Showing content from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdvancedTech2000 below:
Website Navigation
Advanced Tech 2000 - TV Tropes
"It's a name, followed by a big number!"
By adding a large number on the end of a name, you can imply it is a more advanced/futuristic version of an already existing person/product. By "large number", we generally mean over a thousand, as very few examples are only a hundred times better than version 1. The names tend to be used for specific things in works, and will only sometimes be used to name the work itself (more common if they share the name).
This trope rose to prominence in the lead-up to the 21st century, because in the late 1990s people were excited about the upcoming year 2000. As part of the Information Age boom, many associate the Turn of the Millennium with advances in technology and improved power sources, which would lead to a number of examples overlapping with Annual Title (works that are named based on proximity to the year of release). People began releasing new properties of old works with 2000 as part of the name, to attract audiences to the "new and updated" release. While naming a work 2000 now is passé (since 2000 is in the past), years like 2040 and 3000 continue to collect examples that showcase "futurism" (because they haven't happened yet).
If you're looking for the actual year 2000, that's Turn of the Millennium. This trope is a Sub-Trope to Naming Conventions, and shares some overlap with Annual Title for works released near the year 2000, as well as Title by Number (any work that includes a number in the title). For another area with arbitrary multiples of 1000, see Pinball Scoring.
Examples 2000:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga 2000
- The original name of Tokyo Mew Mew's cute mascot was "R2000". His name was later finalized as "Masha".
- Kaitou Kiramekiman was the first and only Time Bokan series to carry the Time Bokan 2000 label as a subtitle.
Asian Animation 2000
- In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 81, the robot Mr. Slowy brings out to help Paddi is called the Life Saver 3000.
- Simple Samosa:
- The bike Samosa buys in "Tufaan" is called the Tufaan 5000. That translates to "Storm 5000" in English, which is what at least one English dub refers to it as. At the end of the episode, it's upgraded and called the Tufaan/Storm 25000.
- In "Heat Wave", Cham Cham invents a multi-purpose doohickey that helps you to cool off during the summer. It's called the Garmi Cool 1000.
- In "Patang Hurdang", Samosa builds an air glider called the Glider Launcher Samosa 2000 to get Vada out of the sky. When that one fails to work, he follows it up with the Glider Launcher Samosa 5000 and the Glider Launcher Samosa 10000.
Comedy 2000
- Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner performed an updated version of their "2000 Year Old Man" routine, titled "The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000" (performed in 1997).
Comic Books 2000
- British sci-fi comic 2000 AD (est 1977, but still going strong).
- There was a "future Archie" set of comics, usually one-shots within the digests, called Archie 3000.
- Camelot 3000.
- The Simpsons comics featured the Destructo-Kat 3000 and the Baked Bean-O-Matic 3000 Electro-Flatulator.
- Alien Pig Farm 3000
- Marvel 2099
- Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: One issue has a future version of Doreen facing off against the villain Iron Monger 2000. Doreen questions her name-logic, pointing out that it's way past the year 2000.
Fan Works 2000
- The titular object from The Pez Dispenser and the Reign of Terror is initially named the PEZ 6000. After it gets stolen by the villain and upgraded to deadly force, it's renamed the PEZ 6,000,000.
- Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space is set in the year 2009, so it's noted that a rifle originally called the AR2000 has been marketed as the AR3000 for the past nine years.
Films 2000 — Animation
Films 2000 — Live-Action
- 1. April 2000: This 1952 film is an Austrian satire in which the Allied occupation of Austria continues until 2000.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey: An In-Universe example with the HAL 9000 computer.
- Cherry 2000
- Stephen Chow's From Beijing with Love: An In-Universe example with the "Kill-You-Dead 3000". As an Affectionate Parody of James Bond movies, this is a "gadget" which was really a bunch of dangerous items roped together — picture a keychain with a knife, stick, glass bottle etc.
- Death Race 2000. The "2000" was understandably dropped from the 2008 remake Death Race, although "3000" and "2020" were apparently considered as alternatives at various points during the production.
- Dracula 2000:
- The title alone got it green-lit by Miramax. When Harvey Weinstein had the meeting to set the film in motion, he was asked if the script was any good. He said it was awful, but "it's called Dracula 2000!"
- Known as Dracula 2001 in the UK, because it wasn't released there until then.
