Saying Sound Effects Out Loud

Just in case you missed it.

"Yawn! You see, I say 'yawn' because when I actually yawn, you don't get it."

— Jordan Sullivan, Scrubs

A character will perform an action and say the onomatopoeia for that action while doing so, or alternately say the onomatopoeia in place of the action. A common Verbal Tic.

Often done to make a character seem cuter. Can sometimes make said character annoying. Also sometimes used sarcastically, especially with sound effects like "yawn" or "clap".

There are many words that are commonly used this way. For example:

• Yawn!
• Clap, clap, clap.
• Knock, knock!
• Gasp!
• Groan
• Sigh
• Tap
• Boing!
• Facepalm
• Cough
• Dot dot dot...
• Ba-dum tsshh.
• Wink wink, nudge nudge or more simply, wink!
• Saying "bonk" or something equivalent when hit on the head.
• Saying "beep" or some other sound effect when pushing a button.
• Saying, or more likely, yelling, "bam", "bang", or "boom" when firing a gun.
• "Crickets" to indicate silence, particularly of the awkward type.
• Gulp!

See Written Sound Effect, Unsound Effect for the reverse trope, and Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud for a related one.

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Example subpages:

• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Advertising

• Crest Toothpaste commercial. BAM!
• BOOM! Tough actin' Tinactin!
• KABOOM, AND THE STAINS ARE GONE!!! Or in the UK, Barry Scott's "BANG, and the dirt is gone!!"
• Rattle rattle thunder clatter boom boom boom, don't worry, call the Car-X man.
• The "Mayhem" Allstate Insurance ad with Dean Winters in which Mayhem is an angry Papa Bear. The ad ends with him saying "So get Allstate and be better protected from Mayhem like me. Roar."

Anime and Manga

Japanese has many common words as well as some for actions that don't make sound.

• jii/jiin (the sound effect for staring)
• pita (the sound effect for stopping walking)
• ha (the sound effect for shock)
• small cute girls may sometimes say "niko-niko" (grinning) when they smile, or the alternate "nipa"
• shii—n (the "sound" of silence)
• pachi pachi (clapping)
• kaa (sunshine, blushing)
• doki (the sound effect for heart beating)

