Title Theme Drop

This is the musical equivalent of a Title Drop; when the Title Screen theme for a game is played in a certain context within the game or show itself. This tends to lend significance to these scenes in a fashion similar to that of a Title Drop.

When the theme in question is a remix or re-used melody, this trope overlaps with Leitmotif or Recurring Riff.

Also compare Diegetic Soundtrack Usage, where the tune makes an appearance in-universe. In fact, compare very carefully, because it is very easy to confuse these two tropes and they often have overlap.

This is typically a video game trope, but it may also appear in other media. Last Episode Theme Reprise is a Sub-Trope of this. This trope may be combined with Theme Music Power-Up.

Please note that games will be listed first, followed by all other media.

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Examples:

Video Games:

Action-Adventure

• ANNO: Mutationem: The main title song is remixed for the epilogue theme entitled "Someday".
• In Cave Story, the title music plays in an area toward the end of the game (the plantation), just before you ascend to fight the Big Bad.
• In Shounen Kininden Tsumuji, a remix of the title screen starts up when the final segment against the Final Boss begins.

Adventure Games

• In 7 Days a Skeptic, the title theme returns at the start of the final day, where you are hiding in the maintenance shaft, the rest of the crew murdered save for the ship's doctor who on the previous day was all set to butcher you for body parts. It continues to play over the ensuing conversation between you and William, echoing the opening segment of the game.

Beat'Em Up

• All of the video games based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are full of this, ranging from occasional quoting of the "heroes in a half-shell" riff to remixing the entire theme song.

Fighting Games

• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl is particularly of note due to its theme (which contains Latin lyrics) being used for half of the game's original songs that weren't from other games. The Brawl theme also plays at the end of the game and also displays the translated lyrics as it does so. Additionally, the actual theme plays during the cutscene where the Subspace Gunship is destroyed.
  • In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the main theme is used during the Final Battle when the player is making their ascent to the last area.
• Touhou :
  • The fighting games use this even more often than the main shoot-em-ups. The new title melody is used in the final battle intro in Immaterial and Missing Power and in all battle intros in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and in both in Hopeless Masquerade, and all three in Unthinkable Natural Law are remixes of different parts of its title theme.
  • The credits themes rather than the endings as in the main series are also remixes of the title themes, though in its usual offbeat manner, Unthinkable Natural Law uses a part of its title theme not used in any battle intro theme.
• Kirby Fighters Deluxe uses the title theme (a remix of Kirby: Triple Deluxe's boss theme) during King Dedede's return to final boss glory on Easy, Normal or Hard difficulties.

First-Person Shooter

• Metroid Prime Trilogy:
  • In Metroid Prime, the final boss plays a fast remix of the title theme. These are also the only two places you ever get to hear the main Metroid theme in the game.
  • In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, the title theme appears fleetingly as the intro for the Mutated Emperor Ing's theme.

Hack and Slash

• An inverse example in Dynasty Warriors, in that every sequel between 3 and 7 uses a remix of resident Memetic Badass Lu Bu's theme over the opening movie, even if he never appears in it. Meanwhile, 7 only half breaks the combo; the opening them "Crush 'Em All" makes a cameo in the BGM of the ultimate stage.

Miscellaneous Games

• In David Crane's Ghostbusters (1984), Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" theme song plays throughout the game. The title screen in most versions has a Follow the Bouncing Ball sequence displaying the lyrics of the song while it plays.
• The title screen theme song of Kuukiyomi reappears in a slower C Major version in the 99th situation of Kuukiyomi 3: Consider It More and More!! - Father To Son, where the player protagonist "You" (who has become a wife), her husband and her son gather together watching the pictures about them from the picture book.

