Chekhov's Gun/Web Original

Looks like the gun is about to go off.

• Parodied at Antiques Roadshow - Chekhov's Gun by Funny or Die, a video that parodies Antiques Roadshow, where the auctioneer tries to sell a still-loaded pistol said to be owned by 18th century Russian author Anton Chekhov, the author who invented the term "Chekhov's Gun". As the auctioneer introduces the gun, background sounds that resemble gun sounds keep being produced and the gun is on the verge of going off in the middle of the sale. It never fired.
• There's an interesting anecdote about John Dies at the End regarding Camel Holocaust, the "song" that John wrote for his band early in the book. In the original webnovel, the protagonists have to stall a group of monsters at a later date by playing Sweet Child O' Mine on a set of guitars they stole from Elton John. When the book was to be put into print, however, the issue of copyright came up. The author stared dumbly into space, scratched his butt, and realized that he had left Chekhov's Gun sitting in his back pocket. Thus, the day was saved by Fat Jackson's Flap Wagon Three Arm Sally.
• The Whateley Weapons Fair at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. Phase is asked to try a forcefield disruptor by an inventor who has very little cred. It's just the thing Phase needs at the end of the Fair, when someone's weapon makes everything else go haywire. Then, much later, Phase uses another one of the forcefield disruptors in a fight, and it blows up on her.
  • The Weapons Fair is turning into a Chekhov's Armoury. The attack devise in Knick-Knack's 'lava lamps'? Used to attack Phase in a much later novel. Phase's run-in with Kew and the Spy Kidz? Important in "Ayla and the Networks". There seems to be a lot of these.
  • Face it, the Phase novels are nothing but Chekhov's Guns. Some of the background issues in Ayla 1 turned out to be key plot points in Ayla 6. Phase's concern with the New Olympians in Ayla 4 turns out to be critical in Ayla 7. Delta Spike's rambling in Ayla 7 about a course she took last year turns out to give Phase a crucial clue early in Ayla 8. And those are just some of the ones where the gun doesn't get fired in the novel where it's shown.
• The web series commodoreHustle (by the guys at Loading Ready Run) introduced Mr. Ballsmatron in episode 7, and other than a few cameos, it never played a role until the season finale, with an ultimate ball kick and its destruction. Making it possibly the first appearance of a Chekhov's Ball-kicking robot.
• Boatmurdered, a well-known succession game of Dwarf Fortress, has an example - an early ruler builds a catapult in the souther parts of the outdoor plains to take out problem elephants, get rid of surplus stone and train siege operators. Due to a lack of manpower and constant attacks, it never sees use and isn't even mentioned again. When a later ruler allows magma flow from Project Fuck The World to reach the southern parts of the map, it sets the catapult on fire. The smoke clouds and spreading blaze from that one structure ultimately lead to the fortress's downfall.
  • Then there's the later succession game Headshoots, and The Inexplicable Room and the path to it. Nobody remembered making either, no ruler could find how it connects to the rest of the fortress, and it could only be found via the 'find unit' function. Even a majority of the dwarves couldn't find their way in or out. The final turn, where the two unbelievably-strong soldiers Holistic Detective and Nemo2342 were skeletonized and sent against the entire fortress, the only surviving dwarf hid in the parth to The Inexplicable Room.
• A weird little news brief from The Onion.
• At the beginning of Just Another Fool, there's a random vignette about Logan's watch. Later, it becomes a major clue for a puzzle.
• Mocked in The Nostalgia Chick's review of Showgirls. During Nella's song at the end, she mentions the Chekhov's Stairs (that the lead pushed someone down at the climax of the film) that have been there since Act One.
• In one Global Guardians universe story, Knightblade's Cool Car makes an appearance at the beginning, but then is promptly abandoned as the manhunt moved into an abandoned tenement. At the end of the story, Knightblade was forced to use his Cool Car as a weapon against a supervillain when he finally chased him out of the tenement.
• Linkara's Magic Gun in Atop the Fourth Wall, which he's been wielding since the beginning, turns out to be rather important in the Silent Hill: Dead/Alive review, going from prop to plot point and character.
  • In his review of a World of Warcraft Comic, Linkara finds a working pokeball. He later uses it to capture a pyramid head
• In this episode of College Humor's Hardly Working , David casually references a book that Sam borrowed, and never returned. This is largely ignored until the end of the episode, when David realizes that Sam was trying to kill him so he wouldn't have to return the book. He even goes so far as to Break the Fourth Wall by looking at the camera and saying "Remember? From the beginning?"
• In I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC, Spiderman telling Batman that he thinks he might have been married once would help Batman realize how Spiderman was immune to the Joker's brainwashing.
• In an early Fine Structure story, Seph thinks to herself that Mitch, who can phase through things, could kill someone instantly by materializing his hand inside their head, but she doesn't think he'd do that and doesn't mention it. Near the end of the series, he does just that.
• In Four Swords Misadventures, Green Link procures a broken magic mirror, thus getting them into a series of misadventures before finally warping back to the entrance of the first dungeon. Afrerwards, Red decides to dipose of it, thinking that it would do them more harm than good. Turns out, the mirror was the only way barring an extensive trading quest for the heroes to get to the Twilight Realm where Zelda is being held by Vaati. In other words, Red really should have let Green keep the mirror so it could be fixed.
• Both subverted and parodied in one episode of Ashen's Tech Dump when, after showing off a highly toxic action figure sealed in a glass case with a biohazard sticker on it, he blatantly sticks it so that it's balancing precariously on the front of the desk and continues with the episode. When the case spends the whole episode without falling off, he finally just reaches out and pushes it off the desk himself.
• At the start of Greek Ninja, Sasha mentions having odd dreams, which although it's implied there is some importance to them, they are otherwise dismissed, until it's revealed in the fourth chapter that they are actually memories from Sasha's previous life as Eli of Thrace.
• Wolf 359:
  • In the first episode, Eiffel receives what seems to be an alien transmission, much to his excitement; however, he eventually figures out that it's a decades old radio transmission from Earth of 1920s era music. Eiffel continuously receives these signals throughout the first season until Dr. Hilbert hears one, and reveals First Contact there's no way it could be coming from Earth.
  • A recurring gag throughout the first season was Eiffel's obsession with smoking cigarettes even though lighting them aboard the space station would cause an explosion, and his occasional messing around with a vocoder. When Hilbert pulls a Face Heel Turn and tries to kill the crew, Eiffel stops him by impersonating his superior with the vocoder and using the cigarette to blow off the door to the room he's trapped in.