History Main / TimePassageBeard

* A commercial for ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' shows a gamer playing a hard sci-fi game with no FasterThanLightTravel. He flies his ship for ages, alternateing between his fighter and his increasingly Santa Claus-ish beard and growing collection of [[CobwebOfDisuse spider webs]]. After getting sniped by a battleship, he quits in disgust and plays [=WoT=] instead

* In one episode of ''Anime/LupinIIIPart1'' Lupin deliberately turns himself in to Inspector Zenigata and refuses to allow the other to help him escape from prison, instead he comes up with his own method that involves waiting for two years, after the two year time skip Lupin has a long scraggly beard.

* One ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' strip evokes this trope, showing Paige on the phone, Jason walking by wearing an obviously fake beard, bald wig and cane. Paige's response is "I haven't been on the phone THAT long!"

** In [[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2001/10/19 the October 19, 2001,]] Jon grows a beard and long hair while waiting at the phone for a woman to call him.
** In [[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2020/04/05 the April 5, 2020 strip,]] Jon goes from being clean-shaven to having a beard that almost covers his entire face while bingewatching for the first time.

* Matt Damon's character in ''Film/TheMartian'' grows a scraggly beard after a seven-month timeskip. He shaves it off before taking off.

* In the third act of ''Film/TheBounty'' Lt. Bligh and several of those hands loyal to him are set adrift during the mutiny. They grow beards which correspond to their 47-day journey to safety.
* In ''Film/TheEdge'', Anthony Hopkins once again grows a beard while stranded in the wilderness, along with his love rival, played by Creator/AlecBaldwin. However, it comes across as unintentionaly hilarious since he goes from PermaStubble to a full beard within minutes while fashioning a fish hook.

* In ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'', Harry grows one in his hospital bed. It (along with the dogs' growth) helps conveying how long the Kingsman assessment actually took.

* Arthur Dent grows one of these when he is trapped on Earth 2 million years ago in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' books. He sticks a chicken bone in it, because he's decided to go insane.

* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'': when a milkman's PizzaBoySpecialDelivery is {{Subverted}}, he's locked in a room with many other milkmen with various lenghths of beard.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. At the start of the episode "Hard Time", we see a traumatized Chief O'Brien with one at the end of his twenty year sentence on an alien world. He then wakes up freshly-shaven, as the entire experience was an implanted memory forced on him after a trumped up accusation of espionage.

* In ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Ted becomes part of a very long discussion about Teddy Roosevelt with another man and a woman. He explains it went of for "days" and by the end, the other man and Ted have grown long beards.
* At the end of ''Series/TwentyFour'''s fifth season Jack is taken prisoner by the Chinese government and held there for nearly two years. When he's released in the following season he how has a long, unkempt beard as well as shaggy hair, similar to the James Bond example.

* Since ''Series/ThisIsUs'' covers three different decades, family patriarch Jack Pearson goes through a beard in the 70s, mustache in the 80s, and a goatee in the 90s. Whichever facial hair he has onscreen is an indication of the decade.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. Blake disappears at the end of season 2, but Avon encounters him as a bearded patient in a hospital a year later (this is also a case of RealLifeWritesThePlot, as actor Gareth Thomas had grown his beard for a theater role). However this bearded Blake [[LotusEaterMachine turns out to be an illusion]]. When the real Blake turns up at the end of the series, the passage of time is indicated by a nasty facial scar and permastubble.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': At the end of the second season there's a nine month TimeSkip during which Chief Tyrol grows a beard and Bill Adama grows a moustache. In a female example, Starbuck lets her BoyishShortHair grow down to her chest during this time. The beginning of the third season brings another skip of three months, during which Saul Tigh also grows a beard. All four actors [[DyeingForYourArt grew their hair out for real]] for the third season.

* Zig-zagged in the ''Series/That70sShow'' episode "It's A Wonderful Life". As Eric is shown what life would have been like if he'd never dated Donna, his guardian angel shows him that Donna would have dated Hyde instead. At one point in this imagined timeline, Hyde is seen sporting a full-length beard as a biker. After a while, they flash forward to the gang's 10 year high school reunion, and Eric sees that his future self appears to have grown a mustache, which impresses him until the angel tells him that it's just chocolate frosting from the cake they served.

* During the extended story mode of ''VideoGame/FableI'' the Hero grows a long beard during their ship ride to the Northern waste. Riding a ghost ship like he did its understandable that he wasn't able to shave or maintain whatever facial style he had before. This also happens when you land in jail if it takes you a few tries to break out (as they TimeSkip a year every time you fail).

