Fast-Forward Gag

This is where a television show or film will speed up the film and the comedy comes from the actions you see the actors perform. Audio is similarly sped up and is unintelligible and the action that occurs on screen will often go from somewhat logical to outright absurd. Depending on how fast these visuals speed by, it may overlap with Freeze-Frame Bonus.

Additionally, in some cases the humor can also be derived from the continuity errors resulting from fast-forwarding the action.

Subtrope of Undercrank. Not to be confused with the Gilligan Cut. The Inverted version of this trope would be Rewind Gag.

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Examples:

Advertising

• These two commercials for Lanacane anti-itch gel start off with a family member saying that they have an itch and then the mother asks if it's a grocery list of causes to the point where she rapidly-speeds-up-to-chipmunk voice and hilarity insues, but then to drive the point home, the musical cue hits and the male announcer says "The only medicine you need is Lanacane."
• During this commercial for "My Pal 2000" midway through, the male announcer lists off what the toy robot can do to the point where his voice is fast-forwarded to chipmunk voice until the toy robot interrupts and says "Easy. Easy."
• An old commercial for Nick at Nite featured the miracle of comedy that was "Fast Motion", replete with clips from classic shows (primarily The Munsters) in which this trope was invoked.

Anime & Manga

• In Persona 4: The Animation episode 19, Yu gives a long explanation on why the girls should enter the beauty pageant, while being fast forwarded, it went on for 30 minutes.
• In the first episode of Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!, Nyarko's explanation for why she's on Earth gets fast-forwarded almost immediately, complete with VHS-style distortion. Slowing the sequence down to half speed reveals that her dialog directly quotes the exact same scene from the original light novel, except that there, she went on for much, much longer.
  • During said speech Nyarko remarks that her boss is unreasonable, naps all the time, and gets angry enough to destroy the universe if you wake him up — which reveals to fans of the Cthulhu Mythos that said boss is Azathoth, the deity who exists above all others in the Mythos^note as well as Nyarlathotep's father in Lovecraft's stories, though this doesn't seem to be the case for Nyarko-san.
• It was used in Sket Dance, where that weird teacher explained the history of the never before heard of game of Genesis.
• Naoe Kanetsugu's merciless rant about Kagekatsu in Tono to Issho.
• In one episode of Mini Sengoku Basara, Motonari writes an extremely bombastic letter to the anime director, which Motochika attempts to read. After the fast-forward, it's revealed he passed out in the process.
• Done in the Pokémon: The Series episode "To Master the Onixpected!", when Meowth uses a remote to fast-forward Team Rocket's motto. Afterwards, Jessie is completely exhausted, and James bit his tongue.
• Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu:
  • The art teacher is asked to explain the "Humans and Nature" project to the class. After rambling incomprehensibly for several minutes, he's asked to sum things up. His "summary" is the same speech, sped up. The trope is repeated whenever someone asks the teacher about art.
  • Kaname explaining to Chaste Hero Sōsuke how to pick up girls.
  • In the OAV of Full Metal Panic!, Mardukas chews out two of his subordinates, with an establishing shot of the island showing the dressing down lasts from midday until sunset.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: The manga underwent a Channel Hop and moved to a new magazine after 10 chapters; as such, the beginning of Chapter 11 is almost identical to the beginning of Chapter 1 in order to introduce new readers to the series' core premise, something which is reflected in the anime by having episode 2 have a near identical opening to episode 1. Episode 3 starts off the same as the previous two, as if it's also going to rehash the same information, but then fast-forwards through it to get to the new material.

Fan Works

• Fate/Gamers Only: Rikku decides to fast forward to the end of the first Halloween event (despite Dr. Roman saying she can't fast forward reality), and the dialogue of everyone encountered between where she stopped and the end of the event is rendered as "high speed chipmunk noises".
• In Naruto: The Abridged Series, Kakashi uses a remote to fast forward over the Wave Country filler, but ends up breaking it right before the opening.