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• Attack on Titan:
  • Everyone does it in the Chibi Specials... for some weird reason.
    "GARA!" (SLAM!)
  • To a somewhat less comedic effect, Kenny Ackerman shouts out "bang bang", "ping ping", and "clash" when getting into a gunfight with Levi.
• Azumanga Daioh: During the trip to Okinawa, Tomo says "Boom, boom!" ("Clap, clap!" in the sub; "Ban, ban!" in the original) in front the main hall of Shurijo Castle as a show of appreciation.
  • In "Pool, Pool, Pool!", when teasing Yomi about being (supposedly) fat, she says "'Jiggle jiggle!' Hey, you made a jiggling noise!"
  • It doesn't come across in the dub, but in the sub, when Tomo smells sataa andagi, she says "Sniff, sniff, sniff" etc.; the original Japanese has her saying "Kun, kun, kun, kun" etc..
• To emphasize his quirky manga genius ways, Eiji Niizuma of Bakuman。 does this while working.
• In the final scene of Cowboy Bebop, Spike aims his hand like a gun at some Mooks of Vicious and says "bang." Spike then falls over and collapses on the steps, apparently dead from his battle with Vicious.
• Cromartie High School: Waroom! Waroooom-waroooom! Bapbapbapbapbapbapbapbap-chika! Wroooom!!! Bapbapbapbapbap Warooom!!! Bapbapbapbapbapbap. Uing-uing-uing Pachu!!! Che-kyuuuuuuuuuuu!!!
• Death Note L does this once in the anime, and also in the first live action movie. He's making a point with it, though.
• Digimon Tamers has Culumon doing this for cuteness bonus points.
• In Doctor Slump whenever Arale is running somewhere, she can often be seen / heard shouting "KIIIIIIIIIIN!!". ^note She's imitating the sound an airplane makes. She even does it with Airplane Arms.
• Doraemon: In "A World Without Sound", the Written Sound Effects might also be considered this. The characters write out sound effects on paper, which is the same way they talk to each other in this chapter.
• .hack Sora does this whenever he does something dramatic, like jumping off a tall structure ("Boing!"). Whether he's doing this to whittle down people's nerves or if he's just being the 10-year-old boy that he is is unclear.
• Done a lot in Excel♡Saga. It is pretty common to see characters shouting "Gasp!" or "Shocked!".
• An editor's note in one chapter of Great Teacher Onizuka notes that the Gundam trio are actually saying "crunch crunch crunch" out loud, it's not just the sound of their footsteps.
• English dub Hinata from Anime/Haikyu!! often speaks in onomatopoeia when describing how he plays volleyball, using words like "boosh!" and "ba-bam!"
• The Hamsters from Hamtaro say "Hiff Hiff" when sniffing something and "Badabadabada" when running. Pretty much every sound effect is said out loud.
• In Hayate the Combat Butler, whenever someone (usually Hayate himself) says or does something awkward, sometimes everyone else in the room will stare unimpressed, complete with vocalised 'jiin' Unsound Effect.
• Since Ikaros from Heaven's Lost Property was short-changed in the emotional department, it's very difficult to smile. When Tomoki tries to teach her how to do so, she says 'Niyabi' with a perfectly straight face. Hilarity ensues.
• In episode 13 of Hetalia: Axis Powers, Russia punctuates his staring at Japan by cheerfully intoning "Jiii!". Three times in a row. Also, Italy is fond of waving white flags and saying, "pata pata pata pata!" which is a flapping noise, as well as squishing kitties' paws and going, "puni puni puni puni," which is a squishy noise.
  • In the English dub, France smacks Austria on the head repeatedly while saying "smack smack smack smack."
• In Hidamari Sketch x SP episode 2, somebody is saying several of the sound effects.
• Rika Furude from Higurashi: When They Cry says "pachi pachi", which is Japanese for "clap clap". She does something similar when talking about kitties. However, her most famous demonstration of this trope is her catchphrase "Nii-pah~!"
• In Episode 4 of Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure, Kabaton says "Glance" out loud when looking over to see if Sora and Mashiro are going to fall for his trick.
• Vinegar Doppio in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure usually uses a cell phone to talk to his boss. When it breaks, however, he goes a bit nuts, using anything in the vicinity and saying the "BRING RING RING RING RING" part himself. Vinegar is a Split Personality of Diavolo, his supposed "boss", and the cell phone/random object is how the personalities communicate. It's even his win quote in All-Star Battle.
  • The "Blind Idiot" Translation of Part 4 uses this trope frequently, funniest of which is Yoshikage Kira's line "What a beautiful Duwang. (chew)", which led fans to name the translations "The Duwang Scans".
  • In Part 3, Noriaki Kakyoin has a rather loud way to express that he's licking something on his tongue: "Rerorerorerorerorerorerorerorero." or in English, "Licklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklick." It was actually a tip that something is wrong with Kakyoin, because he's being impersonated by Rubber Soul, but when the real Kakyoin got his favorite cherry on his tongue, he proceeded to do that creepy licking sound too, though in a more relaxed tone.
• Neko in K tends to recount events to other characters (or the viewers) using mostly this.
• Lucky Star:
  • In the OVA, Patty gets annoyed (more like in despair) that Minami's dog's paw pads don't go "puni puni".
  • Akira gets in on it, whether she's being cutesy (episode 2) or not (episode 21).
  • Konata may enjoy doing this, but it would seem she doesn't always appreciate when people reciprocate. In one episode, Kagami lends Konata a book, trying to spark her interest in something other than manga. She then proceeds to watch Konata as she reads, all the while going "Staaaarrrrrrrreeeeeee." in the English dub, and "Jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" in the original Japanese.
• In an episode of Martian Successor Nadesico, the resident Genius Ditz vocalizes to her salutes. Twice.
  Yurika: Bishi!
• One Piece:
  • In one episode, Kaku narrated his own incredulous Jaw Drop. The appropriate Japanese sound effect is something like "gabiin".
  • Transponder snails say "ka-chak" when when the other end of a call hangs up and in the anime say "puru-puru-puru" when ringing, the Japanese onomatopoeia for an old-fashioned phone ring. Also the security camera snails of Enies Lobby, staring with 'jii—'.
  • Several Devil Fruits are named after sound effects related to their ability. For example, the Goro Goro no Mi is named after the sound effect of lightning.
• Honey does this in the first episode of Ouran High School Host Club. "Poke poke?"
• A few times in Rosario + Vampire, Mizore will say 'jiii' when staring at Tsukune from one of her many hiding places (or in plain view of everyone, like when she joins the core True Companions). Amusingly, her mother does the same thing in her introduction.
  • And of course, Kapuchuu~.
• Permeates Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei.
  • One of the easiest ways to tell when Tsunetsuki has entered the scene, assuming you don't see her peeking out of somewhere, is if you hear a low and constant "jiiiii" sound, which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for staring (as mentioned above).
  • The voices that do it don't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the characters (it's not like a character is actually saying them), and they seem rather bored with it all.
• An episode of Seitokai Yakuindomo has Shino, Aria, and Suzu do this simultaneously to Tsuda as he tries to write an essay for the school paper. He is understandably annoyed.
• Kururu of Sgt. Frog says "Pochi!" (meaning *push*), or "Clicky-poo" in the dub, whenever he presses a button.
• In one of Slayers Evolution-Rs filler episodes, Pokota gets a dramatic "death scene" after being run over by a cart. His last words: "My casting was... too late. Gurk." The fact that he pronounces the last word as "gaaku" only makes it better.
• Dr. Eggman says "Pochi" when pressing a button in the Japanese version of Sonic X.
• In SPY×FAMILY, it’s a characteristic gag seen both in the anime and manga, in comedic moments characters will sometimes voice their shock by saying the actual sound effect in japanese with "gannnn~!”; Anya and Yor are most common users of said gag but others like Loid can be seen doing it too, just less so. Even Bond, the family dog, sometimes does a "woofed" version of this shock (that sounds like "Gwa~an!!").
• Shirabe of Symphogear tends to do the 'Jii' stare often. In fact, after Fine saves her soul and Kirika is worried that Shirabe is no longer herself, the latter pops up the sound effect to confirm that yes, she is Shirabe.
• Kotetsu Kaburagi from Tiger & Bunny has no shame in speaking in onomatopoeia on public radio. And he's a single father in his thirties.
  Kotetsu: ...And I went flying, like WHOOSH!, and then I was all BOOM and BANG!
• Fai from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- does this often - he can't whistle, so he just says "Hyuu" all the time. It annoys the heck out of Kurogane. Ironically, he can actually whistle.
• Urusei Yatsura: Characters vocalizing onomatopoeias and comic book sound effects as they appear on screen is one of the defining features the 2022 anime reboot, to give it a more modern vibe compared to the 40-year old original anime series.

