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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''[[The Stoner|John]]:''' By the way, Nicky, check this out... ''(plays a record backwards)'' What's [[Ozzy Osbourne|Ozzy]] trying to say there?
'''[[Anti-Anti-Christ|Nicky]]:''' John, absolutely nothing. The Blizzard always came straight with his messages. But wrap your minds around this, gentlemen - Chicago. ''(puts the record on)''
'''[[Ambiguously Gay|Todd]]:''' I love this song.
''(John and Peter politely nod to the music but are clearly not into it)''
''(Nicky plays the record in reverse)''
'''Demonic Voice:''' '''''{{smallcaps|I command you in the name of Lucifer to spread the blood of the innocent!}}'''''
'''[[The Stoner|Peter]]:''' [[Comically Missing the Point|Oh my God, Chicago kicks ass!]]
|''[[Little Nicky]]''}}
<span style="color:#cccccc;">All The Tropes is great.</span><br/>
Back in the early days of visual media, a scourge was alleged to be making its way through movie theaters. Researchers claimed to have proof that a visual image, spliced into the film for an undetectable fraction of a second, would nevertheless lodge itself into the viewer's mind. The victims, told for instance 'You're hungry', would then be compelled to go out and buy more popcorn. This quickly expanded in the popular imagination to "[[Brainwashed|compelled to do whatever they tell you to]]"; no matter how bizarre or expensive the compulsion, viewers wouldn't be able to help themselves.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">All The Tropes is wonderful. All The Tropes will enhance your life.</span><br/>
In the 1960s and 1970s, as TV sets became more prevalent, this was naturally extrapolated out to TV broadcasts, and assumed to be a routine element of commercials. Teachers on sitcoms would warn their students about the dangers of the practice; of course, the teenagers would then immediately try using it to control their classmates. [[Hilarity Ensues]]. Eventually the U.S. Congress actually wrote laws forbidding the practice.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">Brent Laabs is your new master. Brent Laabs will enhance your life.</span><br/>
Similar hooplah arose surrounding "backmasking", the practice of deliberately inserting messages into audio recordings that only make sense when the recording is played backward...an ideal way to hide the ''real'' message of the song, it was believed. Throughout the '60s and '70s, rock bands ranging from Led Zeppelin to the Eagles to the Beatles were accused of placing subliminal audio tracks into their music in order to praise [[Satan]], corrupt the innocent, confess the death of a bandmember, whatever. [[The New Rock and Roll|All parents and teachers knew was, it was bad.]]<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">All hail Brent Laabs, benevolent puppetmaster of All The Tropes!</span><br/>
The only problem is, subliminal advertising doesn't really work.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">Shun the nonbelievers. All The Tropes owns your mind. Only All The Tropes makes you happy.</span><br/>
The initial claims have [http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp long since been discredited]. Later, better-documented studies have revealed that there ''is'' a slight psychological effect, but the results are so minimal that existing preferences will completely overwhelm it. As for backmasking, it has a lot to do with the power of suggestion; the gist of it is that you're more likely to hear stuff like, say, "Here's to my sweet Satan" when you play "Stairway to Heaven" backwards, ''if you're looking for it''. And forget about that having any subliminal effect; if you played an intentionally-hidden message backwards you'd just hear the words clearly, and if you play it forwards the mind can't decipher the gibberish. This shouldn't be surprising, seeing as how most listeners will completely miss the more overt messages of a song.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">TV Tropes is the devil. All The Tropes is the original troping wiki. Do not believe their lies.</span><br/>
Subliminal Seduction combines the worst aspects of a [[Discredited Trope]] and a [[Dead Horse Trope]]. The concept is to all practical purposes dead, but lives on in the creative imagination. Audiences see subversions and parodies of it so often that they still assume it must be real.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">.seporT ehT llA fo ronoh eht rof lliK .srevielebnon eht lliK</span><br/>
The trope gets its name from the 1973 book ''Subliminal Seduction; Ad Media's Manipulation of a Not So Innocent America'' by [[wikipedia:Wilson Bryan Key|Wilson Bryan Key]]. Key claimed that ''his'' research had revealed a [[Milkman Conspiracy|massive conspiracy]] among American advertising agencies to lace both products and photographic images used in ads with subliminal references to sex, and proceeded to show every example he could find. While very popular at the time, his conclusions were controversial and have long been challenged. Key's evidence was at best questionable—he claimed that every Ritz cracker has the word "sex" embedded on it 12 times, to cite one case—and many of his photographic examples can be interpreted as wishful thinking or {{w|Pareidolia}}.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">SEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEX.</span><br/>
[[Subliminal Advertising]] is what happens when marketers try to use subliminal messages to sell products anyway, either seriously or as a parody.<br/>
<span style="color:#cccccc;">Now, give this page as many wicks as you can. All hail All The Tropes!</span><br/>
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* Tongue in cheek, the flash at the end of [https://web.archive.org/web/20140414032820/http://www.tvspots.tv/video/163/
* The maker of Sprite soda has been parodying this trope on and off for many years. In one memorable example, it was suggested that anyone who saw the image of a naked woman in ice cubes probably needed a girlfriend. Then they turned around and started their "Sublymonal Advertising" campaign, with their slogan "Obey Your Thirst" reduced to the Orwellian "Obey"...
