Narrating the Obvious occurs when someone doesn't use Show, Don't Tell, and Narrating the Present occurs when someone In-Universe narrates what's happening at that moment. But there is a sub-trope to Narrating the Present, and that's Calling Your Actions. This is when a character doesn't narrate everything they're doing, but instead just certain brief actions they're taking, or reactions they're having. For example, someone sitting at the keyboard working on a trope saying out loud, "Type type type typity type." N-not that any of us do that or anything.
The trope is typically Played for Laughs, and will immediately show a character to be a Cloudcuckoolander or a Bunny-Ears Lawyer, often used to serve as a Establishing Character Moment.
May be a result of Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud.
A Supertrope to Calling Your Attacks, Calling Your Bathroom Breaks, Calling Your Nausea, Calling Your Orgasms, and Captain Obvious. Also compare Saying Sound Effects Out Loud, Reality-Writing Book which resembles this when read, and Rewriting Reality when what you say becomes narration.
See also Musical Chores, for when someone is doing a chore and sings what they're doing.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Lucky Star:
- In the anime adaptation, we're given a voiceover of Kagami saying "STARE" as she watches Konata reading a light novel she loaned her, which only serves to make Konata nervous.
- In one of the Lucky Channel segments, Akira Kogami suggests that Minoru Shiriashi is keeping his distance from her due to discomfort. He tries to reassure her that isn't the case and moves closer to her, only for her to move further away again while saying "Scoot".
- When Konata is at an anime specialty store, the store manager uses a Geass to order Konata to buy a bargain bin DVD. When he activates the power he actually says "Schwing Swish".
- Martian Successor Nadesico: When Yukina boards the Nadesico to kill Minato for "seducing her brother", she quickly reveals that she's a Harmless Villain by narrating her actions, like tiptoeing around the ship saying "Sneak, sneak, sneak." Later, after Tsukomo is murdered, she confronts Minato in her breakdown by saying "Stare".
- Urusei Yatsura: When Ataru is put in a pair of cursed boxing gloves that cause the wearer to hold a target before punching them, he ends up narrating his actions when he grabs Mendou, saying, "Swing, Swish!"
Fan Works
- Bandit's Belt: During a game of house, Bluey and Junior say, “Fake throw!” and “Fake slap!”.
- Birthday Breakfast: When Lincoln is stirring some pancake batter, he chants words like "mix" and "stir" to himself.
Films — Animated
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Flint has a habit of announcing his actions with sentences like "Folding!" and "Welding!". He even lampshades it once with "Saying what I'm doing."
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius: During the montage of the kids in town having fun after their parents have gone missing, several of them keep announcing what they're doing. A girl opens a fridge and says, "I'm letting out the cold!" One boy states, "I'm running up the down escalator!" while he's in the mall, and Sheen happily shouts, "I'm peeing in the shower!"
Live-Action TV
- Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Mr. Rogers always announces when he's feeding his fish. The out-of-universe reason is that a blind girl wrote to him, asking if he ever did so, since she couldn't see him doing it, being blind.
- Scrubs: Dr. Kelso is attempting to lecture Jordan on her vote to save Dr. Cox from his wrath after he performed surgery on a patient without insurance. Jordan yawns as Kelso persists. She then says, "Yawn! [Beat] See, I say 'yawn', because when I actually yawn, you don't get it."
- Star Trek: Voyager: When Tom Paris, the EMH, and Tuvok are forced to kidnap Rayne, a woman from the past, she threatens to scream by saying, "I'm standing up. I'm opening the sunroof. I'm taking a deep breath!".
Puppet Shows
- Fraggle Rock: At the start of "Scared Silly", Wembley is heading toward Boober's room, half-singing to himself: "Oh, I'm goin' to see Boober. He's goin' to see me. And won't that be fun? Oh, squeedy squat sqee!"
- Sesame Street:
- In one skit, Big Bird is taking a walk and saying to the viewers, "I'm walking down the street. Well, technically, I'm walking down the sidewalk."
- In one "Ernie and Bert" skit, Bert wants Ernie to let him into their shared apartment, but he thinks Bert is just practicing asking to be let in. Bert, whenever he does something like ringing the doorbell or knocking, says, "This is me [doing something]."
Video Games
- In My Bedtime, a Licensed Game for Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, if you make Daniel brush his teeth, he will say, "Brushing my teeth" as he's doing so.
Web Animation
- Murder Drones: Cyn and the Absolute Solver often narrates what she's doing as she's doing it, such as sitting down, shaking her head, or licking. When it's revealed she's been disguising herself as Tessa, she makes it clear that she's not automatically compelled to speak this way, but rather seems to do so because she finds it humorous.
