Resolved Noodle Incident

"You can only talk about something without giving the details so many times before people demand to hear more."

— Dan Shive on Susan and Nanase's class trip to France, El Goonish Shive

You know your favorite episode of your favorite TV series by heart. You especially liked the scene in which Alice and Bob are arguing and Alice brings up that birthday party with the pink and green emu. Although they've never shown what happened at that party, you chuckle at the thought of what crazy stuff might have been going on at that point.

Time goes on. Your show progresses through the years. That birthday party dialogue gets referenced as a Noodle Incident in the show's trope page. Then one day, as you're watching the latest episode, you realize, hey, they're doing a flashback to a birthday party. And wow, an emu just burst out of a giant cake. Wait... is that pink and green paint all over it?

That's what a Resolved Noodle Incident essentially is: an incident that was brought up once, only to never be mentioned or depicted again... until later, as part of either a Flashback Episode or a Prequel.

Resolving a Noodle Incident comes with a few challenges. First, the Noodle Incident is mostly a characterization trope disguised as a plot-related trope, meaning that usually resolving such an incident is not necessary. Second, this mostly replaces fan speculation and theories with something certain. The longer the timespan between mentioning the Noodle Incident and resolving it, the harder it is to give an explanation that is not too mundane to be less interesting than fan speculation, while being not bizarre enough to make little sense or even defy canon.

Sometimes it can come about as a result of Writer's Block: desperate for ideas to build a story on, a writer may do an Archive Binge of the series, and come across an interesting reference to a story that never got its due... and there go those creative juices flowing! Also common with Long Runner franchises, when Ascended Fans finally get the opportunity to resolve the cryptic references they mythologized as a child. Consequently, an Expanded Universe is fertile ground for these, sometimes leading to a nasty Continuity Snarl as different authors offer different "takes" on the Noodle Incident.

There must be a minimum of one television season, one movie sequel installment or one book volume for a Noodle Incident to become Resolved, otherwise it's little more than Foreshadowing. A Resolved Noodle Incident may contain any number of Chekhov's Whatevers, but these do not make the trope. It may also be a very elaborate Call-Back.

This is, in short, when a reference to some past event that had been made finally gets its story told.

Can lead to Doing In the Wizard. When the explanation is much less satisfying than maintaining the mystery would have been, can lead to Fan-Disliked Explanation if does not work well for the narrative of the story.

When this is done in an adaptation or another derivative work (including Fan Fiction), it's called Adaptational Explanation.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

In one episode of Code Geass R2, while under siege in the Chinese Federation's embassy, Kallen compares the situation to "the Aomori incident"; C.C. responds "At least we have our clothes this time." A later Picture Drama showed that the Black Knights were attacked by Britannia while at a hot springs, and were forced to flee while wearing nothing but Modesty Towels.
For the first few chapters of Dinosaur Sanctuary, it's mentioned that an incident in 2006 caused interest in dinosaur parks to drop overnight, but due to everyone already knowing what happened, no one discusses it in detail. Chapter 6 finally clears things up - Dinoland Enoshima's resident Allosaurus, Ichigo, went berserk from panic while construction was happening g outside her exhibit, mauled a keeper to death, and tried to break out of her exhibit, leading to the staff putting her down. It's also revealed the fallout of the incident caused Suzume's dad to commit suicide due to his reputation being destroyed overnight.
The original seven chapters of The Garden of Sinners contain multiple offhand references to Shizune Seo and her prophecy that Mikiya will come to great harm if he continues dating Shiki, but the character herself (and the whole prophecy episode) wasn't properly introduced until the author wrote the bonus chapter Mirai Fukuin ten years after the original novel's publication.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
- Chapter 59 parodies the Clip Show concept by having the Student Council discover objects from their past adventures and reminiscing... and then they find "the Cubari Facaccimo", which seems to be a spherical, one-eyed creature with humanoid legs. Shirogane doesn't recognize it, but when Fujiwara starts to explain "Last Valentine's Day, Kaguya...", a clearly traumatized Kaguya interrupts and says she doesn't want to remember. Chapter 194, the next time Valentine's Day occurs, has Kaguya explain that she tried to make chocolates using a recipe given to her by the President of the school's Occult Club, which resulted in the chocolate being possessed by spirits and coming to life. The incident was so traumatic that she's sworn to never attempt homemade chocolate ever again, and both she and her Ninja Maid Hayasaka would rather forget it ever happened.
- During the sports festival, it's mentioned off-handedly that the Red Team is losing thanks to the Tabletop Game Club's antics. In the spinoff We Want to Talk About Kaguya, it's shown what exactly their antics are (giving the athletes suspicious drinks, then drinking them themselves when nobody accepted).
Naruto: Suigetsu once tried to mention a past incident between Karin and Sasuke but the former punches him beforehand. Later on it's revealed to be not quite as embarrassing as she makes it out to be, with the incident being Sasuke saving her from a bear during the Chunin Exams.
No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! : After 3 years of teasing what the hell was the movie Tomoko and her friends recording for the School Festival about, Chapter 216 finally shows the entire movie.
In Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, Dawn's childhood friend Kenny likes to call her "Dee Dee", which makes her angry. In the episode "Yes in Dee Dee, It's Dawn!", it is explained that "Dee Dee" is short for "Diamond Dandruff", as there was a childhood incident where a Plusle and a Minun shocked her, causing her hair to stand on end and sparkle due to the static electricity. In the Japanese version, her nickname is "Pikari" instead, being a play on her Japanese name (Hikari) and the Japanese onomatopoeia for sparkle (pikapika).
World Trigger: When Kageura is first introduced its mentioned that him and his squad got demoted because he punched Netsuki in the face. Over a hundred chapters later we get a flashback showing what happened. After Hatohara went to the neighborhood and Border released their cover story, her pupil and Kageura's teammate Ema tried to get in contact with her but was unable to. Hikari then came up with a plan to call out to her through the tv by becoming a PR squad just like Arashiyama squad. They approached Netsuki, who's the PR director, and begged him to let them become a PR squad. Netsuki feigned consideration, but had no intention of making a group like them the face of Border. Of course Kageura could sense this, got pissed off at him giving them false hope, and knocked him out with an uppercut.

Audio Plays

Big Finish Doctor Who:
- "Quinnis" resolved a TV Noodle Incident from the First Doctor serial "The Edge of Destruction", where Susan recognises a photograph on the screen as Quinnis, a planet in the fourth universe where they nearly lost the TARDIS. As revealed in the audio play, it was almost carried away by a flood when the Doctor was posing as a rainmaker.
- "Battle Scars" expands on a mention from "Rose" of the Ninth Doctor saving a family from the Titanic.
- Short Trips story "Her Own Bootstraps", meanwhile, explains why the Ninth Doctor was in the vicinity of Krakatoa around the time of its cataclysmic 1883 eruption, a picture of which also appeared in "Rose".

