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Once per Episode - TV Tropes
"Actually, that's a step-ladder."
"Ohh yeah, right. I remember now, it's like from... every other episode..."
A relative of the Running Gag. This is an event that, instead of happening several times in one episode, happens one time in just about every episode of a show.
There is an entire genre of jokes that exists to take advantage of this trope: "Remember that one episode of _____ where...". A common example: Remember that one episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost escape from the island, but Gilligan screws it up? (Though that one is a clear case of Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, as the vast majority of episodes do not feature a potential chance to get off the island.)
Compare Signature Style. If it happens at the end of an episode, it's Every Episode Ending. If everything is like this, it is Strictly Formula.
Also compare Once a Season, where a certain plotline or character story gets a yearly invite. May also overlap with Different in Every Episode if the series follows a specific formula for its references and plots.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Following Episodes 3 and 4 of Ange Vierge, every episode seems to follow this trend:
- The episode starts off with a protagonist's flashback involving Amane before going on to the opening sequence.
- There may or may not be a bath scene.
- A comedic skit involving Ageha and Mayuka, which has its own Stinger.
- The team member faces off against the Brainwashed and Crazy villain. One battle ends with the villain escaping, the other ends with her defeat. For the latter, it ends with the other Brainwashed and Crazy antagonists lamenting the current villain's defeat and the end of the episode.
- Most chapters of Ayakashi Triangle have Shirogane, a cat ayakashi, giving the reader a frontal view of his testicles.
- In each episode of Black Butler:
- Ciel says, "This is an order!"
- Sebastian will say, "A Phantomhive butler who can't [insert X task — usually an improbable one — here] isn't worth his salt." and "I am simply one hell of a butler.".
- Pinoko in Black Jack presses her cheeks together and yelling, "Acchonburike" (which has no actual meaning except for being translated it as "Ohmigewdness") once per episode whenever something surprising happens.
- In Black Jack 21, a game was made to try to find the image of Sharaku in each episode. Some being more obvious than others.
- Early on in Bloody Cross, Tsukimiya gets groped in almost every chapter. It starts happening less often later.
- CLANNAD: After Fuko's arc concludes, she makes random appearances in accordance with this trope.
- Code Geass R2 has, amazingly, turned the Wham Episode concept into a Once an Episode occurrence. Seriously, literally, once an episode; R2 is made up of nothing but Wham Episodes.
- In every episode of most Cutey Honey incarnations (except the recent The Live TV series) someone would ask Honey who she is, to which she would laugh, list her different costumes for the episode (usually three) and finish by "but the truth is... Honey Flash!" (cue transformation sequence) "Cutey Honey! The Warrior of Love!"
- Delicious in Dungeon: Team Touden encounters a monster, Laios squees over it, they kill it, Senshi cooks it into Food Porn, Marcille freaks out over eating it.
- Every Day Is a Holiday, which involves Hinami making up new and bizarre holidays every day, has Hinami begin almost every strip by saying "(Today's date) is (Holiday) Day."
- Excel♡Saga:
- Someone (usually Pedro) gives a Big "NO!" each episode.
- Nabeshin appears in every episode, even if it's just for a second.
- Excel getting dropped through a trapdoor by Il Palazzo. One time the rope he pulls to spring the trap has a sign saying "obligatory" hung on it.
- In the first half of Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Kaze pulls out his Magun summon weapon, and saves the day. In the second half of the series, he pulls out the Magun and it malfunctions.
- Franken Fran has the titular Fran shout "Commence the operation!" just before starting that week's horrific surgery. This gets less common over time, as other characters (such as her younger sister Veronica) receive greater focus, and Fran herself gets into misadventures outside of someone coming to her mansion for surgical assistance.
- In Ghost Stories, the main characters read a book for sealing spirits whenever they encounter the Monster of the Week.
- There's a Running Gag in .hack//Legend of the Twilight about Shugo getting bashed in the face and losing a tooth every episode. Fortunately for his dentistry the damage isn't permanent or cumulative, since he is in virtual form when it happens. The gag is dropped in the last few episodes which take a more serious turn.
- Nishizawa of Hayate the Combat Butler eats something while (after her introduction in Episode 12) thinking wistfully of Hayate. (She still appears doing it even before her official introduction.)
- Most episodes of Hell Girl climax with somebody getting sent to Hell.
- In the Hidamari Sketch anime, someone, usually Yuno, soaks in bath salts... even if she and the others have already been to a sentō that day. This may or may not end the episode, but it's always at least close. It took a few episodes to get it to its most common form (underwater shot of bath bombs; colored water swishing down the floor drain; the bather in the tub), but the main aspect is once an episode.
- THE iDOLM@STER — The shot of the front of the 765Pro Office.
- In the series Infinite Ryvius, one will spot Kibure Kikki, a strange female student in a dinosaur costume at the first episode. Each episode after that one can usually find her in a blink and you miss it scene of her trying to find the parts of said costume throughout the ship. Many fans have even made into a Where's Waldo? type game to try to find her in each ep.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has recurring trends for each season, usually related to the anime adaptation.
- Once near the end of each season, the opening sequence includes sound effects.