Comic Books

• It's been a pretty common practice almost since comic books began that the action be accompanied by sound effects ("POW!" "KA-BLAM!" "KRAK!" "WHAP!", etc.) that will appear in huge letters right in the midst of the panel, as if they were physically present. In parodies, the characters will often lampshade their presence.
• Achille Talon: Characters frequently do that. Most of them are aware they are comic book characters, after all.
• Blue Beetle: The Jaime Reyes version does this sometimes. Notable in a story from a DC holiday special about a family of crooks where the first crook is punched out by Dan Garrett (the first Blue Beetle) and the second punched out by Ted Kord, each with the appropriate comic book sound effect. When it gets to Jaime Reyes (the third Blue Beetle) and he punches out his crook, he actually says the sound effect.
• Diabolik: There's a "Swiisss" sound whenever the title characters throws a knife at someone or something. In the parody Ratolik, where the characters are replaced by Rat-Man characters, Ratolik himself says it.
• Ex Machina: Hundred can command machines. Saying "bang" to a gun will cause it to fire.
• Green Arrow: There's a particularly creepy gun-toting villain (pictured in the page image) named Onomatopoeia who actually speaks in nothing but those noises, aside from saying his own name once. Obviously, the last word you would ever want to hear coming from his mouth is "Blam," as some of his victims found out the hard way. Probably the only time this trope is used dead seriously. And he does this no matter the situation; even after using the bathroom, he says "Flussssh."
• Hellboy: Hellboy does this in the comics from time to time, usually when he gets a bit too carried away beating up some monster.
• Li'l Gotham: In the Minazuki issue, Damian does this during the deployment of the giant mecha.
  [thooom]
  Damian: Thoooomm!
  [splooosh]
  Damian: Sploooosshh!!
  Oracle: Stop that.
• Loki: In Loki: Agent of Asgard #7, Valeria is trying to explain to Verity how she's going to save Loki from Doom's time trap. When she's asked to give it in Layman's Terms, she explains that her device will go "ping" and the trap will go "vwoorp". Sure enough, those are the exact sounds they make.
• Moon Knight: When Taskmaster gets into a fight with Moon Knight, at one point the sound effect “SCUTCH” pops up, after which Taskmaster repeats it in confusion (“Scutch?”) and looks down to see Moony has impaled his foot with a crescent dart.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: In issue #7, this is parodied... especially funny since the medium is a comic.
  Misfire: See that guy over there with the scowl and the head wound? Don't be fooled, Crankcase is actually the most cheerful person you'll ever meet. The thing is, if he smiles his precarious cranial architecture will collapse and he'll die. He's the only Decepticon who can be killed by a single punchline.
  Fulcrum: Really?!
  Misfire: No, not really... You're just miserable, aren't you Crankcase?
  Crankcase: BAH!
  Fulcrum: Did he just say-?
  Misfire: I know. You've seen it written down but never heard it said out loud, right?
  • In the same comic, it's a Running Gag that Chromedome can't make the "pfft" dismissive sound effect since he has a mouth plate.
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: In one issue, Jubilee claims that Wolverine always says "Snikt" instead of his claws making the sound.
• X-Men:
  • Deadpool loves doing this.
    Deadpool: Patoom! Spaflunk! Shafwingg! Fwoosh! Thwump! Hmph. I was saying my sound effects out loud, wasn't I? Sfachangg! Okay. Stop that.
  • The usual sound effect for Jubilee's fireworks was "Paf." There was one occasion when she cast some of them to provide light in a dark area, saying, "Let me 'Paf' some light on the subject!"
  • Similarly, Deadpool once tried goading Wolverine into a fight by saying "Snikt me!" Snikt being the usual sound effect for Logan extending his claws. Ironically, the issue in question occurred during a period Logan did not have his adamantium skeleton, and the correct sound effect would have been "shlikt" instead. Somehow Meta Guy Deadpool didn't take that into consideration.
• Sabretooth does this to do Fake Static to avoid helping Karima Shapandar in X-Men (Vol. 2) #198.
  Sabretooth: Crackle crackle sputter fizz. Signal's breaking up, sweetheart.

Comic Strips

• Beetle Bailey sometimes has the soldiers yelling shooting sound effects in simulated combat.
• Calvin and Hobbes:
  • Scientific progress goes "boink?"
  • It's Stupendous Man! KAPWINGGG!
• Played with in a Garfield strip in which Garfield pranks Jon by hiding in the bushes, jumping out to ring the doorbell, jumping back into hiding when Jon opens the door, and then repeating the process when Jon slams the door. Jon catches Garfield by shouting "SLAM!" to draw him out of hiding - as if the door literally makes the "SLAM" sound in the Garfield universe.
• The Far Side: in one strip, two kangaroos were hopping next to each other and one of them chided the other for saying "boing, boing" out loud.