Comic Books

The Authority: Kev. We know Kev is forced to perform menial Black Ops jobs for his hateful boss because of "that thing with the tiger". It turns out a mission to escort a government official with a prostitute went very wrong, because to keep him from the press they shoved him into a cellar, which turned out to contain a tiger belonging to the squadmate whose apartment they were using. Everything was hushed up, but Kev's career was ruined.
Batman/Superman: World's Finest: The series starts with Robin (Dick Grayson) and Supergirl on bad terms due to a date that involved an avalanche, a monkey, a fountain, wearing their costumes, Supergirl flirting with a server and Robin living with the circus. Issue #12 reveals Supergirl asked Robin out on a date due to him saving himself when in danger. Robin panicked and wore his costume, forcing Supergirl to do the same. Supergirl did flirt with the server. Robin tried to explain his past, but Supergirl seemed to be turned off by it. A runaway monkey caused a truck with bowling balls to wreck, causing an avalanche of bowling balls to cause traffic incidents. Robin caught all the balls, but the monkey jumped onto him, knocking him and Supergirl into a fountain.
Doctor Who (Titan):
- "The Whole Thing's Bananas" reveals the circumstances of the destruction of Villengard's weapons factories and subsequent replacement with a banana grove as mentioned in "The Doctor Dances": It was actually the War Doctor's doing, with the help of Dorium Maldovar, and he did it to prevent the Daleks from using the factories in the Time War.
- "Return of the Volsci" depicts the cryptic escape from 1336 Kyoto mentioned in "Bad Wolf".
Fantastic Four: In Fantastic Four (2018), mentioning that Iceman was a member of the Fantastic Four is a good way to get Johnny Storm angry, declaring he was never a member. It's later revealed that Iceman joined the team temporarily after he was humiliated in front of the X-Men and Johnny rushed off in a spoiled huff. Johnny was afraid he was being replaced at that time, but it turns out that was never the case.
Guardians of the Galaxy: In the team's second appearance, in Marvel Two-in-One #5, everyone's wearing different outfits from before, and have acquired a ship they've dubbed the Captain America, with no explanation as to when or where this happened. It wasn't until Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1 in the 90s that these things were explained; escaping from the Badoon, the quartet stumbled onto an old Mutant hideout where they found the ship and a change of clothes.
Harley Quinn:
- In one issue during Harley Quinn (2014), Harley and Power Girl were sent through a dimensional portal, and returned in the next panel, with Kara mysteriously wearing a wedding dress. Their trip was later covered in the whole of the spin-off Harley Quinn And Power Girl miniseries.
- One story in the 25th Anniversary special depicted Harley, Ivy and Selena throwing a wild party in Las Vegas, which had previously been a Gilligan Cut Noodle Incident in the Road Trip special.
Hellblazer: The early appearances of John Constantine were riddled with references to a big screw-up he made in a Newcastle exorcism. The details of this weren't revealed until Hellblazer #13.
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios): In the Go Go Power Rangers sub-series, when Trini and Zack first meet Kimberly through their friend Matt (whom Kim is currently dating), they call her "Salad Girl" and Trini warns Matt that she's crazy; his reaction is "Wait, you're 'Salad Girl'?!". Eventually it's revealed that Kim's parents got Zack fired from his job as a waiter because they overreacted to a simple misunderstanding over her meal order.
Nevada - Courtesy of Wikipedia: "The origin of the character is to be found in a Howard the Duck story that contained a "mandatory fight scene" between a Las Vegas chorus girl, an ostrich and a standing lamp. Neil Gaiman said he'd like to see that story. So when Gerber was asked to come with something original by Vertigo editor Karen Berger, he created Nevada."
Supergirl: In Supergirl (2005) #34 Why The World Doesn't Need A Supergirl, as fighting Silver Banshee, Kara briefly mentions the villainess was previously causing trouble in an occult bookstore. Nothing more is said about the matter until Death & the Family, fifteen issues later, when Kara learns that Silver Banshee is raiding supernatural-themed shops in search of her clan's relics.

Fan Works

Chloé's Lament: Death and Changes: For most of the story, Chloé has no earthly idea why Alix hates her so much, as Alix isn't exactly inclined to explain what happened. Eventually, however, it's revealed that it has to do with Alix's Missing Mom; shortly after she disappeared, Chloé left an 'anonymous tip' claiming her mother would return if Alix waited in a certain location long enough. In the middle of winter. Alix wound up hospitalized and battling frostbite, along with blaming herself for not being able to stick it out long enough to secure her mother's return. While this incident also happened in the original timeline, Alix never learned Chloé was responsible there; in this reality, however, she learned the truth and was furious.
For the Glory of Irk: During a conversation with Q in Chapter 13, it's mentioned that he once fought Zim and Voel in their Elite days. In Chapter 29, we get a flashback to that event.
The House Always Wins: In the first James Bond movie Dr. No, M orders Bond to surrender his Beretta pistol because it jammed on his last mission and he had to spend six months in the hospital, which is how Bond was issued his legendary Walther PPK. But neither this movie nor any subsequent ones ever elaborate on what exactly happened to him. In this story, it's revealed that he was on a mission in Calgary, and his gun jamming resulted in his enemy taking a shot at his head in what M calls the "Calgary Cockup." The bullet merely grazed his temple and the Bond Girl managed to save his life and complete the mission, but Bond was in a coma for a month and he spent another five months regaining his motor functions, and then another six months proving he was still field-capable. It's revealed that the Dr. No assignment was Bond's return to the field and his one chance to save his career and reputation.
In Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily, Gladion learns that Specter and one of Larkspur's sisters, Lampetia, crossed by the Toy Brick Car some time before him and never picked up his shield due to an incident. It's later brought up when the White Gestalt is resting up: it turns out at that prior to this, Easter — a living lightning bolt who struck Specter down some time earlier — had decided to awaken and used their electric powers to create a blue brick heart. Lampetia was terrified at the being inside Specter, destroyed it, caused Easter-through-Specter to have a meltdown and their electricity caused the rides to go out of control. Once Specter was able to use his monsters to put them under control, he and Lampetia booked it for the next car.
The Life and Times of a Winning Pony once mentioned the "Lunar Rebellion" about nine hundred years ago, which saw Cloud Kicker's family, led by her Famous Ancestor Shadow Kicker, as one of the few pegasus families that stayed loyal to Celestia. Eventually resolved when The Lunar Rebellion got its own story.
The main subject of Lucky Number Thirteen is expanding upon an incident vaguely alluded to in Fifty Shades of Grey where one of Christian's ex-subs got injured during a scene.
Optimus on Earth: When they meet Ratchet and Bumblebee, Amaya almost tells a story about something Optimus did to embarrass Priyanka when she was young. Optimus stops her before she can tell it. In the next story in the series, the story is told in full by Amaya's mother to their gossiping relatives. Apparently, Optimus once got so startled during a drive-in movie that he scared himself, his passengers (Priyanka and her eventual husband), and everyone else at the drive-in. Priyanka was so mad she didn't talk to him for a bit... although she later came around and admitted the whole thing was Actually Pretty Funny.
Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has a large amount of Noodle Incidents, but its growing Expanded Universe has revealed what happened in a few of them:
- In the second chapter, once Ash wakes up in the new timeline, Ash recalls meeting Serena in Professor Oak's summer camp, and an accident with a Rhyhorn that caused her to leave early. Said accident is shown in full in the Oak's Summer Camp Gaiden sidestory, and it's explained that she took the blame for it to prevent him from being expelled.
- Professor Oak once mentioned that he's seen the Elite Four members drunk, and a drunk Agatha is "wrong on so many levels". One instance was revealed to be a drinking contest hosted by Charles Goodshow, which he eventually joined himself.
- Chapter 16 has Giovanni mention a failed operation in Hop-Hop-Hop Town. In the Arnold Interlude sidestory, we see what happened: Butch and Cassidy led a group of Rocket grunts who tried to steal the citizens' Pokémon, but were driven out of town when the citizens fought back, inspired by a couple of kids who stood up to them.
In this Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan comic, Donatello calls a meeting for himself, Raphael, and Leonardo due to something Leo refers to as "The Donut Incident". A few panels later, said incident is explained: Splinter got the boys a box of donuts, and Mikey got to it first. In order to "find the yummiest", Mikey took a bite out of each donut to find the one he wanted. Raph thought it was cute, Leo didn't care, and Donnie was ticked because Mikey knows he hates eating after others.
The Ruby and Nora story Vytal Tournament, which introduced Flynt Coal, has him express his hatred of the Schnees due to the fact that because of Jacques, Flynt's father lost his Dust shop business, then was later arrested for stealing and selling Dust illegally. The story Cold reveals the details (and truth) regarding the event. Jacques decided to give Cyrus Coal a job involving Dust, but as it turns out, Jacques actually set him up to take the fall for his own illegal business practices as well as prevent him from getting his Dust shop back.
The Seventh Endmost Vision treats the entire vastly changed backstory of Final Fantasy VII as a Noodle Incident, since few of the characters view it as all that surprising- it's just history to them, after all. The fic drops hints of various things like the Cid Highwind Memorial Statue (without telling us why he has one), the entire War with the Western Alliance, or the Nibelheim Incident. These mysteries are slowly revealed as the fic continues, slowly resolving these incidents.
sun's up, another day goes by: Makoto pawns Aigis off on Junpei near the start of album drop and they return with much noise and a comment from Mitsuru about "property damage" at the end of it. Come take me out to the ball game and we learn what Junpei and Aigis got up to: they went to the batting cages and broke one of the pitching machines.
Total Drama Pahkitew Island Reordered: In canon, Ella mentions putting on a one-person performance of the World Tour musical numbers that got her banned from the mall, but doesn't go into any further details. When asked about it by Sammy here, Ella says that the ban occurred as a result of her pantsing a security guard during the "I See London" number.
Undertale Yellow: When battling Martlet, if you act to "Rush" her, she would complain how she's trying to be a great Royal Guard, she even explains that she once apprehended a girl, believing her to be a human. Later, when you walk with her to the Oasis Valley, you’ll come across a hooded monster standing by a UGPS stop. And when you interact with them:
Martlet: Ooooh! Oh, hey! Clover! Remember how I told you I apprehended a human last week? Thaaat's her!
Human Monster?: ? ???????????? You STILL think I'm... your captain DID explain to you I'm not a human, right? Please tell me she did.
Martlet: Oh! I'm so sorry! I just thought you-
Human Monster?: No, no, I'm sorry, I just... get it often.
Martlet: It's totally fine! You wouldn't believe how many grumpy monsters I deal with. N-not that you're a grumpy monster! I'm sure you're very nice! Ahem. Anyway... What's your name?
Clover: It's Clover.
Martlet: Huh? No, not you, silly, her!
Human Monster?: I... Actually, how about "Red"? That's what your colleagues have kept calling me every time I get falsely apprehended. To be honest, I hope that eventually I'd be "caught" enough that you'd all recognize me and it'd stop. It might just be wiser to JOIN the Guard at this point.
Martlet: Join? That would be fantastic! I'd be glad to show you the ropes of my job! You could even help me build puzzles! That might be a code violation how that I think about it... Aaahh, it's fine!
Red: What? It can't be THAT easy to get in, right?
Martlet: I mean, they let me join. We'll figure it out! Me and Clover have some important business to attend to. But I should be free next week! You can find me doing my rusty around Snowdin any day.
Red: Oh. You're serious. Ah, ahahaha, I mean, haha, s-sure? S-sounds like a plan!! See you then!!
-Martlet: See ya!
Welcome to Prehistoric Kingdom: In addition to the fic having it's own version of the "Ichigo Incident" from Dinosaur Sanctuary (here known as the "Dodo Incident"), there's also the death of Wendel, with the only known details being that he was messily trampled to death by sauropods. Both are eventually shown in later chapters/sidestories - "Scars" reveals that Ichigo and Sumire Suma attempted to resurrect dodos only to also resurrect large parasitic worms they possessed, one of which infected and killed a coworker while also trying to infect their daughter Suzum, while a series of Action Prologue sequences reveal that Wendel attempted to commit corporate espionage during a storm and had Tristan Bound and Gagged when he found out, leading Ai and Tristan to chase him until he ended crashing and stumbling into the jungle....just as a herd of panicking dinosaurs stampeded through the area.