- In another opening-related trend, Parts 3-6 have the Big Bad use his time manipulation powers on the opneing. In Part 3, DIO has The World stop time near the end. In Part 4, Kira uses Bites The Dust to rewind the opening. In Part 5, Diavolo uses King Crimson to "erase" several seconds of time (shown by several blood splatters appearing on the ground below Giorno's cut finger) to deliver a monologue, although Giorno intrrupts him with Gold Experince Requiem in the third vrsion of the second opening. In part 6 Pucci uses Made In Heaven to interrupt Jotaro's time stop.
- Kamichama Karin: "Mr. Glasses Man!" "I am not 'Mr. Glasses Man'!"
- Kanon: Ayu runs into Yuuichi, literally or not, in every episode except for the ends of the other girls' arcs.
- Kimi ni Todoke typically starts each chapter with Sawako coming up behind a pair of her classmates to greet them, only for them to freak out from her scary appearance.
- The Kindaichi Case Files: Every case, Kindaichi will say the following lines: "I swear on the name of my grandfather!", when declaring that he'll deduce the criminal's identity; "All the mysteries have been solved!", when he figures out how everything was accomplished; and "The killernote Or some other noun relevant to the case is among us/one of us!", when he gathers all the people involved in the case and explains how the crimes were done. Also, every case, someone will explain that Kindaichi is "the grandson of that famous detective, Kindaichi Kousuke!"
- Lupin III: Part 1 has someone catching fire every episode, even if only for a short gag.
- Once per Story Arc variation in Lyrical Nanoha: The major battle near the end of an incident will be capped off with Starlight Breaker. As StrikerS Sound Stage X showed when Teana did it, this rule is followed even if Nanoha is absent.
- The Mazinger saga:
- Mazinger Z: Every episode Kouji shouted "Pilder On!" and "Mazin Go!" to dock in its Humongous Mecha and activate it. In some episodes he shouted it even more times if he had to sortie often.
- Great Mazinger: In the same way and with the same purpose, Tetsuya shouted "Brain Condor!" and "Mazin Go". And Jun shouted "Queen Star On! Venus Go!" every episode after the third one.
- UFO Robo Grendizer: Every episode Daisuke jumped from a hatch and shouted "DUKE FLEED!" -his real name- to morph his clothes into his Latex Space Suit, and "Dizer Go!" to start Grendizer.
- Every single episode of the Medabots dub found an excuse for Ikki to shout "Metabee!". Also: "Medafighters Ready? Medabots... Robattle!"
- In Miss Machiko, Machiko's panties are shown without fail throughout all 95 episodes, not to mention that she will be disrobed at least partially.
- Mnemosyne has Rin asking Mimi for water every morning, only to get vodka (which, in Russian, is the diminutive of the word for "water") instead.
- Not to mention Rin getting mutilated and/or killed, which on average, actually happens closer to thrice an episode.
- In My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected, there is a shot of the club room sign with a new sticker added each episode. The only exceptions are the episodes set at a summer camp.
- Natsu no Arashi!: At least once per episode, sometimes more, there's an anonymous chap in the back calmly asking for salt. A few episodes he comes close, to salt and happiness, only to have it whisked away not unlike Charlie Brown's football.
- In every episode of Nerima Daikon Brothers, someone in the band needs to take out a loan, and the band goes to the Rental Shop to get a Plot Coupon from the director.
- On The Noozles, Osgood the lizard pops up out of nowhere at least once an episode to comment on what is going on.
- One Piece (the manga) always contains an appearance by Pandaman in almost every arc (or, in one place Pandawoman); sometimes it's obvious but most of the time it's not.
- Pokémon the Series:
- "Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again!" Averages once an episode. There are episodes where they don't blast off at all (like the first-season episode where Ash got the Thunderbadge, for example), but on the other hand, there are also episodes where they blast off twice, so it all evens out. In addition, Wobbuffet had been seen, or its cry was heard, in every episode since his introduction save two of them. At least, that is, until he was left behind with the other Pokémon at the beginning of Best Wishes. He's with them again as of XY and the gag is back came back as well.
- Starting in the Hoenn series, Meowth of Team Rocket hwould have an Imagine Spot, thinking about what Giovanni would do with the Pokémon of the day. More often than not, the imagery is pretty weird. Everything from said Boss spontaneously performing a Super-Deformed Gene Kelly dance routine, to said Boss stripping to a Loincloth for almost no friggin' reason. It helps that said Boss is The Comically Serious, and the occasions with Meowth's accented voice filling in for what he imagines would be what Giovanni would say help even more. What makes it even more imaginative is that the three were probably the most pathetic excuses for Team Rocket members ever seen on the show, at least until they Took a Level in Badass in Unova, and that Giovanni mostly despises them.
- Not to mention Team Rocket's motto upon revealing themselves, although a few episodes did not feature it with them instead opting to sing a song.
- Brock meets a cute girl, immediately proposes to her, and is then dragged off by Misty/Max/Croagunk/whoever. On rare occasions, however, this would turn the other way - the odd episode had Misty gushing over a Water Pokémon (or something related to a water-type) and Brock would drag her away, and one occasion had the cute girl of the week proposing to Brock, leaving him completely dumbfounded. Both are now gone as of Best Wishes, as Brock was finally Put on a Bus, and Team Rocket Took a Level in Badass and now only blast off of their own will....on jetpacks... At least until the Decalore islands arc started up, where they're back to their usual incompetent selves.
- In Best Wishes we have Cilan going into one of his long-winded explanations/speeches each ep, usually accompanied by Iris looking bored and making a "there he goes again" type remark.
