History UnintentionalPeriodPiece / CalvinAndHobbes

* A few of the '80s strips have Calvin referencing [=VCRs=] and records, commenting on NewWaveMusic fashion trends, comparing his dad to Creator/GeneSiskel, or a couple of UsefulNotes/ColdWar references. The comic books that Calvin devours are clearly from UsefulNotes/{{the Dark Age|of Comic Books}} of the medium's history.

* In [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/07/20 two different]] [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/03/01 1990s comics]], Calvin tells Hobbes that he is collecting comic books as a retirement fund, satirizing the comic collecting boom of the late 80s to early 90s. Only a year after this strip, Hobbes' questioning how they could become valuable if ''everyone'' had multiple copies of the same comic [[HilariousInHindsight became prophetic]], as everyone in real life started realizing the same thing, resulting in UsefulNotes/TheGreatComicsCrashOf1996.

* [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/03/05 In one early story arc]], Calvin rents out a VCR and several VHS tapes from a video rental store. Aside from the reference to the VCR (further dating the strip to before 2000, when VHS tapes [[TechnologyMarchesOn were succeeded by]] [=DVDs=]), video rental stores were an industry that thrived from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s, but are now almost totally extinct.[[note]]As of 2022, the only remaining franchised video rental shop in the United States is a single Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon.[[/note]]

* [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/03/15 One early strip]] has Calvin mentioning Halley's Comet, and thinking the world will end because [[CometOfDoom comets are "harbingers of doom"]] (although he's just using it as an excuse not to do his homework). The strip was published just around the time the comet's most recent close passage to Earth and was part of a massive media sensation, trying to incorporate the comet into many stories released around the time (other examples include ''Film/Lifeforce1985'', an episode of ''Series/{{Benson}}'', the novel ''Heart of the Comet'', ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'', the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E1AttackOfTheCybermen Attack of the Cybermen]]", and ''Film/NightOfTheComet''). Ironically, because the comet was behind the Sun during its 1986 passage, it provided the worst viewing conditions for onlookers in recorded history.

* [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/04/18 One strip]] [[note]]the one where Calvin asks where babies come from and Dad tells him that most people just buy an assembly kit from the store[[/note]] mentioned Sears and Kmart, two American department store chains which peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s (the period when the strip was running) and would have been household names at the time, but have now both filed for bankruptcy and are vastly dwindling. Many newer readers [[AluminumChristmasTrees may also be confused]] what a "blue light special" is (Kmart more or less phased out their signature blue light special in 1991 because its popularity had begun to wane, only rarely bringing it back for short periods to take advantage of nostalgia).

* In [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/05/25 one 1986 Sunday strip]], Calvin and Hobbes are shown ogling a cigarette machine. These were common in TheEighties, but they began to disappear in TheNineties thanks to skyrocketing cigarette prices since that decade. Then in 2010, a law was enacted in the United States that restricted cigarette vending machines to facilities where people under eighteen years of age are not allowed, therefore now making it basically impossible for someone Calvin's age to encounter one.

* This [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/07/16 1992]] strip depicts Calvin with a ''jar'' of Mustard. Good luck finding Mustard that isn't in a squeeze bottle these days. Even in TheNineties, they were becoming rarer. However to be fair to him, some types of mustard ''are'' still produced in Jars - Generally brown or dijon mustards.

* In [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1994/01/31 one 1994 strip]], Calvin's dad mentions seeing cigarette ads twenty-five years ago. The strip ran on a [[ComicBookTime sliding time scale]] and Calvin's dad's age is never mentioned, but passed the earliest 2000s, it would be basically impossible for Calvin's dad to have seen a cigarette commercial as a kid, considering the last one aired in 1971. Similarly, another strip in 1992 mentions he was taught math in school using slide rules, which fell out of common use in the mid 1970s ([[TechnologyMarchesOn with the rise of affordable handheld electronic calculators]]).

* Inflation example in [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/03/17 this 1992 strip]]. Calvin asks his dad why they don't have a cool sports car like in a commercial he's watching, to which his dad says that car costs $40,000. With how much inflation there's been in the past thirty or so years, adult readers nowadays would be ''wishing'' sports cars still cost that much. By the 2020s, the ''average'' new car in the US costs over $40,000. A sports car costing $40,000 in 1992 would cost $85,000 in 2022.

** Another inflation example; in an early strip, Calvin's dad tells Calvin that it cost, on average, $100,000 to raise a child to legal adulthood (and then asking in a rather threatening tone if he should consider that cost a gift or a ''loan'' to get Calvin to behave himself). Current estimates on the average cost of raising a child to eighteen in the US during the early 2020s are around the range of $300,000 dollars.
** Another inflation example is in [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/06/25 a 1992 strip]] where Hobbes asks Calvin how the movie sequels are this summer. Calvin says they're great, because he hates paying five bucks to have to deal with a new plot. Average movie ticket price in America for most of the '90s was under five dollars, but has since risen far above that. By the early '00s, it was six dollars, and by the early '20s it was well over ten dollars. Any moviegoers today would be ecstatic over five dollar movie tickets.

