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A gag that goes excessively far and beyond a tolerable length. The concept is that something happens repeatedly, to the point of boredom. Then it keeps going, to the point where it, in theory, actually becomes funny again. Essentially, the sheer length of the gag becomes the gag. This is inconceivably tricky - there has to be the sense that the characters are themselves helpless to end the gag, and as exasperated as the audience.

One famous example of this trope is the "Rake Scene" from The Simpsons episode "Cape Feare", where Sideshow Bob kept stepping on rakes ad nauseam until the pointlessness of the scene became the gag and it became funny again. (The production team has confessed that the gag was added because the episode ran short.)

However, some feel that, once the audience recognizes the trope again, the gag permanently loses its entertainment value and the viewer is left waiting for it to end and some other humor to begin ("Oh, it's another one of these; how utterly hilarious..."). Others, though, find it a brilliant subversion of audience expectations on the lines of Andy Kaufman reading the entire text of The Great Gatsby to an audience expecting a comedy routine. Not that that was actually brilliant, but you get the idea.

Either way, the more it's used, the more it's expected. Comedy writers take note: It's good for a laugh occasionally, but expect diminishing returns for each Overly Long Gag you employ after the first. Even a moron can tell the difference between you toying with their expectations and you stretching fifteen minutes of jokes into a thirty-minute timeslot.

Most uses of Broken Record might end up becoming this.

It's sort of like Crosses the Line Twice, only boring instead of offensive.

Compare Overly Long Name. Not to be confused with Overused Running Gag. May invoke the Repeat Cut. May be invoked by Rhyming List.

The serious version is Leave the Camera Running (or Ending Fatigue, if the prolongated section is the closure). An Overly Long Gag with a lot of tension built up as an actual story is a Shaggy Dog Story. When Incredibly Long Note is played for laughs, it might reach this.

If the gag itself isn't overly long, but the distance between the setup and the payoff is, it's an Overly Prepared Gag or Brick Joke.

Examples of Overly Long Gag include:


Advertising[]

  • This CareerBuilder ad from the 2009 Super Bowl. (The koala was the turning point between tedious and funny.)
  • This Viva Pinata ad (although one could argue it never reaches the "becomes funny because of being overly long" stage from being simply boring).
  • The new commercial to the 3D King Kong attraction at Universal Studios. Where the boy screams for nearly the entire commercial after a quick glimpse of Kong.
  • This FedEx commercial involving an auto repair shop that wanted the first listing in the phone book.


Anime[]

  • The chronological last episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has a very extensive (almost three and a half minutes!!!!) scene featuring nothing but Yuki quietly reading as the sound of people from other classrooms shouting Japanese pop-culture references fills the background.
    • The second season takes this further with eight episodes, each titled simply Endless Eight. These episodes are basically a Groundhog Day Loop where the characters are trapped in an endless summer. In the novel, we see only one iteration, the last. In the adaptation, however, they break from the source material by putting in one episode where they don't discover the loop, making it seem like a simple summer-y Slice of Life episode Haruhi style to viewers not familiar with the original, and not one, but six where they do realize the loop but do not escape. Despite the Internet Backdraft and unauthorized professional apologies (among Seiyuu and a dissenting and fired director) that resulted, the arc is distinguished as a rare Overly Long Gag that spans multiple HOURS.
  • Azumanga Daioh uses this one a lot. These include Osaka needing to "Get it together!" in episode 2, the "Nandeyane! Nandeyane!..." bit from episode 8, and the "Today is a summer service day..."/"Get motivated! Get motivated!" bit from episode 14. They seem to mostly involve either Tomo or Osaka...
    • Episode 9's "You took it, didn't you? Give it back, give it back, give it back!" is a milder example.
    • Sakaki petting Chiyo's dog for a solid 45 seconds (and that was just onscreen) probably counts.
    • Osaka floating out to sea during one of the beach episodes.
    • And let's not forget Osaka's apparent fascination with the Okinawan dialect in the Class Trip episode. "Shiisa yabimi?"
      • "Saataa andagii!"
      • And Tomo's contribution to this gag: "Chinsuko!" (and later "Ukoncha!")
    • And the scene where Tomo tries to slap Yomi with a tablet during lunch.
    • And the scene where Sakaki tries to coax a wildcat out of the woods.
  • Lucky Star: "By the way, which end is the head of a chocolate cornet?"
    • Also, staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare.
    • Hiyori and Konata try one of these in the manga, and Konata (naturally) takes it too far, prompting Hiyori to give tell her, "You can stop saying that now."
    • The trope is actually parodied and lampshaded between a conversation of Miyuki and Tsukasa on the very first episode, going for about 40 seconds before it cuts to Kagami, crying, thinking in her thoughts for the conversation to end with a punchline.
  • One episode of Bleach contained a scene of Yoruichi eating bowl after bowl of food. For almost two whole minutes. During which time the camera is still, and nothing else happens. The actual scene doesn't go as long as this video does, but it certainly feels like it.
    • Which is made even more ridiculous due to the fact that the scene in the manga occupies all of a page.
  • Potemayo does this in episode 4, with the titular moeblob getting a cold and repeatedly blowing her nose faster and faster until she eventually runs out of tissues.
  • One episode of Sakigake Cromartie Koukou takes this and runs it into the ground, with Hayashida trying to remember the name of a song he heard Mechazawa humming. Most of the episode is the students humming while trying to remember the name of the song.
  • In the Dragon Ball GT special, Goku's spirit does it when seeing Goku Jr., saying that the kid must be his "great-great-great-great...Oh, you know what!"
  • Hayate the Combat Butler has an overly long gag made of...overly long gags at the end of episode 16. Five minutes of random characters not actually doing anything for about a minute each, or Klaus doing something boring.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia has the repeated "Wok-fu on the Beach" scene, which has been used in so many different ways and always ends up being interrupted by some out-of-the-box figure, from a Singing Grandpa Rome to Santa Claus Finland.
  • Jungle De Ikou, when Mii rhetorically ask why an American plane is flying above them at that moment, except she adds the specs for the plane mid-sentence. (That is, she lists the plane's size, weight, crew capacity, and so on in the middle of the question).
  • A filler episode in One Piece prior to the Impel Down Arc had Franky shaking his speedo-clad manly bits in the center of the screen for what seemed like several minutes. "Right! Left! Right! Left! Right! Left! Right! Left! Right! Left! Right! Left!"
    • Long before that, there were the multiple dramatic cuts between the crew and Crocus, for every single statement he made. Eventually the others yell at him to knock it off ("What? Can't you appreciate a good running gag?")
    • Also in the anime is Amazon Lily's inhabitants' individual reaction shots to getting hit with a reverse-Bridge drop. All twenty-plus of them.
    • There was one in Sanji's fight with Mr. 2 Bon Kurei, who has the power to copy anyone's appearance. Bon Kurei performs his Mane Mane Montage, which is supposed to turn his face in a montage of the weirdest faces he's seen. When he finishes, his face remains UNCHANGED except for his nose, which is now Usopp's (long) nose. There was then an awkward moment of silence that was like, twenty seconds; shortening that was one of the few good things that 4Kids, the company whose purpose is to Bowdlerise anime, did to One Piece.
  • Episode 18 of Naruto: Shippuden has one when Guy spends over a minute trying to get his team to join their hands in a circle for a cheer.
  • Akumetsu chapter 22 contains 2.5 pages with panels containing some variation of "we cannot show you the lyrics here".
  • At the end of one episode of Legendz, one of the minor characters is seen putting on his clothes again. Then, as he's got one arm in a jacket sleeve, the secretary comes in behind him and tells him he's fired. They stand there while the full opening instrumental of the ending theme plays, him occasionally blinking, expressions unchanging, and arm still in sleeve. Not a single word from him, no further words from her. It just keeps going through to the credits.
    • To apologize (and for laughs), they give you a stinger that has a more-proper reaction from him.
  • In one Pokémon episode, Misty's Psyduck befriends a Slowpoke. Since they are both dopey Pokémon, all they do is just stare at each other and very slowly do Pokémon-Speak to each other. Which lasted for several minutes.
  • One episode of Nichijou had a scene where Yukko is hit on the head by her teacher. This is then shown over and over again, from different angles and with different background colours. It went too fast for me to count, but she is shown being hit at least 35 times. The funniest part about it is the noise she makes, and hearing it over and over again.


