Roll credits! [ding]
Michael: Your average American male is stuck in a perpetual state of adolescence. Y'know, arrested development.
Narrator: Hey, that's the name of the show!
Narrator: Hey, that's the name of the show!
If a line of dialogue is the title of the episode, movie or book, it obviously must have some great significance. If it sounds completely random, that just means the true meaning of the title has yet to be revealed. So when a character is heard using the title in dialogue, the audience sits up and takes notice, because the scriptwriter has just planted a neon sign that flashes THIS CONVERSATION IS IMPORTANT.
Note: If a series is named after a central character, setting, group, etc., it usually does not count as a Title Drop. The exceptions are when they are usually called by another name, or when the name is said in a different manner for dramatic effect, usually when introducing the namesake. Hence, Transformers, The West Wing, House, and things like that don't qualify. Often, the Title Drop will finally explain why the episode/book/etc is called that way to begin with. If this explanation comes by showing instead of by telling (i.e. it is not actually spoken aloud by any of the characters), then it's The Namesake.
A second variety of Title Drop is the Finale Title Drop. It occurs when the title of a work is used as the last line spoken or near its end. Here, it's not nearly as big and flashy and important as the first variety, but it still explains things to the audience a bit more. You can probably find these mainly in thriller works, where it makes you sit up and think (and adds a bit of drama to the ending). It's also common in plays that were written during the Victorian era. A third variety is Title Drop Chapter, in which a chapter of a written work or an episode of a serial work has the same title as the whole work; this often is used for important developments. A fourth variety is the Visual Title Drop in which the title may be represented visually, in a particular shot composition or by placing a particular object in the frame; this is most often used in the same way, to draw attention to something important or to emphasize a theme.
Title Drops aren't always deliberate or premeditated (i.e. the writer takes the title and inserts it for effect). Sometimes the creative process runs the other way, and a phrase from the body of the work will be picked out and used as the title (sometimes the title is the last thing to be nailed down). This often happens with a Title Drop Anthology, where the stories are often written months or years before they are collected in a single volume.
Compare with Justified Title, Title Theme Tune. See also Arc Words, Appropriated Appellation, Title Scream, Singer Namedrop, and Album Title Drop. Often combined with a Literary Allusion Title. Might overlap with "Say My Name" Trailer. Cover Drop is a similar trope for in-story scenes being based on cover art and vice versa.
The opposite of this trope is Non-Appearing Title, but see also Non-Indicative Name and Word Salad Title for titles that are very obscure, confusing, or abstract, with little obvious connection to the subject matter. When a title of a series was once accurate and descriptive, but has since become obscure or out-of-date, it has an Artifact Title.
See a video collection of Title Drops here
, and a channel dedicated to them here.
Example subpages:
- Anime & Manga
- Fan Works
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Other examples:
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Advertising
- "Victory by Computer": When all is said and done, Supergirl states that "[Luthor]'d probably never believe his scheme was done in by a class of sixth graders... who gained a victory with the help of microcomputers!"
Comic Books
- Aggretsuko: Out to Lunch: Near the end of the first issue, Retsuko takes off from work early, leaving a sticky note claiming she's "out to lunch."
- The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy writes on her list of kids to be on her baseball team that Jackie Rodowsky is "a walking disaster." She also (gently) calls him one after their game in a one-on-one with Bart.
- Be Prepared: The first song sung at the camp is "Be Prepared"—it's in Russian and is a song about how Russian expats should always be prepared to stand for their Russian homeland. Notably, Vera is not prepared as she doesn't have her songbook to sing along.
- In Billy Majestic's Humpty Dumpty, the nursery rhyme character namesake of the monster is brought up when Pervis Brakk points out to his brother Petus that the creature looks like Humpty Dumpty.
- Birds of Prey doesn't get a Title Drop until issue #86, when Lady Blackhawk suggests that it might be a fitting name for the team. It is immediately rejected by everybody else on the team.
- Black Science:
- Grant refers to the dimension-hopping pillar technology as black science. Other characters like Doxta pick it up from him.
- One flashback to Mr Block's lab shows that someone has graffitied "Block Science" to "Black Science".
- Two-Gun Kid hopes to go out in a Blaze of Glory in the last issue of the eponymous miniseries. The last we see of him ALIVE, that is, he's jumping into certain death to kill as many nightriders as he can.
- Blue Is the Warmest Color: At one point Clémentine comments on the different shades of blue.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
- In Don Rosa's Uncle Scrooge story "Last Sled to Dawson", after Uncle Scrooge's Yukon Gold Rush-era dog sled is dislodged from the glacier in which it had been trapped for decades and slides into the town square, one of the nephews quips "The last sled to Dawson has finally arrived!"
- In Carl Barks's story "Back to the Klondike", Uncle Scrooge says to a confused Donald Duck "You're going with me - Back to the Klondike!"
- Empowered: "Wahh, Wahh, Wahh" is dropped as the start of "Wahh, Wahh, Wahh, I can't breathe!"
- Fine Print: After Merryl offers her the golden contract, Lauren wants to know about the fine print, i.e. the catch.
