the potential in the "see aspects of Herman's brain fight it out" gimmick, and moved on to slightly deeper storylines, the brain-characters were pushed further and further in the background, until eventually they would barely make anything beyond a perfunctory appearance.
* Same with ''[[American Dreams]]'': its original gimmick of ''[[American Bandstand]]'' performances (and then modern-day stars doing faux-Bandstand performances) seemed more and more awkwardly included, as the show attempted to become refocused as a serious drama that just happened to take place in the 60s.
* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' ran headlong into this as a result of being adapted from three different [[Super Sentai]] shows. The first season was based solely on ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger]]'', so things worked just fine. But for the second season, rather than adopting Super Sentai's tradition of making a completely new show and storyline every year, Saban chose to take the [[Monsters of the Week|monsters]] and [[Humongous Mecha|robots]] from ''[[Gosei Sentai Dairanger]]'' while retaining the Zyuranger suits for the heroes and keeping the same main villains. The same thing was done for the third season with ''[[Ninja Sentai Kakuranger]]'', though in this instance the Kakuranger suits were used for a another team of Rangers. Overall this results in quite a few oddities, since the motifs of the three Sentai teams did not match: while the animal robots and suits in Zyuranger were based on prehistoric beasts, the ones in Dairanger were based on Chinese mythology and the ones in Kakuranger were based on Japanese mythology. The ranger roster and colors also did not match: while all three teams had their respective red, blue and yellow rangers, Dairanger had a "regular" green ranger instead of black and a white sixth (which resulted in the Black Ranger piloting a green-colored lion robot and Tommy being forced to switch suits and powers in the middle of Season 2), while Kakuranger had a female white ranger instead of pink and no sixth (forcing the White and Pink Rangers to share the same Shogunzord). This also holds true for the villains, as the character of Rita Repulsa and her minions stayed on the show for a total of six seasons despite the fact that their Sentai counterparts (Bandora the Witch and her gang) were sealed away at the end of ''Zyuranger''. The most stand-out case is Finster, who was the villains' monster-maker and [[Mad Scientist]], but had his role greatly reduced in the second and third seasons when [[Always a Bigger Fish|new]] [[Big Bad
** After the death of Zordon the word Zord itself was an artifact of a previous era of ''[[Power Rangers]]'' history.
** The lightning-bolt in the logo was (and is) put there for [[Rule of Cool]]. However, the original seasons tried to justify it, by having the teens teleport in a bolt of lightning of their color. Since abandoning them, it now has even less purpose.
Line 154:
* The Fast Forward on ''[[The Amazing Race]]''. For the first four seasons, there was one on every leg, giving each team one free pass per season. However, for budgetary reasons (as it was not cost-effective to set up all these single use tasks, especially when half of them never got used, and therefore never made it onto the show), starting with Season 5, the Fast Forward was cut back to only one or two per season, although the "one per team" rule still applied. With all the strategy drained out of it, the Fast Forward has mostly become a cheap and/or easy win for a team that was already in the lead, as no team outside of the lead pack would dare risk it, as to not get it would mean certain elimination (as happened to Terence & Sarah on Season 13).
* Both Holly and Cat became Artifact characters by the fifth series of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'': Cat still got a decent number of lines and such but had lost a lot of his feline personality and mannerisms, while Holly's role had decreased significantly (mostly due to Kryten taking on most of the exposition) to the point where she was lucky to get one decent scene per episode. The solution taken in Series VI was to write Holly out of the show and expand Cat's role in a new way (thus he became the main pilot of Starbug and was given his superior "smelling" skills). Holly eventually came back in Series 8, at the cost of reverting much of Kryten's character growth.
* Teal'c's personal arc in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' was basically over after the defeat of the Goa'uld in season 8, but he stayed anyway for the two [[Post Script Season
** They actually created plots involving him and the Jaffa political situation, but those plots just made it worse by reminding viewers how nonsensical it was for Teal'c to stay with SG-1 when he was so frustrated by the incompetent Jaffa leaders.
** Another Artifact is Teal'c staff weapon. When Teal'c was first introduced, it made sense for him to favor and keep using a staff
** The Stargate itself, especially on later seasons of ''SG-1'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''. In early seasons, episode revealing a malfunction or quirk of the gate were common, and the gate featured prominently in several episodes. As later seasons came and spaceships became common, with the heroes acquiring and later building their own, the gate took to the background, to the point where several episodes do not feature a Stargate in them at all. ''[[Stargate Universe]]'s'' gate is pretty much a prop to remind you that, no, really, [[In Name Only|it is a Stargate series]].
