TV tropes like reluctant heroes and evil villains are timeless. Other tropes, however, are the opposite. A product of their time, some troops have aged poorly into modern society.
Some TV tropes are timeless, like reluctant heroes and evil villains. However, others have an expiration date, and once it passes, they become severely spoiled. As society evolves and shifts perspectives, certain tropes from the not-so-distant past become, at best, annoying and, at worst, abhorrent and offensive. Below are 24 TV tropes we’ve seen many times, but they’ve aged like milk.
1. Airport Professions of Love
In the 90s, people would run through airports and stop the love of their life just seconds before they were going to board a plane. This is impossible now, as it takes an hour to get through TSA, and you need a ticket, so this TV trope is dead and gone.
2. Simple Miscommunications
Many older shows relied on simple miscommunications between characters to drive the plot and create storylines. But now, we have phones and can reach people at any second, so many of these miscommunications seem implausible today. Shows that still use this unbelievable trope are often frustrating and uncreative.
3. Clip Shows
Clip shows were exciting when we all lived and died by what was on cable. It allowed people to rewatch some of their favorite moments again and gave writers a break. But since everything is on-demand now, clip shows just seem lazy and pointless.
4. Slapping People Sober
When someone is freaking out, whether it’s a panic attack or drunken monologue, slapping them in the face is not the cure. Many movies feature this annoying trope, and it’s even worse when it’s a man slapping a woman for comedic effect.
5. Very Special Episodes
Looking back, very special episodes were extremely jarring. They occurred on typically lighthearted and funny shows, so having one episode about something heavy, like drug addictions, teen pregnancy, or gun violence, was rather strange. And then the next episode would be happy-go-lucky again.
6. Amnesia Storylines
First of all, amnesia is not nearly as common as 90s TV writers would have you believe. But even in cases of genuine amnesia, the patient isn’t just up and about, walking around like everything is fine. I want this to sink in: amnesia is a serious brain injury, not a plot device.
7. Innocent Peeping Toms
In older TV shows, boys often watched women or girls undress from the supposed safety of their bedroom. The shows would play it off as “boys being boys” or some creepy rite of passage. In reality, it’s disgusting and disturbing and should never be normalized or trivialized.
8. Game Show Hosts Kissing Women
Can game shows use tropes? Well, one of the most annoying and grossest occurrences on old game shows was when the male host would nonconsensually kiss female contestants on the mouth and touch them weirdly. I feel bad for every woman who had to endure this awkward and violating situation.
9. Spousal Abuse Jokes
Many old sitcoms relied on domestic violence jokes. These lighthearted jokes were highly offensive and insensitive, and they have aged incredibly poorly. One of the worst examples of this is Alice and Ralph from The Honeymooners, as he was constantly threatening her with violence.
10. Self-Harm Jokes
Along with spousal abuse jokes, self-harm also used to be a humorous topic in sitcoms. Characters would joke about taking their own life or tell someone else that they should jump off a bridge. Some of these jokes were minor, but others were wildly awful, and watching them now is painful and uncomfortable.
11. The Town Drunk
Alcoholism is a serious disease that claims far too many lives every year, so the stereotypical town drunk and the jokes at their expense have not aged well. While some modern characters may be humorous habitual drinkers, the trope of falling-down drunks is mostly behind us.
12. The Town Creep
Along with the town drunk, the town creep is also an awful trope that is, thankfully, mostly gone. A great example is Urkel from Family Matters, who was always skulking around and ignoring Laura’s very clear rejections of him. Screech from Saved by the Bell is another good example of this terrible trope.
13. Teacher-Student Romances
I can’t believe we even have to talk about this, but here we are. For some reason, both TV shows and movies often romanticize these inappropriate relationships, even as recently as the 2010s. Pretty Little Liars is super guilty of using this trope, but hopefully, we’re moving away from this.
14. Quicksand
This one is just funny, honestly. I think when writers use this trope nowadays, it’s supposed to be cheesy and tongue-in-cheek. However, there was a time when quicksand was often used as a crisis for our action heroes or adventurers. And quicksand in real life is actually super slow and more like mud than sand.
15. Rattlesnakes
Like quicksand, rattlesnakes appear on TV and in movies a lot to create a life-threatening situation. The portrayal of rattlesnakes on screen is more realistic than quicksand, but I think TV writers overestimate the probability of a rattlesnake encounter and the likelihood of the snake wanting anything to do with a human.
16. Grappling Hooks
I think action and superhero movies still use grappling hooks, but this trope needs to go. The concept of a grappling hook seems awesome, but it’s honestly ridiculous and almost implausible. They should really come up with a better way for characters to save themselves from a dramatic fall at the last moment.
17. Makeovers to Fix Tomboys and Nerds
As gender becomes a more fluid concept and androgynous dressing becomes more mainstream and accepted, the makeover to make the leading girl girlier is not aging well. From Miss Congeniality to She’s All That, implying a woman is better because she dresses feminine and looks prettier is gross and outdated.
18. Casual Roofies
Older sitcoms, such as I Love Lucy, would use roofies and other sleeping medication as a plot point. Love spells and potions also fall under this category. It’s not cute or romantic to dose someone into loving you; it’s terrifying and unhinged.
19. Gay Panic
Sitcoms, even more modern ones, would use gay panic as a common joke. A male character would freak out if they saw their male friend naked; men would fall into complete panic if they suspected their date was a transwoman. As much as I love How I Met Your Mother, they leaned on the gay and trans panic trope heavily, and it makes some scenes hard to watch.
20. Gross Husbands With Hot Wives
This trope is finally starting to subside, but it was all too prominent across TV genres, from dramas to sitcoms. The husband is always a fat, lazy piece of garbage, but his wife is a stunning goddess who adores him unconditionally. It’s not exactly realistic, especially when they’re not even rich.
21. Husbands Who Hate Their Wives
This trope is in the same vein as the one above. Sometimes, those icky husbands simply detest their gorgeous wives. Why? Because ’90s writers thought it was funny, I guess. It goes hand in hand with the spousal abuse jokes, but it’s actually a genuinely sad trope and says a lot about society a few years ago.
22. No Means Try Harder
The worst thing about the creepy, peeping-tom characters, like Urkel, is that they often got the girl in the end. Scenes where a man forcefully grabs a woman and kisses her as she resists until she passionately melts into the embrace are disturbing and send a horrible message to boys and men: “If you push hard enough, she’ll be into you.”
23. Fat Jokes
Unfortunately, this trope is still around but becoming more unacceptable as society moves slowly toward all-inclusive body positivity. How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and many other beloved sitcoms take shots at overweight people because, for a long time, they were an easy target.
24. Kids With Arsenals
With the terrifying and depressing prominence of gun violence and school shootings, it’s no surprise this trope is aging horribly. Kids in TV shows used to have wild collections of weapons, such as cap guns, slingshots, and BB guns, which they used to terrorize everyone, from babysitters to teachers to siblings to neighbors.
