Playing With / Chuck Cunningham Syndrome

4 Following

Basic Trope: A character disappears from a series with no In-Universe explanation.

• Straight: Bob disappears from the series Legends of Troperia halfway through, with no mention of what became of him.
• Exaggerated:
  • Roughly 80% of the cast is gone by the end of the series, and none of them are ever spoken of again.
  • Bob was essentially the star of the show as the Title Character, but disappeared without explanation in the second episode.
• Downplayed:
  • Bob disappears from the series, and is finally mentioned offhand several years later.
  • Bob was often mentioned but never made a physical appearance in the series, but later on, the other characters stop mentioning him.
• Justified:
  • Bob was just a Bit Character to begin with.
  • Alternatively, Bob was a One-Shot Character.
  • The writers somehow forgot Bob existed to begin with.
• Inverted: Bob shows up halfway through Legends of Troperia with no explanation of why he's there or where he came from, and is treated as if he had been there the whole time.
• Subverted:
  • Bob disappears early on, but then he shows back up later.
  • Bob disappears early on, but his disappearance is retroactively explained much later.
  • Alice, the P.O.V.-character, has (undiagnosed) Alzheimer. Bob hasn't become non-existent, he simply no longer registers to her.
• Double Subverted: Except it's not him, it's another character named Bob.
• Parodied:
  • By the end of the series, it's down to exactly one character, but they still steadfastly refuse to address anyone's departure.
  • Bob literally disappears into thin air in the middle of a scene and no one comments on it.
• Zig Zagged: Bob's disappearance is treated this way, but Alice is Put on a Bus, then minor character Dave gets A Death in the Limelight but when Carol's actress quits, her character is simply never mentioned again.
• Averted:
  • "Our lead actor just quit. We won't mention him again" "The viewers won't buy that! We'll establish that he had a big argument with Charlie offscreen as the reason why he no longer hangs out with the group."
  • Any departures have an In-Universe explanation.
  • No one is written off, period.
• Lampshaded: "Where'd Bob go? Remember… he used to travel with us? Why the blank stare?"
• Invoked: Not applicable. (This trope is beyond the control of the characters.)
• Exploited: Emperor Evulz takes advantage of Bob’s disappearance to successfully take over his hometown.
• Defied: Not applicable. (This trope is beyond the control of the characters.)
• Discussed: "Man, I have heard that Bob has disappeared." "Yeah, and why did he disappear?" "Good question!"
• Conversed: "Where did Bob go, and why aren't they talking about him?"
• Implied: Bob does not appear at all during the snippets of the Show Within a Show seen in the last twenty episodes of the parent series.
• Deconstructed: Because of Bob's disappearance, the fans of the show keep asking the cast and crew what happened to him.
• Reconstructed: Bob was The Scrappy, and while a few fans are curious about his disappearance, most agree that the show is better off not acknowledging his existence.