"Coincidentally, 17 is the same number of times I helped prevent prostate cancer today. By the way, that's a throwback to last week's episode. Our regular viewers have been rewarded for their loyalty. Thanks, mom!"
— Lex Friedman, Cracked.com's The Week in Douchebaggery May 2nd 2008
A Continuity Nod is a minor reference to some aspect of a series' continuity or an event within the shared universe. It is distinct from a Call-Back and a Call-Forward in that it does not drive or foreshadow any actual plot development; it's more of a hat-tilt to fans that pick on up little details. Here's an example of the difference between all the tropes:
- Continuity Nod: "You remember those martial arts lessons you took before? Okay, cool. Let's get back to baking."
- Call-Back: "You remember those martial arts lessons you took before? It should come in handy to take down these mooks!"
- Call-Forward: "These mooks are overwhelming us! Too bad you don't know martial arts!"
Compare with Continuity Cavalcade, an unusually large number of Continuity Nods all at once, Continuity Porn, an excessive use of Continuity Nods to the point of being distracting, and an Internal Homage, a whole scenario from a past story is recreated. Contrast with Series Continuity Error and Discontinuity Nod, where the continuity is either accidentally or intentionally invalidated, respectively. If a Continuity Nod comes back and becomes a Call-Back, that may be Chekhov's Boomerang.
Once Done, Never Forgotten and Remember When You Blew Up a Sun? are Sub Tropes. Oblivious Mockery is also a subtrope when the viewer knows about the action being mocked.
Remember, it's only this if the events happen in the same continuity. Otherwise, it's a Mythology Gag.
Example Subpages
- Anime & Manga
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- Fan Works
- Film
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Other Examples
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Asian Animation
- BoBoiBoy: In Season 2 episode 6, when Probe asks if he's ever steered Adu Du wrong, Adu Du mentions Probe having sold their ship for an electric spatula, which occurred in Season 1.
Probe: [laughs nervously] ...He still remembers that?
- Happy Heroes: In Season 2 episode 20, Little M., upon encountering the bottle genie, thinks he's the wishing wood. In episode 35 of Season 1, the heroes find a wish-granting piece of wood with a similar appearance to the bottle genie.
- There is an episode of Lamput called "Alien Again" where Slim Doc is mistaken for an extraterrestrial. The episode title is referencing how it isn't the only Alien Episode in the show; the previous season has an episode simply called "Alien" which also involves the docs being caught up with aliens of some sort.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf:
- In Joys of Seasons episode 26, Night Wolf tells Wolffy he owes him one after the latter captures Weslie, Paddi, Tibbie, and Sparky. He then says "Remember the pancake incident?", referencing episode 21 of the same season where Wolffy flies to the pancake moon and tries to eat it into the shape of a heart for Wolnie after Night Wolf's wife, Fragrant Wolf, tells him she wants the moon.
- In the fourth film, when Weslie and Wolffy are trapped under tons of debris after defeating the giant metallic dragon, Wolffy asks Weslie if he can take a bite out of him since he's traveled a desert and explored the moon, referencing the previous two films in the series (in the second film, an amusement park built over Goat Village uses up enough energy that it dries up the surrounding area and creates a desert that Weslie and Wolffy have to traverse, and in the third film the gang goes to the moon to defeat the Bitter Gourd King).
- In Mighty Little Defenders episode 58, Wolfram molds a mud figure into the shape of Wolffy... in the art style of Pleasant Goat Fun Class.
- The season Dunk for Victories has a few. First of all, Weslie's team is called Team Defenders, a nod to an earlier season, Mighty Little Defenders. At the beginning of episode 1, it said that the episode takes place after the season Against the Dark Force. In episode 7, the golden cake that Slowy uses to lure Paddi into his basketball team was made by Aunt Merry from the season Paddi the Amazing Chef.