Comedy[]

  • A cheesy waltz on the piano by Dutch comedian Hans Teeuwen. Only a few words are said.
  • Martin Ljung's "Fingal Olsson" monologue, in which he's trying to explain what makes a joke funny by telling the same joke over and over, varying the punchline slightly each time. The joke is less than hilarious to begin with, but after about seven repetitions...
  • Bill Hicks would generally try to keep to his schedule, but when he was doing a joke about an object of his ire - and especially if the crowd was enjoying it--he would milk it for all it was worth.
  • Jim Gaffigan's Hot Pockets routine-- at some point the joke becomes the fact that he's still talking about Hot Pockets.
    • He has similarly extensive bits about ketchup and bacon, and he lampshades it continually with these little sotto-voiced asides designed to mimic an audience member's reaction to the fact that he's gotten twenty minutes of material out of bacon.
  • Lewis Black's rants in general, but especially the one about frozen embryos. "THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE FROZEN! THEY'RE LIKE MINI PIZZAS!"
  • Dane Cook lampshades his whole style in Vicious Circle when he finally comments, "This has gone way to far, Way too long," about his observation of if people really went in a B-line.
  • Tim Vine has a fairly famous routine in which he tries to catch a pen behind his ear. It goes on for far, far too long, going through several cycles.
  • Stewart Lee, the 41st greatest standup comedian, is a fan of this trope. Making a half-hour routine based entirely around Tom O'Connor, a cruise ship, his mum, and a sardine funny is a hell of an achievement.
  • During his bit where he tells about how he was thrown out of a bar, Ron White pretends to recite a message sent in Morse Code. In his own words, "this part takes awhile". He then explains what the message was and says, "But those of you who know Morse Code already knew that."
  • Comedian John Mulaney has a bit where he describes going to a diner with his friend, and his friend rigs the jukebox to play Tom Jones' "What's New Pussycat?" over and over and over with one case of "It's Not Unusual" being thrown into the mix. Hilarity ensues.
  • Eddie Izzard - for instance, when he mentions offhandedly that Engelbert Humperdinck is dead (no he isn't) (he is) (he's not) (shake) (nod) (shake) (nod)...
  • Kristen Schaal is a horse!
  • Brian Regan does a bit about sending an overly formal and ridiculously long response to a misfired "Yo yo, we clubbin' tonight?" text message ("To whom it may concern..."). He reads out the whole thing very slowly while miming texting.
  • Patton Oswalt often combines this with Genius Bonus for bits that are hilarious partly because he keeps going further and further out; ie. his bit about insane chefs.
  • Steve Martin tries repeatedly to do a bit about stereo equipment. It's hilarious.
  • George Carlin was fond of these, especially later in his career. Probably his best example is Coast To Coast Emergency from Life is Worth Losing.
  • Subverted by Daniel Tosh after his bit about Tourette's.
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  Daniel: I think two examples is enough; next joke.

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    • The also plays it straight, very frequently:
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 Daniel: Do you like how I start jokes with mass appeal and continue 'til only six people have a clue what I'm talking about?

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  • The classic Who's on First? routine works solely because of this.
  • David Letterman does this often. And sometimes it is done to him.
  • Adam Sandler is fond of this in his comedy CDs, perhaps most noticeable in the sketch satirizing Carrie: "NOOOOOO! They're all gonna laugh at you!"
  • Margaret Cho does these as well. One that particularly comes to mind is the 'Asian chicken salad' bit where she goes on for several minutes miming a displeased samurai.
    • "So I was on the ship, with 800 lesbians. We can't get off. So much drama. 'Were you looking at her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her? WELL, WERE YOU?!' We all got on the same cycle."
  • The "Start-up Sound" practical joke from Prangstgrup.
  • Hugh Fink does a routine where he demonstrates his (quite impressive) skills on the violin. He claims that audiences get nervous when they see him bring it out, and theorizes that people find classical music intimidating because they can never tell when the songs are ending. He then demonstrates by playing a song that "ends" about ten times before he actually stops.
    • The "Urban Spaceman" number by Monty Python follows a similar model - the tambourine player keeps breaking off her dance when she thinks the song is over, only for him to launch into the next verse. When he finally ends the song abruptly and walks off, she keeps dancing until he comes back and drags her off stage.
  • In the TV series Alan Davies' Teenage Revolution, Davies and Mark Steel reminisce about an act which appeared on the UK alternative comedy circuit around the time they were starting out in the mid-80s. It consisted of a man with a block of ice and a power saw, who would simply come on and start carving the ice - not into anything in particular, just attacking it with a saw. It got a laugh at the start, then about 40 seconds in, and then a minute or so in...and then he'd just keep going until he got booed off.


Comic Books[]

  • Preacher (Comic Book) contains an entire page of nine identical panels of Herr Starr looking at himself in the mirror, staring at his brand new scar that makes his bald head look like a penis. In the last one, he says "Shit".
  • It's rare because in comics, it doesn't quite work: the reader can control the speed of the story and skip whatever he or she isn't interested in looking at. A Family Guy comic book attempted a print version of one of its long gags by having Chris challenge the reader to a staring contest, followed by three pages of the same panel of Chris, repeated nine times a page. Fortunately people could just skip to the end.
  • Cable & Deadpool has an entire page in which alternate universe Mister Sinister is waiting outside a bathroom door while Deadpool, who's needed to use the bathroom for something like three days, pees for about 9 panels. He finally emerges, at which point Mister Sinister tells him to wash his hands and he goes back into the bathroom.
  • Cerebus has also been known to pee for entire pages.
  • Ultimate Spider-Man has Spidey picturing Jean Grey naked (after she thanks him for not picturing her naked) for two pages, with the telepathic Jean reading his mind. At first she reacts with boredom, then annoyance that he's still thinking about her, then amusement that he still hasn't stopped thinking about her naked, then shock at an apparently vivid fantasy he's having, then anger etc...all while Spider-Man keeps saying "Okay, I'm done now. No, now..."
  • In Invincible, Mark had a conversation with a comic book shop owner discussing the habit of overusing identical Beat Panels in comics (and providing meta-commentary on the author's own use of this). This involved page-long pauses where the same panel was repeated again and again.
  • Lampshaded in Mad's parody of Moonlighting by requesting readers to reread certain panels 10 or 12 times over before continuing to read the parody.


Film[]

  • This IBM sales-meeting film, featuring Rowlf, includes a typewriter falling down a flight of stairs for 33 seconds (from 1:42) as Rowlf looks on in horror.
  • Hot Rod The scene where Rod locks Kevin out of the house. Rod falling down an impossibly tall hill probably counts too, as does Jonathan shouting "wait babe! wait babe! wait! BAAAAAAAAABBBBEEEEE...Wait!"
  • Spaceballs opens with a huge spaceship that scrolls into view and keeps on scrolling for 90 seconds (parodying the opening shot of the Star Destroyer in Star Wars). At least three times something that resembles a tail section comes into view, and the background music segues into the next piece, only to false-start and cut right back to stalling. As it finishes, the camera pans to the rear of the ship, which has a bumper sticker saying WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY.
    • Mel Brooks actually said in the commentary that he would've let that sequence go on for hours if the studio had let him.
    • Lampshaded later in the movie, as President Skroob is seen running onto the ship's bridge. "The ship is too big! If I walk, the movie will be over!"
  • Also, the notorious "baked beans" scene in Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks was asked to cut down the number of farts, but he realized the length of the gag would enable people to get over their initial shocked reaction and start laughing.
  • An unintentional version of this is the fight scene in the 1988 They Live! In it, the main character, a fugitive accused of murder, is trying to convince another character to put on a pair of sunglasses and thus see the aliens and their handiwork. While originally intended to last only 1-2 minutes, the fight scene was done so well that it was used unaltered, lasting almost 5 minutes.
  • The first Austin Powers made good use of this trope. The best example is Dr. Evil's neverending maniacal laughter, which continues through two full cycles of funny, then not funny, then funny again.
    • And what about "Evacuation compl....Evacuation com....Evac..."
    • The sequels took this too far, but padding out the jokes by explaining them as they stretched them out.
    • The funniest of all was probably the "Sshh!" gag. Dr. Evil just will not let his son say anything!
  • The puppet-sex scene in Team America: World Police aims for this trope; whether or not it works is up to the individual viewer. The Unrated Edition makes the scene even longer, to the point where most viewers are likely bored.
  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show: "Janet! Dr. Scott! Janet! Brad! Rocky!" (Bullwinkle!)
  • In the 2005 The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy: When showing the Vogon Constructor Fleet around Earth, the camera jumps back with every "beat" of the music. When this effect is put into play, it usually only happens about three times. In the movie, it happens a grand total of fifty-five times.
    • The viewer of course knows the earth is going to explode, but this gag is crowned by having the earth explode in the most subdued manner possible.
      • Which is made even better because the first trailer showed the earth blow up in a much more traditional, incendiary booom. Audiences were certainly not expecting it to just go "Pif!"
    • Another one happens when the microphone the Vogon will use to read poetry to the hostage Arthur and Ford is being brought out. It comes out of the ceiling, and ends up falling all the way down the ship to the bottom.
  • This occurs a number of times in Kung Pow Enter the Fist, such as the dramatic camera movements and sounds before a fight.
Cquote1

  "Choooseeeen!..." "I'm coming!..."

Cquote2
  • In a deleted scene from Borat, Borat explores an American supermarket:
Cquote1

 Borat: What is this?

Employee: That's cheese.

Borat: And what is this?

Employee: That's cheese.

(Repeat ad nauseum and back again)

Cquote2
Cquote1

 Chico: I can't think of the finish.

Groucho: That's strange, and I can't think of anything else.

Chico: I think I went past it.

Groucho: The next time you come around, jump off.

Cquote2
    • Harpo's harp solos in many of the films. Though not meant as a joke, they seem funny just because you don't expect to see his utter Cloudcuckoolander characters sitting down and playing an incredibly beautiful harp solo.
  • In Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Steve Martin is making coffee by continuously putting grounds into water: this goes on for two minutes of him putting more and more coffee grounds into a pot. He ends up putting about twice as much coffee grounds as you could fit into the can empty (and far more than could have been in the bag), but it doesn't matter; the audience has long since been bored to death, and resurrection, and rebirth.
  • The 1986 movie Three Amigos used this trope in its theme song, where one note is held for an uncomfortably long period of time.
    • The Disney film The Three Caballeros uses the same gag, with the other characters trying everything they can think of to stop it.
    • In Spy Hard's opening theme, Weird Al Yankovic holds a note so long his head explodes.
    • Also played to the max by Bugs Bunny in the Warner Brothers Looney Tune "Long-Haired Hare": Bugs, dressed as Leopold, conducts opera singer Giovanni Jones, forcing him to hold a note until the Hollywood Bowl crumbles to pieces around him.
  • Japanese comedy Tampopo features a fist-fight scene that lasts...well, nobody really knows, because they always fast forward through it.
  • Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich Malkovich.
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 John Malkovich: IT MUST BE CLOSED FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

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  • John Goodman's incessant primal screaming in Raising Arizona is both an Overly Long Gag and a Running Gag.
  • Tropic Thunder: the cast's reaction to the director having been blown up by a land mine.
  • In The Producers, Carmen Ghia receiving the protagonists: "yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss?"
    • ..."sss?"
  • In Over the Hedge, RJ the raccoon's description of the traps surrounding the suburban house. This sequence goes on for at least 30 seconds, which in cartoon time is forever.
Cquote1

  RJ: There are traps here, here, here, here...and here. And some here, here, here...and all over this area here.