- Iris herself has one in the original Japanese, telling Ash he's such a child at least once.
- Clemont's invention of the week seems to end up Gone Horribly Wrong.
- In Ranma ½, Ranma's transformation initially is this, but is increasingly averted or implied to happen offscreen. At the very beginning, the threat of it being revealed was once an episode. They didn't so much waste a perfectly good plot, more one of their best gags, not to mention plenty of perfectly good Fanservice opportunities.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: Though they aren't uniformly every single episode, there are several repeating scenes that happen in almost every episode with accompanying Stock Footage and catch-phrases, including ones specific to each arc, such as:
- A meeting of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council, who take a dramatic elevator ride up to their terrace.
- An absurd play put on by the Shadow Play Girls, which is the most recurring of all the segments.
- Most episodes have a duel with the Villain of the Week or Brainwashed and Crazy Victim of the Week, which is accompanied with a recurring stair climb (or later, elevator ride) up to the dueling arena and other recurring framing scenes.
- In the Black Rose arc, the Victim of the Week attends the Mikage Seminar.
- In the Akio arc, a character is taken on a drive in Akio's car.
- Rizelmine: main male character making her cry her explosive tears, although that was backed off a bit in the second season when things got a little more serious. But the dog was still there in every episode.
- The Robot Romance Trilogy:
- Combattler V: To combine their vehicles -needless to say, it happened every episode-, the team yelled "Let's combine", and if they were ready to combine correctly, Ropetto authorized the combination repeating: "Combine OK". And then you have the Finishing Move ("Choudenji Tatsumaki" and "Choudenji Spin") that were used every episode.
- Voltes V: Again, the Five-Man Band every episode yelled "Let's Volt In!" to combine in Voltes-V. And every episode they killed the Monster of the Week with the V-Slash.
- Daimos: Every episode, to transform and activate Daimos, Kazuya yelled "Daimos, Battle Turn!", -pretty uselessly- as performing a kata with his arms.
- Sailor Moon: Usagi's transforms into Sailor Moon in almost every episode, and in almost all of the other episodes she is already transformed when the episode starts. Also, Sailor Moon defeats the Monster of the Week with whatever that season's attack is, if it's not a final battle that involves some more serious moon juju or one of the rare episodes where one of the other Senshi defeats the monster without her.
- In the Yuri Genre series Sakura Trick, Haruka and Yuu kiss at least once in every manga chapter. The anime adapts two chapters per episode, so there's a bare minimum of two kisses per episode.
- Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei:
- Itoshiki-sensei says "I'm in despair!" (or "Zetsuboushita!" in Japanese) at least once after a short clip of him looking surprised/afraid/overly-dramatic in different directions. Usually, he'll give the full line: "I'm in despair! ''X'' has left me in despair!"
- Lampshaded several times in the anime when other, usually minor, characters declare "I'm in despair!" and Itoshiki promptly replies along the lines of "Thats MY line."
- Kaere also gets a panty shot every episode, and there are smaller things like a stork showing up in the background. These are all lampshaded when Itoshiki-sensei tries to explain all the once-per-episode elements to new viewers. He can't come up with a good reason why they're all there.
- Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: Once every episode either Ken the Eagle, one of the other team members, or even all of the team members would scream "Bird Go!", "Transmute!", "G-Force Transform!", or "Eagle Mode now!" depending on the version (or, if you watch the Spanish dubbing, "Mutación", although this is not an accurate translation -mutación=mutation- but sounds even cooler)" to change their civilian clothes into their super-hero costumes.
- Serial Experiments Lain: The opening Aspect Montage. Showing Lain on the street outside her house where the shadows aren't quite right.
- In Star Driver, various members of the Glittering Crux Brigade yell "Open the cybercasket!" once an episode in order to summon their Cybodies. Also, there's a Transformation Sequence each episode when Takuto becomes the Galactic Pretty Boy.
- Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream has Yumemitchi and Kiraritchi undergo transformations not unlike what you'd see in typical Magical Girl fare in every episode. In the English version Tamagotchi Friends, while the transformation is still shown, it's not once per episode and only occurs twice.
- Tokyo Mew Mew: Magical Girls have to transform once an episode, but in Tokyo Mew Mew, it got bad enough to be an in-joke with fans — hey, there aren't even monsters around! What's Mew Ichigo doing exactly?
- Trigun features a cat skittering across the screen every episode, some times more obviously than others. Said cat is named Kuroneko-sama ("Lady Black Cat"), and was actually the first character designed for the series.
- All episodes of the Animated Adaptation of Wasteful Days of High School Girls have Tanaka stop Ota and Robo in the beginning of each episode — in one case, pulling off Ota's earphones — to talk about something she thinks as "Amazing", which is usually pretty lame.
- In Zatch Bell!, before Ponygon was introduced as a character, he would often be shown walking across the screen for no explicable reason once an episode.
Asian Animation
- In Can (2015), the once-an-episode occurrence is a musical segment; Can will sing a song about what happened in the episode in front of a mock stage.
- The Happy Friends mini-season Happy Friends and the Magical Lab features a segment in every episode called "Explain This!" where Doctor H. provides details on how an important component of a given piece of technology functions, with said component having been magically removed from all relevant machines by villain character Huo Haha earlier under the command of Big M. after having a less-than-amusing experience with that kind of machine.
