A scene where two characters are washing up in tandem, and which includes them brushing their teeth and gargling while facing the mirror. Is generally presented as a cute scene, and the participants can range from relatives, Heterosexual Life-Partners, those potentially in a romantic relationship, to romantic partners. Usually played as humorous or as a type of Characterization By Action.
Sub-trope of Morning Routine, establishing the protagonist's "normal" by showing us their daily routine, and Contrast Montage, where the subject of the montage is contrasted with a different character or situation.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Full Metal Panic!: Kaname's mourning routine is juxtaposed against Sousuke's to highlight how damn weird the latter's mindset is. While Kaname has exactly the routine one would expect from any Ordinary High-School Student, Sousuke wakes up under the bed immediately pointing his Pillow Pistol at a cat on his windowsill, makes himself a "satisfying breakfast" consisting of several slices of salami and a tomato, and checks to make sure he's packed an adequate amount of C4 and ammunition in his school bag.
- One episode begins of Haruhi Suzumiya with Kyon and his sister doing this together.
- Lyrical Nanoha: Played With because it's not done simultaneously (they happen 14 years apart) but still shows how similar Nanoha and her daughter are. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha starts with a 9-year-old Nanoha waking up from a strange dream, turning off the alarm of her phone—it's on the floor—, stretching, and then tying her hair up in pigtails in front of her bathroom mirror. In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, Vivio follows a near identical routine. The only difference is that her alarm is a clock on the bedside.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: This is part of the Training Montage in which Shinji and Asuka learn how to move in synch for a Monster of the Week. Ends in a mutual Death Glare when they get in each other's way.
- One Piece: One of the openings has the entire crew brushing their teeth together on a hillside.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: In "As If I Met Her In My Dream...", Madoka and her mother do this as a way to show their close relationship and their difference in maturity —Junko wears makeup while Madoka ties her hair in Girlish Pigtails, Junko is a night owl because of her job (and stress) while Madoka is an early riser. This part becomes important later in the anime, as the Incubators target teenage girls because they are more gullible and emotional and overall less experienced than adult women.
- Read or Die: All three Paper Sisters do this because they think it's cute. Nenene thinks it's just creepy.
- Strawberry Marshmallow: A flashback shows 6-year-old Miu popping over to the Ito house to leave her wet undies and bedsheets and comes in on 10-year-old Nobue and her 6-or-7-year-old sister Chika brushing their teeth. It is cute, but that's not surprising.
Comic Strips
- Zits: One strip alternates between Jeremy and his girlfriend, showing her putting on makeup, combing her hair, etc. while Jeremy takes several panels to emerge from sleep. The final panel has Sara, now a living exhibition of cosmetic technology, asking Jeremy how he gets his hair to look as if he got out of bed, to which he confusedly replies that he gets out of bed.
Fan Works
- Babylon (Beautiful Fiction): The fic begins with Ed and Al getting ready for the day while Edward struggles and hides his chronic pain and terminal illness. He shaves, he dries his hair using alchemy, and has breakfast with Al.
- Dirty Sympathy: The morning of the Vera Misham trial opens with both Klavier and Apollo getting ready for the trial in their homes. They style their hair, pick out their clothes, and go over their plan to have Kristoff lose the jury's sympathy to cover up that they framed him.
- Feralnette AU: Near the beginning of the Birds of a Feather arc, when Felix and Marinette are starting to become friends, their morning routines are contrasted to each other in a Rule of Three with a body part—hands (she puts her brace on, he dons his turtleneck shirt), ears (she slides her headphones in, he adjusts his earrings), and legs (she runs to school, he's driven to it in a limo). It's a way to highlight that Felix is collected and graceful while Marinette is weary and leads a chaotic life.
Films — Animation
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion: There's a scene nearly identical to the one shown in the anime —Madoka waking up her mother, with the two of them grooming themselves together in the bathroom. While it does reinforce Madoka and her mom's closeness, it however serves different purposes. It's meant to mirror the anime's beginning, adding to the feeling of deja vu and confusion. Furthermore, its subtle discrepancies from the original scene hint that the universe in which the film takes place is not quite the same as the anime. It's not a retelling or something similar, it's a continuation.
