History Main / BaitAndSwitchTimeSkip

* The ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' episode "Shelter Island" ends with Stella leaving Ted at their wedding. The next episode, "Happily Ever After", opens with Ted reminiscing about that experience, how it seemed so horrible at the time, but looking back on it he feels he's come out of it a little stronger, and hardly even thinks about Stella anymore. Lily then remarks, "Ted, the wedding was yesterday. It's been 24 hours."

** In "It's About Time", Twilight Sparkle is visited by her [[FutureBadass very disheveled and tough-looking]] [[MyFutureSelfAndMe future self]]. She asks her if there was some epic pony war in the future, and Future Twilight responds that she's actually from next Tuesday.

** Three characters have been trapped in the trunk of a car. The next shot is of several pages falling off a calendar. Homer looks at the calendar, saying, "Stupid bank calendars. The cheap glue they use never lasts past March."

** In the episode "[[Recap/SonicBoomS1E39BattleOfTheBoyBands Battle of the Boy Bands]]", when Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles form their own boy band, they have to come up with a name, and a montage is shown. This includes the usual montage tropes, such as the WastebasketBall and SpinningClockHands. Then we see pages coming off the calendar, only for Sonic to reveal it was Knuckles:

** In the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E13AndMaggieMakesThree And Maggie Makes Three]]", Marge's sisters Patty and Selma promise not to tell Homer about Marge's pregnancy and [[LoopholeAbuse use the telephone to call other people about it]]. We see the following happen:

* One episode has a cut from Moe as he looks now to Moe, wrinkled and bald, implying decades have passed… but then he says “It’s been a rough three years.”

** Another ''Simpsons'' comic has Homer ordering a product and saying that he‘ll patiently wait for it to come. Next panel, there he is with a long beard... only for the next panel to zoom out and reveal that it’s only days later, and he’s just looking at a picture of when he wanted to join ZZ Top.
** And ''another'' issue, not unlike the latter one, shows an apparent time skip where Bart has a beard like Homer’s. However, we then see that he’s eating a chocolate bar, and has gotten the chocolate smeared on his face.

Note that this is trope is about a timeskip that's too short to be realistic, has no real explanation, and is played for humor. If an in-universe character is deliberately made by others to think that more time has passed than really has, it's a FakedRipVanWinkle.

* ''ComicBook/Superboy1994'': Superboy wakes up on an island drugged and with longer hair after being hit by lightning and for several issues he and the other humans there think they've somehow been flung thousands of years into the future. It's later revealed to have been weeks for S.B. and no-one arrived there through time travel, it's just cut off from civilization and the drugs distort their memories of their arrivals.

* In an issue of ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'', three characters have been trapped in the trunk of a car. The next shot is of several pages falling off a calendar. Homer looks at the calendar, saying, "Stupid bank calendars. The cheap glue they use never lasts past March."

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' episode, "Grandpa Moves Out", after [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Lou moves out of Tommy's house]] and into a retirement home, it seems like an entire year has passed, as [[SeasonalBaggage the weather changes from summer, to fall, to winter, and then back to summer]]. However, only a week has actually passed since Lou moved out, as there is a subtitle that says, "One Week Later", and Drew says to Stu, "Crazy weather we've been having this week, huh?".

* In ''Webcomic/{{Katamari}}'', the Prince learns of an earth-shattering event from his gadget-clad future self. When asked how far in the future this was, the future Prince checks a calendar and confirms it's happening in three hours.

* In the ''Website/ShiftyLook'' ''VideoGame/{{Katamari|Damacy}}'' comic, the Prince learns of an earth-shattering event from his gadget-clad future self. When asked how far in the future this was, the future Prince checks a calendar and confirms it's happening in three hours.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' had one in "Who framed Jimmy Neutron?". Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen are stuck in prison picking up trash and Carl begins to lose it.

Compare UnimpressiveProgressReveal, which similarly makes jokes about a contrast in the amount of time passing between scenes.

* In the ''Website/ShiftyLook'' ''VideoGame/{{Katamari|Damacy}}'' comic, the Prince learns of an earth-shattering event from his gadget-clad future self. When asked how far in the future this was, the future Prince checks a calendar and confirms it's happening in three hours.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' had one in "Who framed Jimmy Neutron?". Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen are stuck in prison picking up trash and Carl begins to lose it.
-->'''Carl:''' I can't take it anymore! I'm going crazy! I'M CRACKING UP!\\
'''Jimmy:''' Carl, we've only been here for two minutes.\\
'''Carl:''' It feels like four.

* ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'': In ''Villain Pub'' short "Palpatine's Quarantine", Palpatine is suffering from CabinFever during the 2020 pandemic. It seems like quarantine losts for months, but [[spoiler:it started only two hours ago]].

!! Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''ComicBook/Superboy1994'': Superboy wakes up on an island drugged and with longer hair after being hit by lightning and for several issues he and the other humans there think they've somehow been flung thousands of years into the future. It's later revealed to have been weeks for S.B. and no one arrived there through time travel, it's just cut off from civilization and the drugs distort their memories of their arrivals.

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobMovieSpongeOutOfWater'': Spongebob and Plankton travel into the future, only to see that without the Krabby Patty, Bikini Bottom has become a wasteland and Patrick has grown a long, white beard. They have this exchange:

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

** In the episode "Forest of the Dead", there's a time compression montage in which Donna meets a nice man, falls in love, gets married, and has two children. After she starts suspecting something is wrong with her new life, she discovers that she's in a LotusEaterMachine - and has been for less than ten minutes. The entire process of meeting a nice man, falling in love, getting married, and having two children occupied exactly the same amount of time it took the audience to watch the montage.

[[folder:PuppetShows]]
* In the ''Series/{{Dinosaurs}}'' episode, "Baby Talk", Fran has Earl babysit Baby for an hour while she cooks dinner, but she doesn't want Baby to watch television due to Baby [[InnocentSwearing repeating the dirty word, "Smoo"]], which was shown on "[[ShowWithinAShow Don't Lift that Heavy Object!]]" the night before. Earl does everything he can to entertain Baby without having to resort to using television, which includes singing and dancing, playing with puppets, making balloon animals, and attempting to spin plates on sticks. It is then revealed that all of that only took two minutes.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

[[folder:Web Video]]
* ''WebVideo/UltraFastPony'': In "The Longest Wedding", Chrysalis demands to know how Twilight and Cadance escaped from the caves. There's a "14 hours earlier" transition card, then we're shown a [[TravelMontage montage of Twilight and Cadance wandering through the caves]], with Cadance repeatedly asking to take a potty break and otherwise being a nuisance. A "14 hours later" card takes us back to the present, at which point:
-->'''Twilight:''' It was the worst ten minutes of my life!
-->'''Chrysalis:''' But the transition said--
-->'''Cadance:''' It was a ''long'' potty break.
* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlueTheBloodGulchChronicles'', Grif is locked in a prison cell with Church for five hours, but when he gets out he acts like he's an institutionalized long-term convict.
[[/folder]]

* In the third ''WesternAnimation/TheJimmyTimmyPowerHour,'' Timmy and Jimmy program their own villain, but when he becomes clingy, they take a break and tell him to meet them at the mall in an hour. The villain waits as [[TimePassesMontage the sky cycles through day, night, and various forms of weather,]] and believes he has been abandoned, becoming angry. The next scene shows Jimmy and Timmy programming a new villain in their treehouse, but it's revealed that they didn't abandon their old villain for that long:

** [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E16ReadItAndWeep "Read It and Weep"]] features a scene resembling a BoredomMontage during Rainbow Dash's hospital stay. She tries to pass the time by talking to the furniture, bouncing a ball off the wall, and so on. Then after a minute of the montage, we cut to a clock--and only a minute has actually passed.

** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E13HearthsWarmingEve Hearth's Warming Eve]]," the ShowWithinAShow has a scene where Princess Platinum (played by Rarity) and Clover the Clever (played by Twilight Sparkle) embark on an epic quest to find a new home for the unicorns. We cut to them trekking through the woods, and an exhausted and whiny Platinum [[AreWeThereYet asks how long they've been walking]], complaining that her hooves are killing her. Clover pulls back a branch to reveal their castle in the ''very'' near distance, and says, "[[UnimpressiveProgressReveal About five minutes, Your Majesty.]]"

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''

--->''(Patty and Selma open a phone book and dial the first number)''\\

''(TimeSkip occurs)''\\

''(Patty hangs up)''\\

Compare UnimpressiveProgressReveal.

-->'''Dib''': It's been 10 years...
-->'''Gaz''': It's only been two days.

-->'''Patrick:''' Finally! The Great Krabby Patty Famine is over!
-->'''[=SpongeBob=]:''' Great Krabby Patty Famine? Oh, what year is this?
-->'''Patrick:''' It's Thursday.

* ''Film/TopSecret''. After Nick Rivers is captured by the East German government he's shown in a cell, where he's making [[TallyMarksOnThePrisonWall the twentieth mark on the wall]] (indicating that he's been incarcerated for twenty days). Then his manager arrives, and he says he's been waiting for twenty ''minutes''.
* In ''Film/SpidermanHomecoming'', Peter is locked in a high-security vault, presumably until the lock releases in the morning. We see him trying out new web-shooters, working out, talking to his AI, Karen, looking at weapons, etc. It's implied that a lot of time has passed, but when he asks Karen how long it has been she reports that it's only been half an hour.

