50 Fun Facts About TV Tropes

Which sitcom's Fonzie water-skied over a shark in 1977, inspiring a phrase for shows past their best?

Happy Days built the stunt around Henry Winkler's real water-skiing skills. Radio host Jon Hein and his college roommate coined 'jumping the shark' in 1985.

Which director popularised the term MacGuffin for the object everyone chases, starting with The 39 Steps?

Alfred Hitchcock said the MacGuffin is what the spies are after but the audience doesn't care about. The word itself came from English screenwriter Angus MacPhail.

Which Russian playwright advised that a rifle seen on stage in act one must later go off?

Anton Chekhov gave the advice in several letters to young playwrights. His own play The Cherry Orchard breaks it, with two loaded guns that are never fired.

Which nickname for a doomed minor character comes from the uniforms of Star Trek's security officers?

Redshirt security guards kept dying on landing parties beside the heroes in the 1960s series. The comedy spin-off Lower Decks has junior officers adopt the nickname for their club.

Which prime-time soap erased a whole season by revealing Bobby Ewing alive in the shower?

Dallas explained Patrick Duffy's return by making all of season nine a dream of Pam's. Spin-off Knots Landing ignored the twist, and Bobby was never mentioned there again.

Fans of which 1990s sci-fi series called themselves 'relationshippers', giving fandom the verb 'to ship'?

The X-Files fans who wanted Mulder and Scully to become a couple took the name around 1995. It shrank to 'shipper', and the verb followed within a few years.

Which measure, born in a 1985 comic strip, asks if two women in a story discuss anything but a man?

Bechdel test rules first appeared in Alison Bechdel's strip Dykes to Watch Out For. She credits the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and prefers the name Bechdel–Wallace test.

Which Star Trek character's bearded double in 'Mirror, Mirror' made the goatee shorthand for an evil twin?

Spock's mirror self is more ruthlessly logical than the original but far from evil. Even so, a goatee on a familiar face now reads as an instant clue to a wicked double.

Which film director narrates Arrested Development and later appears in it as a version of himself?

Ron Howard recorded the voice-over for the first episode, and it suited the tone so well that he stayed. He was also an executive producer and had the original idea for the series.

Which 1993 Bill Murray comedy made its title a byword for being trapped in a time loop?

Groundhog Day never explains why weatherman Phil is stuck. Writer Danny Rubin felt that leaving out the cause made his plight easier to relate to.

Which term, coined on The Outer Limits, describes a cheap TV instalment using few actors and existing sets?

Bottle episode comes from producer Leslie Stevens, who pictured pulling a show out of a bottle like a genie. Friends liked one so much that it then made at least one every season.

Which kind of episode, stitched from excerpts of earlier ones, did The Simpsons spoof with host Troy McClure?

Clip shows are also known as cheaters in animation. The trick dates back to 1936, when a weather-delayed Republic film serial padded itself out with two recap chapters.

Which term names a scene shown before the title sequence, as Saturday Night Live has done since 1975?

Cold opens were rare on American TV in the early 1960s, and half-hour sitcoms almost never used them before 1965. In horror films the pre-credit scene often claims the first victim.

Which advertising phrase flagged a sitcom tackling a serious social issue, as Diff'rent Strokes did in the 1980s?

Very special episode promos peaked in the 1980s, but the format emerged in the 1970s with Norman Lear's socially conscious sitcoms and often opened with a viewer discretion warning.

Which term describes episodes of an existing show that launch a new one, as JAG did for NCIS?

Backdoor pilot episodes 'Ice Queen' and 'Meltdown' introduced Gibbs, DiNozzo, Abby and Ducky on JAG in 2003. NCIS later used the same trick to launch its Los Angeles and New Orleans spin-offs.

Which word is often traced to silent serials such as 1914's The Perils of Pauline?

Cliffhanger may owe its name to episodes shot around the New Jersey Palisades. Despite the popular image, Pauline was never tied to the rails in the serial.

Which 1980s hospital drama ended by implying that all its events were imagined by a boy holding a snow globe?