Cquote2
  • There are a few of these in The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, but they are all used quite well. One of the better examples is Dr. Fleming's maniacal laughter scene, which somehow gets funnier and funnier as the scene plays out.
  • The Party starts with this. One actor, playing the part of the trumpeter for a charge, goes on...and on...and on. The funny part of it is that the other actors keep SHOOTING at him to make him stop, but he keeps going on...and on...and on...
  • In one scene of Cannibal the Musical, there's a relatively short example: Alferd Packer and his party enter a store and all six of them greet the shopkeeper individually with a "Howdy!". The shopkeeper responds in kind each time, and they cut between the shopkeeper and the party member every time this happens. Later on there's a much longer overly long gag in the form of an extensive Not Quite Dead sequence.
  • When Dragon Amilyn (played by Paul Reubens, A.K.A. Peewee Herman) is staked in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he writhes around on the floor lamenting his fate, dying...and Buffy eventually gets sick of it and just leaves. At the end of the credits, he's still going.
  • At least a third of the jokes in Monty Python and The Holy Grail could be considered these. (Lancelot's charge, the Knights of the Round Table song, the entire ending sequence). The miracle is that they remain funny even though you're expecting them.
    • "No, no, no. You stay in the room, and make sure he doesn't leave."
    • "Get on with it!"
    • There's also the one in Meaning of Life when Gaston the waiter leads the camera to the house where he grew up, turning around every few steps to beckon and say something encouraging.
  • The Jerk: "I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days."
    • "I need this..."
  • Tom Hanks' 30-second laugh in The Money Pit.
  • In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, during the climactic montage, Jay and Bob are about to beat up one of their internet detractors. The man shushes them, as he is on a call. Jay and Bob end up standing there for about two minutes while the man nods and Uh-Huhs, before they start choking him with the phone cord and punching him. The commentary said that originally the scene was much shorter, but the longer it went the funnier everyone found it, so they kept lengthening it until it reached its present length.
  • Clue: The Summation/s are built on this. But the one with the bullet-counting just rides it into the ground and lets the ground have the last laugh.
  • Near the beginning of Megamind, a bit of witty banter between Metroman and Megamind eventually degenerates into them throwing tortured metaphors at each other.
  • The death of Kinney, the unfortunate executive near the beginning of Paul Verhoeven's 1987 science fiction action film RoboCop was very much along these lines. After being instructed to challenge a prototype police robot as part of a demonstration, Kinney finds himself riddled with bullets by the malfunctioning machine; and it just doesn't stop. The studios lobbied Verhoeven to shorten the sequence, with the odd result that the R-rated cut seems more brutal than the cartoonishly exaggerated unrated edition.
  • The pornographic Star Wars-ripoff Space Nuts features no less than two painfully dragged-out comedy routines: one where a pod door is sealed by an ersatz HAL and the bad guy (a spoof of Emperor Palpatine) repeatedly tries to get it open, and one where he repeatedly tries to turn off a video communication. Both go on for a dozen times. Seeing as the movie is a porno that already give a lot of attention to its faux-Star Wars plotline, padding it with tedious comedy routines is just jarring, and it really detracts from, you know, the stuff the movie is supposed to be about.
  • Wild Wild West. Loveless and West toss about half a dozen jokes back in forth in a single conversation about Jim being black and Loveless being in a wheelchair with no legs.
Cquote1

 Loveless: I knew him [General McGrath] years ago, but I haven't seen him in a coon's age.

West: I can see where it'd be difficult for a man of your stature to keep track of even half the people you know.

Cquote2
    • Develops into a Brick Joke at the very end of the film.
Cquote1

 Loveless: How did we arrive in this dark situation?

West: I have no idea Dr. Loveless, I'm just as stumped as you are.

Cquote2
  • The gentleman's club scene in Mystery Team can be like this.
  • The car crash in Rob Schneider's The Animal. Well, it made ME laugh.
  • Bueller?
  • The second stinger of The Avengers featured the heroes silently eating lunch at a shawarma restaurant, exhausted from the effort to save the world. It lasts about a minute.
  • Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie Wars MEGAMAX: At the final act of the film, the eponymous riders (Gentaro and Eiji, respectively), rendezvous with Shotaro and Philip, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Double. When Shotaro realizes he and Gentaro are Not So Different, well...
Cquote1

 Shotaro: You're a good kid after all!

Gentaro: Yessir!

Shotaro: Right on!

Gentaro: Yessir!

Shotaro: Right on!

Gentaro: YESSIR!

Shotaro: RIGHT ON!

Gentaro: YESSIR!

Shotaro: RIGHT ON!

Gentaro: YESSIR!

Shotaro: RIGHT O-!

Eiji: Uh, can you tell us about the guy who took the medals?

Cquote2


Literature[]

  • In Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, there is an inordinately long inter-office memo about having workers give money for toilet paper. The memo in its entirety is contained within the novel and takes up several pages while going on and on about trivial points. While it effectively lampoons American Bureaucracy, the joke gets very old after the first few paragraphs.
  • Lampshaded in the second book of The Malloreon where Silk continues to make complaints about having porridge for breakfast and enjoying any breakfast that isn't porridge...until Polgara suggests his incessant repetitiveness could be a sign of limited intelligence.
  • In the Discworld book Unseen Academicals, the game's audience comes up with a chant for visiting Professor Bengo Macarona, which starts out as a fairly standard football chant. Then he insists that they include his full name and all his academic titles. What follows is over a page and a half of the revised chant, including each title every time his name is mentioned.
  • John Hodgman's lists:
  • There's a story by the brothers Grimm which goes like this: Hans goes to his girlfriend Gretel. Gretel gives Hans something. Hans goes home, transporting X in a way you shouldn't. His mother tells him how he should've done it better. Hans promises to do better next time. Next day, he visits Gretel again, this time he gets an Y and does with it as he should've done with X. Rinse and repeat.
  • In a parody book called The Dragon With The Girl Tattoo, Kaal interrupts Vagner's story to correct him on the pluralisation of the word "sheep". This leads to three and a half pages of argument on the subject.
  • In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, there's a character whose entire existence is this, given that each of his incarnations is killed by the same man, unknowingly.


Live Action TV[]

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 Denholm: Hope it doesn't embarrass you, Jen, but I find it the best thing to do with the new employee is to size them up with a long, hard stare.

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  • ICarly: The code to unlock the Bensons' front door. It's longer than the new UK Emergency Phone number from The IT Crowd.
    • Also in "iChristmas" when Sam is in juvie and Carly is trying to prove that she knows her, Sam keeps asking Carly unusual questions that she ends up knowing the answers to.
    • And there was also Sam wailing on the dinosaur Zeebo with a boom mike.
  • Whenever the protagonist from Monk has to fill out a form or write his name on a blackboard, go ahead and make yourself a sandwich. Due to his perfectionism, he HAS to make certain none of letters are slanted or runs lines, so he takes a nearly 30 seconds to write down a single letter.
    • There's a memorable example of this trope in "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan," where Monk is trying to say a simple sentence but is continuously interrupted by the sound of a jackhammer every time he opens his mouth. It's a fairly standard gag, but it goes on for a good five minutes.
  • Scrubs has one of JD's fantasies run a particularly long time when Turk and Carla are discussing how good a father he'd make. JD happens to be nearby, hears the conversation and his mind launches into a fantasy in which Turk accidentally leaves his son at a pumpkin patch, having mistaken him for a pumpkin, and brings the pumpkin home to Carla, who pardons him for it (his son, meanwhile, is found by another couple in the pumpkin patch). She states that the pumpkin is "kinda cute" and there is a montage of them raising the pumpkin as their own child, covering common parental issues like bathing, the child being injured at a softball game (yes, the pumpkin plays sports), and college, ending with the two holding the pumpkin "21 years later", with the pumpkin wearing a graduation cap and a diploma resting on it, stating how proud of the pumpkin they are for qualifying as a valedictorian. Suddenly, they drop the pumpkin accidentally and while crying over the smashed remains they hear a startled cry of "Mom? Dad?!". They look up to see their real son, fully grown (and looking exactly like Turk), staring at them in disbelief and joy from across the street. He starts to cross the street toward his long-lost parents...only to be run over by a bus. Carla faints, Turk cries out in despair, and JD finally snaps out of his daydream to look up at Turk.
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 Turk: Dude, you okay? You were gone for an awfully long time.

JD: You're going to be a horrible father!

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    • JD's fantasies start being treated like this in later seasons, both literally and in the show. A number of his longer Imagine Spots last so long that the person he's talking to has walked away by the time it's over.
    • Also, when Dr. Cox used this as a torture method to punish the doctor who messed up his vasectomy. He had the Worthless Peons sing the first two words of the Chili's baby back ribs song.
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 Doctor: Dear God, when do they ever say ribs?

