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Refitted for Sequel - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Dec 03 2011

This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

"We always leave ideas that were in the first draft as you go along. You know, either a set piece that was great but too expensive, an idea that was really bright, but it couldn't quite fit the structure... so we have a little stash of stuff we wanted to do that we didn't get to do. So if that's a possibility, A) I would be very happy to do a sequel, but B) a lot of these ideas, set pieces and all that, actually have in them a really good seed for a sequel."

So you've finished writing your new adventure film. It has everything you can imagine, with a very evil villain, a mysterious female lead and even a biplane chase! The studio loves it and you get it green-lit. But as you move into pre-production, you notice the film needs to get trimmed down. The biplane chase was great, but you know it has to go, as it adds too little to the plot. A shame, it even got storyboarded and most of the models were already built. But with it left out, the pacing is improved and the change was for the better. The film eventually gets released to rave reviews and great box-office numbers. So the studio calls you up for a sequel! You start working on the script and realize something:

Hey... Why, I could work the biplane chase into this one!

The sequence remains virtually identical to its first outing, except that this time a different girl is behind our hero. Just because you didn't use it the first time, doesn't mean it never can be used, instead, it can be refitted for the sequel.

The reasons for dropping a sequence is usually:

  • Pacing: Some sequences just end up being too long in the end, or there is one chase too many.
  • Budgetary or time constraints: Everything in a film costs money, A LOT of money. Sometimes some things will just be too expensive and need to be cut. In other cases, to avoid a delay you need to take something out.
  • Technological: Sometimes, the technology needed to produce the sequence (or at least on a budget) is not there yet.

Another variation is when doing an adaptation of a work, a scene from an earlier installment makes into a later one. Sometimes it isn't a sequence that's re-used, but can be things like sets or props made for an earlier installment.

Most of these tend to be removed early, anywhere from the scriptwriting to having gotten some sets built.

This is mostly a film, TV, or video game-based trope, as readers have a lot more tolerance for length and writing an extra sequence doesn’t cost anything other than time.

For video games, it can be related to Dummied Out. With the advent of DLC, ideas that the creators just didn't have time to implement for the base game can be finished and released later down the road as... well, DLC, instead of waiting for a full-fledged sequel. The difference of how this is received varies greatly though and often comes down to if the player in question thinks the DLC content feels like additional content for an already complete product, or the delayed missing piece to an unfinished work.

Compare Refitted for Adaptation, when an adaptation uses the cut material; Saved for the Sequel, where an element makes it to the main work in an abbreviated form and gets its full development in the sequel; Development Gag, where the excised element is still referenced in the final work in some way; and What Could Have Been, where story elements never see the light of day.

Individual pages:

Examples:

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Anime & Manga 

  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Hirohiko Araki originally planned on having a variety of dynamic moments between Joseph and Caesar for Battle Tendency, which he was unable to add in due to trouble finding a way to fit them in. In Steel Ball Run, Araki is able to use the moments he wrote for Johnny and Gyro.
  • Gundam:
    • Numerous mobile suit designs and other things cut from the original Mobile Suit Gundam later made it into Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and other sequels. Most notably one of the major characters, Princess Mineva, was originally going to be Degwin Zabi's youngest child in the earliest drafts of the original series (then named Miharu, which wound up being used for a completely different character) instead of his granddaughter.
    • A lot of concepts from the "Tomino Memo" — supposedly Yoshiyuki Tomino's full 52-episode plan for Mobile Suit Gundam — have been refitted here or there. For example, the Memo featured Kusko Al, Degwin Zabi's Sexy Secretary who spies for Zeon while seducing Bright Noah; Tomino's novelization of the series reworks her into a Newtype pilot.
    • A large number of ideas from a planned 1983 Hollywood film adaptation of the original series eventually made their way into later shows, including the Mobile Suits using a motion capture interface, the protagonist being forced to fight his brother who has been brainwashed by an evil AI, the protagonists gathering a Magnificent Seven Samurai-style team to take down the bad guys, one of the pilots being a former baseball player and a supercomputer hidden inside an asteroid fortress manipulating the war. This even extends to the staff, as Syd Mead, who was recruited as a production designer, went on to work on ∀ Gundam.
    • There were at least a couple of plans during the first season of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans that were initially scrapped, but then subjected to this for the second season, namely Tekkadan getting ostracized for being amoral mercenaries, and receiving a catastrophic number of casualties in the end game. Also, plans for offing Lafter and Norba in the previous season were repurposed later on.
      • Ein Dalton being converted into the Graze Ein borrows from unrealized plans for Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ to have Jerid Mesa resurrected as a cyborg after his apparent death.
    • Yoshiyuki Tomino's earliest concept for Mobile Suit Gundam was basically Jules Verne's Two Years' Vacation/Adrift in the Pacific in space. Four years later, Sunrise repurposed the idea (with mecha) to make Ginga Hyouryuu Vifam, where Tomino gets credited for creating the original draft.
    • The original draft for Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn had it take place around Moon Moon, with Join Banagher searching for help outside the colony to help repair it and running into a disguised ship carrying Mineva, causing Moon Moon to be drawn into a conflict between Neo Zeon and Londo Bell. While this was scrapped for Unicorn, the concept would be later reworked as Mobile Suit Moon Gundam.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED was originally conceived as taking place in the late Universal Century timeline sometime after G-Saviour (the Mobile Suit design sketches for both look uncannily similar, though it's not as obvious watching them on screen, thanks to the latter's infamously crude 90s CGI) before being reworked as a retelling of the original series in an Alternate Continuity. Gundam: Reconguista in G revisits this concept, building on many of G Saviour's ideas such as a post-federation Earth and the fallout of a massive food crisis, while featuring a main Gundam using interchangeable backpacks almost identical to the Strike Gundam.
    • The Core Gundam in Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE takes its name and some of its basic design elements from a rejected early design for the ZZ Gundam.