Films — Animation

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: The extended flashback of Batman's last battle with the Joker reveals why Bruce Wayne uses a walking stick as an old man. After learning that the Joker brutally tortured and brainwashed Tim Drake/Robin, Batman got so enraged that he began beating up the Joker before the Joker grabbed a dagger and stabbed Bruce in the leg.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: In the film, one of Puss's nine lives ended when he tried to shoot himself out of a cannon, insisting it would "revolutionize travel". The short film "The Trident", released as a bonus feature on the DVD/Blu-Ray release, reveals the events that lead up to that particular death.

Films — Live-Action

A Better Tomorrow has the protagonist, Mark, talking about how he got his iconic Badass Longcoat since deciding to be a gangster after an incident years ago. The third movie is a prequel, A Better Tomorrow: Love and Death in Saigon, which depicts Mark's days as a hooligan in Saigon, meeting an elite hitwoman-assassin he fell in love with, and getting his longcoat from her as a memento.
James Bond: In Spectre, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) talks about her hatred of guns stemming from a day in her childhood during which a killer came at her home (due to her father Mr. White working for Spectre), and how she took a gun under the kitchen sink to shoot at him. No Time to Die opens exactly on that event, and reveals that the killer was a revengeful Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), who was out to kill White for the murder of his family and ended up killing Madeleine's mother. And Safin actually survived being shot at by young Madeleine and ultimately spared her life.
Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The Avengers alluded to a mission in Budapest, which Clint and Natasha remembered very differently. Nine years later, in Black Widow ^note, Natasha finally reveals what the incident was: she and Clint attempted to kill each other, then she pulled a Heel–Face Turn and attempted to kill her boss, General Dreykov, by blowing up the building he was in (unfortunately, as she later finds out, it didn't take). She and Clint then had to hide out for ten days before they could escape.
- In Captain Marvel, we learn how Nick Fury lost his eye after his ominous statement in Captain America: The Winter Soldier "Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye." Let's just say "I was way too affectionate with a cat-like alien, so she scratched my eye out of irritation" is not something Fury's going to be admitting anytime soon.
Star Wars:
- For years, the Clone Wars were just a mention in a recollection of Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope. It would be a quarter-century before we actually saw — in Attack of the Clones — the clones being produced, and Yoda declaring that the Clone Wars have begun. Star Wars: The Clone Wars would then depict the wars, and Revenge of the Sith would show the resolution.
- In the Opening Crawl of A New Hope, it is mentioned that rebels had managed to get the secret plans to Princess Leia's ship, where the movie starts. For forty years, that was all the movies said on the subject... then came Rogue One, which is pretty much telling the story of the people who did just that. The discontinued Legends Expanded Universe, meanwhile, had the opposite problem: multiple authors and video game developers created about six different explanations for it, to the point it had to be retconned as six different groups stealing fragments of the plans. Also in A New Hope, C-3PO bemoans there being "no escape for the princess this time," with no explanation on the "last time"; Rogue One would show Leia's ship narrowly escaping Vader's above Scarif.
- In The Empire Strikes Back, C-3PO complains that the Millennium Falcon's computer speaks with "a most peculiar dialect". We learn in Solo that the computer is, in part, the memories and experiences of Lando's former pilot droid L3.
- Also from Empire, when Vader is sending out bounty hunters to locate the Falcon, he pointedly warns Boba that there will be "no disintegrations". Vader's comic series would reveal that someone tried to pass off a disintegrated corpse as their quarry to Vader (they were killed in short order for lying to a Sith Lord).
- Solo "explains" the circumstances behind the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, which baffled many since parsecs are a unit of distance and not time.^note It also showcases Han winning the Falcon "fair and square" from Lando, which turns out to be literal rather than coy. And the moment Han inherited the life debt from Chewie. The only major unseen incident from Han's past that was mentioned in previous films and was not addressed in Solo is dropping the cargo of Jabba the Hutt at the first sign of trouble from Imperials, though the ending implies that Han and Chewie are on their way to work for Jabba.
In Top Gun, Captain "Stinger" Johnson briefly mentions Maverick having "a history of high-speed passes over five air control towers and one admiral's daughter", the latter of whom Goose guessed was Penny Benjamin, as examples of Mav being a loose cannon. The sequel Top Gun: Maverick introduces Penny as Mav's new Love Interest, an on-again-off-again girlfriend with whom he finally achieves a Relationship Upgrade.

