Continuity Cavalcade

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    A single shot, scene, line or panel full of Continuity Nods. Superhero Trophy Shelf's Super-Trope.

    Sometimes shows up as an extreme form of Back for the Finale, where everybody in the show comes back for the Series Finale.

    When a work is made primarily of these, or is driven by continuity concerns, it's known as Continuity Porn.

    Compare to Reference Overdosed, which consists of an abundance of references to something outside the show's universe.

    Examples of Continuity Cavalcade include:

    Anime and Manga

    • In episode 25 of Best Student Council, every one-shot character from the previous episodes shows up to act as a distraction when the Student Council storms the Jinguuji Conglomerate.
    • The second OVA of Fairy Tail has snippets of the series in a High School AU setting.
    • Naruto features Kabuto resurrecting nearly every deceased character in the series, along with nearly every living character fighting in the Shinobi War.
    • In the Crayon Shin-chan episodes based on Star Wars, the Cantina scene has appearances of many characters from the Big Damn Movies, woh otherwise never appear on the series proper.
    • Persona 4: The Animation, like the Video Game example below, has a scene in episode 15 filled with callbacks to Persona 3.
    • In Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Leaping Through Time, all of the previous leaders return to help in the last two episodes.
    • Tendo Family Christmas Scramble, the second episode of the Ranma ½ OVA series, includes a shot of all the guests at the Tendo family Christmas party, which includes just about every one-shot character from both the anime and manga.

    Comic Books

    • The cover of JLA-Avengers #3 shows everyone who had ever been an Avenger or JLAer to that point, even if they're not otherwise involved in that particular Intercontinuity Crossover.
      • Although the plot was as such that every one of them was technically involved in the conflicts of issues 3 and 4. Especially 4, which is filled with these - it's George Perez drawing a battle that literally involves every Avenger, every Leaguer, and possibly every supervillain ever culled from the timestream.
    • The cover for issue #24 of the ongoing Batgirl series, the final issue before the DC relaunch in September 2011, contains every single character to ever appear in the series. This includes villains, allies, civilians and even people who only appeared in individual issues.
    • The comic for Buffy the Vampire Slayer restarted with issue #51. The storyline Note From The Underground, running from #47 to #50, brought nearly everyone Back for the Finale. Angel and Faith played major parts and the rest of Angel Investigations got cameos. There were references to Riley Finn, Spike and Maggie Walsh, and a splash page of former foes included the Mayor, the Master, former Slayer Yuki, the Gentlemen and Glory. A vampire from the first issue of the comic was literally brought back from the dead to fight Buffy again, which was acknowledged in-universe but not explained. Kendra and the First Slayer appear as part of a vision sequence also featuring the historical Slayers from Tales of the Slayers, and there's a flashback recap of the TV show. There's even the return of Pike as a major character, and the Big Bad leading the Scourge turns out to be Adam.
    • In the Fear Itself tie-in, The Deep, Doctor Strange summons a two-page spread of "Defenders, Secret Defenders, even those who were only Defenders-for-a-Day" to stop Attuma from crushing Namor and his allies.

    Film

    Literature

    • Every book in the series Ricky Ricottas Mighty Robot ends with the villain getting thrown in jail next to the villains from the previous books.
    • In Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, just about every single surviving character from previous books comes back and does something. Exceptions are Charlie Weasley and Gabrielle Delacour, who both come back and do nothing.
      • Charlie Weasley did fight in the final battle. That's something.
    • The High King, the final book of the Prydain Chronicles, is similar to the Harry Potter example above. Almost every character that's appeared in the series comes back, a few characters that have only been spoken of up to that point actually appear, and almost every dead character is referenced in some way. As with Deathly Hallows, everyone that comes back does something, except for Glew, who comes back and does nothing.

