Viewers Are Goldfish: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Naruto:''' [[Invoked Trope|Want me to have a flashback of what just happened 13 seconds ago?]]

'''Everyone:''' [[Defied Trope|No!]]

 

 

Sort of like how executives think [[Viewers are Morons|viewers are stupid]], they also think you have the [[Did Not Do the Research|memory of a goldfish, which, according to common legend, lasts about three seconds]].<ref>real life goldfish have been proven to have longer memory; a study concluded a maximum limit of seven months. And, if you don't buy that, it's also been [[MythBusters|busted]]</ref> Because remembering what happens over the course of a ''whole thirty minutes'' or, god forbid, ''an hour'', is too difficult for [[This Loser Is You|your general media consumer,]] there is a handy little device called a [[Flash Back]] that can be used to rewind, oh, five minutes or so to say, "Hey! This just happened, moron!" <ref>[[Ad Break Double Take|It may also be the case that a viewer has tuned in partway through the program or series, and therefore has no memory of what happened even moments earlier.]]</ref> It may also come from an ancient survey that stated that [[We All Live in America|Americans]] change the channel 20 times every minute on average.

 

[[Rule of Three|By the way, this trope exists because executives think]] [[Viewers are Morons|viewers are stupid]]. [[Running Gag|They also think you have the memory of a goldfish]] [[Did Not Do the Research|which lasts about three seconds]]. Only it really doesn't, as proved by the ''[[MythBusters]]''.

 

== Advertising ==

* There exists a commercial for Nerf guns in which a kids "squad" is gunned down by a lone gunman. Cue action shots of the survivor getting the cool, new Nerf gun and taking out half a dozen kids to get revenge, and as our protagonist finds the one responsible, the commercial '''FLASHES BACK''' to the beginning of the '''THIRTY SECOND COMMERCIAL''' to remind you why he wanted revenge in the first place.

 

 

* ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' has an unnecessary recap at the beginning of each episode that recaps ''the entire arc so far. In every episode.'' Sometimes this gets so bad that the actual episode doesn't start until six minutes after the show starts. That's right. They waste a quarter of the entire time block on recap. But wait... [[It Gets Worse]]. In addition to that, there is are also entire episodes COMPLETELY DEVOTED TO FLASHBACKING TO THE BEGINNING OF THE PRESENT STORYARC AND SHOWING A GOOD CHUNK OF EVERYTHING THAT ALREADY HAPPENED!!! WHICH IS COMPLETELY USELESS IF YOU'VE SEEN EVERY EPISODE THAT LEADS UP TO THE FLASHBACK EPISODES!!!

* ''[[Gintama]]'' mocks the tendency of [[Shonen|shônen anime]] to do this mercilessly by, after recapping the basic, [[Widget Series|Widgetish premise of the series]] in the first several episodes, Shinpachi inexplicably decides to do so once more... a hundred or so episodes later. Gintoki yells at him for it, and Shinpachi explains that viewers who've never tuned into ''Gintama'' before [[Viewers are Morons|might be confused about]] [[Viewers Are Geniuses|what the series was smoking up till that point]]. But 1) viewers who have never tuned into ''Gintama'' [[Archive Panic|probably shouldn't start trying to watch the series after a hundred or so episodes]] (though [[Commitment Anxiety]] isn't entirely an issue), and 2) this entire scene was [[Stock Footage|likely repeated]] (with different dialogue) [[Stock Footage|to save up the anime's budget once again]]. ''Gintama'' pulls this trick often by having the voice actors speak over [[Stock Footage|a still of the Yorozuya apartment]], oftentimes [[Lampshade|lampshading]] or directly stating that they were doing so in the same scene. Though when a serious plot arc comes around, they have a tendency to pull the same stunt other shônen anime do as well.

** Also, in the duels against Arkana and Umbra & Lumis, said characters had to add at least once per commercial break that whoever lost would be sent to the Shadow Realm thanks to the spiritual saws/glass. [[Never Say "Die"|4Kids really wanted to make its point...]]

** The multi-episodes duels are also pretty amusing when it comes to this. The episodes always start with a slow (usually dialogue-free) pan-up of the battlefield, showing the amount of Life Points and etc. that each player has; then the cheerleading squad go to thoroughly explain the situation and telling on how bad it is for [insert good guy who's dueling here]. Then [insert good guy who's dueling here] will have an internal monologue reflecting about his situation in detail; after this going-through-the-duel-three-times routine, the episode goes on. The dub actually goes one step beyond -- [[Lull Destruction|dialogue is added in the slow pan-up]] to explain the game, then the cheerleading squad explains it again, and the monologue (usually more talky than the original one) explains it a third time. Whew.