St. Elsewhere closed on autistic Tommy Westphall and a snow globe holding a model of the hospital. Its characters crossed into other shows, so fans argue much of television lives in his head.

Which mystery drama's third-season finale revealed that its apparent flashbacks were really flash-forwards?

Lost hid a clue to the twist in plain sight: the funeral parlour Jack visits is called Hoffs/Drawlar, an anagram of 'flashforward'.

Which sitcom added young Cousin Oliver for its last six episodes, a ratings ploy later named after him?

The Brady Bunch brought in eight-year-old Oliver because its own kids were all twelve or older by then. 'Cousin Oliver syndrome' now describes any fading sitcom that adds a cute child.

Which TV series was the original focus of the TV Tropes wiki, founded in 2004 by 'Fast Eddie'?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was its first subject, but the wiki now catalogues tropes in films, games, fan fiction and even history. Its pseudonymous founder sold it in 2014.

Which 1960s sitcom replaced Dick York with Dick Sargent as husband Darrin after five seasons?

Bewitched had to recast because a 1959 film-set accident left Dick York with a severe back condition; he collapsed during filming in January 1969. Dick Sargent was cast that same month.

Which Bruce Willis detective series fed the belief that uniting the romantic leads ruins a show?

Moonlighting's ratings slide is popularly blamed on Maddie and David finally getting together in season three. The leads then spent most of season four apart, which hurt it further.

Frasier Crane was meant to last only a few episodes on which sitcom before earning a spin-off?

Cheers producers first offered the part to John Lithgow, who turned it down. Kelsey Grammer then impressed them so much that a brief guest role became a regular one.

What do characters break when they address the audience, a notion traced to an idea of Denis Diderot's?

The fourth wall was simply a huge wall across the stage when Diderot described it in 1758; critic Leigh Hunt gave it its number in 1807. Ferris Bueller breaks it all through his day off.

M*A*S*H's creators persuaded CBS to drop which sitcom staple from scenes set in the operating room?

The laugh track stayed out of surgery as a compromise, because Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds wanted none at all. On BBC2 in Britain the series ran with no canned laughter.

Which 1950s sitcom was the first scripted show filmed on 35 mm before a studio audience, using three cameras?

I Love Lucy hired cinematographer Karl Freund, who had shot Metropolis and Dracula, to make it work. Lucille Ball wanted a live crowd for the comic energy she had found on radio.

Which TV detective's cases show the murderer at the start, a format nicknamed the 'howcatchem'?

Columbo popularised the inverted detective story, where the puzzle is how a known killer gets caught. His wife is another running device: often described in detail, never once seen.

Which 1990s sitcom's makers worked under a rule that its characters would never hug or learn anything?

Seinfeld co-creator Larry David wrote George Costanza as his own alter ego. The rule kept upbeat endings rare, except when they came at somebody else's expense.

The no-lose 'Xanatos Gambit' is named after the scheming billionaire of which 1990s Disney cartoon?

Gargoyles villain David Xanatos plans so that a setback in one part still wins him another goal. He also never takes defeat personally and regards revenge as foolish.

Which name for an impossibly perfect character comes from Paula Smith's 1973 Star Trek fan-fiction parody?

Mary Sue was the heroine of 'A Trekkie's Tale', written to mock the idealised female characters who filled fan stories of the day. It ran in the fanzine Menagerie.

Which cartoon character lends her name to Katha Pollitt's 1991 principle about a lone female in a male cast?

Smurfette is the only woman among the Smurfs. Pollitt spotted the pattern while shopping for her daughter's Christmas toys and wrote it up in The New York Times.

Which stock character did critic Nathan Rabin name in 2007 after watching Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown?

Manic Pixie Dream Girl described a quirky woman who exists only to teach a brooding man to enjoy life. By 2014 Rabin felt the phrase had become a cliché itself and wanted it put to rest.

Which horror term did scholar Carol J. Clover coin for the last character left alive to confront the killer?

Final girl first appeared in Clover's 1987 essay on slasher films, later expanded in her book Men, Women, and Chain Saws. Laurie Strode of Halloween is a classic example.