- Forever Evil (2013): Ultraman concludes his speech to his villainous crowd by saying "Aeternus Malum. Forever Evil.".
- Hybrid Force: After stopping Dr. Insomnia's plan to use a Kill Sat to threaten the Earth into making him ruler, Prince Prince Stavros holds a press conference where he announces a team of heroes composed of Thorn, Octo, and Lizard Lady, and Star.
Prince Stavros: Let me introudce... Hybrid Force.
- From the 1989 James Bond comic Permission to Die.
Q: Do be careful, 007. Her Majesty may have granted you a license to kill, but that doesn't give you permission to die.
- Legends of the Dead Earth: In Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #7, Wildfire says that due process is "one of the greatest legends of the dead Earth."
- In Lost At Sea (2003), Raleigh drops the title as the last line of the comic.
- Marvel Adventures: Iron Man #6 has the phrase "Destructive Reentry" used twice. It's a Meaningful Title, considering the issue.
- My Little Pony: Set Your Sail: Pipp mentions Set Your Sail as the name of her newest song title.
- The New Universe comic Kickers, Inc. ended its first issue with the team in unison, shouting, "Kickers, Inc!"
- The four-part comic series based on Over the Garden Wall managed a purely visual example by depicting Wirt tripping over a (very low) garden wall.
- "To be human, truly human, is to accept that sometimes we are heroes.. Sometimes we are victor.. and sometimes we are Powerless."
- Although not a verbal one, Sandcastle ends on the note of Zoe and Louis' daughter building a sandcastle.
- Santa Versus Dracula: "Winner take all. Mano a monster. Santa versus Dracula."
- Three of the Sin City books' ("A Dame to Kill For," "The Big Fat Kill," and "That Yellow Bastard") titles occur in either dialogue or narration. The film adaptation also works in the first story's retroactive title, "The Hard Goodbye,".
- In one issue of the Sonic X comic book, Sonic was abducted by the Society for Observing and Neutralizing Interdimensional Creatures and Xenomorphs. Guess what the acronym for that is.
- Spider-Man: The first big event of the Brand New Day era made sneaky use of this trope. It had what sounded like a pretty typical comic title until Norman Osborn dropped it in-story:
Osborn: For every life you save...there's a million new ways to die.
- In the final panel of Spider-Gwen, she introduces herself to some firemen by saying:
Gwen: Me? I'm Spider-Gwen.
- Starslayer: The weapon used to collapse Sol into a black hole was a 'Starslayer Missile'. At the end of the arc, refugees from the Sol system have dubbed Torin himself as 'The Starslayer', though he was never directly addressed as that in the comic.
- Sunny Series:
- As Sunny is headed home after her trip to Florida, her grandpa tells her to keep her "sunny side up" before she boards the plane.
- Neela, her new neighbor, tells her to "swing it, Sunny!" when she's performing flag twirling for her family and friends.
- Supergirl: Why The World Doesn't Need A Supergirl is both the title of Supergirl (2005) #34 and an exposé article written by Catherine Grant.
- Superman:
- Reign of Doomsday: When Cyborg Superman discovers Luthor has created an army of Doomsday enhanced clones:
Cyborg Superman: "[Luthor] seems to have put in place... The Reign of the Doomsdays!"
- The Leper from Krypton: As gloating, Luthor declares: "Superman...Wherever you are! This is my sweetest possible revenge! You are now the Leper from Krypton!"
- Reign of Doomsday: When Cyborg Superman discovers Luthor has created an army of Doomsday enhanced clones:
- Spider Jerusalem describes The Word as a "great Transmetropolitan newspaper". This is the only mention of the series' title.
- In DC Comics' weekly series Trinity (2008), every story (there's two per issue) is named for a snippet of dialogue. Since "Trinity", while it refers to the main characters, isn't an official team name, its repeated use qualifies as well.
- The Unexpected: In issues published after its initial title Tales of the Unexpected, the narrations of the featured stories seldom missed an opportunity to include "the unexpected" or just "unexpected" somewhere in the description of the tales or the characters featured therein.
- "Two of a Kind (1996)": Madeline tries to convince Two-Face to continue their romance by arguing that they're "two of a kind".
- Issue 24 of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead. It gets a double-page spread to itself, and then another page when it's repeated.
Rick: It's obvious now that I'm the only sane one here! We already are savages, Tyreese. You especially! The second we put a bullet in the head of one of these undead monsters — the moment one of us drives a hammer into one of their faces — or cut a head off. We become what we are! And that's just it. That's what this comes down to. You people don't know what we are. We're surrounded by the dead. We're among them — and when we finally give up we become them! We're living on borrowed time here. Every minute of our lives is a minute we steal from them! You see them out there. You know that when we die — we become them. You think we hide behind walls to protect us from the walking dead! Don't you get it!?
Rick: We are the walking dead!
Rick: We are the walking dead. - Watchmen almost does this with the phrase "Who Watches the Watchmen?" but the graffiti is never shown completely.
- In The Movie, "Watchmen" is the name of the alliance. However, the graffiti still remains.