** Roughly every fifth episode begins by recapping both what's currently happening and the backstory for most of the characters involved.

** If you watch all the episodes all in one go, you get very tired of hearing the story of how Kikyo and Inu-Yasha died... especially since they replay Inu-Yasha's death scene ''every single episode''.

* Many manga translations include footnotes with translations of posters, flags and the like. That's fine. Sometimes they only translate it once (Be it the first appearance or in special notes at the end of the volume), but sometimes they translate it more than once. That might be alright if the last note was 100 pages away. However, some translators (I'm looking at you, Glénat) [[Footnote Fever|put notes EVERY time said poster/flag/whatever pops up]], '''even if they're on facing pages'''. So you see the footnote, look at the left page, and see the ''exact same note''. [[Sarcasm Mode|Thanks, I might have forgotten in the 0.5 seconds it took me to look left]].

* The anime version of ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' gets ridiculous with flashbacks and previous episode recaps.

* The ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime, especially as of the ''Black and White'' series, and particularly with Ash, who cannot seem to stop flashing back to previous episodes or even incidents that happened earlier in the episode.

* ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'' is horribly, blatantly guilty of this, with six episodes dedicated entirely to recapping the series and its prequel, ''[[Gundam Seed]]'', and constant flashbacks to events that everyone knows have already taken place—most notably the death of Uzumi Nara Athha, which happens almost every time Cagalli is on screen. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, ''SEED'''s Crowning Moment of Flashback is the death of {{spoiler|Nichol Amalfi}}, which gets ''at least'' one flashback every episode after it happens for the rest of the series. It even pops up a couple of times in ''Destiny'' despite being set two years later and not meaning all that much anymore.

* ''[[Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple]]'' has one episode during Kenichi's fight with Takeda where probably half of the entire thing is just a recap, though it could just be said that the last part of the last episode was just repeated exactly.

* Almost every episode of ''[[Code Geass]]'' starts with a recap of pretty major plot points that you can't possibly not know unless you haven't watched any previous episodes at all ("Have we mentioned that Britannia is a big evil empire that took over Japan and that Lelouch is trying to defeat it with his mind-controlling eye thingy? Yes, but only, like, twenty times? Well, let's go over it again, in exhaustive detail!") and often re-mentions some recent events from the previous couple of episodes, too.

 

== Comic Books ==

 

== Fan Works ==

{{quote|'''Kaiba:''' Hey Yugi, remember when this episode began?}}

 

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''

** The [[B-Movie]] ''[[Future War]]'' has a [[montage]] of flashbacks, arranged chronologically, while the protagonist is in prison. By the end, the scenes being flashbacked had been shown less than five minutes ago. Mike and the bots did not let this go without comment.

** It also occurs in ''[[The Deadly Bees]]''. When the villain is explaining how he carried off his evil plan, he fully recaps the entire story, up to the moment right before he started his flashback. This wouldn't be so bad if the whole thing had been simple narration, but the filmmakers felt compelled to augment the character's narration with clips of the scenes in question, including those of scenes ''that had just taken place''. The ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' crew loudly complained, "We just saw this!"

** And again in ''[[The Phantom Planet]]'', where the hero flashes back through his experiences in the film, including the previous scene with his love interest. Crow yells, "No fair! You can't flash back to stuff we saw ten seconds ago!" It also had the classic riff, "we didn't like these scenes the first time!"

* Parodied in ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]'', in which the Butler recaps every action that has taken place in the movie (including [[Refuge in Audacity|slapping Mrs. Peacock repeatedly]]!), until the characters yell at him to [[Get On With It Already]]!

* ''[[Spy Hard]]'' parodied this when WD-40 meets his old spy buddy. When he reminisces about the good times they had, he remembers only meeting him moments ago.

* ''[[28 Weeks Later]]'' treats us to a recap of the beginning of the movie when the children are reunited with their father, and he tells them what happened to their mother. This is about ten to fifteen minutes after showing it the first time when the movie began, and most of it was opening credits [[Scenery Gorn]]. {{spoiler|However, the real point of the scene is to show how the father lies to his children about leaving his wife to the zombies.}}

* ''[[The Last Airbender]]''. Even though he expected his viewers [[Viewers Are Geniuses|to be fully versed in the television series]], M. Night Shyamalan decided that he had to repeat the same thing over and over again.

