It Will Never Catch On/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor" it is shown that no-one in Vincent van Gogh's time likes his paintings. At the end of the episode the Doctor takes him to the future to show him that his art is among the most loved art of all time. This one is mostly Truth in Television, though perhaps not quite to the extent the show played the trope.
  • Each installment of the Saturday Night Live Steve Martin sketch, "Theodorick of Yorik, Medieval (Barber|Judge|Dentist|etc)" ends with the title character stepping forward to make an optimistic speech about how, in the future, perhaps their backward systems will be replaced by ones based on rigorous scientific method rather than barbarism. Then, he dismisses the whole thing with, "Naah."
  • The docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley is chock full of these moments as everything we take for granted about personal computing is scoffed at by the executives of major computer and office equipment firms. (Things like desktop PCs, the Graphic User Interface, the mouse, etc.) In fact, Xerox PARC (the Palo Alto Research Center) is infamous for the sheer number of innovations they came up with that were discarded or dismissed by management, only to become huge successes later. "I just made a program that plays blackjack." "Why would anybody want that?"
  • Eddie Izzard has a bit with an inventor in caveman times saying he's going to be famous, his invention (which involves twiddling sticks together until sparks and warmth happen) will change the world, and they won't have to eat salads all the time. But his wife says It Will Never Catch On. "Jeff Fire, you are not gonna be famous!" ("Oh yes I am, Sheila, and do you know what I'm gonna call it? I'm gonna call it: Jeff.")
  • In Life On Mars, most of Sam's suggestions about what the future will hold are bluntly shot down by his 1973 colleagues as being ludicrous; of course, Sam knows exactly what the score is, because he's from the future. One of Gene Hunt's memorable responses to Sam's hints:

Gene Hunt: There will never be a woman Prime Minister as long as I have a hole in my arse.

Margaret Thatcher MP: I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime.

    • Another time, Sam suggests installing a TV in a pub so people can watch the upcoming horse race.

Nelson: What's that?
Sam: It's a television.
Nelson: ... In a pub?

    • And it's not always comedy.

Sam: You know nothing about football! I used to go to football with my dad. United and City fans used to walk to the match together. Our next door neighbour, he had a City flag up in his window. Kids used to play together in the street -- red and blue. But then people like you came along and you took it away from us.
Peter Bond: A good punch up's all part of the game! It's about pride. Pride in your team. Being the best!
Sam: No it isn't! This is how it starts, and then it escalates. It gets on the telly and in the press, and then other fans from other clubs start trying to out do each other. And then it becomes about hate! And then it's nothing to do with football any more! It's about gangs and scumbags like you roaming the country seeing who can cause the most trouble. And then we overreact, and we have to put up perimeter fences and we treat the fans like animals! Forty, fifty thousand people herded into pens! And then how long before something happens, eh? How long before something terrible happens and we are dragging bodies out?

Peter Bond: What's this?
Sam: It's chicken in a basket.
Peter Bond: Where's me plate?
Sam: You don't need a plate, it's in a basket.
Gene: A word... Chicken? In a basket?!

Chris: It's proper ambulance-chaser telly. It'll never last.
Gene: Of course it won't... it's for students with greasy hair and the clinically insane.
Chris: And my Auntie Irene. Mind you, she is insane.

    • In one episode of the American version, Sam tries to talk down a jumper who lost all of his money investing in "portable telephones." Ray is absolutely baffled by the concept -- "Who wants to carry around a phone?"
  • Late in the first season of Lost, a flashback has Christian saying, "That's why the Sox will never win the Series." Of course, a month after Christian's death, they had done just that. Later on, when Ben and the Others have Jack captured, they use a clip of the Red Sox's World Series victory to prove to Jack that they had contact with the outside world (he had previously scoffed at their claim for this reason).
  • Played With in a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch, with the joke being that the inventions won't catch on because they're peripherals for things as yet not invented - a wooden computer mouse, a windscreen wiper ("the device for wiping clean a screen that, in as yet obscure circumstances, would shield one from the wind"), a can-opener ("the device for extracting food that has somehow become encased in metal"), anti-viral software (a long scroll of ones and zeroes, which he no longer remembers the purpose of), and a Sky Digi-Box.
  • This was a major Running Gag on the short lived show Do Over. The protagonist is a 34 year old man who is reliving his high school years. About Once an Episode, his mom would present an invention of hers that was almost exactly like something that's popular today. His dad would then claim that it would never catch on for a reason that sounds idiotic to a modern audience.
    • And when he tells his dad to invest his money in computers, his dad instead invests in Beta VCRs, saying computers are just a fad and beta machines are the wave of the future.
  • Played with on M*A*S*H, set in the Korean War but produced in 1972–83. Despite Klinger's urgings, Dr Winchester refuses to invest in commercial production of both the Hula Hoop and the Frisbee.
  • In an episode of The Wild Wild West, the two heroes, trapped at the bottom of a dry well, toss rocks into the well's bucket to lower it and escape. Artemus Gordon suggests that this might be the basis for an enjoyable game: "bucketball!" Jim West vetoes the idea.
    • And in "The Night of the Big Blackmail", Gordon speculates that entertainment using the newfangled kinetoscope could be profitable. West scoffs.
  • One episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, in which the witches are particularly long-lived, has an investment bond mature. She'd bought the bond for a really low price initially because nobody thought hygiene would catch on.
  • In a flashback episode of The Nanny, Fran scolds her mother for making up stupid ideas like "frozen yogurt". Another flashback had Sheffield scoffing at the notion of a Broadway play about singing cats; this became a Running Gag as people would constantly bring up how he had passed on Cats and he would continue to voice his bewilderment over its success.
    • In another, while Max and C.C. are developing a T.V. show, C.C. at the end pitches another idea for another show, and the producer (played by Hal Linden) says that it sucks. She basically described Barney Miller.
  • In an episode of That '70s Show, Red and Kelso are fixing the Atari Pong game:

Red: Congratulations, son! You have seen the future!
Kelso: Yeah, yeah, you're so right, Red! Home computers! That is the future!
Red: No, no, no. Not computers! Soldering! The future is soldering! Computers...

    • It looks like Red will add another to his list of disappointments and broken dreams.
  • In an episode of The Middleman, a cryogenically frozen-in-1969 previous Middleman (Kevin Sorbo, for the record) cracks a joke about "Beam us up, Scotty." He then apologizes for the obscure reference, "Cancelled TV show, you've probably never heard of it."
  • Used in the second Blackadder series episode "Potato". Of the eponymous tuber:

Blackadder: People are smoking them, building houses out of them... they'll be eating them next!

Vincent Hanna: Has your party got any policies?
Ivor Biggun: Oh yes, certainly! We're for the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the under-fives, and the abolition of slavery.
Vincent Hanna: Now, you see, many moderate people would respect your stand on asparagus, but what about this extremist nonsense about abolishing slavery?
Ivor Biggun: Oh, we just put that in for a joke! See you next year!

    • In another episode of Blackadder the Third, Samuel Johnson meets with Prince George, eager to hear his opinion on his book—the dictionary. George finds the idea of a book without a plot absolutely ridiculous, and doesn't see the point of the thing anyway.
  • In an episode of the short-lived Western Police Procedural Peacemakers, two men who struck it rich decide to invest in the latest invention of a fellow called Thomas Crapper: the flush toilet. The town sheriff is visibly skeptical of this.
  • Murdoch Mysteries is full of these in one form or another, but one in particular is from the episode "Still Waters", where Murdoch tastes coffee for the first time. Revolted, he demands, "Who would drink this when they could have tea?" Who indeed.
    • Generally, the examples involve Detective Murdoch using some newly invented device or technique that is, in the show's time, unknown in Canada, and Inspector Brackenreid expressing the skepticism. (Bracenreid usually ends up begrudgingly acknowledging the sucesses of said devices and techniques though.)
  • Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield did a sketch for 2009 BBC Comic Relief spoofing Dragons' Den (another BBC show where entrepreneurs try to persuade a panel of investors to back their business idea) by doing an early Victorian era version with the hopefuls (played by the original show's businessmen) pitching ideas like flush toilets and toothbrushes. Inevitably the "Dragons" dismiss the ideas as nonsense, with one character saying that he wishes for a "big metal bird" to fly around in, but that isn't going to happen either.
  • Legend. A woman tells the protagonist Ernest Pratt her life story, which sounds remarkably similar to Gone with the Wind. When Pratt's friend says it would make a good story for the dime novels he writes, Pratt replies that it would never sell. No doubt there are other examples in this series, which had a similar Anachronism Stew approach to the Wild West as The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
  • Deep Space Nine. A serious example occurs in "Far Beyond the Stars", when Captain Sisko starts to hallucinate that he's a science-fiction writer in the 1950's. He submits an excellent story about a space station called Deep Space Nine, but his editor tells him to drop the idea of a Negro captain as it's "too unrealistic".
  • Everybody Hates Chris has one where Greg's dream of owning a store that sells nothing but coffee is squashed by the Guidance Councilor.

"What's next? A store that sells nothing but staples? Or a store that sells everything for 99 cents?"

    • Another episode has Chris' uncle who is always trying some get rich quick scheme selling tapes from his car, and nobody wants to buy them. The tapes are of Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Public Enemy and a few big 90s rappers.
    • Chris's brother tells Doc about sushi being brought to America and suggests that they should start selling some in the store. Doc laughs at the idea. Chris narrates that Doc later went broke.
    • In yet another episode, a lady describes her boyfriend as a film director who will never be a household name. The director's name? Spike Lee.
    • In ANOTHER episode, Julius declines on investing in the George Foreman grill.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampshades this in the episode where they riff on Revenge of the Creature, which features a young Clint Eastwood in his film debut as an uncredited extra playing a lab assistant, which causes Crow to make the following remark.

"This guy is bad. This is his first and last movie."

