Loud of War: Difference between revisions

Line 24:

* [[Haruhi Suzumiya]] with her megaphone.

* One of the "banned" episodes of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' featured the Team Rocket trio torturing the Safari Warden by (among other things) making him listen to Meowth's singing.

** In the ''Pokémon Chronicles'' series, Butch and Cassidy of Team Rocket attempt to torture information out of Professor Oak with the sound of a nail scraping on glass.

* Almost a meta-subversion: In ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'', the singing of Lynn Minmay was inspirational to the humans and a psychological weapon of mass destruction to the Zentradi. The voicework for Minmei's singing in the [[Macekre|English adaptation]] ''[[Robotech]]'', however, is considered [[Your Mileage May Vary|by some]] to be so god-awfully grating that they accept the latter description as accurate. [[Fanfic|Fanfics]] sometimes portray it in exactly those terms. Others feel the same way about the original.

** Hey, the same thing goes with the princesses' and demons' voices in ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' -- and Caren can't carry a tune herself.

Line 45:

== Film ==

* The Knights who say Ni from ''[[Monty Python and ~~The~~ Holy Grail]]''.

* The Knights who say Ni from ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]''.

* In ''[[Eat Drink Man Woman]]'', after Jia-Jen gets completely frustrated by her neighbor's loud karaoke sessions, she drags two large speakers from the living room, point them towards the neighbors, and begins playing classical music at full blast.

* The bad toys in ''[[Small Soldiers]]'' did this. In between various homemade guns, flame-throwers, cannons and whatnot that they used to lay siege to the good guys' home, there were two large speakers. Upon powerup they started playing "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls, prompting one of the good guys (a company tech, his password was 'gizmo') to exclaim "psychological warfare!" while the tipsy wife of the electronics fetishist exclaimed "I love this song!"

Line 59:

* Taken Up To Eleven in the [[Gag Dub]] movie ''[[J-Men Forever]]'' where the evil Lightning Bug's rock and roll runs cars off the road, destroys buildings and eventually the Moon after he cranks up his stereo too loud.

* In ''[[The Expendables]]'', Hale Caesar mentions how the sound of the AA-12 automatic shotgun is just as effective as any weapon on the battlefield. Never mind that it ''[[More Dakka|fires shotgun shells at something like]] [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|110 per minute.]]''

* In ''[[Ace Ventura]]: When Nature Calls'' the titular detective's interrogation technique involves scratching a fork and knife on a plate.

* Another film example with a ghost, in ''[[Just Like Heaven]]'' Elizabeth is ''functionally'' a ghost and is singing inceasently to get David to stop ignoring her.

* In ''[[Mad Max|Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome]]'', Max uses a dog whistle to defeat Blaster in the Thunderdome arena.

Line 72:

* ''[[Comrade Death]]'', a short story by Gerald Kersh, [[Arms Dealer]] Sarek attends a demonstration of a competitor's machine gun. Seeing an opportunity, he bribes the competitor's band to drown out the sales pitch with an obnoxious and blaring military march and he hijacks the sale.

* In [[Neal Stephenson]]'s ''[[The Big U]]'', two roommates at American Megaversity fight a vicious stereo war with each other -- one playing punk rock at deafening volumes, the other playing bombastic classical music even more loudly.

* In the [[Discworld]], we learn of [[Wales|Llamedosian]] battle choirs supported by specially reinforced battle-harps, who can set up subsonic harmonies that can make an enemy feel very ill indeed, or cause his fortress walls to collapse.

** The Pictsie folk have a battle-bard called the Gonnagal, who altenates {{William [[Mc Gonnagal]] awful poetry}} with the supersonic mousepipes, the least excruciating effect of which is to cause ear-wax to melt and run.

* The Biblical story of Jericho.

* One of [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s Serrated Edge books has a captured hero drive his telepathic jailers insane by mentally singing [[They Might Be Giants]] songs.

Line 86:

* On ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Mohinder knows his [[You Killed My Father|mortal nemesis]] Sylar has absorbed the power of super-hearing. His hearing is so keen he can hear other people's breathing and heartbeats, and in fact suffered terrible headaches from the noise. So when Mohinder goes to torture Sylar, what does he do? He strikes a ''tuning fork'' and holds it up next to Sylar's ear in all of its shrill, discordant glory and lets Sylar scream for mercy.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has done this a time or two, with the Doctor's [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|sonic screwdriver.]] Once it's plugged into a pair of speakers, he's [[Foregone Conclusion|pretty much won.]]

* The ''[[Millennium (TV series)|Millennium]]'' episode "A Room with No View" where two boys are locked in room. Throughout it you can hear some kind of music playing, and yes, it's annoying after a while.

* Done in ''[[Space Cases]]'' by the evil twins in "The Trouble with Doubles".

* Desperate for a job, [[Greg the Bunny]] pestered his roommate Jimmy into calling his dad by saying his name over and over again to the cadence of a car alarm.

* At the end of an episode of ''[[Babylon 5]]'', Marcus Cole and Dr. Franklin are stuck in the cargo hold of a freighter together. Marcus is bored, and is playing with a collapsible staff, which is annoying Franklin. Marcus says, "Would you rather I sing?" and then starts off into a rendition of the [[Major-General Song]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQ-y589mx8 The song continues into the credits], until Franklin can't take any more of it and finally screams.

** In another episode, Londo tries to put one over on the technomage Elric. He [[Disproportionate Retribution|retaliates]] by (among other things) blasting Narn opera into Londo's quarters.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Survivors," Deanna Troi is unexpectedly hit with music that won't leave her mind and drives her insane, specifically so she won't be able to use her mind-reading powers on the local [[Physical God]].