Comic Books
- Astro City: Each issue ends with a street sign reading "You Are Now Leaving Astro City. Please Drive Carefully." Stories that span multiple issues have each one end with a "To Be Continued" sign instead.
- "Pastoral" ends with a sign reading "Caplinville City Limits - Come Back Soon!"
- Diabolik: The series tends to have The Big Damn Kiss at/near the end of every story, usually a Smooch of Victory between the titular Villain Protagonist and his lover Eva.
- The Flash: During Mark Waid's run, every issue started with the lines "I'm Wally West — the fastest man alive," or some variation thereof. On rare occasion, especially when Wally or a member of his family needs to deliver a speech with emotional punch, other writers still riff on this.
- Great Lakes Avengers: Mr. Immortal dies in all of his appearances.
- Groo the Wanderer: The series has featured many once-an-issue gags in its time, from the fairly subtle 'hidden message' in each issue (usually something helpful such as 'This Is The Hidden Message'), through the ever-changing job titles given to co-writer Mark Evanier (What, Exactly, Is His Job?), to the Everyone Chasing Groo ending, complete with Spoof Aesop.
- Hawkeye: Hawkeye (2012) always starts with Clint thinking "Okay, this looks bad" or some variation of it.
- Spider-Girl: Every issue opens with "Your name is May 'Mayday' Parker, and you are the daughter of Spider-Man," or some variation of it.
Fan Works
- The majority of the videos in The Bugger Anthology have a Dalek say "Bugger!" at least once, whether it be out loud or conveyed via subtitles.
- The Dragon Ball Z Kai specials for Dragon Ball Z Abridged (except for the April Fools' Day special) each has a character giving similar self-descriptions:
Nappa: I am hilarious and you will quote everything I say.
Guru: (dying) I am hilarious... and you will quote... everything... I... say.
Adroid 16: I am hilarious and you will birds birds birds Goku.
Perfect Cell: I am perfect and you will quote everything I say.
- Almost every level in The Peer Gyntening starts with a disclaimer that it isn’t a part of Black Heart.
- In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail, the Author Appeal of food is brought about with a variety of food being described in each chapter.
- Ranma ½: The Abridged Chronicles has several once-per-episode gags, as stated by the creators. This list includes a scene with Genma as a panda with flashing yellow text exclaiming something about the panda, a boot to the head, a musical interlude (usually to draw out fight scenes), someone exclaiming "Son of a bitch," and of course, Ranma getting turned into a girl, usually without a top on. While not all of these happen each episode, they occur enough to qualify.
Ranma: Stupid one-topless-scene-per-episode contract!
- Vow of Nudity: Haara's spear gets broken or lost pretty much every story, forcing her to resort to martial arts for the rest of her current adventure.
Films — Animation
- The Disney Princesses cry at least once in their films:
- This is actually very common in Pixar films. Here are some of the most notable examples:
- John Ratzenberger is the only voice actor to appear in every single Pixar film up to and including Soul (lampshaded in a short scene during the end credits of Cars). Here are all of the characters Ratzenberger has voiced:
- The "Pizza Planet" truck, a rusty, beaten-up yellow pickup truck that appears in every single Pixar film, aside from The Incredibles. Here are all of the truck's appearances:
- Toy Story: The truck's debut. Serves as Woody and Buzz Lightyear's transportation to the Pizza Planet restaurant.
- A Bug's Life: Can be seen being parked outside of a trailer home.
- Toy Story 2: Can be seen being stolen by Andy's toys as an attempt for them all to get to an airport.
- Monsters, Inc.: See the A Bug's Life example above, as Randall is banished to that same trailer home.
- Finding Nemo: Appears during Gill's description of his escape plan. Can also be seen driving by at the end of the film during the scene where the Tank Gang finally succeed in escaping from the dentist's fish tank.
- The Incredibles is an aversion. Fans have argued for years as to if it's even in the film, but Brad Bird himself confirmed that it wasn't.
- Cars: Is anthropomorphized and is given the name "Todd".
- Ratatouille: Can be seen driving on a bridge way off in the background during the scene where Remy is chased by Skinner, but it's really hard for animation fans to spy this vehicle.
- WALL•E: Can be seen among a trash heap at the very beginning of the film.
- Up: Can be seen parked alongside a sidewalk during the scene when Carl Friedrickson's house flies away into the sky.
- Toy Story 3: Serves as Lotso and Big Baby's transportation to Sunnyside Daycare.
- Cars 2: Todd makes a reappearance in this film.
- Brave: Yes, the truck appears in this movie despite taking place in medieval Scotland. It's a Freeze-Frame Bonus when the wood carver is cutting a log.
- Monsters University: Parked outside the ROR house during the party.
- Coco: Parked in front of the Rivera shoemaking business with music playing on the radio, which Miguel's mother promptly chases off.
- Incredibles 2: Outside the building where Elastigirl captures and rescues the Screenslaver decoy. The truck likely belonged to him considering Screenslaver revealed the decoy she set up was a pizza delivery guy.
- Toy Story 4: As a tattoo on one of the carnies, making this the only Toy Story film where the truck doesn't physically appear.
- Onward: During the shot of Ian and Barley at the toll booths. It is appropriately renamed "Pizza Realm".
- Luca: In the form of a Piaggio Ape so that it doesn't look out-of-place in Portorosso. It can be seen behind Ercole◊ during the downhill portion of the race, after Ercole retrieves his harpoon, but just before Luca and Alberto merge with Ercole on the main downhill street.
