What Happened to the Mouse?: Difference between revisions

If the element comes back just as you've forgotten about it, this is actually a [[Brick Joke]] or a [[Chekhov's Gun]]. If the element doesn't come back, but the show hangs a lampshade on it at the end, then it's [[Something We Forgot]]. If it escapes your notice until after the show is over and you've gotten up to go to the fridge to make a sandwich, it's [[Fridge Logic]].

 

 

Another character or the [[Narrator]] may [[Stock Phrase|remark]] that they were never heard from again.

Often the result of a [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]], a [[Forgotten Fallen Friend]], or a [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]].

 

 

'''Example subpages:'''

* [[What Happened to The Mouse?/Western Animation|Western Animation]]

 

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

* [[The Grim Reaper]] is apparently still running amok in the "real" world at the end of ''[[Last Action Hero]]''.

** Since he declares that he's following a list, and doesn't touch people who aren't on it, he presumably doesn't make any real impact on the world - he only touches people who would have died anyway.

** In ''The Final Chapter'' (Part 4), Gordon, the dog, is last seen jumping through a window to escape Jason. We never see him again following this. Likewise, Trish does not appear in the fifth or sixth films, even though she survives at the end.

* In the first act of ''[[A Bronx Tale]]'', the main character Calogero is 9, living with his mother and father. There's a [[Time Skip]] for the second half of the movie, which takes place about 7 or 8 years later, and his mother is never seen or mentioned. This is a shame because logically she might have been very useful in patching up the strained relationship between Calogero and his father Lorenzo.

* In the movie ''Daddy's Girl'', near the middle Jody murders her mom's friend Rachel and her death goes unmentioned for the rest of the movie.

* ''[[Puppet Master (Film)|Puppet Master]] I'' had an oriental puppet in the beginning that was placed in the box by Andre Toulon along with the other puppets, hidden away safely. He was never seen again. {{spoiler|This also goes to the maid of the Gallaghers. Despite being revived and guarding an exit, she suddenly just disappears out of shot and is never noted again.}}

** Don't forget Percy Weasley, Ron's older brother. He was in the first film, but disappears until the 5th where he has a non-speaking role. In the books, he and his father are having a fight for the duration, which explains his absence, but in the movies, nothing is mentioned about it. He's just gone (and his father never even mentions him again).

*** Well, he finished school. So as long as he doesn't become teacher it is only natural to not see him through most of the movies. And as for the times when they are not in school, he could be working.

* Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' series is also noteworthy: a full list of characters who appeared briefly and then vanished would be quite long, but chief among them is Tattersail and her reincarnated form, Silverfox, who vanished along with several thousand kickass undead warriors in Book 3. Apparently their story will eventually be told by Erikson's co-writer, Ian Esslemont, several years down the road. Maybe.

* One of the many things wrong with ''[[The Legend of Rah and The Muggles (Literature)|The Legend of Rah and The Muggles]]'' by Nancy Stouffer is the sheer number of mouse plots in the story. The mother of the twin protagonists, having been recently widowed at the start of the story, enters a very heavy flirtation with the palace butler before shipping her kids off to save them from impending doom; what becomes of the mom and the butler, we never know. Later, the twins are deeply involved in the search for a specific treasure chest; when it's found, the bad twin insists on claiming it, to which the good twin consents. Not only is it never mentioned again, but the reader never even finds out what was ''in'' the chest that was so important.

* In [[Raymond Chandler]]'s first Philip Marlowe novel ''[[The Big Sleep (Literature)|The Big Sleep]]'', all of the various murders and crimes are explained, except that of the Sternwoods' chauffeur, Owen Taylor. During filming of the [[The Big Sleep (Film)|1946 film adaptation]], director Howard Hawks and screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman sent a cable to Chandler, who later told a friend in a letter: "They sent me a wire... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either."

* Reiko from James Michener's ''Hawaii'' simply disappears toward the end. She's a secondary character with an interesting plotline, but after {{spoiler|her husband dies}} she's never heard from again, leaving the reader to wonder whether she ever accomplished her thwarted dreams.

** A planned {{spoiler|novel}} adaptation may even exclude chapter 10 of the comic entirely, [[Ret Canon|making it so that]] Poison Dart Eddie himself [[Ret Gone|never existed]].

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' had a minor one where a reader actually asked, "What happened to the demonic ferret?" The answer was, "She's still there with the other demons, I just forgot to draw her."

** Also; Asher's kitten. It disappeared shortly after Asher received it and was unmentioned for months, until it reappeared after the "Trip To The Moon" arc. Ironychan has never said whether or not this was planned all along or whether the constant cries of "WHERE'S THE KITTY" caused her to bring it back.

* Monette's baby, in ''[[Something Positive]]''. The full humor and drama of an unplanned pregnancy are played to maximum effect, but Monette's baby disappears from the plot with barely a ripple (subtle clues in the dialogue reveal it was either stillborn or died very shortly after birth). Millholland [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] the baby's absence much later in [http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp08222004.shtml a filler strip] in which the baby turned up in a Lost and Found box.

So, er, guys, what did actually happen to the mouse?

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But what if you're using a laptop?