Films — Animation

• Madagascar: After Alex is tranquilized at the central station, he experiences a Mushroom Samba to the tune of "The Candyman". Alex then wakes up, only to immediately get tranquilized again, having the same dream sped up by double.
• At the beginning of Trolls, Poppy is telling the story about the trolls and the Bergens, and says that the trolls loved nothing more than to sing, and dance, and hug and repeats herself until her voice is sped up to chipmunk voice until one of the trolls in the scrapbook story pants in a chipmunk voice and then passes out from exhaustion.
• A time-lapse montage of Reggie's assistant Mikey frantically building amenities shacks on the island in Surf's Up is set to increasingly speeding-up Hawaiian-sounding music (as Reggie reclines next to an ever growing pile of coconut halves). At the end, Mikey turns to the camera and says "I feel light-headed" in a chipmunk voice.

Films — Live-Action

• Amélie: This happens when Amelie prepares her forged letter to Madeline Welles. The action is sped up while she uses scissors to cut a letter into small pieces, before gluing them together in a different order.
• In Spaceballs, the villains attempt to find the heroes by playing the ''Spaceballs'' videotape. They end up doing this when they come to their "Ludicrous Speed" fiasco.
  Dark Helmet: Go past this. Pass this part. In fact, never play this again.
• Used in the film version of V for Vendetta, complete with "Yakety Sax".
• Shows up quite a few times in The Gods Must Be Crazy.
• Used in the three-way sex scene in A Clockwork Orange. All set to "William Tell Overture: Finale (Rossini)".
• Done by Woody Allen in Love and Death.
• Done during a certain (third-person perspective) memory replay in Poison Berry in My Brain.
• In Deadpool, after the two How We Got Here flashbacks, the film arrives at the taxi scene, and Deadpool fast forwards the scene — though he briefly rewinds it instead.
  Deadpool: Oh wait, you've already seen this. [fast forward the scene, but accidentally rewinds it, showing him whining] Not this one. [fast forwards too far to show him masturbating under a blanket] Whoops! Too far... You weren't meant to see that. [rewind]
• One of the transition shots in A Christmas Story has the kids running by in fast-motion, with the audio sped up to match.
• A rare Played for Drama version in Click: the remote that Michael receives allows him to fast-forward through parts of his life, but this has the consequence of not only causing him to miss important events, but those around him taking The Slow Path perceive him as being brusque and distant, which causes his relationships with his family to deteriorate.

Live-Action TV

• Have I Got News for You: In this clip at the thirty-five minute nineteen second mark the host mentions that since the show is on video you can fast forward through the boring bits. He goes on to explain the next game the panel will be playing and the film is sped up and his voice is made to sound like he is on helium and is unintelligible. He makes several odd hand gestures and eventually produces a fire extinguisher before the show returns to normal speed.
• The Benny Hill Show used this trope a few times per episode. It's infamous for its use for chase scenes, often with the music "Yakety Sax".
• It's done on The Munsters, whenever someone meets the titular family and runs away.
• Happened a few times on Gilligan's Island. Once was when the castaways were performing a series of repetitive actions and the film sped up, showing them doing the things really fast.
• Played with in The Big Bang Theory, when the main characters bought a Time Machine replica and played with it, they acted going in fast forward. Hilarity Ensues.
• This is a common gag in How I Met Your Mother, with the film reaching regular speed to give key snippets. Mostly done with couples' fighting, or various Seinfeldian Conversations like Duck vs Rabbit, reasons to have sex, or insults towards Canada.
• Lizzie Mcguire: In "First Kiss", this used in order to prevent an Overly Long Gag. In general, this is commonly used in this show.
• Used at least twice in Kaamelott, the first time being a clear Shout-Out to The Benny Hill Show.
• Used once on The Neighborhood when Calvin sees a snake and runs away very fast.
• LazyTown: Done for effect in "Defeeted" when Sportacus's legs are fast-forwarded moving up and down like a constantly accelerating machine to highlight just how out-of-control his feet have become thanks to Robbie's boots.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Used in Boxing Helena when a tour bus of customers comes to Dippity do Dog during Ashley's shift.