  • In Pokémon the Series, the footage from the cancelled "Team Rocket vs. Team Plasma" two-parter in Black & White - where the Relic Castle's mechanism is activated, revealing the Meteonite - was reused for the scene in Season 2 when the Abyssal Ruins are activated to uncover the Reveal Glass. Team Plasma's intended goal of causing Pokemon to go wild and leave their trainers was also later used in the Episode N story arc, with Colress' device used to do so in place of the Meteonite.
  • In the planned Mythos arc adaptation for the 1979-80 Cyborg 009 anime, Helena would have been replaced with a more mythologically-accurate Expy named Artemis. The show was cancelled before the Mythos arc could be adapted, but Artemis later made a proper debut in the 2001 anime.
  • In FLCL, there was apparently an unused idea to reveal that the town of Mabase was actually on Mars. FLCL Alternative, originally designed as a Stealth Prequel, ties that idea into its final episodes, which feature Haruko winding up on Mars with some human colonists. Whether or not it's still a prequel or an Alternate Universe depends on interpretation.
  • Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is an expanded version of the Robot Rondo chapter from the original manga that the first movie left out.
  • Dragon Ball has an unusual instance of this with Gogeta, the fusion of Goku and Vegeta. Akira Toriyama originally planned on introducing the character during the Buu Saga, but then he discovered that Toei was already making a movie whose main selling point was the grand debut of Gogeta. Not wanting to step on any toes, Toriyama came up with an entirely different method of fusion that produced an entirely different fused character, Vegitto. A couple of decades later, Toriyama penned the movie Dragon Ball Super: Broly and decided to have Goku and Vegeta fuse in order to fight the titular enemy; so while Gogeta was an "official" part of Dragon Ball lore, he didn't become canon until 24 years after his debut.
  • Little Witch Academia:
    • Lotte's parents being the owners of a magic shop/cafe was originally conceived for the first short film, only to get scrapped due to time constraints. The TV series revisits and realizes this idea in its 16th episode.
    • A Gadgeteer Genius student who combined magic with technology was originally planned for the first film but was ultimately scrapped due to the team finding her to be unnecessary. The idea would later be realized in The Enchanted Parade in the form of Constanze.
  • In Lupin III: Stolen Lupin, Becky Lambert was originally going to be part of a crew of female thieves. However, this idea was scrapped due to worries about it seeming too similar to Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which was released while the special was in development. Despite this, the staff would later revisit the idea of a gang of female criminals with the Bloody Angels in Lupin III: Angel Tactics the following year.
  • A scrapped idea present in the original proposal for Neon Genesis Evangelion was an aerial battle involving high altitude gear for the EVAs. This idea was eventually used for the opening of the third Rebuild of Evangelion movie many years later.
  • Sailor Moon: Naoko Takeuchi originally planned for Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury to be a cyborg who would eventually die in a Heroic Sacrifice, but her editor (who took a liking to the character) vetoed the idea on the grounds of it being too dark for a shoujo manga. Nevertheless, a few years later the concept was reused for a different Guardian, Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn, although the concurrent anime version opted to not include it.
  • Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: One rejected idea for the show's final episodes would have involved Berg Katse being demoted after their unmasking and then aiding the Science Ninja Team, this was dropped once the true natures of Katse and Leader X were finalized, in addition to the idea to have the storyline center around Joe slowly dying. A similar concept would be used in Gatchaman II, with new Galactor commander Gel Sadra betraying X after he kills her mother Dr. Pandora, and then leading the Science Ninja Team to Galactor headquarters.