Dr. Cox: Never. They never say ribs.

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  • The third season of the British version of The Apprentice had a hilarious real life example, utterly unintended. It comes a bit later in this scene, after the simply bad demo.
  • The "Sex" episode of Brasseye contains a notable overly long "End of part one" ident after the Peter Stringfellow interview 11 minutes in.
  • One episode of Pee Wees Playhouse had Pee-wee give a dog a bowl of food. They focus on the dog eating his food for a full minute with no dialog and no reactions. Just a Leave the Camera Running close-up shot of a dog eating from a bowl.
  • Several times in MST3K, notably during The Creeping Terror music skit and the Crow-as-Screaming-Skull skit.
  • Examples from Top Gear:
    • "Can I just spell this out? It's a D, o, p, p, e, l...k, u, p, p...l,u,n,g. S, g, e, t. R. I, e. B. ...E." (German for "double clutch gear")
    • When Jay Leno did the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, he had to listen to Jeremy reading out a list of previous cars he owns. At least four times he stops, the audience laughs...and then it turns out he was just pausing for breath. Eventually he genuinely does stop listing them, and just says "Yeah, that's page one...there's a page two and three as well..."
    • When Top Gear covered Clarkson and Hammond's participation in the filming of a car chase sequence in the film version of The Sweeney, Clarkson insisted that the movie's dialogue should acknowledge the fact that in order to turn off traction control in the Jaguar used by some Fake Serbian baddies, a button must be pressed and held in for ten seconds. Their cut of the car chase sequence paused to include an uninterrupted shot of this action taking place.
  • When The Colbert Report came back from the 2007/8 writers' strike, the excited Studio Audience gave Stephen a spontaneous standing ovation at the top of the first show which lasted for a minute and a half and resisted all attempts to stop it. It only ended when Stephen got up from his desk and physically forced the first row of the audience to sit down.
    • There's also the Pringles gag, where he went through dozens of flavors that were not recalled before finally reaching the two that were. And, in a sense, the entire show is this, since it's an endless satire of sensationalistic conservative talk shows.
  • One episode of the second season of I'm Alan Partridge, in which Alan spots Dan from across a car park and shouts, in a vain attempt to attract his attention: "DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN! DAN!"...etc.
  • The Britcom Black Books had an Overly Long Gag in the episode "The Grapes of Wrath", in which Manny pretends a Shiatsu neck massager with a pair of robot breasts, but completely fails to capture Bernard's attention, resulting in a whole minute of variations on "Look, Bernard. Bernard, look. Bernard. Look, Bernard, look. Look. Bernard, look. Look. Look. Look, Bernard, Bernard, look. Bernard. Bernard, look..."
    • Which just makes the punchline even funnier when Bernard finally snaps and asks him what the hell he's doing: "I'm a prostitute robot from the future!"
    • Subverted in the episode where Manny has a new door lock installed. The installation guy tells him the 3-digit code to lock it. The code to unlock it is unfeasibly long and Manny becomes distracted by a Subbueto player in his hair.
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 Manny: He had a little man in his hair!

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 "What, you think the Devil lives in some sort of condo down in Florida? Yeah-huh. See, see, the thing about people like you is that you think that the Devil lives in some sort of houseboat, just drinkin' daiquiris, and listenin' to Jimmy Buffet. People like you think that the Devil lives in some sort of abandoned railroad car, just travelin' from state to state, eatin' sardines out of a can, and tellin' stories to strangers, and pettin' his scraggly little dog that he has. See, people like you think that the Devil lives in some sort of magical hot air balloon kingdom, where he just zooms around on a Segway scooter, and watches soap operas, and does Sudoku! People like you think that the Devil lives in some sort of rundown laundry detergent factory, where he just eats candy canes out of a box that he has, and he just writes short stories, and twirls his hair! You see, people like you think that the Devil is some sort of stowaway on Paul Simon's tour bus, just travelin' across America, and eatin' Teddy Grahams, and when people fall asleep, spittin' them in their ears! See, people like you, think that the Devil lives on some jewel-encrusted surfboard, just floatin' in the middle of a wave pool, just readin' romance novels, and thinkin' about boys! People like you think that the Devil lives on a Hollywood movie studio set that's made to look like a World War II fighter jet, and he just lounges around all day, gettin' baked, and callin' his friends, and hangin' up on 'em! People like y--"

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  • A frequent gag on Father Ted has Mrs. Doyle the housekeeper asking someone if they want tea and if they say no, going into a repetition of "Ah, go on. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on..." until they either give in or Ted sends her away.
    • A variation of this, in the episode when Fr. Jack was sent to an elderly priests' home and Ted received a replacement for him, had her produce a card with "Will you have a cup of tea?" on it, followed by what seemed like fifty with "Ah go on" written on them. (There was loud music which made it impossible to hear.)
    • Also frequently seen in Dougal's attempts to understand things.
  • Seen much earlier in Monty Python's Flying Circus with the "It's the Arts" sketch about the unknown German composer "Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-eine-nurnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mit-zweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm." The interviewee dies (of old age!) before the interviewer can finish asking a question made very, very, very long simply by repetition of this Overly Long Name. The gag is actually longer than it appears, as every time mention is made of Johann, they say his full name (mercifully, the camera cuts one).
    • Yes, Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-eine-nurnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mit-zweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm. Not to be confused with his brother, Karl Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-eine-nurnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mit-zweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm."
    • Also consider the sketch about the phenomenon of Déjà vu, that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. Consider the sketch about the phenomenon of Déjà vu, that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. Also consider...
    • Number one. The Larch. The Larch. And now...Number one. The Larch. The Larch. (repeat throughout episode, enough times that people cheer when they finally get to another tree.)
    • The curtains going up before the Vocational Guidance Counselor sketch.
    • The Election Night sketch with a Very Silly Candidate that Crosses the Line Twice into funny:
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 Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Umbrella Stand Jasper Wednesday * pops mouth twice* Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable * horse whinny* Arthur Norman Michael * squeaker* Featherstone Smith * blows whistle* Northgot Edwards Harris * fires pistol, then whoops* Mason * train sounds* Frampton Jones Fruitbat * laughs* * squeaker* Gilbert * sings* "We'll Keep a Welcome in the-" * shoots thrice* Williams If I Could Walk That Way Jenkin * squeaker* Tiger-drawers Pratt Thompson * sings* "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" Darcy Carter * horn* Pussycat * sings* "Don't Sleep In The Subway" Barton Mainwaring * hoot and whoop* Smith

