Title Drop/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Xandir: There is hope! As long as we're together. Drawn to--
Spanky: You say "drawn together," and I swear to Christ, I'm gonna cave your skull in with a tire iron, and eat what drips out.
Xandir: Alright, fair enough.

  • Avatar: The Last Airbender
    • In the first episode of the series, Zuko tells his uncle that "the Fire Sages tell us that the Avatar is the last airbender."
    • In the third season episode, "The Avatar and the Firelord", Firelord Sozin's final testimony ends with him expressing regret that he never found and defeated the greatest threat to the Fire Nation, "the Avatar, the last airbender".
    • The second season finale is called "The Crossroads of Destiny", with Iroh using the title almost exactly when he tells Zuko that he is at a point where he has to choose which path in life to take.
    • In the third episode of the first season, Aang remarks, "I really am the last Airbender."
  • "Let the fight take place here, on this strange, primitive world. And let it be called...the Beast Wars!" The conflict is then referred to as such occasionally throughout the series, Megatron claiming that he's won the Beast Wars as he reaches the climax of an Evil Plan, for example. Doesn't apply for viewers watching it on Canada's YTV where, due to discomfort with the word "War" in its title, it was called "Beasties".
    • Several episodes feature title drops. For instance, in "A Better Mousetrap", after Rattrap sets off the Sentinel defense system, leaving him stuck inside, Dinobot remarks "It seems as though you [Rhinox] have built a better mousetrap."
  • War Planets (a.k.a. Shadow Raiders) gets a Title Drop during a Rousing Speech in the first season, before the attack on planet Remora: "We've stopped being planets at war and become planets of war!"
  • An episode of G.I. Joe had an awesome Title Drop. In the episode "Money To Burn", Cobra... burns United States money, but as usual, GI Joe beats them.

Ripcord: Like Cobra, you have money to burn.

  • The end of the first arc of the Justice League cartoon has both a Mythology Gag and a Title Drop. Superman wonders if they shouldn't start a team, and give it a name they can be called by collectively.

Flash: What, you mean like a bunch of Superfriends?
Superman: More like a... Justice League.

    • In the same series (or rather, in the Unlimited season), a Title Drop was given to another DCAU series: Batman Beyond refers to Amanda Waller's project to continue the Batman legacy, resulting in the conception of Terry McGinnis, Batman of said series.
  • The Simpsons
    • "Worst Episode EVER" actually drops it with Comic Book Guy's response to finding out he had a cardiac episode.
    • And the episode where Homer meets a man who thinks he's Michael Jackson:

Man: I'm Michael Jackson from The Jacksons.
Homer: I'm Homer Simpson from The Simpsons.

Strawman Atheist: It's the Rapture, Shawna, the Rapture. The virtuous have gone to Heaven and the rest of us have been... left below!
Homer: "Left below".. .where have I heard that before?
Lisa: Dad, it's the title of the movie.
Homer: Gasp! It's everywhere!

    • And in Fear of Flying, Marge watches a certain movie:

Man: No thanks to the plane, many of us are still...
Everyone: Alive!

  • With the name of the show also being the name of the title-character, title drops are common in Kim Possible, but in the first movie, A Sitch in Time, they also manage to drop the title of the opening lyrics of the theme-song into casual dialogue.
  • Referenced in a Family Guy episode, where Peter is at the movies and hears the drops in Clear and Present Danger and As Good as It Gets (and also a parodic one, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace). Later in the episode, a cop says "I don't appreciate drug addicts in my town. I'm a family guy!", much to Peter's delight.

Superman: The only way for me to solve this crisis is to be Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
Peter: So that's why it's called that...

    • There was that early episode where the Griffins watch Eight Is Enough where the father hits the daughter multiple times then another character says "Dad! Eight is enough!" and then they all laugh. Even the Griffins were shocked.
  • In The Venture Brothers episode "The Buddy System", Dr. Venture tells his son "They're here to see Rusty Venture, if there was a cartoon called 'The Venture Brothers', maybe it would be different."
    • In the episode "The Invisible Hand of Fate", said episode's title is said twice by two different characters to Billy Quizboy.
    • "Powerless in the Face of Death" opens with Jonas Venture Jr. announcing "But we're the Venture brothers!"
  • The Danny Phantom episode "Flirting With Disaster" had Tucker and Sam finish a sentence that involves the title; "Long night... of flirting with disaster?" Obviously it refers to Danny's dangerous Dating Catwoman relationship with Valerie.
  • "You've started something. A brave, bold new era in crimefighting."
    • The scene is turned a little funny when you realize that the episode writer was Joseph Kuhr and Batman is talking to The Red Hood a.k.a. Earth 3's Joker.
    • Batman also makes a Title Drop as the final line of the first season finale.
  • The Ren and Stimpy Show lampshades this shamelessly in the episode "Marooned!" After their spaceship crashes on a distant planet, Ren confirms that they have no way to get home.

Ren: We're marooned!
Stimpy: Just like the title of this cartoon!