Fan Works

• In Birthday Breakfast, Lincoln chants, "whip" and "stir" to himself while stirring pancake batter.
• The Bugger Anthology: Both factions of Daleks in "Not My Daleks" yell "pew pew" while they're firing their guns.
• FURTHERFELL: During his introduction in Drama! Romance! Bloodshed!, Sans' monologue has the word "wink" written out. He then says "yeah, i audibly winked, whataboutit?"
• Lucy's Secret: Notable aversion — Lucy is said to have been so tired that she actually sighed instead of just saying the word "sigh" like she usually does. Later, however, she does say it when having to buy the embarrassing printed bedwetting pants.
• In The Nightmare House, Lynn says, "Ding ding!" to start a boxing match.
• In the PreCure in a Nutshell chapter covering Episode 1 of Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure, when Kabaton/Baconbutt farts in Sora/Riku's face, he says "fart" out loud.
• In Hans Von Hozel's story Spain Wins the World Cup the referee says "Toot."

Film — Animated

• The Joker does this in a meta way in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, saying "Gulp! Sob!" the way the words would appear in a word balloon in a comic book.
  Joker: Someone who wouldn't mind seeing our old pals out of the way. Maybe... Gulp! Sob! ...me too.
• Big Hero 6: Hiro gives Baymax a fist bump while making an explosion sound with his mouth. When Baymax later mimics the motion, his robotic vocalization comes out more like "badaLAdaladala!"
• A Bug's Life: When Francis used Slim as a sword he imitated the sounds of swordfighting.
  Slim: Swish swish. Clang clang.
• Cars: Lightning McQueen's catchphrase "Kachow!"
• In Cats Don't Dance, when Darla Dimple gets an idea, her butler Max holds an Idea Bulb over her head, then says "Ping." This causes the bulb to light up.
• Despicable Me:
  • Gru actually says "Lightbulb" whenever he gets an idea.
  • Gru is frequently calling his attacks. Lampshaded in Despicable Me 2 when Lucy tells him he should announce his weapons after he fires them, "for example, Lipstick Taser!"
• In FFVII: Advent Children Complete, during the extended highway chase, when Reno and Rude have their Big Damn Gunship moment, Loz decides to fight back, by lifting his motorcycle and mounting one foot on his buddy's so that his front-facing machine guns are in the air, and starts whaling on the attacking chopper, all while shouting: "Ba- Bang! Babababababang Bang BANG!"
• The Great Mouse Detective: Ratigan does this when explaining his elaborate Death Trap, detailing to Basil how it's gonna kill him and then some with onomatopoeia related to the weapons involved; a mousetrap, a gun, a crossbow, an axe, and an anvil.
  Ratigan: Snap. Boom. Twang. Thunk. SPLAT!
• Incredibles 2: When Screech grabs Dash and flies away with him, Violet grabs Jack-Jack and uses him as a gun to free Dash with Jack-Jack's Eye Beams. She makes "pew pew" noises as she is firing Jack-Jack; she is obviously enjoying using Jack-Jack as a gun.
• Kung Fu Panda: Skadoosh.
• The LEGO Movie; a lot of sound effects are done in this manner, such as animals (cats have a somewhat flat "Meow" and pigs go "Oink") and some vehicles (Metalbeard's galleon sounds like a man making motorboat sounds, and Lord Business' spaceship makes similar propeller noises when seen from far away).
• The LEGO Batman Movie has anyone firing a gun say "pew pew" noises as they shoot.
• In Rocket Saves the Day, the ringtone of the tin can phone is a voice singing "Ring ring ring, this is the tin can phone!"
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Among the alternate dimensions seen in the film is one made of LEGO, with the same joke of characters making their own sound effects (partly thanks to both The LEGO Movie and Spider-Verse being produced by Phil Lord & Chris Miller).
• An example of "Yawn" in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie:
  Mr. Krabs: You've got to keep a sharp eye out for paying customers!
  Squidward: Yawn.
• In Turning Red, Miriam beatboxes by saying the words "boots and cats".
• Tigger from Disney's version of Winnie the Pooh shouts "Gasp!" a lot.