Video Games

• No More Heroes has one late game conversation fast forwarded slowed down it reveals father-daughter incest. The game hints ("It's impossible, It'll only jack up the age rating of this game even further") that the conversation was fast-forwarded to avoid a higher rating, but this isn't actually the case: Suda51 states that it was actually sped up due to Rule of Funny...that, and the dialogue is a fairly lengthy Infodump. Travis' shocked reactions are priceless.
• Quest for Glory: The first game when you clean the stables is overlaid with a sped up version of the main theme.
• In Portal 2, GLaDOS says that she has to tell you something important about the testing chamber you're in. Being GLaDOS, she skips through the warning quite quickly. Slowed down, she's reciting a passage from Moby-Dick.
• In Sonic Riders, Wave's dialogue speeds up when Jet starts tuning out her lecture. It stays sped up until Jet sees Sonic and gives chase.
• In PaRappa the Rapper, Joe Chin's dialogue speeds up as soon as his speeches become so long-winded that it just shocks everyone he encounters. By the end of the first level, he's still yapping away at an uncontrollable speed, and then slows himself back down to say "Put up your fists, you evil crusaders, let me knock you out!" And then the two thugs drop to the ground, unconscious and shocked.
• In Tomodachi Life a Mii can ask you to listen to what he or she has to say about either their sweetheart, spouse, or child. After a little while of talking in 2x speed, they start getting fast-forwarded more while the subtitles read "Yadda yadda yadda", "Something something something" and "Blather blather blather". They finish with a line that wraps things up at normal speed.

Web Animation

• Used in The Demented Cartoon Movie, where two guys are trying to fly a rocket to Mars. After eight failed attempts, one of them decides to spare the viewers the trouble of watching it all again and fast-forwards through it — only to go further than intended and wind up knee-deep in Zeeky bombs. In the next take he says he'll "fast-forward correctly this time" and the duo arrives safely on the surface of Mars.
• Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "2 emails", Strong Bad decides to "wait it out" for the upcoming Ladies' Choice Awards. There's a brief segment that goes in fast-foward, showing Strong Bad doing various things to pass the time, like typing in a BASIC program to make the Compy say "STRONG BAD IS AWESOME!" on a loop, playing with Peanut Strong Bad, bringing up (and deleting) a third email, and playing a computer game called "Pigs on Head". We also see Homestar leaving a message on Strong Bad's computer saying he tried to make a time machine using Strong Bad's blender and Game Boy.
• Metal Gear Awesome uses this as a quick joke, skipping over the scene where Otacon narrates his backstory... and pausing halfway to find Snake and Otacon about to make out.
• Siblings: Happens twice at the end of "Not-the-FFXII Extras", complete with a Motor Mouth Narrator.
  "ONEPATHETICALLYSHORTBATTLELATER!"^note :The heroes fight Vayne in a ridiculously short battle.
  "ONEFIERYTRANSFORMATIONLATER!"^note Vayne transforms into a giant with wings.

