Questions tagged [first-appearance]
Which was the first movie/show to use a certain characteristic or technique?
214
questions
13
votes
1answer
2k views
Is The Ethel Waters Show lost media?
The Ethel Waters Show was a 1939 NBC variety special starring actress and singer Ethel Waters, in what reportedly may have been the very first appearance of a Black person on TV.
I’d love to see the ...
19
votes
2answers
6k views
What's the first movie to use a prop to destroy/control an entire world?
Infinity stones in Avengers series
Mother Boxes in Justice league series
Aries prototype in F9: The Fast Saga
Project Starfish | The Suicide Squad (2021)
What's the first movie to use a prop to ...
18
votes
2answers
4k views
What was the first TV show or movie where the viewer could hear a character's thoughts?
I was watching How to Get Away with Murder and, in the final episode, the character Annalise has a brief mental debate on what to wear to the trial.
What was the first TV show or movie to do this?
0
votes
1answer
224 views
What was the first movie in which the bad guy(s) are using a sky beam? [closed]
The use of a sky beam has become a trope in the last decade or so. They appear in Star Trek (2009), The Avengers (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), Independence Day (2016), and many others. Where/when did ...
2
votes
1answer
195 views
Where did this fight scene move originate?
In the movie John Wick (2014), the final fight scene pits the eponymous hero against crime boss Viggo Tarasov. As it seems Viggo is about to get the upper hand and stab John Wick, Wick uses Viggo's ...
0
votes
2answers
122 views
What is the first movie to show present + flashback in single frame?
In Sahoo (2019), Ashok describes how shootout happened to police team.
We can see present + flashback in single frame while he describes:
What is the first movie to show present + flashback in single ...
0
votes
2answers
139 views
Which was the first commercial movie featuring duplicates (doubles) on screen
Which was the first commercial movie featuring duplicates (doubles) on screen. By duplicates I mean, same person playing two different roles (or same role but from different time in case of Time ...
6
votes
0answers
209 views
What's the first movie to show newspaper spinning towards screen?
In old movies, they used to show newspaper spinning towards screen like this:
Here is the example from The Godfather (1972):
3
votes
0answers
168 views
First movie with a "character on a cracking glass floor"-suspense scene
The other day, I re-watched "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997) and I was amazed by the suspense scene in which Julianne Moore's character finds herself on a glass panel that starts ...
3
votes
1answer
232 views
Where did the "ordering someone to kill the dog" trope first come from?
In Dog Soldiers (2002), there is a scene at the beginning where a character is told to shoot and kill a dog to show his allegiance and loyalty to a commanding officer.
A similar thing also happened in ...
10
votes
5answers
755 views
First movie set in a world with COVID-19?
In the middle of The Paramedic (2020), the radio news announced:
"Friday, January 3, 2020... According to information from Chinese media, the cause could be a virus that originated in a live ...
4
votes
0answers
70 views
Earliest version of a freelance assassin getting an assignment from a handler
Following a John Wick binge, I've realized how used to the idea of freelance assassins getting sent assignments or bounties from some sort of guild and/or personal agent. We saw that in Hitman (2007) ...
2
votes
0answers
192 views
What was the first TV series to show a toilet?
So over the weekend I was listening to my local NPR station to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and they were playing a true or false game about characters in the TV series, The Brady Bunch.
Anyways, one ...
6
votes
0answers
133 views
First use of super-slow zoom in horror films to create tension
Here I'm not talking specifically about a "dolly zoom", first introduced by cinematographer Irmin Roberts in Hitchcock's Vertigo, but about the agonizingly slow zoom that you see not ...
8
votes
0answers
437 views
Who pioneered the use of Laughing Kookaburra birds to create the impression of a jungle setting?
I was sent a link to the first video below and it immediately sent me back to my childhood watching reruns of what were already old films on Sunday afternoon television.
I'm sure I've heard this bird'...
7
votes
1answer
425 views
What was the first movie to show "Google" on-screen?
Google was founded in 1998. So what was the first movie to show "Google" on-screen?