- Turning Red: As Mei heads towards the Skydome in her giant red panda form, she passes it parked on her left.
- Also, A113 constantly appears in the backgrounds of all of the films (A113 is actually the name of the classroom most of the Pixar staff worked at at the California Institute of Art and Technology). Here are all of the appearances of A113:
- Toy Story: The license plate on Mrs. Davis' minivan.
- A Bug's Life: The barcode number on the cereal box used for a building for the insect city Flik visits in the film.
- Toy Story 2: A call number for LassetAir (a possible reference to John Lasseter) A113 is mentioned during the airport scene. Also, the aforementioned A113 license place makes a reappearance in the film.
- Monsters, Inc.: A sign on the wall in the background during the scene where Sulley thinks that Boo got crushed to death in the trash compactor.
- Finding Nemo: The model code on the camera the scuba divers used to stun Marlin just right after capturing Nemo
- The Incredibles: The cell Mr. Incredible is held captive inside Syndrome's lair (floor A1, cell 13). Was also mentioned earlier in the film by Mirage.
- Cars: Mater's license plate. Also, the number on Trev Diesel (the locomotive that almost hit Lightning McQueen on his way to Radiator Springs)'s headlights and running boards.
- Ratatouille: The tag on Git the lab rat's ear.
- WALL•E: Directive A113. Also, WALL•E's name.note It's actually A113 written in Leetspeak, but with a "W" added to the front
- Up: The sign in front of the courtroom Carl Friedrickson's trial was held for hitting a foreman attempting to demolish his house.
- Toy Story 3: The A113 license place returns, but it's now on a hatchback instead of a minivan.
- Cars 2: The number on Siddely (Finn McMissile's fighter jet sidekick)'s tailfin. Also, the A113 license plate makes a reappearance in this film along with Mater.
- Brave: "ACXIII" is seen above the Witch's door.
- Monsters University: The number on the door to Scaring 101.
- Cars 3: The number on the door to Sterling's office at the Rust-eze Racing Center. Mater's license plate once more.
- Incredibles 2: On the marquee at the theater Violet and Tony go to for their first date. Also seen in the model number of the out-of-control hover-train, on an oven in the Parrs' new house, and in other places.
- Onward: At the end, spoken as a police code on a walkie talkie, when a cop says, "We have a one-thirteen in progress."
- Luca: On the ticket number seen on a train ticket.
- Turning Red: Three times in the movie: the SkyDome seat number seen in the TV ad for 4*Town, the actual ticket featured in the credits, and the chalk wheelbarrow used by Jin to makeshift a stadium-sized banishing circle for Ming.
- And just about every single Pixar film has at least one cameo of a future Pixar character.
- Monsters, Inc.: Nemo.
- Finding Nemo: Mr. Incredible.
- The Incredibles: Doc Hudson.
- Lifted: Linguini.
- Ratatouille: Dug the dog.
- Your Friend the Rat: WALL•E.
- Up: Lotso Bear.
- Toy Story 3: Finn McMissile.
- Cars 2: Queen Eleanor, Princess Merida, King Fergus, and the Royal Triplets as cars...
- Air Mater: Skipper and Sparky (Not technically a Pixar film, but under Lasseter's watch).
- Brave: One of the witch's relief carvings depicts Sulley.
- Coco: There is a poster with the Incredibles 2 emblem on it on a wall in Santa Cecilia, visible in one of the scenes where Miguel runs home.
- Luca: A reference to Turning Red was included, but, according to the director, "It’s very well hidden and we don’t want to spoil any surprises for Turning Red. So that might be more of a later reveal." It was eventually discovered by a fan with Enrico confirming it, that the music record in Giulia's room is by "4*Villaggi", an Italian parody of the in-universe Boy Band from that film, 4*Town.
- Turning Red: A sticker of Sox appears on Miriam's skateboard. A promotional poster also features said sticker.
- Elemental: Ooooo appears in the crowd at a sports game.
- Speaking of Toy Story, the joke with Buzz believing himself to be a genuine space ranger is present in the first three movies: Buzz's character arc in Toy Story, Utility Belt Buzz in Toy Story 2, and Spanish Buzz in Toy Story 3.
- The four Toy Story films also each have one instance where Buzz's voice button is pressed repeatedly, causing him to emit, "Buzz—Buzz—Buzz—Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!"
- Shrek films have Shrek saying "Better out than in, I always say." This includes the pinball machine. Fiona says it in the fourth one, though.
Literature
- Animorphs: There will be a meeting in Cassie's barn.
- With a few exceptions, the first few pages of each book are spent explaining of the series' premise (Puppeteer Parasites are invading the Earth, they could be anyone, we can turn into animals but have to keep it a secret or they'll kill us), beginning with the line "My name is (Rotating Protagonist)." If you've read this once you can pretty much skip it in any other book.
- The Cat in the Stacks Mysteries: In each book Charlie is in, the narration (or Charlie himself) mentions that Chief Deputy Sheriff Kanesha is related to Charlie's housekeeper Azalea.
- Discworld: Death has at least one cameo in almost every book, except the ones where he's the main character, Snuff, and The Wee Free Men the one book that is actually all about bereavement, strangely.
- The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden has an alarming tendency to end up underdressed and beat to crap every book. Lampshaded by Bob in the tabletop RPG rulebook.
