We all know the everlasting common tropes in TV/movies (Chekov’s Gun, Lampshading, Dues ex machina, etc) but what are some that were common for a while and then just… disappeared?
One I happened to notice recently was the “quiet drama or intense moment interrupted by someone’s ridiculous ringtone” trope. You just don’t see that anymore, but it used to be everywhere. I think the last time I saw it was in Thor 2 with Jane’s ringtone. The first two times it played the trope straight but became a Chekov’s Gun the third time.
I think it was most common in the early to late 2000s when custom ringtones were in their heyday and maybe a little after. Nowadays, IRL, most people have their phone on vibrate or just use the default sounds and current shows are reflecting that trend.
What other tropes can you think of that disappeared just as fast as they arrived?
Having to do acrobatics to get around laser trip wires.
People eavesdropping on a conversation by picking up the other phone on the house’s landline.
In the 70s and 80s, there was trope in TV mostly if someone died in a car somehow at distance after a chase or gun battle, the horn would blare to indicate the person’s head fell on it similar to the ending of Chinatown. It disappeared after comedians started making jokes about it around 1986. If you saw those jokes today, they’d make no sense.
I feel like bloopers during the credits had their moments and then fell away just as fast
Some day, a brave director will have bloopers as a cold open!
In a serious drama no less
30 minutes/30 hours/3 days/etc. ago.
Starting an episode with a gripping moment, then doing the intro, then immediately backtracking a certain amount of time to spend most of the episode getting back to that initial moment.
Very popular in the 2000s, I don’t really see it anymore. Nowadays, shows that bounce around in time don’t indicate it anymore, and sometimes it’s meant to be a secret that you figure out later.
It’s been memed enough that the general structure shouldn’t be used without good reason (and the movies that relied on that often didn’t have good reason to tell the story that way).
Dan Harmon has made fun of it at least twice: Abed trying to trigger flashbacks to three weeks earlier in Community season 6 episode 10, and Morty just ripping into a screenplay writer who uses the trope in Rick and Morty season 2 episode 9.
On the internet there’s a million examples of people making fun of the freeze frame record scratch, “you’re probably wondering how I got here” voiceover.
I think this is actually more common than ever in the time of streaming and low attention spans. It’s a very common trick to start on something “exciting” to grab the attention of viewers who are constantly distracted by their phones and/or the promise of a more entertaining show on these platforms that are full of endless alternatives pushed by an algorithm.
Pluribus does that, but also bounces around, so not sure if it fits.
I don’t think it ever fully went away, though. I’ve seen it as recently as 2018.
Funny I just watched Dead Ringers the other day and it did that in one episode
Maybe not short, but I think catch phrases are pretty much dead now.
Bazinga!
Except in Japan
Has the jarringly unfitting ending music montage trope gone away? Alien: Earth kinda did it but there was a common thread between all the song choices that sort of linked in with a theme of the show.
Definitely way too short lived in my book.
I don’t know if I’d consider Chekov’s Gun or Deus Ex Machina to be tropes. A trope is a commonly recurring motif, theme, character type, or plot device. Chekov’s gun is just a principle that says don’t add unnecessary crap if it’s not important to the story, and a deus ex machina is usually just lazy/poor writing. “It was all a dream” is a trope in itself, but also an example of a deus ex machina. So is the military/cavalry/Rohirrim showing up to save the day.
Poor writing can also include plot devices. It can be bad writing and still be a trope.
