History Main / RipVanWinkle

* Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''3001: The Final Odyssey'', the last and final volume in his ''Space Odyssey'' series, finds Frank Poole--previously killed by HAL in the first book--discovered by a space-tug after floating about the Kuyper Belt for a millennium; the absolute zero temperature of deep space having preserved his body, which the ultra-advanced society of 3001 is able to heal and bring back to life.

* Happens to [[spoiler: Shinji Ikari]] in the third ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'' movie, who has the misfortune of spending fourteen years - more or less as long as he'd even been alive before - as a HumanPopsicle, with the double whammy of finding out that he [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally annihilated the Biosphere]] in a [[spoiler: futile]] attempt to [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl save his love interest]]. The earth is a post-apocalyptic Wasteland, most of his friends are dead, and those who aren't are ten years older and now hate his guts for the aforementioned catastrophe, including his former ParentalSubstitute who gives him the [[IHaveNoSon no-son-of-mine treatment]] and puts an ExplosiveLeash on him, and his former friend/comrade/flat mate who tells him in no uncertain terms that she despises him, shattering a wall of security glass to do so.
* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' had a controlled example where [[spoiler: Asuna]] willingly went to sleep for one hundred years to help strengthen the base of the Magical World. [[spoiler: Since she's a HeavySleeper, she overslept by thirty years, and woke up to discover that her {{Vitriolic Best Bud|s}} Ayaka had died the year was supposed to wake up ([[IWillWaitForYou having kept herself alive through sheer willpower in hopes of seeing her one last time]]). [[TearJerker Asuna didn't take that revelation well]].]]

[[folder:Comics]]

* A common theme in ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfiction is taking advantage of the fact that this effectively happened to Luna as a result of her being SealedEvilInACan for a thousand years.
** One that doesn't use Luna is ''FanFic/TheBridge'', where it is Princess Cadance that is an unknowing example [[spoiler: given it is heavily implied Princess Amore of the Crystal Empire a millennia ago was her mother. King Caesar spirited her away as a baby to escape from King Sombra after Sombra killed Amore. We next see them 1,000 years later with Caesar giving her away to a kindly young couple.]]
* In ''FanFic/TangledInTime'' instead of dying, Ganondorf was comatose for decades with his body being taken care of by the Twinrova before he wakes up.

[[folder:Film]]

* Justified in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', where Steve Rogers gets frozen in the arctic in the 1940s and is woken up again in modern times. Needless to say, he's a bit surprised when he puts it together (because Steve had been at the baseball game SHIELD put on the radio to put him at ease).

** That's the short and not quite accurate version - they were "defrosted" previously but were under MindControl until the power failure knocked out the MindControlDevice.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

-->"Do Sonny and Cher still have that stupid show?"
-->"No. She won an Oscar, and he's a Congressman!"
-->"GOOD''NIGHT''!" (flatlines)

This is OlderThanFeudalism, the [[Literature/RipVanWinkle the story it's named after]] is an old American folktale, which itself is derived from an earlier Dutch folktale, having variants stretching back to the third century CE.

This is OlderThanFeudalism, with [[Literature/RipVanWinkle the story it's named after]] being an old American folktale, which itself is derived from an earlier Dutch folktale, having variants stretching back to the third century CE.

A combination of YetAnotherChristmasCarol and WonderfulLife sans Christmas elements, often with some TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture mixed in.

* The TropeNamer is 1819 short story "Literature/RipVanWinkle", in which Rip goes into the woods, meets some strange beings, drinks of their liquor, and takes a 20-year nap. He winds up pretty pleased about it, as he has outlived his nagging shrew of a wife and gets to live the life of a respected senior citizen.

A character settles down for a nice nap. When he wakes up, it's several decades later. He sees the effects of his absence -- anything he did wrong can now never be fixed; those who loved him are miserable after his long absence (assuming they're still alive); and everything has changed. TheFutureIsShocking trope may ensue.

A character settles down for a nice nap. When he wakes up, it's several decades later. He sees the effects of his absence - anything he did wrong can now never be fixed; those who loved him are miserable after his long absence; and everything has changed. TheFutureIsShocking trope may ensue.