- Dracula 3000, a scifi vampire film (no relation to the former entry).
- Escape 2000: Previously titled Escape from the Bronx or Bronx Warriors 2, it was re-titled by Mystery Science Theater 3000.
- Godzilla 2000, which was actually released in the US in 2000.
- Holocaust 2000: A 1977 Italian Religious Horror movie, where nuclear energy may bring about the Apocalypse as described in the Book of Revelation.
- Scanners: This film, released in 1981, had a Working Title of Telepathy 2000, reflecting its setting of 20 Minutes into the Future.
- Spaceballs had a throwaway reference to a fictitious movie titled Rocky 5 . . . thousand.
- Splattenstein 2000: This is the second installment in the Splattenstein series of Finnish low-budget splatter films.
- Turkey Shoot: Released in the US as Escape 2000.
Literature 2000
- Captain Underpants: In-Universe, many of the gadgets created for this series are named with big round numbers for impressive effect, such as the Turbo Toilet 2000 and the Goosey-Grow 4000.
- Goosebumps Series 2000 — which, ironically, ended publication near-immediately after the year 2000 finally rolled around. (Due to a falling out between author R.L.Stine and publisher Scholastic)
- Harry Potter: In-Universe example with the Nimbus 2000. Apparently previous models were numbered 1000, 1001, 1500 and 1700, so it is a mere coincidence. The next model is the 2001, possibly to make Draco Malfoy getting one first all the more annoying. Harry loses it in Prisoner of Azkaban when it is destroyed by the Whomping Willow after Harry faints in the presence of Dementors, after which Sirius Black gifts him a Firebolt. Somewhat amusingly, the film version of Philosopher's Stone was released in 2001, and yet, it still faithfully introduces the Nimbus 2000 as Harry's original broomstick. Moreover, Draco receiving the 2001 model is adapted by the film that was released in 2002.note And the 2000 was canonically introduced in 1991 In-Universe.
- Honor Harrington: In-Universe example with the Solarian League Navy having a program called "Fleet 2000"note the HH date is coming up on the year 2000 Post Diaspora, which would be 4103 anno domini, which is supposed to be a significant upgrade of combat capability. While there are improvements in the hardware, much of it is merely window dressing, modifying the outwardly visible aspects of the hardware like displays and such to be more photogenic.
- Maximum PC magazine came up with a fictional video card: the "Bitchin' fast!3D 2000".
- Mondo 2000: The '90s gave us this Cyberpunk subculture magazine. According to the editors, the name was deliberately chosen to give the magazine an "expiration date", embracing the fact that this morning's "Cutting Edge" is tomorrow's Zeerust.
Live-Action TV 2000
Music 2000
- 3030: The sci-fi concept rap album by Dan the Automator and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (Deltron in the album), which takes place in the same year. The followup album, Event II, takes place in the year 3040, although it was actually released closer to fifteen real-world years after the first than ten.
- Bazooka Girls had a Eurobeat track called "velfarre 2000", named after a popular nightclub that has since closed (but re-opened as Nicofarre, owned by Nico Nico Douga).
- Daze: The Eurodance group had a single, "Sex 2000", in their 1999 album, They Came to Rule.
- Fatboy Slim's track "Acid 8000".
- Flight of the Conchords: Most likely deliberately subverted in their song "The Humans are Dead", which starts "The distant future...The year 2000..." and goes on to poke fun at various science fiction concepts. (Unless they really did write it when they were very, very young.)
- Glassjaw's song "Ape Dos Mil", a Spanish Bilingual Bonus, as the name means "Ape 2000".
- Gorillaz' song "19-2000".
- Hum's second album was titled Electra 2000.
- Jean-Michel Jarre's Sessions 2000: Released in 2002, it contained material recorded during something similar to electronic jam sessions in 2000.
- The Kraftwerk single Expo 2000, filled with repeating soundbytes of different voices saying "the twenty-first century" throughout.
- The German art rock/krautrock group La Düsseldorf released a song named "Cha-Cha 2000" in 1978. That is, maybe the number is a play on its length, 20:00 minutes.
- The MDK song Colour Cannon is about a weapon called the Colour Cannon 9001.
- Music 2000, the sequel of Music, a composing, sequencing, and video making facility on the Playstation. They took it further with Music 3000, which was a significantly worse bit of Software.
