What a showstopper.
The Hero and the Love Interest have just saved the day, and they've done so in a very large, very public place with a very noticeable audience—say, a theatre performance, or an orchestra recital. Having saved the day, our heroes are receiving a round of applause.
It may be ambiguous exactly what the audience is applauding for. After all, from their perspective all that's happened is that a couple of jokers have just burst in and completely stage-crashed what might have been a very interesting performance; usually it's because someone very prominent is present and has started applauding because he thinks what's happened is part of the performance or is a lot more entertaining than the scheduled show. Either way, they stand up and clap.
Then, swept up in the moment, the Hero and the Love Interest decide that, then and there, they'll confirm their developed feelings for each other by kissing in front of everyone. It's a major 'awww' moment, and usually to make it even more romantic, the applause increases in volume and intensity; ah, True Love, now this is worth applauding!
A subtrope of The Big Damn Kiss. See also Smooch of Victory. No relation to a KISS concert.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Averted in Blood+: The hero defeats the Big Bad on stage at an opera house, her knight confesses his love to her, and they kiss... in front of an audience of two. Also, the whole scene was rather dark, instead of straight-up happy like most that follow this trope.
- In given, Ritsuka kisses Mafuyu in response to the latter nailing his first, emotionally-charged live performance. Subverted in that Ritsuka brings Mafuyu backstage before doing so, and it remains a secret within the band until the next day.
- Julia and Ran share their First Kiss at the beginning of a ZLAY concert in Strawberry Shake Sweet. Of course, the whole thing was set up by the ZLAY band members in the first place.
Fan Works
- In Shout*For: Act II,
note Jon and Stephen come out of the closet publicly in the middle of a concert by altering the words to "They Don't Know About Us", and end the song by kissing each other live on stage. By that point they'd been together in secret for nearly two years, so they're really thrilled to be able to tell the world that, yes, they are in love with each other.
- In Taking In A Stranger, Pearl kisses Marina on stage when her tentacles start moving under her hoodie in order to distract the audience. This leads to the two confessing afterwards.
- In Citadel of the Heart in the story Truth and Ideals, Ash winds up invoking this trope to announce to the entire Unova region about his newfound romantic relationship with the Kantonian Gym Leader Misty, as after his Curb-Stomp Battle against Elesa in his Gym Battle against her, Misty comes up on stage within the Nimbasa Stadium upon receiving Ash's cue to do so and the two share a kiss.
Films — Animation
- Louie and Cecilia in We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. Near the end of the movie, after calming the dinosaurs with The Power of Love, they both kiss in a crowd of people in a circus show.
Films — Live Action
- The end of the Goldie Hawn/Chevy Chase movie Foul Play.
- Averted in Music and Lyrics; although the romantic climax does occur at a concert, the climactic pash between the two lovers occurs in the wings, out of sight whilst the concert continues apace.
- Ghostbusters (1984): After the Ghostbusters defeat Gozer, they come out in front of the building to the cheers of the crowd, and Peter Venkman kisses Dana Barrett.
- Under Siege: Casey Ryback kisses Jordan Tate after the bad guys are defeated.
- Judge Dredd: After Rico is defeated, in a rare Gender Flip, Judge Hershey kisses Judge Dredd.
- Speed Racer and his longtime girlfriend Trixie have a discussion early in The Movie about his lack of romance. The best idea he can come up with is kissing her on the lips after winning the big race. At the end of the film, in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans and an international TV audience, he does just this. The camera flashes become heart shaped as this happens.
- Galaxy Quest has the climactic kiss on stage at a convention for the eponymous TV show. A fan is seen fainting, apparently due to her Shipping being "confirmed".
- Anger Management: At Yankee Stadium. In fact, it in and of itself was the climax of the story, given that the main character's anger management counseling was all an elaborate hoax to get him to express his emotions in public.
- In Love Actually, the Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) finally re-encounters his love interest Natalie in the backstage of a school play, where he professes his love and they kiss... then the curtain goes up.