- There are several bits you can always count on being in every single Encyclopedia Brown book:
- The opening chapter has Chief Brown bringing a case home to dinner which his son is able to solve.
- The second chapter has Encyclopedia helping a kid out with Bugs Meaney.
- The next chapter has Bugs trying to set up Encyclopedia and Sally for a crime. This will usually involve a retelling of how Sally punched Bugs' lights out years before and thus he wants revenge.
- Wilford Wiggins will call a big rally for his latest get rich quick scam that Encyclopedia busts.
- Save for the last one, every Harry Potter book has the following elements:
- The Dursleys having an unfortunate encounter with magic at the start of the book.
- Harry leaving the Dursleys, though each time using a different method of travelling (car, flying car, knight bus, floo network, broom, apparating and finally a flying motorcycle).
- There's a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in every book. They always end up somehow playing a significant role in the book's greater plot and wind up attacking Harry. It turns out this is because Tom Riddle cursed the position after their application for the job was rejected a second time.
- Before Half Blood Prince, every book had one scene where Harry and at least one of his friends wound up in the Forbidden Forest, even though it was off limits to students.
- Books by Max Hastings usually have titles that end with the year or years of the events in question, e.g. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975, or Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled to Malta 1942. This is individually unremarkable for military history, but it's rather striking when you see ten of them together on the "Also by this author" page.
- In P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, particularly the early ones, Bertie and Jeeves disagree about something about Bertie's attire, and Bertie puts his foot down. Then, after Jeeves has saved the day, Bertie relents.
- A Mage's Power: A bird will poop on Nolien in every chapter he appears in.
- Every book in the Mary Poppins series has a strict formula:
- Mary Poppins takes the children to visit a quirky relative of hers.
- Mary Poppins tells the children a story, usually involving fairytale elements.
- One of the kids usually does something bad and is karmically punished for it.
- Every book in Pan Kleks Series ends with the titular character turning into something: a button, a bottle of ink or a bird.
- In the Rainbow Magic series, once per series (usually), the girls travel to Jack Frost's Ice Castle to retrieve an especially guarded item.
- An alarming number of The Shadow novels included The Shadow or one of his agents (usually Harry Vincent) being temporarily captured by the novel's villain. In at least one instance note "Crime, Insured", the villain managed to kidnap The Shadow's entire network of agents.
- In A Song of Ice and Fire, every novel begins with a prologue chapter from a new or minor character's point-of-view who dies at the end of the chapter, or shortly thereafter.
- Stephanie Plum gets a car destroyed.
- Each book in the Uglies series begins with party crashing.
- All the Wayside School books (except for the arithmetic ones as they are not structured like the other books) ended with the last sentence being, "Everyone (Word That Rhymes With Ooed)".
- Every main series book in Wings of Fire except for The Dark Secret features the protagonist running into some scavengers and deciding to spare their lives due to noticing they're more intelligent than they seem and/or they're very cute.
Music
- Old Crow Medicine Show seems contractually obliged to record at least one song about drugs per album.
- Metallica, DragonForce and quite a few other Metal artists seem to have a "one ballad per album" rule.
- Almost every Pink Floyd album of the Roger Waters era had at least one song Fading into the Next Song and nearly each album was a Concept Album.
- Type O Negative had at least one Cover Version per album on every album apart from Slow Deep And Hard and Dead Again. (the rerelease of Slow Deep And Hard features their cover of Hey Joe (Called Hey Pete) as a bonus track, however).
- Iron Maiden had one or two Epic Rocking tracks per album until they decided to make every song on the album an epic from A Matter Of Life And Death onwards. They would also make sure to have at least one historical song named after a war film.
- Fun Lovin' Criminals admit they have to include at least one 'stoner jam' on each album (the song they were referring to was Rewind from Classic Fantastic)
- Crowded House claimed to have included a reference to a kitchen on every album. It was true until they regrouped in 2007.
- All of The Beatles albums have a track where George Harrison sings lead (mostly the ones he wrote) and all but two have one track allowing Ringo Starr to Step Up to the Microphone.
- All the Garbage albums end with a depressing ballad.
- Every Grottomatic album casually mentions bees at least once. There is also at least one song in every album about My Little Pony.
- Brad Paisley usually has an instrumental (as he is a virtuoso lead guitarist as well as a singer-songwriter), a gospel song, and, at least from the second album, a track featuring old-time country singers or comedians he is a fan/friend on most to all of his albums. Usually, they're all located towards the end.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic:
- Every In This Moment album has the lyric "in this moment" in at least one of the songs.
- Every studio album by The B-52s apart from (the EP) Mesopotamia and (the reunion album) Funplex includes a song about animals - Rock Lobster, Quiche Lorraine, Big Bird, Juicy Jungle, Junebug and The World's Green Laughter. This is because all of its members are animal lovers.
- Zac Brown Band always includes a beachy up-tempo song on every album: "Toes" on The Foundation, "Knee Deep" on You Get What You Give, "Jump Right In" on Uncaged, and "Castaway" on Jekyll + Hyde. As a bonus, all four were released as singles in the summertime.
- Every Vylet Pony album since Cutiemarks has featured the sample of 'Sing a song about life' introduced as an important thematic motif in that album.
Podcasts
Puppet Shows
- The Big Garage: The taxis would always sing a song related to what's going on in the episode at some point (for example, Mimi sang a song about her going to the Big Garage for the first time in the episode "Welcome to the Big Garage"), and they would give the song a reprise near the end of the episode.