-->'''Max''': When I joined Control, the Chief had a full head of hair.
-->'''Agent 99''': Really? When I first started here the Chief was completely bald.
-->'''Max''': That's right, you started a week after I did.

* [[http://portsherry.com/comic/surprise/ This]] Port Sherry comic features a woman getting hair extensions just to invoke this on her husband.

-->'''Francine:''' Oh, Stan. How have you been?
-->'''Stan:'''A little exhausted celebrating all those holidays in one week just to make each other feel bad.

-->'''Carl''': I can't take it anymore! I?m going crazy! I'M CRACKING UP!
-->'''Jimmy''': Carl, we've only been here for two minutes.
-->'''Carl''': It feels like four.

** In "It's About Time", Twilight Sparkle is visited by her [[FutureBadass very disheveled and tough-looking]] [[MeAndMyFutureSelf future self]]. She asks her if there was some epic pony war in the future, and Future Twilight responds that she's actually from next Tuesday.
** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E13HearthsWarmingEve Hearth's Warming Eve]]," the ShowWithinAShow has a scene where Princess Platinum (played by Rarity) and Clover the Clever (played by Twilight Sparkle) embark on an epic quest to find a new home for the unicorns. We cut to them trekking through the woods, and an exhausted and whiny Platinum [[AreWeThereYet asks how long they've been walking]], complaining that her hooves are killing her. Clover pulls back a branch to reveal their castle in the ''very'' near distance, and says, "About five minutes, Your Majesty."

--->''(Patty and Selma open a phone book and dial the first number)''
--->'''Patty:''' Hello, is this A. Aaronson? It might interest you to know that Marge Simpson is pregnant again.
--->''(TimeSkip occurs)''
--->'''Patty:''' Just thought you'd like to know, Mr. Zykowski.
--->''(Patty hangs up)''
--->'''Patty:''' There. Aaronson and Zykowski are the two biggest gossips in town -- in an hour, everyone will know.

** In the episode, "[[Recap/SonicBoomS1E39BattleOfTheBoyBands Battle of the Boy Bands]]", when Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles form their own boy band, they have to come up with a name, and a montage is shown. This includes the usual montage tropes, such as the WastebasketBall and SpinningClockHands. Then we see pages coming off the calendar, only for Sonic to reveal it was Knuckles:
--->'''Sonic:''' "Knuckles, stop tearing pages off that calendar!"
** In "[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/SonicBoomS1E8Eggheads Eggheads]]", when Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Sticks are under the effects of the evil cookies that Dr. Eggman created, Eggman puts them through villain school. We get glimpses of his lessons, skipping around from 1 to 4 to 7, etc. Then we get to lesson 12.

[[/folder]]

* In ''Simpsons Comics'', where three characters have been trapped in the trunk of a car. The next shot is of several pages falling off a calendar. Homer looks at the calendar, saying, "Stupid bank calendars. The cheap glue they use never lasts past March."

-->Dib: It's been 10 years...
-->Gaz: It's only been two days.

* [[http://portsherry.com/comic/surprise/ This]] WebCoPort Sherry comic features a woman getting hair extensions just to invoke this on her husband.

* ''WebVideo/UltraFastPony''. In "The Longest Wedding", Chrysalis demands to know how Twilight and Cadance escaped from the caves. There's a "14 hours earlier" transition card, then we're shown a [[TravelMontage montage of Twilight and Cadance wandering through the caves]], with Cadance repeatedly asking to take a potty break and otherwise being a nuisance. A "14 hours later" card takes us back to the present, at which point:

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', Grif is locked in a prison cell with Church for five hours, but when he gets out he acts like he's an institutionalized long-term convict.

* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutron'' had one in "Who framed Jimmy Neutron?". Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen are stuck in prison picking up trash and Carl begins to lose it.
-->'''Carl''': I can?t take it anymore! I?m going crazy! I'M CRACKING UP!

* The ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode "Tick-Tick-Tick" has the eponymous character facing detention for being tardy. Mr. Barkin is the head of detention, which sounds swell for Kim. The clock swings hands, thinking that time passes through the room, until Mr. Barkin points out it was malfunctioning and fixes it. Double swell for Kim.

A common gag, where it looks like a long time has passed, but instead a ridiculously short time has passed instead (usually way too short for the shown things to be realistic). Most often PlayedForLaughs.