    Live Action TV

    • The ending of the Scrubs episode "My Finale" has JD walking down a hallway full of pretty much every character who appeared in more than one episode, and a few that only appeared in one. Yes, even the dead ones.
    • The end of the 1985 TV-movie version of Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass had all the characters from both parts showing up at the castle when Alice became a queen. Later, when she was back home, they all serenaded her from the mirror.
    • In the first mid-season finale of Glee, the kids do a performance for Mr. Schue after winning Sectionals - with all the choreography being a mashup of previous numbers.
    • In the first episode of the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where a shape-shifting villain takes, in quick succession, the form of every Big Bad from the past six seasons (barring Angelus and Willow in favor of Drusilla and Warren), and finally, that of Buffy herself.
    • The final episode of the sixth season of How I Met Your Mother is an example of this, with references throughout to a variety of gags, such as Lily's body-pillow of Marshall and the return of the driver, Ranjit.
    • Doctor Who:
      • When the Fifth Doctor was dying at the end of "The Caves of Androzani", he hallucinated all his companions (of that incarnation) gathering around encouraging him to regenerate. (And the Master encouraging him to give up and die.)
        • And in his first episode, newly regenerated, he ran through the personalities of the First, Second and Third Doctors before settling on his own.[1] He even finds Two's recorder.
        • When he's being mindscanned in Resurrection of the Daleks, decreasingly distinct pictures of all his companions (in all his incarnations) appeared on the screen, running in backwards order.
      • A Ganger duplicate of the Eleventh Doctor goes through impressions of the First, Third, Fourth and Tenth Doctors before catching up in "The Almost People".
      • The bar scene in Russell T. Davies' last episode as producer, head writer and writer The End of Time Part Two, contains eight alien species from the show's history (two of whom are Human Aliens), four of whom have only made one full appearance. And the song playing is the one the Chorus Girls performed in "Daleks in Manhattan."
      • In the Tenth Doctor episode "School Reunion", the Doctor and Rose meet former companion Sarah Jane Smith. Rose and Sarah Jane, each trying to prove herself to the other, take turns naming the strangest things they've seen during their travels. The two manage to reference over a dozen storylines in about half a minute.
      • A few new series episodes have gone out of the way to reference the previous Doctors. They all appear as sketches in a notebook, projections from an alien data-storage device, a vision through a psychic headbutt and as holograms shown when the Eleventh Doctor explains that Earth is under his protection.
      • The Series 4 finale "Journey's End" features every companion who's been on the show since the start of the reboot bar Adam and Astrid, plus a few other recurring characters for flavor.
    • The final episode of Seinfeld had a lot of minor characters on the show coming back to testify against the main four.
      • And the season four finale featuring the culmination of the year-long story arc about the Show Within a Show featured various characters from the season watching the pilot.
    • Every episode of Police Squad! ended with Frank listing all the other arrestees that that episode's culprit would be joining in prison, although this never got to very high levels as the show only had six episodes.
    • The Movie A to Z for Kamen Rider Double shows all the people that W has helped crowded together at the base of Fuuto Tower. Their belief in W seems to be what helps unlock CycloneJokerGoldXtreme.
    • The spinoff of Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures shows and mentions many of Sarah Jane and Jo's prior adventures with the Doctor in the episode Death of the Doctor. The ending alludes to the status of many previous Doctor Who companions.
    • In season 6 premiere of Desperate Housewives there's a shot from Paul Young's earlier life filled with this. It's then taken Up to Eleven in a brief scene of a garden party, where practically everyone from season 1 is present despite of some of them not being seen in the series in six years. This means they hired several actors years past to sit in a garden chair for three seconds.
      • Shows up again in the series finale—the very last scene shows the ghosts of many of the major and supporting characters who have died over the course of the show, watching as Susan moves away from Wisteria Lane.
    • In the opening scene of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger all 34 previous Super Sentai teams are shown (minus some Sixth Rangers) creating a Badass Army.
    • In Stargate SG-1, one episode required every Stargate in the galaxy to be linked together. A dozen Stargates from various worlds that SG-1 had visited in the past, including Earth's main Stargate and the original Alpha Site were then shown opening.
    • One scene in the House finale featured several familiar faces from the past. The episode as a whole saw the return of every former team member plus Stacy. That's every significant character who appeared in a double digit number of episodes (plus Dominika, who appeared in 6), except Cuddy. They just couldn't get Lisa Edelstein.

    Tabletop Games

    • Magic: The Gathering's Time Spiral expansion. Nearly every card in the set contains a reference to one or more famous (or not-so-famous) older cards. Its sequel Planar Chaos could also count, though it instead focuses on Alternate Universe versions of things. Note that both sets are themselves named after cards from earlier sets.

    Video Games

    • The final battle of Dragon Age includes this; several of the characters you met earlier in the game will show up to help you kick the Archdemon's ass, in addition to the many unnamed Red Shirt members of your army.
    • Roger's quarters on the SCS DeepShip 86 in Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier features mementos from all his past adventures, including the Xenon Army Knife from SQ 1, the Labion Terror Beast Mating Whistle from SQ 2, and the SQ 4 Hintbook.
    • Persona 4 has the characters go on a trip to Tatsumi Port Island, including a jaunt to Gekkoukan High School.
    • Mass Effect dove head-first in this direction, judging by all the effects of importing your Old Save Bonus from the first game into the second, which then pass into the third. From major decisions affecting the overall plot, to receiving emails from one-off characters who were previously Quest Givers, you have a very good reason to continue a given version of Commander Shepard in his/her quest to save the galaxy.
      • Unfortunately, bugs or designer oversight do tend to show up in these situations. In Mass Effect 2, regardless of how you handled him in Mass Effect, Conrad Verner will claim that you shoved a gun in his face. Other than that and a few other examples the writers have been very diligent about transferring your decisions from the first game to the second and third.
        • However, some bugs in the first two games have since been addressed in Mass Effect 3. If in the original Mass Effect you did not threaten him with said gun, he will apologize about making the claim that you did.
      • Possibly the single best instance is just before the final battle sequence in Mass Effect 3, where you can call up all of your former party members and chat with them about their role in the upcoming fight.
    • Rance Quest belongs to the 23 year-old Rance franchise and it shows. One character with a sex scene hasn't appeared since the first Rance game!