This is OlderThanFeudalism, with the story it's named after being an old American folktale, which itself is derived from an earlier Dutch folktale, having variants stretching back to the third century CE.

* Justified in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', where [[spoiler:Steve Rogers gets frozen in the arctic in the 1940s and is woken up again in modern times. Needless to say, he's a bit surprised when he puts it together (because Steve had been at the baseball game SHIELD put on the radio to put him at ease).]]

* ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. Believed to have died in [=WW2=], he was in fact kept alive as a HumanPopsicle in an iceberg in the Arctic (his super-soldier serum kept him from [[HarmlessFreezing freezing to death]] for decades before being found and rescued in [[ComicBookTime the Modern Era]] (orginally 1964) by ComicBook/TheAvengers.

* One of the earliest narrative films ever made, ''Film/RipVanWinkle'', is a 4 1/2-minute film dramatizing the Trope Namer's visit with some strange spirits, followed by his 20-year-nap and revival in the woods.

* Justified in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', where [[spoiler: Steve Rogers gets frozen in the arctic in the 1940s and is woken up again in modern times. Needless to say, he's a bit surprised when he puts it together (because Steve had been at the baseball game SHIELD put on the radio to put him at ease).]]

* In the children's picture book ''[[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Frog-Durrington-Dormouse-Smith-1978-03-01/dp/B01K3NJIBK/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1496942318&sr=8-12&keywords=frog+band The Frog Band and Durrington Dormouse]]'', Durrington, after a life at sea, runs into the woods to escape a press gang. He runs into Mad Maude the Toad, who gives him a drink. This sends him to sleep and he awakes to find everything completely different. It's not made clear how long he was alseep, but, given that he went to sleep in an age of press gangs and woke up in the twentieth century, it was probably over 100 years.

* "We Won't Get Fooled Again" by Music/TheWho is an interpretation of the original story, which used the twenty year nap to illustrate that the Revolutionary War (which happened while he slept) really didn't change anything at all, and he was basically living in the same world. It's a bit hidden in the song, but certain lyrics like "And the marching on the left/ Is now the marching on the right/ And the beards have all grown longer overnight" make it a definite reference.
* The song L Dopa by Music/BigBlack is about a girl who falls asleep in her teens and wakes up as an old woman. The woman decides that she'd rather die than continue living since she literally slept her entire productive life away, however the doctors feel that all life is worth saving regardless of the patient's input on the matter, so she's unable to have her request fulfilled.

* ArthurCClarke's ''3001: The Final Odyssey'', the last and final volume in his ''Space Odyssey'' series, finds Frank Poole--previously killed by HAL in the first book--discovered by a space-tug after floating about the Kuyper Belt for a millennium; the absolute zero temperature of deep space having preserved his body, which the ultra-advanced society of 3001 is able to heal and bring back to life.

* Happens to [[spoiler: Shinji Ikari]] in the third ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'' movie, who has the misfortune of spending fourteen years - more or less as long as he'd even been alive before - as a HumanPopsicle, with the double whammy of finding out that he [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally annihilated the Biosphere]] in a [[spoiler: futile]] attempt to [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl save his love interest]]. The earth is a PostApocalypticWasteland, most of his friends are dead, and those who aren't are ten years older and now hate his guts for the aforementioned catastrophe, including his former ParentalSubstitute who gives him the no-son-of-mine treatment and puts an ExplosiveLeash on him, and his former friend/comrade/flat mate who tells him in no uncertain terms that she despises him, shattering a wall of security glass to do so.

* ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. Believed to have died in WW2, he was in fact kept alive as a HumanPopsicle in an iceberg in the Arctic (his super-soldier serum kept him from [[HarmlessFreezing freezing to death]] for decades before being found and rescued in [[ComicBookTime the Modern Era]] (orginally 1964) by ComicBook/TheAvengers.

[[folder:Anime]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'': In "Rip Van Flintstone", Fred dreams that he's been asleep for twenty years, "like in that Rip Van Wiklestone story", and finds that Barney has become an oil tycoon and that Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are married.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' episode "Rip Van Flintstone."