  • In an amusing aversion, in the finale of the third season of ReBoot, the cast makes a gamble to have the User "reboot" the computer and thus restore Mainframe. When the screen goes blank, however, the User types in "ReStart". In a convention panel the creators lamented that they didn't think to title drop at that oh-so opportune moment.
    • On a more general note, the title is regularly dropped as the command word for characters changing format to interact inside of a Game.
  • "Don't be hasty. Not until I see those Street Fighters pummelled to dust, which should be any moment now" YES!! YES!!!
  • Scooby Doo
    • Scooby Doo Where Are You!. In the episode "Foul Play in Funland" Shaggy says "Scooby Doo, where are you!"
    • At the beginning and end of every episode of A Pup Named Scooby Doo Shaggy provides the narration and always includes "My pal, a pup named Scooby Doo!" Scooby is rarely, if ever, referred to that way outside of Shaggy's narration.
  • Battle tanks are for hardened soldiers, and you're trained only as an invader, Zim!
  • "Truly, they were an Aqua Teen Hunger Force."

Carl: (Beat) Your emergency brake is on!
Shake: Don't tell me how to drive, jackass!

  • Occasionally done in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? The ACME agents might say, "Where on Earth is she now?" or villains trying to outdo Carmen would say, "Where on Earth is..." and insert their names instead. In the episode "Shaman Spirits," a news reporter said the title outright.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

Utrom Shredder: So long as Ninja Turtles exist somewhere in the multiverse, they will interfere in the plans of the Shredder! Our epic battle is never going to end...unless I put an end to Turtles...FOREVER!

    • also, in the 1987 series, after recounting their origin to April, Splinter finishes with, "...and that is how they became The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!"
  • Lampshaded in one of the Billy & Mandy movies where Grim immediately follows up his Title Drop with an aside, "like how I worked the title in?"
  • "What TIIIIME is it?" "ADVENTURE TIME!!!"
    • Some individual episodes can have this too, such as "The Real You" (and some like "Her Parents" that are meant to be generic). Interestly subverted with "The Real You"--at one point a temporarily-insane Finn screams that everyone was "BORN TO DIE!," which was the original title of the episode before it was changed.
  • In an episode of Beavis and Butthead, the title duo are arguing over what to name their newly-formed garage band. Beavis suggests "Beavis And Butthead", but Butthead insists it sounds better the other way.
  • The first Daria movie's title, "Is It Fall Yet?," is Link's first line, given when Daria asks him if he has anything to say when they arrive at the Okay to Cry Corral.
  • In the first episode of the Spiderman the Animated Series version of the Secret Wars arc, the episode ends with Spider-Man declaring his intentions to keep a record of the events he witnesses, so that the battle will not become "a secret war."
    • Also, part one of the Grand Finale two parter is called "I Really, Really Hate Clones." Spidey doesn't wind up saying it: it's the evil alternate Spidey who is bonded with the Carnage symbiote who gets to say it, thinking our Spidey is a clone.
  • Heavily parodied in one of the sketches from Sheep in The Big City. One. Life. To Live.
  • Code Lyoko has this Once an Episode (with a few exception), shown on the Holographic Terminal when Aelita deactivates a tower.
  • The Jimmy Two-Shoes episode "Too Many Jimmys" has Samy mention the titular problem.
  • "No Billy, hearing you talk was Annabelle's Wish."
  • A number of episodes of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic have characters work the phrase "my little pony" into the episode somewhere: Pinkie Pie in "Fall Weather Friends", Twilight Sparkle in "The Show Stoppers", Celestia in "A Bird in the Hoof", and even Discord in "The Return of Harmony, Part 1". There also a few episode-specific title drops:
    • In "Stare Master", it's how the Cutie Mark Crusaders describe Fluttershy after she manages to out-stare a cockatrice.
    • The phrase "The Best Night Ever" is used several times in the episode of the same name.
    • In "May The Best Pet Win!", it's the last line of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash's "Finding a Pet" song:

Fluttershy: May the games begin...
Rainbow Dash: And may the best pet win!

Megatron: The fact is, Starscream, despite your treachery, I allowed you to carry on this long because I took a certain delight in following your string of failures...But you've finally become tiresome, predictable! You've hit Rock Bottom.

  • Recess has episode title drops within a number of episodes:
    • "Jinxed"
    • "Speedy, We Hardly Knew Ye"
    • "I Will Kick No More Forever"
    • "Operation Field Trip"
    • "The Girl was Trouble"
    • "Recess is Cancelled"
    • "Me No Know"
    • "Good Ol' T.J."
  • Some of the episode of House of Mouse such as "Thanks to Minnie" and "Pluto Saved the Day."
  • The ending of the Season 1 finale of Xiaolin Showdown, "In the Flesh."
    • Also shouted whenever a Woo-Fu item is contested. "Xiaolin Showdown!"
  • Phineas and Ferb, "Summer Belongs to You!" In addition to the song of the same name near the end, we get a title drop near the middle, when Phineas is trying to give Candace a pep talk:

Phineas: The gist of it was that you have to believe in yourself.
Candace: That's easy for you to say. Look at all the things you've done! Summer belongs to you!
Phineas: Summer doesn't belong to me. It belongs to everyone, and that includes you!

    • "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together"
  • Done in the narration at the end of The Great Mouse Detective.
  • In the first episode of Ultimate Spider-Man, Nick Fury says he can train Peter to become "the ultimate Spider-Man".
  • Archer: in S5E1, "White Elephant", after a montage of events which may or may not be in the following season, Archer excitedly utters the name of the season ("Archer: Vice"), whilst denying he said anything.
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