Osaka and Tomo are keenly aware of high school's most pressing issues.
A relevant reference to an event taking place earlier than the timeline of the present story. One type of call back is a Running Gag. This is often used to remind viewers that there is an ongoing storyline. More or less a Shout-Out to itself — but if that's all that it's doing, then it's a Continuity Nod; a Call-Back brings back an element that is actually relevant again.
Compare:
- Continuity Nod: "Remember When You Blew Up a Sun? You should have no problem taking down a few mooks!" (The earlier event is referenced, but the story could continue without it.)
- Call-Back: "Remember When You Blew Up a Sun? The only way to take out these mooks is by doing that again!" (The earlier event happening again is plot-relevant.)
- Call-Forward: "These mooks are overwhelming us! Too bad we can't, like, blow up a sun or something!" (It's mentioned, but has yet to happen.)
- Mythology Gag: "These mooks are overwhelming us! I wish we lived in an alternate universe where we had a sun destroyer on our side and could wipe the floor with them." (The reference is to an event that happens in a different continuity, and which may or may not happen in this one.)
Alternately, in comedy: Tying the loose ends of a later, seemingly unrelated, joke to one earlier in the show; better known as a Brick Joke.
Sometimes a Call-Back will take up so much of a chapter or episode that it becomes a Sequel Episode to the earlier story it's referencing.
The opposite of this is either Foreshadowing (a forward reference done in a previous episode) or Call-Forward (a "fake" forward reference in a flashback or prequel). If a creator is referencing their previous work in a way that's separate from the plot, that's Production Throwback. See also Chekhov's Gun, Chekhov's Boomerang, Brick Joke, Bookends, Mythology Gag, Sequel Episode, Internal Homage, and Meaningful Echo.
Works with their own pages
- Anime & Manga
- Comedy
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Animation
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Other examples:
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Advertising
- Never Say No to Panda: The ad with the father and son in the grocery store has a sequel. They're back in the supermarket again, the son asks about Panda Cheese again, the Panda appears again... and the dad, knowing how this is going to end, gets the cheese, then gets more when the Panda continues to stare. In the end the two are spared the wrath of the Panda.
- To promote the Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo of America had Paul Rudd recreate a Super Nintendo Entertainment System commercial that he starred in thirty years prior. The extended version
of the commercial also has Rudd explain the reference, pointing out that he's even wearing the same clothes (with Nintendo reuploading the original 1991 commercial on the same day for good measure).
- When Retro-Bit rereleased the 1990 video game Gaiares in 2022, they hired Jamie Bunker, the "professional gamer" featured in the original ads, to recreate it.
- In 2004, Starbucks ran an ad for their Double Shot Espresso featuring Survivor following around a young office worker named Glenn as he attempts to seize the day with the energy boost from the drink in question, hyping him up with a version of their song "Eye of the Tiger". At the very end of the commercial they're instead singing to another worker named "Roy". 21 years later, Glenn has become supervisor, just as he'd hoped (and coincidentally, Survivor is once again singing to a "Roy", though if it's the same character he's clearly undergone a Race Lift and also hasn't aged much.)
Asian Animation
- In Bread Barbershop's "Bread and Baguette, Part 2", Choco and Wilk bring Big Head Cupcake from the first episode to Bread, Big Head Cupcake being clearly happy that Bread gave him a makeover and having married and had a kid since then, all in a bid to give Bread back his courage so that he'll fight back against Baguette. Choco holds up a tablet and shows Bread how much he's impacted his other customers, all of which are from previous episodes; the donut hole kid from "Munchkin Donut" wants to be a barber, Butter from "Butter Fingers" won a Best Actor Award at the Bakery Film Festival, the thug pie from "Bully Pie" is imprisoned but thinks of himself as the prettiest of the inmates, and Soboro Ppang and his crush from "Soboro Ppang's Crush" are planning to get married soon.
- Happy Friends: Season 8 Episode 7 directly references, and has its plot set up by, Season 7 episode 50 where Kalo sacrifices himself to save Planet Xing from invaders. In the Season 8 episode, Happy S. discovers a notebook where Careful S. has written a story where he's the one who sacrificed himself instead of Kalo, who is experiencing similar distressed side-effects to what the actual Careful S. is feeling as a result.