- Blue's Room: Every episode begins with Blue spinning the playdate spinner to determine the theme of the playdate for the episode.
- The Sesame Street UK Spin-Off The Furchester Hotel has three:
- A monster banging a gong, at which monsters appear out of the rooms, shout "Tea time!" and collide with everyone in reception in their hurry to get to the dining room.
- Either the song "A Furchester Never Gives Up" or "A Furchester Catastrophe". (Season 2 adds "We Can Solve Any Problem".)
- The characters coming up with a solution to the problem of the week by "putting our furry heads together".
- The Mr. Potato Head Show: Most episodes had Betty the Kitchen Fairy appear to deliver an aesop and call out the characters on jerkish behavior. If there's a problem like a monster chasing the characters, though, she won't intervene to save them. Most episodes also have a song in them.
Radio
- Sometime close to the bottom of the hour on NPR's Weekend Edition, usually just after the sport segment, host Scott Simon shoehorns a connection between the next story and the fact that B. J. Liederman wrote their theme music.
- I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue featured many, including the game Mornington Crescent (usually preceded by reading a fan letter from Mrs Trellis) and the introduction of the pianist Colin Sell:
Humph: When music experts hear Colin's compositions, they say he could have been another Berlin, Porter, or anybody else employed by the German State Railway.
- In Old Harry's Game the majority of episodes will have the Professor and Satan making a bet, most commonly about morality and something bad would happen to Thomas.
- Every episode of Marcus Brigstocke's The Brig Society opens with Marcus explaining that he was at his local library and Maureen from Volunteer Services inspired the theme of the show. (In series 1 the themes were actually allocated to him as voluntary positions, in series 2 Maureen's influence is less direct.)
Roleplay
- In Destroy the Godmodder, every game an Eldritch Abomination called "The Glitch" starts breaking down reality itself and threatens to destroy wherever the players are. In addition, there's usually an early-game Ravine bridging event, a usually early-game event wherein the Battlefield is divided by a massive Ravine with unusually powerful gravitational forces to prevent attacks from affecting other factions. This crevasse must always be bridged to complete the challenge and resume attacking the Godmodder.
Sports
- In the US, at least, most major sporting events begin with the playing of the national anthem. In the NHL, many games start with two anthems—league rules require that when US and Canadian teams play one another, both anthems are played. The Buffalo Sabres, located in a city on the border and enjoying a significant local fanbase on the Canadian side, play both anthems regardless of the opponent.
- Basically all matches involving full national teams, whatever the sport, start with the playing of both national anthems, with the home team's last. An exception is at the Ireland national rugby union team's matches held in the Republic of Ireland, when three anthems are played—the away team's anthem; the Republic's anthem of Amhrán na bhFiann; and finally "Ireland's Call", an anthem specially composed for the Ireland team, which includes players from both the Republic and the North.note When Ireland plays outside of the Republic, it only uses "Ireland's Call". Several other "all-Ireland" national teams (i.e., those representing the entire island) have adopted that anthem.
- At every Notre Dame football home game, without fail, the 1812 Overture will play at the end of the third quarter, after which an Indiana state trooper will dispense safety advice that concludes with an incredibly lame pun.
- At the end of the third quarter of every Wisconsin Badgers home football game, "Jump Around" is played over the sound system. The home fans... do just that.
- Similarly to the above example, every Liberty Flames home football game has "Don't Stop Believin'" play during the break between the 3rd and 4th quarters.
Theatre
- In the Farndale Avenue plays, each presented as a production by the disaster-prone Farndale Avenue Dramatic Society:
- Mrs Reece walks on stage, realizes she's left a prop behind, and gestures into the wings for a stagehand to pass it out to her. The stagehand gives her an accordion.
- At the end of the interval, Mrs Reece leads a competition with audience interaction.
- Mrs Reece remarks that she noticed audience members leaving hurriedly/muttering that they can't take any more, without realising that they're reacting to how bad the production is.
Web Animation
- Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two: A character performs a Skyward Scream that transitions into the show's opening sequence. A Double Subversion occurs in episode 13 when Two is the character that does it only for nothing to happen—and then Gaty does it instead.
- Dr. Havoc's Diary: "Dear Diary..."
- DSBT InsaniT:
- (Evil) Balloon dieing.
- Killdra suddenly appearing from behind Koden.
- Andy saying "You're gonna give me X without the Y if you keep doing that." to Martha after she slaps him.
- Alex complaining about the place they chose to go to at the start of the episode.
- Launchpad getting kicked into the air by someone in the Ducktalez series.
- Animation Domination Hi-Def's recurring "Scientifically Accurate" series: The very first episode was "Scientifically Accurate Spider-Man", which repeatedly mentioned the fact that male spiders detach their penises in order to mate, and ever since then, every episode has gone out of its way to include some strange scientific fact about characters' genitalia, or at the very least shoehorn the word "dick" into the parody lyrics.
- Parodied in Homestar Runner, where Strong Bad specifically says that once an episode of Sweet Cuppin' Cakes, Eh! Steve! shows up to deliver his catchphrase.
Eh! Steve!: "Eh! Steve!"
- Madness Combat: The opening card, which barring a few changes, has always read 'Somewhere in Nevada...'