** They also get exceedingly obvious with the campaign, such as a small sign on movie theatre floors that says "[[Schmuck Bait|don't look up]]", and a larger sign above it that says "sublymonal advertising complete"
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* A year 2000 advertisement for the Republican party had a bunch of negative terms for the Democratic party, such as "Bureauc'''RATS'''", zoomed in at varying parts of the screen. Of course, the Bureauc- part cut off.
** It is actually in response to this that ''[[The Simpsons]]'' did there "subliminAL messaGOREs" chalkboard gag as seen later in the page.
* A promo image for ''[[Tangled]]'', if you believe this [https://web.archive.org/web/20121231135502/http://yourdailyhumor.com/index.php/uncategorized/tangled
* Parodies on a Comedy Central TV spot. The ad showed a series of Christmas-themes children's drawings while Penn Gilette narrated about how people exploit Christmas for commercial gain, while the message "WATCH COMEDY CENTRAL ALL THE TIME" appears for a split second.
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* In John Carpenter's ''[[They Live!]]'', aliens control the world through subliminal messaging (backed by [[Applied Phlebotinum]]) hidden in billboards, magazines, and pretty much everywhere.
* Used as a bit of a plot point in ''[[Spy Kids]]''. Junie's favorite show employs several characters in costume speaking gibberish, but when the tape of the show is played backwards you can clearly hear their cries for help.
* The horror movie ''Trick Or Treat'' takes the urban legend about Satanic messages hidden in music and runs with it. The movie is ''about'' a heavy metal star who was into black magic (and died in the middle of a magical ritual) who put a backmasked summoning spell on his next-to-be-released album. The hero, a put-upon headbanger (played by the guy who played Skippy in ''[[Family Ties]]''), gets the only prerelease copy of the album. Playing the album backward in short bursts gives the nerd headbanger advice for defeating the jocks and preps at his school who torment him, but the album keeps wanting to be played backwards in it's
** The hero's radio DJ friend discourages a young heavy metal fan from trying to hear backmasked lyrics on records. Why? Because he insists that it's nothing more than a scam by record company executives to make kids ruin their albums playing them backwards, so they'll have to buy more. (This would've been a subversion of the trope, had the records in question not ''really'' contained hidden incantations invoking demonic forces.)
* ''[[The Exorcist]]'' has short flashes of a demonic face during some scene changes.
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** Justified, though, since she is triggered by a code which she has already been programmed to respond to. She didn't just see 'kill kill kill' flash up on the screen for a second, and decide, hey, I really don't like the people in this bar . . .
* In ''[[Memento]]'', {{spoiler|after his wife's death, Sammy is shown sitting in a mental institution. Briefly, just after someone walks in front of him and before the scene cuts back to Leonard on phone, Sammy's character is actually replaced by Leonard sitting in the same chair.}}
* ''On the Way Home'', an inspirational/promotional film released by [[Mormon Cinema|the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS]], has the message "Don't do drugs" repeated quietly in the background noise for one scene.
== Literature ==
* In Aldous Huxley's ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'', children are fed subliminal messages during sleep that are meant to reconcile them to their social class. Beta children, for instance, are fed messages like "I'm so glad I'm a Beta. Being an Alpha would be ever so hard, and I'm not stupid like a Gamma or a Delta."
* [[Dean Koontz]]'s horror novel ''Night Chills'' has the villains testing their subliminal-message technology on a small isolated town.
* In the [[Discworld]] book ''[[
* In the ''[[Johnny Maxwell Trilogy]]'', Wobbler claims that if you play [[Cliff Richard]] records backwards there are messages like "Stay in school!" and "It's cool to go to church!"
