Title Drop/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

no edit summary
m (Mass update links)
No edit summary
 
(14 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]s in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
 
== ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' ==
* The writers of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' hammered home the fact that Bianca Lawson's character wasn't your average single-episode guest star when she introduced herself as "Kendra, the vampire slayer."
** Used straight in the first episode of the third season, where a demon asks each of his prisoners their names (with the insinuation that he will kill them if they actually claim one). [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Our protagonist responds quite cheerily, "I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer!" Cue the carnage.]]
** Also used in season 7, where Buffy was moonlighting as a counselor for troubled teens. ("Buffy the vampire slayer would break down this door." "And Buffy the counselor?" "Waits.")
*** [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] / [[Parodied Trope|parodied]] in "[[Day in The Limelight|Storyteller]]," when [[Heel Face Turn|Andrew]] spends the episode trying to make a documentary called ''Buffy, the Slayer of'' [[ItsIt Is Pronounced Tropay"Tro-PAY"|''Vam]]''[[Its Pronounced Tropay|PIRES]].
** There are a few episodes that do their own title drop, as well, such as "Lie To Me" and "Two to Go". Also, the musical episode, "Once More With Feeling", has the title in a line of the second-last song.
 
== ''[[Doctor Who]]'' ==
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'', obviously. Used fairly straight the first time in "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S1 E1/E01 An Unearthly Child|An Unearthly Child]]", where the Doctor had no clue who "Dr. Foreman" was supposed to be, and mostly used as an in-joke since.
** The episode "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 E7S27/E07 The Long Game|The Long Game]]" has a belated {{smallcapssmall-caps| [[Title Drop]]}}; it ends without any reference to what the title meant at all. Not until the Doctor returns to the same location 100 years later, in "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 S27/E12 Bad Wolf|Bad Wolf]]", does he realise "Someone's been playing a long game." (The title of "Bad Wolf" had, of course [[Arc Words|already been dropped all over the series]].) And of course not mentioning the "Long Game" of the title until a later episode is itself a reference to the concept of the long game.
** Several stories from the original series had their titles shoehorned into the dialogue. Examples include "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S14 E6/E06 The Talons of Weng Chiang|The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S18 E4/E04 State of Decay|State of Decay]]" and "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S26 E1/E01 Battlefield|Battlefield]]".
*** "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S22 E3/E03 The Mark of the Rani|The Mark of the Rani]]". Shoehorned in by the Master almost ''every other scene''.
** And obviously, there were a few [[Incredibly Lame Pun|blink-and-you-miss-it]] Title Drops in [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S3 S29/E10 Blink|Blink]].
** Also, after The Doctor "defeats" the Dream Lord, Rory Title Drops the episode when asked where he wants to go:
{{quote| '''Rory:''' I'm fine with anywhere. It's ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E07 Amy's Choice|Amy's Choice]]''.}}
** Because the title can be used as a question, the title can be dropped every time the Doctor meets someone new and doesn't use an alias.
** Subverted in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S27/E01 Rose|Rose]]":
{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' I'm the Doctor.<br />
'''Rose:''' Doctor ''what''? }}
*** Subverted in the same way in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S29/E06 The Lazarus Experiment|The Lazarus Experiment]]".
** And sometimes when he does. In "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S3/E08 The Gunfighters|The Gunfighters]]", he introduced himself with a very long, muttered name, provoking the response "Doctor ''who''?"
{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' Precisely.}}
** NowLater elevated to more than just a [[Running Gag]] and in-joke. {{spoiler|'Doctor Who' is now the oldest question, which must never be answered, or [[Arc Words|silence will fall.]] }}
 
== [[Game Show]]s ==
** "You ''are'' [[The Weakest Link]]. Goodbye!"
** "All this can be yours, if [[The Price Is Right]]."
** "I can [[Name That Tune]] in five notes." "Four notes." "Three." "Name that tune."
** A partial one: "My name is [name], and I am (or am not) [[Are You Smarter Than a Fifth5th Grader?|smarter than a fifth grader]]."
** "So if you're fast enough, smart enough, and if you've got the guts, you can [[Win Ben Stein's Money|Win Ben Steins Money]]!"