3
votes
1answer
319 views
Is Psycho really the very first film to show a flushing toilet?
A lot of people always claim this about the film, but I haven't found anything to 100% confirm it yet. Anyone know for sure?
3
votes
3answers
439 views
What was the first movie to use viruses as the basis for zombies?
So when you watch old zombie movies, like Night of the Living Dead, zombies tend to be a mysterious thing, they are just an unnatural event with no explanation.
Fast forward 50 years into the future ...
5
votes
0answers
373 views
Origin of the side-view surprise car crash shot?
The most common form of the surprise car crash shot has the camera inside a moving car, with the frame showing the driver or a passenger in profile and (past them) a side window framing the world ...
2
votes
1answer
116 views
When was the first action sequence involving a parachuteless jump out of a plane filmed?
The 1991 movie Point Break features a sequence where Special Agent Johnny Utah jumps out of a plane without a parachute and catches up to another person with a chute while in mid-air.
I believe I've ...
3
votes
4answers
493 views
What is the earliest example of a 'gag reel'?
Having just watched a string of gag reels on youtube, I would like to know what the earliest examples of this extra material would be. I found one from 1946 on youtube but it would be interesting to ...
5
votes
3answers
3k views
What was the first Zombie movie?
It is widely accepted that the first modern zombie movie is George A Romero's brilliant, low budget, Night Of The Living Dead.
But I'm sure zombies featured in Hammer Movies much earlier so Romero ...
8
votes
1answer
183 views
Which show was the first to use concept art as the ending credits?
In Disney+'s The Mandalorian, each episode ends with concept arts during the ending song. I don't know if this is a new film technique or not, but I've seen in first in RWBY and now in The Mandalorian....
3
votes
1answer
3k views
When was the first adult film ever made?
I was curious if anyone happens to maybe know when the first adult porno video was made on record? I was wondering how that might come about and what was the idea backing it versus how it is now?
5
votes
1answer
853 views
Pencils in the ceiling
I've just watched a Castle episode (S07E12) and this (pencils in the ceiling) scene (at 06:05) made me feel nostalgic, and smile.
I know another similar scene from The X-Files [1]. Mulder's office ...
4
votes
1answer
116 views
Origin of montages with incongruously happy music [closed]
I'm asking about montages of some criminal or depressing thing that have a happy song underneath them. The first show I remember seeing them on is Breaking Bad, but I've also seen them on Stranger ...
8
votes
1answer
266 views
What is the first movie to use a VCR (or recording device) to trick an adversary?
I was watching "Columbo: Playback", and the murderer uses a video security system to cover up a murder.
It got me thinking, what was the first movie to use video playback to trick another character? ...
4
votes
1answer
268 views
Has this "lyrics with song" style of scene ever been done?
In the movie Baby Driver, in the Coffee Run scene, some of the lyrics of the song are plastered in graffiti on the walls while the main character walks to the coffee shop.
...
5
votes
0answers
298 views
What was the first movie to be re-released with additional scenes?
Avengers: Endgame is being re-released in cinemas, with the additional of a deleted scene and a couple of newly-filmed scenes. There have been plenty of jokes on social media about it being "the first ...
1
vote
0answers
57 views
First depiction of a quadruped robot-vehicle?
Episode 2 of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990) shows the baddies pursuing the main characters in a convertible vehicle, a submarine/ship that becomes a quadruped robot at some point of the ...
6
votes
1answer
143 views
First film to feature a real news reader playing themselves reading the news?
Does anyone know the first film to use a real news reader or TV presenter playing 'themselves' and reading the news? eg Larry King in Ghostbusters.
3
votes
2answers
187 views
What was the first film to use the sliding down a building with one arm move?
In Captain America: Civil War and Deadpool 2, characters with metal arms both slide down a building by sticking their arm into the building's facade and letting the resistance from breaking the stone ...
2
votes
1answer
194 views
Cookie Monster's first appearance
I think to have heard that the Cookie Monster first appeared in a commercial rather than Sesame Street itself. Is this true? If not, where was Cookie Monster's first appearance if not in Sesame Street?...