Films — Live-Action
- Bring It On: Torrance Shipman and Cliff Pantone.
- Catch Us If You Can opens with Steve and his flatmates being woken up by their organ alarm clock, getting ready for the day, and exercising in a nearby playground.
- The Devil Wears Prada offers not just Andy's morning routine but the routine of about a dozen other women as well, to contrast the way she gets ready to the way the other women do.
- Grease: The film begins with an animated montage of all of the main characters going through their morning routine to get ready for school.
- Juliana: There are a couple of scenes that start or end with the kids waking up in the morning and getting dressed. Instead of splitting the screen, the camera merely moves from one character to the next as all of their routines are fairly identical —getting up, putting on any extra clothes (such as Juliana's shirt), and ordering the sheets that cover their mattresses. A few of them, like Cobra, fix their hairdo. And then they all wash their faces and arms. It's inverted on other two occasions, when the sequence is of them preparing to go to bed. Some of the kids play an instrument or read before tucking themselves in.
- A Night at the Roxbury: Doug and Steve.
- The Scarecrow: Buster and Joe's intricate ballet as they get up.
- The Seventh Continent has lots of repetitive shots of the main family doing mundane morning activities in parts one and two, emphasizing the emptiness and loneliness that they are going through.
Live-Action TV
- The Boys (2019): In "The Big Ride" there's a Contrast Montage between celebrity superhero Starlight in her luxury apartment versus her boyfriend Hughie Campbell, now a fugitive, doing his Morning Routine in the subbasement cleaning closet of a gangbanger hideout.
- Community: The second season opener quickly flashes through all the rooms of the various study group members as they get up. Their decor and morning routine tells us a lot about them (e.g. Jeff is exercising in an almost bare room, Shirley is cuddling with her two children, Pierce has a trippy looking water-mattress, Annie's is perfectly pretty and organised, but has bars on the window, etc.)
- Everybody Loves Raymond: Ray exploits his tallness to stand behind the more petite Debra, so he and she use the same mirror-fronted cabinet over the sink to see into. This works just fine until Ray opens the cabinet to get something inside.
- Frasier: Martin and Daphne are completely thrown out of synch when she hands him a blue cereal bowl instead of his usual yellow one.
- Gilmore Girls: In "Double Date", Lorelai and Rory tune their routine to XTC's "Earn Enough for Us".
- Home Improvement: Tim and Al discuss their respective morning routines in one episode. Al's is to get up, say "Oh boy, another wonderful day of working side by side with Tim." And the next part is to consider calling in sick. Tim's is to get up, scratch, and get in the bathroom.
- Liv and Maddie: The Title Sequence shows the family taking turns to get in front of the bathroom washbasin (with them filmed from the POV of a vanity mirror over the basin).
- Morecambe and Wise's breakfast routine,
set to the tune "The Stripper".
Music
- Pica Pica: The trope image is from this Spanish group aimed at kids. "Pica-Pica show" is about the morning routine of the three main characters, before going to school.
Webcomics
- The Wotch: Kelly and Julian do this.
Western Animation
- Shaun the Sheep: The opening credits show a rooster crowing. We then go to Shaun, Blitzer and the Farmer all getting up and getting ready for the day; with the Farmer shaving, Blitzer putting on deodorant, and Shaun blow drying his wool. Blitzer then stands to attention as the Farmer leaves the farmhouse and gets hit with the door in the process, while Shaun leads the other sheep in aerobics. Finally, Blitzer grabs a cup of tea while the Farmer unlocks the barn and the flock immediately starts acting like normal sheep. Two variations on the scene also appear in The Movie.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Star and her Love Interest Marco perform one of these. Particularly, they brush their teeth in synchronization while lip-syncing to a song by their favorite band.
- Wallace & Gromit: The titular characters have a rather elaborate approach to this.
