Walking in Rhythm

"Walking in rhythm
Movin' in sound
Hummin' to the music
Trying to move on"

— The Blackbyrds, "Walking in Rhythm"

A subtrope of Mickey Mousing, this is a situation in which a character walks to the beat of the background music. The fact that his feet move to the music often causes the viewers to apply the song and its attributes to the character. As such, this is an effective way to set a mood for a particular character.

If the hero walks down the street to the beat of an upbeat, fast-paced song, it sets up the character as one with attitude. A sad, slow song may invoke a feeling of hopelessness about the character. The same effect can be used as a character walks away.

It can also be used to set up a dramatic moment. Perhaps the hero is doing The Slow Walk toward his foe, or maybe he is stepping up to fill a dead comrade's place. Whatever the situation, as his slow-motion steps touch the ground in time with the music, the drama increases.

It can be used to emphasize a change in a character. Perhaps the hero has embraced his inner evil, or maybe he has just lost someone dear to him. As the montage of his new outlook roles, his feet fall in time with music more fitting to his new persona.

Or it could just be done for the Rule of Cool.

See also Team Power Walk.

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Examples:

Films — Live-Action

• Trope Codifier is probably Saturday Night Fever; specifically, a song composed by Barney Perry and sung by the Blackbyrds. Also, Staying Alive, a young John Travolta / Tony strutting down the street to the Bee Gees beat.
• Played for laughs in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Fly Guy is a pimp whom we earlier met in prison. He returns to the streets to take back what's his, while wearing platform shoes with inset aquariums.
• At the end of Rush Hour, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker do a sorta dance to "War" while walking away.
• Used in High School Musical 2, of all places: Sharpay orders the percussionist to "give [her] a beat" to which she can walk huffily out of the room.
• In The World's End the protagonists walk from one pub to the next to "Alabama Song" by The Doors as they try to keep the pretense that everything is normal.
• Spider-Man 3: After getting his black suit (and turning into a Jerkass Emo Kid), Peter walks down the sidewalk, while checking out all the girls he passes.
• During the end credits of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the entire cast walks down the Los Angeles River Aqueduct to the movie's theme music.
• St. Trinian's (original films): Flash Harry had a "theme" which played while he sneaked in.
• The Blues Brothers: While sneaking into the Palace Hotel Ballroom, Jake and Elwood Blues tiptoe past a snoozing policeman to the beat of Cab Calloway singing Minnie the Moocher. The scene is probably a reference to artists like Calloway, who would lead a band and a crowd simultaneously, and walk to the beat as part of the performance.
• Undercover Brother: The title character does this while first walking through the corridors of Multinational Inc.
• The Laurel and Hardy movie Bonnie Scotland has Laurel doing this (with a rhythm that's apparently playing inside his head). It spreads to the rest of the military outfit in which he's enrolled.

Live-Action TV

• On an episode of Ally McBeal, her therapist advised her to play a theme song in her head. She takes the advice, is walking down the street and starts moving to the beat, and when she stops at a 'don't walk' sign she starts swaying in place to it—and then it spreads to the crowd around her, and when they start walking, they're all moving to the same beat as her.
• A director of an episode of Blake's 7 tried to apply this trope by having the Stompy Mooks march to the ticking of a metronome set to match the beat of the martial music he was planning to dub onto the scene later. Unfortunately a practical joker thought it would be funny to increase the ticking rate so everyone would have to march faster, so it didn't match.
• Played with hilariously in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - after Xander has cast a love spell that's gone haywire, we see his feet as he strides down the school hall to the Average White Band's funky "Got the Love" - as the camera pans up, we see he's in a Deer in the Headlights state of panic as all the girls eye him appreciatively and the boys look outraged.
• Doctor Who. In "Last Christmas" a woman has to sneak past telepathic alien monsters who will be drawn to anyone who thinks about them. To avoid doing so, she has "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade played over her headset as an Ear Worm, and proceeds to dance past the aliens.
• LazyTown: In "Defeeted", when Sportacus walks on his hands near the end of "Always A Way", he does so to the techno beat of the track.

Professional Wrestling

• CHIKARA had Archibald Peck, a wrestling marching band leader. Actually a wrestling time-traveling marching band leader with alternate personalities.

Video Games

• Done in the Sly Cooper games, when Sly sneaks up on Mooks
• In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, various mooks will respond to cues from the background music.
• It is done commonly in Space Channel 5

Western Animation

• In a direct spoof of ''Saturday Night Fever," Bart Simpson walks rhythmically in "Bart's Girlfriend" after Jessica Lovejoy invites him to dinner.
• The Lion King (1994): As Simba scales Pride Rock, his feet fall in time with the music, leading up to his triumphant roar at the top. Also happens during the part of "Hakuna Matata" where they walk across the log.
• One episode of Family Guy sort of inverts this, when Peter Griffin wishes to a Genie in a Bottle of beer for his own theme music. When he walks around, music plays depending on the situation: it's happy, cartoony and upbeat when he walks happily, sad violins when he meets a poor hobo or suspenseful when he's about to get battered.

Real Life

• Marching bands, who are completely awesome in every way. They march in time to the music. It's a part of the job description. (Yay!)
  • xkcd joked about this in one comic, and said that one could pick out members of a marching band in a store by making the background music skip and watching them stumble.
  • Songs with irregular beats can have a similar effect.
• When the Millennium Bridge over the Thames was opened, it had to be closed the same day as it was swaying. It has been theorised that it was the result of the footsteps of everyone crossing it being subconsciously co-ordinated by the music being played (getting a few thousands of people walking in sync over a bridge is a massive no-no. If the swaying hits the correct frequency, it can rapidly amplify itself and bring the bridge crashing into the river in a couple of hours). This problem has been known since at least the 19th century, and following some high-profile bridge disasters early on the century, many bridges were fitted with warnings to soldiers to "Break Step" while marching across them.^note In the Angers Bridge disaster, the soldiers had actually broken step but the bridge was alreayd swaying in a high wind and it's thought that they inadvertently fell back into step in an attempt to counteract the swaying. The Millennium Bridge remained closed for two years while engineers fitted it with inertial dampers, fixing the problem.
• Armies traditionally march in formation. Combined with the stereotypical "marching" gait, this is the most efficient way to move large numbers of people on foot. This was especially helpful if you need to move large numbers of people in a coordinated manner to precise locations (before modern firearms). The strong authoritative drumbeat associated with quite a bit of martial music is actually intended to make it easier for the troops to stay in step (compare to marching band music, which features a similar strong drumbeat). For similar reasons to the above example it is always avoided on bridges.
  • Surprisingly, it's not a Dead Horse Trope. Such marching is useless in modern battle, but it is very helpful when you just need to keep control of a group of people and keep them organized, and the vast majority of a soldier's life is not fighting.
  • In English, the command Route Step, March and At Ease, March exist as commands to get off the same rhythm and tell soldiers they are to remain in formation, but may move freely. Route Step also allows talking. To resume walking in rhythm, the command Quick Time, March is used.
  • Then there is Double Time, March, which is running in rhythm.
• Not technically background music, but people may start subconsciously walking in rhythm to music on their iPods. iPod runner's software inverts this trope, as it chooses music the goes in rhythm to the runner to help keep their pacing.

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