- Ozymandias mentions that JFK had part of a speech he intended to give in Dallas that read "We in this country, in this generation, are by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom." Unfortunately, he was assassinated (possibly by the Comedian), by those Ozymandias described as on "the walls of world tyranny," before he could deliver it.
- Astonishing X-Men had something of an example, with Cyclops saying that the team had to "astonish" the public if they were ever to be trusted again.
- Whedon's last issue, the Giant Sized special, is entitled "Gone". It's also the last word in the issue.
- Whedon's last issue also echoes Cyclops' comment from the first issue, as Kitty Pryde accepts what she must do to save the world.
Kitty: Disapponted, Miss Frost?
Emma: Astonished, Miss Pryde.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: Many of the collection books take their names from lines within popular comic strips, typically Sunday specials. Examples include:
- Something Under The Bed Is Drooling
- Yukon Ho!
- Weirdos From Another Planet
- The Revenge of the Baby-Sat, from the February 09, 1989 strip.
- Scientific Progress Goes "Boink"
- Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons
- The Days Are Just Packed
- Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat
- There's Treasure Everywhere
- It's A Magical World
- The "final" strip of For Better or for Worse has a title drop at the end of the final panel of the nominal (it's complicated) Last Strip Ever.
- The January 9, 2008 strip of Pearls Before Swine has a Title Drop responded to by cheering, noisemakers, confetti, balloons and a rubber chicken dropping down from the ceiling with the title card, in an obvious Shout-Out to You Bet Your Life:
Rat: That was odd.
Fairy Tales
- "The Bright Sun Brings It To Light": The victim being robbed and murdered prophesies that "the bright sun will bringit to light", referring to the crime.
- Asbjørnsen and Moe's "East of the Sun and West of the Moon": After the heroine blows the Curse Escape Clause, the male lead exclaims
"I must leave you, and go to her. She lives in a castle which lies east of the sun and west of the moon."
- In Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "The Three Flowers", also called "White as Milk, Red as Blood", Katie is described in the next terms: "She was a beautiful girl, white as milk, red as blood."
- "Follow Me, Jodel!": Every time the titular character is wondering how can he beat his father's challenges, a friendly talking toad approaches him and offers her help by telling: "Follow me, Jodel!"
Films — Animation
- "Not to worry, Charlie. You'll go to heaven. All Dogs Go to Heaven, because dogs, unlike people, are naturally good, and loyal, and kind."
- "Now, what can I give An Angel for Christmas..."
- Beauty and the Beast: The song speaks for itself:
Tale as old as time
The song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast. - Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget: "Behold. The dawn... of the nugget!"
- Corpse Bride contains a number of title drops, as most of the inhabitants of the underworld refer to Emily as either "the bride" or "our corpse bride". Victoria, the living bride, also uses it once when speaking to the minister.
Victoria: Victor is married to a dead woman. He has a corpse bride!
- Flushed Away:
- "Of course. That's the Toad's plan. That's why he needs the cable! When everyone goes to the toilet, the whole city will be flushed away!"
- "Oh, you think you're so clever, don't you? Well, I'll be the one laughing when every last revolting rat is flushed away!"
- Foodfight! is title dropped twice in the film: once during a club brawl, and again during the climax.
- "Arendelle! It's completely frozen!"
- Frozen II: "Of course - glaciers are rivers of ice! Ahtohallan is frozen."
- Done by Dawson in the closing narration at the end of The Great Mouse Detective, with it being the final line of the film.
Dawson: (narrating) From that time on, Basil and I were a close team, and over the years we had many cases together. But I shall always look back on that first with the most fondness; my introduction to Basil of Baker Street, the Great Mouse Detective.
- "I give you Happily Never After!!!" — said by the evil stepmom in... you guessed it, Happily N'Ever After.
- Happens in both Hoodwinked! and its sequel, when the source of the conflict reveals how the good guys were tricked with the phrase, "You've been hoodwinked!"
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
- There's a scene in the middle of the "Topsy Turvy" number where Clopin quells the panicked crowd when it is discovered that Quasimodo's "mask" is actually his face.
Clopin: We asked for the ugliest face in Paris, and here he is! Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame!- In Japan, the word "hunchback" is highly offensive, so the movie was titled The Bells of Notre Dame in Japanese, making the entire opening song one of these.
- "I'm just saying, how do we know it's an Ice Age? – "Because. Of all. The ice!"
- Kung Fu Panda 4: In one scene, Po tells the Juniper City guards "Perhaps you know me better as...the Kung Fu Panda!"
- The Little Mermaid (1989): During "Vanessa's" song: "Soon I'll have that little mermaid and the ocean will be mine!"
- "The fact is... Mars Needs Moms."
- "General Monger, I propose we go forward with your Monsters vs. Aliens idea... thingy." A later line is both a Title Drop and a Shout-Out: "Attention all aliens! Destroy all monsters!"
- "Put it in O, for Onward!"
- Played With in Over the Hedge. "We want NOTHING, to do with ANYTHING, that's over that hedge!"
- The Prince of Egypt has a few.