** In-universe example: On an episode of ''[[The Odd Couple]]'', Felix appears on ''[[Let's Make a Deal]]''. While on the show, he says "Hey Monty, let's make a deal."
 
== Other shows ==
* Parodied by the ''Upright Citizens Brigade'', when a man tells a video store clerk that he had the title line in ''[[Star Wars]]''. The man claims that, in a scene that was cut in the final release, he wanders into the ''Millennium Falcon'' for no good reason, says, "I'm just so tired of all these star wars," and walks out.
** He does the same for ''[[Out of Africa]]''.
** Mad Magazine's parody of the first film opened with a character in the midst of a space battle saying "Boy, this movie sure is noisy! Maybe that's why they called it--" splash opening title: '''STAR ROARS'''.
* [[Blue Heelers]] liked doing this. Just to give one example, in the episode ''Pigs Will Fly,'' after the station bombing someone starts leaving bomb threats, one demanding "Fifty thousand or pigs will fly."
* The name of the episodes in ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' are dropped in almost every episode.
* Done in ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' in many episodes, usually to point out the black humor ending. Some examples:
** "You were right. PEOPLE really ARE ALIKE ALL OVER."
** "...now I have TIME ENOUGH AT LAST."
* ''[[Survivor (TV series)]]'' and ''[[The Amazing Race]]'' have a habit of turning random lines from contestants into show titles, forcing this to happen [[Once Per Episode]].
* HBO shows ''[[The Wire]]'', ''[[Deadwood]]'', and ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]'' all use lines of dialogue from particular episodes as the title of the episodes themselves, though the titles are not shown in the opening credits.
* ''[[Entourage]]'' used a last line [[Title Drop]] for the in-universe "Queens Boulevard" movie. This is also [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in Johnny Drama's [[Show Within a Show]], "Not in my town, not in my Five Towns!"
* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' makes a habit of commenting whenever a {{smallcapssmall-caps| [[Title Drop]]}} occurs in one of their movies. Usually with Joel/Mike and the Bots saying in unison, "We have a title!"
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'', obviously. Used fairly straight the first time in "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S1 E1 An Unearthly Child|An Unearthly Child]]", where the Doctor had no clue who "Dr. Foreman" was supposed to be, and mostly used as an in-joke since.
** The episode "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 E7 The Long Game|The Long Game]]" has a belated {{smallcaps| [[Title Drop]]}}; it ends without any reference to what the title meant at all. Not until the Doctor returns to the same location 100 years later, in "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 E12 Bad Wolf|Bad Wolf]]", does he realise "Someone's been playing a long game." (The title of "Bad Wolf" had, of course [[Arc Words|already been dropped all over the series]].) And of course not mentioning the "Long Game" of the title until a later episode is itself a reference to the concept of the long game.
** Several stories from the original series had their titles shoehorned into the dialogue. Examples include "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S14 E6 The Talons of Weng Chiang|The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S18 E4 State of Decay|State of Decay]]" and "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S26 E1 Battlefield|Battlefield]]".
*** "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S22 E3 The Mark of the Rani|The Mark of the Rani]]". Shoehorned in by the Master almost ''every other scene''.
** And obviously, there were a few [[Incredibly Lame Pun|blink-and-you-miss-it]] Title Drops in [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S3 E10 Blink|Blink]].
** Also, after The Doctor "defeats" the Dream Lord, Rory Title Drops the episode when asked where he wants to go:
{{quote| '''Rory:''' I'm fine with anywhere. It's ''Amy's Choice''.}}
** Because the title can be used as a question, the title can be dropped every time the Doctor meets someone new and doesn't use an alias.
*** Subverted in "Rose":
{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' I'm the Doctor.<br />
'''Rose:''' Doctor ''what''? }}
*** Subverted in the same way in "The Lazarus Experiment".
** And sometimes when he does. In "The Gunfighters", he introduced himself with a very long, muttered name, provoking the response "Doctor ''who''?"
{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' Precisely.}}
** Now elevated to more than just a [[Running Gag]] and in-joke. {{spoiler|'Doctor Who' is now the oldest question, which must never be answered, or [[Arc Words|silence will fall.]] }}
* The meaning of the title ''[[Star Trek]]'' is fairly self-evident, so they managed to go without doing this for thirty years. Then, in ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'', Zephram Cochrane says, "So you're astronauts, on some kind of star trek?" (although in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' finale Q nearly does it: "It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars").