Film — Live-Action

• The Accountant (2016). The Voice with an Internet Connection the title character uses has a habit of saying "Heavy sigh" to demonstrate frustration. At the end of the movie, she's revealed to be so heavily autistic she can only communicate through a voice synthesizer, hence this trope.
• In The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, after Sigerson berates Jenny for getting hysterical and thinking everyone is out to get her, she merely states the word "scream" over and over when she notices two suspicious-looking gentlemen.
• In Airplane II: The Sequel, the Moon base has automatic doors that make a Star Trek style whooshing sound when they open. However, unlike in Star Trek, they don't open or close on physical proximity, but when the person leans into the door's microphone pickup and makes the same "shh" sound.
• Batman Returns:
  • Shreck says "yawn" in a dialogue with Bruce:
    Max Shreck: Does it really matter who's mayor?
    Bruce Wayne: It does to me.
    Max Shreck: Yawn.
  • This is also played with in the Comic-Book Adaptation, where the balloon over Max's head says "Yawn"...but the word has six lines arranged around it to let you know that Max is yawning rather than literally saying it.
• being Hands: Lilith says "Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb" as Audience Murmurs, denoting a busy tavern jovially responding to a joke.
• In Daredevil Foggy Nelson says "swoosh" to try to convince Matt that he'd actually made a basket in Wastebasket Ball.
• Death Proof: When Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character realizes she's being left alone with a creepy hillbilly in a remote location, she says, "Gulp."
• Enter the Dragon: When Williams is being threatened in Han's office, Han calls in some guards to beat him up. Williams says "Man, you come right out of a comic book!" and beats up the guards. This isn't strictly in the movie but, in the novelisation (and possibly in some out-takes somewhere), he does so with appropriate shouts, like "Bam" and "Kapow".
• In Heat, Hanna's partner Det. Bosko uses, "Bang, bang, bang-bang-bang," at the scene of the armored car robbery to describe the death of the second guard (the one Neil shoots with an automatic rifle as he's trying to draw his service weapon).
• Danny in Hot Fuzz yells out "Bang! Bang!" to accentuate his gun firing.
• The first thing the protagonist does in Laserblast upon finding the laser gun is waltz around with it while imitating gunfire noises. All of this is openly mocked int the Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation.
  Crow: Wait until he finds out it doesn't go "pow", but instead "SVWISSH"!
• The titular character from The Mask does this.
• In the 2011 The Muppets movie, the villain of the piece never actually laughs maniacally. He instead says "Maniacal laugh. Maniacal laugh. Maniacal laugh." in a rather flat sinister tone. Like pretty much everything else in the movie, this gets a lampshade hung on it at some point.
• The Producers: Leo Bloom says "cough" out loud in one scene.
• Star Wars:
  • Ewan McGregor by his own admission caused multiple retakes of fight scenes because he kept making lightsaber noises during said fights.
  • Laura Dern did the same making "pew pew" noises for her blaster; at least one of these made it into the final film.
• The Suicide Squad: King Shark often says "NOM NOM" right before he devours someone.
• The overly-excited narrator of Who Killed Captain Alex?, Uganda's most famous action movie in the West, is fond of this. Not only does he excitedly shout "bang, bang!" and "wa-pa-pa-pa-pow!" in time with gunfire, he also adds his own sound effects to the kung-fu segments.

Jokes and Stand-Up Comedy

• During one of his monologues on the I Started Out As a Child comedy album from The '60s, Bill Cosby renders the sound of North Korean snipers taking out American army medics as a comically high-pitched "Patoom-patoom-patoom!"
• Bill Hicks did a lot of these. His Chirping Crickets in particular were eerily lifelike.
• Every knock-knock joke begins with the joke-teller doing this.

Literature

• In one Anastasia Krupnik book, Anastasia was depressed, and she had read that depressed people sometimes moan. She had never moaned before and decided to give it a try... by loudly yelling "moan!"
• One of the short mysteries in the Clue book series opens with Professor Plum doing this while tinkering about with what he thinks is his intelligence multiplier (it's not, actually).
• Gaspode the talking dog from Discworld says "bark," "whine", "woof", and "growl" instead of actually doing so, daring for people's Weirdness Censor to let through what they just heard.
  Gaspode: It could have been worse, squire. I could have said "meow".
• The Dresden Files: In a flashback from Ghost Story, teenage Harry uses "Ka-bang!" as the verbal invocation of a force-effect spell that lets him simulate firing a gun. Lampshaded by adult Harry, who admits his choice of verbal spell-components had been even lamer when he was that age.
• A Fire Upon the Deep. The alien Skroderiders (essentially sentient trees) do this because they're communicating through translation software.
  "My name is—" the sound was the rustling of fronds, "but you can easier call me Blueshell. It's nice to see a familiar face, hahaha." Blueshell spoke the laughter as words.
• In Haruhi Suzumiya, Tsuruya occasionally ends her sentences with "nyoro", which is one of the Japanese words for "tilde" or "~". In informal written Japanese the tilde can be used as an extension of a syllable, giving it a drawn out, sing-song or playful pronunciation. This Verbal Tic of hers reached memetic status and even spawned a manga spinoff, Nyoron Churuya-san.
• Raika in Listen to me, girls. I am your father! says "Jii" (the Japanese Unsound Effect for staring at someone) from time to time. The first time she does it in front of Sora, the girl laughs and calls her on it.
• A variation is found in The Phantom Tollbooth. Milo wants to get into the Soundkeeper's fortress. Since sound doesn't exist in the Valley of Sound at the moment, he must write "knock knock" on a slip of paper and tuck it under the door. Of course, since sound DOES exist within the fortress, the Soundkeeper would've heard it even if he didn't, but it's still a cute gag.
• In Please Don't Tell My Parents I Have a Nemesis, Bad Penny's "German grenade" is repurposed as an "Onomatopoeia grenade", which has this effect for any sounds in the vicinity. In other words, laughter is turned into "Ha ha ha", explosions into "Boom", and so forth. It proves useful in sowing confusion, if nothing else.
• The Quest for Saint Aquin, a 1951 short story by Anthony Boucher, had the priest protagonist using an artificially intelligent Mechanical Horse that talks like this thanks to its Machine Monotone.
  "No," said the robass. "I do not mean no period. I mean no question mark with an ironical inflection."