"I was the prince of Egypt, the son of the man who slaughtered... their children."
"I pardon forever all crimes of which he stands accused, and will have it known that he is our brother, Moses, the prince of Egypt!" - Rango: Rango says his own name, which he also says the title, when introducing himself at the saloon.
Rango: Name's... Rango.
- Ratatouille: Linguini asks the origin of the name of the dish "Ratatouille", saying it doesn't sound delicious, and instead sounds like "rat patootie".
- Strange Magic was named after the song by Electric Light Orchestra and is sung in the form of a duet by Marianne and The Bog King.
- Several times in the first act of Yellow Submarine.
Lord Mayor: Fourscore and thirty two bars ago, our forefathers...
Old Fred: A quartet...
Lord Mayor: And foremothers...
Old Fred: Another quartet...
Lord Mayor: Made it in this yellow submarine. - Wallace & Gromit:
- "It's the wrong trousers, Gromit! And they've gone wrong!"
- In A Close Shave, when Preston is trying to escape the Knit-O-Matic, Gromit sets it to "Close Shave". He even winks to the camera as he's doing this.
- "That's... Vengeance most fowl!"
- "I'm Gazelle. Welcome to Zootopia."
Manhua
- My Beloved Mother does this in the (chronologically) last page, when Sinbell places a carved stone plaque with the book's title on the foot of the statue he dedicates to his mother... after spending the past 17 years of his life disowning her.
Pinball
- "I'm Captain B. Zarr! Almost live from The Party Zone!"
- "Welcome, race fans, to Banzai Run!"
- Twilight Zone: Rod Serlingnote regularly puts Title Drops in his voice clips.
"Time is a one way street...except in the Twilight Zone."
"Dance with the Devil at your own risk...in the Twilight Zone."
"The stakes are higher...in the Twilight Zone."
"It's time to tune in to...the Twilight Zone."
"Never underestimate the Power...in the Twilight Zone." - One possible start-up quote from Attack from Mars contains one of these:
"Reports are coming in from all over the world... The Earth is under attack! An attack... from Mars!"
- When going to "Stiff-O-Meter" mode in Scared Stiff:
The Stiff in the Coffin: Turn out the lights, it's time to get Scared Stiff!
- The Attract Mode of Black Hole (1981) has a Machine Monotone voice asking "Do you dare to enter the black hole?"
- An alternate one goes "No one escapes the black hole!"
- Done in one of the Attract Mode displays for Big Bang Bar.
- A variation occurs in Metallica, where the titles of the band's various songs and albums are used throughout the game, especially in the callouts and game modes.
- "Pin*Bot...circuits...activated!"
- "Fast Break" is one of the combo shots in NBA Fastbreak.
- In Total Nuclear Annihilation, destroying every reactor nets the player a "Total (Nuclear) Annihilation" bonus.
- Downplayed in Mousin' Around!. Starting a game plays a soundbite that ends with a slight variation on the machine's actual name: "So you wanna mouse around?"
- In Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (2023), shortly after beginning Captain Cutler Multiball, a frightened Shaggy exclaims the game's title verbatim: "Scooby-Doo, where are you?"
- Wipe Out (1993): Whenever the Surfaris song the game is named for plays,note it opens exactly like the original recording does — with a man laughing before saying "Wipe out!"
- The Uncanny X-Men: The Stern Insider Connected achievement for getting a double jackpot in To Me, My X-Men Multiball is simply called "The Uncanny X-Men."
Podcasts
- Near the end of the Firefly game of Cool Kids Table. After Kimmi finds the stash of high-quality fuel rods, she declares that they've found "the Motherlode", which also happens to be the name of the pre-made story being played.
- In the Escape from Vault Disney! episode discussing the film The Ghosts Of Buxley Hall, Tony makes fun of the one present that film, in which the title is dramatically exclaimed followed by another character they see as an Italian stereotype exclaiming "Mamma Mia!", immediately cutting to commercial break. Tony then says every title drop in film should be structured the same way, playing a clip where Doc Brown says the title of Back to the Future 1 followed up with another "Mamma Mia!".
- Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap: Inverted. The hosts name the episodes after they're done recording them, so often the title will be something they said during the episode.
- Invoked in episode three of Mystery Show, which starts with Starlee and her client naming the episode:
Carson: Okay, so, what two words do you know about my mystery?
Starlee: Belt Buckle.
Carson: That is a good title for it. - In episode 12 of Sequinox, Sid cites the title of that and the previous episode during her internal monologue.
Sid (transatlantically): The trouble with dames is that dames is trouble.
- Towards the end of the first episode of Sporadic Phantoms, Robin calls their concerns about The Sharing "a sporadic phantom of a thought".
Professional Wrestling
- Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard did this on every Ring of Honor show they did commentary on if it had a title that could be dropped.
- A more literal case happened during the "8 Mile Street Fight" at the 2006 "Bound For Glory" when Christian Cage hit Rhino with an 8 Mile street sign.