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    • Yes, you're quite right. I'm fed up with being treated like sheep. What's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their Sunday Mirrors, bomplaining about the tea - 'Oh they don't make it properly here, do they, not like at home' - and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamaris and two veg and sitting in their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh 'cos they 'overdid it on the first day.'
    • Hell, Monty Python's Flying Circus would not exist without this trope! There's at least one example in every episode. Or maybe it just seems that way due to fans repeating catch phrases?
  • Lying somewhere between Overly Long Gag and Leave the Camera Running: a sketch from an old Finnish sketch show (starring the Finnish actor/comedian legend Pertti "Spede" Pasanen) features a customer and a salesman in a hardware store. The customer asks for a certain product and the salesman picks it up from the shelf: the joke lies in that the salesman goes to the shelf, picks up the item and brings it to the customer veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly, easily taking a few minutes with the camera patiently watching the "action". And then this is repeated. Several times.
    • This trope is also subverted in that same sketch: at one point, the customer asks for 206 tacks. After finding the box of tacks, the salesman starts picking tacks from the box and placing them on the counter, one by one. However, after five tacks he gives up, picks up a handful of tacks and slams them on the counter. "Two hundred and six."
    • Tim Conway and Harvey Korman did a similar skit set in (naturally) a fast-food restaurant. "Lemme just put a 'rush' on that order..R...U...."
  • One sketch on Mad TV was nothing more than two people engaged in a Mexican Standoff and yelling at each other, "Drop the gun!" "No YOU drop the gun!" "I said drop the gun!" "No YOU drop the gun!" etc.
  • This happens with plenty of Saturday Night Live sketches nowadays. Sometimes it completely ruins sketches that could have been funny: See the "Over 21" sketch, or the What the hell is that? sketch, featuring nothing but Steve Martin and Bill Murray looking off camera and asking each other the eponymous question.
    • Will Ferrell as the boss from hell, stabbing Chris Parnell with a trident 33 times.
    • The Simpsons parodied this trend when Krusty appears on SNL in "The Big Ear Family" sketch. After a lame prop gag involving a large Q-Tip, Krusty sighs, "This goes on for another 14 minutes!"
    • Old-school SNL did this quite a bit, too. One example was Jane Curtin interviewing Bill Murray, who suffered from "quintlexia." The only five words he knew were "That's true, you're absolutely right."
    • Then of course, there's the sketch in the first episode where Andy Kaufman does the Mighty Mouse theme.
    • Don't even get me started on the Gilly sketches...
    • Most recent episodes only avert this with the "Weekend Update" news-riffing sketch, and even that often gets interrupted by this trope, ex. several minutes of mumbling about pancakes.
  • Speaking of Andy Kaufman, who obviously loved this trope, he showed up on The Midnight Special in the 1970s to sing this.
  • Done in QI with the following example of Alan's buzzer.
    • Courtesy of Dudley Moore, as mentioned below under Music.
  • In The Middleman, High Aldwin orders to release a special forces agent by executive decree twenty-four, five, seventeen, eight, ninety-three, fifty-five, two, thirty-nine,..
  • There's an episode of Night Court in which our intrepid characters must clear all their cases by a specific time, or any remaining defendants will be set free. Of course, their very last defendant is a slooooooooooooooow taaaaaaalkerrrrrrrr.
  • Wonder Showzen's entire first season finale, entitled "Patience", was an overly long gag to test the viewer's patience. The first act is extremely slow, and the second act is the entire first act in reverse. The third act is extremely fast.
  • Done as a sketch entitled 'The Long Big Punch Up' in 90s Britcom The Fast Show. This sketch occurs several times throughout the series, each time in a different location.
    • Also used in a Fast Show sketch where Unlucky Alf sees a hole in the ground in the distance, and remarks that he's probably going to fall into it. He does, but only after spending a full minute walking towards it.
    • Also in a sketch involving a behind the scenes look at a stop motion animator. "I move it just a little bit, and then I take a picture. And then I move it...just a...tiny bit..."
  • It's not a gag, but remember the first time you saw The Wire? And the theme song went into its second verse? And then the instrumental bridge started? Then again it's quite possibly designed to weed out impatient people, because it's really not the right show for them...
  • "Everybody's dead, Dave." "What, everybody?" "Yes, Dave. Everybody's dead, Dave." "Chen? Peterson?" "Yes, Dave. Everybody's dead, Dave." "What, even Shelby?" "Yes, Shelby! Everybody's dead, Dave!"
    • The "Captain reset" gag of Pete just avoids this.
    • And who could forget Rimmer's salute? In the two-parter Pete he is repeatedly called up to the captain's office, and every time the salute is quite a bit longer and more complicated than last time.
      • In the commentary, you find out it's just his way of being polite. People don't see it his way.
    • "FISH! Today's fish is trout a la creme, enjoy your meal. FISH! Today's fish is trout a la creme, enjoy your meal. FISH!" etc.
    • Rimmer's recounting of his favourite Risk victory probably counts as this.
    • "So what is it?"
  • Naturally, "Margaret? Margaret?". The Indian accent gag could also count.
    • "Anybody? No? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust."
  • My Name Is Earl episode "Inside Probe, Part 2". After seeing an interview with Darnell cut short by a commercial break just as he was about to say something important, Joy asks Darnell what he was about to say as the latter bites on a massive sandwich. Darnell starts chewing, does so for a very long time, the show itself goes into a commercial break, and when it returns, Darnell is still chewing, as Joy grows impatient. Darnell finally swallows and says he doesn't remember, then bites on his sandwich again.
  • America's Next Top Model had one when Cycle 11 contestant Nikeysha was eliminated...and proceeded to talk continuously over the credits.
    • American Idol did something similar in season 5, with Kellie Pickler talking and talking straight through her elimination, until the show cut out, not even giving the show a chance to show her sing-out.
  • In Twin Peaks, Dell Mibbler's one scene in the final episode is full of this due to his incredibly slow walking. First he walks very slowly across the room and back to get Audrey a glass of water. A moment later, he has to lead Pete and Andrew across a long hall, which means they also have to walk at his pace.
  • Not nearly as drastic as some of these, but there's an episode of Stargate SG-1 where the main characters are on some Arctic base meeting the scientists there. As Fraiser and Sam are introduced to them, there's a quite long conversation going on that basically consists of hand-shaking and "Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Major. Doctor. Doctor. Major. Doctor..." before finally Jack just tells them to shut up.
    • This also happens in Stargate Atlantis in the episode Be All My Sins Remember'd, where Sam, Shepherd, Ellis, and Caldwell all greet each other. It goes like this.
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 Caldwell: Colonel.

Ellis: Colonel.

Caldwell: (To Sam) Colonel.

Sam: Colonels.

Ellis: (To Shepherd) Colonel.

Shepherd: Colonels.

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    • Lampshaded immediately afterwards by Rodney, who says "What, seriously?"
  • BBC's animal dubbing show, Walk on the Wild Side, features a segment with a Prairie Dog. Every single one of these segments features it shouting "ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN! ALAN!", before it realizes the other Prairie Dog it's shouting at, is not Alan.
  • The Australian sketch show Double Take kept coming back to a waiter describing the restaurant's special, over at least half a dozen sketches. By the end, the customers, bored out of their minds, just order it. He then reveals that they're actually fresh out of it, and starts on a new one which is thankfully cut off by the end of the episode.
  • In the series 1 finale of How I Met Your Mother - "Come On" - the protagonist is attempting to perform a rain dance to induce precipitation (long story). Trope is somewhat subverted in that one of the other characters actually commentates on its slump into overly longness. "Funny....still funny.....still funny...still funny...[check watch]...and now it's sad".
    • In the season 2 finale, Ted and Robin are discussing whether they can finally tell people (that they've broken up). Barney overhears and asks "Tell people what?" They assure him that they'll tell him and the others later, and he says that's fine but a second later starts asking "Tell people what? Tell people what?" ad nauseum. He eventually ends up hijacking the microphone so he can broadcast it to the whole room, only stopping when someone asks him to mention a car whose lights were left on. Then he resumes asking "Tell people what?" finishing after the opening credits.
    • Speaking of Barney, at the end of Season Two he says "Legen- Wait for it! -" and the episode ends. Then the next season begins and he says "-Dary!" before commenting that it feels like he was saying something really long for some reason. In real life, that punchline came several months after the joke started.
    • In "Glitter", Barney tells Tedd that he has to cut his high school best friend Punchy loose, and then proceeds to quote Catchphrases from 19 reality shows, ie "You are the Weakest Link. Goodbye!"
    • The trope is defied in the Season 4 episode "Mosbius Designs": Barney, wanting to avoid an uncomfortable discussion, claims being in love with someone, but saying "wait for it" after every word. Marshall eventually interrupts and says, "I know that you're in love with Robin!".
    • The ducky tie that Barney has to wear for a whole year.
  • The Almost Live! sketch series "Mind Your Manners with Billy Quan" features, as a signature move, Billy performing an overly long jumping kick attack.
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 Billy: HaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...!!

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 Ryan: I'm just giving everyone a minute to read the novel that is my suggestion.

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    • A Running Gag from the show was during the Scenes From A Hat game, Colin would start a joke and just keep it going until Ryan dragged him offstage. Possibly enforced by Drew in this case, since he wouldn't buzz Colin out until Ryan took Colin by the arm.
    • In one commonly-played game, three players will act out some scene, except two of them can only say two or three different phrases. Naturally, the third character soon gets extremely frustrated with the others after they've said the same thing a dozen or more times.
    • Any time a player pointedly ignores the host's buzzing multiple times, (s)he's generally in the midst of one of these.
    • Foreign Film Dub was a game where two players acted out a scene in a foreign language (usually just gibberish that sounds like the suggested language) with two other players making translations offscreen. Sometimes Ryan, if he's feeling particularly verbose that night, will make a translation that would go on for the better part of a minute.
  • Chucklevision, that mulleted, mustachoid staple of any modern British childhood, is often prone to this. Screenwipe provides an example of when a two wheeled caravan acts like a seesaw. A large number of the gags involves Barry issuing Paul an order, Paul messing it up in a way that creates more work for Barry to clear up, which Paul then messes up again, which Barry then clears up, then Paul messes up then Barry clears up.
  • From an episode of The Young Ones: "What did you call me?!" "Codpiece Face!" "What did you call me?!" "Codpiece Face!" "What did you call me?!" Etc.
  • In an episode of As Time Goes By, Stephen mentions to Lionel that he's given up reading newspapers on Sundays. He then says that he's thinking about giving them up on Saturdays as well, if not cut them out altogether, working his way back through the week. "Starting with Friday. Then Thursday. Then Wednesday. And onto Tuesday. Then Monday. And of course Sunday would be alright because I've cracked that already. Of course, I could do the whole thing the other way round and give them up on Monday to start with. Then Tuesday..." Lionel's attempts to tell him that he gets the gist of it are ignored.
  • In what is probably one of the most famous scenes from Kenan and Kel, Kenan examines his friend during a lawsuit brought about him almost choking on a screw in a can of tuna. Kel ends up breaking down, confessing loudly to his friend that he dropped the screw in the tuna, over and over and over, while stumbling about the courtroom.
  • Mr. Show is notorious for two of these.
    • "The Story of Everest" is a long sketch from the 4th season of the show in which a man comes home to tell his parents that he has completed a trek to the top of Mount Everest. Mistaking the tea service behind him for a stool, he sits down, knocking several shelves of thimbles all over the ground. The thimbles are reset, and he attempts to tell the story again, but continues knocking over the thimbles. Over, and Over, and Over.
      • The DVD commentary reveals that the audience actually had to sit and wait for the thimbles to be reset after every pratfall, so the last few times, you can actually hear them groaning, probably wondering how many more hours were going to be wasted so they could watch that same gag.
    • Another involves two friends exiting a bar and awkwardly saying goodbye to each other. They part, and only minutes later, they meet again, and awkwardly say goodbye. Minutes later, they meet again, and awkwardly say goodbye. This happens over, and over, and over, and over, until finally one of the friends dies in a car accident. The following scene is of everyone mourning at his funeral. A young woman says "I never got to say goodbye.", and the man's friend replies, "I did. A lot actually."
      • The audience doesn't laugh so much as let out a loud "You made us watch that entire sketch for THAT?" groan.
  • "Hello Dave!"
  • In one episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Lois sends the boys out so she can enjoy the hot tub she's been nagging Hal about for days. When they come back early, she ducks under the water to hide. Before heading back out, Hal stands around FOR HALF A MINUTE reading a film review. HALF A MINUTE.
  • An episode of Supernatural calls for Dean to scream after a cat jumps out at him. The director told Jensen Ackles to ham it up and scream as loud and as long as he could. Although the version in the actual episode isn't too excessive, there is a take on the blooper reel for season 4 that combines this trope with Chewing the Scenery for ultimate hilarity (see 20 seconds in here).
  • Lampshaded in Community episode Contemporary American Poultry:
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 Troy: "He released Annie's Boobs! Annie's Boobs could be anywhere! Annie's Boobs could be on the side of the road --"

Shirley: [Fed-up] "We get it! The monkey's name is 'Annie's Boobs'."