- Lamput: Several quick clips from earlier episodesSpecifically... showing the docs catching Lamput play in quick succession at the beginning of "Fracture". All the times they caught him ultimately culminated in him fracturing a bone in his skeleton.
Comic Strips
- Done a couple times in FoxTrot. In one arc, Jason writes a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! with his mother Andy cast as the Grinch. Who-Jason roots through her purse and finds it's full of Titanic ticket stubs, calling back to an arc where Andy became obsessed with the movie and watched it several dozen times.
- Even Garfield, one of the most stagnant and continuity-free strips in newspapers, has gotten in on the act a few times. In a strip from February 2017, Garfield thinks back on a time when he couldn't sleep: November 8, 1992. Sure enough, in the November 8, 1992 strip, Garfield can't get any sleep because of "night noises" keeping him awake.
- One series from the late '90s in Peanuts had Rerun patting birds on the head, much to the resentment of Lucy, who mentions that her brother, Linus, did the same thing back in the 60s in a similar arc.
- One 2006 Retail Sunday strip had Cooper wearing a "Goofy Grumbel" costume. 10 years later, the chain decided to revive the mascot and sent a new costume to the store. In both strips, Cooper volunteers to wear it because it means he doesn't have to deal with customers all day.
Podcasts
- Mom Can't Cook!: While lots of Canon Welding goes on that naturally involves callbacks, there are also other examples:
- At the start of the episode on A Ring of Endless Light, Andy declares that he's Luke, and then scoffs at the audience for being "idiots" for actually believing him, referencing the previous episode's Running Gag of copying Jamie's habit of lying to the audience and then scoffing at them.
- Andy states that Kelly's dad from Cadet Kelly has a "Cosmo Cola energy", then notes that Cosmo at least has the excuse of being an alien.
- In Relative Disasters the fraudulent guidebook that dooms the Donner Party is compared to the book that Gregor Mac Gregor published as part of the Poyais scheme.
- In Were You Raised by Wolves? after Leah recounts the story of finding a severed foot in someone's basement, a "severed foot in the basement" becomes the resident term for "something you found that you need to tell someone to avoid further etiquette crimes."
Pro Wrestling
- Melina Perez faced Michelle McCool at Night of Champions 2009 and Michelle dropkicked her off the apron while she was doing the splits as part of her entrance. They faced each other again at the next Night of Champions event and Michelle tried to do the same thing again. This time however, Melina was ready for her and lifted herself out of the way.
- When Trish Stratus guest hosted Raw she was involved in an awkward backstage segment with Chris Jericho where he mentioned their history together and led to Stratus having a return match against him that night.
- A similar segment happened with Lita and Kane at the Raw 15th Anniversary where they had an awkward conversation backstage (before Ron Simmons came in to say "Damn!"). They had been in a lengthy storyline where Kane had pulled a Scarpia Ultimatum, with Lita agreeing to "sleep" with Kane in exchange for Kane not beating up Matt Hardy, who was her boyfriend both on and off-screen at the time, leading to a terrible "pregnancy" angle.
- In Vickie Guerrero's match at WrestleMania 26 she went to the top rope and performed a Frog Splash as a tribute to her late husband Eddie Guerrero (she had been introduced on WWE TV during Eddie's feud with Rey Mysterio) and danced like he used to in his victory poses.
- Santino Marella started a romance angle with WWE diva Tamina Snuka which was quite similar to his pairing with Beth Phoenix. On a Christmas Episode of SmackDown, Santino cornered Beth under the mistletoe and suggested they kiss for old time's sake. She kissed his tag team partner Vladimir Kozlov instead.
- The basis for Matt Hardy's heel turn after he was drafted to Raw in 2003 was him turning on Lita whom he had been in a relationship with about a year ago before her neck injury.
- Sting's retirement match at AEW Revolution 2024, a tag team championship defense with Darby Allin against The Young Bucks, was filled with call-backs to his NWA and WCW days.