* The makers of ''[[There Will Be Blood]]'' apparently assumed that viewers would not remember that Daniel Plainview's plan was to cut a deal with Union Oil and lay a pipeline to the coast so that he would no longer have to pay rail-tanker fees to Standard Oil unless this fairly simple plan were explained again and again every five minutes or so for the entire length of the film.

* The ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' movie was really bad about this. As one parody put it: "you'd think we were brain dead with the amount of exposition in this movie."

 

== Literature ==

** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that many of these old stories -- [[Beowulf]], The Arthurian legends, and so on—were originally sung ballads from the days when few could read or write, and the repetition helped the person singing the ballad (and the listener, because some of these could be pretty long) remember what happened.

* The ''[[Babysitters Club]]'' books would give a rundown of all the characters and how the club worked at the start of every single book.

* It's just not possible to find a ''[[Sweet Valley High]]'' book that doesn't mention certain information repeatedly—the twins are blonde and blue-eyed, with perfect size-six figures and identical gold lavalieres that their parents gave them on their 16th birthday; they drive a Spider Fiat; their house has a Spanish-style kitchen; their mother is often mistaken for their older sister and their brother looks like a younger version of their father. Considering how many books there are in this series, it borders on the ridiculous.

* Haruki Murakami's ''[[1Q84]]'' is really terrible with this. Have you forgotten what Tengo's ears look like or did you just zone out and not even absorb any of the last ten pages? Don't worry, another summary is coming right up.

* ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' is notorious for this - almost every time Edward comes up, his looks get described ''in full''.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Ghost Hunters]]''. Okay, so imagine this: The TAPS crew are making their way through a room in an old movie theater that's reportally haunted. They move across the stage when they hear a loud clatter. They scream, panic, and enter a title splash screen. Moments later, one of them appears and describes ''exactly'' what we just saw about thirty seconds ago. To make sure you did not forget the events of thirty seconds ago, there's a scene where the others catch up with the persons in questions who are stammering out what they were doing at the time of the noise.

* ''[[MasterChef]]'' repeats almost exactly what happened in the previous 20 seconds after every commercial break, leading to a recent episode that counted down the seconds remaining for the Pressure Test twice.

** This from the very show that [[Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters|debunked the myth of goldfish only having a three-second memory]]. OK, so Adam's tank had about a three-second ''lifespan''...

** The BBC edited ''MythBusters'' down to 30 minutes when they showed it on their own channels in the UK. (Though the versions shown on the "Quest" channel are a full hour).

* ''[[Tru Calling]]'' often had flashbacks during the second half of the episode to events from the first half. Probably done because, for much of its run, the show's first half hour aired at the same time as ''[[Friends]]''.

* The ''Wildest Police Videos'' series are made almost exclusively of repeated previews and reviews. This may be explained by the fact that this repetition is not for the benefit of the viewers but to somehow stretch less than five minutes of actual footage into an hour-long episode.

* ''[[CSI]]'' does this all the time. First you see the crime scene, then they talk about the evidence, then they process it in the lab and remember collecting it, then they talk about why it matters and when someone has a [[Eureka Moment]], they show you which specific piece of evidence was important.

** One Season 3 episode has a bad example where it constantly goes to a Mitochondrial DNA Lab in Norfolk, Virginia. You know this because every time it switches there, they felt the need to have a location stamp with that information. The scenes aren't even [[Filler|that important!]]

* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' does a great deal of this, though it is somewhat justified in that its large cast means that characters will fade in and out of view with irritating regularity, leading casual viewers to be reminded of their existence. Add to that that the plot is often so thick with so many sub-plots and red herrings crossing each other that the plot can get very confusing at times. On the other hand, the overly long [["Previously On..."]] sequences that occur in every single episode except the first make this trope laughable when marathoning the show on DVD, as the [["Previously On..."]] will remind viewers of plot points brought up a single episode ago. This is especially true when it reminds you of the ending of the previous episode, which you just saw. This is especially infuriating when the same clip is used over and over to remind you of a single plot point.

* Always done on ''[[Medium]]'': Whenever Allison has her [[Eureka Moment|ding ding ding! moment]], we get a flashback to earlier in the episode so the show can reinforce the connection she's making—even if it just happened 20 minutes ago.

* Very frequently, [[ESPN]]'s ''[[Sports Center]]'' will begin with a recap of the sporting event that the network just televised.

* ''[[FlashForward]]'' has repeated Mark and Olivia Benford's flashforward at least once per episode, more or less beating the viewer over the head with reminders that he's drinking and she's cheating. Word is that viewers might have [[Executive Meddling]] to thank for this. Unsurprisingly, the more popular storylines tend to involve characters whose flashforward was only shown once, or who didn't have one at all.

* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'', a show praised for being one of the most intelligent on television, succumbed to this later in its run, due to [[Executive Meddling|the higher-ups complaining]] [[Viewers are Morons|the plot was too convoluted for people to follow.]] So, generally, in the last season the first half-minute after the commercial break is devoted to the narrator summarizing everything else to happen in that episode at speeds that would make the ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' narrator blush.

* [[NBC]] loves to do this for [[Padding]] in their game shows:

** ''[[Minute to Win It]]'' takes this [[Up to Eleven]], especially in earlier episodes. First, just like ''[[Deal or No Deal]]'', each contestant always has some kind of sob story to tell, which is usually showcased early in the episode. Then the show will usually proceed to incessantly derail itself between games and after commercial breaks to remind the viewers of it at every opportunity possible. And with each game, after the Blueprint video explains the game, Guy Fieri will sometimes recap the rules between the Blueprint and the game, or in a voice-over during the game (although they've gotten better about this variant lately), depending on how much [[Filler]] they need to achieve a [[Commercial Break Cliffhanger]]. If there's a commercial break before the game ends (and there frequently is), expect another recap after the break. NBC apparently not only think viewers are goldfish, but goldfish with [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny]]

** The series premiere of ''[[Who's Still Standing?]]'' would cut away after ''every single round'' to a graphic with a voice-over (which was obviously clumsily added in post-production) to spend 30 seconds recapping the state of the game. This became even more ridiculous whenever it happened immediately before or after host Ben Bailey did a perfectly good in-studio summary of the same information in only 10 seconds.

* ''[[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon]]'' does this... not infrequently. Sometimes it seems like a mood-building piece: showing the "[[Alice and Bob|Alice learned that Bob had a girlfriend]]" scene as a short flashback, instead of merely recapping it, slowed the action down and caught the emotion better, perhaps. But it's still annoying, especially when we get to see the same "Alice remembers Carol being extremely rude to her that one time, and ''that's'' why they're still on edge around each other, did you forget?" scene in four episodes in a row.

* This was the infamous reason ''[[Police Squad!]]'' was cancelled—the head of the ABC network thought viewers wouldn't be able to pay attention well enough to get it. It has since become a [[Cult Classic]].

* Every episode of ''[[Leverage]]'' has a flashback near the end revealing how they pulled off the job by showing a key event that was left out previously (for instance, that when she borrowed his coat, she planted a camera on it). Since these are necessarily framed by repeating the events immediately before and after (her taking the coat and giving it back), they work very poorly if the key event only took place five minutes ago.

* Try to watch an episode of any show that Gordon Ramsay is involved with (like ''[[Hell's Kitchen|Hells Kitchen]]''), and know in your heart that half of the show is recapping what just happened. Worst of all is the "Kitchen Nightmares revisited" episodes, where they go back to restaurants from earlier seasons: Ten minutes of old episode footage/recapping, two of Gordon Ramsay actually revisiting.

* Practically every show on the [[Disney Channel]] nowadays feels the need to have the show's logo appear in the bottom right corner of the screen after they return from commercial break. 'Cause, you know, we somehow didn't see the "We're back" bumper telling us which show this was. Though that's really more there for if people are recording the show. It's just as annoying, though.

* After ''Newton'', the flashbacks at the opening to each ''[[Maddigan's Quest]]'' episode repeatedly reminded us that yes, the Fantasia had in fact managed to get hold of the solar converter. Apparently the fact that most of the cast was spending most of their time running around either trying to steal or protect the thing wasn't enough to keep it in our minds.

* The whole premise of the CBS police procedural ''[[Unforgettable]]'' is that the main character '''[[Photographic Memory|remembers everything]]'''. Evidently, they don't trust their viewers to remember this one-sentence premise, because ''every single commercial for the show'' has to remind them of this fact.

* Sports broadcasts - full stop. When they aren't [[Viewers are Morons|pointing out the obvious]], they are telling you what ''just'' happened a few minutes ago, showing you in slow motion, too.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

 

== Pro Wrestling ==

** Also in the case where a storyline and/or character is quickly chucked out and it's expected that people will simply not remember it or will be nice enough to overlook it. The IWC frequently does neither.

* If a top or upper-midcard wrestler is injured for a substantial period of time, he will ALWAYS come back as a Face. Even if he was the most despicable and dastardly of Heels at the time of his injury. Ironically, Kurt Angle once vocally pointed this out upon Triple H's return from a nasty quad tear and was made out to be a huge jerk for doing so.