Platform Games

• Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: The game's title screen theme is actually Tush by ZZ Top, and is also played on level 10 of the first episode.
• La-Mulana plays its title screen theme in the hub village when the last Guardian has been defeated and the way to the final battle is open.
• Mega Man:
  • The Mega Man 2 ROM hack Rockman No Constancy uses its title screen theme for the final stage.
  • In the actual Mega Man II for the Game Boy, the title song plays during the final stage too.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Many of the games starting from Sonic Adventure have had either their title screen music or main vocal theme (or at least an arrangement of one of the two) play during the Final Boss battle.
  • Sonic Adventure plays "Open Your Heart" during the first phase of the Perfect Chaos fight.
  • Sonic Adventure 2 plays an instrumental version of "Live and Learn" when Sonic and Shadow use the seven Chaos Emeralds to transform into their Golden Super Modes. The full song is played as the two fight The Finalhazard as it hurtles towards the Earth.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog has "I am...All of Me" play as Super Shadow fights the final boss, Devil Doom, in the Last Story mode.
  • In the Last Story mode of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), a Orchestral Bombing/Rock remix of "His World," Sonic's theme song in the game, plays during the second phase of the Solaris fight.
  • Sonic Unleashed has two variants:
    • Get an E-rank on a stage, and the title theme music is played...very badly. It is hilarious.
    • The final battle against Perfect Dark Gaia is set to another orchestral rock arrangement of the game's main theme, "Endless Possibilities".
  • Sonic Colors:
    • Both the home console and DS version are accompanied by an orchestral arrangement of "Reach for the Stars" during the second phase of the Final Boss, the Nega Wisp Armor.
    • The True Final Boss in the DS version, after collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds, is set to a chiptune remix of "Reach for the Stars."
  • Sonic Frontiers:
    • The final Titan in the game, SUPREME, is fought to the instrumental and later full version of the game's main theme, "I'm Here."
    • In the Final Horizon update's Another Story campaign, the same fight above occurs with SUPREME, only for THE END to take control of it. This begins another two phase final battle against SUPREME/THE END, with the first phase using an orchestral arrangement of "I'm Here," and the second phase being "I'm Here - Revisted", where Kellin Quinn sings the vocals and the instrumentation is a power rock remix that brings the original theme closer to the other Titan themes used for GIGANTO, WYVERN, and KNIGHT.
  • In the final level of Sonic Dream Team, Nightmare Eggman attacks the heroes, preventing them from reaching the Dream Core. Sonic, undeterred, starts running one final time up the nightmarish doctor's form, all while Dream Team's opening theme plays in the background as he ascends.
  • Most of the early games used their title screen themes as their invincibility themes.
• Klonoa: Door to Phantomile has its world map theme dropped during the final cutscene. It's the Song Of Rebirth.
• In the first Spyro the Dragon (1998) game, the theme tune was remixed into several different songs that played throughout four or five different levels.
• In Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle for the Atari 2600, The Smurfs (1981) theme tune plays when you first turn on the game and right when your game ends.
• Infogrames' The Smurfs (1994) uses the theme tune as part of its soundtrack in various levels of the game.
• In Kirby: Planet Robobot, the final boss theme, "Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection", is a mash up of the title theme "Bright Spinning Planet" and the Galactic Nova Nucleus theme.