Prime Minister: Right. So, not quite as secret as we'd hoped.
Natalie: What do we do now?
Prime Minister: Smile. Little bow. And a wave. - Forrest Gump: Forest and Jenny running across the reflecting pool in Washington D.C. and embracing made the crowd explode into applause — mostly since Jenny is part of an anti-war protest and Forrest is in full military uniform.
- In Strange Days, Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) and Mace (Angela Bassett) have saved the day, stopped the psycho killer, and solved Iris' murder. Lenny pushes his way through the crowd to Mace, and they kiss just after the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve, 2000. Minor subversion, in that no one notices them or pays attention; it's a New Year's Eve party, after all, who's going to pay attention to another couple kissing at midnight?
- American Pie 2: This one time, at band camp, Jason Bigg's character totally made out with Alyson Hannigan's character after the final concert performance of the summer.
- Literal example at the end of the Josie and the Pussycats movie: After saving the world from musical brainwashing, Josie reunites with sweetheart Alan M, who professes his love to her... while bodysurfing... in the middle of a song... in the middle of a concert being broadcast all over the world. And then they kiss.
- A Mighty Wind: Mitch and Mickey perform "A Kiss At The End Of the Rainbow", and after a suspenseful pause, they do the much-anticipated kiss at the end.
- Played for Laughs of course at the end of The Naked Gun when Frank uses the Power of Love to release Jane from her hypnosis. He gives her a cliche riddled declaration of love speech in the concourse of Dodger (oops, Anaheim) stadium unaware that a cameraman is filming them and it’s being broadcast live on the Jumbotron (new technology at the time) for the whole stadium to see. This of course causes everyone to break out in tears and inspires the brawling players to hug and make up.
Live Action TV
- In Glee, Finn and Rachel kiss after performing a duet together at Nationals. The positive crowd reaction is subverted, though- everyone in the crowd thought it was very unprofessional and possibly staged, and it costs them a win.
- An episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody does this with Cody and Barbara. Accompanied by a kid playing romantic music on his violin.
- On The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Ricky and Amy kiss onstage at the former's high school graduation after she accepts his marriage proposal.
- In DI Goodman's final appearance in Death in Paradise, right after he solved a big two-parter case, he hurries to Martha's crowded restaurant, introduces himself by breaking some china off-screen, finally tells her he loves her, and kisses her while every patron in the establishment starts applauding and cheering. His job on Saint Marie is then taken over by DI Mooney due to Goodman staying in London to build a new life with Martha.
Visual Novels
- Kira☆Kira: Pictured above, Kirari kisses Shikanosuke (who was in drag at the time) at the end of their final performance, in front of an audience larger than all of their other performances combined. Bonus points for it being her first kiss.
- Kindred Spirits on the Roof: Youka's school festival performance ends with this between her and her now-girlfriend, Aki.
Western Animation
- Linda and Lawrence literally do this at a concert (with a camera projected them onto a big screen as well) in Phineas and Ferb.
- Recess: The episode "The Experiment" has T.J. and Spinelli kiss, as an experiment, in front of all their friends and all the kids in the playground, despite T.J. and Spinelli's request in not wanting to kiss in public in the first place, thanks to their friends inability to keep a secret about it.
Real Life
- Johnny Cash proposed to June Carter onstage during a concert in Canada. She did not know in advance that he was going to do it. After singing the duet "Jackson", Cash suddenly asked Carter "Will you marry me?" Carter tried to talk Cash into proceeding to the next song, but Cash refused to continue the concert until she answered him. Finally she said "yes" and they kissed. Legend has it that the crowd went wild. The event is reenacted in the biopic Walk the Line.
- In 2005, Garth Brooks proposed to his girlfriend (and longtime friend) Trisha Yearwood live onstage in front of 7,000 people in the middle of a concert. Unlike Johnny Cash, he only had to wait about two seconds for her to say yes. (And yes, then they kissed.) They are still very Happily Married to this day.