Literature

The Chronicles of Narnia:
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has a couple of Noodle Incidents that were resolved in The Last Battle. Professor Kirke's sudden poverty and being forced to move to a smaller cottage in that book,is implicitly explained by the mention of his original house being destroyed by a bombing. The mentioned mysterious origin of how the Lone Islands became part of Narnia is also resolve with the reveal that King Gale, the nineth in descendt from King Frank, saved them from a dragon and they became part of the Narnian crown out of gratitude.
- The Silver Chair takes a brief moment to mention the old legend of Prince Cor and Aravis as part of dinner entertainment, and says one day that story would have to be told in its entirety. That legend became The Horse and His Boy.
Discworld:
- In Reaper Man, there's reference to "the Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents", who ran a bogus plague of rats scam all across the Sto Plains. In The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents the story focuses on these rodents (and Maurice, who is a talking cat and not the "stupid-looking kid" who serves as the faux Pied Piper), who've had to move their scheme to the Uberwald area.
- For several books, the battle of Koom Valley was an ancient battle between dwarves and trolls, the only one where "both sides ambushed each other". In Thud!, we finally see it being used as a selling point by dwarves and trolls alike to keep the enmity strong, and being something of an in-universe Noodle Incident in that nobody knows what really happened aside from biased versions by each side blaming the other. Now, new evidence comes to light showing it was a peace meeting that went wrong when everyone attacked each other, thinking themselves under attack.
Doctor Who Expanded Universe: The short story "Picnic at Asgard" depicts, appropriately enough, the picnic mentioned by River Song in "Silence in the Library" and "The Husbands of River Song".
Michael Moorcock's works left it unclear for decades what, exactly, recurring villain Gaynor the Damned had done to get horribly cursed. It was finally revealed in the 2000s novel The Dreamthief's Daughter aka Daughter of Dreams, and boiled down to successively betraying a Lord of Law and a Lord of Chaos, in hope of gaining personal power, leading to both of them briefly ganging up and making an example of him.
Foundation Series: Harry Turtledove's "Trantor Falls" describes the "Great Sack", mentioned by Dagobert IX and the Encyclopedia Galactica in "The Mule".
Arrows of the Queen, the first official book of the Heralds of Valdemar series, mentions two legendary Heralds in the early pages: Herald-Mage Vanyel and Lavan Firestorm. Both of them had their stories told in full in later books. However, Mercedes Lackey has said she won't give the same treatment to other figures like the Star-Crossed Lovers of "Sun and Shadow," because their stories work better as distant legends.
Harry Potter:
- Philosopher's Stone mentions that Quidditch referees are sometimes known to vanish and turn up in the Sahara Desert months later. This later turned out to be an exaggeration — it only happened once, and it was because his broom had been turned into a Portkey.
- The reason for Hagrid's expulsion from the school is left ambiguous in the first book and only explained in the second. It's only brought up about once or twice, but apparently his reaction generally involves [paraphrasing] "clearing his throat loudly and suddenly becoming deaf until the subject is changed." We find out the story later in Chamber of Secrets. He was raising an Acromantula (Giant Spider). To Hagrid's credit, the Spider (Aragog) is immensely grateful for Hagrid's help, and as such refuses to let himself or his children eat Hagrid. Only Hagrid.
- In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore refers to the "thrilling tale" that hoped to tell Harry someday of how his hand was turned black. This one is later explained as a protective measure on the Gaunt Ring. Whoever wore it would die within the year they put it on.
- In the first book, we hear that "Dumbledore... is famous for his victory over the dark wizard Grindelwald", and we imagine it being a simple story — that no one could beat Grindelwald, until young Dumbledore duelled the dark wizard to the death and killed him. In the last book it is revealed that the story is much more complicated...
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
- In the first book, an atomic warhead headed for the Heart of Gold becomes a potted petunia, which thinks "oh no, not again" before plummeting to the ground. Two books later, in Life, the Universe and Everything, it is revealed that the petunia was Agrajag, who is (per the other wiki) "a piteous creature that is continually reincarnated and subsequently killed, each time unknowingly, by Arthur Dent."
- Agrajag mentions one death at Stavromula Beta, which Arthur has never been to. In Mostly Harmless it turns out that Arthur is at a nightclub owned by one Stavro Mueller; it being the second of his nightclubs, it is called "Stavro Mueller Beta".
- The first book's opening mentions a girl who discovered the secret to fixing everything wrong with the world while sitting in a cafe in Ricksmanworth, but then says that "this is not her story". This opening is then repeated in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, except this time it ends with "this is her story"; her name is revealed to be Fenchurch, and she becomes a love interest for Arthur.
In The Last Adventure of Constance Verity, it was mentioned that mobsters had crashed Tia's first wedding. Constance Verity Destroys the Universe gives further details; they had crashed the reception, not the ceremony, and they were after one of the waiters who was in Witness Protection. Granted, Connie's caretaker destiny made something crazy happening inevitable, but Tia doesn't blame her for it.
Liaden Universe:
- In the novel Carpe Diem, one of the main characters is driven through the city of Solcintra by a snarky cab driver who caught the imagination of fans and prompted many to write in asking for more about her. The novella Skyblaze gives the cab driver a name, Vertu dea'San, and tells what happened to her during after the climactic battle that occurred in Solcintra a few novels later.
- In the novel Scout's Progress, one of the chapter heading quotes is a message home by a pilot, one of the hero's ancestors, giving a brief account of a stopover at space station where he was overcharged for emergency repairs. "The Space at Tinsori Light" is the story of that pilot, and reveals that there was something much more sinister going on at the space station than the brief account would indicate.
The Lord of the Rings: Sauron was briefly alluded to in The Hobbit; Gandalf tells about how he got the key to the Lonely Mountain from Thorin's father, who had been captured and driven mad by him. However, he was called "the Necromancer", therefore making it difficult to realize who was being discussed.
A Memoir by Lady Trent: Since, as the series' title suggests, the books are portrayed as being the narrator's in-universe memoirs, they are written assuming that the reader already knows the Broad Strokes of the Lady Trent's exploits at minimum. As such, there are numerous references to other adventures, books, and/or associates that are never elaborated on; some are treated as such in the earlier books, but are then described in detail in the later ones.
Nick Velvet: In the first Nick Velvet story ("The Theft of the Clouded Tiger"), a baseball team is mentioned in a list of unusual things Nick has stolen. Edward D. Hoch later told the story of this theft in "The Theft of the Meager Beavers".
Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Volume 10:
- That gag in volume 6 about Tim Linton once gassing the Fellowship? Not so funny when we're told the context: it was basically an attempted school shooting brought on by Tim being in a really bad headspace due to his Dark and Troubled Past, and Alvin Godfrey saved his life from the attempted Murder-Suicide.
- Oliver's Flashback Echo in volume 2 of helping heal a woman for pregnancy-induced mana disruptions? It was his cousin Shannon, and he was the father, after being drugged by their great-grandfather into raping her.
Septimus Heap: The Great Fire in the Castle was mentioned a few times before the seventh and final book, Fyre, revealed what happened. Julius Pike, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, was showing a visiting wizard the alchemie Fyre, and to impress him, threw the Two-Faced Ring into it. The ring settled on the bottom of the cauldron holding the Fyre and Migrated through it, cracking the cauldron and causing a disaster. Flames reached up through the Fyre venting system and started the Great Fire.
Sherlock Holmes:
- The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of short stories by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr which expand upon the Noodle Incidents from various canon stories.
