"We promised to sing the Birdie song 10,000 times, didn't we? Well, we've got 5,276 to go. So sing!"
— Ursula, Bye Bye Birdie
They have one song to sing, and they'll sing it in practically every scene they're in. This may annoy the audience, and even annoy the characters if they do it several times in one scene.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Soul Eater: Excalibur.
Excalibaaah! Excalibaaah! In the United Kingdom, I am looking for her, I am going to Californiaaaa~! Excalibaaah...!
Fan Works
- Those Lacking Spines gives us Jeffiroth's choir. Every time someone says his name, they will inevitably sing "JEFFIROTH!" in a manner similar to that of the Nobuo Uematsu piece from Final Fantasy VII known as "One-Winged Angel," which was notable for the chorus shouting "Sephiroth!" multiple times as part of the lyrics. Even after Jeffiroth is defeated, the choir still sings it at his name's mention.
"Jeffiroth!" sang the choir from Chapter 5.
Films — Live-Action
- The national anthem of Freedonia in Duck Soup.
- Similarly the chorus of "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" in Animal Crackers repeatedly interrupts Groucho's attempts to speak in one scene. In the end he decides to interrupt himself before they get a chance.
- The brass band in the inspection scene of The Dirty Dozen, who happily burst into their piece whenever the impatient colonel comes out of his office, to his increasing annoyance.
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Bravely bold Sir Robin/ Rode forth from Camelot..." At least until:
Narrator: In the frozen land of Nador, they were forced to eat Robin's minstrels. And There Was Much Rejoicing.
All: Yay. - In the original version of The Producers, a violinist in a restaurant will not take a hint and go away until Max pours a whole bottle of champagne into his trousers.
Literature
- The sheep in Animal Farm have been trained by the pigs to shout down dissenters by mindlessly chanting "Four legs good, two legs bad!"
Live-Action TV
- Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Vikings from the Spam sketch. "Lovely Spam, wonderful Spaaaaam..." "Bloody Vikings!"
- Done also in the "Cheese Shop" sketch, where there's a Greek band playing a song in the background, until Cleese turns around and screams "SHUT THAT BLOODY BOUZOUKI UP!"
- Muppets Tonight:
- Used as a running gag in an episode where the characters keep mentioning Istanbul and Constantinople as though they were two different places, and every time they do, a band of rats dressed up as Turks pop up from nowhere to sing the penultimate verse of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)".
- Another episode had a chorus of Whatnots pop up to sing a variation of "Whip It Good".
- The Sandra Bullock episode features a sketch that takes place in a psychiatrist's office. In it, Kermit tells the psychiatrist (played by Bullock) that he keeps seeing strange creatures every time he says the word "phenomena". Cue the Snowths. Shortly after, Bullock's character tries it out, and at one point starts to go into Mahna Mahna-esque scatting.
- Father Ted once featured a disco where the DJ for the night has forgotten his records, leaving him with just "Ghost Town" by The Specials, so he can only play that tune over and over, even in lieu of the national anthem.
Music
- Described (but fortunately not demonstrated) in Tom Lehrer's song "In Old Mexico", from An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer:
The Mariachis would serenade
And they would not shut up till they were paid
Theater
- Gilbert and Sullivan have a few examples:
- The bridesmaids in Ruddigore keep on bursting into their chorus ("Hail the Bridegroom—hail the Bride!") until Robin angrily orders them to leave.
- In H.M.S. Pinafore:
And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts ...
- In Trial by Jury the jury and gallery continuously interrupt the judge.
"Siiiiiilence in cooooooooooooooooooourt!" *banging gavel*
- "Follow The Fold" from Guys and Dolls.
- In Bye Bye Birdie, Conrad Birdie's fan girls keep on singing:
"We love you, Conrad, oh yes, we do
We love you, Conrad, and we'll be true
When you're not near us, we're blue
Oh Conrad, we love you!"- Fans of The Beatles completely missed the point and made their own version for John, Paul, George, and Ringo. And sang it to them. "We love you, Beatles..."
- The film adaptation had a second version sung by the boys about how much they hated Conrad Birdie.
- In the musical Wonderful Town, Ruth wants to interview a group of Brazilian sailors, but they want her to teach them how to do the Conga first. She shows them how, and then starts rattling off her questions (in song), but is interrupted every fourth line by their shouts of "Conga!" and increasingly wild singing and dancing. She tries to get them to stop and listen to her, but is in the end literally carried away by the Crowd Song.
- The town gossips in The Music Man: "PickalittletalkalittlepickalittletalkalittleCHICKCHICKCHICK..."
- A possibly accidental example in Jekyll & Hyde with "Facade" and its reprises sung by the chorus. The Broadway production had five but some versions pare it down to three or two.
Web Original
- Bad Horse's henchmen in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
Western Animation
- Looney Tunes: "What's Up Doc?" has Bugs Bunny going over his early career, including a stint as a singer in a Broadway chorus line.
"Oooooohhhhhh... We're the boys of the Chorus
We hope you like our shoooowwww
We know you're rootin' for us
But now we have to gooooooo!" - The Buddy Bears from Garfield and Friends.
- The national anthem of Anvilania in an Animaniacs cartoon, which is such a boring dirge that it is used as a weapon later on.
- "A Spark Inside Us", from The Princess and the Goblin. It's a song about singing, but it helps that singing is a highly effective weapon.
- The final scenes of The Flintstones episode "The Hot Piano" involve Barney and a troupe of policemen who keep singing "Happy Anniversary" to Fred and Wilma, much to Fred's annoyance.
- South Park: "Sexual Harassment... Pan-daaa!"