- GoAnimate: The troublemakers often announce their actions as they're doing them or just before doing them. Like in this
video, Warren says, "Now to clean my nasty butt".
Web Videos
- This online video involves a woman on the toilet repeating, "Sitting on the toilet!" to herself.
- A Running Gag in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Abridged Series by DarkSideIncorporated is when the characters shout “Reaction Shot!” when they do a Reaction Shot.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: In "Burning Low" Jake sings about his combo food, bacon pancakes. (and doubles this with Ode to Food):
Bacon pancakes, makin' bacon pancakes!
Take some bacon, and I'll put it in a pancake!
Bacon pancakes, that's what it's gonna make!
Bacon pancaaaaa~ke! - Big City Greens:
- In “Dinner Party”, Remy sees Tilly singing while brushing her pig.
Tilly: Brush, brush, a-brushin' the piiiiig...we're brushin' and a-brushin' the piiiiig...
- In “Harvest Dinner”, Nancy helps Bill cook the stew, as she stirs the stew while singing a carefree tune.
Nancy: [stirs the pot] Do-da-do... stirrin' the stew, stirrin' the stew-ew-ew...
- At the start of “Bad Influencer”, Cricket carves the title of the episode while singing his actions.
Cricket: [half-singing] I'm carvin' in Gramma's house, carvin' in Gramma's house, and waitin' for my best friiiieeeeend! [sees Remy's limo] And there he is!
- In “Dinner Party”, Remy sees Tilly singing while brushing her pig.
- In the Bluey episode "Helicopter", the young protagonist conveys that she is fixing her imaginary helicopter by whacking a 'hammer' against it and saying, "Fix, fix, fix".
- Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood:
- In "Prince Wednesday Goes to the Potty", Prince Wednesday says to himself as he's washing his hands, "Washing my hands, 'cause I'm royally clean!".
- In "Daniel's Babysitter", Daniel says to himself as he's getting ready for bed, "Putting on my PJ's, going potty." At the last part, Prince Tuesday pulls a face.
- In "Prince Wednesday Goes to the Potty" as well as its sister episode "Daniel Goes to the Potty", Daniel is on the toilet and he says in a singsong tone, "Sitting on the potty, sitting on the potty..."
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: Cloudcuckoolander Ed will often say what he's doing repeatedly: "Dig a hole, dig a hole, dig a hole...", "Kick my feet, kick my feet...", Slide on the soap... Slide on the soap...", and so on.
- Family Guy: In "Peter Griffin: Husband, Father ... Brother?", Brian recalls Peter once went through a phase where he narrated his own actions for two weeks straight. This sets up a Cutaway Gag where Peter is shown loudly describing how disgusted he is at Lois' cooking and how aware he has become of her aging, prompting her to punch him unconscious in return. Day turns into night as Peter finally regains consciousness and concludes the scene by saying "I awoke several hours later in a daze".
- Looney Tunes: In "Hold the Lion, Please", Leo the Lion confronts Bugs Bunny, telling him he intends to hunt and eat him. Bugs initially dismisses this before falling into subsequent narration.
Bugs Bunny: Why, if you was a lion, to wit, and I was a rabbit, un-to wit, why, I'd be scared. [Beat] Wait, I am scared! Terrified! Panic-stricken! [Bugs begins screaming, then pauses to calmly say:] Shriek shriek scream squeal. [Resumes screaming as he runs off, to Leo's confusion]
- The Loud House: In "Making the Case", one of Lincoln's embarrassing videos is of him in the shower washing his single chest hair and chanting, "Washing the chest hair! Washing the chest hair!".
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "The Powerpuff Girls' Best Rainy Day Adventure Ever", Blossom pushes a toy car and says in a singsong voice, "I'm happy, I'm driving, I'm happy and I'm driving!"
- In a SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In a comic, SpongeBob says to himself, "Brushing my teeth, brushing my teeth" as he's...well, brushing his teeth.
- In "Walking Small", SpongeBob is singing "Stepping on the beach" as he walks on the beach.
- In "The Graveyard Shift", SpongeBob is very excited to be given the night shift and keeps doing ordinary work things and saying, "I'm [doing something] at night!".
SpongeBob: Psst, Squidward. I'm working in the kitchen [giggles] at night!Hey, Squidward. Guess what, I'm chopping lettuce...at night.Look at me, I’m swabbin' the bathroom...at night.[SpongeBob picks up his spatula from the hot grill, and burns his hand; screams] I burned my hand!...at night. [his hand sizzles]