    Web Comics

    Web Original

    • Burnie Burns describes the finale of Red vs. Blue: Revelation as a scene where the protagonists "win by saying Red vs. Blue quotes to each other."

    Western Animation

    • Futurama:
      • The Robot Devil's wheel with the name of every robot ever seen on the show in the episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings".
      • During Fry's funeral in "The Sting", every character who had ever been romantically involved with him during the show appeared in one shot.[2] Including an inanimate radiator.
      • And let's not forget the scene from "Into The Wild Green Yonder".
      • In "The Late Philip J. Fry", when Fry, the Professor and Bender jump through to the birth of a new universe, they quickly go through several Futurama events, including the two destructions of New York seen in "Space Pilot 3000".
    • The Simpsons:
      • One episode has a scene at a funeral open with a panning shot of the Springfield Cemetery with the gravestones of several characters who died in previous episodes (including Beatrice Simmons, whose name is followed with "(GRANDPA'S GIRLFRIEND)").
      • In The Simpsons Movie there's a shot of the townsfolk coming after the Simpsons with torches, which includes (pretty much) every character that has ever appeared on the show.
        • This applies for all crowd shots in the movie. In the show, nameless, random people fill the crowds with random recurring characters sprinkled here and there. In the movie, as a bit of Pandering to the Base, there are no nameless, random people in the crowds. They all consist of characters who have appeared on the show at least once.
      • "Homer's Enemy" - Frank Grimes marvels at Homer's wall covered with pictures of Homer being in space ("Deep Space Homer"), touring with the Smashing Pumpkins ("Homerpalooza") and having a beer with Gerald Ford (the ending of "Two Bad Neighbors"). Homer also mentions that he won a Grammy ("Homer's Barbershop Quartet").
      • "You Kent Always Get What You Want" - The Wall of Casual Acquaintances Who Came To Stay For a While ("Apu sang a song, what're you gonna do?")
      • "Papa's Got a Brand New Badge" - Homer lists all the jobs he's ever had up to that point. Marge, meanwhile, has a Long Speech Tea Time.
      • Any time the attic or the closet is shown, various items from past episodes are seen stored there. You might see a Pin Pals jacket from "Team Homer", or a painting of Ringo Starr from "Brush with Greatness". The Olmec head from "Blood Feud" can be consistently seen in the basement.
        • "Team Homer" had a bowling team called "The Homewreckers," comprised of four people from past episodes who had caused trouble in Homer and Marge's marriage.
      • In "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind", in a sequence that pays homage to the YouTube video "Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years", there are scenes that reference episodes that deal with Homer's past in some way (such as "Mother Simpson" and "The Way We Was"), and towards the end we get a montage of Homer wearing various costumes he had worn throughout the show's history.
      • The Couch Gag at the beginning of the 500th episode was a rapid-fire montage of every other Couch Gag in the history of the series.
    • The episode "The Ember Island Players" from Avatar: The Last Airbender is basically one huge continuity nod, with a good dash of parody thrown in for good measure. As the last episode before the four-part finale, it served to recap the entire series up to that point.
      • An even better example would be the shots of the crowds cheering at Zuko's coronation; you'll see a smorgasboard of minor characters throughout the show
    • The end episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has a goodbye card for Mac, which is signed by just about every imaginary friend to have appeared on the show. Of course, the inside of the card is only visible for a few seconds, so it's something of a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
    • The 200th South Park episode, "200", as well as featuring a plot that was basically just a pastiche of a few previous episodes to feature the biggest continuity gag ever, features 200 celebrities the people of South Park have parodied (including some who had not previously been shown like Tim Burton), with an epic redux of Mecha-Streisand.
    • Much of the scavenger hunt sequence of the Codename: Kids Next Door finale was loaded with references to previous episodes.
    • All the guests attending the wedding in the Duckman episode "Four Weddings Inconceivable".
    • Phineas and Ferb's "Rollercoaster: The Musical" episode in its entirety, especially the last song, "Carpe Diem".
    • The Penguins of Madagascar: Several episodes were concluded with the Monster of the Week being sent to Hoboken, so when the penguins end up there in "The Hoboken Surprise", they run into all their previous enemies (and Lulu, who was shipped there for different reasons).

    Skipper: What in the name of returning guest characters? It's villain-mageddon!

    Real Life

    • On historical anniversaries, civic groups sometimes organize gatherings of all surviving holders of a particular office, many of whom may have not been seen in a public forum for many many years. For example, see this 2009 photo-op [dead link] featuring all the surviving governors of Alaska.
      • It has recently become standard for the new President of the US to get a photo taken with all the living former presidents.
    • Other times, people do big group photos of related individuals simply because it's cool. The most notable is probably A Great Day in Harlem, a 1958 image of 57 of the greatest Jazz musicians alive at the time.
    • At some sports Halls of Fame, they will introduce all the living Hall of Famers who made the trip. The most notable of these is the Baseball Hall of Fame, since they usually get the most people to show up, including some in poor health and others who rarely make public appearances.
    1. ↑ A testament to Peter Davison's acting abilities.
    2. ↑ except for Amy who was sitting in the front row along with Fry's other friends
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