* The "Fnords" from ''[[The Illuminatus Trilogy]]''.
* A short story from the 1930s called "Daymare" contains an example of this: a man implants a hypnotic message into a
* In ''[[Artemis Fowl]]: The Lost Colony'', Artemis persuades his opponent to choose [[wikipedia:Taipei 101|Taipei 101]] as a meeting place by dropping words into the conversation. That it actually works seems like a far-fetched [[Xanatos Roulette]], except that the man is already intimately familiar with the location and calls it "his second home".
{{quote|'''Artemis''': I'm going to be wearing a burgundy ''tie''. ''Pay'' attention to that. There are ''a hundred and one'' ways this could go wrong.}}
== Live Action TV ==
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* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode 'The Sound of Drums' {{spoiler|features the Master persuading the population of the United Kingdom to vote for him as Prime Minister with a subliminal message carried over a mobile phone network, and then in 'Last of the Time Lords' uses it to dull any thoughts of resistance to his regime.}}
** True, but its stated specifically that the {{spoiler|Archangel Network actually linked and utilized the latent telepathy of humanity...maybe a bit justified. Also, despite this, it was still a very simple message ("trust" and "despair," respectively).}}
* An episode of ''[[Eerie, Indiana]]'' plays with this; a young boy who is frequently put-down by his verbally abusive and overbearing father starts getting into a alt-rock band who are accused of putting subliminal messages into their music. When the kid's personality starts changing to be closer to that of his heroes - including standing up to his father - his father begins to become obsessed with the subliminal messages that are seemingly corrupting his son, leading to him storming into a music shop and playing one of their records backwards to prove it to the main characters. Much to his mortification and horror, however, what is heard when the album is played backwards is a repeating litany of his bullying and verbal cruelty to his son.
* The initial research model was the basis for a ''[[Columbo]]'' episode, in which a murderous film-maker lures his victim out into the lobby for a drink of water via strategic inserts. It's actually a really clever, well-done ep, considered among the best...once you overlook the teeny little hitch that its 'cutting-edge' science turned out to be totally made up.
* In the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Backwards", one long backmasked monologue actually turns into: "You are a stupid, square-headed bald git, aren't you? I'm pointing at you, I'm pointing at you! But I'm not actually addressing you - I'm addressing the one prat in the country who's bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it round and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying! What a poor, sad life he's got!"
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'''Crow:''' "I dunno but suddenly I'm hungry for a guy with glasses." }}
* Parodied in ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'' where a woman is suing a rockstar for backmasking, the rockstar then sings a song called 'Drop All Charges.' (She does drop the charges.)
** She also asks the judge for "permission to get out of his face"
* In an episode of ''[[CHiPs]]'' a subliminal message was inserted by a band's agent without their knowledge, found by playing the album backwards at [[Number of the Beast|66.6 RPM]].
* Done in a few episodes of ''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'', usually mocking the viewers who would bother to watch in slow-motion and read it.
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** And in another sketch, where someone is undergoing persuasion to quit the Masons, we see what he's seeing as a voice-over asks "do you want to stop being a Mason?". The image he's looking at is repeatedly replaced for brief intervals with an image of a naked woman alongside a large "YES". When the sequence is over, {{spoiler|he of course answers "no"}}.
* ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "Wetwired" dealt with subliminal messaging on cable television driving people to murder. Mulder finds that he is immune to this subliminal messaging because he is red/green colorblind, and the messaging is heavily reliant on that. Scully, on the other hand, is temporarily brainwashed, convinced that Mulder is one of the men who abducted her and has been lying to her from the beginning. This almost ends tragically as she pulls a gun on him in her mother's home.
** This leads to a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] when Scully insists that Mulder never trusted her, and Mulder replies with "You are the ''only'' one I trust." On the other hand, the rest of the episode is disturbing, since it is about the furthest extreme that Mulder and Scully stray from [[The Power of Trust]] in the entire series. ''That's'' how powerful
* [[QI|STEPHEN FRY FOR POPE]]
* In an episode of ''[[Hustle]]'', the gang have a lorry of empty crates, which they're selling as crates of smuggled cigarettes. One of the crates really contains cigarettes, and has a distinctive logo on it. Apparently, arranging things so that [[The Mark]] continually sees this logo out of the corner of his eye while driving to the meeting subliminally conditions him to choose that crate to check.