- The 1982 song "Tango 2000" by Nichts, also based in Düsseldorf, seems like an In Name Only answer to "Cha-Cha 2000" by La Düsseldorf.
- OutKast member Andre 3000 (stage name for Andre Benjamin).
- Powerman 5000, an Alternative Metal band.
- Pulp's 'Disco 2000' superficially plays this trope straight by using it in the song's name, but truthfully probably subverts it in being a more nostalgic, wistful song than the glitzy, futuristic title would suggest. It does lyrically look forward to the date: "Let's all meet up in the year 2000 / Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown". As sung by a 32-year-old in 1995.
- Silverchair: One of the band's bigger hits was the single "Anthem for the year 2000", which seemed to be a bit of a hit out against governments that promised to fix things in the medium to long term future.
- Let's talk about electronic musical instruments, shall we?
- Korg used to make a Polyphonic Ensemble PE-2000. Then again, it was meant to be a companion to the PE-1000.
- And they made the CR-8000 drum machine, their only one with four digits.
- Roland had the early preset synth SH-2000 which is actually a slimmed-down SH-1000.
- Farfisa's biggest home organ in the late 1970s was the Maharani 2000, successor to a similar model named just Maharani.
- The Powertran Transcendent 2000, lackluster as it may be.
- Sequential Circuits: Their first sampler is named the Prophet 2000, with 2000 definitely meaning nothing but hypermodern (because it was released in 1985).
- Kurzweil:
- Makers of music workstations, they've had several models, which skip numbers to encourage the idea that these are much more advanced than previous models. They've released the models K150, K250, K1000, and K1200 during the late 20th century.
- Shortly after having been sold to Young Chang, in 1991, they released a very powerful music workstation named K2000 which was several years ahead of its time and, if fitted with the sampling option, outshone every last sampler on the market.
- E-mu Systems named the successor of their rack-mounted Proteus/1 ROMpler expander Proteus 2000. It came out in 1999. The orchestral version Proteus/3 was followed by the Virtuoso 2000.
- Sometimes, 2000 aren't enough. Roger Linn's last masterpiece under his own flag was the Linn 9000.
- The Akai S2000 is a kind of subversion because it's actually the cheap little brother of the S3000 and S3200 models.
- The Akai MPC2000 and MPC2000XL, on the other hand, remained the must-have drum samplers for quite a while. Roger Linn was involved with both.
- Japanese synth manufacturers seemed to love four-digit numbers for their virtual-analog synths in the late '90s: Roland JP-8000 (named after the Jupiter-8) and Korg MS2000 (named after the MS-20).
Pinballs 2000
- Atari's widebody Time 2000, released in 1977. The instruction card boasts "Experience the future of pinball!"
- Black Knight 2000: The 1989 pinball game, and sequel to 1980's Black Knight (Steve Ritchie).
- Brian Schmidt's BSMT 2000note "BSMT" stands for "Brian Schmidt's Mouse Trap" audio DSP, used in many Data East and early Stern pinball games. The first game to use this was Data East's Batman, released 1991, and the last was Stern Pinball's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines released in 2003.
- Cirsa Sport 2000 was a futuristic sports-themed pinball table released by Unidesa in 1988.
- Safecracker has the CANDY 2000 security system.
- Stern Electronics' Flight 2000, released in 1980.
- Williams Electronics' "Pinball 2000" platform, which was their last pinball platform before leaving the pinball business in 1999. It integrated a video screen into pinball. Ironically, after 1999, pinball went right back to using the familiar dot matrix displays that they had been using for most of The '90s, largely because Williams went out of business after releasing only two Pinball 2000 tables (Revenge from Mars and Star Wars Episode I).
Pro Wrestling 2000
- The Obscenely Expensive Jeritron 5000!
- The short-lived unsuccessful WWE tag team Tekno Team 2000. They had a futuristic gimmick and were billed as being ahead of their time, but only lasted little more than a year.
- CHIKARA's Power Stable of "high tech" wrestlers, Xyberhawx 2000.
Puppet Shows 2000
- In "Let's Get Interactive" from Bear in the Big Blue House, Doc Hogg's computer (which appears to be made entirely of wood, including the keyboard), is a Hogulak 2000.
Software 2000
Sports 2000
- Formula 3000, the feeder series to Formula One, was installed in 1985 and replaced the earlier Formula Two series. Its name however is a nod to the used engines, limited to a motor volume of 3000 ccm. It was however disestablished after the 2004 season and replaced first by the GP 2 series and then again by Formula Two.
