1) Yellowstone Supervolcano Eruption ( 2012 ) - An eruption from the real supervolcano would immediately vaporize everything within half a hundred miles or so from the eruption site. Meanwhile, the family just stands there like it's a lightshow. Nonetheless, the tension was so high in this scene that I couldn't help but sit through the whole thing, even if it's so far from reality.

2) The Card Scene ( Now You See Me 2 ) - I refuse to believe none of the guards, who are guarding an extremely secure facility btw, noticed them flinging the chip, or card, around within their field of view. Not to mention the security cameras that should line the whole place from top to bottom. Still, the scene was really cool and I enjoyed every bit of it.

There are lots of settings where the desolation or corruption of Earth is hinted and explored, but more often than not we are left to our own devices into what the planet actually looks like. This is where a Satellite/Photo from space comes in to shatter the mystery and reveal that Earth is cooked.

Here are a few examples:

WALL-E:

Probably the most well known. From Orbit, we see a haze of space junk in the descent to Earth, which is now an polluted and almost lifeless rock.

The Ark (2023):

A TV show involving a collection of colony spaceships involved the ARK Programme. We see flashbacks and momentary glimpses of Earth that has been ruined by environmental destruction. solar storms and carbonisation. By the time the ARK leaves earth, all birds and the majority of land animals are gone with estimates saying that life on Earth had less than a century left. Later on in the series we learn that the biosphere has finally collapsed and all life on Earth is doomed.

The Midnight Sky (2020):

A spaceship travels to Jupiter in hope of finding a habitable moon. Meanwhile, Earth suddenly has massive radioactive fog storms that is killing all life (the astronauts are not aware of this). The movie revolves around a man in the North Pole trying to send a signal for the astronauts to not come back.

I think it's fun when the plot of whatever episode necessitates a setting that shouldn't exist. It's more fun when a character tries to point it out.

1). The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball:
Gumball and Darwin try to figure out how their house works.
"Alright, okay. Just look. I go through the front door, up the stairs, I take one turn right to go to our bedroom, and . . ."

2). Seinfeld:
Some fans argue that Jerry's hallway is physically impossible.

3). The Simpsons:
Rooms appear and disappear over time. Doors lead different places in different episodes, etc.

Giant structures are made by mankind to express their ambition of "reaching the sky", to achieve parity with God, to beat records or to show their superiority. Here are some examples of giant/distinguishable monuments or constructions in medias

- Tower of Babel (Bible): in the Bible, the Tower of Babel was made by the men so they could gain fame and become "God's equal". In the end, the language mix created by God made the project unfinished.
- Zigurrat (Metropolis, Japanese animation movie): This high structure in the city of Metropolis is in fact a mass destruction weapon to subjugate the entire planet
- Volkshalle (Man in the High Castle / IRL): planned IRL by Hitler for his project of "Germania", the Volkshalle was supposed to be the largest dome on the planet and to welcome more than 100,000 peope during mass celebrations. The construction of this building would be a logistics challenge, and the dome (higher than the Eiffel Tower) would create its own climate system
- Tower of the Soviets (IRL): This project was supposed to celebrate communism and to become the highest structure on Earth, with a giant statue of Lenin on its top.
- X-Seed 4000 (IRL): This visionary and futuristic building would have accomodated +1.000.000 people and would reach 4,000 m (+12,000 feet). However, it was merely a proposal, as realistically speaking, it would be hard to make this project feasible.
- Friend's Tower (20th century Boys): as Friend virtually dominated the world through mass manipulation, he made this giant structure in Japan while the rest of the population was kinda condemned to live like in the 80s (despite the manga being set in the 21st century)
- Burj Khalifa (IRL): Currently the highest building on Earth... but for how long ?

The Zone (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2): In the lore of the Stalker games, a second "disaster" at the CNPP caused a large area around the Chornobyl site to become fused with another state of being, which pushed in magic-adjacent anomalies and artifacts. In previous games, only specific sections of The Zone were visited, but Stalker 2 offers nearly the entirety of the affected area to explore.

The Oldest House (Control): Control takes place within an extradimensional supermassive building used by the US government to contain and study powerful or strange anomalous objects. During the game, you can personally explore countless bureaucratic offices, containment chambers, testing areas, and as shown in the screenshot, entire real-world areas that the FBC thought important enough to transport in.

Talos-1 (Prey): The developers of Prey committed not just to building an intensely dense and detailed space station interior (complete with generators, water purification systems, and crew quarters), but also to fully model the exterior to scale with the rest of the ship. While the locations are split up by loading screens, each area's geometry would fit together like lego pieces, and turn out the way the exterior is depicted in game.

1. Old Man Logan: In this future where the supervillains all teamed up to defeat the heroes and take over, the Red Skull added his visage on Mount Rushmore.
2. What If: In a universe the Watcher shows Peggy where HYDRA won, we have another case of the Red Skull defacing Mount Rushmore, only he blew the other presidents' faces off.
3. Mars Attacks: During their rampage, the Martians replace the presidents' faces on Mount Rushmore with theirs.