- Simple Samosa:
- In the first English version of "Jalebi's Birthday", before Jalebi helps Vada up a non-functioning escalator, Jalebi assures him that she's got the experience to do so and mentions "I even saved the life of that fly" as an example. This is referring to the events of the earlier episode "Makkhi Makkhi!", where a fly gets stuck on Jalebi's sticky head. The second English dub replaces this reference, instead having her mention she once saved a lifeguard.
- In "Kakaki Kabaddi", Samosa wears his Banana Fontana outfit from the episode "Banana Fontana", and Dhokla wears his Doctor D outfit from the episode "Doctor D", both to disguise themselves from a group of townsfolk who are chasing after them.
Audio Plays
- At the end of the Blake's 7 full-cast audio "Warship", as Blake's life capsule drifts away from the Liberator he laughs and murmurs, like he did in another pilot episode many years ago, "Oh no... I'm coming back."
- Sonic and Tails R:
- At the start of the first episode, Tails shows off the 7th Chaos Emerald to Sonic and notes that he came across it during one of his test flights - just like he did near the beginning of Sonic Adventure.
Sonic: Some things never change.- When Knuckles declines to help out the duo due to his duties as guardian, Tails decides to use the jewel radar from the Japanese manual of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to find the shards instead.
Comic Strips
- In early Dilbert strips, the now infamous Pointy-Haired Boss did not have pointy hair at all, but rather just an ordinary, receding hairline of black curly hair. A 1995 strip depicting the slow decline of Dilbert's health benefits, via a series of flashbacks, depicts the boss with his old, unpointy hair.
- In one Garfield strip from 1983, Jon buys a frog he names Herbie, Garfield soon becomes jealous and eats him when Jon leaves the room, much later in a Halloween strip from 1994 a group of ghosts of animals he had previously eaten come to haunt him, one of them is Herbie.
- Sometimes, Garfield can't sleep. He thinks it was November 8, 1992. That day's strip features Garfield being unable to sleep because of the night noises.
- Sometimes, Garfield can't sleep.
Pinball
- In Monopoly, every player starts with $1,500. The pinball adaptation translates this to each player having 1,500 points at the beginning of the game.
- Williams Electronics' "rollercoaster" game Cyclone, a sequel to Comet, includes the "Comet" in the game.
- Hurricane, the second sequel, also includes the "Comet" in the game. Furthermore, the backglass shows two riders wearing "Comet" and "Cyclone" T-shirts.
- The backglass for Tales from the Crypt shows the Crypt Keeper reading an issue of the original EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt comic book.
Podcasts
- In The Hidden Almanac, episode 38 records that in 1781, the Librarian Prince forbade the use of numberical placings in contests, leaving people to come up with workarounds such as "color-coded ribbons, Honorablest Mentions, and the 'We're Extremely Glad You Participated Award'". In episode 40, an item about sheep breeding mentions that in 1783 a ram named Sturdy took the "Exceedingly Honorable-We-Really-Mean-It Award" at the city fair.
Pro Wrestling
- Tito Santana and Rick Martel had teamed together in 1987 as "Strike Force" and then they broke up violently, the feud lasting the rest of their careers, even when they weren't actively feuding.
- ECW fans had fun mocking Raven by reminding him of his former Johnny Polo and Scotty The Body gimmicks. The change to Raven was explained by Scotty becoming depressed.
- Throughout the Attitude Era, the WWF gave us a subtle Continuity Nod on a weekly basis, in the form of Chyna's nickname, "The Ninth Wonder of the World". You may be saying, "Wait, aren't there only seven wonders?" Yes, but in the '70s and '80s, the WWF billed André the Giant as "The Eighth Wonder of the World", and thus Chyna was next in line after him.
- And Zack Ryder was in line after her, as he was recently called "The Tenth Wonder of the World".