Tabletop Games 2000
- Twilight: 2000, a game from the 1980s set in the war-torn future year 2000.
- Warhammer 40,000: To indicate the very far future setting, as well as distance itself from the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle system, the work refers to being set forty thousand years into the future, making the In-Universe timeline in or near the 42nd millennium.
- Cyberpunk 2013, later Cyberpunk2020, currently Cyberpunk Red. As the game was originally set in its eponymous years, it has now been moved to our near future, appx 2040's, with added in-universe history explaining how that timeline diverged from ours in many small and large ways.
Toys 2000
Video Games 2000
- Software 2000 was a german game development studio for Commodore Amiga and IBM-PC, known for football manager and simulation games.
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: The Pushmaster 5000, a machine used to push boxes for a puzzle.
- Banjo-Kazooie: In-Universe, one of the three potential names for Gruntilda's broom is the Lardmaster 2000.
- Chessmaster *000.
- Gary the Gadget Guy from Club Penguin almost always puts "3000" after the names of his inventions. He sometimes uses "2000" and "1000" for prototypes.
- CP3D: Gary uses 3000 at the end of his inventions - The player can obtain an older prototype used by Agent R, the Spy Phone 1000, at the end of The Rift event.
- Doom: Used In-Universe with the BFG 9000.
- Dune II received a remake/sequel in 1998, titled Dune 2000.
- In Evil Genius 2, your minions have a high-tech lair-building device called the Lair Builder 5000. According to teaser videos, it is literally the five-thousandth iteration of the design, and the first 4,999 were hilariously problematic.
- Fallout:
- Gran Turismo: The Working Title for the third game was "Gran Turismo 2000". It was changed to "Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec" when the year 2000 came and went by the time the final version was released.
- JauntTrooper, an After the End Roguelike series, first appeared in 1987 as DoomsDay 2000.
- Seibu Kaihatsu: A number of their later arcade hits, including Raiden II, Zero Team, Raiden Fighters 2, and Raiden Fighters JET, were rereleased in 2000 with "2000" appended to the end of the title. Some of these rereleases are commonly mistaken as bootlegs due to using cheaper, inferior sound hardware.
- Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!: In-Universe, they have the Cyber-Sniff 2000.
- Luigi's Mansion: In-Universe, used as for The Poltergust 3000, as well as Professor E. Gadd's later Poltergust models.
- Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed was called Need for Speed 2000 in Germany due to its release date.
- Quake II: Used In-Universe with the BFG 10000.
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police: In-Universe, they have the Maimtron 9000, a clockwork Humongous Mecha.
- SimCity: The first sequel was 1994's SimCity 2000. The next, released in 1999, is SimCity 3000. The pattern ended with 2003's Sim City 4.
- Team Fortress 2 has a few weapons named this way:
- The Cow Mangler 5000, a sci-fi themed rocket launcher for the Soldier.
- The Spytron 2000, with which the Spy makes himself look like other characters, as well as store cigarettes.
- The "Pomsom 6000" for the Engineer; a sci-fi themed laser rifle which has the ability to drain 10% of cloak or uber-charge on hit.
- Top Gear 3000: Third installment of the Top Gear game series, with a futuristic setting.
- Tyrian, the PC arcade game by Epic Games (then Epic MegaGames), was re-released in 1999 as Tyrian 2000.
- Ultra Super Death Gorefest Chainsawer 3000
- World of Warcraft: In-Universe, Goblin and gnome Schizo Tech beat this trope to death.
- Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000. The sequel is subtitled Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Millionare Fighting 2001 in Japan).
- The Henchman 800 and 1000 in Rayman M/Arena. In an inversion, the 1000 is actually an older model, with the 800 apparently being new and improved in comparison.
- Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar, a 1994 sequel to the original 1981 arcade game. Atari followed up with Defender 2000 and Battlezone 2000. In turn, Tempest 2000 itself was also followed up by Tempest 3000 and TxK, the latter of which became a more official sequel as Tempest 4000.
- The sequel to DanceDanceRevolution Solo Bass Mix was DanceDanceRevolution Solo 2000, released in December 1999. This was followed by Solo 4thMIX which was the last Solo game.
- MechWarrior 3050 for the Super NES. Though it is set in the year 3050.