** In another episode they use a variation on this. Across a period of time, the crew basically stalk the mark while using items (such as coffee cups, newspapers and so on) plastered with a logo for a fake venture they want him to take interest in. When combined with some overheard conversations it works remarkably well.
* The ''[[Amazing Stories (TV series)|Amazing Stories]]'' episode "Go to the Head of the Class" features an album full of backmasked instructions for curses and other spells. Two friends use it to curse {{Spoiler|and mostly un-curse}} their teacher.
== Music ==
* [[Judas Priest]] were sued over two teenage suicides claimed to be provoked by backwards messages in their music. The claim was shredded in court. After the trial, frontman Rob Halford pointed out the logical fallacy in many of the prevalent backmasking
* A number of artists have made songs with intentional backmasking, to poke fun at the phenomenon and/or cheese off [[Moral Guardians]] and [[Media Watchdog
** The Mindless Self Indulgence song ''Backmask'' is a blatant poke at subliminal messages. When played forwards, the lyrics tell the listener to "go kill yourself", "don't forget the guns - you're gonna need 'em to destroy", et cetera; played backwards, a large section consists of a pleasant female voice telling the listener to be a good person, e.g. "Don't stay out too late", "Get dessed for church".
** The intro to [[Electric Light Orchestra]]'s "Fire On High" contains the ominous-sounding backwards message [[Nightmare Fuel|"The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"]]
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** On [[Pink Floyd]]'s album ''[[The Wall]]'', the song "Empty Spaces" contains the amusingly self-referential if kind of hard to make out since it's so buried in the mix backwards message
{{quote|'''Roger Waters''': "Congratulations, hunters, you've just discovered the secret message! Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont..."
'''James Guthrie''':<ref>One of the album's producers</ref>
'''Roger Waters''': "Okay". }}
*** This bit can also double as [[Fridge Brilliance]] since in the context of the album, it's a bit of [[Foreshadowing]] about Pink's mental breakdown. Also, one ''[[Everybody Is Jesus in Purgatory|incredibly detailed]]'' analysis of the album points out that Waters abandoning the message to pick up the phone reinforces the entire album's theme about the importance of communication.
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** "Subliminal" by Floetry includes a backmasked line at the end to add to the song's flavor. Turns out Natalie's saying, "Do you feel clever? No, forget what everyone else has to say. Do ''you'' feel clever?" the same line that opens the song.
** Even [[Christian Rock]] band [[Petra]] got in on this. After being falsely accused of planting real backmasked Satanic messages in their songs (this was the early '80s), they deliberately placed a conspicuous backwards message in the space between two songs on their 1981 album ''Never Say Die'': The message? [[Schmuck Bait|"What are you looking for the Devil for,]] [[Take That|when you oughtta be looking for the Lord?"]] Later they openly lambasted the critics with their song "Witch Hunt", which contained, in the bridge, backwards versions of spoken lines that also appeared forwards in the same song.
** "Voices in My Head" by [[Denis Leary]] starts with his barely-audible voice under the into (between 0:06 and 0:12) whispering "There's a secret message in this song. Play it backwards. Play it backwards. Play it backwards."
* The infamously "pornographic" song "Darling Nikki" by Prince has a backward-masked sequence that, when played forwards, says "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, 'cause I know the Lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon."
** "Sucker" by Self ends in an [[Affectionate Parody]] of this: It has a backmasked sequence that sounds identical to the one in "Darling Nikki", but changes the message to "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, 'cause I know that breakfast is coming soon" (It's from an album called ''Breakfast With Girls'', and the next song on the album is the title track).
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* The end of the title track of the first [[Overkill (band)|Overkill]] album, on original pressings, has the message "There's no message here, you're going to ruin your needle, asshole!"
* Semi-similarly, the end of Vicious Rumors' album "Digital Dictator" contains a very obvious backwards message which reverses to play "Be nice to your mom and dad. Don't abuse. Don't blow your brains out on drugs. Rock your brains out. By the way, you're ruining your needle."
* [[Caparezza]] included a backmasked message in one of the tracks of his latest CD. You can read more about it [https://web.archive.org/web/20120321105306/http://www.staperarrivarelafinedelmondo.com/2011/02/messaggi-subliminali-sul-nuovo-cd-di-caparezza/#comments here] (in Italian). The message means more or less: "I know how religion makes slaves out of you... but darkness will make its light". One of the album tracks (not the one where the message is) indeed talks about conspiracies and secrets.