- Many other writers have done likewise, with the result that some fan chronologies that include pastiches are forced to the conclusion that Holmes encountered multiple creatures that were claimed as a giant rat of Sumatra, as well as several insane Colonel Warburtons and Isadora Persanos (each Persano with a different "worm unknown to science").
- The Canon has "The Adventure of the Second Stain", which is based on a reference in "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty". This is the only noodle incident that Arthur Conan Doyle resolved, and it's been noted that some of the details don't quite match, leading some pastiche writers to tell the story of the other second stain.
Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch: An episode of The Original Series had Kirk mention an unidentified "Maltuvis" as a dictator infamous enough to be listed alongside Hitler. The books show how he got that reputation... and then, in an ironic twist, was put on hold before showing how Maltuvis's reign ends (since he takes control of Sauria, later shown to be a Federation world). Living Memory would go on to give a general answer; Maltuvis got cocky and tried invading a planet that bred supersoldiers, and they kicked his ass.
Star Trek Novel 'Verse novels, especially Star Trek: The Lost Era frequently expand on Noodle Incidents from the series; for instance The Serpent Amongst the Ruins details the Tomed Incident, which had previously been referenced as both the reason the Romulans had retreated from interstellar affairs until the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Neutral Zone" and also the impetus for the Romulan/Federation peace treaty referenced in "The Pegasus".
Star Wars Expanded Universe:
- The climax of Queen's Shadow clarifies a noodle incident from The Clone Wars episode "The Rise of Clovis", where Padmé and Clovis reminisced about having to work hard for three days to save the aqueduct system of the planet Bromlarch.
- From a Certain Point of View explains why, in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader found necessary to remind Boba Fett "No disintegrations": years earlier Vader had posted a bounty on two criminals that Boba tracked down, only for them to pull a disruptor on him and get disintegrated when the anti-disruptor precaution Boba always carried reflected the shot back on them. Boba then collected the ashes and brought them to Vader to collect the bounty, only to be denied because he couldn't prove the ashes were those of the two criminals.
- Thrawn: Alliances reveals how Thrawn met General Anakin Skywalker in the new canon, something that was mentioned in Thrawn. Finally, the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy details how Thrawn rose through the ranks in the Chiss Ascendancy and eventually decided to travel to the Galactic Empire in order to ascertain the potential threat to the Ascendancy. It also reveals why Thrawn was surprised at the name Skywalker when he first heard it: having never developed navicomputer technology, the Chiss use Force-sensitives to navigate their ships through hyperspace, whom they call "Sky-walkers".
Star Wars Legends:
- Not only is a backstory provided for every character who appeared onscreen in the Star Wars movies (and even some of the Faceless Goons), but you also get stories that explain exactly what a "nerf herder" is. ^Explanation Something similar to a cow.
- Outbound Flight finally details Thrawn's encounter with the original Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth, which was first mentioned in The Thrawn Trilogy and then expanded upon by Jorj Car'das in The Hand of Thrawn. Outbound Flight depicts the actual incident, which Car'das was a witness to (having been Thrawn's guest at the time after being accidentally chased into the Chiss Ascendancy through several Blind Jumps by an enemy), as well as showing Thrawn's original introduction to Darth Sidious.
- Labyrinth of Evil (2005) explains exactly what "that business on Cato Neimoidia" was that Obi-Wan seemed embarrassed about in Revenge of the Sith. Basically, Obi-Wan accidentally unleashes and inhales a bunch of spores, having mistakenly left his breathing mask with Anakin who was elsewhere. After Cody sends Anakin a call requesting his assistance, Anakin finds an utterly shit-faced Obi-Wan having become the lightsaber-wielding Jedi equivalent of a Drunken Master, with fifty Battle Droids in pieces at his feet. Yet Kenobi finds this embarrassing after the fact.
- The Han Solo Trilogy: Rebel Dawn provides an explanation for a Noodle Incident in The Empire Strikes Back, where Lando appears furious at Han when they meet again over "what you pulled". Late in the novel, the Corellian Resistance makes a deal with Han, Lando, and several other Nar Shaddaa smuggler and Space Pirate crews to attack the Scam Religion on Ylesia to free the enslaved "pilgrims" and shut down their drug-manufacturing operation in exchange for a cut of the loot. Unfortunately, under orders from the Rebel Alliance, they then screw Han and his smuggler pals out of their share at gunpoint, because they've just learned about the Death Star and need the money to fund operations against it. To Lando and the others, it looks like Han was complicit in the betrayal rather than also being a victim of it himself, because Han was the one who brought them the Corellian Rebels' proposal in the first place and the leader of the operation is his ex-girlfriend Bria Tharen.
Cherry Wilder wrote three novels set on the alien world of Torin, and also several short stories exploring the culture in more detail or providing resolutions for characters who only appeared briefly in the novels. For instance, in The Luck of Brin's Five the protagonist takes part in an air race where one of the other aircraft crashes and the pilot is killed; there is a short story in which the engineer who set up the race visits the pilot's family and we learn more about the pilot (and the engineer).
Tortall Universe: In Trickster's Choice, it's mentioned that George took a young Aly on a mission to meet with an informant that went bad, leading him to not allow her to do fieldwork anymore. A Spy's Guide includes a report written by Aly about the incident that fills out all the details of what happened.
Warhammer 40,000: Ciaphas Cain:
- (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) repeatedly makes references to having cleared a Space Hulk and having spent time with the Reclaimers chapter of Space Marines, but not until The Emperor's Finest do we get to see it.
- Several of the short stories from the omnibus editions of the novels expand on the Noodle Incidents from the stories;
  - "Echoes of the Tomb" explains the encounter he had with necrons (and why he's so terrified of them) in "Caves of Ice". It's also the story of why he has two augmetic fingers (Which TEF expounds on, since it starts immediately after).
  - "The Beguiling" gives the story of Cain's encounter with a Slaaneshi cult which is mentioned and has a returning villain in "The Traitor's Hand".
  - "Sector 13" is about Cain's first encounter with genestealer infiltrators (which is mentioned in pretty much every book where it comes up).
- The very first book notes how he was reactivated and brought back into service shortly after writing it (since he mentioned enjoying his retirement) thanks to the beginning of the Black Crusade. Six books later, "Cain's Last Stand" is about how this happened.
- In addition to following immediately on from the events of "Echoes of the Tomb", "The Emperor's Finest" is about the time he spent acting as Imperial Guard liaison to some Space Marines (not to mention his often brought up memories of their armour being sliced open like butter by purebreed genestealers every time he fights them).
- Many chapters start with a quote or inspiring proverb. One of them are the last words of the Chaos Warmaster Varan the Undefeatable, "Well that was unexpected...", which is likely to be interpreted as a wry Didn't See That Coming comment. Then we actually see Varan's last moments, and his last word are actually "That was unexpected, wasn't it?" delivered as a mocking taunt, having just revealed his Chaos mutations included natural body armor and Femme Fatalons in addition to a Compelling Voice.
Warlock of Gramarye: Christopher Stasheff wrote 27 novels in the series from 1983-2004, which had "Saint Vidicon of Cathode" mentioned as the Patron Saint of computers. Only in 2005 did he decide to actually write Saint Vidicon's story.
The main character of the short story "Wide Wings" by Mercedes Lackey was originally a minor character in The Black Swan, her adaptation of Swan Lake, one of the potential brides that the Prince rejects in favor of Odette. According to Lackey, Honoria stood up and announced that she wanted her story told, and she didn't really care what Lackey wanted.
Wings of Fire: Escaping Peril has a character mention the MudWings had a succession crisis 200 years ago. A Guide to the Dragon World explains what happened: the queen died without having any heirs, so one of her sons fell in love with a commoner and pretended he was the father of her clutch.