EDIT: I seem to have kicked a hornet's nest with all of my examples being Mount Rushmore. I'm very sorry, while I did have some knowledge about the land being taken from the indigenous tribes, it slipped my mind while making this. But I know that's not an excuse and I'll try to do better.

The fight against Reze was basically Denji getting beaten up and blown up in countless different ways, featuring top-notch animation (Chainsaw Man Reze Arc)

All of Agnes Tachyon's races are visually stunning, leaving Jungle Pocket in the shade (Uma Musume Beginning of a New Era)

Super Earth - Helldivers

In general, their city is well-kept and the capital planet is an urbanscape with big park and overarching skyscrapers, but as we know it they hold sham election and is Imperium-at-home. Corporates rule the system and is in bed with government to enact laws and control consumerism at will to meet their profit ends.

On occasions they also regularly do mass summary execution of dissidents too.

Why do you think the sole ruling faction of humanity has nuclear ICBMs built before the Second Galactic War?

And not watching the Helldivers 2 intro while it is being aired is accounted to treason.

Viltrum - Invincible

The planet comprised of planetwide, well-kept and neat clean architecture it felt like it is a world made Utopia from the first glance.

Well, yes, but technically no. Viltrumite Empire have the philosophy of weeding out the weak in their Darwinism ideology, so while they are indeed clean and advanced, the society as a whole is militaristic, brutal and expansionist. Don't let the clean white buildings take you off-guard.

Warhammer Fantasy: Morrslieb
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Da Bad Moon
Local 58: The Moon.

Bonus if it's in space and it's a instantaneous transportation portal / wormhole.

Apertures ( Love, Death, & Robots S01E07 - Beyond The Aquila Rift) - A network of portals left behind by a civilization long gone. The program on which they operate on isn't fully deciphered, making traversal through them prone to error.

Mass relays (Mass effect) - Known to be an ancient portal left behind by the previous most prominent civilization that is now extinct, mass relays are primarily used by members of the Galactic council, making it easy to travel from one allied system to another.

Protomolecules / Ring Gates (The Expanse) - A sort parasitic technology left behind by a now extinct civilization, eventually it was revealed that protomolecules "studies" its host, and eventually builds a ring gate by expanding from the infected host. Entry through the ring gates will also lead to the "ring network", a central portal through which you can travel to the other ring gates.

Hive cities(Warhammer 40k): Megacities that are packed with hundreds of billions of humans, going several kilometers below the crust and high above the clouds. If you are born in the imperium there is a 99% chance you spawn in a hive city.

Harrenhal(ASOIAF): Harren Hoare spent 40 years building this behemoth to be his family's seat. Bleeding the Riverlands dry of resources and men whom he used as slave labor for his project. The result being the largest castle in Westeros that financially ruins any family that is given it.

Super Star Destroyer(Star Wars): Remember the big spaceship that appears in the opening of the series? Well how about we make it BIGGER.

Spongebob Squarepants - In SB-129 episode, time machine broke and Squidward went to... 'nothing'. There was nothing except for a few tiles. Squidward felt alone and he wanted to get out of the nothing.

Death Note - In Death note universe, there is no heaven and hell. If you die, The end. There is nothing after the death. Yagami Light knew it, so he was afraid to die.

Almost every liminal space horror - This genre provokes fear by portraying a vast space as if there is nothing there.

1. Powerplex (invincible) revenge. I'm guilty of thinking this myself, but a lot of people think powerplex revenge against invincible is pointless and doesn't make sense since he wasn't the one who killed his sister and niece and actively tried to stop the man who did, even though that's the entire point his revenge is supposed to be pointless and illogical.
2. Korra( legend of Korra), a lot of her haters don't like how hot headed and arrogant she is even though that's the point, she's meant to be more aggressive and out-going compared to aang and part of her character growth is her learning to recognize her limitations and not to jump head first into everything.
3. Space Marines (Warhammer 40k) in 40k lore its states that around each chapter (group) of space marines which is about 1,000 chapters have around 1,000 marines, which means there are 1,000,000 space marines for a galaxy spanning empire of trillions. Some fans don't like that number and say its too little, yeah its supposed to be too little. Space marines are the elite of elite soldiers that go on only the most dangerous missions that no regular soldier can handle, also making them takes a button of time and resources, and it goes to show how much the imperium has fallen from grace that they have so little of their super soldiers to protect them against threats around them.

Timmy turners house-the fairly oddparents Squidwards house-spongebob squarepants

Bonus point if to retroactivly fix this the rich characters house is unrealistcly big

(And yes i know its prob due to inflation sinxe when these shows were made but its till funny to me)

1) Worm - The final fight starts with the main villan, Scion, nuking the entirety of the UK off the map. Its not for a tactical reason, he had no grudge, there was nothing the UK in particular did to him. He decided we wants to destroy the world, says fuck england in particular, and nukes it. It takes like 3 lines max and is then followed up by him ripping apart the world at random, but the UK is the only nation he destroyed completely.