* The annoyance factor is probably why the ''[[Amazing Race]]'' production crew often hires musicians to play at a couple tasks a season.

* During the navigation segment of ''[[James May's Man Lab|James Mays Man Lab]]'', Dodger the dog must be "traumatized" in order to make the Powder of Sympathy work properly. Rather than wound him, as was called for in times of old, they force him to listen to Susan Boyle sing "I Dreamed a Dream."

Line 156:

* In the ''[[Kirby]]'' series there is the "Mike" (microphone) copy ability, which has Kirby attack enemies with loud sounds and clear them all off the screen. Its animations varies from game to game, and on which of the three times you can do it.

** The original ''Kirby's Dream Land'' did not feature a copy ability, but it did feature the Mike. It only worked once, by inhaling and then spitting it out again. Once ''Kirby's Adventure'' and its copy ability appeared, the Mike became three-use to contrast it to the Crush ability. In general, the results are the same, but the animations differ (and usually escalate) with each use; most games progress from a megaphone, to a desk microphone, to finally a stand microphone, which Kirby will grab rocker-style for an extra flourish. ''Kirby's Adventure'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the trope's ability to destroy enemies by noting in the pause screen, "I wonder why that song hurts enemies..."

* You defeat the final boss of ''MOTHER ([[MOTHER 1]])'' by singing.

Line 167:

* In ''[[The Noob]]'', [[Oh Forf]]' is punished by listening to the bards, and temporarily goes crazy.

* In ''[[Weapon Brown]]'', [http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/2009/10/02/weapon-brown-103/ loud music] was used to torture Chuck Brown.

* Subverted in ''[[Girl Genius]]''. Castle Heterodyne has a torture room that apparently plays music. Few people can actually hear it, however.

** Then used straight with the striking of the Doom Bell.

Line 186:

* An episode of ''[[Camp Lazlo]]'' featured Raj and Samson trying to get each other to leave a secret hot spring by singing very loudly and ''very'' badly.

* The David Koresh incident (see Real Life) was spoofed on ''[[South Park]]'' in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub", when the ATF try to force people out of the house where a "comet party" is being held (believing them to be suicide cultists) by playing an obnoxious pop song that's a thinly disguised parody of "Believe" by Cher. It went unnoticed because the same song was playing on the stereo. They specifically refer to the Waco fiasco.

** [[Barbra Streisand]] sang until Cartman told her the location of the Triangle of Zinthar.

{{quote|'''Cartman''': Damn your black heart Barbra Streisand! }}

** He again revealed information when a CIA agent scratched a balloon.

* Appears on ''[[The Simpsons]]'', when Skinner, Krabappel, and Bart have sealed themselves inside the school. Chief Wiggum tries playing romantic music and turning on a spotlight which gets reflected through a colander as mood lighting to try and get them to snap and leave. Skinner and Krabappel, who have fallen in love, merely begin enjoying a romantic dance; this causes Bart to snap and scream "Turn it off!", which only convinces a smug Wiggum that it's working and to turn it up louder.

** When Homer's mom is trapped inside the Simpson house, Mr. Burns drives up in a tank, and threatens to blast her out with music. He turns on Ride of the Valkries, only for it to abruptly change to Abba's ''Waterloo''. It was Smithers.

Line 231:

*** Similar devices have been on the market for rodent control for several years.

*** Ironically, the device in question is sold in Ireland and the UK as a ''ringtone'', specifically so teenagers can use their phones in schools without their teachers hearing it.

* One store in England tried to drive away the nastier teen elements in the neighborhood by playing soap opera music and the like. They fought back with standing at the store's doors playing in their speakers... ''Russian marching music, Gustav Holst's ''Mars'', songs of U2 and... Do You Remember Love''.

* Delone Catholic High School in McSherrystown, Pennsylvania, played the Hanson song "MmmBop" over the PA system until a fundraising goal was reached. [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/earlyshow/main838253.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=Entertainment_838253 Story from CBS news].

** Other "Stop The 'Bop" campaigns have since been staged elsewhere.

Line 242:

** This had more to do with their use to rally and direct troops (much like other countries used bugles and drums).

** Anecdotes have it that bagpipes were effective at countering British cavalry charges as even trained horses are terribly unnerved by the sound.

** To this day, a bagpiper within most Commonwealth militaries is considered "armed" with the bagpipe as his "weapon".

* An obnoxious feature of dorm life is "stereo wars".

** Another fun thing for dorm dwellers: resonance. A typical dorm floor is a row of identical rooms with the same spacing between the walls. That creates an echo chamber for the one isolated sound frequency that has a wavelength equal to the size of the rooms. That part will rise out of a song and become louder all by itself. If the rooms are about two and a half meters wide the magic number is 140 hz, a nice low note somewhere in the fat part of a bass drum's range. You don't even get the whole song, just the least subtle part of the drum line, and a few snippets of the bass here and there.

Line 248:

* Some airports use loud rock music to keep birds away from the runways.

* Some law enforcement officials, when wanting to discourage patronage of a bar that's been the center of much trouble in a community, have had success with leaving loud classical music playing in the vicinity.

* One moderately effective way of keeping coyotes away from livestock is to leave a radio playing at a loud volume outdoors all night long. The only thing is that you have to occasionally change the station, or the coyotes will become accustomed to that type of music and lose fear of it. Either that or the hipster coyotes among them start to complain about the bands that they used to think were cool before the rest of the pack started listening to them.

* Years ago, North Korea built a fake town along the border of the DMZ, equipping it with loudspeakers to blast propaganda at the South Korean border, trying to trick southerners into defecting. Recently, the South has retaliated by building speakers of their own, aimed at the North--which blast Japanese pop music that drowns out the propaganda. And is presumably annoying as all get-out.