History Main / WhatHappenedToTheMouse

Parent trope of AbsentAnimalCompanion. Compare with LeftHanging, UncertainDoom, KudzuPlot, RedHerringTwist, OutOfFocus, PutOnABus. Related tropes include NeverFoundTheBody and WhatNowEnding. May involve a ShrugOfGod. See also OffscreenInertia if you imagine the plot line still stuck at that spot for eternity. Could lead to an EsotericHappyEnding at worst if the plot thread was a major one that wasn't resolved.

[[folder:Magazines]]
* ''Take a Break'', a British magazine which publishes readers' RealLife stories, once featured a story about a young girl, Cassie Griggs, who was disqualified from a talent contest after her mother was accused of trying to pass another girl off as Cassie. At the mother's request, Cassie was allowed to perform, but was not given any marks, resulting in her coming last. However, as no follow-up has (to date) been published, it's impossible to know how this setback affected Cassie's attitude to talent contests in the long term. She could have picked herself up and entered another contest, or her confidence could have been knocked so badly that she was never able to perform again. We just don't know.
[[/folder]]

* The Lamb of the Music/{{Genesis}} ConceptAlbum ''Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway'' is mentioned only once, in the very first song on the album.

* In the ''Literature/BookOfGenesis'', Jacob's only known daughter, Dinah, is raped by an unnamed Canaanite prince while going to visit her neighbors. Long story short, her brothers [[RapeAndRevenge avenge her]] by wiping out every man in the prince's village. We are not told what may have happened to her after that. There are two common theories. One is that she wound up in AncientEgypt, had a daughter as a result of the rape, and said daughter grew up to be her half-brother Joseph's wife. The other is that she requested to marry her older brother Simeon because her society viewed her as DefiledForever; it was a SexlessMarriage that simply ensured that she would be protected and provided for.

* In a 2010 ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' storyline, the title character was involved in a near-head-on collision with a woman yaking on a cell phone. This catapulted Funky into a brief TimeTravel (or was it) arc. When we come back to the present, Funky's in the hospital with assorted injuries. Not a word was spoken, before or since, about [[FanNickname Cell Phone Lady]].

* Creator/EddieIzzard's Dress to Kill tour featured the 'Firework joke' which he repeatedly references throughout his performance then ends the show without telling it. It's lampshaded by several people in the audience who immediately begin asking for it. He doesn't.

* Elihu spends a few chapters ranting at the eponymous character of the Literature/BookOfJob, then disappears and isn't mentioned in the last portion, where God rebukes the rest of Job's [[WithFriendsLikeThese "friends"]].
** A common interpretation is that Elihu doesn't get rebuked by God because his points, against both Job and the other companions, were correct. If anything he's sort of an {{inver|tedTrope}}sion--Job's three friends are mentioned for thirty-odd chapters before Elihu suddenly speaks up out of nowhere. Then again, Elihu could just simply show up as a {{troll}} wanting to get his two cents in before disappearing.
** If Elihu gets it, then Satan must be fuming...one of the two main protagonists who have a bet over the temptation and scarification of Job, he isn't involved any more after the first few chapters.
* In the [[Literature/TheBible New Testament]], we never hear any word of Jesus' stepfather Joseph after the "Did you not know I would be in my Father's house" incident when He was twelve. Church tradition says he passed away some time before Jesus started his ministry.

** In Literature/TheEddas, specifically the Prose Edda, the first man and woman are created by Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve. These brothers are never mentioned again. Some have suggested that they're avatars of Odin himself, who occasionally appears as a trinity to confuse people. In the Poetic Edda, the three who defeated Ymir are referenced as Odin, Hoenir, and Lodur -- Hoenir being a once-mentioned god who acts as a hostage after the war with the Vanir (traded for Njorth, Frey, and Freyja). There are some reasons to think that Lodur might be another name for Loki. Still, this is the older and less-mentioned version, meaning that it might just be a mistake, or a fragment of a different myth.

** When [[TheAce Balder]] died, his wife Nanna [[DrivenToSuicide killed herself]], and the two are later seen in the Underworld together. After Ragnarok, [[BackFromTheDead Balder comes back to life]], as does his brother/AccidentalMurderer [[DisabledDeity Hoder]], but there's no reference to Nanna.
* Creator/ThomasPaine wonders in his book ''The Age of Reason'' what happened with the dead who rose after Jesus died according to the Gospel of Matthew. Did they go home, back to their graves, or what? It's never said.