- The hospital in Postal 2 includes the "Vend-A-Cure 9000", an immobile robot that talks, accepts urine samples, and drops anti-gonorrhea pills.
- Faceball 2000
- Street Fighter 2010.
- Firepower 2000, a Market-Based Title for the 1992 top down shooter Super SWIV. Oddly, while it DOES take place in the then-future, it's set in 1997 instead of 2000.
- The Atari Video Computer System (VCS) is perhaps better known by its later name: the Atari 2600. There are also its successors, the Atari 5200 and the Atari 7800.
- Carmageddon TDR 2000.
- The Neo Geo game Super Baseball 2020, released 1991.
- Taiko no Tatsujin has 22 songs where the title ends with 2000. A complete list of the songs can be found here. Then there is the April Fools' Day special song Yokuderu 15300.ExplanationIt is simply Yokuderu 2000, but sped up 7.65 times.
- In Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe, one of the computer-controlled teams is named "Rage 2000." The game also received a Video Game Remake for the PlayStation in 2000 titled Speedball 2100.
- Galaxy 5000, a futuristic Vehicular Combat game by Activision for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
- Ittle Dew, Slap City, and the Card City Nights series have a very strong platypus man named Ultra Fishbunjin 3000.
- Splatoon: The first game uses a variation on this naming convention for its E-Liter 3K, a powerful charger-type weapon. Entries from the second game onward would replace it with the E-Liter 4K.
Web Animation 2000
Webcomics 2000
Web Original 2000
- Neopets used this trope a lot when naming their space themed weapons and PetPets, as well as a good portion of the battledome items.
- Lauri Vuohensilta of the Hydraulic Press Channel tends to name his new tools of destruction this way, though usually with the number 5,000,000. His names for said tools tend to be rather on-the-nose due to Lauri's imperfect English, for example the Frying Pan Maker 5,000,000, the Slicer 5,000,000, and the Worm Maker 5,000,000. He's made many more than these. Improved versions of previous tools get the number 10,000,000 instead.
- The 4chan board /r9k/ stands for "Robot 9001", a reference to a program thought up by xkcd (called Robot 9000 instead) that discouraged memes by filtering and banning posters.
Western Animation 2000
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius has Vox 3000, the artificial intelligence that guards Jimmy's lab. Interestingly, it was originally called Vox 2000 in the pilot, since the episode itself was released in 1998.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Episode L.I.Z.Z.I.E features a mind controlling helmet meant to brainwash the male sex. "The Yes Dear 5000? They SELL these things!?!"
- In one episode of Handy Manny, a salesman almost persuades Manny to buy a high-tech “Wonder Tool 3000”.
- Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: The device Buddy and Krupa gave Ella in “Helping Hands” that plays songs for her is called the Keymaster 3000.
- South Park:
- For its 2000 season, the series suffixed the titles of the first four episodes with "2000" as a parody of this trope.
- The second episode is called "Weight Gain 4000", which is the name of a bodybuilding supplement used in the episode.
- Another episode had Cartman wearing the "Kidney Blocker 2000" (to prevent Stan from taking one of his kidneys).
- Futurama:
- The pilot episode was called "Space Pilot 3000", as the hero is cryonically frozen for just under one thousand years on the turn of the century.
- One episode has a machine called the "Juicinator 4000", named so because it was already 3000.
- The Simpsons:
- "Toga! Toga! Toga! 2000!" (Itself something of a casting/Landis-sequel reference to Blues Brothers 2000.)
- Another episode featured the Ultrahouse 3000.
- In Homer The Vigilante, Bart has a toy megaphone named "Rapmaster 2000", which plays a rap music beat when someone speaks into it.
- The cartoon Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! includes a character, Widget, who is always creating inventions with a '3000' slapped at the end.
- Dilbert (the animated series): Many of the episodes involve something to do with the design, sale, production, etc. of the "Gruntmaster 6000", which was just a trimmed down version of the "Gruntmaster 9000". The name was created in the first episode, when Dilbert had to come up with a name for a new product, and Dilmom suggested the name. Later, after finding out that the VP wasn't going to like the name they came up with (due to a Noodle Incident in the VP's childhood, only it was promptly revealed), Dilbert suggested "The Gruntmaster". Possible Lampshade Hanging ensued immediately after, when the VP said something was missing, and Dogbert added the 6000 suffix. It is later revealed that the Gruntmaster ended up being a very strangely-designed exercise machine, and during product testing, a family of hillbillies broke a component that created a BLACK HOLE.