2) 28 Years Later - The zombie apocalypse (called the rage virus) happens. By pure chance, it starts in the UK. It nearly spreads to the rest of the world, but thats prevented by nuking paris (good riddance). This is then followed by a blockade of the isles. No rescue ops, no attempt to make a cure. The rest of the world just goes 'welp, that's a shame' and carries on while the uk collapses.

Van Helsing (2004) - Anna Valerious is taken by Dracula and paraded in a masquerade ball. She initially thinks the crowd will keep the count from publicly doing any vampire-y things, until it's revealed that every person present at the ball, dancers, performers, servants, are all vampires, and Dracula plans to turn her at the ball.

Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows (2011) - Irene Adler meets with Moriarty in a high end restaurant, with the expectation that the public venue will keep Moriarty from harming her. Moriarty taps his glass, and everyone in the room stops what they're doing and leaves, conveniently absent while Irene succumbs to poison.

John Wick 2 (2017) - After breaking the rules of the Continental, John meets with Winston in a public park to discuss what will follow. Winston explains that John will be excommunicated. Winston signals, and everyone in the park stops and stares at John. John declares that he will kill anyone and everyone that comes after him.

There is no air in space and therefore no need to make ships aerodynamic.
I love it when Scifi actually leans into this.
1. Avatar from EVE online
2. Dreadnought from Destiny 2 (or 1 I haven't played either, but I think it looks really cool)
3. Borg Cube from Star Trek

The destruction of the Upside Down (Stranger Things)

The Simpsons' house getting destroyed by the sinkhole (The Simpsons Movie)

1. The Infinity Blade Saga - At first the game(s) feel like a medieval/fantasy world where you fight monsters and gods with sword and shield. But as you explore the world and reveal it's secrets it turns out much of the magic is actually ancient technology

2. The Demon Cycle series - Peter V. Brett - this medieval world is overrun by elemental demons, which are held at bay only by sigils that direct magical energy known as "Wards". As the series continues civilization begins to rebuild and discovers old tech like "lectrics" (electricity)

Attack on Titan - Eren pushes Grisha to steal the Founding Titan, an act which he knew lead to the Rumbling.

Meet the Robinsons - Goob used time travel to talk to his younger self, making sure he became his bitter old self.

Teen Titans Go - Robin made sure Bruce became batman, the only way the plot knew how.

Wildfire (A Song of Ice and Fire-Game of Thrones) : in both books and TV show, the characters use a highly flammable substance named Wildfire. But in the French translation they use the term Feu grégeois which literally means « Greek Fire ». I guess there is a City named Constantinople somewhere.

Egg custard (Avatar : the last Airbender) : in the infamous episode named « The Great Divid » Aang is starved and discovers someone hid an Egg custard. The weird thing is, once again, the French translation makes a weird choice. Instead of naming it « Crème aux œufs » they call it « Crème anglaise » which means « English custard ». So UK is a real country in Avatar’s world I guess.

1) We see the Nazi general approach a ringing phone. It is featured prominently in the foreground, making it appear like the phone is just close to the camera. However, when the Nazi picks up, it turns out that the phone is just comically large.

2) Arthur is explaining the role of the dream architect to Ariadne as they continuously climb stairs, repeatedly passing by somebody picking up papers. Arthur then reveals that the continuous stairs are actually an optical paradox, meant to confuse a subconscious' defenses.

3) We see the Holocaust survivor Vladek being interviewed as he rides his exercise bike. We then notice on the lower right hand side of the page, a full-body picture of Vladek, made by aligning the individual panels.

Uma Musume - Earth but there are no actual horses exists. There are rare women with horse traits. The world building solely exists for the legacy of the actual real horses that existed in our world. My favorite examples is that the Statue of Liberty is a horse lady, their land line phones are giant so they can reach their ears and there is a lane on the highway for them to run, but the speed limit is higher than it is for actual cars. Also one of the horse girls, Fine Motion, is the Princess of Ireland which implies that Ireland was never colonized.

Steven Universe - Earth was basically invaded by aliens 1000s of years ago and they kiiiiiiiinda terraformed it a little but still let humans evolve naturally so there are huge chunks of geography missing. The show takes place in a fictional state called Delmarva which is suppose to be Maryland and (i think) New Jersey combined into one. There is also a huge chunk taken out of a IRL diamond deposit in Russia for spoiler reasons. Humans are kinda over the entre alien thing so its not a big deal when they see them.

Edit: Thanks everyone who added to this! I know now that Delmarva is actually a real place and is also a combination of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. I guess I kinda head cannoned it was NJ cuz Greg just reminds me soooooo much of some from Jersey shore where i spent many of my summers lol also empire city

Thought about adding dragon ball since they constantly refer to the planet as "earth" but there are no references of actually things that exist on IRL earth and also dinosaurs exist there even tho they seem to forget about that sometimes. Sooooo to fit this trope there should be mentions on references to real places and/or people.

just chloroform (the Simpsons)

everything but fabric softener (Capitan underpants)