History Main / WereStillRelevantDammit

** The season 15 episode called "You're Getting Old" (which is self explanatory) ironically contained more up to date pop culture references than usual for the show, such as the boys seeing "X-men: The Last Stand" in theaters and playing "L.A. Noir". The episode "1%" also had a brief mention of the game "Batman: Arkham City", released less than a month earlier. These appearances don't seem to serve any purpose other than to say "See? We're still paying attention!".

* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4IoUo_ZJkY trailer]] for the upcoming [[TheThreeStooges Three Stooges]] movie is rife with this, complete with a modern setting, an iPhone, and even the cast of the Jersey Shore. Many people who hadn't heard anything about the film since Sean Penn was involved (which implied a more serious biography of the Stooges) were, to say the least, [[ShockingSwerve surprised]].

* {{Blondie}} did this wonderfully in the 1990s. In 1991, Blondie put on pants and started a catering business with her friend Tootsie. In 2000, Blondie yelled "Dagwood Bumstead Dot Com!" to wake her husband. Dagwood responded, "Omigosh, that means BUSINESS!" Dagwood uses a flatscreen computer monitor at work, Cookie and Alexander use cell phones and crack jokes about Facebook. But Dagwood is still late to work -- although now he races out the door to his car pool -- and Mr. Dithers still kicks him in the ass.

* By far, the most embarrassing attempt to make an older character "cool" to young people was the all-but-forgotten series ''YoYogi'' Yes, it had a teenaged YogiBear dressed in neon pink and green, solving mysteries (because why the hell not?), and hanging out in Jellystone ''Mall''. Poor Magilla Gorilla was transformed into a rapping snowboarder named Magilla ''Ice'' (really, imagine an animated series where ''every'' character was ThePoochie and you've got the overall effect of this show), and certain scenes were designed to be viewed with 3-D glasses (because, again, why the hell not?) Surprisingly, this is the last television series to star Yogi Bear -- perhaps he retired out of shame. ''Yo, Yogi'' failed so badly that {{NBC}} decided to eighty-six their entire animated lineup in order to create an all-teen block in order to take advantage of ''[[SavedByTheBell Saved by the Bell]]'''s success and expand the ''Today'' show to Saturdays.

* The aforementioned ''LoonaticsUnleashed'' attempts a DarkerAndEdgier version of the 1930s-1960s LooneyTunes shorts. It worked out about as well as you can imagine, and could be the nadir of this trope.
* ''TheSimpsons'' is suffering hard from this trope, [[LongRunners thanks to being on the air for 20+ years]]. While the show never shied away from pop-culture references in its heyday, it's now become increasingly apparent that the ''Simpsons'' writers are taking a page from ''SouthPark'' and ''FamilyGuy'' in trying to be relevant through using current trends and events (and in a lot of cases, [[EpicFail failing miserably]]). The long episode production time and the fact that they've [[ItsBeenDone done every sitcom plot they could -- including ones that have been done on other shows and recycling the ones they've done before]] is also a contributing factor to ''TheSimpsons'' suffering from this trope.

** The opening to the episode "To Surveil With Love," in which the entire Springfield populace lip syncs to Ke$ha's "[=TiK ToK=]" -- while pretty funny -- absolutely reeked of desperation to appeal to the hip youth of the current age.

* {{Beavis and Butthead}}'s 2011 remake has sadly fallen into this trope (on the ''first episode'' no less). MST segments aside, the writers apparently think that {{Twilight}} parodies are still mainstream.

*** ''The End of Time'' made a few {{Anvilicious}} nods towards BarackObama's healthcare reform. Also, "Fear Her" had a background gag to then-current ''{{The X-Factor}}'' winner Shayne Ward's greatest hits.

* Hipster Superman, perhaps? (Sadly, the link is broken; you'll have to believe us.)
** [[VideoGame/{{Prototype}} Alex Mercer?]]
** [[FiveSecondFilms You probably haven't heard of him]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwMKM0pHug He's pretty obscure]].
** On the other hand, there's Superman Blue. Supes was changed into a very alien EnergyBeing and... yeah. Fun times, fun times.

* In ''{{The NeverEnding Story}} III'', the inhabitants of [[MagicalLand Fantasia]] undergo considerable change, including spouting contemporary pop-culture references. Bastian updates his hairdo because his sister calls it "un". As the review on ''Everything Is Terrible'' put it, "The sound you're hearing right now is your childhood throwing up."

[[caption-width-right:197: And this would be an example of an of-the-moment reference. How many of you know what the phrase on Jughead's shirt even means?]]