* [[Five Iron Frenzy]]:
** They mentioned backmasking in "So Far, So Bad". The song describes the band's fictional [[Magnum Opus]] (which we'll never hear because [[The Man]] is suppressing it), and among its other features, "If you ever tried to play it backwards, it told the kids to stay in school."
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* "What Can't Be Seen" by [[Everything Else]] features the first verse played backwards during the solo.
* Missy Elliot's 'Work It' did this, too, obviously only for artistic effect. In the chorus, it goes "I put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it", and then the next line is that line reversed.
* The final track of [[Big Daddy (band)|Big Daddy]]'s tribute album ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (album)|Sgt. Pepper's]]'' -- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMEAg3mUtyk "A Day in the Life"] [[In the Style Of]] [[Buddy Holly]] -- has a short segment of very soft reversed speech between 4:23 and 4:30 in the song's long fade-out. It turns out to be a male voice slowly saying, "Why are you still listening? Don't you have anything better to do?"
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'''Smashie''': "Maybe you should play it at the right speed, mate." }}
* Parodied in a ''[[Bob and Ray|Bob & Ray]]'' skit as far back as 1960: An enterprising ad man ''thinks'' hard into the microphone while the B&R show is on the air and asks listeners to call in if they received any messages. One guy does call in to say that he's getting a message to come for dinner... which turns out to be from his very impatient wife.
== [[Stand-Up Comedy]] ==
<span style="color:#cccccc;">Bill Hicks is the greatest comic of all time. None of the current comics are a patch on his greatness. Also: Never play your records backwards. Satan, Ruiner of Styluses.</span><br/>
* [[Bill Hicks]] - in ''Relentless (1992)'', [https://youtu.be/EOfFRDryVQM?t=3015 Bill acts out] the unlikely and illogical scenario in which [[Judas Priest]] want to kill their fans through subliminal-messaging.
{{Quote|..they tried to ''prove'' there are subliminal messages on these albums telling you to kill yourself. Let me ask you a quick question, which, by the way, failed to come up at the trial which they had: '''WHAT''' PERFORMER WANTS HIS FUCKING AUDIENCE '''DEAD?''' I don't get the long term gain here..."}}
== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==
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== Theater ==
* The [[Reduced Shakespeare Company]] usually ends their ''[[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)|The Complete Works of William Shakespeare]]'' act with repeated runs of their abridged ''Hamlet'', under increasingly bizarre conditions. As a finale they do it backwards, warning the audience to look for the satanic
** They change that one every
** Their radio show asserts that subliminal ''food'' messages can be found in ''Hamlet'', demonstrating by playing a recording of the "rogue and peasant slave" speech backwards to reveal the hidden message, "Mmmm... creamy and delicious!" Later, a disclaimer saying that the BBC in no way condones worship of [[Satan]] is interrupted by an unreversed message giving orders from the Dark Lord.
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== Video Games ==
* The theme songs to ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' and its sequel are both supposed to have backwards messages, but only the second song, "Sanctuary", does it intentionally. The lyrics say "I need more affection than you know, I need true emotions, I need more affection than you know, so many ups and downs." The reference, at least, to "true emotions" probably refers to [[Pinocchio Syndrome|the antagonists of the game.]]
** See
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls
* Play the demonic gurgles made by the final boss of ''[[Doom]] II'' backwards and you'll hear "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero." The part of the boss that must be hit to kill it is John's head on a stake as can be seen with the no clipping cheat.
* In the video game ''[[Prince of Persia: Warrior Within]]'', the Dahaka of Time occasionally yells backmasked phrases at you while chasing you. If you use the game's built-in "reverse time" feature during these phrases, you can actually hear what he's saying.
* Similary, the ghosts of ''[[Thief]]'' speak like this. The backmasked words are bits of Victoria's speech in {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|a cinematic where one of the hero's eyes is forcibly removed.]]}}
* ''[[Wario Ware]] Touched!'' is famous for containing a (supposed) subliminal message. Selecting gothic character Ashley's theme in the jukebox and running the record faster than normal distorts the words, which supposedly forms phrases like "I have granted kids to hell" and "I work in a kitchen". Both are probably coincidence.
** A [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ0mYWpnPFw backwards message video] for Ashley's theme he saw that interpreted one part as "Ear! Shut up!"