* In the Literature/BookOfNumbers, Korah starts a rebellion against Moses with Dathan and Abiram, plus another guy named On, son of Peleth, who is never mentioned after the first line. The Midrash says that [[WomenAreWiser On's wife]], realizing this whole thing was a terrible idea, got him passed out drunk and stopped the others from waking him before going to challenge Moses; as a result, he was sleeping in his tent when all of the other conspirators were killed by God.

** One of the most popular "Whatever Happened To ... ?" stories was of Jeanine Deckers, a Belgian known as The Singing Nun, whose song “Dominique” hit No. 1 in the US in late 1963. Casey's stories on Deckers would always explain that The Singing Nun gave all royalties to the convent but left it in 1966, and later the Belgian government made a claim for back taxes to the tune of $63,000 ... more than Deckers could afford, and no documentation existed that she had donated anything to charity. (The common stories are that her attorney failed to document it and/or that the Catholic church had either destroyed all records of it after they and Deckers broke ties, or that they simply did not have any more responsibility for her and did not have the funds.) Updated several times through the years, the final chapter came in 1985 when Casey announced that Deckers had died (of suicide) at age 51.

*

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}''
** In "The Shining Beacon", the first thing Yang does when she and Ruby first arrive at [[ExtranormalInstitute Beacon Academy]] is ditch Ruby and rush off with her friends. However, when Ruby finds her way into the school hall where the new students are gathering, Yang has saved her a spot and her friends are nowhere in evidence. Later in the same episode, Ruby tells Yang that being pushed ahead by two years means that, unlike Yang, she didn't get to bring her friends with her to Beacon Academy. However, after this episode, any reference to the two sisters having friends in Signal Academy is never again mentioned, not even the friends of Yang that came with her to Beacon Academy.
** It's 8th Volume has two characters, Pietro and Maria, where last seen in Amity Arena early on in the volume. They never appear again after this, even when Pietro's surrogate daughter is involved in major events and [[spoiler:with the events in its DownerEnding, their fates are extremely ambiguous]]. This also extends to the members of Team FNKI, whose fates are also undisclosed.

** The same happened to Aphibax's secret mission to track the events on the island of Voya Nui.
** Order of Mata Nui agents report in the book ''Bionicle World'' that Karzahni is training his Matoran slaves in order to conquer the outer world he just learned of. The plot had been {{Retcon}}ned out of the story, so he went to fight without them, taking his Manas crabs instead.

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* The only example of loose continuity in ''ComicStrip/{{Jucika}}'' was the titular heroine's marriage to her cheating bastard of a husband, who disappeared from the strip without explanation after a couple years and Jucika returned to flirting with other men.

** Two entire specials were based on the "What Happened to the Mouse" concept – one in July 1973 and the other in April 1975 – where Casey played the biggest singles by the OneHitWonder acts of the rock era. The 1975 special had a slightly different chart, with a few different songs added and a different No. 1 song.

* ''WebAnimation/MyStoryAnimated'': In "I was living a lie until I read my bff’s diary", a girl dumps a bunch of rats on her boyfriend to get back at him for cheating. It's never mentioned what happened to the rats.

* In Literature/TheEddas, specifically the Prose Edda, the first man and woman are created by Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve. These brothers are never mentioned again anywhere, despite the obvious importance of such characters. Some people have rationalised this by suggesting that they're avatars of Odin himself, who occasionally appears as a trinity to confuse people. In the Poetic Edda, the three who defeated Ymir are referenced as Odin, Hoenir, and Lodur -- Hoenir being a once-mentioned god who acts as a hostage after the war with the Vanir (traded for Njorth, Frey, and Freyja). There are some reasons to think that Lodur might be another name for Loki. Still, this is the older and less-mentioned version, meaning that it might just be a mistake, or a fragment of a different myth.

** It's 8th Volume has two characters, Pietro and Maria, where last seen in Amity Arena early on in the volume. They never appear again after this, even when Pietro's surrogate daughter is involved in major events and [[spoiler:with the events in its DownerEnding, their fates are extremely ambiguous]].

