Fully-Automatic Clip Show

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A sequence which consists mainly of very small clips of (usually) a single action, Catch Phrase or Verbal Tic from previous episodes of a series played in rapid succession. When it's part of the show itself, it usually appears as part of a Clip Show or Recap Episode; even when it isn't, there are often fan-made videos. This is commonly used in commercials and advertisements to really remind the viewer what the show or character's name is, even though chances are they already know.

A Fully Automatic Clip Show is usually triggered by a character hanging a lampshade on another character's annoying habit.

See also Hive Mind Testimonial, and this extensive catalog of fan-made examples.


Examples of Fully-Automatic Clip Show include:

In-Series Examples

Anime

Film

  • One of the easter eggs on The Incredibles DVD is a montage of every button that gets pressed, every door that opens or closes, and every explosion from the entire movie.
  • An easter egg of Snatch has it with Cluster F Bombs and violence (you have the option to bleep it, making it even more hilarious).
  • The closing credits of Howling II repeats a shot of Sybil Danning (as Stirba the Werewolf Bitch) ripping off her top and baring her breasts seventeen times, interspersed with random reaction shots from the rest of the film.
  • An extra on the DVD release of Crackerjack has a montage of every instance of swearing in the film, with a graphic of the swear and a counter up. It goes for about a minute and gets to $16.00.
  • The DVD version of In Bruges has this as a bonus feature, compiling all the swearing in the film. Very amusing lampshade at the end.

Live Action TV

  • In one episode of Home Improvement, a friend's house blows up and Tim spends the rest of the episode vigorously denying that he was at fault (he triggered it, but completely unwittingly). The credits for that episode replaced the usual Hilarious Outtakes with all the times Tim exclaimed "I didn't blow up his house!", followed by, of course, the clip of the house blowing up.
  • One episode of The Office showed a bunch of clips of Stanley being "abrupt" with people.
    • This was also utilized for Oscar's "Actually..." sequence in the seventh season episode "China", though it wasn't made of actual past clips.
  • The finale of That '70s Show had one for Red with his threats of shoving his foot up people's asses.
  • Used several times in the clip show episode of Scrubs: dancing, falling over, being mean to each other, being nice to each other, hugging, etc.
  • The Daily Show and The Colbert Report do this on news clips just about every time there's a new buzz word making the rounds, or, even better, if a politician denies ever making a statement when, in fact, they have stated it many, many times in the past.
  • The pre-finale clip show for Seinfeld featured a montage of various bizarre noises made by all four main characters (surprisingly, Kramer really doesn't get more time here than anyone else).
  • The finale of Alice featured a series of these: rapid-fire clips of all the celebrities who had been on the show, for example, or of Alice's son Tommy coming into the diner and saying "Hi, mom!" over and over (and growing up a little each time, which was the point).
  • The series finale of Boy Meets World had a few of these in addition to being a regular clip show. One consisted of the various Big Yes moments throughout the series and of Eric's "Feeny Call".
  • The season finale of Farscape started with a "Previously On" recap consisting entirely of a few frames from every episode of the series.
  • The season 5 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer also begins with a "Previously On" segment that starts off with regular clips from the first episode then eventually getting faster until you can't even make out the scenes depicted, showing the entire series up to this point.
  • Allison Dubois from Medium communicates with the dead through the medium of the Catapult Nightmare, at least one or two per episode. One episode showed all her catapults in quick succession.

Music

  • There's a 54-second track tacked on to the end of Warrant's album Cherry Pie, entitled "Ode To Tipper Gore". It's a collection of profanity from live concerts, spliced together as a massive Take That to Tipper, who was the driving force behind the PMRC hearings in The Eighties and ultimately one of those responsible for the "Parental Advisory" sticker on music. The album has a "Parental Advisory" sticker solely because of this track.

Radio

  • On the 6music Adam and Joe Podcast 'Buckets of Scorn' (28 November 2008), they talked about their habit of saying 'umm' and 'ahh' too often. They mention a piece of audio that a listener sent in which was just all the 'umm's and 'ahh's played back-to-back. Adam and Joe put together a montage of all the 'umm's and 'ahh's from fifteen minutes of a previous podcast. Then the set it to music. It is awesome.[1] [dead link]

Stand Up Comedy

Video Games

  • Mega Man 9 ends with Dr. Wily pleading to the title character for mercy. Mega Man promptly calls Rush to broadcast a short video of similar incidents in the past.
  • BioShock (series) has the "Would you kindly?" recap.

Web Animation

Web Comics

  • This Eight Bit Theater has a montage of the times Black Mage has said that he hates Thief. Except if you compare this comic to those same scenes in the archive, BM didn't actually say it in most of them. Also, the bit lifted from Boondock Saints didn't happen.