Live-Action TV

Arrow, owing to its heavy reliance on flashbacks, has a number of examples of this.
- In a Season 1 episode, Diggle tells Felicity about an incident from his tour in Afghanistan, in which he killed a Child Soldier while protecting a surrendered terrorist leader, Gholem Khadeer. The flashback sequence of the Season 2 episode "Suicide Squad" depicts this incident.
- Also, in Season 1, when Diggle questions Oliver about his father's List, Oliver tells him that he discovered a message from his father "a few years ago" explaining who the people on the List were and why they needed to be brought to justice. He further clarifies that he didn't find the List on the island where he was supposedly stranded for five years. Two seasons later, a flashback reveals how Oliver found Robert's message on a covert trip to Starling City.
- This tends to happen frequently on the show owing to the ongoing flashback narrative of the first five seasons. A Noodle Incident from Oliver's five years away is brought up in the present-day, and at some later point, the flashback narrative resolves it. One of the most notable examples is Oliver's past association with the Bratva, and his friendship with Bratva boss Anatoly Knyazev, both of which were alluded to heavily in the first season of the show. Flashbacks in Season 2 reveal the beginnings of Oliver's friendship with Anatoly, while the flashback narrative of Season 5 deals Oliver's initiation into the Bratva.
Better Call Saul:
- Early on, Jimmy's brother, Chuck, mentions having to bail him out of an Illinois jail after Jimmy performed an unidentified act called a "Chicago Sunroof". Chuck also comments that Jimmy narrowly avoided being labeled a sex-offender. The final episode of the first season explains what a "Chicago Sunroof" is/what the incident involved: A drunken Jimmy saw someone he disliked parking their car and so Jimmy climbed on top of the car and defecated through the sunroof. Unbeknownst to Jimmy, the owner's children were in the back seat (which is why he was almost tried for a sex crime).
- In a more serious example, in his first appearance in Breaking Bad, Jimmy/Saul is dragged out into the desert by Walt and Jesse in an attempt to intimidate him into doing their bidding. Saul is utterly terrified and begging for his life by saying that "It was Ignacio! He's the one!", until he realizes they're unaware of someone named "Lalo", at which point he switches on his usual charm. In the prequel series, we see just how he became so terrified of Lalo: He's a Salamanca and former client of his, who wages a one-man war on Gus Fring after a botched hit, with Ignacio/Nacho as the mole in the operation^note. Being aware of the hit, but not of its failure, Jimmy is completely blindsided and traumatized when Lalo shows up to his door, murders Howard just for seeing his face, and ties up Jimmy for later interrogation.
On The Big Bang Theory episode, "the Plimpton Stimulation," Howard reveals to Raj that he and his girlfriend Bernadette suffered an Offscreen Breakup several weeks prior. The events leading to the breakup are explored in the next season's "The Hot Troll Deviation" where it's revealed that Bernadette caught him having cybersex with a troll character in World of Warcraft.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Vampire William the Bloody is better known as Spike because he likes to use railroad spikes as a torture device, even though we never see that happen. Eventually, in the fifth season episode "Fool for Love", this is revealed as an Embarrassing Nickname; we discover that before he was turned he was William the "bloody awful" poet, and one person says he'd rather have a railroad spike driven through his head than hear any more.
Doctor Who:
- In "Pyramids of Mars", the Fourth Doctor grumbles that he was once falsely accused of starting the Great Fire of London. "The Visitation" ends with the Fifth Doctor actually starting the Great Fire of London, proving that the accusation wasn't false, just early.
- In "Doomsday", when he confronts the Cult of Skaro, the Doctor mentions that he was at the "fall of Arcadia". In "The Day of the Doctor" and its prequel "The Last Day", it's revealed that Arcadia was Gallifrey's "second city", and that the Daleks overran it on the last day of the Time War.
- Starting with "The End of the World", the revival series slowly reveals that Gallifrey is gone, destroyed at the end of the Time War, and the Doctor is the one who did the deed. Though the consequences of this are supremely important for the Doctor, as there is much focus on the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors grappling with the psychological and literal fallout of this, it is never fully revealed what this actually entailed. It isn’t until "The Day of the Doctor" that we and the Doctor finally get to see what happened.
- At the end of "The Shakespeare Code", Queen Elizabeth I arrives and declares the Tenth Doctor her "sworn enemy", forcing him and Martha to leg it back to the TARDIS as he wonders what exactly it is he's going to do to make her angry. Later, at the beginning of "The End of Time", he mentions to Ood Sigma that he married her, calling it a "mistake" and implying that Elizabeth's nickname^noteThe Virgin Queen is no longer... ahem. It's brought up a few more times by Liz 10 and the Dream Lord, and in "The Wedding of River Song" the Eleventh Doctor says that "Elizabeth the First is still waiting in a glade to elope with me!" The 50^th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" finally shows the wedding, revealing that Ten asked Elizabeth to marry him because he thought she was being impersonated by a Zygon and was trying to expose the "imposter", not taking into account why exactly a Chick Magnet should never try to entrap someone this way. He was quite embarrassed when he realized he was engaged to the real deal, and after the wedding he ran off, apparently never to return.
- In "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead", River Song brings up a couple incidents in her past with the Doctor, which he hasn't done yet because, from his perspective, this is the first time he's met her. Three of them would later be resolved:
  - The crash of the Byzantium appeared in "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone".
  - River claims that she's been to the end of the universe with the Doctor: namely, the events of "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang".
  - The last time River saw the Doctor before coming to the Library was at the Singing Towers of Darillium, finally seen in "The Husbands of River Song".
- At the end of "The Big Bang", the Doctor receives a phone call about "an Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express... In Space" "Mummy on the Orient Express" would later reveal what actually happened.
In Fargo, the Sioux Falls massacre is mentioned in passing in Season 1 by two older police officers, Lou Solverson and Ben Schmidt. For Season 2, which happens almost thirty years before Season 1, it serves as the climax, and between the entire sting operation's worth of cops getting wiped out, the near-total extermination of every adult member of the Gerhardt Crime Family, and the extraterrestrial spacecraft, it's clear why this event is regarded as nigh-mythic by its survivors.
How I Met Your Mother:
- The montage of five-word sentences containing bad ideas includes a shot of Marshall standing on a roof, saying "I can jump that far". The incident forms a central plot point in that season's finale.
- Another one involves Ted telling a strange story to his kids and constantly forgetting the details, before eventually remembering that the events took place much later and dropping the story altogether. The last we see of it is a shot of Ted walking into the bar wearing a green dress. Sure enough, Ted eventually does get around to explaining these events properly- just not during that particular season.
- A similar example: While talking about one of his birthday parties, he constantly brings up a goat incident, before remembering at the end of the episode that it actually happened on his 31st birthday, not his 30th, so we have to wait an entire year to find out what happened.
- "The Pineapple Incident". There are so many noodle incidents in this episode that get resolved (after a The Hangover-style night), except for the appearance of a pineapple in Ted's room. There's a scene included in the box set that tells us how the pineapple got there: The Captain would place a pineapple on the porch as a sign of hospitality. The night when Ted was super drunk, he grabbed it, thinking it was funny to have a pineapple on the porch.
- Some of those details are not even provided until How I Met Your Father 17 years later.
In Hustle, Ashley Morgan is nicknamed "Three-Socks", a nickname indicated to have been picked up in the prison showers. For several series, this is unexplained and the viewer is fairly likely to suspect it involves some method of escaping Prison Rape. However, it eventually turns out to be a reference to a physical characteristic of Ash.
In the pilot episode of Lost, Jack tells a story to Kate of when he was performing a risky surgery, he made a wrong move, and let the terror seep into his mind for 5 seconds before getting his head together again. We finally see this incident as a flashback in the Season 5 finale, with a surprise appearance from Jacob.
Smallville: people kept holding an unexplained incident at Club Zero over Lex Luthor's head and pointed it as a prime example of his money getting him out of trouble. A later episode (appropriately titled "Zero") showed a flashback to what happened there, and the Villain of the Week was relative of someone who died in the incident trying to kill Lex for revenge.
Star Trek:
- The discrepancy between the smooth-forehead Klingons in Star Trek: The Original Series and the Rubber-Forehead Aliens in all subsequent series was acknowledged in Deep Space Nine when the DS9 crew travelled to the past, specifcally to the events of the episode The Trouble With Tribbles. Upon seeing the unrecognizable Klingons of the past, the rest of the crew asked Worf to explain why they look so different, to which Worf said "We do not discuss it with outsiders!" The writers of the prequel series Enterprise decided to explain it as a genetic engineering experiment Gone Horribly Wrong.
- The main plot of the Deep Space Nine episode Facets. Jadzia Dax hosts a symbiont who has been in 7 other hosts before her. As a result she shares their memories and personalities. Throughout the series, she keeps dropping Noodles about what her previous hosts were like. In this episode, she goes through a ritual that transfers the memories and personality of each host into another person. This allows her to interact with each host, and the viewers get to meet each host. Most notable was Curzon Dax, who was the host right before Jadzia, and also the main character Sisko's best friend. Curzon transfers into a shapeshifter, who shapeshifts to look like Curzon. In this episode we see Curzon Dax in the flesh, and also get to see Sisko interact with Curzon.
- James Kirk's "solution" to the Kobyashi Maru no-win test was a long standing Noodle Incident in Star Trek lore. Though it was known that Kirk "cheated", this was just the Noodle Incident, and his actual method wasn't known. The 2009 movie shows us a possible explanation for what happened - Kirk hacks the test so the Klingon ships' shields would fail and he could destroy them easily - and it also shows him being admonished for his defiant behavior, rather than congratulated for thinking outside of the box; however, since the movie is set in an alternate universe, this wasn't a conclusive resolution, as it was possible that things in the Prime universe went differently. Eventually, the expanded universe resolved this for real: Kirk Prime did reprogram the simulator, but not the same way his counterpart did— he reprogrammed the Klingons' response system to recognize the fame that Kirk expected himself to have by the time his career actually reached that point, causing them to stand down when he identified himself.
- It's established that, several years after his visit to Talos IV, Captain Pike gets caught in an accident that bombards him with delta radiation, leaving him horribly scarred and confined to a mechanized wheelchair. In Star Trek: Discovery (which takes place before the Original Series), Pike encounters a time crystal which shows him the accident in question and its aftermath.
- In the original Pilot Episode, "The Cage", we're introduced to Captain Pike and the crew of the Enterprise following a disastrous landing at Rigel VII, which cost the lives of three members and badly injured seven. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode "Among the Lotus Eaters" not only dramatizes it, but explores the aftermath.
Ultra Series
- Back in the original Ultraman, an episode has the Science Patrol crash-landing in the Middle Eastern City of Baradhi, named after the Baradhi stone which a member of Ultraman's race left behind in ancient times which turns out to be useful in helping Ultraman take down the episode's Monster of the Week, Antlar. The identity of the Ultraman who visited Baradhi was left ambiguous until 38 years later, when Ultraman Nexus would reveal Nexus' default form, Ultraman Noa, to be that particular Ultra, who visited the original Showa universe during his travels and left behind the Baradhi stone.
- The Ultraman Taro episode "Burn On! The Six Ultra Brothers" shows audiences the Land of Light for the first time, as well as a brief history lesson of the Ultramen, including something called an "Ultimate War of the Land of Light" 30,000 years ago where a ruthless alien warlord called Empera tries taking over the galaxy with a monster army before he's defeated by the Ultramen. From his debut in 1973, Empera was never mentioned again until 2006's Ultraman Mebius, which has Empera returning for a second attempt at taking over. Later in the series Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy would provide flashbacks depicting the war itself.
- Ultraman Leo has the titular Ultra's backstory, where his home planet of L-77 was destroyed by a hostile alien race called Magma. The prequel, Ultraman Regulos would showcase the backstory of the invasion itself, and how it plays out.

Radio

After Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio) had adapted all the Holmes stories, Bert Coules wrote four seasons of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, all based on Noodle Incidents referenced by Holmes or Watson in canon.

Tabletop Games

Warhammer 40,000:
- Early editions made reference to the "quiescent perils of the C'tan" beyond the "gates of Varl", with the writer having nothing in particular in mind. Years later, the Necron lore added the C'tan to the game as godlike "star vampires", fleshing out their backstory.
- The Horus Heresy was initially obscured by ten thousand years of misinformation, myth, deliberate redaction and other sources of informational decay - at least from the Imperial perspective (a significant number of the Chaos Marines, of course, were there personally). More recent years have seen multiple spinoff wargames and literally dozens of books, so while there's still plenty of space for Weird Stuff to go in - Forge World in particular loves to put in weird little guys who pop into Imperial records, do something odd and vanish again - the majority of major events are pretty pinned down.