5
votes
3answers
453 views
Was Arrival the first movie with this plot twist?
The movie Arrival has an unusual kind of plot twist where
This is, in my view, an interesting twist because it goes against the expectations of the viewer who is used to that plot device.
Was ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
Origin of "red glowing eyes in the dark" trope?
I can't find/think of any examples off of the top of my head, but it is a common trope (especially in animated films) to show an area covered in shadow and have red eyes appear in the darkness. ...
8
votes
0answers
862 views
What was the first movie to show a crazy person's wall covered with photos & articles connected by colored yarn?
In movies such as A Beautiful Mind, a crazy / obsessed person will cover a wall with photographs and news articles, and connect them with colored yarn. (This is called link analysis). We've all seen ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
When were animal masks first used in horror or espionage in cinema?
I have recently been watching the new Netflix TV series, The Umbrella Academy, based on the comic of the same name.
Two of its villainous characters are deadly assassins on the hunt for the ...
3
votes
0answers
88 views
Does David Lynch's eerie atmosphere (closer to german "Unheimlich"), have a definition and clear origin?
One aspect that all of lynch's films have is that eerie feeling that something is not quite right, but I find that atmosphere to be different from pure surrealism. Did Lynch start this? Or does it ...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
What is the first example of warning messages about special effects being shown to audiences before a film?
I have seen two instances of a message of caution or warning being shown before a film to explain to the audience that a particular moment in the film with a special effect is meant to be part of the ...
-3
votes
1answer
332 views
Damsel in Distress on Rail Road Tracks [duplicate]
Excluding the mustache villian, what was the first movie to have a person tied to a train track? Did the movie scene come from a book?
7
votes
1answer
640 views
First film with a stewardess landing a plane
In its article about 1956 film Julie, starring Doris Day, Wikipedia claims that it is “potentially the first film to feature the subplot of a stewardess piloting a plane to safety, later used in ...
8
votes
3answers
2k views
Explaining wormholes using a sheet of paper
When explaining how wormholes work in movies its pretty common to see someone taking a piece of paper, folding it, and sticking a pen (or any other object) through it to show the folding of space-time
...
16
votes
0answers
2k views
What was the first film to include a post-credits scene? [duplicate]
We can see post-credits scenes in almost every Marvel movie - Avengers, Iron Man, and so on. Marvel make the post-credits scenes so interesting that we wait until after the movie ends just to see the ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
When did transparent data screens become a thing?
Sometimes sciFi movies don't do a good job of predicting the future. The majority, for example, had CRT-based displays more or less until flat screen displays became common in the real world (Alien, ...
7
votes
1answer
877 views
The path-on-the-map scenes in Casablanca and Raiders of the Lost Ark
Early in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, we watch a path appear on a map to represent the movement of characters across the earth.
This scene reminded me of the animation at the beginning of ...
1
vote
0answers
109 views
When did the term wrangler start applying to things other than animals?
In movie credits, you will see wranglers of animals, such as horse wrangler, ant wrangler (Pi), tiger wrangler, etc.
However, you will notice other things are wrangled, including children, ...
3
votes
0answers
119 views
What is the first occurrence of the helicopter(s)-chasing-a-car trope?
The helicopter(s)-chasing-a-car (or chasing a motorbike or other ground vehicle) trope is by now fairly well established in both live-action and animated television series and movies. See, for example:...
3
votes
0answers
603 views
First appearance of the realistic mask effect
What was the first movie to use the realistic mask effect - which appears to show a mask being removed that is indistinguishable from the actors face. Was it before the Mission Impossible series?
...
7
votes
1answer
957 views
When was "teal and orange" first used for night scenes?
Now we’ve all seen the trend for high contrast blue orange grading of movies. But when was the lightning scheme first brought in for shooting general night time scenes rather than using blue filters ...
14
votes
1answer
895 views
Has there ever been a live-action movie that takes place entirely underwater?
Have there been any movies that take place entirely underwater?
It looks like it is a rare kind of film that takes place entirely underwater because all the water/underwater-themed movies I've seen ...