Role-Playing Games

• Every Mega Man Battle Network game has a version of the main theme in the last stage.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy X, the theme heard on the "load game" screen shows up the first time an Aeon is summoned.
  • Final Fantasy Mystic Quest plays the title screen music after you defeat the final boss and the mysterious old man shows up. Appropriate when you consider those are the only two scenes in the game to show the crystal of light.
  • In Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV, the Bootstrapped Theme Prelude plays during the title screen and while at crystal rooms. In Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy IX, this overlaps with Leitmotif.
  • Final Fantasy IV has a big scene near the end boss where the actual theme Prologue plays.
  • Happens properly in Final Fantasy IX once you reach Oeilvert.
• Neverwinter Nights 2:
  • The title theme plays when the player visits Arvahn and discovers the origin of the King of Shadows.
  • If installed, Mask of The Betrayer changes the title theme to one eventually played in the lead-up to its final battle.
• In Live A Live, the title theme plays for every normal battle in the final chapter.
• Pokémon:
  • In Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, a remix of the title screen music plays in the Hall of Origin.
  • In Pokémon Black and White, the Pokémon main theme plays when facing a Gym Leader's final Pokémon. It also plays when the Gym Leaders confront Team Plasma in the ending of the main storyline.
• Mass Effect:
  • Mass Effect plays the haunting menu music as Shepard encounters Vigil, and learns how the Prothean's Heroic Sacrifice allows a chance to stop the Reapers.
  • Similarly in Mass Effect 2. During the final stretch of gameplay before the final boss, "Suicide Mission" blares.
  • And again in Mass Effect 3, where the title theme "We Face Our Enemy Together" is the soundtrack for Shepard's final speech.
• Kingdom Hearts uses this device fairly often with its title theme, "Dearly Beloved", although it generally uses alternative arrangements such as "Friends in My Heart". The only cases where the title screen's arrangement is actually used is in Birth By Sleep's ending, and in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] as the solution to a musical problem, which also makes it a Diegetic Soundtrack Usage.
• The parody game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden uses its title theme for the first phase of the final battle.
• Last Scenario uses its title theme as the BGM for the Temple of Gaia (and some time before in the lecture room of the Geo-Science Station).
• This is done during pivotal (usually uplifting) moments in The Reconstruction, often as a Theme Music Powerup of sorts.
• Interestingly, though MARDEK never does this directly, quoting the main theme in individual pieces is very common.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter (2004): "Testament of a Hero" plays when the last stage of the Lao-Shan Lung battle is reached, which is coincidentally the only place where you can actually kill the thing. Same thing with the Ashen subspecies in Monster Hunter G and Freedom.
  • Monster Hunter 2 (dos): When Shen Gaoren reaches the final area of the same place where Lao-Shan Lung is fought, the main theme of the game plays.
  • Monster Hunter 3 (Tri): "Testament of a Hero" plays after you hit the Jhen Mohran with a Dragonator in the second phase. The same applies to Hallowed Jhen Mohran in 3 Ultimate.
  • Monster Hunter 4: "Testament of a Hero" plays when the Dragonator hits Dah'ren Mohran for th first time in battle, and also plays in 4 Ultimate when landing a successful Demolisher hit on Gogmazios in the second phase of the battle.
  • Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate: In addition to playing when landing a hit with the Dragonator onto Lao-Shan Lung as usual, "Testament of a Hero" also plays during the final phase of the battle against Ahtal-Ka, after its Humongous Mecha is dismantled for good.
• Stella Glow: An extended version of the game's anime opening theme is played during the True Final Boss battle against Cartesia, in the unlockable path to the Golden Ending.
• Tales of...
  • In Tales of Phantasia the title theme plays when you heal the dying tree Yggdrasil in the past, preventing it from being dead in the present/future and allowing you to use magic in the rest of the game.
  • It's common in the series for a remix of the game's main theme to be used during pivotal scenes or important fights. Example include the one-on-one rival fight in Tales of the Abyss and the final boss in Tales of Xillia 2.
• "Nerevar Rising", the main theme of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, is also one of the tracks that plays when you're exploring Vvardenfell.

Shoot 'Em Up

• Bullet Audyssey uses its title theme, "System Split", as the BGM for the fights against Cygnus, Pegasus, Libra, and Crux.
• The Touhou doujin game MegaMari uses its title screen theme for the final battle.
  • The main series itself has its title theme in the ending themes for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Imperishable Night, Undefined Fantastic Object and Ten Desires.
    • It's also used in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost in Imperishable Night, based off the version from that game's title screen.
    • When the player returns to the forest in Double Dealing Character, an all-new version plays.
    • That theme is not, as many think, a remix of an unused track from Highly Responsive to Prayers. It was not in the game, even unused, and was remixed from the Imperishable Night version as a bonus track for the remixed Akyu's Untouched Score.
    • However, there is an actual unused track in HRtP that didn't make it into Akyu's Untouched Score: Shrine of the Wind.
  • Some games have an additional unique melody added to their title themes, and the one in Mountain of Faith was used in its ending in place of the main theme, as was that in Double Dealing Character in the credits.
  • The pause jingle in all the Windows era danmaku games is also a very fast version of rendition of Theme of Eastern Story.
• Recca's Hard Mode Area 7 music is the title theme.
• The unreleased arcade game Chimera Beast had the title theme as the final boss theme. Justified, as the final boss is a larger, meaner version of your eater character.
• Twisted Metal: Black drops the first few notes of "Paint it Black" in the Prison level's ambient (non-battle) music track.
• The title theme of Zombies Ate My Neighbors can also be heard in a few stages.

Simulation Games

• The Ace Combat games tend to play their intro theme right during the climactic battle.

Stealth-Based Games

• In a bizarre example, Snake Eater, the Title Theme for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, randomly starts playing when the player ascends a particularly long ladder. It's also played straight - a slightly rearranged version plays during the final boss fight. When it ends, it's game over.

Survival Horror

• SCP: Secret Laboratory starts playing its title theme, "The Final Flash of Existence", 30 seconds before the Decontamination Process begins, killing everyone in the Light Containment Zone and rendering it inaccessible for the rest of the round.