* [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/03/15 One early strip]] has Calvin mentioning Halley's Comet, and thinking the world will end because [[CometOfDoom comets are "harbingers of doom"]] (although he's just using it as an excuse not to do his homework). The strip was published just around the time the comet's most recent close passage to Earth and was part of a massive media sensation, trying to incorporate the comet into many stories released around the time (other examples include ''Film/{{Lifeforce}}'', an episode of ''Series/{{Benson}}'', the novel ''Heart of the Comet'', ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'', the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E1AttackOfTheCybermen Attack of the Cybermen]]", and ''Film/NightOfTheComet''). Ironically, because the comet was behind the Sun during its 1986 passage, it provided the worst viewing conditions for onlookers in recorded history.

* As noted in TechnologyMarchesOn, the few times then up-to-date technology is depicted (as opposed to intentionally anachronistic devices like the rotary phone or antennae television), it ends up dating the comic. For example, Calvin's mom is shown writing letters with a typewriter (by the end of the comic's run, they had been succeeded by writing programs on personal computers), Calvin is shown recording himself with a cassette tape (these were popular in the 80s and 90s, but have been succeeded by cellphones), all the cameras are film cameras rather than digital, and Calvin's dad's computer uses a bulky CRT vacuum tube monitor.

** Another inflation example; in an early strip, Calvin's dad tells Calvin that it cost, on average, $100, 000 to raise a child to legal adulthood (and then asking in a rather threatening tone if he should consider that cost a gift or a ''loan'' to get Calvin to behave himself). Current estimates on the average cost of raising a child to eighteen in the US during the early 2020s are around the range of $300, 000 dollars.

* In [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/02/26 the infamous Sunday strip]] where Calvin discusses an analogy of deer shooting a man to death to cull the growing human population, he states the human population had grown to "almost six billion". The strip was published in 1995, and, needless to say, it didn't stay "almost six billion" for much longer; by the TurnOfTheMillennium (less than five years later) it had already broken six billion. It eventually reached seven billion by 2012, and a whopping ''eight'' billion by 2022.

* In one 1992 strip, Calvin asks his mother for some money to buy a "suicide-advocating, Satan-worshipping heavy metal album". This kind of music was extremely popular at the time, but declined later in the 1990s. Also, nowadays he wouldn't even need money to listen to it since music is available on the Internet for free.[[note]]Though arguably the point was to {{troll}} his mother rather than actually listen: in another strip he actually acquires the album but throws the record in the trash, planning to send Mom into a conniption by leaving the slipcover lying around.[[/note]]

* The first time machine story arc (which came out in September, 1987) has Calvin and Hobbes trying to go to the future... the far off time period of... "[[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/09/04 the turn of the century]]" (for the 20th century this would be 2000). As of writing (2022), it is now nearly twice as far from "the turn of the century" than Calvin was in 1987.

** Another time, Calvin had to make a diorama of a desert for a school project, and he complained that he didn't know what a desert looked like. Hobbes suggested he get out a book and Calvin refused to go to the effort. Another story arc had Calvin needing to do an assignment on bats, but he refused to go to the library to do research. Nowadays, there would be no such discussion. (While Calvin ''could'' still refuse to look it up on the Internet, that would be much more of a stretch.)

* In one 1992 strip, Calvin asks his mother for some money to buy a "suicide-advocating, Satan-worshipping heavy metal album". This kind of music was extremely popular at the time, but declined later in the 1990s. Also, nowadays he wouldn't even need money to listen to it since music is available on the Internet for free.

* In [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/09/22 one 1990s strip]], Calvin tells Hobbes of the approaching "electronic superhighway" that will link televisions, computers, and phones across the world together to provide "instantaneous interactive communication". The term "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway superhighway]]" to refer to the advancing communicative technology of the internet was a popular one in the 1990s but fell out of use near the beginning of the 21st century. Ironically, Calvin marvelling at the future ends up dating the strip in the past.

** Calvin's obsession with television and his dad's aversion to it was an extremely frequent reoccurring joke. Nowadays, the sentiment that "TV rots your brain" [[TechnologyMarchesOn has been replaced]] with "too much internet/phone use/social media rots your brain" as TheNewRockAndRoll.

* One story arc has Calvin lock Rosalyn out of the house. If she'd had a cell phone, the arc would've ended much quicker (unless Calvin was clever enough to somehow trick her into going outside without her phone). Another story arc has Calvin steal Rosalyn's school notes and threaten to flush them down the toilet, but this would have easier to avoid now had Rosalyn typed up the notes on a laptop like many students do nowadays.

