20 Fiction Tropes That Used to be Huge (But Are Rarely Used Anymore)

We’ve discussed tropes in movies and TV a lot here at Cracked (seriously, a lot). Moreover, we all know outdated tropes that no longer work because they either don’t make sense anymore or they’re just finally accepted as offensive. In this Pictofact we’re interested not in outdated but in forgotten tropes, the sort of clichés that fans of older movies and TV might easily recognize, but that are pretty much absent in recent and contemporary media.

And these are not merely old tropes either. The mustache-twirling villain, for example, will not be featured in this list, as he remains present in our cultural imaginary, even if only to point out how much of a dated trope it is. Forgotten tropes, on the other hand, are the truly interesting ones. They have fallen out of favor and out of mind, even if just a while ago they were everywhere in culture. We’ll remember them for you, then, and they’ll hit you in the head like, well, like an old cartoon anvil.