** The series in general has a bad habit of this. Want to pick an Apricorn off a tree? Well prepare to be reminded of your actions from shaking the tree, getting the colored Apricorn, being told what colored Apricorn you got, and then having you put it in the bag. It also happens with [[H Ms]] like Rock Smash, Strength, or Cut. Weather moves like Rain Dance and Hail remind you of their effects every turn until they fade.

** As of ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'', message boxes for weather ("Rain continues to fall", etc.) appear only once. "'X mon' was buffeted by the Sandstorm", however, wasn't removed.

** The original game was pretty bad about this too.

* Also used in ''[[Siren (video game)|Blood Curse: Siren]].'' The episodes are so short you wouldn't normally stop after just one, yet they remind you of what you just did twenty minutes ago.

* And again used in ''[[Alan Wake]]''. The episodes, however, are quite long.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]''

** For ''[[Twilight Princess]]'', Nintendo must've believed the players were incapable of remembering or re-figuring the values of the different colored rupees. Every time you start a new session (i.e., resume a saved game or start a new one), for each non-green rupee you pick up, the game will tell you the value of it. Amusingly, it's actually the ''game'' that has the memory of a goldfish. The rupee-value dialogue coming on each time you load up the game is triggered by a slight error with the programming. When you save the game, it does ''not'' save the fact that you've been told on first pick-up how much a given color of rupee is worth. So when you power down the system and load up the game again, it "forgets" that you ever picked up any rupees other than the standard one-rupee value green ones, and reminds you again.

** ''[[Skyward Sword]]'' doesn't have this problem with rupees, but it does with insects and collectibles. And infuriatingly ''shows the item going into your inventory every time''.

* ''[[Star Control 2]]'' averts this and demonstrates why it exists. Fortunately, most of the background exposition can be reviewed. Unfortunately, some very vital information can't be, including homeworld coordinates and the location of the final boss. You are advised to take notes.

* ''[[Ar tonelico]]''. After the hero crashes his airship, he recounts how he crashed his airship, then goes into a flashback of the events of getting to the airship and the dialogue around it, which happened ''a minute ago''. Additionally, when they run into the airship bay, he exclaims "This... is the airship!" as though he's surprised to find it there. Maybe it's the hero who's a goldfish...

* ''[[Ar tonelico]] 2'' has a couple of series of flashbacks that end with one of these. Particularly egregious {{spoiler|when Cocona tells you to Dive into her to stop [[Instrumentality|Hibernation]], causing a series of flashbacks that end with one of Cocona telling you to Dive into her to stop Hibernation <s>causing a series of flashbacks...</s>}}

*** To further show the point, many contradictions require you to present evidence that doesn't have contradictory text/content in the evidence screen information. Rather you have to remember a specific detail that was stated about the evidence before hand, yet that's not been put into the evidence information. For example: Case 1:4 features a newspaper article about a giant monster that has been reported spotted in a lake. At one point you must present this article {{spoiler|to prove that a witness was at said lake looking for the monster. The proof is that the article says the monster made a "BANG!" noise and that the witnesses camera was set to respond too loud bangs.}} This fact is however not stated in the evidence screen so is something that the player must remember on their own.

 

** In the same episode, he is reviewing the educational ''Super Mario'' games in two different timelines. Each time the video switches between the two timelines, Bores reminds us which of the two games he is talking about.

* A big offender of this are the countless "The X most Y Zs" countdowns found on [[YouTube]]. When you finally reach number 2: "Here's a recap of what you've seen so far!", fifteen minutes is often not even the case with the standard 10-minute limit on uploads.

 

 

* Standard advice for seminary students on giving a sermon: "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em. Then tell 'em what you told 'em."

* Although short-term memory loss is often associated with conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's in eldery people, there are certain conditions that can occur even in younger people involving short-term memory loss. Some people have suffered it as a result of trauma or a stroke, they literally forget things immediately after ceasing to think of them and must write everything down to be able to do daily tasks or things like taking a bus or going someplace, and rely on a caregiver for help. Interestingly, long-term memories, things from before the trauma, may not always be affected, though it can.

* [[Truth in Television]]:

{{quote|For a start, our attention spans are shorter. [[2001: A Space Odyssey|A film that ran at such a resolutely languid pace]] would last less than a week in a modern multiplex.|Michael Moran|[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/04/2001_space_odyssey_anniversary/ ''2001'' set the standard for the next 50 years of hard (and some soft) sci-fi]}}