Music

• Frank Zappa's album Waka Jawaka is named after a popular guitar riff in rock music at that time.
• Jack Black frequently "sings" guitar licks to fill out bridges in some Tenacious D songs ("Tribute" being only one example).
• The Who originally wanted to have a cello section in their song "A Quick One While He's Away..." Unfortunately they didn't have the budget to actually get a cellist so, when the appropriate section of the song came up, the band just sang the word "cello" to the tune of the music.
• In "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Smells Like Nirvana", the first bridge (after the chorus) is punctuated with "burp" and "boing".
• FEUER FREI! BANG BANG!!!
• Aaaah, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!
• Josh Turner sings "Ssssssss... bang." at the end of "Firecracker".
• Jerry Joseph & Wally Ingram's cover of Paper Planes, changes the chorus to the sung: "All I wanna do is bang bang bang bang, ka-ching, and take your money."
• Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot's "Comic Strip". SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!
• Selena Gomez: "Bang, bang, bang, I'm breakin' in..."'
• Selena: "Bidi bidi bom bom" - this is what your heart sounds like in Spanish. In the Peter Sellers/Sophia Loren song (no, really) "Goodness Gracious Me" it makes a similar noise: boom-boody-boom.
• The Pixies' "Bam Thwok".
• System of a Down's "Boom!".
• "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" by Cher. Nancy Sinatra's Cover Version is put to memorable use in Kill Bill Volume 1.
• The chorus of "Electric Worry" by Clutch consists solely of the words "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! / Vamanos! Vamanos!" Word of God says these lines arose from something one of the band members said once, and that the song "has nothing to do with guns."
• "Cletus McHicks and His Band From the Sticks" by Ray Stevens is about a band of hillbillies who are too poor to afford proper instruments. So they just sing the instrument sounds instead.
• A signature of early Eminem - throughout The Slim Shady LP, most lines contain little adlibs where Em voice-acts the violence. The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show both tone this down, but we still get "VRIN VRINN!"
• Miracle of Sound does this a couple times in "Big Guts and Bigger Guns": "Click click boom boom."
• Radio Tapok's music videos often do this with the closed captions during guitar solos, in addition to providing information about the song or making fun of the singer: according to YouTube's automatic translation, "Tsushima"'s subtitles went "And there is a big boom-boom and a karbala."

Professional Wrestling

• While on commentary at GCW Adults F-N Only, Delirious wouldn't just sing along with the crowd chants and songs, he'd also 'sing' along to the clapping they did.
• While Mike Tenay was calling the Insane Clown Posse-Glenn Gilbertti/David Young match at TNA #83 on February 4, 2004, he referred to ICP's promotion, then known as Juggalo Championshxt Wrestling, as "Juggalo Champion-Bleep Wrestling."

Radio

• Tony Blair in Dead Ringers, especially the radio version.
• Bluebottle from The Goon Show often reads his sound effects aloud, along with his stage directions. Seagoon was also known to cry "Gasp!"

Theatre

• In the musical The Frogs, there is the Travel Song, which has the chorus narrating...how Dionysos and Xanthias walk and what they do and what they encounter. So the song has phrases like: "Walk walk trudge trudge slog slog travel travel" and "Pant pant puff puff drip drip dawdle dawdle" and "Kvetch."
• In the musical Into the Woods, when the Witch describes what a giant can do to an ordinary human, she says "Boom! Crunch." at the same time as the orchestra does actual sound effects for her.
• The police in The Pirates of Penzance provide their own trumpet fanfare.
  Sergeant: When threatened with emutes
  Police: Tarantara, tarantara!
  Sergeant: And your heart is in your boots,
  Police: Tarantara!
  Sergeant: There is nothing brings it round, like the trumpet's martial sound, like the trumpet's martial sound!
  Sergeant and Police: Tarantara!
• Characters in Team Starkid musicals never gasp, they only ever say the word "Gasp!" Similarly, whenever someone calls for three cheers, the crowd will yell "Cheers! Cheers! Cheers!" Several other examples permeate the group's body of work.
• Wicked: G(a)linda, when teaching Elphaba how to toss her hair:
  G(a)linda: ...And this is how you toss your hair: [as she performs the action] Toss-toss!
• In the musical Heathers, JD does this during "Meant to be Yours" while singing about his mental breakdown and blowing up the school.
  JD: You left me and I fell apart, I punched the wall and cried: Bam! Bam! Bam!
  JD: So when the high school gym goes 'boom' with everyone inside- Pchw! Pchw! Pchw!

