Basic Trope: A character sets up a joke to accompany a cut that has little or nothing to do with the plot.
- Straight: While Alice and Bob eat dinner, Alice reminds Bob of the time he tried cooking by himself. Cut to Bob spraying a burnt meal with a fire extinguisher while the smoke alarm rings.
- Exaggerated: The cut to Bob lasts several minutes and includes scenes completely irrelevant to the setup.
- Downplayed: We cut to a different part of the kitchen rather than a different scene entirely, showing the damage Bob caused to it when he attempted to cook.
- Justified: Alice and Bob own a voice activated TV that's programmed to automatically display cutaway gags when it hears a setup for one. Whenever the show cuts to one, we're actually just seeing its display.
- Inverted: The joke about Chef Bob is actually important to the story.
- Subverted: Alice then enters the frame, scolding him that this is exactly what happened last time.
- Double Subverted: Cut back to the previous scene, with Bob muttering "I can't believe I did that twice."
- Parodied:
- Bob gets up and reenacts exactly what happened in the gag, ending with him putting out a fire in the kitchen. He then says, "Just like last time!"
Alice accidentally drops a salt shaker.
Bob: Oh, man. This is just like the time I went to the International Space Station with only my undies on while smoking a bubble pipe.
Cutaway Gag to Bob literally doing that.
Alice: How the hell does this relate to me dropping a salt shaker? - Zig Zagged: Alice reminds Bob of the time he tried cooking by himself. We cut to a house on fire. The camera then pans to the house next door to show Alice pointing at the burning house through the window, saying "Yeah, like that". Bob says that's not what it was like at all, and we cut to Bob effortlessly serving Alice a Thanksgiving dinner... before it's revealed to just be Bob's Imagine Spot. Charlie then chimes in, saying that they both have terrible memory, followed by an actual cutaway to what really happened.
- Averted: Alice and Bob never mention a previous dinner.
- Enforced:
- The episode was written with a minor subplot that would convey to the audience exactly how bad Bob is at cooking, because it's important to his character. This made the episode too long to fit into it's timeslot, so it was cut and changed to just be a cutaway.
- This is a Family Guy episode.
- Lampshaded: "Alice, what did that have to do with the meal we're having now?"
- Invoked: Bob intentionally does things to remind Alice of the event so they can reminisce about it together.
- Exploited: Bob needs to get away from Alice for a brief second without her noticing. So he steps away from the scene while the cutaway plays and returns before it's over.
- Defied: Bob anticipates Alice's cutaway setup and interrupts it with another topic, which does not yield a cutaway.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
This reminds me of the time I clicked on the wrong link to Cutaway Gag!