- The WWF shows from October '99 to around August '00 paid a greater attention to continuity than usual thanks to the efforts of then head writer, the late Chris Kreski. Kreski made a habit of extensively storyboarding everything and keeping continuity charts. One specific continuity nod sticks out in a world where allegiances are constantly changing and old ones are often ignored. Shortly before Kreski took over, Summerslam '99 saw the climax of the feud between Test and Shane McMahon over Test deserving the love of Shane's sister Stephanie McMahon. Test won a "Love Her or Leave Her" match and the next night on Raw, Shane told him he was the better man and that they should be friends from then on. After Kreski took over, and even for a long time after Stephanie turned heel on her family and Test to marry Triple H, Test had Shane's back whenever he was needed.
- Delirious tends to slip in references to his partners and rivals from his starting promotion, Gateway Championship Wrestling, wherever he goes, such as using Matt Sydal's "Here It Is!" to defeat the supposedly titanic sized Hydra in Chikara. It might have to do with GCW's Diabolic Khaos stable bleeding into IWA Mid-South but commentator Dave Prazak will call any move Delirious is known for by the appropriate Name of Power if he sees MsChif perform it.
- Jazz would sometimes wear a shirt reading "Where My Doggs At" in reference to her husband's tag team in Ohio Valley Wrestling with Shelton Benjamin, The Dogg Pound. She wrestle with a red bandana on too because "Redd Dogg" Rodney Mack also would.
- Bob Holly's match in OVW with Matt Cappotelli is became famous for unintended reasons as it progressed but before that happened, Jim Cornette made sure to mention Bob's cousin Molly would be taking on Jillian Hall.
- Women Superstars Uncensored likes to pretend that the company started in 2006/7 but has several call backs to their Wrestling Superstars days when they weren't an all women's promotion, most obviously the recurring Queen And King Of The Ring tournament but there are quite a few less obvious reminders, such as commentator Monsta Mack, who used to wrestle for them before the transition.
- Pro Wrestling NOAH billed Samoa Joe as a TNA wrestler during his runs there but the commentators weren't shy to reference Joe's time in Ring of Honor, which had quite a few inter promotional events with NOAH while Joe was face of the company.
- Angelina Love's tattoos and ring gear contain symbolism and visual artifacts from her old Angel Williams/Canadian Angel gimmicks and when she goes back to those gimmicks, her gear tends to reference her TNA time as Love.
- Inter promotional example, and a rare one considering it involved WWE but Primo Colon's instant hostility toward Curt Hawkins and Zach Ryder upon the announcement that they were members of "La Familia" would go over the heads of most people who don't speak Spanish and just confuse those who do, unless they also watched WWC, where "La Familia" was one of the promotion's most dominant power stables, whom Eddie(Primo) and Carlito were opposed to.
- After Madison Rayne "killed" Roxxi Laveaux's TNA career, she started using the Barbie Crusher, best known as Roxxi's finishing move.
- Subverted by WWE firing the continuity editor when he pointed out too many issues and never hiring a new one.
- These days, WWE doesn't tend to make Continuity Nods referring to incidents from more than half a decade ago (see Fleeting Demographic Rule). This tendency does not apply to appearances by or even casual mentions of Legends (WWE Superstars who are no longer with the company but are still widely remembered), who will often be referenced by younger commentators who weren't even born when they were in their heyday! One commentator casually mentioned Sky Low Low - a midget wrestler whom very few fans over the age of 40 are even aware existed!
- WWE either intentionally does this (such as HHH never referring to his loss to The Undertaker at WrestleMania 17 during promos for their fight at 27) or completely forgets about some stuff because they weren't important enough at the time. CM Punk reportedly had to remind the writers during his feud with Randy Orton that he was jumped by Orton and his stable in Unforgiven 2008, making him lose without even entering his title match, and thus giving him a pretty valid reason to go after Orton for Wrestlemania 27.
- While contracted to IWA Puerto Rico, Black Rose would make occasional appearances as an audience member on the shows of their main rival WWC to cheer on her old managerial client Bronco #1. Usually this kind of behavior is frowned upon in professional wrestling, as Austin Aries can tell you about Ring of Honor and TNA, but in Rose's case and exception was made because she began as an audience member on WWC's weekend shows that Bronco's Tag Team partner Rico Suave had repeatedly dared try professional wrestling until he finally decided he wasn't taking "no" for an answer.