Comic Books 

  • Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer set up a Big Bad called the Anointed One, a Dark Messiah for vampires with the body of a young boy. He wasn't popular and, with the actor visibly aging, he got unceremoniously killed off before he could do anything. The idea got recycled a bit for Harth, the main villain of the comic book Sequel Series Fray.
  • The Metal Virus storyline of Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) was originally written for Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), intended to start shortly after the 300th issue, but the comic was cancelled and Sega ended their partnership with Archie after issue 290 was released. After IDW picked up the license, Ian Flynn rewrote the story to fit in the new continuity, becoming the second major arc of the series.
  • The original design of Back to the Future's time machine was going to be a modified refrigerator before it was changed for various reasons. In IDW's Biff to the Future series, set in the 1985-A timeline where Biff is rich and powerful, Doc Brown builds the refrigerator time machine and uses it to try and Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • Crisis on Infinite Earths:
    • Marv Wolfman's ambitious plans for the Post-Crisis DC Universe were much more drastic than how it eventually turned out. All continuity was going to be set aside, clearing the slate for a new, more diverse DC Universe, headlined by a new team (just as the Justice League replaced the Justice Society) called the Justice Alliance. But the comic proved so popular, this idea was nixed. The DC Universe continued with only slight changes, and continuity was preserved for the most part, with some exceptions like Wonder Woman. Some elements of this concept - a more diverse DC universe with the old continuity axed - reappeared in things like the New 52, though not quite to the level that Gruenwald envisioned. The most noticeable attempt to recycle the idea was Dan DiDio's 5G initiative, but that was itself scrapped. It was going to feature a new take on the Justice Alliance, but when it was retooled into the Future State event, they were just called the "Justice League" still.
    • Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis On Infinite Earths portrays a lost chapter of the event where the Justice League gets to meet the Justice Alliance, existing in one of the many parallel worlds of the multiverse instead of succeeding it.
  • The second season of Mega Man: Fully Charged was going to have Suna, Aki's adopted sister, become Zero. However, the show was cancelled before it could take place. The show's writers brought that idea to the Sequel Series comic book mini-series they were writing.
  • The Invader Zim (Oni) issue about alien pants was based on a planned episode of the show, which was canceled for being too similar to an episode of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
  • Iron Man's ''Armor Wars II" story ended up getting derailed from its original idea due to a change in writers. Originally, the twist would have been that a chip in Tony's spine would become sentient and hijack his armor, and then Tony would have to fight the armor, hence the title. Joe Quesada would reuse this basic premise in the infamous "Mask in the Iron Man" story (the one with the Abusive Boyfriend armor). The writer for the initial setup of Armor Wars II, Bob Layton, then teamed up with David Michelinie (who wrote the first Armor Wars alongside him), to tell a Truer to the Text version of his story in the issues 258.1 through 258.4, which he was unable to do back then due to leaving to work for Valiant Comics.
  • Over the Garden Wall:
    • One idea for the cartoon was to have Wirt and Greg get turned into animals for a few episodes. This is adapted into the mini-series in a modified form, where Beatrice thinks they've been turned into animals after a couple steal their clothes.
    • Word of God says that Sara is actually his favorite character, despite her limited screen time, and that he wanted to make another story starring her one day. The ongoing series gives her a much more prominent role.
  • Spider-Man: When Glenn Greenberg was tasked to resurrect Norman Osborn to be the mastermind behind The Clone Saga, the first idea he had was to show him dramatically bursting out of his grave. However, his editor pointed out that, since Norman was a billionaire who'd died an obviously unnatural death, he'd definitely have been given an autopsy, which would preclude the idea of him being buried alive, prompting Greenberg to change it to the final version where Norman wakes up at the morgue and murders a homeless man to be autopsied and buried in his place. 25 years later, when Nick Spencer brought back Ned Leeds, who was resurrected the same way, the flashback sequence ends with him dramatically bursting out of his grave.
  • Gary Carlson said that when he was writing Volume 3 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage), Mirage had suggested to him the idea of killing off Splinter, but he refused, feeling the character was too important to the franchise, as well as not wanting to irritate the loyal fans who had stuck with the franchise through thick and thin even in its Audience-Alienating Era (this was a time when the third film bombed, the 80s cartoon ended, and the franchise had lost its appeal to a lot of people before the 2003 cartoon aired). When franchise co-creator Peter Laird decided to write Volume 4, he eventually killed off the character himself, or so it seemed, though that Splinter may have been a clone.
  • Batman (James Tynion IV): The first story arc Their Dark Designs, in which the mysterious Designer operates a scheme involving orchestrating all of Gotham's worst villains, is reworked from Tynion's original plans for the ending of his run on Detective Comics. The role of the Designer in the story had been intended for Tim Drake's future self, introduced in the earlier story arc A Lonely Place Of Living.