Turn-Based Strategy

• In the final scenario of Super Robot Wars Compact, Fight for Tomorrow, the music for the title screen, is the BGM.
• In Fire Emblem: Awakening, the finale chapter Zig Zags this. The music is called Id ~Purpose~, meaning it's a variant of Robin's theme. The fact that it starts playing after Naga heals and blesses the party means this counts as a Theme Music Power-Up. It counts as this trope because a variant of Id is what plays on the Main Menu, when selecting a new game and such (which can make any time Id or one of its variants appears a Title Theme Drop, most notably with the variant exclusive to the bosses in the future past DLC). It sounds the furthest removed from Id (for reasons such as having latin lyrics), however, and you might need the name to tip you off that yes, this is Robin's theme, so it might be a Subversion. But if you let the song go on long enough, you'll begin to easily recognize the music, though not as Id, but rather the theme of the entire series that's always used on the title theme. This also counts it as Diegetic Soundtrack Usage, especially since there's no trace of it being based on Awakening's particular version of the title theme, but rather the more common version across the series. The lyrics are also the same ones that were made up for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Visual Novels

• In Ever17, "Karma" (the menu music) plays during most tear-jerking moments and Downer Endings.
  • Same for Remember11. A version of main theme/menu music "All or None" plays during most bad ends.
• In Fate/stay night, "Into the Night" starts playing during the boss battle in Fate route, and also during the final encounter with Dark Sakura in Heaven's Feel.
• In LifeSigns: Surgical Unit, the main theme plays over the ending of the first episode if the player manages to Take a Third Option during the episode's climax. It's also remixed into the ending themes.

Non-video game examples:

Anime & Manga

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann plays "Sorairo Days" on two key moments: first during Simon and Nia's return after their battle against Lordgenome, and second during the final moments of the battle with the Anti-Spiral King.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex plays a couple of lines remixed from its opening theme near the end of the first season When the major is captive during a body transfer, and the Laughing Man transfers his memories to her.
• Final Fantasy: Unlimited did this with both its opening theme and its closing theme. In an interesting twist, "Vivid" the closing theme for Episodes 1-13 was featured in Episode 15. "Over the Fantasy," the opening theme was played during a montage, with additional lyrics not heard when it was played in the show's opening sequence.
• JOINT, the first opening of season 2 of Shakugan no Shana, makes a return in the battle against Sabrac towards the end of the season.
• The World God Only Knows used the opening theme heavily in episodes 11 and 12 as Background Music to drive home how similar Shiori is to the main character (who the song appears to be about).
• The final episode of Slayers Evolution-R uses "Give a Reason" (the OP song from earlier series Slayers NEXT) as Background Music during the battle against Shabranigdu.
• Sailor Moon:
  • During the final battle against Queen Beryl in the last episode of the Dark Kingdom arc, the main theme, "Moonlight Densetsu" plays.
  • Excerpts of the ending themes often turn up - for example, in the R series a slowed-down instrumental excerpt from "Otome No Policy" often appeared as Background Music (albeit in E major rather than Eb major).
  • In the very last episode, "Sailor Star Song", the theme for the season, plays during the final battle
• The opening theme of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, "Innocent Starter", receives a Nostalgic Music Box remix that appears in The Movie First remake. It serves as Background Music for the quiet moment after Nanoha and Fate's second battle, where Nanoha finally resolves to reach out to Fate and find out why her eyes seem so lonely while Fate prepares to meet her mother. A violin cover of the ending theme, "Little Wish", also plays when Nanoha and Fate exchange their hair ribbons and say goodbye at the end of the movie.
• In Sound of the Sky, Rio gets absolutely plastered and sings an off-key rendition of the show's theme song.
• Devils and Realist: The theme song plays in the climax of episode 12.
• In The World is Still Beautiful, the opening theme plays in Episode 12 as the gang return to the Sun Kingdom... and it abruptly stops when they find out that the castle's overridden with women and Livius goes berserk at Bardouin.
• One Piece does this on several occasions:
  • The preview for every episode up to 508 uses the series' first opening, We Are. Every episode from then up until Wano uses an instrumental rendition of We Go, and the Wano arc uses a version of Over The Top.
  • In episode 152, when the Straw Hats ride the Knock Up stream into the sky, We Are plays.
  • After Luffy finally gets Sanji back on the crew on Whole Cake Island, the opening plays triumphantly as the episode comes to an end.
  • Luffy punches Kaido so hard at one point that We Are starts to play.
• One-Punch Man has the title theme play towards the end of Saitama's fight with Boros.
• Episode 11 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has a soft piano cover of the first season's ending theme playing when Kaguya starts going into depth about just how much of a Stepford Smiler she is in regards to her family life. The song proper is later played in full in the final episode of season 3 during the wrap up of the culture festival as Kaguya and Shirogane share their First Kiss.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure does this in several moments during the course of the series. For example:
  • Battle Tendency: In the final episode, the first OP for Phantom Blood ("Sono Chi No Sadame") is used when Joseph Joestar manages to successfully defeat Kars. Specifically, the song begins from the second verse onwards.
  • Stardust Crusaders: The OP for the first half of the season ("Stand Proud") appears twice in the installment, during the recap of the 'Tarot Arc' once the group makes it to Egypt; and played once more during a recap of the motives behind each of the heroes after they arrive at DIO's mansion.
  • Diamond is Unbreakable: The epilogue is played off with the entirety of the final OP of that season, "Great Days". However, this version of the OP is done by every previous OP singer in the series up until that point.
• In Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, a soft piano version of the opening song begins playing in Episode 11 when Senpai is reminiscing the tender moments that he and Nagatoro had throughout the series while he's chasing after her.