- In a world where most storylines disappear after three months, it took Randy Orton years to get over Evolution's betrayal, a moment which is generally agreed to be his Start of Darkness, transforming him from the suave "Legend Killer" to the cold and sadistic "Viper." This is evident because it became the standing reason for Randy's hatred of Triple H (and to a lesser extent, Batista), extending the grudge all the way to 2009, a full four years after the stable had long since dissolved. Evolution also left its mark on Randy in another ways, most notably in Randy's own Power Stable Legacy, an imitation of Evolution, except with Randy taking Triple H's place as The Centerpiece, in order to keep on a stranglehold on the WWE Championship, much like how Hunter did with Evolution and the World Heavyweight Championship. It's only in recent years that Randy has been able to get over it in order to ally himself with The Authority. This extends to Orton's relationship with other superstars. Besides the aforementioned CM Punk example, many of his former rivals make it no secret that they still hate him regardless of current alignments. This was most noticeable with John Cena, whose feud with Randy was the most personal in recent years, arguably even more personal than Triple H's and Shawn Michaels circa '02-'04. Regardless of their alignments, anything that puts them in even the slightest bit of conflict pushes them to the verge of feuding again.
- On WWE NXT season 2, Kaval made mention of his encounters with Eddie Guerrero in Impact Championship Wrestling back when he was known as Low Ki. Also, during one of the "challenges" which usually showed "talents" beyond those that related to pro wrestling, Kaval cut a rap which ended with the worlds "Total Nonstop Action", where he had also wrestled before.
- Kane gives us one in the form of a delightful speech about his past while in an anger management class on the 8/27/12 edition of Raw. Hilarity Ensues.
"I grew up locked in a basement, suffering severe psychological and emotional scarring when my brother set my parents on fire. From there, I shifted around among a series of mental institutions until I was grown, at which point I buried my brother alive ... twice. Since then, I've set a couple of people on fire and abducted various co-workers. Oh, and I, uh, once electrocuted a man's testicles. Years ago, I had a girlfriend named Katie but let's just say that didn't turn out too well. My real father is a guy named Paul Bearer, who I recently trapped in a meat locker. I've been married, divorced, broke up my ex-wife's wedding and tombstoned the priest. And, for reasons never quite explained, I have an unhealthy obsession with torturing Pete Rose."
- In Ring Of Honor, "Touched" by VAST was among the entrance themes AJ Styles used until he was pulled out of the promotion by TNA. When Style's TNA contract was up and he could return to ROH without their restriction, "Demi Gods" by LabRats became his theme, which wasn't just a remix of "Touched" but also a song about the forming of a team, which of course is a nod to the fact he joined Bullet Club in the interim. Also, Styles took up the Bloody Sunday maneuver of former club leader, "Prince" Fergal Devitt, who was forced out of the group and New Japan Pro-Wrestling but amicably as possible.
- MVP's "investor in TNA" gimmick is a nod to his "highest paid free agent in all of "sports entertainment" gimmick on Smackdown. His director of wrestling operations role is a nod to TNA becoming an affiliate of the World Wrestling League, where former TNA agent/booker/whatever Savio Vega really was directing such operations.
- During Bobby Lashley's first TNA Heavyweight Title run, Bobby Roode asking if his real passion was pro wrestling or MMA might have seemed like a cheap plug for Lashely also fighting in Bellator at the time, unless one remembered Lashley's previous TNA run ended with his wife trying to get him to quit TNA because she was being harassed by Scott Steiner and said no one ever bothered her during his MMA matches.
- Cody Rhodes's "Stardust" gimmick wasn't just putting himself more in line with tag team partner Goldust but a nod to one of his father's red barons.