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'':In "The Shining Beacon", the first thing Yang does when she and Ruby first arrive at [[ExtranormalInstitute Beacon Academy]] is ditch Ruby and rush off with her friends. However, when Ruby finds her way into the school hall where the new students are gathering, Yang has saved her a spot and her friends are nowhere in evidence. Later in the same episode, Ruby tells Yang that being pushed ahead by two years means that, unlike Yang, she didn't get to bring her friends with her to Beacon Academy. However, after this episode, any reference to the two sisters having friends in Signal Academy is never again mentioned, not even the friends of Yang that came with her to Beacon Academy.

!!Examples

* [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse/AnimatedFilms Film — Animated]]
* [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse/LiveActionFilms Film — Live-Action]]

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[[TheStinger So, er, guys, what did actually happen to the mouse?]]

* In James Blunt's "You're Beautiful", the first verse ends with the line "...but I've got a plan." We never find out what this plan involves, or if anything happens as a result of it. He later goes on to say that he "[doesn't] know what to do". The music video suggests his plan is to commit suicide.

"What happened to the mouse?" occurs when [[BitCharacter a minor character]], action, or very minor plotline is suddenly dropped from the story for no apparent reason, without any real explanation about what happened to it, and without a resolution.

* Persons notable for only one or two events in history, or took background places in more famous persons carriers (for instance, any random ancient soldier noted in a monument to a war with no other knowledge of their existence), count as this as we have no idea what happened to them, though it is safe to assume that they died at some point after the event or situation they briefly became notable for.

* Real life famous missing persons cases could be considered this. The most (in)famous is probably UsefulNotes/AmeliaEarhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific. The [[OccamsRazor most likely explanation]] is she just crashed in the ocean somewhere, but that hasn't stopped people (in real life and in fiction) from speculating that she was abducted by aliens, went into another dimension, or other such theories.

* [[http://garfield.com/comic/1988-02-28 This]] 1988 ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' strip has a blind date of Jon's named Gwen, who dresses as absurdly as he does on dates and finds him cute. Garfield even says "God made two of them!" Although she would have been a good recurring character, perhaps as a DistaffCounterpart of Jon, she was never mentioned again.

* In many versions of [[Myth/KingArthur Arthurian legend]], Arthur's mother has three daughters with her first husband: Morgause, Morgan le Fay, and Elaine. The first two play pivotal roles in Arthur's life, but Elaine is typically mentioned once in passing and then never heard from again, possibly because she's unremarkable in a tale of the remarkable - her life's achievements amount to marrying according to her station and bearing a son (her son's accomplishments boil down to being a lesser Knight of the Round Table who goes on one quest, fails miserably, and has to be rescued by Lancelot).

* Another example is the Anonymous Raw GM. After a month or so period where the Raw GM position consisted of Wrestling/VickieGuerrero and then Wrestling/BretHart the GM position was instead given to an anonymous person who issued directives via emails sent to a laptop read by Wrestling/MichaelCole. This continued for a year before Triple H became WWE COO and the Anonymous Raw GM was almost immediately dropped with no resolution or even a hint as to who the GM was actually supposed to be. (Wrestling/JohnCena did lampshade the plot thread just after Wrestling/JohnLaurinaitis assumed power as GM, arguing that WWE should "bring back the computer.") Almost a year later, and long after anyone cared, it was eventually revealed that it was Hornswoggle, an apparent reference to when he was equally anti-climactically revealed to be Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's supposed long lost son.

* Then there was that time Wrestling/SamoaJoe got kidnapped by ninjas. He was gone for like a month or so, came back, and nothing ever came out of it -- considering how Joe was acting very similar to how Abyss was acting at the time, it was widely believed he was originally slated to be a member of Immortal. Of course, this was neither the first nor last time Wrestling/{{TNA}} did something like this, with Wrestling/VinceRusso booking and all.

There are several main reasons this happens: in movies, the most common is that scenes are excised in editing, but [[OrphanedReference references to them still remain elsewhere in the film]]. Another common reason is that a WrongGenreSavvy audience mistakenly attached too much importance to what always was intended to be a throwaway. A third is that TheLawOfConservationOfDetail was not properly applied: a BitCharacter was a little too lively, so that he didn't appear a throw-away, as why was that much detail given for one?

A What Happened To The Mouse that is deliberately created and where the creators have ''no intention of ever resolving the question'' is a NoodleIncident. A What Happened To The Mouse that is returned to as a BrickJoke is SomethingWeForgot.

** Anita Diamant's ''Literature/TheRedTent'' tells Dinah's story from her perspective and ends with her having a son, becoming enslaved by her mother-in-law, but later finding love with master carpenter Benia and ending up HappilyMarried.