** Though he does drop the title of the finale itself: "Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you...you had such potential. But then again, ''All Good Things'' must come to an end."
Line 33 ⟶ 53:
* In the second episode of ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'', an Allied pilot looks down to see an arrow made by the lit cigarettes of the Stalag 13 men standing in formation and comments, "There they are, Hogan's Heroes." On a few other occasions they're referred to as the "Unsung Heroes" by the media.
* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the series title in "Forget-Me-Now" as Rita laments the puerile sense of humor of American men.
{{quote| '''Rita:''' And they think the stupidest things are funny.<br />
'''Michael:''' Yeah, that's a cultural problem is what it is. You know, your average American is [[Eagle Land|in a perpetual state of adolescence]], you know, arrested development.<br />
'''Narrator:''' Hey, that's the name of the show! }}
** The pilot episode had a newspaper headline proclaiming "Arrested Developer!"
Line 41 ⟶ 61:
* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' also features a title sequence drop. The title sequence opens with Michael narrting "My name is Michael Weston. I used to be a spy." In the fifth season, another character introduces Michael near the end of an episode by saying "That's Michael Weston. He used to be a spy."
* In the second season, ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' frequently had a character reference the episode's title, but it always sounded more akin to Cochrane's "some kind of star trek" comment than anything profound.
* On ''[[ICarlyiCarly]]'', Freddie thinks up the name, title drops it, then explains it a little more:
{{quote| '''Freddie:''' ''i'', Internet...''Carly'', you...}}
** The episode ''iLove You'' has a [[Title Drop]], but it's a [[Shocking Swerve]]. Everyone is expecting it to be one or both Sam and Freddie saying "I Love You" to the other in a romantic to cement them as the [[Official Couple]], instead it's said after they break up as Sam is about to leave, and they stay broken up after.
* While ''[[The West Wing]]'' doesn't qualify as a whole, a number of episodes do on their own, such as "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc", "An Khe", "Eppur Si Muove" and the finale "Tomorrow" (it's the last line spoken in the entire show).
* ''[[Studio 60 Onon the Sunset Strip]]'' also has "The 4 AM Miracle".
* Most episodes of ''[[House MD|House]]'' feature {{smallcapssmall-caps|[[Title Drop|Title Drops]]}} of the episode titles, which are otherwise not shown.
* ''[[Slings and Arrows]]'' deliberately avoids dropping the title: in the first rehearsal where Jack (who's playing Hamlet) reads the "to be or not to be" soliloquy, he misspeaks and says "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune".
* Three of the four episodes of a miniseries called ''The Way We Live Now'' had one of these, although usually the exact wording would be changed to something like "The way people live now."
* In ''[[Lost]]'', many episodes feature {{smallcapssmall-caps|[[Title Drop|Title Drops]]}} (even bizarre phrases such as "Tricia Tanaka is Dead"). The series' name is Title Dropped just about every episode, in lines as "we're lost", "we've lost him" et cetera..
** Strangely, the writers set themselves up for and didn't use an amazing title drop opportunity in ''What They Died For" when {{spoiler|Jacob is describing the attributes of the candidates.}} Everything he said would have been summed up nicely by saying "All of you were lost." but he just stops speaking.
* In the season one finale of ''[[One Tree Hill]]'', The Games that Play Us, Karen is talking to Lucas one last time before he leaves Tree Hill. Karen puts her arm around Lucas and says 'There is only one Tree Hill'.
* The writers of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' hammered home the fact that Bianca Lawson's character wasn't your average single-episode guest star when she introduced herself as "Kendra, the vampire slayer."
** Used straight in the first episode of the third season, where a demon asks each of his prisoners their names (with the insinuation that he will kill them if they actually claim one). [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Our protagonist responds quite cheerily, "I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer!" Cue the carnage.]]
** Also used in season 7, where Buffy was moonlighting as a counselor for troubled teens. ("Buffy the vampire slayer would break down this door." "And Buffy the counselor?" "Waits.")
