History Main / IRememberBecause

-->'''Detective Will Jeffries''': Thirty years is a long time to remember a call you made, Ms. Gloria.\\

'''Gloria Munez''': Black folks from the project callingon Friday night, police don't come. But that night that black cop showed up. And he gets to fightin' with the drug dealer.

-->'''Detective Jeffries''': Thirty years is a long time to remember a call you made, Ms. Gloria.\\

-->--- ''Series/ColdCase'', "[[Recap/ColdCaseS1E5TheRunner The Runner]]"

-->--- '''Series/ColdCase'', "[[Recap/ColdCaseS1E5TheRunner The Runner]]"

* ''Literature/JohnPutnamThatcher:'' In ''Going for the Gold,'' Thatcher questions how an extremely busy salesgirl can remember a transaction involving a fake check five days after it happened.

* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': In "What Lies Buried", Chief Inspector Stockton remembers his last meeting with Constable Finch (who vanished mysteriously before his dead body is found about 20 years later) because he was in a hurry to get to his anniversary party [[DeadlyDeferredConversation and told Finch it would have to wait until after he got back.]]

* In ''Film/SlumdogMillionaire'', the main character is able to answer the gameshow's trivia questions because most of the answers directly relate to memorable events in his life.

* In ''Film/MyCousinVinny'', one of the witnesses testifies that the two Youts,[[spoiler:I'm sorry, the two youths]] took five minutes in the store because he was cooking his breakfast when they went in and eating when the gun shots were heard. Vinny discredits this because he learned earlier it takes twenty minutes to cook grits properly.
* A variant in ''Film/BadBoys1995'': "Did you hear what I said? I heard what I said, 'cause I was standing there when I said it."

* ''Literature/TheBoysFromBrazil'': The adoption agent who placed the baby Hitler clones with unsuspecting families has difficulty remembering their names years later, but does vividly remember one family who gave her a puppy out of gratitude for helping them get a child.

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "Literature/WhatsInAName" when the suspect [[spoiler:who works at the science reference library claims they don't remember the name of a furrier named Ernest Beilstein who inquired at the reference desk at the alibi moment. The detective alleges that she could not possibly have forgotten this due to the coincidence of his sharing a name with ''Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry,'' the canonical sixty-volume encyclopedia of chemical compounds and reactions]].
* In Chrystine Brouillet's French novel, ''Literature/LesNeufViesDEdouard'', a witness remembers the exact time he saw a suspect because he was very worried of running late for his plane at the time. This is particularly unnecessary detail repeated as third-hand information to the reader.
* ''[[Creator/DickFrancis Break In]]'': When Kit decides to use the past misdeeds of a CorruptCorporateExecutive to enact some LaserGuidedKarma, he recalls how he earlier heard a brief list of companies the man took advantage of. He only remembers the name of one of those companies (Purfleet Electronics), and only because he once spent a vacation in the town of Purfleet.
* OlderThanTelevision: In the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' story "The Retired Colourman" (1926), Watson remembers the number of a theatre ticket because it was his old school number.

* In ''Literature/StarWarsAllegiance'' a young captured pirate says this phrase, but the stormtroopers who captured him don't care why he remembers which day it had been, so they cut him off.

* Used regularly in the ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' franchise. For example, In ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', "[[Recap/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS5E12Brotherhood Brotherhood]]", guest characters Nathan and Alicia's alibi, a movie date, checks out because a theater employee remembers Alicia's pink hair.

* ''Series/ColdCase'': For a show that depends almost entirely on witness statements dating back as early as 1919, they really don't rely on this as much as you'd think. Someone who claims ''not'' to remember something unremarkable that happened 20 years ago is almost certainly lying. That said, they do put forth the effort every so often.
** In an early episode, Lilly fully expects a witness not to remember anything specific about the date a girl her boyfriend might have known was killed, but she remembers exactly where she was because she was losing her virginity to said boyfriend at the time. [[spoiler:Subverted. She and the boyfriend killed the girl together.]]
** Season 6 has episodes where the victim was killed during the first moon landing ("One Small Step") and the day JFK was assassinated ("November 22").
* In an episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'', a man can recall the exact time he heard something suspicious due to having rented a porno pay-per-view movie scheduled to start at that time.
** The same reason is used in an episode of ''Series/VeronicaMars''.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' has a competitive eating champion who tells Stottlemeyer and Disher that an all you can eat buffet he was at at the time of the crime can back him up because: "Oh, they'll remember me."

* ''Series/HillStreetBlues:'' A court witness with transactional immunity (meaning he couldn't be prosecuted for any crimes related to his testimony) when asked why he was so sure about a date said "because that was the same day I killed a cop."
* In ''Series/TheLoveBoat'' episode "Aunt Hilly," Vicki's titular rich aunt [[DoesntKnowTheirOwnChild can't remember her son's birthday]] more specifically than "April or May," which she only remembers because his birth interrupted a social function.
* ''Series/NoOrdinaryFamily'': George remembers the murder of the gun-wielding vigilante's son from "No Ordinary Vigilante" because it happened during his first week on the job.

* Used regularly in the ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' franchise.

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': In "Paradise", the proprietor of a popular diner where two victims stopped at says that with the number of customers she has, they would have had to be "doing cartwheels on fire" to make an impression. However, she does in fact remember them because [[NiceToTheWaiter Mr. Sanders gave her a $10.00 tip two visits in a row.]]

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': A witness to a plane crash remembers the exact time he saw a streak of light (presumably a missile of some sort) go into the sky because his favorite show had just started and the intro was playing.

* In ''Film/MyCousinVinny'', one of the witnesses testifies that the two Youts., [[spoiler: I'm sorry, the two youths]] took five minutes in the store because he was cooking his breakfast when they went in and eating when the gun shots were heard. Vinny discredits this because he learned earlier it takes twenty minutes to cook grits properly.

* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': In "What Lies Buried", Chief Inspector Stockton remembers his last meting with Constable Finch (who vanished mysteriously before his dead body is found about 20 years later) because he was in a hurry to get to his anniversary party [[DeadlyDeferredConversation and told Finch it would have to wait until after he got back.]]

* In ''Film/MyCousinVinny'',one of the witnesses testifies that the two Youts., [[spoiler: I'm sorry, the two youths]] took five minutes in the store because he was cooking his breakfast when they went in and eating when the gun shots were heard. Vinny discredits this because he learned earlier it takes twenty minutes to cook grits properly.

* ''Film/TheBoysFromBrazil:'' The adoption agent who placed the baby Hitler clones with unsuspecting families has difficulty remembering their names years later, but does vividly remember one family who gave her a puppy out of gratitude for helping them get a child.

* An inversion in the Isaac Asimov short story ''Literature/WhatsInAName'', where the suspect [[spoiler:who works at the science reference library claims they don't remember the name of a furrier named Ernest Beilstein who inquired at the reference desk at the alibi moment. The detective alleges that she could not possibly have forgotten this due to the coincidence of his sharing a name with ''Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry,'' the canonical sixty-volume encyclopedia of chemical compounds and reactions]].

* OlderThanTelevision: In the Franchise/SherlockHolmes story "The Retired Colourman" (1926), Watson remembers the number of a theatre ticket because it was his old school number.

* A variant in ''Film/BadBoys'': "Did you hear what I said? I heard what I said, 'cause I was standing there when I said it."