Radio
- Our Miss Brooks: Every so often, Miss Brooks would be introduced as "Our Miss Brooks" just for the fun of dropping the title of the program. One example appears in "The Grudge Match" where Mr. Conklin introduces "Our Miss Brooks" as the ringside commentator.
- Paul Harvey: "And now you know...the rest of the story!"
- You Bet Your Life (Groucho Marx's radio comedy quiz series):
George Fenneman: Ladies and gentlemen, don't tell a soul, but the secret word tonight is <word>. W-O-R-D.Groucho Marx: Really?!George Fenneman: You bet your life!
- The first episode of The BBC's 1981 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings begins with a pre-credit narration giving the history of the Ring, ending with the words:
Narrator: There it was hidden, even from the searching Eye of Sauron - The Lord of the Rings! (Underscore swells into opening theme tune)
- Big Finish Doctor Who: "For the church and the crown!" becomes the Battle Cry of the united force of Musketeers and Cardinal's Guards in The Church and the Crown.
- Dimension X's "Pebble in the Sky": This episode uses the title early in the story, describing Earth as an ignored backwater planet, inconsequential to the Galactic Superpower of humanity. It then ends with the title, as Bel Arvardan predicts that Earth will be the only planet left with human beings, describing it as alone and lonely.
- The Opening Monologue of The Six Shooter ends with a title drop:
"The man in the saddle is angular and long-legged. His skin is sun-dyed brown. The gun in his holster is gray steel and rainbow mother-of-pearl, its handle unmarked. People call them both 'the Six Shooter'."
Tabletop Games
- All Flesh Must Be Eaten is both the title of the game and the default feeding option in zombie creation.
- In the dice/word game Crashword, spelling the word "Crashword" on your turn is an Instant-Win Condition.
Theatre
- Frequently done with title songs in musicals (too many to list).
- William Shakespeare does this occasionally:
Helena: All's Well That Ends Well; still the fine's the crown;
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown....Duke: Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure....Prince: For never was a story of more woeThan this of Juliet and her Romeo....This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,And Dromio my man did bring them me:I see we still did meet each other's man,And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,And thereupon these errors are arose....He that knows better how to tame a shrew,Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show. - When the curtain opens on the prologue of Fiddler on the Roof, we see and hear the fiddler playing, and the very first lines in the show are Tevye saying, "A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no?" The fiddler, who plays no part in the plot, is explained by Tevye to be a metaphor for the tenacious existence of Anatevka and its people.
- The opening scene of Damn Yankees has one in dialogue (what Joe says when Meg asks him if the Washington Senators won the game he was watching) and another in the song "Six Months" ("Those damn Yankees! Why can't we beat 'em?")
- The Importance of Being Earnest, last lines:
Lady Bracknell: My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.
Jack ("Earnest") Worthing: On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest. - "There are no Angels in America" re: the lack of spiritual or ethnic history in the nation's culture—it's a big rant about how everything is political. Although, in the context of this play, there are angels in America, and Louis is, as Belize says "so full of piping hot crap that the mention of [his] name draws flies" in the monologue/monolith in which he makes the above statement.
- In the opening scene of The Music Man, one of the salesmen on the train calls Professor Harold Hill a "music man" during the "Rock Island" patter.
- In the musical Catch Me If You Can, the opening song "Live in Living Color" has a title drop on a high note at the end of the bridge
- "What's a name/Just window dressing/Everyone knows that it's the clothes that make the man/Play the game, just keep 'em guessing/mix and match me, try to catch me/If you can!"
- Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet does this unabashedly, as the script calls for a lightning strike for emphasis upon delivery of the line.
- In You Can't Take It With You, Grandpa drops the title in reference to Mr. Kirby's wealth.
- Sometimes encountered in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas:
- "Thou hast come to join The Yeomen of the Guard."
- "They are pirates! The famous Pirates of Penzance!"
- Les Misérables is generally considered to be an untranslatable title. It is dropped in the finalé in the original French version of the musical; it is translated as "the wretched of the Earth" in the more widely-heard English libretto, but this is a loose translation and loses the effect of the Title Drop.
- In Drew Hayden Taylor's Someday, the word "someday" is pronounced exactly twice: at the very beginning of the play, by the mother, Anne, who states that she'll be rich "someday." She wins the lotto and also fulfills her dream of meeting Grace/Janice, her daughter who was taken away by children's aid 35 years earlier. The family reunion seems to be going well until Grace, now the rich lawyer Janice, asks why she was taken away and Anne tells her the truth, that it's because they were Native Canadian and poor. Janice can't accept that answer and realizes how different she is from her birth family, having been raised by an upper-middle-class family while her mother and sister live on reservation. She leaves quite brutally and merely states "I'll be back...someday." This is the most chilling line of the play, especially since it started set up as a play about dreams being fulfilled. Made even more poignant since in the sequel, Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, she does come back...for Anne's burial.
- Given that the word "Wicked" is spoken often in the 2nd act of the eponymous show, there is one conversation where Elphaba emphasises to Glinda that she is now "the WICKED witch of the west," which is important.
- More whimsically: "For the first time, I feel...wicked."