''Calvin and Hobbes'', which ran in the 80s and 90s, is considered by many to be timeless. However, the 21st century saw a lot of social and technological changes that no one predicted, so there are some moments that clearly date the work.

* The fact that the strip was written before the Internet is very obvious at times:
** In one of the later strips, Calvin asks his dad why their computer doesn't have internet, and his dad, being the luddite he is, retorts that it's bad enough they have a telephone. While this may have been a less extreme opinion back in the early 1990s, nowadays, any middle-class American would have a ''very'' hard time attempting to justify not having internet. Anybody with beliefs like Calvin's dad would be ridiculed. In this one comic, the word internet is not even used, and online is spelled as "on-line", showing that the strip was written before the words became commonly used, since it just predates the popularization of the internet.

* In one of the later strips, Calvin asks his dad why their computer doesn't have internet, and his dad, being the luddite he is, retorts that it's bad enough they have a telephone. While this may have been a less extreme opinion back in the early 1990s, nowadays, any middle-class American would have a ''very'' hard time attempting to justify not having internet. Anybody with beliefs like Calvin's dad would be ridiculed.
** In this one comic, the word internet is not even used, and online is spelled as "on-line", showing that the strip was written before the words became commonly used, since it just predates the popularization of the internet.
** This also applies to Calvin's obsession with television and his dad's aversion to it, which was an extremely frequent reoccurring joke. Nowadays, the sentiment that "TV rots your brain" [[TechnologyMarchesOn has been replaced]] with "too much internet/phone use/social media rots your brain" as TheNewRockAndRoll.
* A few strips had Calvin call the library for information on something ridiculous, only to get rejected. In a few other strips, he tries looking something up in a dictionary or encyclopedia ("[[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/06/17 Can you believe the encyclopedia doesn't have an entry for "hotwire"?]]"). By the mid-2000s, he would search all of this online and find out instantly.

** Another similar RunningGag was Calvin hanging up on any incoming calls for his parents, because he's too self-centred to take a call for someone else (and Calvin's technophobic dad refusing to get an answering machine to easily solve this issue). The joke wouldn't work nowadays for multiple reasons. First, most modern phones automatically have voicemail, secondly, there's the alternate and faster options of email or texting, and thirdly, nearly everyone has a personal cellphone now.
* Not to mention that the sheer grotesque creativity of Calvin's snow sculptures would surely go viral online today considering ''someone'' would take pictures so the world could get a load of an obvious child prodigy in art.

* The [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/01/01 iconic Sunday strip]] where Calvin introduces "[[CoolButStupid TYRANNOSAURS IN F-14s!!]]". The Grumman F-14 Tomcat was retired by the US in 2006 and, aside from some preserved for historical display, all remaining F-14s in the country were destroyed in 2009 (a few f-14s remain in service in Iran, although in declining number).

* In one strip, Calvin references the advice column ''Dear Abby'', which peaked in popularity in the 80s, while a 1986 story arc had Calvin reference ''Film/TheElephantMan'', which only came out a few years prior, a 1986 Sunday comic mentioned Creator/DonJohnson, the star of the popular 80s BuddyCopShow ''Series/MiamiVice'' that had just premiered, in one 1986 strip Calvin says "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj-lYM5GCQg it's Miller time]]" as the punchline, and the 1989 camping arc had Calvin's dad referencing [[Creator/EastmanKodak Kodak]], which financially declined in the late 90s and declared bankruptcy in 2012 (several jokes revolving around Calvin wasting photography film also became outdated with it, since the vast majority of cameras are digital now).
* One story arc has Calvin lock Rosalyn out of the house. If she'd had a cell phone, the arc would've ended much quicker (unless Calvin was clever enough to somehow trick her into going outside without her phone).

** This also applies to many of [[TwoDecadesBehind the general aesthetics]] of the strip's setting, which intended a broad late-twentieth century feel that somewhat dates the strip even more because it often references entities which were much more prevalent during the 50s to 70s when Watterson himself was a kid, and would be recognizable to readers during the strip's original run from the '85 to '95, but would be lost on most 21st century readers.

** Another time, Calvin had to make a diorama of a desert for a school project, and he complained that he didn't know what a desert looked like. Hobbes suggested he get out a book and Calvin refused to go to the effort. Nowadays, there would be no such discussion. (While Calvin ''could'' still refuse to look it up on the Internet, that would be much more of a stretch.)

* In one of the later strips, Calvin's dad refers to car phones and fax machines among newer technologies (along with modems). Both were fairly widespread in the 1980s and early 1990s, but with the rise of widespread cellphone and the internet use, have become largely obsoleted by the 21st century (car phones particularly).[[note]]Fax machines remain popular in medical facilities and in Japan, however.[[/note]] Another strip has Calvin bemoaning the fact their car doesn't have a built-in cassette player, which became outdated for the same reason by the beginning of the 21st century.