History Main / RefugeeFromTime

** A flashback in "Die, Hippie, Die" shows Sharon and Randy as young adults during Woodstock. Even at the time (2005) this made little sense, as it would have made them at least in their fifties.

** Similarly, Frank Castle is always a [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam Vet]] no matter how many years have passed. He has died and come back to life twice (once when [[Comicbook/ThePunisherPurgatory he became the Angel-Punisher]], and once with the Franken-Castle scenario), with both returns de-aging him (the Angels wanting him to suffer more and the process naturally aiding his health respectively). As of 2011, The Punisher's origin has officially been updated to make him a Gulf War vet. Given the dirty and unpopular public image of the Vietnam War, and the importance of this to Punisher's characterisation, an update to another unpopular and ultimately failed war makes sense.

* Walt Wallet of ''ComicStrip/GasolineAlley'', a still spry elderly man, is a UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veteran. The last RealLife veteran of that conflict died in 2012.

*** ''History of the Marvel Universe'' (2019) introduces to canon Creator/MarkWaid's concept of the Siancong War, a decades-long series of conflicts in Southeast Asia that [[FloatingTimeline was always taking place about 15 years ago]] and can be substituted for any real life war in that region, and states that any references to the Vietnam War should be taken as references to the fictional conflict instead. Accordingly, Frank's background was update within that issue to the Siancong War, as well Franchise/IronMan's origins, which had until then been updated to UsefulNotes/TheGulfWar and later UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, ComicBook/WarMachine's backstory, who was also originally depicted as a 'Nam vet and is tied to Iron Man's origin; and even ComicBook/MisterFantastic and ComicBook/TheThing, who were UsefulNotes/WorldWarII vets for the first couple of decades of the Franchise/FantasticFour's publication history.

*** ''History of the Marvel Universe'' (2019) introduces to canon Creator/MarkWaid's concept of the Siancong War, a decades-long series of conflicts in Southeast Asia that [[FloatingTimeline was always taking place about 15 years ago]] and can be substituted for any real life war in that region, and states that any references to the Vietnam War should be taken as references to the fictional conflict instead. Accordingly, Frank's background was update within that issue to the Siancong War, as well Franchise/IronMan's origins, which had until then been updated to UsefulNotes/TheGulfWar and later UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror and ComicBook/WarMachine, who was also originally depicted as a 'Nam vet; ComicBook/WarMachine's time in service, which are tied to Tony's origins; and ComicBook/MisterFantastic and ComicBook/TheThing, who were UsefulNotes/WorldWarII vets for the first couple of decades.

*** ''History of the Marvel Universe'' (2019) introduces to canon Creator/MarkWaid's concept of the Siancong War, a decades-long series of conflicts in Southeast Asia that [[FloatingTimeline was always taking place about 15 years ago]] and can be substituted for any real life war in that region, and states that any references to the Vietnam War should be taken as references to the fictional conflict instead.

** You have Grampa Simpson, who will always be a World War II vet, and Seymour Skinner, who will always be a Vietnam vet. By now, Skinner should be as old as Grampa was at the start of the show!

*** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS21E13TheColorYellow The Color Yellow]]", he revealed that his father was a Confederate slaveowner. Possible, since there have been cases of [[DirtyOldMan elderly Southern men who took]] ''[[DirtyOldMan very]]'' [[DirtyOldMan young brides]].

** Averted with Homer and Marge through a {{retcon}}. The episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E12TheWayWeWas The Way We Was]]" firmly establishes that Homer and Marge were in high school in 1970s, and "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E12IMarriedMarge I Married Marge]]" reveals that Marge got pregnant soon after she and Homer saw ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' during its original theatrical run. Both of these episodes were aired in 1991, when such a timeline made sense. But since the show went on for years and years after that without any of the characters aging, Bart couldn't have been conceived in 1980 anymore... so the 2008 episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E11That90sShow That '90s Show]]" retconned the earlier timeline and showed Homer and Marge as still-childless youngsters in the early 1990s.

* ''Characters/LupinIII'': The eponymous thief, Arsene Lupin the Third, is the son of Arsene Lupin the Second, who is the son of Literature/ArseneLupin. While the grandson exists in ComicBookTime, the grandfather is not as lucky, as he was written in the early 1900s. ''[[TheEdwardianEra Early]]'' 1900s.

* On ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', a flashback in one episode showed Stan's mother and father as having been to Woodstock in their youths, while other episodes show Stan's uncle Jimbo was a Vietnam War vet. Meanwhile, Stan (and his older sister [[TheBrute Shelly]]) are perpetual children/pre-teens, which makes this problematic as time goes on (or not, given the bizarre nature of their world). Parodied in the episode "WTF", when Stan dresses up as the ProfessionalWrestling character "Stan the Man", who is a Vietnam veteran -- even though Stan isn't old enough to have served in ''Iraq''.

*** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS21E13TheColorYellow The Color Yellow]]", he confirmed that his father was a Confederate slaveowner. Possible, since there have been cases of [[DirtyOldMan elderly Southern men who took]] ''[[DirtyOldMan very]]'' [[DirtyOldMan young brides]].

[[folder: Fan Works]]

** Double D was born in The Eighties and was the son of two controlling professionals who dominated his life despite always being away from home, he died when an bunsen burner from one of his experiments exploded.

** Nazz was a [[GranolaGirl hippie child]] from The60s who was murdered by a SerialKiller.
** Double D was born in The80s and was the son of two controlling professionals who dominated his life despite always being away from home, he died when an bunsen burner from one of his experiments exploded.
** Kevin was a JerkJock from the The90s who was [[OffingTheOffspring killed]] by his [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] when he attempted to [[CallingTheOldManOut stand up to him.]]

* One review of ''Series/{{Thirtysomething}}'' and similar shows that complained that if the characters had actually been hippies in TheSixties they would have been ''forty''something by the time the show aired. The "surprisingly young person who allegedly went to Woodstock" seemed to be a trope well into the 90s actually. Note that around the time of the Woodstock festival, being a "hippie" was (paradoxically) starting to become quite fashionable, and [[TheManIsStickingItToTheMan many magazines aimed at younger teenagers who were still too young to truly rebel encouraged them to wear the stereotypically hippie clothes]]. It's quite plausible that many of these kids identified themselves as hippies, even if they did not yet understand exactly what the hippie lifestyle entailed. As for "being at Woodstock," well, anyone can lie.

*** Even as early as Season 2, not long after the "81" claim above, Burns made reference to watching a boxing match featuring Gentleman Jim Corbett (whose last fight was in 1903), and a joke in Season 3 had him plan out a softball team of ringers while unaware that one of his players has been dead for 130 years.

*** In another episode, Mr. Burns momentarily forgets his PIN, only for Smithers to remind him it's the same as his current age. Mr. Burns quickly types in two digits, hesitates, types in another, hesitates longer, and then ''another.'' It's possible the first two digits were zeroes, but if not, it suggests Mr. Burns is ''thousands'' of years old. Another episode has him stating outright that his age has four digits, but of course there could be a decimal point between two of them. One episode explains that Mr. Burns undergoes treatments every Friday to extend his lifespan another week.

*** In another episode, Mr. Burns momentarily forgets his PIN, only for Smithers to remind him it's the same as his current age. Mr. Burns quickly types in two digits, hesitates, types in another, hesitates longer, and then ''another.'' It's possible the first two digits were zeroes, but if not, it suggests Mr. Burns is ''thousands'' of years old. Another episode has him stating outright that his age has four digits, but of course there could be a decimal point between two of them.

[[folder:Videogames]]

** In ''ComicBook/NickFuryMyWarGoneBy'', there is no explanation for the fact that he looks far too young to have been in [=WW2=], just "I don't seem to age" (the other characters, who were young when the Indochina wars started, are all realistically aged by the end of the series).

* Zangief's entire character in the ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' series (and to some extent, the ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'' series) is tied to the Soviet Union, specifically the Perestroika movement of the late '80's and early '90's, with his ending revealing him to be friends with Soviet president Mikhail Gobarchev. His later appearances in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' and ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterV V]]'' tend to downplay this aspect of his character.

* ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons Comics'': Radioactive Man started out fighting Nazis in the 1940s (as his Golden Age counterpart, "Radio Man"), but by the time he was finally reunited with his long-lost parents in 1996, he was still only about 25 years old rather than the 80-something years he should have been by that point -- and, of course, his mother and father would most likely have been centenarians ''at the youngest'', but in 1996 they were still middle-aged. (Justified in the mother's case, as [[spoiler: she was turned into a cyborg by the Nazis and is thus presumably semi-immortal]].) RM briefly [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this: "Gee, I've been in my twenties for a long time. No wonder I never get any birthday presents."

* ComicBook/BuckDanny and his usual wingmen may be the biggest offenders in FrancoBelgian comics, not having aged a day since they joined to fight the Japanese in WW2 and are still flying today (Buck himself never gets promoted past colonel, as this would prevent him from flying a jet).
* ''ComicBook/LePetitSpirou'' was originally the younger Spirou, which explained why the setting was much older (the local priest's vestments were mostly seen pre-WW2, his grandfather was a [=WW1=] veteran). But as time went by, the timeline was bumped up as well, to the point where the kid and adult Spirou more or less exist in the same timeframe.

** In ''ComicBook/NickFuryMyWarGoneBy'', there is no explanation for the fact that he looks far too young to have been in WW2, just "I don't seem to age" (the other characters, who were young when the Indochina wars started, are all realistically aged by the end of the series).

* ''ComicBook/LePetitSpirou'' was originally the younger Spirou, which explained why the setting was much older (the local priest's vestments were mostly seen pre-WW2, his grandfather was a WW1 veteran). But as time went by, the timeline was bumped up as well, to the point where the kid and adult Spirou more or less exist in the same timeframe.