- The very first song of the show is 'No One Mourns the Wicked', which ends with the ensemble shouting the title in unison.
- Word of god has stated that he originally intended for all the song titles to include some form of "Wicked", "good", "bad" "wonderful", etc. In the end only 6 songs did. ("No One Mourns the Wicked", "Something Bad", "Thank Goodness", "Wonderful", "No Good Deed", & "For Good")
- Inherit the Wind has Matthew Harrison Brady quote scripture. It becomes considered for his epitaph.
- "Don't forget that a few years ago we came through the depression by The Skin of Our Teeth. One more tight squeeze like that and where would we be?"
- In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the Title Drop occurs as a bit of drunken singing (parodying "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf").
- Paint Your Wagon does it in its theme song "I'm On My Way," which is technically not a title song:
Got a dream, boy? Got a song?
Paint your wagon and come along!- And in the Simpsons parody, its
Lee Marvin: Gonna paint your wagon,
Gonna paint it fine,
Gonna use oil-based paint
'Cause the wood is pine.Choir: Ponderosa pine! Wooo-ooh! - In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Maggie uses the phrase to describe her life.
- In Up The Down Staircase, the title (an offense one of the protagonist's students is detained for) is rather painfully dropped twice, once near the beginning and once at the play's "climax."
- "When he died—- and by the way he died the Death of a Salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston—-when he died, hundreds of salesman and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that."
- Subverted in Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neill: the character is interrupted just before getting to that line in a poem.
- Arthur Miller's All My Sons: Joe says at the end, "Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were."
- The Cole Porter musical Out Of This World drops its title in the song "No Lover."
- A Streetcar Named Desire has a literal Title Drop in its first scene, where Blanche tells how she came to the house on Elysian Fields. Later, there is a less literal but more meaningful reference:
Stella: But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of making everything else seem—unimportant.
Blanche: What you are talking about is brutal desire—just—Desire!—the name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another... - A double title drop is done in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tell Me on a Sunday. There's the title song, but it also contains the lyrics "let me down easy, no big song and dance". Tell Me on a Sunday was combined with Variations to form the reworked show Song and Dance, consisting of one "song" act (Tell Me on a Sunday) and one "dance" act (Variations), so this one is a retroactive title drop as well.
- Jesus Christ Superstar, The Phantom of the Opera, and Sunset Boulevard all have songs with a Title Drop chorus.
- Sweet Gay Baby Jesus: Used as an exclamation during the course of the play, rather than a character name, as some had hoped.
- In The Cat and the Canary, no cats or canaries are brought up until the second act, when Annabelle starts flipping through a random book and finds herself reading about fear and how to overcome it through understanding:
"Take a bird—a canary in a cage—put it on a table—then let a cat jump up and walk around the cage, glaring at the canary. What happens? The canary, seeing its enemy so close to it, is frightened almost to death. But if it had understanding, it would know that the cat couldn't reach it while it had the protection of the cage. Not knowing this, it suffers a thousand deaths—through fear."
- George Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell has no less than five Title Drops, all by the same character, who considers it philosophy.
- Several characters in Dog Sees God title drop the scene titles, and Beethoven mentions in The Vipers Nest that it's said "a dog sees god in his master." Interestingly, the play also drops the title of another Charlie-Brown themed work in the final monologue, as CB reads a letter from his mysterious pen pal CS (Charles Shultz) who tells him that despite his struggles, he is a good man.
- "The sight is dismal, and our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, to tell him his commandment is fulfilled, that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."
- Not a title song, but the last lyric in the musical Ordinary Days: "... the color of an ordinary day."
- Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna lacks a title song, but the title appears in the song "Hope" and the Triumphant Reprise of "Elma Om Mi Lize".
- Cirque shows that do have title songs and from there title drops include Alegría and Quidam.
- Barefoot in the Park has several references to the title, but only once using its exact wording:
Corie: It's suddenly very clear that you and I have absolutely nothing in common.
Paul: Why? Because I won't walk barefoot in the park in winter? - Pacific Overtures:
Reciter: From the personal journal of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. 14 July 1853. As I supervise the final preparations for this afternoon's historic landing at Kanagawa, I am moved to hope the Japanese will voluntarily accept the reasonable and pacific overtures embodied in our friendly letter.
- In Margin for Error, the Consul, regarding his financial troubles, says, "The Third Reich allows no margin for error!" This line is echoed by Max in the second act.
- Cactus Flower:
Stephanie: Now, Doctor, you've been complaining that I'm too grim and efficient. You compared me with my cactus plant. Well, Doctor, every once in a while this prickly little thing— puts out a lovely flower that some people think—
- This mixes with As the Good Book Says... in There Shall Be No Night, when Kaarlo quotes Revelation 22:4-5. "And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever." The quote is from the vision of a new Eden in the last chapter of Revelation; Kaarlo means it to reflect his hope for the future of man.
- Natalie drops the title in a bittersweet duet with her mother in Next to Normal:
- Diana: We tried to give you a normal life. I realize now I have no clue what that is.Natalie: I don't need a life that's normal, that's way too far away, but something next to normal would be okay.