Video Games

Subverted in Five Nights at Freddy's 4: While the game shows you a mysterious bite relating to Fredbear/Golden Freddy with the main protagonist as the victim post-Night 5 believed to be the Bite of '87, this is later revealed to be a separate Bite of '83.
An optional scene in Final Fantasy VII reveals that Jenova used her own cells to infect the Cetra tribes with a virus, nearly wiping them out. By the time of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, this virus, now called "Geostigma", has been brought back by Sephiroth.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is an expansion of the prologue detailed in A Link to the Past's intro cutscene. There is one deviation from the prologue, though: in Ocarina of Time, Link lives. This was eventually revealed as ALTTP taking place in an alternate timeline from the ending of OOT.
Mass Effect 2: Mordin Solus, a Salarian scientist you recruit who happens to be ex-special forces STG, will mention that once he killed with a piece of farming equipment. In the DLC that revolves around fighting a shadowy figure that has records of nearly everything and everyone, it's revealed that he stabbed a Krogan—notoriously hard-to-kill aliens—through the eye with a pitchfork during a clandestine mission.
Night in the Woods:
- Mae doesn't like to talk about the time she went with Cole to their high school senior prom and it ended in disaster. If you go with Bea to the graveyard in Act III and tell the Goth Teens an embarrassing story from high school, Mae will reveal all the gruesome, humiliating details: Mae went in for a kiss but somehow screwed up and bit Cole on the lip. She dragged Cole into the bathroom and stuffed his mouth with paper towels to stop the bleeding, while nervously eating candied almonds she'd stolen from the refreshments table. Then she nearly choked on an almond and puked while trying to give herself the Heimlich maneuver. Then someone came in and, in a moment of panic, Mae tried to flush the paper towels she'd shoved in Cole's mouth down the toilet, causing it to overflow. Cole left early, and Mae was forced to get a ride home from Josh, a kid who rode to prom on a tractor.
- There are repeated references to Mae putting another kid in the hospital when she was younger, an incident she doesn't like to talk about. Near the end of the game we get the whole story: Mae had a nasty dissociative episode during a softball game that lead to her lashing out.
Rambo: The Video Game, an adaptation of the first three movies of the Rambo franchise, resolves the part from First Blood where Rambo offhandedly mentioned a friend named Delmar Barry to Barry's widow, with a flashback showing Delmar as Rambo's sidekick in a Vietnam mission.
Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic started out as a passing reference in one of the books from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Terminator: Resistance: The Annihilation Line DLC finally reveals the full context of Reese's first future flashback/dream from the original movie, including explaining who the female soldier is (her name is Charlotte Ferro) and how Reese survived the car crash (Jacob Rivers saved him). We even see basically the exact scene from Rivers' perspective.
Trails Series: The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie finally depicts the liberation of Crossbell on-screen, after the epilogues of both Azure and Cold Steel IV were set after it happened.
In Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Nate implies to Elena he spent time in a Panamanian jail, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End reveals that eight years before the first game his brother Sam seemingly lost his life while they were escaping from one such prison.

Visual Novels

Ace Attorney:
- In the climax of Phoenix Wright, Manfred von Karma is exposed as the true culprit in the unsolved DL-6 Incident, which Miles Edgeworth's father Gregory was murdered in the courthouse elevator. Manfred's motive? Gregory, a defense attorney, had revealed von Karma's use of faulty evidence in a trial that took place immediately before the incident, for which von Karma got a penalty on his otherwise perfect record. Other than the fact that Gregory's client was still found guilty, the full details of his final case were left to the player's imagination. Then ten years later, the Gaiden Game Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit was released, in which a major part of the game's third episode, "Turnabout Legacy", revolves around finally solving Gregory's final case, the IS-7 Incident. Gregory's former assistant, Eddie Fender, explains to Miles that the faulty evidence in question was the forced confession that was obtained from their client, Samson Tangaroa.
- In the fourth case of Apollo Justice, the titular character's backstory is explained to Phoenix in the following, somewhat vague terms: Apollo's father was a guest performer with Troupe Gramarye who got together with the troupe leader's daughter, Thalassa. A year later, after the two left the troupe and had Apollo, the family was separated when his father died in the middle of a performance. Sometime later, Thalassa returned to the troupe by herself, with Apollo's whereabouts unknown. It wasn't until the sixth game, Spirit of Justice, that most of the details were filled in. Apollo's father, a traveling musician, had been performing for the queen of a foreign nation when an assassin set the venue on fire, which cost him his life. The infant Apollo was saved by a third party, but the event threw the kingdom into chaos and hindered Thalassa's attempts to locate him.
Danganronpa: The first game makes vague references to "the worst, most despair-inducing event in the history of mankind", eventually revealing it led to catastrophic social upheaval across much of the world which led to the students at Hope's Peak Academy being trapped in the school, but not going into detail as to what exactly happened. Later games and spin-offs reveal more about "The Tragedy" and the events that lead to it.

Webcomics

Best Friends Forever: Teddy and Vincent act weird about each other and it's only ever referenced that something happened over the summer they spent together. It turns out that during that summer, Vincent got drunk and attempted to kiss Teddy, who turned out to be his Closet Key. Teddy thought Vincent was messing with him due to the fact other football players called him girly. Even further, when Vincent tells the story to Louis, he reveals that that time was simply the only one Teddy noticed, but he actually tried to kiss him several times during the summer.
Darths & Droids: Pete's job is not explained at first, but he does give out contextual clues, saying that the job involves suits, firms, clients, meetings, and treacherous lying bastards with silver tongues. It's later stated at the end of Episode VI that he's a defense attorney.
El Goonish Shive:
- The "Hammerchlorians" arc explains the trip to France, which Susan often mentioned as the reason she knows Nanase and knew so much about magic, but refused to elaborate on. It turns out that it was a school trip that Susan's mother strong-armed the school to allow her to go on, and while there Susan was nearly killed by a vampire-like monster. That night, a pair of Immortals gave the girls magic and tricked them into killing the vampire, scarring Susan.
- One comic showed a montage of in-story events, except the final panel which was a Noodle Incident of a griffin asking Elliot for directions to Avalon. Years later, that griffin came back into the story, revealing that she really was asking for directions but the Avalon thing was a code phrase referring to the gateway back to her home dimension.
Sequential Art: Early in the series, when Kat asks Art if he did anything crazy in college, he gets a flashback to him and Pip frantically burying something in an open grave. A series of strips years later gives us the full context (better buckle up for this one). During college, Art and Pip decided to play a prank on a fashion student, Rebecca Mace, who they saw talking to a mannequin she named Vanessa by stealing the mannequin and then sending a series of postcards making it seem as if Vanessa had run away to a new life, with one picture giving her a "boob job". Unfortunately, Rebecca showed this postcard to one of her classmates, who immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was some misogynistic attack on female beauty standards and organized a protest with her classmates which somehow snowballed into three-day long riots. Art and Pip, rightfully freaked out at how quickly and severely things escalated, decided to cut their losses and bury Vanessa before they could be implicated, but Rebecca found out what they did and tried to assault them until the two were forced to hide out in a janitor's closet for six hours, which led to Rebecca getting arrested and sent to a mental hospital.

Web Original

Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: Early posts about the park would occasionally make reference to a disaster in 2007 that led to the park being permanently closed to the public, but it wasn't until June 2020 that creator Trevor "StrangeVehicles" Roberts posted a report revealing what happened: A series of Disaster Dominoes of negligence, bad luck and slightly bad ideas led to the Pit spasming during a power cut, swallowing the park infrastructure due to a choking reflex then vomiting from toxic shock (the failsafe's paralytic poisons failed to work as intended) while visitors were still trapped. The final toll was 750 deaths, 1800 injuries and a narrowly averted cataclysmic awakening prevented only by an ill-understood contingency.
Some noodle incidents from the Whateley Universe have been explained in the Hank stories:
- They have a literal Noodle Incident that Generator was behind. It's Generator strangling Hank by blocking his windpipe with a noodle.
- Three new noodle incidents appeared recently: Team Kimba faced an Unwinnable Training Simulation and got their asses handed to them the first time that term (the Grunts, the supposedly the best team in the Sims, needed three or four tries). Generator proposes a strategy that includes a Radioactive Condor Girl and scares the crap out of battle-hardened combat teachers. After the weekend, they (apparently) try this scenario thrice more, ending with the Radioactive Condor Girl strategy. And win. We don't have any details, however.