* In [[SilverAge the Sixties]], [[Comicbook/{{Superman}} Jimmy Olsen]] ''was'' this trope. He was, at various points, a hippie, ''a Beatle'' (in Ancient Rome, no less!), a wide variety of superheroes, and many other things, most of which fall under the WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs heading. Once again, it's become sort of a RunningGag, focused on at places like SuperDickery. The example with the longest ramifications was when the Jimmy Olsen title was written by JackKirby, who used the craziness to introduce {{Darkseid}} and the [[NewGods Fourth World mythos]] to the wider DCUniverse.

* [[http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/crush/superman-gets-a-hipster-makeover/488 Hipster Superman]], perhaps.

** [[FiveSecondFilms You probably haven't heard of him]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwMKM0pHug He's pretty obscure]].
* ''FreddyVsJasonVsAsh: The Nightmare Warriors'' had a prolonged, rather random, and immature TakeThat towards George W. Bush, who had been out of office for a couple years by the comics publication.

* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4IoUo_ZJkY trailer]] for the upcoming [[TheThreeStooges Three Stooges]] movie is rife with this, complete with a modern setting, an iPhone, and even the cast of the Jersey Shore.

[[caption-width-right:197: And this would be an example of an of-the-moment reference. By now most of you might not know what the phrase on Jughead's shirt even means...]]

[[caption-width-right:197: And this would be an example of an of-the-moment reference. By now most of you might not even know what this is in reference to...]]

[[caption-width-right:197: Ironically, by now most of you might not even know what this is in reference to...]]

[[caption-width-right:329: Ironically, by now most of you might not even know what this is in reference to...]]

* {{Beavis and Butthead}}'s 2011 remake has sadly fallen into this trope (on the ''first episode'' no less). MST segments aside, the writers apparently think that {{Twilight}} parodies are still mainstream.

* TheMuppets are known to suffer from this from time to time, though they've been handling it rather well (especially after {{Disney}} [[RuinedForever got the rights]] [[{{Irony}} to them]]).
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* Music/{{KoRn}}'s announcement that their album ''The Path of Totality'' would consist of a blend of their traditional sound and dubstep rather smacked of this trope.

** This is just the most notorious and noxious example of the trend of "[[TheManIsStickingItToTheMan rebel advertising]]", which was especially rampant in the mid-90's but hasn't really gone away. The idea is to get young people, who have an innate distrust and distaste of [[ProductPlacement rampant advertising]], to be unique and special by buying a unique and special product... made by a big corporation. Seriously. And so, we got the "punk rock" Nissan, the "uncola" Sprite, "more badass than mayonaisse" Miracle Whip, Miller's supposed quaint Plank Road "microbrewery" encouraging you to "be your own dog" (still not sure what that means), and William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Walt Whitman co-opted to sell Nikes, Gap pants, and Levis respectively. Strange times.

* ''{{Garfield}}'' is a prime example of this. Older strips from the 1970s had record players and vintage televisions. Strips nowadays feature iPods and cell phones.

* ''{{Blondie}}'' has also taken to this in recent years. The jokes have generally been about how out-of-touch Dagwood is with modern society, but the "modern society" the reader is often shown still feels like it's trapped in a time warp.
** Made worse by the fact that the author never explains how Elmo is so rich as to have Photoshop and an iPad among other things, when he's like 10 years old. RuleOfFunny is not in effect because these jokes don't go anywhere.
*** TruthInTelevision: Parents will buy both of those for kids as young as eight or so. Photoshopping with the right program is so easy that an elementary school kid ''could'' do it. It's not that uncommon for a kid to have a gadget like those while the people one decade older think its ridiculous for a parent to give it to them. Plus, Elmo spending so much time with Dagwood makes more sense ''with'' the gadgets.
*** FridgeBrilliance: His parents are too busy for him and are buying him expensive toys to keep him occupied. He really just wants to hang out with someone, so he goes to see Dagwood.
* ''{{Peanuts}}'' occasionally delved into this, usually through having Snoopy picking up on then-current fads.
** This arguably reached its apex (or nadir) with the '80s TV special ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO6ccX90HNI It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown]]''.

** The opening to the episode "To Surveil With Love," in which the entire Springfield populace lip syncs to Ke$ha's "[=TiK ToK=]" -- while pretty funny -- absolutely reeked of desperation to appeal to the hip youth of the current age, regardless that anime dose this with JPop in it's openings and endings all the time (removing the lip sync, of course).

*** [[YourMileageMayVary Goofy is even more versatile than Donald.]]
*** FridgeBrilliance : Goofy and Donald's ability to be reinvented with the times? Think about what they're [[KingdomHearts famous for now.]] You bet they're still relevant!

** Now the computer generated Yogi and Boo Boo in a live action movie will attempt to do the same. The [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil trailers]] have already begun the downward spiral.

* ''[[{{ptitle6p8e221c}} Li'l Abner]]'' introduced student radicals called SWINE (Students Wildly Indignant at Nearly Everything) during TheSixties.

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