- First, it was held at the Greensboro Coliseum in the eponymous North Carolina city–the same venue where Sting challenged Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at the first Clash of the Champions in 1988. The match, which ended in a time-limit draw, is generally considered to have elevated Sting to superstardom.
- Sting came out to Metallica's "Seek & Destroy", a song he had previously used as entrance music in the final years of WCW. It was also the entrance music he and Allin used at the 2023 All In show in London.
- Flair accompanied him to the match.
- Sting's real-life sons were physically involved, each dressed as one of their father's WCW ring personas. Garrett Borden portrayed Sting's original WCW "surfer" gimmick, and Steve Borden Jr. was dressed in Sting's nWo Wolfpac attire. On top of that, Garrett wore the red, white, and blue gear his father wore when he defeated Flair for his first world title in 1990.
Radio
- The Navy Lark:
- Lieutenant Murray promised Goldstein a promotion to Leading Seaman in "Onabushkan Flu" so the Welsh layabout would be motivated to help the rest of the crew escape from their Onabushkan prison. This set up the events of "Commodore Goldstein", wherein, after weeks of complaining, Goldstein finally went up for promotion, but due to an error, ended up as a Commodore for a short while.
- "Returning from Leave" takes place on the first anniversary of Portarneyland gaining home rule back in "Return to Portarneyland", and so HMS Troutbridge is tasked with once again transporting Sir Willoughby and Lady Todhunter-Brown, this time to a special event celebrating the Republic's independence.
- After the Troutbridge crew meet Ramona Povey's old flame, Captain Franklyn "Snogger" Pettigreaves in "Mr Phillips Has Navigation Tuition", they decide to invite him back to Portsmouth to help Captain Povey deal with his difficult sister-in-law, Valentina, in "Relatives and Reservations".
- At the end of "The Civilian Adjustment Course", Rear Admiral Ironbridge has Sub-Lieutenant Phillips promoted to Lieutenant for being completely unaffected by the course's climate-based tests. The following episode, "A Hole Lieutenant", keeps this development and plays it for laughs as Mr. Phillips finds himself being mistakenly promoted again and again and again.
- In "Falmouth Ghost Ship", Troutbridge keeps accidentally radioing the Empress of Portarneyland liner. The ocean liner returned in "Back to Portsmouth", transferring Field Martial Sir Mortimer Bullingham-Trench and his wife over to the destroyer Makepeace.
- The election in "The Portarneyland Election" is mentioned to be Portarneyland's first election since gaining independence, which had occurred all the way back in "Return to Portarneyland".
- Nunkie and CPO Pertwee's latest smuggling scheme in "The Newhaven-Dieppe Smuggling Run" hinges on Lieutenant Peregrine Pertwee (who had appeared in the previous series' "The Slogan Contest") sending Troutbridge and Admiral Ffont-Bittocks' personal motor yacht to Dieppe.
Roleplay
- Frequently occurs in Destroy the Godmodder, usually to bring back a minor character, event, or plot point that turns out to be either very helpful or very, very, bad.
Tabletop Games
- Magic: The Gathering:
- When cards are reprinted, they sometimes receive new artwork, and this artwork may visually reference earlier artwork. For example, the original printing of Prey Upon shows a werewolf pouncing on a human, while the Eldritch Moon reprint shows a Dronepack werewolf pouncing on a regular werewolf.
- The 2003 Mirrodin set's reprint of Bottle Gnomes includes the flavor text, reused in most of the card's later reprints, "Reinforcements... or refreshments?" The 2021 Modern Horizons 2 includes a new card, Bottle Golems, with largely the same function as Bottle Gnomes and the flavor text "Reinforcements and refreshments!"
- When cards are reprinted, they sometimes receive new artwork, and this artwork may visually reference earlier artwork. For example, the original printing of Prey Upon
- New World of Darkness:
- One of the first pieces of fiction in the World of Darkness corebook is a sermon by Marco Singe, the Pain Prophet of New Delhi, and introduces the concept of "the God-Machine" to the gameline. Come Demon: The Descent, it's revealed that Singe's family runs a MegaCorp that has a special connection to the God-Machine, gaining proprietary knowledge of occult physics from its work.