  • In the French show Kaamelott, set in Arthurian times...
    • A Burgundian translator says it about languages: "Originally, I wanted to learn Modern Greek, but there was no place left. All that was available was Burgundian and English. English! But that's even less common..."
    • In another episode, when Merlin tries out "modern medecine" instead of magical healing, King Arthur tells him it will never catch on. (Though that's understandable, considering the best Merlin could come up with was throwing salt in an open wound...)
  • The short-lived show Thanks has the younger girl who's entire purpose was to predict future discoveries and/or habits, such as the presence of bacteria (and the need for sterilization) or "no smoking sections"
  • In 227, the old lady once mentioned she knew a man from Kentucky who wanted to open a restaurant after leaving the military, to which she said, "Who would buy fried chicken from a white man?!"
    • "The Colonel" also appeared in an episode of Little House On the Prairie as a southern gentleman who arrives in Walnut Grove pitching an idea for a restaurant that serves only one type of food. Mrs. Oleson promptly dismisses him, quite pleased with herself for having the good sense not to get involved with such a ridiculous notion.
  • Siroc in Young Blades discusses the possible invention of cleaning detergents and adding milk to coffee, only for his fellow Musketeers to go... well, you know.
  • The Arabian Nights miniseries has Aladdin's wish for a flying machine dismissed by the genie:

"A flying machine? So we can fly around the world? We can order drinks and someone can serve us peanuts? A flying machine! Maybe you should stick with the money."

  • In the All in The Family flashback episode "Mike and Gloria's Wedding" (set in 1970) Archie tells to Mike: "Nixon make a trip to Red China? Never in a million years, buddy!"
  • An episode of WKRP in Cincinnati has a brief flashback-like scene that takes place back in the 1950s, where a young Les Nesman says of the VW Beetle, "It's just a fad, like television."
  • In The Apple in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Iolaus invents the idea of surfing, to which Hercules replies "Do you really think this is going to catch on and become popular?" Then at the end they see a bunch of kids trying to stand on wooden boards in water. Iolaus looks at Herc and sarcastically tells him that it'll never be popular.
  • In a live-action TV adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Pimpernel (played by Richard E. Grant) is an avid cricket player. He delivers a bomb to a hard to reach area in the modern traditional overarm manner. A companion suggests he should try that in his cricket games as a variant to the traditional underarm bowling. He says it'll never catch on. Either method of delivery was perfectly acceptable (although underarm was phased out in the late 19th century) until the 1980s, when underarm bowling was banned.
    • Played with in the same episode, when Percy hires a young unknown painter, Joseph Turner, to paint a landscape of his house and the surrounding gardens. Percy's friends are skeptical by the finished product, but Percy himself loves it and assures Turner that he's going to go places. This is Truth in Television; landscapes were relatively uncommon and it was in a large part Turner's work which elevated their status.
  • Mad Men provides us with a subversion: An old buddy of Pete Campbell's has the idea of introducing professional jai alai to the United States. Don literally says, "it will never catch on." As evidenced by the fact we have to link to The Other Wiki, he was right.
    • Mad Men plays this straight a lot, too, especially in its first season. Don Draper knows someone stole his research report because, "It's not like there's a magical machine out there that copies things." Sterling Cooper gets a Xerox machine next season.
  • Happens in an episode of It Ain't Half Hot Mum. The two officiers are discussing what they plan to do after the war. One is planning to invest in television, while the other has a plan for a building with a lot of washing machines where people can come to do their washing (he plans to call it a 'laundrodrome'). Each has this reaction to the other's idea.
  • Inverted in The Big Bang Theory during a flashback to when Sheldon and Leonard first became roommates. Sheldon has "Friday night is Firefly night" as part of the "roommate agreement". When Leonard wonders if they really need to do this, he points out that they may as well settle it now, it's obviously going to be on for years.
  • Happens a lot in Leonardo:

Leo: Maybe one day we'll all wear clocks. Round our necks, in pockets, on our wrists!
Cosimo: The things you think of, Leo! Santa Maria!

  • In the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys spinoff Young Hercules, Cora starts serving a new foreign drink that she describes as heated beans strained through water (in other words, coffee). Hercules is rather put off by that unflattering description and is further unsettled when he notices that Cora is incredibly jittery from drinking so much of it.
  • In an episode of Yes, Dear, Jimmy tries to pitch a movie idea to Greg's boss, only for him to shut it down. The crestfallen Jimmy decides to forget about making movies, but Greg tells him to pitch the idea to another studio. Apparently, his boss thought Spider Man would never make it.
  • In the Noir Episode of Boy Meets World, which is set in a Casablanca-like setting and time period, the Jack counterpart who is a bar pianist overhears someone say "Forget your troubles, come on, get happy" and says "That could be a song!" then pauses and says "Naah". He later overhears someone say "Hit me baby one more time" and has the exact same reaction.
  • In an episode of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles the Lost World, the protagonists find themselves transported to WWI era Fulham and meet Winston Churchill himself. At one point he responds to the outrageous claims of the protagonists with "That's about as likely as me becoming Prime Minister!"
  • In early seasons of the American version of The Office, Michael and Dwight, and some members of Corporate, treat internet sales as a passing fad. Ryan himself comments on how Dunder Mifflin's executives are unwilling to adapt to a changing marketplace.
  • In a flashback to Shawn's childhood on Psych, Henry derides the personal computer as a fad, just like Madonna.
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