Fan Works 

Literature 

  • Harry Potter:
    • The opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in which Cornelius Fudge meets with the Muggle Prime Minister, was originally written for the first book. After cutting it from the first book, J. K. Rowling reworked it as an opening for the third and later fifth book, but ultimately it didn't get used until book six.
    • In a bigger case of this, the entire Half-Blood Prince storyline was originally intended for the second book (in fact, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was its working title), but Rowling realized "that I had two major plots here that really did not work too well together side-by-side, so one had to be pulled out." She also decided that it was too early in the series to reveal so much information about Snape.
    • There was supposed to be more information about horcruxes and Voldemort’s backstory in the second book but she didn’t have the clout to fight with the publisher about keeping it in at that point and therefore it was put in the sixth.
    • A subversion: Rowling considered opening the second book with a scene where Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott are hanging out together at Malfoy Manor and discussing recent events from their point of view. She later reworked the scene as an opening for the fourth book, but she decided to cut it that time as well. Ultimately, it was never used in the series at all.
    • Rowling originally planned that when Harry entered the Leaky Cauldron and was accosted by the patrons, one of the people there would be an obnoxious reporter named Bridget. She ended up cutting the reporter and having her show up in the fourth book, now named Rita Skeeter.
  • The Discworld short story "The Sea and Little Fishes," published in the collection Legends, edited by Robert Silverberg, originally had a scene in in where Granny Weatherwax went up to the "gnarly ground" to go and sulk in a cave behind a stone witch, and Nanny Ogg had to go and find her. It got cut because Silverberg thought it was slowing things down, but was later greatly expanded for use in Carpe Jugulum.
  • The whole of the fifth Rivers of London book, Foxglove Summer. It was originally intended as the second book, before it was suggested to Aaronovitch that it might be better to more firmly establish that Peter's comfort zone is firmly in London before doing the Strange Cop in a Strange Land story.
  • In Gideon the Ninth, Harrow was supposed to tell Gideon "You are the sole fruitful thing in my salted field" while they were in the pool together. However, Tamsyn Muir's editors asked her to remove the line due to finding it too weird and implicitly sexual for what was meant to be a tender and emotional scene. Muir eventually wound up using the phrase in the sequel, where it is said by Ianthe, who arguably fits the line better due to her unnerving and sexually provocative behavior.
  • Star Trek: A prologue sequence cut from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in which Kirk goes about Putting the Band Back Together was reworked into the novel The Fearful Summons (written by Denny Martin Flinn, who co-wrote the film's screenplay). This included scenes of Chekov playing competitive chess against a telepath, and Spock playing Polonius in a theatrical production of Hamlet.

Live-Action TV 

  • The Sentinels in The Gifted (2017) have the power to transform into rolling spheres that move at high speeds. This was actually a leftover idea from X2: X-Men United, in which the Sentinels would have been capable of transforming into giant rolling disks.
  • Star Trek:
  • Little Mermaid's Island:
    • The show was a failed 1990 Jim Henson collaboration based on The Little Mermaid. Its two episodes were never commercially available, however elements from the show ended up used elsewhere:
    • The "Tell the Truth" song was later reused in a 1997 Sesame Street direct-to-video special called "Telling the Truth".
    • Flounder's twin sister Sandy was reused in The Little Mermaid's Treasure Chest books.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Concept art of Zemo's iconic purple mask was created for Captain America: Civil War, but ultimately didn't make it into the finished film. The mask would later be used for the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV Spin-Off.
    • The Scarlet Witch costume for Wanda in WandaVision. The final design heavily resembles one of her concept arts from Avengers: Age of Ultron, including the comics version's signature tiara. It was discarded in exchange for her street clothes in the film, but modified and brought back for the series.
  • The Mandalorian had many ideas and plot beats that were carried over from Disney's cancelled Boba Fett solo movie. Like the movie, the series stars a stoic Mandalorian Bounty Hunter going on missions for a bounty hunter guild and teaming-up with other bounty hunters and mercenaries. Boba Fett himself would appear in the second season of The Mandalorian and later got his own spin-off series.
  • Kamen Rider Kuuga was planned to get a movie where the protagonist battled a group of Grongi who originated in America, whose leader had a wolf motif. The movie languished in Development Hell for years before finally being cancelled, and later on Kamen Rider Decade would use a Wolf Grongi as the monsters' leader when he visited an Alternate Universe version of Kuuga.
  • In Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger and/or Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, the red tyrannosaurus zord's tail turning into a drill arm when combined into the Megazord was lifted from an unused design for a US-exclusive upgraded version of the first Megazord (aka. Daizyujin).
    • The train megazords in Kyūkyū Sentai GoGoV (aka. Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue), meanwhile, were refitted from a completely different series. The concept of a huge train combiner that carried smaller rescue vehicles as well as a blue and white transforming bullet train were originally meant to appear in the first Machine Robo toyline. Elements of these designs would also go on to inspire the later Machine Robo Rescue series.
  • Back when Titans was being developed for TNT, Oracle was planned to be one of the main characters. This idea was dropped, but the character was finally introduced in her civilian identity of Barbara Gordon in the Season 3 premiere.
  • Legends of the Superheroes was loosely based on Superfriends and notably featured Captain Marvel among the heroes and Dr. Sivana among the villains. Captain Marvel and Dr. Sivana were originally planned to appear in Challenge of the Superfriends, but couldn't be used because of Shazam! (1974) already using them.
  • The pilot episode for Walking with Dinosaurs used internal cutaways to show how specific anatomical traits of certain animals functioned. The series proper did away with this, probably because it went for a completely naturalistic approach, but the cutaways were reused for the prequel series Walking with Monsters, albeit in a modified form (instead of cutting to an overlapping diagram, it would zoom in or go inside the animal).

