Backstory of the Day
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An established character reveals a major part of his life story that is contrived as a plot device to match the subject of today's episode. We've never seen this side of the character before (and may never see it again). It typically happens in sitcoms.
Bonus points for being really implausible.
Similar to Fleeting Passionate Hobbies, except in this trope the character supposedly has always had a long history with the hobby or character trait, rather than picking up something new.
See also Retcon.
Compressed Vice is a sub-trope.
Examples of Backstory of the Day include:
- Family Guy often does this. A good example would be the episode where Peter reveals he has been a lifelong fan of the band KISS, so that Peter and Lois can go to KISS Stock.
- In one episode of Head of the Class Jawarhalal was suddenly well-known for agreeing with everybody about everything. Up until that episode it didn't come up.
- The episode of Parks and Recreation where everyone turns out to have always been a major fan of Li'l Sebastian
- The episode of The Office (American) where Oscar turns out to have always been a major trivia geek who can't stand being proven wrong.
- Drawn Together does this regularly:
- The episode where the cast has the visitor, "Strawberry Sweetcake," gave Wooldor Sockbat had a backstory of his city being besieged by their mortal enemies, the Sweetcakes, who captured the Sockbats and ground them up for use in their pastry factories.
- Another episode gave Captain Hero a retarded son, who was the result of a relationship he had with his sister. The proof was the vestigial, underdeveloped arms hanging off their chests. He tried to teach his (now fully-grown) son how to be an Air Conditioner Repair Man. The plot elements from these episodes, including Captain Hero's extra arms, were never seen or mentioned again.
- Phineas and Ferb is in love with this trope in regards to Doofenshmirtz. Only a few elements of his backstory (such as him being his family's garden gnome) are repeated, and there's a new backstory almost every day.
- The Simpsons, running on Negative Continuity as it does, has a Running Gag in which Homer claims a previously unmentioned ambition to be "his lifelong dream", only for Marge to remind him that another previously unmentioned thing was his lifelong dream, and he did that last year.
- The Amazing World of Gumball pulls this one occasionally with Richard.
- In "The Wand" he finds a plastic wand in Gumball's cereal, and thus reminisces how his mother traumatized him by telling him that magic was fake, causing him to give out a Big No. One that supposedly lasted day and night for decades.
- Used in virtually every episode of Psych. We go back to the main character's childhood as his father forces some lesson him that comes into play in that episode.
- Gus gets new hobbies whenever the plot demands: spelling bees, comics, Spanish soap operas and ferroequinology are a few.