- Aaahh!!! Real Monsters sometimes featured machines whose name included a multiple of a thousand. When asked why a machine is named "Thing Y000", the answer is always "Because Thing X999 failed".
- On PB&J Otter, Ootsie and Bootsies' toys were often named in this manner and they would often say that they were "twice as good as (toy with number half that of the newer toy.)"
- The Amazing World of Gumball has a electronics shop called "Ripley 2000". Lampshaded in "The Refund" when Darwin asks "Why is it 2000 anyway? It's not like it's the future anymore."
- Phineas and Ferb:
- One of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's inventions of the week was a device to melt all chocolate in the Tri-State Area that he dubs the Melt-inator 6-5000. In another episode, he invents a Weather-Control Machine called the Gloominator 3000-inator. In a third episode, to outshine Roger during a game of kickball at the Doofenshmirtz Family Reunion, he invents a device called the Kick-inator 5000.
- "Summer Belongs to You" sees Phineas and Ferb's Sun-Beater 3000 jet to travel around the world, which inspires a bit of Lampshade Hanging from Buford, as seen on the page quote above.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.
- In Gravity Falls, Romance Academy 7 is made by "Year 2000 Electronics". Soos replies with "Man, I can't wait for the year 2000!" The episode was released in 2014, and the series takes place during Summer 2012.
- Combined with Thing-O-Matic in The Flamin' Thongs where all of Holden's inventions are named "the <something>-o-matic 2000".
- The synthesizer that Arnold wants to buy with the prize money in "Spelling Bee" is the ToneMaster 2000.
- Kaeloo: Subverted in the episode "Let's Play Magicians". Kaeloo buys a magic kit labeled "Magic 2000", but later reveals that the kit is actually named that because it has 2000 pieces.
- Subverted in Class of 3000. While the show does fellow a group of students at a creative arts school, it takes place in the present day (i.e. The Noughties). The title alludes to creator André "3000" Benjamin, who voices their teacher.
- "Automania 2000" is a satirical 1963 cartoon about a future in which humanity is literally drowned in a flood of giant gas-guzzling cars.
- On Doc McStuffins, in "Arctic Rescue: The Great McStuffins Meltdown," a lot of the technology in the "improved" McStuffinsville Hospital, such as the Checkup 3000, is named this way.
- In the Jelly Jamm episode "Rhythm Judge", Bello lampshades this when Mina shows off her newest invention, the Drumsticks 6000.
Bello: It's always "something 6000". Why?
Mina: Because... it's a scientist thing. You wouldn't understand.
- Kim Possible. In "A Sitch in Time", Kim is visited by a Future Badass version of Rufus the naked mole rat.
Rufus 3000: I am known as Rufus 3000. I come from the future.
Kim: You're from the Year 3000?
Rufus 3000: No. But I am one of three thousand hyper-evolved descendants of Rufus Prime.
- In "Wonder Tool" from Handy Manny, a salesman named Willy talks Manny into trying out a new tool called Wonder Tool 3000 that is supposed to be an all-in-one tool. It turns out to have more than a few kinks.
- Face 9000 from Ready Jet Go! is a computer who answers the kids' questions. He also has a brother named Face 9001.
- VeggieTales: In Josh and the Big Wall, Jimmy and Jerry build a rocket called The Wall-minator 3000 to destroy the walls of Jericho. It doesn't work.
- Beavis and Butt-Head: In Inventors episode, the duo bends a wire coat hanger and call it "Buttscratcher 2000".
- Star Trek: Lower Decks has the Quark 2000 replicator, supposedly created by Quark; in truth, it was stolen from the Karemma, a Gamma Quadrant species Quark had previously dealt with, and Captain Freeman threatens Quark with jail time...until they reach a deal that gives the majority of Quark's franchise profits to the Karemma, much to his dismay.
- The Patrick Star Show:
- In "Host-a-Palooza", Cecil's high-tech fishing rod is called the Cecil 6000 Modern Fishing Rod.
- In "The Haunting of Flim-Flam House", Squidina tries to catch a ghost with a vacuum device called the Ghost Catcher 5000.