* In ''VideoGame/LegoJurassicWorld'', due to Muldoon, Gennaro and Nedry being SparedByAdaptation, they have been left behind on Isla Nublar. At the end of the first Jurassic Park levels, Muldoon and Gennaro try to reach the helicopter that's leaving the island only to arrive late and Nedry flees from the ''Dilophosaurus'' by sticking a piece of chicken in its mouth. Then in the Jurassic World levels we see that Muldoon, Gennaro and Nedry have been living in Isla Nublar for the next 22 years, living in the old Visitor Center and sleeping in one of the Jeeps. Complete with big grey beards, but their character models are otherwise unchanged, including their hair.

* In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'', Gobi the Camel runs away to find the Lava World after Banjo and Kazooie jump on him to water a giant flower in [[FourSeasonsLevel Click Clock Wood]]. When Banjo and Kazooie next meet Gobi in ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'', Gobi is being held prisoner as an exhibit in [[AmusementParkOfDoom Witchyworld's]] Cave of Horrors, and has grown a gray beard from being imprisoned for two years.

-->[[MemeticMutation ...nyeh, Squidward? ...nyeh, Squidward? ...nyeh, Squidward?]]
** "Patty Hype" uses this as well. When Spongebob is waiting for costumers to come to his burger stand, he repeats the phrase, "I'm Ready" as his present self, a middle aged man, an elderly man, and a tombstone. But, "It was all just a dream"

* [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] again in ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw''. While trapped in the time stream, Dakota, Cavendish, Perry, and Doofenshmirtz apparently grow these. It's shortly revealed that Doofenshmirtz made everyone wear fake beards to in an attempt lighten the mood.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie ''Bender's Big Score,'' Fry's continued meddling with time travel after [[FishOutOfTemporalWater returning to his former era]] creates two identical versions of himself, one of whom goes back to 3007 while the other picks up his old life right where it left off. The movie follows the latter until the year 2012, when he returns from a lengthy voyage to the North Pole with a particularly impressive beard. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that Lars, Leela's new paramour, ''is'' this version of Fry, and that his more civilized beard is just the remnants of Fry's after [[ItMakesSenseInContext he was singed when Bender blew up his apartment.]]]]

* Subverted in one issue of ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'', where it looks like this had happened to Homer. He's actually just looking at a photo taken from [[NoodleIncident the time he tried to join Z.Z. Top.]]

* Parodied in ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' story, "Tic-Tac-D'oh!" where Homer has a long beard after a two month time skip but it turns out he's just looking at a picture of the time he tried to join ''Music/ZZTop''.

* Creator/CharltonHeston was the king of this trope. He grows a beard in the wilderness in ''Film/TheTenCommandments'', while a slave in ''[[Film/BenHur1959 Ben-Hur]]'', over the course of ''Film/{{The War Lord|1965}}'', during a period of convalescence in ''Film/MajorDundee'' and while in hypersleep in ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' episode "The Boss of Me" has Timmy's Dad and his boss Ed Leadly grow long beards after testing the ever-lasting pencil Timmy wished for to determine if it truly can't be used up.

A SubTrope of ExpositoryHairstyleChange. Compare HairTodayGoneTomorrow, PermaShave, and BeardnessProtectionProgram. May be related to BeardOfSorrow.

* Chief O'Brien grows one in the virtual prison cell that he spends twenty virtual years in in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.
* Tom Paris grows one in the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Alice" as he spends most of his time fixated on fixing up the titular shuttlecraft and eventually becoming its slave. Averted with Chakotay in "Resolutions" which according to WordOfGod they later regretted, as Chakotay spent months on the planet but as this takes place within a single episode it isn't obvious to the audience. But played straight with the same character (to the point of at least growing a Time-Passage Mustache) in "Year Of Hell Pt. 2" when Chakotay and Tom Paris were held prisoner on board Annorax's time ship.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': At the end of the second season there's a nine month TimeSkip during which Chief Tyrol grows a beard and Bill Adama grows a BadassMoustache. In a female example, Starbuck lets her BoyishShortHair grow down to her chest during this time. The beginning of the third season brings another skip of three months, during which Saul Tigh also grows a beard. All four actors [[DyeingForYourArt grew their hair out for real]] for the third season.

* Creator/CharltonHeston was the king of this trope. He grows a beard in the wilderness in ''Film/TheTenCommandments'', while a slave in ''Film/BenHur1959'', over the course of ''Film/TheWarLord'', during a period of convalescence in ''Film/MajorDundee'' and while in hypersleep in ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968''.

* Happens again in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', after [[spoiler:Darkseid injects liquid Kryptonite into him, robbing him of his powers.]]

* In one episode of ''Anime/LupinIIIGreenJacket'' Lupin deliberately turns himself in to Inspector Zenigata and refuses to allow the other to help him escape from prison, instead he comes up with his own method that involves waiting for two years, after the two year time skip Lupin has a long scraggly beard.

* The hero of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' grows one in the fifty years between seasons 4 and 5. But otherwise doesn't age.