Web Original

  • The Yogscast's YoGPoD played a clip that showed every time Lewis, Simon and Hannah had begun a sentence with "The thing is..." up that point on the podcast.
  • This fan-made video is an assemblage of times the Loading Ready Run crew have said "fuck".

Western Animation

  • In The Simpsons episode So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show, there's an unbroken sequence of over 30 clips of Homer saying "D'oh".
    • They like to do this often in The Simpsons: There's a long sequence of clips of Mr. Burns laughing near the start of the episode $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling).
    • There's at least three in Another Simpsons Clip Show: a 'Moe's Tavern prank call' montage, a 'Mmmm... something' montage and a Homer and Marge kissing montage.
    • The beginning of "How the Test Was Won" features a myriad of clips where Homer gets injured in some fashion.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures had one of Jade saying "Duh" and Uncle saying "One more thing!" it happened very fast, as both Jade an Uncle were watching, they got sick of it after a while.
  • Shadow Raiders, during Graveheart's Refusal of the Call: "I'm just a miner", repeated as a leadup to some Epiphany Therapy.
  • Clone High: All the times Joan slipped up when hiding she loves Abe.
  • An episode of South Park uses this, when Cartman asks Kyle when he's ever made fun of him for being a Jew, which is followed by a solid minute of clips of Cartman doing exactly that. Followed by Cartman "admitting" there was "that one time."
  • Totally Spies!: In the Clip Show where they were trapped in an elevator, there were several: Clover falls in love with a hot boy they meet on an adventure; Alex trips; etc.
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force: In the episode "Grim Reaper Gutters" Master Shake asks when has Frylock ever saved him or Meatwad. Cue a rapid fire montage of Frylock saving them repeatedly ending. It turns out the Aqua Teens are watching a montage Fry created himself and set to rock music.
  • In the first episode of Drawn Together, Toot, trying to stir up tension between Xandir and his girlfriend, tells her that Xandir has never mentioned having a girlfriend, upon which there is a montage of Xandir mentioning his girlfriend over and over. Later, Captain Hero is complaining about how all Xandir does is talk about his girlfriend, upon which there is a montage of Xandir saying lots of other random things (but never mentioning his girlfriend).
  • On The Boondocks, when Riley's favorite rapper begins endorsing feminine products, Huey points out that Riley doesn't notice despite his tendency to refer to things as "gay", triggering a series of clips to prove his point.
  • Pinky and The Brain had one with numerous clips of Pinky saying his Catch Phrases ("Narf!" "Poit!" "Egad, Brain, brilliant!"), as well as a selection of Pinky's responses to Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering? and a bunch of clips of Brain hitting Pinky.
  • In the King of the Hill episode "The Texas Skillsaw Massacre" when attending his new friend Big Jim's funeral who had just died from a massive heart attack and Peggy tells Hank if he continues to lose his temper he could end up like him, and Hank thinks back to the times where he lost his temper from various clips of his anger outbursts through out the show.
  • In an episode of Squidbillies, Early says he's not a violent person and the other say they beg to differ and it cuts to a montage of some of his most violent moments.
  • What's so notable about the Clerks the Animated Series clip show? It was on the SECOND episode!
  • On the season four Daria episode, "Anti-Social Climbers," Mr. O'Neill suddenly suffers from an asthma attack while hiking in the woods (to make matters worse, his inhaler runs out of medicine). Ms. Li tells the class that she's not canceling the trip and someone will have to short-rope Mr. O'Neill. Pan to Ms. Barch, who thinks back to a Gone with the Wind-style scene where she vows never to carry another man's weight again—followed by a Fully Automatic Clip show of the three times she's made out with Mr. O'Neill (in a tent during the paintball trip on "The Daria Hunter," in the fortuneteller's booth on "Fair Enough," and in the sinking casino cruise on "Just Add Water.")
  • The Duckman episode "Clip Job" features Duckman being held hostage and the man showing him various clips of his rude behavior including a montage of him saying "What the hell are you staring at?" and the various times up to that point he had killed Fluffy and Uranus.
  • Phineas and Ferb - Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama!, If I had a nickel for every time...
    • After showingone of these- eg. catch-phrases, rare sentences, etc, onlookers tend to look slightly baffled. This is the average conversation.

Onlooker: Was I supposed to see something?
Phineas: Nah. Its a clip-show thing.

Used As Advertising

Fan-Made Examples

Anime

Film: Specific

Film: General

Live-Action TV

Western Animation

Miscellaneous

Music

Video Games

Web Original

Other Sites