Webcomics

• In 8-Bit Theater, it's a Running Gag of Red Mage to shout "Dun dun dun!" whenever something dramatic is said. Thoroughly lampshaded by Black Mage calling him out on it everytime he does it.
• Done in Books Don't Work Here notably in this one
• Subverted in Homestuck with Terezi's "PCHOOOOO". John thought she "was just making a little rocket noise or something", but it turns out it's actually the code for the rocket pack.
  • Later played straight with Gamzee: he both inserts honks in his chat and speech, and later, after going into a Slasher Killer mode, was the first confirmation of characters using their typing quirks in speech, speaking lines either quietly or shouting.
• Sluggy Freelance:
  • Done for no other reason than a subversion of a normal sound effect in "The Storm Breaker Saga".
    Undead Osric: [off panel, falling down a chasm] My master has seen through my eyes! He knows what you are up to! My master is on his way to destroy the book and steal your souls! Hahahhhha! Splat!
    Torg: Wow, this chasm isn't half as deep as I thought!
    Zoë: Torg, he didn't land yet, he just said the word "splat".
    Osric: Clever girl! Yup, still falling.
  • Torg's saying "Bad-guy alert!", though not exactly meant as a sound effect, is mistaken for an actual alarm by another character.
  • This strip during the "2007 Super Special": All Bun-bun has is a butter knife instead of his switchblade, so they have to enact his violent acts verbally.
  • In "Paradise": Someone pretending to be a machine recording says "crackle, static" when found out.
  • Do you know what a Swedish lightsabre sounds like?
  • A weird slightly-Unreliable Narrator version in "Anima: Revelation" when Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! ferret Kiki is asked to repeat exactly what someone said. She reports the last sentence as being "Smash!" but when asked about it, she realises that was the guy throwing a lamp through a window.
• Inverted in this episode of Mountain Time when a guy mistakes the intro to a knock-knock joke for an actual knock on the door.
• The easily amused Larxene made her own sound effects during the invasion of FOX in Ansem Retort. Ansem called her out on it... and then for making one up.
  Larxene: Ching-battle!
  Ansem: Okay, that's so not a sound effect.
• Eddie does it in this strip of Emergency Exit.
  • Also played with in this strip: Kyran and Delaine are arguing, and Delaine slams down a scalpel. (What was that doing in a dentist's office anyway?):
    Delaine: DON'T CORRECT ME ON MY GODDAMN— [shlunk]
    Both: [looking down] "Shlunk"?
    Kyran: [holds up stabbed hand] Whoopsies.
• PvP's Skull attempting to eavesdrop on phone conversations.
  Brent: Skull, hang up the phone!
  Skull: Click!
  Brent: ... Did you just say 'click'?"
  Skull: Dial-toooooone.
• Dinosaur Comics did this in one strip with Rex trying to say a "?". He simply says questionmark extremely quickly. After being told that this is incredibly lame, he tries to say "$", and succeeds. Apparently "$" sounds like a dog vomiting.
• In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, The Alt Text suggests that this is why there are six blams and five pings when the raptor-riding mexican bandits attack.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Xykon shows a lack of subtlety
    Xykon: Gosh, minions, don't let any of those big scary adventurers touch my poor little gate, located to my left with significantly less guards than the rest of the room. Just a touch would destroy it. Wink, wink.
    Redcloak: Sir, I hardly think that is going to accomplish anything.
    Xykon: You'd be surprised.
    Redcloak: Sir, you actually said the words, "wink, wink." I mean—
  • Like Red Mage above, Elan has a habit of saying "Dun dun dun!" at suitably dramatic moments. (Of course, he is a Quirky Bard). Played with in this strip where he's just complaining about fabric colors.
• Starslip: Onamotapyewpyew.
• Gunnerkrigg Court has a robot saying "whistle".
• Used in both Eerie Cuties (by Brooke) and Ménage à 3 (by Zii), both series written by the same team.
• Happens on this page of Think Before You Think.
• From Hijinks Ensue: "Audible gasp!"
• Done in this this goats when Phillip "slams" a futuristic automatic sliding door
• In Educomix, this is how the language of Finnish is portrayed.
• In this Skin Horse, Mustachio used the phrase "Startled track-skip!" as an exclamation.
• Lampshaded in String Theory (2009):
  Laurence: Wink. ...I have to say that out loud now. Lost an eye.