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  • In a late 80s/early 90s episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Johnny introduces guest (then-governor) Bill Clinton with a two-minute introduction.
    • What's better, after his first question to Bill, he pulls out an hourglass.
  • Distracting Disambiguation and this trope make up about 90% of the jokes on Reno 911. Most of the gags get cut down so they aren't too horrible, but some of the deleted scenes last for an eternity. Twenty minutes of clarifying exactly what is going on is a long, long time.
  • Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza: One word. Duststorm.


Music[]

  • "Supa Scoopa And Mighty Scoop" by Kyuss. After the final short riff is played, there's silence. But after a short pause, it's played again. And again. And again...and again. 9 times in total. And the pauses between them keep growing longer, so that you just can't expect that last one riff if you haven't heard the song before (as if you would expect it to be repeated 9 times anyhow...).
  • The outro to They Might Be Giants' "Spy".
    • Likewise, the outro for "Hearing Aid"
    • There's also the "Dial-a-Drum-Solo" audience participation bit from the New Live Version of "She's Actual Size".
  • Shut Up And Explode
  • The end of this piano piece by Dudley Moore.
  • The outer movements of Erik Satie's piano suite E Embryons desséchés spend way too long a time banging out the final chords. And that's nothing compared to a full performance of Satie's Vexations, a short and ugly little theme which has a note at the end saying to repeat 840 times.
    • Actually, the big kicker with Vexations is that every chord in that theme has a tritone in it, meaning that it goes from 'short and ugly' to 'really, really weird'. And given that if one (or rather, a group of pianists) does all 840 repetitions it can take upwards of nineteen hours, we can imagine how hard everything is. To give a better perspective on how bizarre Vexations is, every pianist that's attempted all 840 repetitions by themselves had to stop about five, six hours in because they were hallucinating.
  • The outro to "Yig Snake Daddy" by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.
  • Many a Playground Song is like this:
  • One has to mention "Rocket Morton" by Nurse With Wound...
  • There's a 72-minute version of Haddaway's "What is Love". Play it with company, and see how long it takes your friends to realize something is amiss.
  • The ending to the Counting Crows' "Hanginaround" goes way, way, way, way, too long.
  • Flipper's "Brainwash" - not only are the only lyrics just a long bout of inarticulate stammering followed by "Nevermind, forget it, you wouldn't understand anyway", but it's literally a 30 second song being looped over and over again for almost seven minutes. To top it off, the vinyl version ended in a lock groove, repeating the "you wouldn't understand anyway" part until the listener got up and manually turned it off.
  • Weird Al Yankovic's song "Hardware Store" has a 30-second non-stop listing of all the items said hardware store sells.
    • "Albuquerque" and "Trapped in the Drive-Thru". The ENTIRETY of both of them.
    • Lampshaded or subverted perhaps in "Generic Blues": During the guitar solo, Al pleads, "Make it talk, son, make it talk!" Cue a seemingly endless jam on two notes (a tri-tone apart, giving it a siren-type quality), but Al cuts it short: "Okay, now, make it shut up!"
  • How did we overlook 99 Bottles of Beer? "99 bottles of bear on the wall, 99 bottles of-"* smack*
  • Flanders and Swann abused this trope horribly every time Swann gets to sing in a foreign language. In "In The Desert" it probably goes on too long but it's more than made up for by "Kokoraki" in which Flanders (audibly) grows more and more impatient with the length of the song and when it finally ends (Swann remonstrating that he was forced to omit eight verses) remarks that Swann "can sing the rest of it * Swann sets in for another few verses* SOME OTHER TIME * Swann ignores him and carries on* " (spoiler for the sake of the comedy. You really should listen to their original stage shows).
  • The Muppets' "Bohemian Rhapsody"...more specifically, Animal's entire solo.
  • The extended drum sequence at the end of The Stone Roses' "I Am The Resurrection".
  • Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Four minutes of song, and roughly 13 minutes of solos.
  • Devo is on record with causing audience members to try and stop them from playing in their basement days. The first known performance of the song "Jocko Homo" occurred when they were hired to open for Sun Ra at a private venue (they got in by pretending to be a Bad Company cover band). They baffled and annoyed them with original songs, culminating in a (reportedly) thirty-minute version of "Jocko Homo". A heavily trimmed recording of this appears on DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years. At some point while they are endlessly chanting "Are we not men?" an audience member grabs the microphone and calls them "A bunch of assholes" (other people have apparently also been throwing beer cans). At the end, the band jams on "I Need A Chick" while the promoters come to unplug them.
  • MC Chris has elements of this in a lot of the skits on his albums, but none more so than in "Happy Hunting", when a gameshow host lists the names of a huge group of Bounty Hunters. By the end of it he's calling out names like, "The Lamp", "Curtains", and "El Table".
  • The last line of the song "Joseph's Coat/The Coat of Many Colors" in Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. What makes it particularly funny is that the coat is pretty succinctly described earlier in the song as "red and yellow and green and brown and blue," which gives you a pretty good impression of what it looks like as well as being mercifully short. But later the singers describe the coat more thoroughly as "red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and gray and purple and white and pink and orange and BLUE!"
  • Arlo Guthrie's "The Alice's Restaurant Massacree". It's over 18 minutes long, is supposed to be about a diner owned by a woman named Alice, but is primarily occupied by a story about going to jail for littering. Watch part one here and part two here.
    • The sequel, "The Alice's Restaurant Multi-Colored Rainbow Roach Affair", clocks in at just over half an hour.
    • Arlo Guthrie re-recorded "Alice's Restaurant" to mark its 30th anniversary. Though this version moves at a considerably quicker tempo than the original, its length stretches beyond the original by a few minutes due to a hilarious extra section where Arlo speculates about the role of "Alice's Restaurant" in the Watergate scandal.
  • Paul and Storm use this in their song "Shake Machine (Parts 1&2)". The entirety of part 2 (one minute and twenty-eight seconds) is the closing saxophone cadenza. In their commentary on the track, they describe this as pulling a Steve Martin, referencing the aforementioned scene in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
  • Ivan Cutler's I'm Happy. (I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy ....)
    • Likewise, one of Chumbawamba's earliest recordings was an intentionally terrible song called "I'm Thick," released under the faux band name of 'Skin Disease.' The lyrics consisted of the title, repeated dozens of times.
  • Phil Spector had one of his girl groups, the Crystals, record a single called "(Let's Dance) The Screw" - not intended for release, but intended solely for the ears of Phil's former business partner, who left Philles Records in a huff. Side one is an extremely bland twist number that drags on for five minutes, its lyrics consisting of little more than the title; side two is more of the same, except at half the tempo.
  • Terry Jones of Monty Python...he likes traffic lights. He likes traffic lights. He likes traffic lights. He likes traffic lights.
    • Monty Python's unreleased "Hastily Cobbled Together For A Fast Buck" LP ended one side with an Eric Idle solo piece called 'Laughing At The Unfortunate,' which climaxed in a grating loop of Eric laughing.
  • The Beatles inserted a short groove containing unintelligible gibberish right at the edge of the side-two label on original UK pressings of "Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band." For listeners whose turntables did not shut off automatically, this loop would continue endlessly until the needle was lifted from the record.
    • Numerous other bands later mimicked this technique. The Who ended "The Who Sell Out" with a looping plug for their label, Track Records; Pink Floyd inserted an endlessly dripping tap at the end of 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast' (on "Atom Heart Mother"); and the final burst of feedback on side four of Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" continues into the run-out groove so that it can repeat infinitely.
  • The band Blasting Trout Overbite once did a college open mic performance where they closed a short set by endeavoring to play The Champs' "Tequila" for as long as possible before being kicked off stage, ending up playing it for an estimated 10 minutes. The song was specifically chosen because it's fairly repetitive to begin with, so it would take a while for the audience to notice that something was amiss.
  • From the Leo Kottke album My Father's Face, the track called "Doorbell"
  • On Oasis' third album Be Here Now, the tune called "It's Getting Better, Man". The outro plays this trope straight.
  • The uncut music video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" begins with two men in a car (who are obviously meant to be parodies of gang members) trying to woo two women standing on a street corner, and using every conceivable sex joke (and every variation of "fuck") they can think of. This goes on for a solid three minutes, then (just as it seems it might continue indefinitely), their car gets rear-ended and pushed forwards by a stretch limousine that keeps going...and going...and going for the next forty seconds. Only after this does the video start properly.
  • "(Let's Talk) Physical" is a remix of The Revolting Cocks' "(Let's Get) Physical" that consists of a seven minute loop of a snare hit and Chris Connelly yelling "TALK!". It's meant as a parody of repetitive "extended" remixes of songs.
  • Slowed down Sci-Fi Classics. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme song clocks in at about 26 and a half minutes.
  • There are some children's / folk songs out there which consist of several connected verses, which tell a story that returns to the beginning after a while and starts again with the first verse.
    • Like a German song that has Liese (the woman) asking her "dear Heinrich" what she should do in case the pot has a hole. He gives her some advice. Then she asks about that advice, and so on. The English equivalent is of course "There's A Hole In The Bucket".
  • The Melvins manage to do this with silence: The track "Pure Digital Silence" has a band member adopting a ludicrous Fake Brit accent to announce "And now, for your listening pleasure, a few moments of pure. digital. silence", followed by about a minute and a half of exactly that. Since it's near the end of Prick, an album full of frequently cacophonous studio experiments, it might have also been intended as a breather.
    • "Pick It N' Flick It" from the same album may also be an example, as it's essentially a minute and a half Big Rock Ending without an actual song attached to it.