*** So much so that what was meant as the finale of the various arcs along with the intended grand finale (prior to the two [[Post Script Season
* Little John, Allan-a-Dale and Much were pretty much pointless throughout all of season three of ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'', and kept on simply because they were the famous characters of legend (though they fared better than Will Scarlett, who was [[Put on a Bus]] at the end of season two and never seen again). A typical B-plot had Much, Allan and John merely walking across the countryside in the search for water during a drought, and the crisis only ending thanks to Robin's activities in the A-plot. Eventually actor Joe Armstrong (who had a ''huge'' role in season two, and was the show's [[Breakout Character]]) asked the writers to kill off Allan, simply because he was bored with [[Demoted to Extra|playing a character that no longer did anything]]. The writers gave him a [[Red Shirt]] death, which speaks volumes about how unimportant he was at that stage.
* Mr Lucas on ''[[Are You Being Served?|Are You Being Served]]'' was presented as the young, straight, white, male [[This Loser Is You]] in the series's black and white pilot. The series soon progressed into typical British farce and he was demoted into a [[Deadpan Snarker]].
Line 166:
** Shawn's psychic ability is also an in-universe artifact, as the only reason he's allowed to work with the police in the first place is how powerful his "psychic" abilities are. Of course, years later, his track record is pretty much proven and he could probably drop it and still work on his merits. The case in question much have already been settled by now.
* In ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' the fact that most of the characters are high school students has turned into this, as the focus of the show moved away from teen drama (with vampires) towards supernatural power struggle. Even scenes of the characters talking in the halls have become rare, and the usual mechanic for getting the cast in one place is an all-ages town event. Once the need for it passed Stefan simply dropped out, but since the rest of them are real teenagers they don't have the option.
** The ''title itself'' is somewhat of an artifact, ever since the show [[Growing the Beard|grew the beard]] and dropped the [[Narm
* Vanna White on ''[[Wheel of Fortune]]''. In 1997, the show traded out its mechanical puzzle board for a set of video monitors, thus making Vanna's job redundant (she touches the letters now instead of turning them, but the board could easily run automatically). However, she's so inextricably part of game show history in general that removing her would cause an outcry.
** Even with the original setup, the letters could've just as easily been turned from behind by a stagehand.
* In ''[[The 700 Club]]'''s case, the fact that it still airs on [[Teen Drama]]-heavy [[ABC Family]] makes it
** This does say something for his lawyers as the clause for including the word "Family" in the title and giving 700 a time slot, along with a lengthy [[Telethon]] on the last Sunday in January is required to be reproduced in every sale of the station. Not even [[Disney]] could worm out of it.
* The Artifact ([[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Yes, that is its name]]) from ''[[Eureka]]'' is an example of this; it had its own arc ending with an ominous declaration that one character, Nathan Stark, would eventually figure out what it is, but then the show got more episodic, Stark was disintegrated and The Artifact was further forgotten about after the series' [[Cosmic Retcon]].
Line 212:
== Professional Wrestling ==
* [[The Undertaker]] was born during the tail end of the [[WWF]]'s Rock n Wrestling Era, when [[Made of Iron]] [[Invincible Hero
** One weird contradiction is the fact that [[The Undertaker]] has accepted the rise of MMA with more grace than almost any other wrestler and has incorporated a large number of the moves into his arsenal, and wears MMA-style gloves to the ring. So you have the most anachronistic character following up his "old-school" ropewalk with a very realistic looking triangle choke.
*** And the Hells Gate, as ludicrous as it looks is [[wikipedia:Gogoplata|an actual submission hold]]
*** [[The Undertaker]] is often excused by the [[Grandfather Clause]], when a character can get away with it simply because he's been doing it for so long. No one else could possibly come into the WWE and play up his angle straight-faced, but because [[The Undertaker]] has been doing it since the Reagan era, he can slide. Since he's still popular and well-received, the ''writers'' treated him like
**** Occasionally, the writers will have a fit of brilliance: a wrestler or even the commentators will talk about the raw psychology of [[The Undertaker]]'s entire persona from a Kayfabe perspective. Think about it: you're in the ring, pumping yourself up. Funeral bells toll, the lights go out, and this 6'9 zombie/grimreaper starts a slow walk down the aisle; bigger arenas and PPV's tend to have this walk take OVER A MINUTE. Somewhere along the line it hits you, "Hey, don't worry, this guy's freaking 40-something, and I'm at my prime, this is going to be a snap!" Then the bell rings and this 40-something zombie guy suddenly shows you that he's still the best striker in the business and [[Made of Iron|just won't stay down.]] Completely and totally realistic... Until [[Snap Back|he waves a hand and lightning hits something for some reason.]]