- Molly of Denali: In "Sticker Shock," the sticker labeling machine is called the Swiftech Labelpro 3000.
- Sonic Boom:
- Work It Out Wombats!: In "Balloonie for Youie," Mr. E buys a robot for his store called the Store Helper 3000.
- In the Bluey minisode "Bingo 3000", Bingo pretends to be a robot named Bingo 3000.
- Rugrats (1991):
- In "Angelica Orders Out", Stu invents the Pickles Voice Frequency Modulator 5000, a device which alters one's voice. Angelica uses it to make her sound like Charlotte so she can order sweets from Zippy's against Didi's wishes, make Drew buy her an expensive Cynthia playhouse, and trick the other adults into throwing her a surprise birthday party (despite her birthday being five or six months ago).
- In "Man of the House", Stu invents Memory Booster 2000 shades, sunglasses that have a built-in device that can record messages and play them back. He plans to show them off at the inventor's convention he is attending.
- In the B-plot of "Cooking With Susie", Stu invents the Doorstopper 3000, which is meant to hold doors open and closed, but just ends up destroying parts of the house.
Real Life 2000
- Possibly the oldest example: the Reggiane Re.2000 fighter, which first flew in 1939. The Re.2000 designation was a model number series assigned to Reggiane to avoid confusion with the C.200 model numbers assigned to Macchi and the G.50 model numbers assigned to Fiat.
- The Mirage 2000.
- The Eurofighter Typhoon was known as the EF 2000 for a while. It started out as "Jäger 90" (Hunter 90, fighter [aircraft] 90) in Germany.
- The Annals of Improbable Research kept a collection of these under the heading "Project AIRHead 2000".
- For some horrible reason, number plates in the Australian state of New South Wales had "Towards 2000" as their state motto towards the end of the 90s. As they entered the year 2000 itself and the Sydney 2000 Olympics drew closer, a series of number plates celebrating the aforementioned year and event soon sprung up.
- Windows 2000, named after its year of release. Although this was dropped in the desktop versions with XP and Vista, the server versions kept the year theme with Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, and 2016. Averted with Windows ME, short for Millennium Edition. This was the last DOS-based Windows (2000 was NT-based, and XP merged the two lines). Also played straight with its productivity suite counterpart, Office 2000 (which would stick to year naming afterwards).
- This trend was once annoyingly common in Internet usernames, to the point where Yahoo! would offer this (and 2001) as an alternative to a taken name during registration.
- Appliance manufacturers also seem fond of this: the TurboFry 2000, among others.
- Montgomery Ward's store appliance brand was called Signature 2000. Ironically enough, 2000 ended up being the year Montgomery Ward declared bankruptcy.
- In 1991 Wisconsin based discount retailer Shopko rebranded to "Shopko 2000" as a attempt to seem futuristic. Suprisingly, they kept the "2000" part of the name way past the year 2000. Shopko kept the "2000" part of the name until dropping it in the year 2007. Shopko would later file for bankruptcy and closed all stores in 2019.
- Somewhat played straight: Xbox 360. They couldn't just call it the Xbox 2 because that would put them a step behind Sony; no, they had to have 360s to beat Sony's 3. Of course, their other option was Xenon, so maybe it was for the best. It's because it's a revolution. Mind you, the Revolution was named the Wii. And as any number of Internet wags will tell you, turning 360 degrees leaves you right back where you started.
- Inverted by the Xbox One, which uses a comically low number rather than a comically high one. The ubiquitous joke being that it's two big steps backward from the third Xbox, and three steps behind the PlayStation 4, or just 359 steps back from its predecessor. The marketing reason is that the 360 is supposed to revolve around your entertainment, while the Xbox One is supposed to be the one device for all your entertainment needs (in addition to game playing, disc-watching and streaming, you can also hook it up to your cable/satellite/telco box and watch it through the One). It also ties in with the other "One"-prefixed products of Microsoft's (OneDrive, OneNote, etc.), making it one of their equivalents to Apple's iThing, too.
- The PC company "Gateway 2000" later changed their name to just "Gateway" in 1998. At that point, it probably didn't seem so cutting edge.
- PC hardware companies tend to use high numbers for their models, though it's not just for marketing, it's more a Meaningful Name. For example, the sane ones use the largest digit as the generation number for that product, with the rest of the numbers indicating relative performance within each other.