Western Animation

Adventure Time:
- In the Season 2 episode "It Came From the Nightosphere", Marceline sings a surprisingly touching song about her neglectful father, with a childhood incident where he callously ate her fries as an example. In the Season 3 episode "Memory of a Memory", Finn encounters a flashback to this incident while traveling through Marceline's memories. ^note
- In the Season 4 episode "Sons of Mars", Abe Lincoln mentions Magic Man "used to be cool" before something happened with him and Margles on Olympus Mons. In the Season 6 episode "You Forgot Your Floaties", we see that something play out.
- The season 3 episode "What Was Missing" gave a glimpse into Marceline and Bubblegum's past relationship and hints that something caused it to sour prior to the audience meeting them. Marceline outright sings that she "forgets what landed her on [Bubblegum's] blacklist". In the Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode "Obsidian", we finally witness the inciting incident that caused their break-up.
Batman Beyond: When Terry first encounters the Royal Flush Gang, Bruce notes that he's encountered earlier iterations of the criminal family during his tenure as Batman. The Royal Flush Gang did not appear in Batman: The Animated Series, so initial viewers just had to take Bruce's word for it, but said earlier iterations later appeared in Justice League (set between B:TAS and Beyond).
Ben 10: When Ken receives his own Omnitrix the episode "Ken 10", he excitedly namedrops a bunch of Ben's aliens plus one called "Atomix" that is never shown. Shortly after, while complaining about the lame options he has, he mentions another called "Toepick" that's too gross even for him. In Ben 10: Omniverse, both Toepick and Atomix are finally revealed.
BoJack Horseman: "Say Anything" has a series of brief flashbacks to BoJack in sticky situations where he needed Princess Carolyn's help. One of them has him in the hospital in a full body cast after sneezing on Marisa Tomei. The picture of the sneeze is a Running Gag, but we don't see why BoJack was injured. However, a few episodes later in "Downer Ending," BoJack has a vision of the event during a Mushroom Samba, and we learn that he fell off his balcony after sneezing on her.
When Numbuh 5's candy hunting rival Heinrich Von Marzipan showed up in Codename: Kids Next Door, he often mentioned an incident in Guatemala that ruined their friendship. Apparently, Numbuh 5 abandoned Heinrich when he needed her and it had something to do with caramels. Finally, the episode "Operation: C.A.R.A.M.E.L." explained what happened. Heinrich was actually a girl named Henrietta who fell victim to an ancient ritual that exchanged an individual's most valued quality for sacred golden caramels. Because she was a Proud Beauty, she was transformed into an ugly boy. Thinking that she ate all her caramels and unwittingly made the curse permanent, she blamed Numbuh 5 for not stopping her. Luckily, it's revealed that Numbuh 5 had saved one caramel with which Heinrich was ultimately able to turn back into Henrietta.
The opening narration of Courage the Cowardly Dog states that Courage was taken in by Muriel after being abandoned as a pup. Why he was abandoned is explained near the end of the series in the episode "Remembrance of Courage Past": his parents took him to a veterinarian who sent them into space as part of a science experiment, but Courage was able to escape.
DuckTales (2017):
- A Running Gag throughout the series is Scrooge's unexplained animosity towards Santa Claus. He doesn't allow any depictions of him in the mansion on Christmas and sets traps under the chimney every year, but never gives any explanation for the grudge aside from, "He knows what he did." It's not until the Season 3 episode "How Santa Stole Christmas!" that the man himself finally shows up in person and the whole story finally comes out: Santa and Scrooge had been business partners and friends working together to deliver coal to warm houses on Christmas, Scrooge even helping him acquire the means to make the deliveries all in one night, but they had a falling out when Santa insisted on giving the coal - and, eventually, gifts - away for free.
- In "Last Christmas!", Scrooge casually mentions "secretly keeping the world-eating serpent Jormungandr at bay" among a list of his responsibilities. Come the Season 3 episode "The Rumble For Ragnarok!", where Scrooge would take the kids to a ritual held once every decade to keep Jormungandr at bay, by beating him in a wrestling match.
Kim Possible: The episode "A Sitch In Time (Part 2)" shows how Kim got started as a hero when someone trapped in a laser grid attempted to contact "Team Impossible" but reached her website (originally intended to get her normal teenage jobs like babysitting) by mistake while contorting to type the address into a laptop without getting zapped. The later episode "Team Impossible" features an appearance by this group as they try to drive Kim out of the hero business because she's cutting into their profits.
The first half-season of Milo Murphy's Law repeatedly alludes to "The Llama Incident"; eventually we get an episode with that name, during which Milo and Melissa finally tell Zack exactly what it was. This explanation happens while they're all hanging off a cliff in the aftermath of something they refer to as "the Woodpecker Incident" to a nearby character, which we only see snapshots of.
Moral Orel: The infamous episode "Nature" starts with Clay spanking Orel for some unspecified wrongdoing, with Orel only vaguely stating what it is. "Innocence" reveals Orel apparently bled out several of his friends in the bathtub so he could bathe in their blood. Why? Because Coach Stopframe claimed it would make him young forever (citing Gothic erotica as his source, no less) and Orel believed the only way to stay perfectly innocent was to remain a child forever.
OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: "Let's Take a Moment" finally reveals the full story of the "sandwich incident" that lead to Mr. Gar leaving P.O.I.N.T., which had only been hinted at in previous episodes.
The Penguins of Madagascar: In early episodes there are mentions of a villainous dolphin named Dr. Blowhole, which were implied to be one of Skipper's delusions. Come the end of the first season, Blowhole is introduced as a real character.
The Stinger of the Phineas and Ferb episode "The Chronicles of Meap" was a movie-style "trailer" for a follow-up called "Meapless In Seattle." It eventually became a real episode, opening with the following narration, giving context to all the scenes (largely in comedically anticlimactic ways), and ending with an even more absurd fake trailer.
"A long time ago in a studio in Burbank, California, a ragtag group of animators made a fake trailer for a 'Meap' sequel they never intended to make. Unfortunately, everyone wanted to see that episode so the animators were forced to write it and incorporate all these seemingly unrelated scenes. I guess the joke was on them. We now present...'Meapless in Seattle.'"
Regular Show: In "Muscle Woman", Starla's tattoos are Muscle Man, Steve, and Muscle Man again. We don't know who Steve is or why she broke up with Muscle Man the first time until the revival series episode "Good Mitch Spiking". Starla broke up with Muscle Man because he was a Lazy Bum who never took anything seriously, and Steve was her volleyball partner, with Muscle Man then taking up volleyball to prove that he can be good at something.
The Simpsons has an example that may be a subversion due to the resolution in question being a Deleted Scene: The Season 11 episode "Eight Misbehavin'" at one point has the family mention several Noodle Incidents that occurred during Manjula's pregnancy, including one in which Marge became Krusty's sidekick as "Sideshow Marge". The Season 12 episode "Day of the Jackanapes" had a Deleted Scene in which the family reminisced about their various encounters with Krusty over the years, including a Flashback to Marge's time as "Sideshow Marge."
SpongeBob SquarePants:
- The Season 1 episode "Fools in April" has SpongeBob mentioning an incident involving "lima beans and a car chase", which Squidward is confused by. 22 years later, the Season 13 episode "Friendiversary" has SpongeBob and Squidward re-enacting the aforementioned incident in a bid to restore SpongeBob's memories, finally showing it in full detail.
- The Season 5 episode "Good Ol' Whatshisname" has Patrick in jail at the end with no given explanation. In the Season 11 episode "Call the Cops", it's explained that Patrick is a regular at the jail due to his constant ice cream benders.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Siege of Mandalore was intended as the Grand Finale, but it didn't happen at first due to the series' initial cancellation in 2013. Later on, it was first mentioned in canon by Captain Rex in the Rebels season 2 episode "The Lost Commanders", and more details of the Siege were revealed by Dave Filoni at Star Wars Celebration 2016 and in the novel Ahsoka, published later that year. The seventh season, announced in 2018 and released in 2020, finally showed the Siege unfold in its final arc.
The Teen Titans season 1 episode, "Sisters", has Starfire mistaking a fireworks display for a Gordanian invasion. The season 5 Origins Episode, "Go!" would reveal the Gordanians to be a hostile alien race who enslaved Tamaranians, and Starfire escaping custody from Gordanian slavers before crashing on Earth is what ultimately leads to the Titans meeting together for the first time.
In Young Justice, a Running Gag is that we keep seeing the same Metropolis City school bus in danger, even in other cities or at night; the passengers are always the same, and don't seem to age despite the show's Time Skips. We finally get an explanation for this in season four: Klarion, having lost his usual anchor to the mortal world, possesses the bus and teleports it through space and time to various disasters where superheroes will be present, looking for the specific team of sorcerers who can help him defeat the Child.

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