- In The Playboy of the Western World, Pegeen Mike builds up Christy Mahon in her mind as a dashing, romantic figure, breaks off the relationship when she realizes she's been Loving a Shadow, and then discovers, when it's too late to get him back, that in every way that matters he really is everything she'd hoped of him. The last line of the play is her lament that she's "lost the only Playboy of the Western World".
- The first two lines sung in Come from Away are as follows:
Welcome to the Rock if you come from awayYou'll probably understand about half of what we say
- For bonus points, the title of that song is Welcome to the Rock, making two title drops in one line.
- The Title Drop in Ride the Cyclone comes from that Fourth-Wall Observer/ narrator "The Amazing Karnak", a mechanical fortune teller with legitimate psychic powers who can accurately predict the time, date, and cause of death of anyone who gets their fortune read. He was set to ‘family fun novelty mode’ when he was bought by the Wonderville Traveling Fairground, leaving him only able to repeat the phrase "Your lucky number is 8. Ride the Cyclone." In his opening monologue to the audience Karnak laments that he was the one to suggest the six members of the St. Cassian High School chamber choir to ride the poorly maintained Cyclone roller coaster, which derailed at the apex of the loop-de-loop and hurtled the teenagers to their untimely deaths.
The Amazing Karnak: And my part in the story? I read all of the children's fortunes. I felt their hopes, thoughts, dreams, knowing they would board the doomed roller coaster, and could tell them nothing. I even suggested they ride the cyclone.
- The Barber of Seville does this with the subtitle, "L'inutile precauzione" ("The useless precaution"). They are the last words that Figaro sings before the finale, as well as the made-up name of an opera that Rosina supposedly sings an aria from during a sham music lesson.
- Lady Windermere's Fan: The eponymous object is never referred to in that exact phrase at any point, but there is a title drop to the play's subtitle: "A play about a good woman". The early stages of the play set up the expectation that Lady Windermere is the woman in question, but in the final line of the play she herself declares another character to be "a very good woman".
- A Woman of No Importance: The title is dropped in the final line of the first act, when Lord Illingworth mentions a woman he used to know — "No one in particular. A woman of no importance." — in circumstances that foreshadow the revelation of his relationship with Mrs. Arbuthnot. The final line of the play has an inverted title drop, when Mrs. Arbuthnot dismisses Illingworth as "a man of no importance".
- 'Tis Pity She's a Whore: The final line of the play.
Cardinal: Of one so young, so rich in nature's store/Who could not say, 'tis pity she's a whore?
Theme Parks
- Happens at a few attractions at Disney Theme Parks, including the Tower of Terror and Sounds Dangerous.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, when Luke Atmey insists on describing himself as an "Ace Detective," Phoenix awkwardly introduces himself as "Phoenix Wright... Ace Attorney." Being Phoenix Wright, the whole scene is not an especially important conversation, especially because Pearl and Maya insist on also being an "Ace"... spirit medium and apprentice, respectively.
- In the Prosecutor's Path fan translation of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, not only is the phrase "ace attorney" utilized a few times, Edgeworth drops the subtitle of the fan translation in case 4 while explaining his reasoning for relinquishing his badge.
Miles Edgeworth: If it's the prosecutor's path to turn a blind eye to the truth, then that title is worth nothing to me!
- Artificial Nexus: The Stinger offers multiple documents to be unlocked and read, which offer additional context to several characters' actions and some more information about the plot of the game. One of them mentions the title of the game, which is part of the real acronym which SUSAN stands for: Summoning Utility Software: Artificial Nexus.
- In GENBA no Kizuna, Shinketsu Kikai references the previous game, Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair, as well as the announced sequel, Withering Without Hope.
Shinketsu: Why is it that you short white hair folk are so broken beyond despair that you resign yourselves to withering without hope?
- The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty:
- The one-word Chapter titles may pop up within the lines of their respective chapters, and often at the end or during plot twists for dramatic effect. For example, "Liang Chapter 1: Cat" ends with Liang describing Man Sui as a cat, "Liang Chapter 2: Speak" ends with Liang realizing that Man Sui can actually speak and was just pretending to be mute, while "Liang Chapter 3: Swine Demon" focuses on Man Sui's exposition on the Swine Demon.
- If you have met the conditions to unlock the additional chapter which leads to the True Conclusions and decided to save the game at that point, the save and load interface would then reveal that this additional chapter is titled "The Hungry Lamb".
- No Case Should Remain Unsolved: One of the reasons the Adjudicator is pushing the protagonist to revisit That One Case and finally solve it is because she believes that no case should remain unsolved.
- Yet Another Killing Game: The title is namedropped as the True End route occurs with Karma revealing her backstory and lamenting the Time Loop Fatigue from her Groundhog Peggy Sue power persistently triggering whenever she or her friends die with time constantly being rewound to the start of yet another killing game.
Karma: All I knew was pain. And no matter how much I struggled, I couldn't escape... I wanted to die. I wanted to fade away. I wanted to stop caring about my friends so I could leave them for dead. But no matter what attitude I had, it would always end the same... Time would flow back to the beginning... The beginning of yet another killing game...
