Large Ham Announcer

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
GGOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLL![1]

What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome? Looks like your audience needs some convincing, and that's where the announcers come in. Adding a classic sports play-by-play or color-commentary announcer, or a movie trailer-type announcer is an easy way to make anything more dramatic, more exciting, more thrilling. Large Ham Announcers are particularly effective. For a variant, rather than one of the loud announcer styles, you can go with the whispering golf-announcer style instead.

See also In a World. For being applied to works of fiction, see Lemony Narrator. May overlap with Cuckoolander Commentator. Compare Large Ham Radio.

Examples of Large Ham Announcer include:

Announcers in Particular

Advertising

Anime and Manga

Film

  • Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace: That two-headed announcer for the podraces wouldn't shut up about how awesome everything was. And, funnily enough, the podrace announcer speaking Basic was voiced by Greg Proops, who was also Howard "Buckshot" Holmes.
  • Dodgeball notably does something to this trope — possibly Not a Subversion — by having announcers make everything funnier. Jason Bateman's character in particular is an absolute riot.
  • Similarly, the announcers in Best in Show make the dog show even funnier, especially as they're an Odd Couple - one a genteel English dog-breeding expert and the other a desperately misplaced American Football commentator.

Live-Action TV

Professional Wrestling

  • Professional Wrestling makes particular use of this trope, alternating between flat-out amazement at things they see every week and patter about the ongoing storylines.

Video Games

Howard: Well, it looks like there are no more people left for Jack to kill.
Kreese: Yeah, but Jack could still defile the bodies.
Howard: How so?
Kreese: You know, take trophies and stuff; check out my necklace of human ears!
Howard: Check out my stream of projectile vomit! * vomiting noises *
Kreese: Ah, dude, did you have potatoes and corn?
Howard: Yes, I did.

  • Video games based on Professional Wrestling seem to have far more storage space dedicated to announcer patter than any other audio in the game. And yet they still manage to repeat lines multiple times in the same match.
  • The Blood Bowl video game that was released in 2010 would probably be a lot less amusing without the color commentary provided by two offscreen announcers, which include a former-player ogre and a nebbishy-sounding vampire. "Ooh! Bob, I haven't seen a hit like that since the time I walked in on an argument between you and your wife!" "What can I say, Jim, that little lady sure packs a punch!"
  • Eggman, of all people, in Sonic Colors. Snarky announcements from Sonic's nemesis will often play over a PA system in each level (coinciding with the theme that all the stages are part of Eggman's "amusement park"). Since the game's script was written by the guys behind MadWorld, these, too, are some of the best parts of the game.

Eggman: We here at Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park consider ourselves the universe's first fully Green amusement park! Although the green is from all the nausea and vomiting, but still, green is green!

"In the next test, you will utilize the laws of momentum to allow movement through portals. If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you."

"Perhaps the worst throw in Frog-dogs history, RRREAALLY RREAALLLY TERRRIBLE!"

"Harley tells me the Batman's car is still parked right outside Intensive Treatment. We can't have him up and leave us! Every thug, villain, murderer and kindergarten teacher that isn't carrying out party orders should head there now and smash it to pieces!"

"Today's special offer: half-price hair replacement!"

"FATALITY!"

  • Killer Instinct: "C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!"
  • Fossil Fighters has P.A. Leon and Slate Johnson, giving you their professional, totally unbiased commentary... as they cheer you on.
  • Dance Dance Revolution, though YMMV on the "awesome" part. Even if the announcer is turned off, he will still ham it up at the results screen. His ham overrides the setting.
  • Modnation Racers has two commmentators, Biff Tradwell and Gary Reasons. Biff is a hammy, arrogant jerk (who never wears pants behind the desk for some reason) while Gary is rather timid and constantly having to fend off Biff's insults. At the end of the career mode, Gary retaliates by administering a Vulcan Neck Pinch on Biff The dialogue is quite funny.
  • The announcer from Unreal Tournament was so memorable, the voice clip was stolen for Warcraft 3 genre-changing mod Defense of the Ancients.
  • The menu announcer of the arcade boat racing game Hydro Thunder is commonly known for yelling absolutely everything you do, including naming any track or boat you choose.
  • Mickey Cantor in Monday Night Combat, who is a direct descendant of Andres Cantor, the soccer announcer pictured at the top of the page. Not only is he an extremely energetic play-by-play announcer ("It's kill city out there, fans! The mortality rate is at an all time HI-OOOH!"), he's also an expert corporate mouthpiece ("Aptilube! Patience, practice and persistence now come in bottle form!"). He seems to especially enjoy encouraging the pros—and any fans who happen to have brought their sniper rifles from home—to kill MNC mascot Bullseye.
  • The DJ's of Ridge Racer series are this in general, Ridge Racer 6 and 3D take the cake, though.

"ULTIMATE CHARGE!"

  • The Taris Duel Arena announcer in Knights of the Old Republic.
  • X-Men Legends has one. "COMBO!"
  • Rock And Roll Racing. "LET THE CARNAGE BEGIN!"
  • With a name like Super Meat Boy, it's only fitting that the game has a ham-tastic announcer. See the title screen? SUUUPER MEAT BOOOY! Use a cheat code to play as a secret character? POOSH DA BUTTONS! Enter a warp-zone? WARP ZOOOOOONE!

Web Original

  • The introductory episode 0 of International Competition Miss Mars, a fetish fiction centering on two announcers that later appear to cover recaps of the following episodes. The competition? Extreme Pregnancy that makes Octomom look like an everyday case.
  • The Announcer from Homestar Runner, who appeared in the early toons and made a return in 2006.
  • Let's Play videos features someone narrating their playing of a video game.
  • Improv Everywhere made a major improvement when they gave a major league set up, which included sports announcers, to a kids' baseball game.

Western Animation

Computer: PRRRRROCESSING!

  • Futurama, mostly in their...TALES! OF! INTEREST!
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Spike, who through the course of the first season discovers his enjoyment of announcing things like footraces and/or fisticuffs (hooficuffs?) and fashion shows. He takes great pride and hamminess in this.

Real Life

  • In the early days of radio and television, all newscasters were hammy. Today this behavior is restricted to sports commentators. And newscasters who used to be sports commentators.[2]
  • Gary Owen was another hammy announcer.
  • In Atlanta, GA, the actor who is most commonly known as the voice of Space Ghost is not only hammy, but uses the Space Ghost voice when announcing for other products or events for the recognition factor.
  1. Yes, we know white has both bishops on white squares. Complain to Geico, it's their ad. Besides, they could have underpromoted. For some reason.
  2. eg Keith Olbermann.