Web Videos

• The Game Overthinker sometimes speeds up part of his voice-over in order to make the video fit the standard ~10-minute length while still including all the BIG WORDS he wants to use. It is usually accompanied by a graphic of a chipmunk and a cup of coffee.
• Videos of Speedpaints can end up looking unintentionally funny because it's, well, it's not called Speedpaint for nothing. The skills of the artists end up looking absurdly easy.
• In The Nostalgia Critic episode where he riffs on the movie Battlefield Earth, after seeing the absurdity of the planet's inhabitants never seeing an explosion when the said planet has an atmosphere made out of radiation and excessively use guns, he starts pounding his fists on the desk and screams "THIS IS STUPID!!! THIS IS STUPID!!! STUPID!!! STUPID!!!..." and he keeps saying stupid to the point where his voice rapidly-speeds-up-to-chipmunk voice and the footage gets undercranked while going into a complete screaming tirade about it. He then ends the tirade with a double facepalm and whimpering in a chipmunk voice, and he then says in his normal voice that he's not in the right mindset for the featured movie, so he then takes a hammer and bashes himself in the head with it, and afterwards he gets disoriented and randomly says "Duh huh, I like spayth chipth."
• In Phelous's review of Mattel's failed mobile media player, the Juice Box, there's a scene of him fast-forwadring through an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) and adding commentary to the comically-fast footage.
  (over Splinter's monologue, sped up to the point of being incomprehensible) "Wow, this is Splinter's best speech ever!"
  (over footage of the turtles, also sped up to incomprehensibility) "(gibberish mimicking the footage)! We hate you Shredder!"
• raocow frequently fast-forwards portions of his Let's Play videos if the content is relatively unimportant, commonly referred to by him and his fans as either 'chipmunk time' or 'chibi-cow'. This was originally done due to YouTube's video length limits, but he kept it in partly because of Rule of Funny and also to showcase how his winning runs went in sections with which he had previously been having difficulty.
• In the LP Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Special Edition, a Game-Breaking Bug forces Docfuture to play through Hill Top Zone three times. He lets the opening cutscene play normally the first time, then fast-forwards through the cutscene on both replays. While fast-forwarding, bizarre footage shows up that wasn't there at normal speed, including shots of weird Sonic the Hedgehog fanart and cosplays, and a scene of Batman surfing.
• In Scootertrix the Abridged, Episode 9, the side characters Daisy and Lily start to have a conversation. Then the editor decides their voices are too annoying and fast-forwards through the rest of their scene. Among the fast-forwarded bits is a brief shot of sinister-looking black vines overrunning Ponyville that never gets explained or referenced again.

Western Animation

• An episode of American Dad! has Steve wanting to tell his father something important, but he's not home, so we get a fast-forward of him patiently waiting for Stan. When Stan does show up, he insists on reading the mail first, giving us a second fast-forward as he does so, randomly laughing or cursing at the letters he's reading.

• Family Guy: An episode where Peter and Lois considered buying TiVo had the salesman fast forward through their argument to get to the point where they agreed. In the middle of the argument, Chris enters choking on something and Lois gives him the Heimlich Maneuver.
• Garfield and Friends: In the U.S. Acres segment, "Sly Spy Guy", when the singer is about to sing the Double Oh Orson theme song, Orson interrupts her to tell her that everyone's already heard it before, and asks her if they could just speed through it. The Singer then plays sped-up footage of the Double Oh Orson intro from "Cornfinger".
• The opening to King of the Hill is sped-up-film-style. As Hank and his friends stand in the alley and drink beer, a day passes.
• In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Measure for Measure", while Jet is measuring how many astronomical units Neptune is from the Sun, a video progress bar appears. Sunspot appears behind the bar and fast forwards, speeding up the process.
• The Simpsons:
  • Homer waiting three days for his gun permit, set to Tom Petty's "The Waiting" in "The Cartridge Family".
  • Homer calls this out in "Beyond Blunderdome", using it as an excuse to speed up the beginning of Mel Gibson's movie.
• Steven Universe: In "Log Date 7 15 2", Steven fast-forwards through Peridot's long explanation on her preferred pairing in Camp Pining Hearts, as he's heard it before. During the sequence, Peridot is bouncing all over the place, has produced pages of notes, and finally, Steven falls asleep near the end while Garnet joins in.
• In the Total Drama Island episode "If You Can't Take the Heat...", Courtney rants about Duncan in the confessional for so long, that the camera has to fast forward it a bit.
• Turbo F.A.S.T. features one that references its status as a Netflix exclusive, as the fast forward effect is depicted as someone skipping forward through the video in a Netflix playback interface.

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