Professional Wrestling[]

  • Hold number 170: armbar!
  • Possibly unintentional (but probably not): during a short WCW Hacksaw Jim Duggan match, play-by-play commentator Tony Schiavone claimed that Hacksaw was "a very intelligent man." Color commentator Bobby Heenan proceeded to laugh uncontrollably. For the entire three-minute match. When Schiavone brings up Duggan's college football career near the end, Heenan yells "COLLEGE!" and starts laughing even harder.
  • The WHAT? chants. Can also be considered a 10-year-long running gag considering it's still very much alive today.
  • My name is John Laurinaitis, Executive Vice-President of Talent Relations and General Manager of Raw and Smackdown.


Radio[]

  • The Goon Show used this trope repeatedly. No, the camera is not required. Several episodes used this, presented as a minute or more of dead silence "For the safety of the performers", footsteps, or Minie Banister's ramblings...
  • One episode of Hancocks Half Hour began with a character hitting the keys on a typewriter very slowly, until after a couple of minutes Hancock asks, "wouldn't it be quicker if you took off the boxing gloves?"
  • Australian radio presenter Graeme Gilbert once suffered a ridiculously long series of prank callers, all giving the same nonsense answer ("India!") to his phone-in quiz questions.
  • Radio show and podcast Comedy Bang Bang features an overly long Renaissance-style musical introduction to the game "Would You Rather," with host Scott Aukerman admonishing any guests who try to speak over it to "shut the fuck up."


Tabletop Games[]

  • A published adventure for Shadowrun 3rd edition has a character who greets the party and advises them that "while on the premises it would be unwise to use any...", then lists everything offensive the party possess. Given how characters in this game tend to be the speech frequently fulfills this trope.
    • Another adventure had the reading of the president's last will and testament. Given that said president was a millena-old dragon, even though it's hilarious, it's almost impossible to read all in one sitting just from raw length.
  • This article by Mark Rosewater, lead designer of Magic the Gathering. In fact, he spells it out.


Theatre[]

  • Charley's Aunt "from Brazil"
  • Yasmina Reza's play "art" has one character launch into a four-page monologue describing/complaining about the logistics of his wedding plans. It's difficult to imagine how it's not meant to be funny.
  • The televised version of the 2010 Broadway version of The Pee-wee Show had Pee-wee shout "Nooooooo...!" for over 30 seconds, which is a long time onstage and on TV.
    • The infamous "balloon trick," which goes on for a whopping one minute forty-seven seconds. Over a minute of that is taken up by Pee-ww letting air out of the balloon.
  • Older Than Steam: In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Gratiano's repeated ironic echoes of Shylock at the climax of the court scene are this.
  • Fellowship! The Musical had a great example: Boromir, defending the hobbits, gets shot with an arrow, falls, gets back up, stumbles off stage, gets shot with a couple more arrows, stumbles back on stage...repeat several more times. The last time he stumbles off stage, different arrow-hitting-flesh sounds (getting increasingly ridiculous) are played for over a minute, before he stumbles back on stage one final time, looking like a pincushion.


Video Games[]

  • In The Neverhood, Klaymen can pick a fruit from a tree and eat it, and will consequently burp. Eating a second fruit will cause Klaymen to burp a little longer. After eating a third fruit, Klaymen will burp again...for a full minute.
    • In the same game, an absurdly long corridor.
      • Something like 45-screens worth of walls covered with dense text. It's actually readable if you click on it — the entire history of the game's universe starting with its creation.
  • Dasher Inoba's ending in Ehrgeiz consists of Inoba ordering and eating bowls of noodles. Repeatedly. The video literally goes on forever - the only time it stops is if the player gets bored and skips it.
  • Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney has Damon Gant bursting out into manic laughter when you out him as trying to frame Ema Skye for murder.
    • Even better is Gant's stare, which he does quite often. It lasts for so long, one would think their game had frozen!
    • Trials and Tribulations has Furio Tigre's scream of rage when you first meet him at the park: [GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] (for about seven boxes of text) [AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [AR!]
  • The factory password from Earthbound is to Waiting Puzzle...for 3 minutes. While mildly amusing when you first hear of it, it's rather annoying if you don't take the time to make a sandwich. Thankfully, you don't have to do anything at the three minute mark.
  • In Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge, you had to get a bucket from three pirates. One way to get it was to say "please", which doesn't work right away. It will eventually.
    • Another one from MI 2 involved trying to answer Herman Toothrot's Ice Cream Koan, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, what color is the tree?" I bet you didn't know Pink Floyd was a color.
    • And in the original game, the scene in the unseen room of the governor's mansion.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, at one point Cloud's group infiltrates Shinra HQ, and is given the option of either barging in via the main entrance, or climbing the emergency stairs all the way up to the 67th floor. All the way! Hilarious dialogue ensues during the stair-climbing, such as:
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    • An NPC in the same tower, if you talk to them, gives you somewhere around 6 pages of ellipses.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire/Emerald has a random trainer hinting that the reason the bike shop gave you a freebie is because the bike is plastered with the bike shop's name.
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 Cyclist: It says 'RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL...(etc., etc., for about six boxes)...RYDEL RYDEL RYDEL'. You should ride it all over the place- it's good advertising!"