* [[Triple H]]'s original gimmick was "Hunter Hearst-Helmsley", a snobby blue-blood, hence his finisher being called the 'Pedigree'. Despite mostly dropping the character in 1997, the move still retains its name. Still, wrestlers who want to get his attention address him as "Hunter", he once offered [[Kayfabe]] financial support to a bankrupt [[Shawn Michaels]] and he referenced a match from his blueblood days where he got squashed by The [[Ultimate Warrior]] in the buildup to his Wrestlemania 26 bout. His last name of "Helmsley" is often mentioned a lot as well, especially during his time as the leader of the "McMahon-Helmsley Era" for obvious reasons.
Line 265:
** Then again, 2nd Ed keeps throwing in artifacts, or quite possibly the odd [[Shout-Out]] - the new Infernal Exalted take their Caste names from [[Demon: The Fallen|the Houses of the Fallen]].
* In the switch from third edition to fourth edition ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', ability scores ceased to matter much beyond the ability bonus. Yet we still have the old ability scores from 3-18 where the limits can be broken and the players never have one below 8. In some ways, this is an artifact because if it were ever removed, it would only increase the litany of cries that "4E is [[WoW]]" from 3rd edition grognards.
** It's been
** Alignment flirts with this. Many players have felt it was irrelevant for years before, especially during the days of Advanced D&D. At the time, other games were coming out which ignored alignment altogether or grossly redesigned it, and they weren't suffering for a lack of moral categories to put characters into. Alignment also was easily abused by some players, with some game masters putting paladins or other "must be good" characters into situations where one aspect of their vows ''must'' be broken and then punishing them. ("You helped the slaves escape; that's not lawful, so it's a chaotic violation of your paladinhood and...why are you leaving?") Players, too, would abuse the heck out of it, often by being blatant jerkasses to everyone at the table and saying it was just playing their alignment. Then Third went and added in a lot of mechanics which depended on alignment, many of them doing little more than giving min-maxers an excuse to write "true neutral" down and then do whatever they were going to do anyway.
*** The Smite Alignment mechanics got really bad about this with many of the people you could or could not Smite not making any sense at all. For example, a Holy Liberator should rarely, if ever, fight a Paladin, but a Holy Liberator can smite them. However, if a malevolent despot, the type of person a Holy Liberator is made to fight, happens to be Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil (both of which are entirely possible), their Smite no longer works. The simplification of the system led to characters not equipped to fight things they were supposed to be specialized against if they worked based on alignment. Good/Evil targeting abilities tended to be more consistent then Lawful/Chaotic/Neutral targeting ones though.
Line 278:
* A common occurence in many a [[MMORPG]], as new content, released via patches or expansion packs, frequently leaves older content of less importance. Some examples include:
** ''[[World of Warcraft]]'s'' pre-expansion content had hints of this. Quest design was much more varied and interesting in Northrend, Outlands, or even the Bloodelf and Draenei starting areas. Blizzard attempted to fix this with the ''Cataclysm'' expansion pack, which changed the pre-expansion content (even for players who didn't purchase the expansion pack) to clear up any remaining artifacts and grant the older continents some of the smoother gameplay aspects developed in the expansion worlds.
*** ''Cataclysm'' itself has caused an entire ''expansion pack'' to practically define the term
** Pre-issue 6 content in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is in many ways quite lacking in comparison to what came afterwards. While the newer content that has been added since (including all of ''[[City of Villains]]'') shows many of the lessons that the development team learned, especially in terms of writing and avoidance of [[Fake Longevity]], they have done little to go back and fix the old content. As of 2010 only one zone, Faultline, has been revamped and brought up to the post-issue 6 standard back in issue 9. The main issues that the old content has are:
*** Sloppy, contrived writing.
Line 326:
* Occasionally mentioned by the ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' creators who, while enjoying the character DIV, admit that the [[DIVX]] format's failure condemns the character's basis to increasing obscurity.
* The robots in ''[[Questionable Content]]'' have taken a smaller and smaller role since almost the beginning; even their [[Plucky Comic Relief]] appearances are coming fewer and farther between.
** This may have been true years ago, but starting around strip [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1780 1780] the comic has introduced a lot of exposition on AnthroPCs in general, and featured the ones in the cast (particularly Momo) more often. One might say that they are an ''aversion'' of
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', the author has been quoted to no longer enjoy several of the earlier gags, especially the hammers. Hammers were sacrificed for good, in exchange for a handful of [[Character Development]], setting development and [[Plot]] points.
** The level of [[Fan Service]] has also dropped off significantly since the author started expressing guilt over objectifying women in the earlier strips. [[Chivalrous Pervert|Tedd]] and [[Opposite Sex Clone|Ellen]] still have their [[Transformation Ray|transformation rays]], but they almost never see use.
Line 346:
*** And nobody called him by his name so the audience didn't get the joke that it was [[The Chew Toy|Kenny]] until he [[Running Gag|died]].