- In 1992 (taped 1991), Shawn Michaels betrayed Marty Jannetty by kicking him in the jaw and smashing him through a glass object. In 2008, Chris Jericho betrayed Shawn Michaels by beating the hell out of him and smashing him through a glass object. In 2017, Kevin Owens betrayed Chris Jericho by savagely beating him down and smashing him through a glass object. If Kevin's still wrestling in five years or so… In 2023, Jacy Jayne betrayed Gigi Dolin savagely kicking her down and smashing her through the Ding Dong, Hello! door, which was not made of glass.
Tabletop Games
- In both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000, references are usually sprinkled around for fans to find referring to all manner of things from the previous editions that may have been forgotten about, passed over or deliberately retconned. For example, in the Grey Seer novel for Warhammer Fantasy, Grey Seer Thanquol makes a passing mention to the "blasphemous Kweekul", referring to the 2nd edition "Realms of Chaos" sourcebooks, during the time of which Skaven were actually part of the Chaos forces, and specifically referring to a Skaven Daemon Prince used to highlight the "design a Chaos God" rules. Similarly, the 7th edition Warriors of Chaos sourcebook mentions Lothar Bubonicus and Werner Thunderfist, two Chaos Champions (Nurgle and Tzeentch respectively) who each ascended to Daemonhood. Both of them were warbands played by the writers of White Dwarf, and their progress was shown in issue #124.
- A rules related version crops up in the 8th edition High Elves book. In earlier editions (5th and before) the High Elves general could be decided by a random dice roll, due to politics deciding who was in charge (the rule was called Intrigue at Court). In later books, this rules was removed by the fluff still makes mention to generals being decided by politics, and states that this is usually overriden by the Phoenix King.
- Planet Hoppers: Beheboth: Blood and Water, an article/story written for Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars d20, revisits characters from Star Wars (Marvel 1977), including one Sergeant Malka. In an obvious nod to a much more recent story, Darial mistakenly refers to him as "Malak" at one point.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Sphere of Chaos's name and effect is a reference to a trio of monsters often called "The Chaos Trio", consisting of "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning", "Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End", and "Chaos Sorcerer", who needed a LIGHT and DARK Monster to summon.
- The Sage of Necloth is clearly an aged Gishki Avance, with the same stats.
- The Necloth of Trishula has the same effect and stats as the original Trishula.
- Elder of the Spirit Beast Tamers is an older Kamui, Hope of Gusto.
- The Spirit Beast Tamers are Psychic-type, just like all of the human Gusto monsters.
- Just like the Dragunity and Gusto before them, their extra deck monsters consist of a rider and their steed.
Theatre
- In The Drowsy Chaperone, the Man in Chair mentions that actress Ukulele Lil probably played the ukulele, "although she doesn't in this show." And then she does at the very end, which is technically outside the Show Within a Show.
Theme Parks
- During the line to get in The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios, various clips from The Simpsons are shown on TVs. One of them is a clip of Doc Brown from Back to the Future selling the rights to the time travel compound to Professor Frink.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney has a number of these. One occurs in The Monstrous Turnabout in Dual Destinies, which features a photo capturing a supposed flying killer. This is the fourth time the series has used the "supposed flying murderer" plot point. When Apollo points out the possibility of a flying murderer in court, the Judge's reaction is a sarcastic "I can't wait to hear this".
- Canvas 2 has multiple references to the original game and several of the heroines, mostly in Misaki and Saya's routes. Both of them are sisters of heroines from the original.
- Danganronpa does this a lot, but chapter 3 of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has two particularly notable examples. A key plot point in the case is the use of a katana covered with gold paint that comes off easily, referencing a weapon used in the first case of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Later, during the trial, the possibility is brought up that the killer stabbed someone through the floorboards, which may have had glow in the dark paint on them, referencing the cause of death in the first case of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. When either of these things are brought up in the trial, Monokuma comments on how both ideas sound familiar.
- In Fate/stay night, Kotomine remarks offhandedly about how Tohsaka will feel much better after being buried underground for a bit amidst a conversation that skims along the topic of vampires. Shirou isn't sure whether to take the comment literally or seriously. This little conversation gave rise to some Epileptic Trees suggesting that Tohsaka is the descent of a vampire.
