Flashback Cut

It didn't end well.

I get it. You went shopping. I don't need a montage.

—Liz Lemon, 30 Rock

Kind of a cross between a regular Flash Back and an Imagine Spot. What distinguishes it from a regular Flashback is that it is a quick cut to the past that only lasts a few seconds before snapping back to the present.

This is usually played for comedy. For example, Bob tells Sue that he has a lot of experience with women. Cut to Bob getting his face slapped by various women and then snap back to the present. It can also be used to show something humorous that happened in the past. What distinguishes it from an Imagine Spot is that it shows something that "really" happened.

Flashback Twists usually use this kind of flashback, though they don't necessarily have to.

Examples of Flashback Cut include:

Anime and Manga

• Non-comedic example in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: When Vita gets stabbed through her chest by a cloaked Gadget Drone, there's a quick Flashback to a more complete version of the Snow Means Death incident, which revealed that one of those things was what almost killed Nanoha.
  • There's also the famous scene in which Nanoha defeats Quattro:

Quattro: She's going to just blast through the walls? Oh dear Mother of God!
[cut to Nanoha doing just that in episode 1]
Nanoha: Blaster-3 ... Divine ... Buster!!!

• • Another flashback occurs just after Nanoha saves Vivio.

Film

• The picture above shows the trumpet playing alligator Louis from The Princess and the Frog, flashing back to when he first tried to play that trumpet for humans. The response that he got wasn't quite the applause he was expecting.
• One of the key signatures of the The Crow films are their use of this trope. Flashbacks to happier times must be accompanied with a "WHOOSH" sound effect and be presented in significantly richer and brighter colours than the rest of the film.
• Used for comedic effect in the Steve Carell movie version of Get Smart.
• Spy Hard: Agent Dick Steele is testing a golf club until his old buddy shows up. "We go back a long way, huh?" (Cuts to a flashback just happened few seconds ago.)

Live-Action TV

• Used multiple times in nearly every episode of 30 Rock.
  • So much so, that in the Live Episode, Julia Louis-Dreyfus played Liz Lemon in flashbacks, while Tina Fey continued to play the role in the main narrative.
  • They averted the trope when Liz mentioned she couldn't believe they had been doing TGS for three years to Jack. The both looked off like they were reminiscing but the clip never played.
• One of the main comedy tropes used in Leverage.

"I once saw a horse kill a clown"

• A non-comedy example ends the Lost episode "Dave". After an episode of regular flashbacks to Hurley's hospitalization, a quick flashback shows that Libby was at Santa Rosa as well.
• How I Met Your Mother loves these.^[context?]

Web Comics

• In El Goonish Shive, Elliot has a one panel flashback to Sensei Greg telling him to always listen to random intuition.

"Once again, a flashback shows me the way. "

• In Impure Blood, the waking Roan has a one-panel flashback of Dara's getting his promise.
• In Blue Yonder Lena grabs his arm, and Jared has a one panel flashback to his now-disappeared sister doing it, too.

Web Original

• A literally painful (yet perfectly comedically timed one) happens in this Let's Play of Megaman Legends 2. It's probably even more amusing if you didn't see what happened the first time.
• Played for Laughs in the Touhou Flashes on Walfas, where the flashbacks are used as backstory for the rivalry between Kaguya and Mokou; said flashbacks often consist of the two fighting over ownership of a toy trucks twuck. Reimu lampshades it in one Flash in which a flashback occurs in her burger stand and she kicks out the two for violating the store's "no flashbacks" rule.

Western Animation

• Also used (and, some would say, overused) in Family Guy.
  • This is played with in an episode in Season 2, when Peter flashes back to something that happened ten minutes ago. Ten minutes ago in their time. We saw it happen closer to one minute ago.
  • This was also played with in a later episode when Stewie is sucked into a portal in his closet by a malevolent poltergeist, and says something that appears to be setting up a flashback, but is interrupted as he enters the portal, and the flashback doesn't happen.
  • And again when Stewie said something expecting a flashback to happen, but they didn't have a clip to show.* Tucker's brief flashback in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Prom" shows why he wants to sabotage the prom.

"Do you wanna go to the prom with me?"
"No."

• In The Critic, Alice asks Jay when was the last time he was dressed by a woman, citing his wardrobe as the source of his unpopularity. We see Jay as a child, being dressed in a little Lord Fauntleroy outfit by his mother for summer camp, only to get on the bus for Attica Prison. "In ever boy's life, there's a summer of '76."
• In the The Legend of Korra episode "The Voice in the Night" this is Played for Drama: After Avatar Korra is knocked out, she's briefly Dreaming of Times Gone By, with split-second scenes of her previous incarnation Aang, and his friends Sokka, and Toph as middle-aged adults.
  • Happens again the episodes "And the Winner Is..." and "When Extremes Meet".