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?
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.