- In Hatoful Boyfriend sequel Holiday Star, the human girl is friends with The Conductor, implicitly from all the bad ends in the previous game. She even says they've known each other since the demo version!
- Shikkoku no Sharnoth makes numerous passing references to Sekien no Inganock including mentioning the city of Inganock itself and a Runner known as David, who was a minor character there.
- Spirit Hunter: NG:
- While the game has many notable ties to its predecessor Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, there's also a few inconsequential references put in for fun:
- Momo's gravure photo has her made up like a doll and posing on a red couch, with it being based on an urban legend about 'a doll in a mysterious mansion'. This is all a reference to Mary, the protagonist's advisor from Death Mark.
- When Akira asks Kaoru what he could be, if not a human, one of her answers is a humanoid weapon that was developed in secret by the old army. This is exactly what the Kannon Soldier from Chapter 5 of Death Mark is.
- One of Natsumi's notebooks contains information on the scar-like Death Mark that plagued the characters of the titular game. Kaoru explains that she knew someone involved with the case, and that she took much of her inspiration for Momo Kuruse from it.
- When explaining the Miroku Mansion's Bizarrchitecture, Rosé references roads and staircases that impossibly loop you back to the same spot, which were featured in Chapters 3 and 6 of Death Mark.
- According to Ami's profile, she once talked to a dog with a human face, a reference to Genta from the third chapter of Death Mark.
- One of D-Man's cards tells the tale of the Princess Mach urban legend. If Ban is alive at the end of the game, then his epilogue scene mentions that he's investigating the very same spirit.
- While the game has many notable ties to its predecessor Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, there's also a few inconsequential references put in for fun:
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner has absolutely massive amounts of these. The most minor characters will pop up in various places, turns of phrase and vocabulary items will be thrown around in completely different contexts, objects from previous cartoons will make appearances elsewhere for little reason. At its greatest, a one-off joke will come back so much that it becomes a much larger part of the website, such as the band Limozeen. All you need to do is go to the Homestar Runner Wiki, find a cartoon's page and look at inside references, where each Continuity Nod, Shout-Out, and Mythology Gag will be documented in precise detail.
- Red vs. Blue:
- When Grif somehow revived Sarge from a gunshot wound he was chastised for how random that treatment was and Sarge ask if he would have treated a shot in the foot by rubbing aloe vera on his neck. When Grif talks to Doc a while later, a (not very good) medic, Doc tells Grif that he made the right decision and states that he just treated Caboose's gunshot wound in the foot by rubbing aloe vera on his neck (then his toe fell off).
- In Recreation, Grif gets in the cockpit for a large vehicle and asks 'Why are there only four pedals if there's six directions?', the exact opposite of what Caboose asked when he first piloted his team's tank in season 1. There are sometimes several continuity nods per episode, though many are of the "blink and you'll miss it" variety.
- In the Project Freelancer Saga flashbacks, Carolina ends up having to attach her grappling hook to Washington's codpiece to get him onto their escape ship. In season 11, he admits that that moment was what he was known for among his group.
- In Charlie the Unicorn 3, having been through everything else the cartoon is going to throw at him, at least he finds that kidney they stole back in the first one.
- This fan work for Watchmen is filled with nods toward the original graphic novel, from Rorsachs' "love of animals" to the scene where the comedian falls out of a window.
- The Leet World: In "Satisfaction Guaranteed", Player has something of an obsession with a snowman's hat. In the second season, the same hat can be seen in the intro sequence.
- In Brain POP's Fractions episode, many of the robots from other videos on the site, such as Little Jimmy and the Cycloids from the Capitalization video and the Hillbot from the Country Music video, show up at Moby's birthday party.
- Ultra Fast Pony: "Shameless Self Reference" is packed with references to prior episodes, complete with hyperlinks to the relevant episode. The Stinger from the season one finale references the first two episodes, with Night Moon Mare showing up from nowhere to deliver her catchphrase, "Saaaaaaaaaaaaand!"