Multiple Media 

  • BIONICLE's first Universe Bible was very different from the actual franchise, a convoluted and redundant backstory of which nearly nothing ended up being used — apart from general character names and a brief scene of Tahu fighting off tiny scorpions in the book Tale of the Toa while searching for his mask. Some of the unused ideas were apparently revisited in BIONICLE Generation 2:
    • The Toa are said to have already come down from the stars before the story began, though they lost their memories of it. Once their task is done, they return to the stars, hinting at a repeating cycle.
    • Instead of each of the six Toa having to find five Masks of Power, they only need to get one, which merely increases their control over the elements rather than giving them a wholly new power.
    • Rather than meeting up at the start, then separating and realizing they have to work together to obtain the masks, each Toa already got their new masks prior to meeting each other.
    • In the original backstory, Makuta destroys all six Toa's new masks with one blow during their "final" battle. This was reused for the climax of the first year of G2, when Kulta (who seemingly works for Makuta) does the same to the Toa.

Music 

  • It is very common for a Cut Song to emerge in the next album. Sometimes getting reworked along the way - during the sessions of Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd wrote the songs "You Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling", which after some years being part of their live concerts, were adapted on follow-up Animals into the tracks "Dogs" and "Sheep".
  • Eminem was fascinated by the idea of his Loony Fan character Stan (from his song "Stan") getting his revenge on him, long before he ever wrote the Sequel Song "Bad Guy", in which Stan's little brother Matthew avenges his brother. Em's Cult Classic deep cut "No Apologies" contains a passage where Eminem predicts his assassination at the hands of a fan who is in love with him (well, he uses another word beginning with "fa_"...) and "Off The Wall" suggests "my man, Stan" is creeping around Slim's house to shoot him. The skit "Stan (The Lost Verses)" has Eminem narrating an alternate ending for the song where Stan escapes the crash, gets mad that Slim isn't sending him any get-well cards in the hospital, comes to kill him, and Slim blows his head off (though due to him being a Trolling Creator, it's not clear whether or not Eminem was telling the truth).
  • Megadeth's thirteenth album Thirteen has some examples. New World Order was originally released in Duke Nukem's sountrack and Black Swan was released as a bonus track in some United Abominations' editions. Both songs were reworked and re-recorded for this album.

Web Animation 

  • Reportedly, Helluva Boss came to be because creator Vivienne Medrano wanted the main characters to be extras in Hazbin Hotel, but wasn't sure where to fit them in the pilot's already large cast of characters.

Web Original 

  • In most seasons, challenges in Jet Lag: The Game are chosen from a randomized selection, usually from a deck of cards. This makes it possible for many challenges to not appear at all, in which case the challenge may be refitted for a later season. One such example is the challenge "Solve Amy's Puzzle Box", which briefly appeared in Season 7 as an example of a challenge that can be drawn, but it was not actually done that season and was only drawn on Season 11 despite being available in most seasons since then.

Webcomics 

  • David Willis originally intended for Roomies!, It's Walky!, Joyce and Walky! to have a storyline where the characters meet Mike's parents and fight the Giant Mutant Frosted Honey Bun in New York, but after 9/11, felt it would be in poor taste to draw a bunch of buildings in New York getting damaged. By 2009, people's emotions had settled down a bit, so he used the idea for a Shortpacked! story about Mike and Amber.