Asian Animation

• In Lamput, the melody of what little there is of a theme song shows up as Background Music in a few episodes, usually at the end of the episode.

Films — Live-Action

• The instrumental versions of the themes from James Bond movies ''From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For your eyes only, Octopussy A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough,Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre can be listened during their films (just click on the movies' names to hear samples from the soundtrack).
• In Star Trek: Insurrection, Worf bats a pursuing robot drone out of the air with his out-of-charge phaser rifle. The music for that action is a phrase of the original Klingon theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It turns up in Star Trek: First Contact as well, Jerry Goldsmith composed all three movies, and he used his Klingon theme as a leitmotif for Worf. He also composed Star Trek: Nemesis, though this theme may not have appeared in that film.
• Star Trek (2009) ends with a remix of the original series' theme.
• The Speed Racer movie uses parts of the old show's theme tune throughout the movie. His Theme Music Power-Up was to the part that went "Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go!"
• In the Indiana Jones films Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull briefly feature the ominous Ark of the Covenant leitmotif from the first film, when the Ark is depicted in a crypt in Last Crusade and when we glimpse the Ark itself is shown briefly at the warehouse in Crystal Skull.
• In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, when Elliot and ET go out on Halloween, ET(under a ghost sheet) is drawn to a child dressed as Yoda and says "Home! Home!" as a bit of Yoda's theme from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back plays. Both films were scored by John Williams.
• In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the refrain of the credits song "Into the West" has the melody of the Grey Havens theme (which also plays as Gandalf and Pippin talk about what's after death, and as Sam carries Frodo.) In a similar vein, the credits song for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is based on the Misty Mountains song sung by the Dwarves, which is also used as a leitmotif.