Web Animation
- The Sequel Series to Battle for Dream Island, Battle for Dream Island Again, had a title drop in almost each of its episodes.
- ”Yeah, Who? I Wanna Know?”:
Gelatin: So who’s the host gonna be?Puffball: (singing in autotune) Yeah who? I wanna know. Yeah who? I wanna know. Yeah who? I wanna know...- ”Get Digging”:
Fries: Well, get digging Bomby, the ingredients are probably underground.- ”Zeeky Boogy Doog”:
Puffball: What should we name our island?Nickel: Uh, I thought it had to be called Dream Island, 'cause, y'know, it's called Battle for Dream Island.Ruby: Well, I think it should be called Poopy Mayonnaise! It's got that nice ring to it!Firey: I've got a better idea! How about Zeeky Boogy Doog?- "Get in the Van"
Ruby: So, Free Smart, what's our plan?Pencil: Shut up and GET IN THE VAN !- "No More Snow!"
Nickel: No more snow!Yellow Face: YAAAAY!!- "It's a Monster"
Pencil: Now that the dust has cleared- I mean, now that the snow has cleared we are- OH MY GOD, IT'S A MONSTER !!!!!- "The Long-lost Yoyle City"
Pencil: Free Smarters, behold. The long-lost Yoyle City!- "Well Rested"
Nickle: Ooh, I love 5-cent discount- Wait! I'm related to Yellow Face?Needle: Who cares if you're adopted, Nickle? It's time for bed!Nickle: You're right, Needle! We're going to be so well rested tomorrow! Good night!- "Intruder Alert"
Firey: Something about the motionless corpses just make me feel at home!Ruby: Hey bro, I'M not motionless! Look I'm so motionful! Look I'm so motionful! But secondly, why are you here, Firey? You're not part of our alliance!Firey: Oh, Gelatin and I switched to your Free Smart team just now, so we're in your alliance! Could I have your Yoylite?Ruby: Wait- you guys are trying to infiltrate into our team??? Wake up! INTRUDER ALERT ! INTRUDER ALERT!- "Meaty"
Yellow Face: Well, here we are at Gelatin's Shades House! It smells so... meaty meaty in here.- "Catch These Hands"
Gelatin: All I'm saying is, you're responsible for Ruby, Pencil and Tennis Ball's deaths! You're a cute little murderer!Fries: Hey, you better watch what you say! Want to catch these HANDS ? - Cross Between Time: At the end of "Phenomenal Future Greet", Phyzz declares that Edward has "crossed between time", and the Unit F8 will be assisting him in retrieving his Time Machine.
- Fazbear and Friends (ZAMination): Glamrock Freddy says it clearly in "SISTER LOCATION VS SECURITY BREACH" when he asks Circus Baby if this video was supposed to be like the title said.
- In Goodbye Kitty, the title is what Black Kitty says every time he tries to kill White Kitty (which is always).
- Happiness (Steve Cutts): The word "happiness" is featured on nearly every single In-Universe advert featured. They all promise you happiness if you buy the product but none of them tell the truth.
- Hooray For Hell: All three episodes end with Cindee exclaiming "Hooray for Hell!"
- In OHSHC Parody, Tamaki drops the episode title.
Tamaki: Starting today, you are a host!Haruhi: Ha! That's the episode title!
- In Red vs. Blue Reconstruction, Agent Washington tells Church and Caboose that they can get back to their little Red Vs. Blue battles after they help him. Caboose quickly chimes in and says that they're called Blue Vs. Red battles and that it sounds stupid when you say it backwards.
- RWBY: 'The More The Merrier' opens with Qrow delivering the titular line to Leo upon being asked about why he brought so many people.
- Trouble Busters: The protagonist will yell "TROUBLE BUSTER!" at least once a story whenever the antagonist goes too far.
Web Videos
- Whenever this is encountered in CinemaSins's "Everything Wrong With" videos, Jeremy calls out "Roll credits!"
- DON'T LOOK AWAY (2017): When Savannah reports the presence of the mysterious sack-covered man just staring at her, her panicked father name-drops the film's title by advising her to not look away. She would then echo this same advice to her brother.
- Portrait Of God: Mia made a presentation on the titular Portrait of God, and mentions said painting's name while she's practicing her lines.
- Robin and Zephyr: Persona 2: Eternal Punishment Maya Only has Sub Scribe (Tatsuya) cap off his explanation of what happened after the end of Innocent Sin with a poetic statement:
Sub: Remembering my friends... that is my Innocent Sin. And having to stop Nyarlathotep again is my Eternal Punishment.note
Sub: So please, Maya, just let me handle this from here...
Maya walks up and slaps him.
Maya: Did you just drop the names of both games?! - Second episode of Undertale - SAVE Chara, called Undertale - SAVE Chara - I swear:
Chara: (Your sacrifice won't ever be pointless, Frisk.)
Chara: (Many will know what you did.)
Chara: (No one will ever forget you.)
Chara: (And I'll be worth your death.)
Chara: (I swear it.)