Western Animation 

  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • The idea of the origins of the Avatar has been kicked around since Book 2, but was eventually fitted into Book 2 of the sequel series The Legend of Korra.
    • A false Avatar was planned, which eventually became a major plot point in The Rise of Kyoshi.
  • DuckTales (2017):
    • An episode involving Donald meeting Jose and Panchito again was considered for season 1, but was scrapped. Season 2's fourth episode, "The Town Where Everyone was Nice!", includes them proper.
    • Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera was supposed to show up intermittently in Season 1 before his name would be revealed in "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!", but this subplot had to be cut to keep focus on establishing the cast, and because it ate up too much time. The crew repurposed the twist for Season 2 in "The Duck Knight Returns!", where the actor playing Darkwing Duck is revealed to be Drake Mallard.
    • The Rescue Rangers were planned to be referenced fairly early on, but were barred from appearing due to other projects starring the characters being developed. By Season 3, the Rescue Rangers were approved to show up in "Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!", albeit primarily unvoiced and unnamed aside from a Mythology Gag.
    • The Season 1 episode "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks!" was planned to feature an homage to Die Hard, with a fight between Donald Duck and Falcon Graves (which is why Graves resembles Hans Gruber). While this scene was ultimately cut, a similar fight happens in the Season 3 episode "Louie's Eleven!", complete with Donald yelling "Yippie-ka-yay, Mister Falcon".
  • During the early planning stages of Justice League, Bruce Timm toyed with the idea of giving the team matching uniforms, but this was quickly vetoed by Paul Levitz. However, he was able to repurpose the uniforms for the Justice Lords in Season 2.
  • The Simpsons:
  • The Neogenic Nightmare arc or Spider-Man: The Animated Series was apparently based on an early, rejected script for a Spider-Man movie which was to have been directed by Tobe Hooper.
  • Star Wars:
  • Steven Universe:
    • "Hit the Diamond" was going to have a scene where Steven gives nicknames to the Ruby Squad, but it ended up being cut. It took until "Back to the Moon", the Squad's second appearance, for the nickname scene to happen.
    • The show's fifth and final season had several major plot twist and ideas that had been considered since season one, including Lars' death and revival, Steven entering Pearl's gem, and Steven having his gem separated from his body.
    • Ruby and Sapphire's wedding was something the crew originally wanted in season four, but network resistance ended up delaying it until season five.
  • Bob Uecker was going to play a guest role in Teen Titans Go!'s very first season. But because they couldn't find any way to fit him in, he wound up appearing in a season 5 episode instead.
  • After the [adult swim] pilot That Crook'd Sipp failed to get picked up as a show, plans for the series ended up getting reworked into Freaknik: The Musical.
  • Back when it was planned as the Grand Finale of X-Men: The Animated Series, the "Beyond Good and Evil" arc was supposed to end with recurring characters Bishop, Archangel, Shard and Psylocke being inducted into the X-Men. However, the show was unexpectedly renewed for another season, so this idea was dropped. Bishop would eventually become an official member of the team in the Sequel Series X-Men '97.
  • This happened twice with Animaniacs:
    • One segment of the first season would have dealt with Yakko trying to feed George Bush broccoli in the style of Green Eggs and Ham, but it was dropped once Bill Clinton won the election. The script would later be re-used for a segment in the Histeria! episode "Presidental People".
    • There was to be a segment in the Kids' WB era episodes called "Toby Danger", which had a Framing Device of Wakko watching the show on TV. This segment would later appear on Freakazoid!.
  • Back in the 90s, Bruce Timm was forced to scrap a planned Batman: The Animated Series episode featuring Nocturna because the network censors objected to the appearance of a vampire character in a children's show. Decades later, Timm was finally able to include Nocturna in the show's Spiritual Successor, Batman: Caped Crusader, due to it now being a TV-14 series.