Live-Action TV

• Breaking Bad does this near the end of its penultimate episode, "Granite State", with the track "Dimple Pinch Neat" which starts out as something unrelated, but eventually transitions in the series' intro theme, becoming a Theme Music Power-Up for Walter. Notably, this is the only time said theme is actually heard inside an episode.
• The main theme from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is used at the end of the Season 1 finale "Prophecy Girl", when Buffy, Angel and Xander are on their way to fight the villain. Probably doesn't qualify as a a Leitmotif because the theme isn't generally used in the show to signify any particular character or anything else.
• Doctor Who:
  • The memorable incidental music over the Fourth Doctor's death and regeneration. It started out descending and began gently rising before sliding into the iconic three-note signature of the Doctor Who theme tune just as the Fifth Doctor sat up, leading into the sting and the theme proper over the closing credits. When the scene was reprised as the cold open to Davison's first story at the start of the next series, this time the title theme drop led directly into the opening titles.
  • "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", as a stylistic choice, doesn't use the title sequence, becoming only the second ever episode to do so. When the Thirteenth Doctor finally makes her entrance roughly 15 minutes in, falling through a train roof, a very brief snippet of the most recent version of the series' theme song is heard.
• Here Come the Brides' theme song, "Seattle," is occasionally worked into the soundtrack.
• The incidental music during Moment of Awesome near the end of most Inspector Rex episodes (at least in the first series) incorporates the piano motive from the theme song (this is separate from the end credits, which also use the title theme).
• Kamen Rider tend to pull this sort of thing from time to time. The most memorable would be Kamen Rider Double, which played the main theme four times. One when Double and Accel take on the Weather Dopant, another when Shotaro faces the Utopia Dopant all by himself, another in the finale when Shotaro and Phillip fight together once again, and finally in The Movie, when Double becomes Cyclone Joker Gold Xtreme and defeats Kamen Rider Eternal.
• Power Rangers does this quite often when the Monster of the Week is defeated, especially the original Power Ranger series.
• Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon played an instrumental version of the theme tune during certain important battles, and the full version with vocals for really important ones (and notable transformations).
• Used to great effect in Rome, when Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo rescue Lucius' children from slavery. While it's a great moment in itself, the music launches it into Moment of Awesome territory.
• Rosie & Jim: When John visits Tewkesbury Abbey and hears the organ being played, the Rosie and Jim theme tune is played as he leaves.
• In every Star Trek spin-off finale, a version of the show's theme plays at the end of the last episode over a shot of the show's ship (or station in the case of Deep Space Nine). The kind-of exception to this rule is Enterprise, which uses the show's ending credits theme instead of its opening, and also features Next Generation's theme. Voyager and Next Generation both feature a variation on their theme in their pilot episodes.
• Star Trek: Picard reverses this trope with a twist of Diegetic Switch. The theme music for the series is based on a melody that was played diegetically (albeit only in Picard's mind) 28 years previously in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Inner Light." Although the episode's plot isn't linked directly to Star Trek: Picard, it was one of Captain Picard's most unforgettable episodes.
• Super Sentai is more fond of this. Some memorable examples include:
  • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger pulled this in the very first episode. The song plays and instead of the usual opening, it's Shinkenred fighting the Nanashi as the theme music plays. Go-Busters also pulls this off.
  • Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger does a variation. During a tribute episode, whenever they transform into the focused team, said teams theme music played. There are only three times when this wasn't done, and the reasons are to avert Mood Whiplash and because of popularity over the actual opening, respectively.
  • Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger had this be a plot point. Throughout the series, there is something called "Earth's Melody" that the hero and his father hear. In the end, the cast sans said hero sing it. No points for guessing what the melody is.
• In the pilot for Twin Peaks, the theme song is played by a band performing at the Road House.
• The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss: Both of the show's theme songs have one.

Pinballs

• The Attract Mode theme for Monopoly also plays during multiball.

Theatre

• In Porgy and Bess, the opening bars of the prelude reappear as Porgy's entrance music in the first and last scenes.

Western Animation

• In the 101 Dalmatians: The Series episode, "Mall Pups", the main theme plays (without the singing) when the pups are running away from Lt. Pug in the mall.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The title theme from gets dropped during the show when something epic happens — usually Aang going into the Avatar state.
  • As for Aang, so for the Avatar period. It is used for e.g when Roku bends all four elements during The Avatar and the Fire Lord, when it looks impressive anyway but in context is even more effective. The whole episode covers his history with Sozin, and so all that led to the opening monologue to which the theme belongs (which also has Roku bending all four elements).
• Babar regularly used both its opening and closing themes as Background Music.
• The closing lyrics of Elena of Avalor's final song, "My Guiding Light", uses the "Elena, Elena" chant from the theme song.
• Happens... fairly regularly in some variation on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Its soundtrack on Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion meanwhile, is this.
• Generator Rex does this all the time, with the main riff being remixed and played in various ways to fit the goings on of the show. At one point, Rex learns that he played the accordion pre-Nanite Event. Cue the theme song—on an accordion!
• Inspector Gadget occasionally uses its theme song in chase scenes.
• In the first episode (and pilot) of Recess, the theme song plays as the kids are working together to break T.J. out of detention.
• In Steven Universe, the theme song can often be heard in the Background Music, sometimes in clever ways (such as just using the basic chords).
• The Owl House: In "King's Tide", the main theme of the series can be heard twice in the episode; once at the start of Luz and Belos' fight, and again when the kids are escaping through the portal (the latter song is even appropriately titled "If We're Gonna Play Owl House..." in the soundtrack).
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), the main action theme that played while the Turtles kicked butt is actually a countermelody to the title theme and is actually present in that song as a harmony line.

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