** Also [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in "Lice Capades," Where [[The Conscience|Kyle]], [[Straight Man|Stan]], and [[Jerkass|Cartman]] point out to each other that they're doing exactly what they would do if they had head lice, and [[Jerkass|Cartman]] adds, "And this is exactly what [[The Chew Toy|Kenny]] would do: stand here and say nothing."
* Meg Griffin on ''[[Family Guy]]'' seems to have been designed and included for one narrative purpose (high school angst-driven stories); as the show has become joke-driven, structurally looser and, arguably, narratively weaker, Meg's continued existence is little more than a vestige of the [[Plot]]-driven early seasons of the show. Couple this with the show's increasing reliance on the Seth McFarlane-voiced characters and the audience's dislike of the Meg character ([[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] frequently on the show through the rest of the family's increasingly pronounced and occasionally violent antipathy toward her) and there's really little left of the character beyond the awareness of her
** Unexpectedly, the disproportionate in-universe hate towards her has shoved her through [[The Woobie]] Wall for many members of the audience; giving her an actual purpose in the show. It also makes the scene in the the episode "Dial Meg for Murder" where she beats the living crap out of Peter after being in prison a few months a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
** Ironically, the diminishment of Meg's character began at about the same time as her original (and uncredited) voice actor Lacey Chabert was replaced by Mila Kunis. In contrast to Chabert's rather mundane characterization, Kunis brought a sharper, more distinctive quality to the character (along with a much greater appreciation for the show's type of humor than Chabert had, which is what caused her to leave the show and be uncredited). Kunis' performance allows the out-of-proportion attacks on Meg to be funny, whereas had Chabert remained, it likely would have just come off as mean-spirited.
Line 355:
* This actually happened to Optimus Prime of all characters during the final ''[[Transformers Generation 1|Transformers]]'' season. They'd brought him back because of Fan Backlash over his removal so they couldn't very well have him leave again. But because of the [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] that had to be written in [[Merchandise-Driven|due to the toyline]] all older characters such as Blaster and Perceptor had been written off in favor of the new characters with gimmicks (such as being a Head or Target Master or part of a combination team) except for Prime. As a result he looks notably out of place with his 80s era Mack Truck form and lack of gimmicky weapons when surrounded by futuristic cars and jets and all the Masters. Notably, in the Japanese continuity which splits off right after he's brought back to life, he's killed off again almost immediately, replaced by a series of newer, more visually and technologically impressive leaders.
** In the third season, this also happened to some extent with many of the first and second season characters who survived the movie, although some of them did get important roles in an episode or two (Blaster and Soundwave in "Carnage in C-Minor", Perceptor in "The Face of the Nijika", etc.).
* In the ''[[Disney]] Sing Along Songs'' VHS series, Professor Owl from the [[Adventures in Music Duology]] was originally the host, with Jimminy Cricket and and Professor Ludwig Von Drake occasionally taking over. In later entries, Professor Owl only appears to say "And now is your host, [Jimminy Cricket / Professor Ludwig Von Drake]!", and [[The Other Darrin|in a completely different voice from the intro and earlier videos]], at that. The most likely reason is that the between-song segments were composed entirely of [[Stock Footage]] of old cartoons, and Cricket and Von
* Hack and Slash in ''[[Re Boot]]'' fell into this during season 3. While the series got [[Darker and Edgier]], they didn't. For the most part they were ignored unless some comic relief was needed.
* ''[[Total Drama Island|Total Drama]]'' started with twenty-two contestants in the first season, but while the second and third still had most of the cast competing, a few characters were stuck watching from the sidelines. With such a large main cast, some pairs of characters were [[Not So Different]] from one another, which made a few like [[Hair-Trigger Temper|Eva]], [[The Dividual|Katie and Sadie]] redundant as [[Team Mom|Cour]][[Tsundere|tney]], [[Dumb Blonde|Lindsay]] and [[Geek|Beth]] respectively took on their defining traits. The three only competed in the first season as a result, and have been [[Out of Focus]] ever since.
* The [[Phineas and Ferb]] theme-song has the titular boys saying that they want to "Drive their sister insane!" However, [[Characterization Marches On]], and now the boys are incredibly nice, and want to help their sister
** Then again, you could take the line to mean that the things they do are going to drive her insane as a side effect, even if it's not what they intend to do.
** Sort of subtly [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension]]''
== Other ==
* [[Adult Swim]] was so named because it referred to the period where kids are ordered out of public pools so that only seniors can swim in it, and when it first launched in 2001, it even featured bumpers of kids being told to get out of the pool along with seniors enjoying their time. Sometime around 2003, these were replaced with the "white text on black" style bumpers seen today, though the name hasn't lost all
{{reflist}}
| |||