Gail Simone coined 'women in refrigerators' after a 1994 issue of which DC superhero's comic?

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner came home to find a villain had killed his girlfriend and left her in the fridge. Simone's list of over 100 mistreated female characters stirred a debate about sexism in comics.

Which 1950 Akira Kurosawa film gave its name to stories that retell one event through clashing accounts?

Rashomon has four witnesses describe a murder in four contradictory ways. Kurosawa based it on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story 'In a Grove'.

Which stock sound effect, heard in Star Wars, is named after a soldier shot with an arrow in a 1953 Western?

Wilhelm scream takes were first recorded for the 1951 film Distant Drums. Sound designer Ben Burtt found the reel in a studio archive, named it and slipped it into Star Wars.

Which fake name did the Directors Guild of America give directors who wanted to disown a film?

Alan Smithee was created for the film Death of a Gunfighter, released in 1969, and largely retired in 2000. The tale that it is an anagram of 'the alias men' is a myth.

TV Tropes keeps praise-based tropes, such as heartwarming moments, in a subwiki named after which sweet ingredient?

Sugar Wiki is billed as the sweet side of the site. Its opposite number, for criticism, plays on 'the dark side' and takes its name from a famous Star Wars villain.

Which 1941 radio comedy, starring a character from Fibber McGee and Molly, was among the earliest spin-offs?

The Great Gildersleeve promoted supporting character Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve to the star of his own programme, which then ran for sixteen years.

Which company withdrew its ad service from TV Tropes in 2010 over pages about adult and mature tropes?

Google briefly pulled AdSense, so the wiki split its pages into those 'safe' and 'not safe' for the advertiser. On the site the episode is known as 'The Google Incident'.

TV Tropes coined a word for a character reduced to one exaggerated trait after which Simpsons regular?

Ned Flanders began as a friendly, good-hearted Christian neighbour and was caricatured over the years into a dogmatic zealot. Some critics argue Lisa Simpson has changed even more.

Robert Redford's 1994 film Quiz Show dramatises the rigging of which 1950s game show?

Twenty-One coached professor Charles Van Doren to beat champion Herb Stempel, who was told to miss a question about one of his favourite films. The scandal nearly killed the whole genre.

Which quiz show created by Merv Griffin makes contestants phrase every response as a question?

Jeopardy is relaxed about the rule in its first round, where the host only gives a reminder. From the second round on, a response that isn't phrased as a question is ruled wrong.

Which game show host gives his name to the three-doors probability puzzle based on Let's Make a Deal?

Monty Hall understood the puzzle well: he once demonstrated it to a reporter with car keys, then explained how play on his real show differed from the rules of the brain teaser.

On which 1980s game show could landing on a cartoon Whammy wipe out all of a contestant's winnings?

Press Your Luck was famously beaten in 1984 by contestant Michael Larson, who memorised the pattern of the game board and won over $100,000.

Which Atari game hid programmer Warren Robinett's name in a secret room, an early video game Easter egg?

Adventure got its hidden room because Atari refused to credit its programmers in public. Players only found it after the game had shipped and Robinett had left the company.

Which game company's famous cheat code first appeared in Gradius and gave Contra players 30 lives?

Konami developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto created the code while porting the arcade game Gradius to the NES. It has since been tucked into many games, including some from other companies.

Which 1947 sitcom, the first on an American network, was also first to show a couple sharing a bed?

Mary Kay and Johnny starred a real married couple, the Stearnses. When Mary Kay became pregnant in 1948 and could not hide it, the producers wrote that into the show as well.

Which Roman poet's Ars Poetica gave critics the phrase 'in medias res' for a story that opens mid-action?

Horace paired the phrase with 'ab ovo', meaning from the egg, for a tale told right from the start. His ideal epic poet plunges straight into the middle of things.

Which Greek tragedian leaned on the deus ex machina so often that Aristophanes mocked him for it on stage?

Euripides ends about half of his surviving tragedies that way; in Medea a dragon-drawn chariot carries the heroine to safety. Aristotle argued an ending should arise from the plot itself.