- Averted by car names, where a 2000 usually means that the engine has a displacement of (roughly) 2000cm³ (2 liters). Examples are the Alfa Romeo Spider 2000note the 2 liter version was called Spider 2.0 in the second half of the 1980s - again a Meaningful Name; the 1600cm³ version became the Spider 1.6 (other variants were the Spider 1300 and the Spider 1600). Or the BMW 2000note with a twist a few years later on - the later BMW 2002 also had a 2 liter engine and the "02" just indicates that it was a later, more modern version.
- The Swedish tilting bullet train X2000.
- The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB/CFF/FFS) introduced their "Bahn 2000" (Railway 2000) concept in the late 1980s, complete with a new electric locomotive class, the Re 460 also known as "Lok 2000" (Locomotive 2000).
- ABB Henschel's Eco2000 locomotive platform from the mid-1990s. All that came out of it were prototypes rebuilt from older locomotives before the ADtranz merger, the German class 101 express locomotive, and its derivative, the New Jersey Transit ALP46.
- The Münch Mammut 2000 motorbike might be a case of it, too. On the other hand, it could be named after its displacement of roughly 2,000ccm and/or its production run that started in the year 2000.
- Hamburg's standard harbor ferry class of the 21st century, the "Fähre 2000" (Ferry 2000).
- The MAN truck line F2000.
- In The '80s, one school's chosen anti-drug curriculum had a goal of making society drug-free by the year 2000. It didn't work.
- There are several firearms with a 2000 in their name, some of the more famous including the PP-2000 submachine gun, the FN F2000 assault rifle, the Walther WA 2000 sniper rifle, and the CZ 2000 weapon system. Note that only one of these was named that way specifically because it came out around the turn of the millennium, that being the F2000; the PP-2000 was made a few years afterwards, and the other two predate 2000 by at least two decades.
- The Thameslink Programme was originally called "Thameslink 2000". The name change might have something to do with the numerous schedule slips — the project started in 2009 and was finished in 2020.
- In the Philippines, the hardtop version of the 1980 Toyota Corona was marketed as the "Corona 2000" due to its 2000cc engine. That and its body style earned it the nickname "Macho Car".
- In 1999, the Hostess company released Twinkies 2000 to the store shelves. They weren't alone; several processed foodstuffs had special millennium-branded releases that year.
- The Northern German holiday resort Ostseebad Damp, built in the early 70s, used to be named Damp 2000 originally.
- The Pontiac 6000: an average sedan made six thousand times more awesome.
- Due to a common naming format, British legislation introduced in 2000 apes this format, including the Terrorism Act 2000..
- A brand of shower gel called "Shower 2000," around since at least the mid-'90s (when shower gel still seemed a bit futuristic). Interestingly enough, it's still available.
- As of 2013, public transportation in Western Germany offers a Ticket2000, introduced in 1991.
- The JPEG 2000 image standard. Though it was meant to be a improvement, created in the year 2000, on the original JPEG standard.
- The Video 2000 standard, but even 2000 wasn't enough to beat VHS.
- The Netherlands called the Terrestrial Trunked Radio network for police, fire and ambulance "C2000". This network, plagued by delays and various problems, was introduced in... 2004.
- Some of Penzeys' spice blends follow this trope; e.g. Chili 3000 ("the chili of now") and Chili 9000 ("the chili of tomorrow").
- A 1969 RCA television set called the Two Thousand. Made in a limited run of 2,000, with a price of $2000, it had computer memory and such actual 21st-century features as storing your favorite channels. It wasn't flat-screen, though, but it looked pretty sleek.
- The Hardi Rubicon 9000 crop sprayer, named after its 9000 liter tank.
- Poland 2050 is a political movement founded by Szymon Hołownia after his presidential campaign for the 2020 Polish presidential election.
- Many bowling centers in the 1980s and 90s were equipped with "Brunswick 2000◊" scoring computers◊, ball returns◊, lockers, seats, etc.
- Interestingly, camera manufacturers such as Nikon or Canon usually invert this trope. Camera models with four-digit numbers are usually entry-level models such as the Nikon D7500 or the Canon EOS 2000D, while professional cameras are marked by single-digit numbers, e.g. Nikon D5 or Canon EOS R1.
The Stinger 2000
Alternative Title(s): Name 2000, Noun 2000, Title 2000, Futuristic Thousands Suffix
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo
| Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4