*** [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] / [[Parodied Trope|parodied]] in "[[Day in The Limelight|Storyteller]]," when [[Heel Face Turn|Andrew]] spends the episode trying to make a documentary called ''Buffy, the Slayer of [[Its Pronounced Tropay|Vam]]''[[Its Pronounced Tropay|PIRES]].
** There are a few episodes that do their own title drop, as well, such as "Lie To Me" and "Two to Go". Also, the musical episode, "Once More With Feeling", has the title in a line of the second-last song.
* Many episodes of ''Angel'' featured Title Drops, though not every one of them. It also wasn't necessarily a key moment of the episode. Prominent ones include "A Hole In The World" and "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been".
** Same goes for ''[[NCIS]]''.
Line 66 ⟶ 81:
* Every episode in the HBO miniseries ''[[Generation Kill]]'', though the conversations are often not particularly important to the plot.
* In the last episode of ''[[Boy Meets World]]'':
{{quote| '''Cory:''' "Boy Meets World"...''now'' I get it!}}
* Parodied in ''[[Two and A Half Men]]''. There is usually a {{smallcapssmall-caps|[[Title Drop]]}} in the episode, but it is usually a completely irrelevant line that gets little attention drawn to it and has no impact on the plot.
* ''[[Mr. Show]]'' inverts the trope by choosing a completely random line from each episode as the title, such as, "Oh, you men!"
* Many episodes of ''[[Yes Minister]]'' and ''[[Yes Prime Minister]]'' end with a character, usually Sir Humphrey or Bernard, responding to something Hacker has said by saying "Yes, (Prime) Minister." [[Nigel Hawthorne]], showing his serious actor chops, made a point of saying this with a different emotion every time.
* Parodied in ''[[Blackadder]]'' when Edmund decides to take the name of The Black...Vegetable! Fortunately Baldrick suggests a better title for <s>the series</s> his Lord.
* ''[[The Young Ones]]'' reserved their [[Title Drop]] for the final few minutes of the series. As the lads [[Riding Into the Sunset|ride to glory]] in a stolen double-decker bus with wads of stolen cash, Rick celebrates their victory and newfound freedom in a rousing speech: "We’re young ones! Bachelor boys!" Seconds later, {{spoiler|the bus crashes through a Cliff Richard billboard and plummets off a steep cliff, whereupon landing it [[Kill'Em All|explodes into a fireball from whence nothing or no one could escape.]]}} [[The End]].
* Twice thus far in ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'': once in the Pilot and once in the finale.
* Played with in the ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "Wishful Thinking." Sam claims to be writing a book to get a witness to talk to him. When she asks the title, he has to think quickly to come up with "Uh, well, the working title is...Supernatural?"
* 'By its very definition, ''[[Glee]]'' is about opening yourself up to joy.' Done again, various times, for episode titles, eg. "Thanks, '''Grilled Cheesus'''!". They even managed to drop the title with a song for the episode [[Christmas Episode|Extraordinary Merry Christmas]].
* Name an episode where ''[[Smallville]]'' ''doesn't'' [[Title Drop]] the episode title (usually awkwardly, glaringly, and embarrassingly) and I'll (not really) pay you a hundred dollars.
* "I guess it's not so bad, being [[Dead Like Me]]."
* Alton Brown referring to the ''[[Iron Chef]] America'' participants as "Your Iron Chef's, America" in their introduction seems a pretty blatant attempt at this.
* In an episode of ''[[Leverage]]'', the [[Monster of the Week|Villain of the Week]] remarks that as long as he is holding Nate and Sophie hostage, he "has leverage."
** "We provide...leverage."
Line 85 ⟶ 100:
* Every episode of ''The Beiderbecke Trilogy'' (''The Beiderbecke Affair'', ''...Tapes'' and ''...Connection'') uses the first line of dialogue as its title.
* How could anyone have missed ''How Do They Do It?'' They say it at least four times an episode!
* Happens occasionally on [[Game Show|Game Shows]]:
** "You ''are'' [[The Weakest Link]]. Goodbye!"
** "All this can be yours, if [[The Price Is Right]]."
** "I can [[Name That Tune]] in five notes." "Four notes." "Three." "Name that tune."
** A partial one: "My name is [name], and I am (or am not) [[Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?|smarter than a fifth grader]]."