- Shrapnel: In the figurine review episodes hosted by Potato, part of the review will be her judging the figure on how well it can do a squat, to demonstrate how flexible (or not) it’s leg & foot joints are.
- One Minute Fly: Each mainline installment opens with a fly hatching from an egg and being confronted by the giant timer representing its imminent mortality.
Webcomics
Web Original
- Dream:
- During the beginning, Dream says, "Also according to YouTube's statistics only a small percentage of people who watch my videos are actually subscribed, so if you end up liking this video consider subscribing. It's free and you can always unsubscribe. Enjoy the video."
- Dream always starts the videos by tricking the hunters into distracting themselves, then running off while they're too busy to notice he's already started. It'd be easier to count the times he doesn't do this.
- Every Minecraft Manhunt feels incomplete without hearing the words: "Oh, Dream!"
- In pretty much every episode, Dream has at least one or two tricks or traps to try out against the hunters. There's usually at least one for every point in the run (the initial resource-gathering, the Nether run, the Ender Pearl hunting, and the End fight).
Web Videos
- The Annoying Orange: "Hey Troper!" "What?" "Knife."
- Baumgartner Restoration: He will invariably remark that a subject's skin is "not jaundiced" while he's cleaning up yellowed varnish (or, gods forbid, polyurethane).
- Chubbyemu: "...-emia meaning presence in blood." Bernard will almost always discuss blood condition with this phrase, often when the patient of the episode develops one. It's often thrown into episodes where the patient doesn't contract a blood condition, such as the "2 liters of fiber supplement" episode mentioning how fiber supplement helps against hypercholestrolemia.
- CinemaSins: Almost every video opens with Jeremy complaining about the movie showing too many logos.
- Epic Meal Time:
- "Next time, we eat x!" where x is something outlandish or impossible to eat, but subverted in The Slaughterhouse: "Next time, we eat dessert!" Sure enough, next week was The Black Legend: two girls eating a gigantic crepe.
- Someone in the comments will make a joke about African famines.
- Every episode of Achievement Hunter's Game Night series, save for a few early ones, would be punctuated by Gavin interrupting Geoff and Caleb to shout "WHAT IS GAME NIGHT?!", usually near the beginning. One episode revolved around Michael's attempt to prevent him from saying it, by wrestling him to the ground and covering his mouth until the end of the episode. He succeeds, but Ray says it at the end in Gavin's place.
- Kentucky Ballistics has quite a few running gags, but one thing never changes: the tables that the host Scott DeShields sets up to place his targets are always destroyed at the end.
- Every Ke$ha song parody by The Key of Awesome, includes Ke$ha's disapproving parents.
- Matthew Santoro starts out most of his early videos by showing a comedic video clip to his audience.
- Phelous dies once per episode. Granted there seem to be one-ups roaming around his house, and something to do with Time Travel or cloning or the fact it might be partially in the Mortal Kombat verse oh I give up, I don't know.
- On Reel Geek Girls, Drew Ryan often asks his guests to mime hitting themselves with a frying pan due to his love for the movie Tangled. He used to ask them to make a funny face but that has since been phased out.
- Screen Rant Pitch Meetings features a number of recurring jokes that happen at least once an episode:
- The executive will begin the video by asking, "So, you have a movie for me?" The writer responds, "Yes, sir, I do!"
- When the executive predicts that a plot challenge will be difficult to overcome, the writer immediately shoots him down by saying, "Actually it'll be super easy! Barely an inconvenience!" The executive responds, "Oh, really?"
- After the writer mentions a general subject, the executive interjects that the thing mentioned is "tight."
- When the writer describes something shocking or upsetting, the executive responds, "Oh! My god!"
- When the executive points out a plot hole, the writer responds, "Oh, whoops!" The executive agrees with a "Whoopsie!" and they both move right on.
- The pitch ends with the writer or executive making an assertion that is immediately contradicted by cutting to the image of a Screen Rant news headline.
- Almost every episode features some variant of the following exchange: "Why?" "I don't know!" "Fair enough." (Other common variants include "Why?" "Because!" "That works.", and "Why?" "Unclear!" "Well, okay then.")
- Thorgi's Arcade: Every episode of Build the Roster always include a segment at the beginning where Thorgi figures out how many playable characters should be included in the hypothetical game.
- The TRY Channel usually has two participants, at the end of the video, ask the viewer to subscribe, and "hit the notification bell". How successful they are in getting this out depends on if the participants are laughing too much over some joke. Or, if it was a drinking episode.
- Uncleared Zero Point Zero: The dreaded #DGR level will be among the uncleared levels DGR plays in every episode, no exceptions.
- On the YouTube page for WhatCulture.Com,
- Whenever Jules Gill hosts a video list, he will invariably include a crass Your Mom joke, adding, "There's my one-per-list". Starting in Spring 2020 he appears to have stopped doing this, having stated he thinks that they've run their course.
- Starting around early 2019, Jules has taken to closing most of his videos with a heartfelt message to his listeners, telling them they should look after themselves, that they deserve success, love and happiness and if they're struggling through life it's okay to take a step back and to get help from friends, family or professionals.
- World War Two: Every episode except the first one begins with Indy in a Newhart Phonecall at his desk, usually saying a few lines that foreshadow the content of the episode before hanging up.
- Yuro: In a guide video about a ship, expect a segment about the ship dodging torpedoes while intense Eurobeat plays.
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