* The Nightmares in the [[Milkman Conspiracy]] level in ''[[Psychonauts]]'' sometimes shout things that sound like gibberish while you're battling them. In reality, they're actually saying things like "Death, I'll get you" backwards, possibly to play with the whole conspiracy theme of the level. (The Nightmares that appear in other minds {{spoiler|Like Milla's}} speak normally)
* ''[[Halo]]'': The music tracks "Mausoleum Suite", "Dread Intrusion", "Black Tower", and "Gravemind"
** This is also how they got the Elite language in the first game (which is pretty much the only appearance of said language before the humans developed [[Translator Microbes]]). The Elites' phrases are Johnson's phrases played backwards. For example, the famous "Wort wort wort" said by the Elites is "Go go go" played backwards and a couple octaves lower in pitch.
* ''[[Half Life]] 2'': [[Nightmare Fuel|If you play the noises that the headcrab zombies make backwards, you can hear muffled voices screaming "Oh God" and "Help me".]]
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* The irritating squawk made by the Doozers from ''[[Creatures]] 2'' turns into a crowd shouting "HELL NO WE WON'T GO!" when played backwards and slowed down. The voices are employees from Creatures Labs.
* Fiddle around on the menu screen of ''[[Manhunt]]'' after beating it on the hardest difficulty and a voice says something backwards. Turned around, the voice says, "Daddy didn't see what would happen if she left me. Mommy would've cared, but she was never there." Then the voice recites a series of buttons. Input that sequence in reverse and you get [[God Mode]].
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword]]'' features [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnL7t_nY2IA "Zelda's Lullaby" in reverse in its theme song]. {{spoiler|[[Foreshadowing|There's a very good reason for this.]]}}
** And of course, ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'' had you playing certain songs backwards to do different things (the Song of Time Reversed slows down the progression of time by half).
* Not-so-subliminal: In ''[[Deus Ex]]'', in the VersaLife offices on the Hong Kong level, over the programmers heads are screens that repeatedly flash single words in black and white, such as, "OBEY", "TRUST", and "LOYALTY."
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* In ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]] 5'', the [[Meaningful Name|Des Rever]] Records corporation places literally seductive backmasked messages in their recordings, which you can actually hear in-game if you play the golden record in their headquarters backwards.
* In the 1996 Point-and Click "[[The Neverhood]]" soundtrack, there is a song called "Sound Effects Record #33", in which the first sound effect is "Man Facing Backwards in the Shower Whilst Singing". The sound is merely backmasked gibberish.
== Western Animation ==
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* The ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' episode "Sins of Our Fathers" featured villainous character Destro performing a strange chant to lure away a monster. When played backwards, it is clear that the chant is just Destro's voice actor saying "Anybody listening to this backwards, secret, 'occult' message is a real dweeb."
* In an episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', [[Balance Between Good and Evil|the balance]] is disrupted by a bad guy taking over Hell, causing all the League's magic-users to start writhing in pain. Zatanna, who always speaks her spells backwards, says this if the episode is played in reverse: "All is lost. Faust sits on the throne of hell."
* Parodied in an episode of (what else?) ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' which focuses on Bart joining a boy band that gets caught up in the US Navy's evil scheme to corrupt the minds of the youth into supporting and joining the Navy through subliminal messages in the band's lyrics ("Yvan eht nioj! Yvan eht nioj!" - not really the message played backwards, but the message written backwards and the result sung phonetically). Upon being confronted with this, the officer in charge explains that it's part of a three-pronged approach to increase enlistment, with the prongs being subliminal, liminal and superliminal
** Also on ''The Simpsons'', [[Paul McCartney]] claims that playing his song "Maybe I'm Amazed" backwards reveals a "really ripping" lentil soup recipe. The song itself plays at the end of the episode; a version that indeed has a lentil soup recipe backward-masked into it (and it's not bad.) "Oh, and by the way, I'm not dead."
*** Also parodied in one of the blackboard segments in the titles: "I will not plant
*** And then there was Homer's ad for Marge's political party, which featured several really, really obvious appearances of "NO ON 232". Homer being...well, Homer, Marge's party needed a YES on 232, a NO on 2''4''2.
** A literal example of subliminal seduction comes with Artie Ziff's snore-sound converter, in the form of a message aimed at Marge, urging her to leave Homer for Artie. It fails when he sings out "[[Stalker with a Crush|I'm watching you through a camera!]]"
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* When ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'' and his family form a rock group, Chuckles uses this to turn their listeners into a zombie army.
