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There are quite a lot of series (usually animations, because doing it for something live-action would be rather hard, I presume) with one common trope: the timeline never progresses forward.

"The Simpsons" has aired for 28 seasons (almost 30 years!), yet its characters never age and never change. Same thing with "South Park" and "Family Guy". Whatever happens in any episode, it (almost) never has any lasting impact on anything.

In "South Park" this is a basis for some running gags (like the death of Kenny), but neither "The Simpsons" nor "Family Guy" ever acknowledge their "Groundhog day"-ish existence.

Does this trope have a name?

Peter Cordes
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Mr Scapegrace
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    "neither "The Simpsons" nor "Family Guy" never acknowledge their "Groundhog day"-ish existence." This isn't strictly true, I recall some Simpsons eps referring to the incredible amount of jobs Homer has had for instance. – BCdotWEB May 22 '17 at 12:46
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    Sorry, but the "groundhog day" trope is misused in here - it should only refer to stories where the characters are repeating a specific day. They are not re-living the same day over and over. It is just the passing of time that is never mentioned. – Mindwin Remember Monica May 22 '17 at 14:08
  • @Mindwin well, no, they don't. But nothing ever changes, so they might as well live in one. – Mr Scapegrace May 22 '17 at 14:48
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    Actually in the Simpsons, there are references to several past episodes, so they are moving forward in the timeline, but not growing up. – Mindwin Remember Monica May 22 '17 at 15:10
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    There are distinct days for the Simpsons because they celebrate multiple birthdays, but the age is never mentioned twice for the same character. – Zanon May 22 '17 at 19:18
  • There are several Simpsons episodes that tell stories about a past, like, ten ears ago, but this ten years ago is always in a different decade – Hagen von Eitzen May 22 '17 at 21:32
  • neither "The Simpsons" nor "Family Guy" **never** acknowledge their "Groundhog day"-ish existence - so you're saying both the Simpsons and Family Guy have acknowledged their groundhog-day'ish existence? – slebetman May 22 '17 at 22:16
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    There was an episode in Futurama where New New York was destroyed and at the end of the episode the professor said something like "all that matters is that everything will be back to normal in the next episode". – user1803551 May 23 '17 at 00:34
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    As others have noted, The Simpsons maintains continuity when it suits the writers. Maude Flanders died in an episode that aired over a decade ago and stayed dead. – user2752467 May 23 '17 at 01:08
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    “"The Simpsons" nor "Family Guy" never acknowledge their "Groundhog day"-ish existence” — even 15 years ago it was risky to suggest that something’s never been done on ‘The Simpsons’. I feel like Homer at one point, when bemoaning the state of his family, said something along the lines of “And Maggie isn’t growing up at all!” although I can’t find the quote. – Paul D. Waite May 23 '17 at 07:25
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    @user1803551 That was When Aliens Attack – martin May 23 '17 at 08:25
  • @BCdotWEB : there was an episode in the first few season of the Simpsons where Lisa comments that whatever happens, somehow everything's back to the same shortly afterwards. At the end of the episode it's looking like they finally changed something, had the closing credits ... and then came back to undo it. (I want to say they moved into a new house). That might've been the episode with the 'one dimensional catchphrases' – Joe May 24 '17 at 00:02
  • Family Guy has more than once joked about this and still had changes that kept on. Diane Simmons, for one, is dead. Even Brian was dead for a few episodes. – LeonX Jun 30 '17 at 18:28
  • I loved Family Guy's reference to this Peter: "Bonnie, you've been pregnant for like, six years, all right? Either have the baby or don't." – m1gp0z Dec 06 '18 at 16:41

3 Answers3

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This is called Comic-Book Time aka Floating Timeline aka Sliding Timescale.

The problem is this. On one hand, Superman is a high-selling, successful character with a lot of licenses and so on based off of him. You don't want him to age or die, because that means losing that successful character. On the other hand, Superman exists as part of a greater universe, and if all the stories in that universe are continuously frozen in time, that cuts off a lot of possibilities. So what do you do? Comic-Book Time. You use the illusion of time passing. You never refer to specific dates if you can help it, and you let characters change, but only a little.

Also related to Not Allowed to Grow Up

Or you might be thinking of Negative Continuity

Not only is there no established continuity, but the show is free to completely wreck the continuity and be assured of a full reboot by the start of the next episode. Burned a hole in your favorite outfit? Don't worry, it'll be better next episode. Burned down your house? No worries, it will be back next time. Turned into a frog, died, destroyed the universe? No problem! If one episode ever continues from the last, it's only because it's part of a storyline too long for just one episode — don't expect any apparent changes from the previous episode to be recognized outside that specific storyline.

Kruga
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TVTropes calls this Status Quo is God.

Within a work, particularly long-running series and franchises, almost nothing changes. If something does change, it's generally reset back to the way it was before very quickly.

A more extreme form of this is Negative Continuity where events happen which should have lasting consequences for the characters and their environment, but which are completely ignored in following episodes. The "Kenny dies every episode" running gag of earlier South Park seasons is a parody of this.

Philipp
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Also worth a mention, the Reset Button Technique.

The reset button technique (based on the idea of status quo ante) is a plot device that interrupts continuity in works of fiction. Simply put, use of a reset button device returns all characters and situations to the status quo they held before a major change of some sort was introduced. Typically it occurs either in the middle of a program and negates a portion of it, or it occurs at the beginning, or very end, of a program to negate all that came before it. Often used in science fiction television series, animated series, soap operas, and comic books, the device allows elaborate and dramatic changes to characters and the fictional universe that might otherwise invalidate the premise of the show with respect to future episodes or issues continuity.

martin
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