- Geist: The Sin-Eaters has an "Fetter" Memento (a magic item made by binding a ghost to its own anchor) called the Thirty-Thirty. This is a rifle once owned by a man named Donnie Pritchard, who once tried to sacrifice several people to a ghost town he was convinced was haunted by the ghost of its past. (Pritchard's captives overpowered him and beat him to death with the rifle.) Donnie Pritchard was a character in the New World of Darkness book Ghost Stories, in the story "Dust to Dust", about a literal ghost town.
Theatre
- Roy Cohn's first line in Angels in America ("I wish I was an octopus, a fucking octopus") is referenced in his final line before dying.
- At one point in Come from Away, Titanic (1997) is mentioned as one of the films that is shown to the travelers stranded on the airplane, which is followed by one woman singing the chorus of "My Heart Will Go On" from that movie before being cut off. Later in the show, some of the stranded travelers in Gander are in a bar. They start singing karaoke, and a woman in the bar briefly repeats some of the same lyrics from "My Heart Will Go On".
- The Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone mentions at the very beginning that he is feeling "blue." At the end of the show, he is emotionally drained, and he mentions that it's not a perfect show, but it gives you a tune to hum "for when you're feeling blue."
- Early on in Hamilton, Hamilton speculates that dying must be like "a beat without a melody". In the song where he duels Burr (The World Was Wide Enough), he begins rapping after the shot with no orchestral or choral backup.
Visual Novels
- Happens a lot in the Ace Attorney: series, particularly Investigations and Spirit of Justice. One of the more serious ones is the dream Phoenix has during 2-4, which is exactly the same as the one he had at the beginning of 2-1, but it makes much more sense in the context of Phoenix having to defend an obviously guilty man to rescue Maya.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair utilizes a ton of these as part of its MO of taking the major plot points and themes from the first game and turning them on their head. One such Call-Back in particular is used to rather excruciating effect during Chiaki's execution, which occurs at the same point and under similar circumstances as Naegi's foiled execution in the first game, only this time the game throws numerous Hope Spots at the player before finally killing her off instead.
- The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty: At first, it would seem like the Dashing General Li is relevant only in Chapter 12, but his offer of letting Liang join the rebel army becomes much more relevant later in one of the true endings where Liang returns to him and joins the rebel army to overthrow the Swine Demon.
- In The Labyrinth of Grisaia Yuuji's friend Danny was really looking forward to meeting the presumably badass communications officer Immortal Robbie only to find out he was actually an Occidental Otaku who was actually being called Imouto Robbie because of his obsession with, well, imouto characters. In The Eden of Grisaia Yumiko heads to a small cafe hoping to meet a retired intelligence officer and figures she'll find some sleek professional badass, but nope! Robbie again. You can see her dreams dying.
- Frequently used between Narcissu and its prequel, Narcissu ~ side 2nd:
- Setsumi's last words from the original game are identical to the last thing Himeko said to Setsumi in Side 2nd.
- Atou's last question for Setsumi in the original note is echoed in Setsumi's narration towards the end of side 2nd.
- There are several phrases that reoccur in the narration of Side 2nd.
- Spirit Hunter: NG contains multiple references to its previous game, Spirit Hunter: Death Mark:
- The D-Man sidequest connects NG to Death Mark, and so has plenty of references to the latter; the OOParts magazine that starts off the quest has the Death Mark spirits on its cover, the D-Cards have the eponymous Death Mark imprinted on them, D-Man's acquaintances include Mr. K (aka Kazuo Yashiki, the Death Mark protagonist) and an ex-detective (Satoru Mashita, one of Yashiki's companions), and his final card says that he and the Death Mark crew are after the Hyakki Yagyo, a demon parade that served as the Sequel Hook in DM.
- In the Screaming Author case, Rosé reveals that she was hired by Yashiki to investigate the spirit, and she makes reference to his confrontation with Hanahiko in the first game. If the spirit is defeated with Ban as the companion, then he also confirms that he knows Yashiki, since he was the one who took care of the spirit that killed Ban's son.