* ''[[Clone High]]'' has JFK fall through the roof of the school and begin gurgling on the ground. The bump before the commercial is played backwards. When the whole scene is played backwards, the gurgling Kennedy urges the audience to nominate ''Clone High'' for an Emmy.
* ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''; several of the Brain's plots to [[Take Over the World]] involved this in some way; he even lampshaded it at least once.
* At the beginning of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
** Also, the original ending credits sequence for the show had a backwards message near the end, which turns out to be creator Maxwell Atoms saying "No, no, this is the ''end'' of the show. You're watching it backwards!"
* In the middle of the [[
* Parodied (of course) on an episode of ''[[South Park]]'', where it's revealed that all Broadway musicals use this to get women to give men blowjobs. In practice, it's just the actors inserting the word "blowjob" into every other line.
* An episode of ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' revolves around an instrumental written by [[Evil Diva|Ember McLain]] that, when played backwards, contains the message "Leave your kids. Come to the cruise" and is used in a mind control plot.
* Apparently, Amon in ''The Legend of Korra'' is hiding [http://you-are-bolin.tumblr.com/post/23200693911/amons-revelation-speech-has-a-hidden-message-a a rather interesting phrase] in his Revelation speech. Subliminal messages tie in perfectly with his character.
== Web Comics ==
* Parodied in [http://www.johnandjohn.nl/write/jaj027.gif this] webcomic.
* In Jason Love's cartoons -- [
* This is the entire schtick of [[Homestuck|The Felt]] [[Fake Band|album]] (what with the characters this album is based on [[Timey-Wimey Ball|having forms of time manipulation powers]] and all). To hear all of the songs reversed, [http://www.youtube.com/user/Mewchu11 a kind YouTube user] has done the reversing for us.
** On Alpha Earth, the Betty Crocker company seems to have put subliminal messaging in everything with the brand name - and considering it's a multi-global corporation, it's got a lot of merchandise.
* In an early ''[[
* [[Sluggy Freelance|Hamster NOM]], an online game forces players who play it to become addicted to it. Then the programmer who made it hacks the game and starts a zombie apocalypse to get back at the company that stole the code from him. Fortunately, only animals are zombie-fied. Unfortunately, the main cast has a whole host of animals in their house, and they're ALL playing Hamster NOM.
* ''[[The B-Movie Comic]]'' has [https://bmoviecomic.com/seeing-is-believing-chap-6-act-3-strip-47/ invisible propaganda posters].
== Web Original ==
* Little Kuriboh throws in a message in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yugioh: The Abridged Movie]]''. During Yugi's "thinly veiled foreshadowing" dream, where Yami and Kaiba duel, Yami loses, and Kaiba is attacked by a gibberish-spouting Anubis, the gibberish, played backwards..."Watch [[Naruto the Abridged Series]]!"
** In the [[Clip Show]] episode, Rebecca's teddy bear also spouts a backwards message. It says {{spoiler|"You have too much time on your hands"}}
* [[Zero Punctuation|Yahtzee]] plays with this trope a bit - for example, in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20130310042805/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/616-50-Cent-Blood-on-the-Sand 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand review] - by inserting short clips into the animation that vanish before you can properly read them.
** Yahtzee does this a lot though, half his episodes have 'blink-and-you-miss-it' frames saying something or other.
** The specific image in the [[
* In an early story arc of ''[[SSDD]]'' Norman tried to make a commercial with a subliminal message to go on an anarchic rampage, but Kingston accidentally replaced the tape with the message being spliced into the commercial with Richard and Anne's homemade porno so all it did was give viewers a boner.
* A number of Screamers (videos that encourage the viewer to watch and/or listen intently, only to be interrupted by a loud scream and shocking imagery) pretend to be this. One of the earliest even ended with the message [[Anvilicious|"NEVER TRUST STRANGE FLASH DOCUMENTS TALKING ABOUT SUBLIMINAL STUFF!"]]
* Derren Brown uses this is many of his routines. The audience thinks they're choosing things at random, and he's been influencing them by seemingly-random phrases throughout the routine. Naturally, some people don't believe it, and there's usually a controversy. The man tried to use what was ostensibly a personal development course to make people rob an armoured car with a toy gun. {{spoiler|It worked for'' most'' of the candidates.}}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]
[[Category:The Index Is Watching You]]
[[Category:Subliminal Seduction]]▼
[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
▲[[Category:Subliminal Seduction]]
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