- Breeze Rider references the opening of Dusk's Dawn when the group approaches the castle.
- The main character of Petera Dzive, after having taken a photo of himself with a drunk, passed out naked man, keeps the photo on the wall of his room in future episodes.
- The creators of The Most Popular Girls in School and Dr. Havoc's Diary just love making sure that the viewers never forget all the crazy shit that has happened in previous episodes. Even if it means having to go way back to reference the very first episodes.
- RWBY:
- In Volume 1, Episode 15, Weiss mentions that an entire train of her family's Dust shipments had been stolen by the White Fang. The Black trailer involved Blake and Adam pulling a heist on a train with cargo that had the Schnee logo.
- In Volume 2, Chapter 2, Team RWBY is playing a board game where each player controls army that attempts to conquer the world. Weiss's army consists of knight figurines that look just like the knight she fought in the White Trailer.
- During the last few seconds of "Worthy" , Volume 8's penultimate episode, one of the Grimm seen attacking the refugees is a Ravager, a Grimm first featured in the novel RWBY: After the Fall.
- During the events of "Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble" when Ruby enters the mansion created by Neopolitan, pictures of a young girl with her parents can be seen. These are pictures of Trivia Vanille, Neopolitan's original identity and her parents Jimmy and Carmel Vanille who she eventually killed in the climax of the novel RWBY: Roman Holiday.
- In the Star Trek Logical Thinking video about the Ipse Dixit (it simply is) fallacy, Harry Mudd mentions being defeated by his own androids, which happened in an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.
- Anon: Chelsea and Tucker take a photo in a photobooth of them kissing, which ends up on Chelsea's wall for the remaining four seasons before the timeskip. After the timeskip, Candace, their daughter, has her own photobooth picture with her boyfriend Ryan.
- Spooky Month: In the attic scene in "Deadly Smiles", Lila hides behind the portrait of her and Skid's dad that was hung up on the wall in "It's spooky month", now with Skid's dad's face torn out.
- The Robotbox And Cactus episode "Brentwood Academy" has Ben Patagopolis saying "the moon" in a hushed whisper with an extreme close-up of his mouth. This oddly dramatic way of framing someone saying "the moon" returns in episode 38, "Back in Time", where Crazy Legs warns of the government's plans to go to "the moon" in the same manner.
Real Life
- In international diplomacy, it's customary for world leaders, when visiting another country, to make references to long-forgotten ties between their nation and the host country. For instance, when visiting Morocco, US Presidents will usually make reference to the fact that in 1777, Morocco was the first nation to recognize America's independence from Britain.
- In 1890, the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul sank off the coast of Wakayama, Japan, after having an audience with Emperor Meiji. The surviving sailors were taken back to Istanbul by two Japanese frigates. In 1985, Turkey sent frigates to rescue 215 Japanese nationals who were living in Tehran at the time and endangered by the effects of the Iran-Iraq war. A statement released by the Turkish government mentioned it as returning the favor from 1890.
- In 1986, the Greater London Council, led by Ken Livingstone, was disbanded by the Thatcher government and power was devolved to the local boroughs. In 2000, the Greater London Authority was formed, and the first elected Mayor of London was the same Ken Livingstone. He started his victory speech by saying, "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted fourteen years ago..."
- On the final ball of a 2005 Twenty20 cricket international between Australia and New Zealand, Australian bowler Glenn McGrath pretended to deliver an underarm ball to NZ's Kyle Mills. Umpire Billy Bowden (from NZ) responded by showing McGrath a mock red card. The incident was a Shout-Out to the notorious 1981 underarm bowling incident, in which Aussie captain Greg Chappell called for his brother Trevor to roll the ball along the ground to prevent NZ from hitting a six that would have won the match. McGrath's practical joke was much more favourably received by the crowd, since Australia had an unbeatable 44-run lead.