** "So if you're fast enough, smart enough, and if you've got the guts, you can [[Win Ben Stein's Money|Win Ben Steins Money]]!"
** In-universe example: On an episode of [[The Odd Couple]], Felix appears on [[Let's Make a Deal]]. While on the show, he says "Hey Monty, let's make a deal."
* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', being [[Character Title|Character Titled]], often has a title drop, but one episode managed to do a [[Theme Tune]] title drop/quote, with Veronica saying 'We used to be friends, a long time ago', right before the theme song 'We Used to Be Friends' starts, the first line of which is '[[Department of Redundancy Department|A long time ago, we used to be friends]]'.
* ''[[The Closer]]'' plays it straight in the pilot episode, as this is how Pope describes Brenda. In a later episode, it's played for laughs, as a funeral director under investigation says "I'm what's known as the closer", meaning he's the one who inspects the bodies and ''closes'' the coffins before funerals. Brenda and Sgt. Gabriel share a surprised look when the word is mentioned.
* And if you ever...''ever''...think it doesn't happen on The [[Disney Channel]], too...[[Once an Episode|well]], [[Good Luck Charlie|good luck, Charlie]].
* ''[[No Ordinary Family]]'' nearly does this during the [["Previously On..."]] with "We started out as/We were no longer an ordinary family" and then gets played straight in dialogue during the season finale.
* In a 1970s British comedy set in World War II India, a new arrival writing a letter to his mother decides not to tell her how awful the place is, and writes ''[[It Ain't Half Hot Mum]]'' instead.
* In ''[[Law and Order]]'', the individual episodes often title drop the names of that particular episode. The title of the show itself has also been said on occasion.
* In the [[Community/Recap/S1 /E01 Pilot|pilot]] Jeff makes a speech announcing they are no longer just a study group but a ''[[Community]]''.
* Near the end of ''[[As the World Turns]]'' 53 year run, Bob Hughes (the who started out as the preteen son of the central family and ended up as the patriarch), says in a speech "Every day that the world keeps turning is a gift."
* The National Geographic Channel show ''Taboo'' does this during every segment of the show. For example, the narrator may say "Some people consider X to be ''taboo''", with extra emphasis on taboo. Arguably justified because that is an actual word.
* ''[[The Shadow Line]]'' has a lot of musings on the theme of shadows, lines and light throughout the series, but the title itself is only dropped once, during a conversation about Gabriel's possible corruption in episode 5.
* In-universe examples from ''[[Seinfeld]]'': Whenever the gang goes to the movies, the film(s) they watch often feature title drops.
** "Everybody into the Chunnel!"
** "Oh, Rochelle Rochelle...",
* ''[[Pretty Little Liars (TV series)]]'' does it with a jumping rope song in episode 2x14.
* Al has title-dropped a few times on [[Married... with Children]], never happily.
** Extra points when taking the ellipsis pause, on occasion
* There is no episode of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' that does not have someone use the word "hero."
* Both ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' specials use this.
** In ''Razor'', Admiral Cain awards Kendra Shaw the eponymous title, which she applies to the most loyal and merciless of her soldiers.
** In ''The Plan'', it's first used in print on Brother Cavil's religious flyers, and subsequently in spoken lines by the Cylons.
Line 116 ⟶ 124:
* The true-crime TV show "Deadly Women" is a gross offender. The narrator is guaranteed to drop the name of the episode at LEAST once. For example, in the episode Hearts of Stone, she says "They killed... with Hearts of Stone."
* From the first episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'':
{{quote| '''Bob Kelso:''' Dr. Dorian, do you not realize that you're nothing but a large pair of scrubs to me?}}
* In ''[[Game of Thrones]]'', pretty much every episode is Title Dropped since the episodes are typically named after a significant line from them, and the titles aren't displayed. However, the one that tops them all is a series title drop and episode title drop in one line:
{{quote| '''Cersei Lannister:''' When you play the '''game of thrones''', '''you win... or you die.''' There is no middle ground.}}
}}
 
{{tropesubpagefooter}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Title Drop]]
[[Category:Live Action TV]]