Web Original

• Arby 'n' the Chief has Chief, who either is spouting Leet Lingo or Saying Sound Effects Out Loud as his entire vocabulary. It's completely hilarious.
• Element Animation presents, the ''Minecraft Villager Sounds Resource Pack''. Where instead of sound effects, you hear Villagers yelling out items and actions.
• Strong Bad parodies this on Homestar Runner. While showcasing the pros (and cons) of shapeshifting, his shapeshifting is accompanied by him loudly blurting out, "DWAYNE!!" In Teen Girl Squad, he also tends to narrate the sound effects like "Arrow'd!" or "Punt!"
  • In fact, they have a page about it on their wiki.
• Nate Sound Pack is this trope as applied to Half-Life 2.
• Taken to ridiculous extremes in Sailor Moon Abridged. For example, "rose", "fishbone", and "whoosh".
• In The Demented Cartoon Movie, "gasp" and "poof" are spoken (in monotone, no less) as they are flashed.
• Red vs. Blue. Tucker sometimes likes to make sound effects for his energy sword when he swings it, or turns it on.
  • There's also a near-invoking of this trope when, because Doc doesn't have a gun, he's told to just yell "Bang Bang Bang"
  • Caboose whispers "Sneaking sneaking sneaking" when trying to infiltrate Red base to steal some tech.
  • Church goes "HONK" when Caboose hits the horn on the mongoose Church has transferred into.
• "Point point", "gasp" and "twinkle" have appeared in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series.
  • "Holy bleep on a bleep sandwich!"
  • "Surprised gasp!"
• In MSTings, the standard reply on the use of an onomatopoeia within prose is, "TOGGG!"
• Atop the Fourth Wall: 90's Kid did this during his review of Freak Force. He actually read the sound effects out loud and even summarized the battle using nothing but sound effects.
• Lampshaded in a Random Verse Comic Con video:
  Deadpool: Poof! What did that low-budget sound effect mean?
• Last Exile Abridged is full of this, as are virtually every video by Unwardil.
• In this Dramatic Reading of Halo: Halos in Space 2: Aliens Attack, the narrator read the sound effects for Joe Chief's shields recharging ("Joe Chief waited for the bzzt bzzt chhhhhrg"), causing him to laugh out loud while doing so.
• "Mr. Plinkett", while reviewing "The Phantom Menace" used "BLAMO" and "SHEBANG" as soundeffects in one point of the review.
• In Code MENT, Lelouch goes so far as to say "Audible gasp!" when something shocking happens.
• In Unforgotten Realms, there is a magical item mentioned that is called "The Twin Daggers of Pew-pew-pew," which actually turns out to be a double-barreled laser cannon.
  Ogre: OGRE SOUND!
• Sweetie Belle the robot in the Friendship is Witchcraft episode "Neigh, Soul Sister" shouts "Gasp!" when Applejack reveals that she's letting Apple Bloom's place in the race.
• Done for comedic effect in Sonic Bastardized between Metal Jason and Sonic.
  Metal Jason: Show me your moves. Falcon Kick!
  Sonic: Looks like we're blasting off again! Twinkle.
• Dragon Ball Abridged:
  • Vegeta screaming "dakka" over and over while firing energy blasts at Freeza. Which itself is a callback to the team's playthroughs of Left 4 Dead 2, where they yell "dakka" while firing their guns.
  • Goku manages to hang-up on a psychic call with King Kai by simply saying, "I promise not to *click* Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- *GASP!!!* -eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....."
  • Future Trunks questions Krillin as to why he's making "pew!" sounds when he fires ki blasts. Krillin just mentions that he does it in his head. Trunks soon follows along.
• Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse has one of the dolls make beeping noises if he or she has to operate a control panel that's actually a sticker.
• Thrilling Adventure Hour: In the Beyond Belief segment, whenever glasses to clink together are not available, Sadie will just say "Clink!" She's also prone to narrating actions like "bats eyelashes."
• In an early The Comics Curmudgeon post, Josh said that, as a child, Peanuts taught him the exact circumstances in which it was appropriate to sigh. What it didn't teach him was what a sigh was, so whenever he was depressed, he would say "sigh". Since the adults around him found this hilarious, nobody ever corrected him.
• Ward: One minor heroine, who is noted to be immature for her age, is shown shouting "Bang! Zap! Boom!" while shooting energy blasts at people, in the midst of what is otherwise a very serious battle. It's later revealed she has to vocalize the sound effect to use her power properly. Considering the setting, these sort of weird drawbacks are fairly, although this one is much more lighthearted than most instances.
• The SCP Foundation's Log of Anomalous Items includes a top hat that replaces any sound made by the wearer with a voice saying the word for the sound.
• Sanders Sides: Lampshaded by Thomas in Selfishness v. Selflessness:
  Deceit: No further questions. Smirk.
  Thomas: Did he just say smirk?
• Over The Hills: In episode 5, "Rivalry", Mr. Davies discourages the rest of the board of directors from taking out a loan from the bank because that would mean, if they can't pay it off, they'd have to sell Dai, Iain, and Leslie for scrap, to which Leslie responds by saying "Gulp".

Real Life

• Often done by directors such as Graeme Harper when filming.
• An especially annoying practice since the era of rock-n-roll began is "singing" along to the electric guitar part, which when pronounced by the human voice box tends to sound like "bearn-a-dearn-dearn" or some similarly Scandinavian-sounding gibberish.
  • Rivers Cuomo of Weezer actually writes some of his guitar solos this way. He sings the part first and tries different things out. Once he has something he likes, he takes the recording, pitches the whole thing up an octave, and then teaches himself to play it on the guitar. He discusses the process in this episode of the Song Exploder podcast (skip ahead to 10:25).
• BRIAN BLESSED claims to have spoiled a take in Flash Gordon doing this.
• Similar case in Once Upon a Time in Mexico - they ran out of 'real' gun props, decided to use fake ones with the gunshots and muzzle flash added in post-production, and Antonio Banderas messed up a take or two by going "pchoo pchoo pchoo" while he mimed firing them.
• Internet phrases (such as lol, rofl, and lmao) do this because of the lack of sound between two typing parties. Add a webcam to the chat and Hilarity Ensues as you are torn between typing out that you laughed at a joke when your conversation buddy clearly sees that you merely huffed. Or didn't even crack a smile. This leads to amusing anecdotes when people who are used to being online start saying things like "burb" (brb) when going on break at work.
  • Or worse, people sitting behind computers in the same room chatting with each other online, typing LOL in dead silence, without so much as looking up.
• Emeril Lagasse's "BAM!"
• Several actors filming the Star Wars prequels had to be told not to make lightsaber noises with their mouths, because the camera could see their lips moving. The same with Chris Pratt firing his blaster in Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Basketball players and spectators will often say "swoosh!" after a basket is made that hits "nothing but net."
• Children are prone to this, especially during imaginative play. And sometimes, some adults are prone to this, too, when they engage in imaginative play with their children. (Or their LARPer buddies, or whoever.)
• Firearms enthusiasts refer to a catastrophic failure as a "kaBOOM", abbreviated kB! in online discussion.
• During Ubisoft's E3 2011 presentation, the presenter (Mr. Caffeine) waved his hands in front of his face while making "doodly doodly doodly" sound effects when asking the audience to imagine something from the past. Likely inspired by Wayne's World.
• Humans imitate crow sounds by saying "caw" and crows can imitate human speech. Reportedly, this has led to some crows in zoos imitating humans by saying "caw".

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