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    • And need we mention the story one needs to endure in order to get the Bike Voucher in the original Pokémon Red and Blue?
    • Approaching this in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl is Flint's dialog after defeat, he uses about 8 boxes of Ellipsis. This was removed in Platinum.
      • Also, west of Celestic Town, there is an Ace Trainer who, if you talk to him, says "I'm strong!" a bunch of times to himself before noticing you, then gives you the TM 77, which contains Psych Up.
    • Similar to the Earthbound example above, in order to get into Regice's room in R/S/E, you have to wait. The length of time is just enough time to completely translate the message.
  • At one point in Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, Naked Snake has to climb a ladder. A very, very tall ladder. Partway up, the game's theme song starts playing, and even at maximum climbing speed, it has time to finish before you reach the top.
    • And in Metal Gear Solid, those stairs.
    • And again at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots, fighting through seemingly-endless corridors of Scarabs, and then suffering from early-onset-RSI destroying your Triangle button as Snake slooooowly crawls through the many, many microwave-emitting Corridors of DOOM.
    • Completing the set, Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty pits Raiden against a whole squad of knock-off Metal Gear RA Ys for the penultimate boss battle. As part of the game's infamous ending, it's no surprise that there's no indication as to how many you have to fight (apart from an estimate by Snake). The following scene is a real overly long gag (a minute-long chokehold) on European Extreme.
    • Before all of those, Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake already made you climb 30 floors of stairs. Fun!
    • Speaking of MGS, this strip from The Last Days of Foxhound.
  • Used in the ending of Mega Man 9. Twice as funny when you realize they're making fun of Wily's outrageous Villain Decay.
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    • In Mega Man 10, the final stage of the game takes place in a satellite connected to Wily's fortress by an elevator. A very, very tall elevator. The pan up the elevator to the aforementioned satellite takes roughly 15 seconds.
  • In Tekken 3, one of the secret unlockable characters is Gon (the little dinosaur from the manga of the same name by Masashi Tanaka). If you beat arcade mode with Gon, you get an ending cinematic in which he runs through a jungle, eats some fish in mid-air, and jumps on whales. The FMV repeats over and over again until you skip it.
  • Kefka he seems to think one his jokes are much funnier than they really are. Case in point: when he flees from you three times in a row, every time you ask him to wait. He responds each time by saying, "Wait he says. Do I look like a waiter?" By the third time the comment is nothing but enraging. But then, he IS clinically insane, so maybe it makes sense.
  • "This one time, me and my buddy Kieth..."
  • In one scene in Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, an NPC loses his fiancee's engagement ring. After an "insensitive" comment, she insists that he apologize by saying "I love you" 100 times. Yes, you have to click through every single one of them. (The speech bubbles are even numbered.)
    • And let's not talk about the method of waking a certain general...
      • Which you have to do once to continue through the game, and have to do AGAIN for a sidequest!
      • And that doesn't include that you have to go to almost every town to find out that he was headed for where you started during both the story and the side quest.
    • The 'quest' that Luigi goes on, which includes some of his partners loathing him, sending Mario and his partner to sleep when he tells them about it, and being so popular that it gets made into a book.
      • Probably a bedtime story.
  • Mr. Resetti of Animal Crossing fame can get into this, with his rambling reprimands for trying to outwit the auto-save system. Or it can just be a huge annoyance. They were aiming for the second one.
    • When you think about it, it's actually a very clever conditioning tactic to stop players from resetting the game.
    • He also rambles on and on if he appears as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Considering that most assist trophies last a few seconds, and he seems to last over 2 minutes, it's just hilarious.
  • The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time scene where King Zora moves out of the way so Link can reach Jabu-Jabu could be counted as one.
  • Final Fantasy IV does this when Tellah attacks Edward. Tellah simply whacks Edward with his staff. And misses. A lot. At least the battle stop after a few turns.
  • Similarly to the Monkey Island example above, in Full Throttle you can access a hidden mini-game by simply telling the person playing it in-game "Let me show you how to do that" enough times that he agrees "Only if it'll shut you up".
  • Like Paper Mario above, Super Paper Mario does this no less than 3 times, and does each one to the point of sheer annoyance.
    • First one involves breaking a priceless vase and being forced to pay for it, all 1,000,000 rupees of it. The initial way of earning them involves jumping up and down under a block while avoiding the "motivation spark" till you are able to pay another prisoner (100 rupees) enough for the code to unlock the running in a wheel like a hamster (which though faster still takes a while), earning rupees depending how long you run. There IS a series of sidequests to earn the million in one go, but you need about 10000 rupees to buy the initial clue. Which still involves holding down the right button for 5 minutes while you watch Mario run on a wheel. And there's no indication on how much you've earned until you stop, so if you didn't make enough...back on you go.
      • P.S. it's 41262816
    • Second involves getting a password to pass some guardian in the desert. The person giving you the password warns you to get a pen and paper, because it's going to be long. About 30 words long. Hope you don't mess up.
      • You have to spell out "please", and that is after fighting your way to a dead end and having to turn around and fight you way back then use the first password. Then just to increase the levels length after you get past several very large and powerful monsters with a lot of health to reach...the place that a second password is needed used. So once you reach the village again you have to spell out "please" three times.
    • Third involves the Sammer Guy world. In order to get the world's MacGuffin, they tell you you'll need to fight all 100 Sammer guys first. Most players by now will assume that they'll pull the rug under you and not make you fight all 100. They just choose to wait until the 20th fight to do it...
    • "Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...Um...A girl fell from the sky!"
  • The game Audiosurf generates levels based on audio files. This may be the single hardest one ever attempted.
  • Vernon Tripe's rambling stories in Psychonauts.
    • Boyd and his theories...
    • This interview with Tim Schafer, the game's creative designer. Specifically, his response to the first question.
  • Loom's unending temple corridor in the very beginning.
  • Continuing the list of Mario games on here, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story has one in the back surgery scene. You drill into Bowser's back, and wait. Really wait. At least the game is nice enough to let you know it will take a while, more specifically, it tells you to go take a tea break. It won't do anything for about five minutes.
    • Though if you spoke to some NPCs beforehand, they tell you a method to speed up the process.
  • The annoying villager in the first Baldurs Gate who follows you around asking endless questions.
    • And the one in the second. Who incidentally the game allowed you to kill without penalty, even if you were a paladin.
  • Fallout 3: While escorting Sticky, his rambling, implausible yet not particularly inventive story will repeat over and over, with little variation. You can always skip through by fast traveling if you'd been to the destination before; otherwise, you don't have to imagine what your character is going through for the trip, you get to experience it yourself.
  • The Doom mod "Mock 2: The Speed of Stupid" has a level named "Mining Fecality". It consists of a long, U-turn corridor with a button visible right next to where you start, blocked by a grate. You travel down it and hit the button. Only for another button to appear where you just were. You go back to press THAT button...and another one opens up right at the end. You make it to the turning point in the hallway to find out it's gotten even longer. You press the button finally, only for yet another goddamn button to appear back at the start. Luckily, this one ends the level.
  • The leaked unreleased game Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors was supposed to accomplish this with the "Desert Bus" sequence. It is a real time drive between Tuscon and Las Vegas, with the idea being that someone would eventually wonder when it's supposed to end (and at the end...you do it again in the opposite direction...forever; screw up and crash and you get towed back to Tuscon...also in real time). The dull-yet-unending nature of this 'game' eventually lead to a charity effort conducted online called "Desert Bus for Hope"[1].


Web Animation[]

  • From Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad email boring (really), Strong Bad gets an email from a viewer complaining of boredom, and asking how exciting day-to-day life in Free Country USA really was. He and several other characters manage (by speaking and moving very slowly) to make a twenty-five-second conversation last four minutes - which, SB insists, makes for an extremely exciting day.
    • To commemorate his 100th email, Strong Bad decides he'll say "email" 100 times. And does it. His computer provides him with a virtual glass of water afterwards.
    • "Yeah...shaped like there's a bite taken out of it."
  • Yahtzee's short answer as to whether or not Spore could live up to creator Will Wright's legacy was "No." His long answer was a Big No which lasted a full sixteen seconds. There's a second, slightly shorter Big No near the end of the review, too.
    • And it's only shorter because the credits cut him off.
  • Episode 21 of Retarded Animal Babies features, after the credits, a very long phone call from Puppy's insanely drunk (or drugged out) cousin.
  • "Chaaaaaaarrliiiiiiiie....Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee...We're on a bridge, Chaaaaarrrrlliiiiieeeeeee..."
  • The flash game, Steamshovel Harry. Watch out for that gravity.
  • The Demented Cartoon Movie! has the many attempts of the characters to go to Mars and find out what's behind the Zeeky Words causing explosions without blowing up or crashing. Lampshaded by the guy in the green chair: "Damn it, this scene is taking freaking forever."
  • The Cyanide & Happiness animated short "Speed Racist", where the aforementioned Speed Racist suffers a crash and spends a full two and a half minutes in a monologue of screaming pain about the fire and the irony of his racism....from off panel.
  • The Half-Life mod Elevator: Source is one big overly long gag filled with some nice surprises.


Web Comics[]


Web Original[]

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 Toby: Ubisoft presents...a game by Ubisoft. And Ubisoft. And also Ubisoft...

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Western Animation[]

  • Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane seems to love this trope like nobody else.
    • The first and most famous use is Peter Griffin spraining his knee after winning the golden beer ticket. In the commentary track of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story DVD, MacFarlane said that he rather enjoys making gags run just a little bit longer than they should. The show has often been accused of using it as a crutch.
    • Lois does a variation of this herself in "Fox-y Lady", only she bumps her breast on the mailbox instead of spraining her knee.
      • Repeated in Family Guy Presents Laugh It Up Fuzzball with the AT-AT Walker, who starts groaning in pain after tripping over the cable. He only does it three times before being blown up by the snowspeeders.
    • The infamous chicken fights are frequently accused of being nothing more than Overly Long Gags, although there's usually a good wealth of film references in each.
      • And it's almost got to the point where the bird's re-appearance in ridiculous places is itself part of the joke, and the ideas played with (like when they realise they can't remember why they're fighting, go for a meal to make up...and of course start a fight of equally excessive length over who pays the bill) which might make it a combination of Overly Long Gag and Running Joke.
    • "Everything I say is a lie! Except for that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that."
    • It was lampshaded when Peter is singing "Surfin' Bird", over and over, and Stewie comments, "Oh, I just love repetition!" Later in the same episode, in what may have been a jab at how the fans perceive these jokes, Stewie slowly pulls out a revolver and aims it at his face as Peter continues singing the song ad nauseum.
    • Subverted once when the Vaudeville Guys, who were just beginning to wear out their welcome, are shot to death by Stewie just as they are beginning their performance.
      • They did return later, Vern as a ghost and Johnny playing his piano in Hell.
    • Another particularly gratuitous example is when Stewie speculates about Brian's novel. He goes on and on and on about it, his voice continually growing higher. It was marginally funny, but what's baffling is they thought it would be a good idea to have him bring it up again, and spend even longer on it this time, later in the episode. He tries it again in a later episode that season, but barely begins before Brian punches him silent, thus rendering it a case of Overly Long Rule of Three.
      • Then in another episode, Stewie is composing a song to impress Susie Swanson, and Brian turns the tables.
    • Bruce, the polite effeminate guy, is essentially an entire person made out of this trope. Every time he shows up he just rambles on, quietly and politely, about whatever happens to be on his mind at the time, usually only tangentially related to whatever the subject is that he's currently discussing with the rest of the characters that are with him at the time during the show.
    • Played with in one episode. Peter is singing a song, and at the end, it seems that he's going to hold the last note for a long time. Then it cuts to commercial. When it gets back to the show, it's revealed that he's been holding the note for the entire commercial break, and proceeds to hold it even longer afterwards.
    • "Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy. Ooh piece of candy."
      • This is also done twice.
    • And Then There's Maude! Peter is actually annoyed by this Overly Long Gag.
    • Conway Twitty in "The Juice is Loose": they put the ENTIRE SONG in the episode!
    • After watching Bewitched, Stewie leaves the theater, rides a cab, stands in line at the airport, flies on a plane, arrives at LAX, hails another cab, arrives at Will Ferrell's house, and punches him in the face.
    • "Lois. Lois. Lois. Lois. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama."
    • The scene where the house that Brian and Stewie have been working on all episode explodes. It's literally just 30 seconds of the house exploding from different angles.
      • And a few times from the same angle.
    • Peter's "Guiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiltyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" from "Family Gay".
    • The cutaway gag with the British gentlemen's club when three gentlemen do nothing but read newspapers and clear their throats in different tone for like a minute.
    • The scene in "Something Something Something Dark Side" where Peter cuts open the don-don. "I thought they smelt bad - " he exhales seven or eight times - "On the outside!"
    • Also in SSSDS, Peter shooting the floor of the cave about eight times before realising they're in a giant space slug.
    • The P.S. in Stewie's letter to Brian when he's heading to England.
    • The Phony Guy. Oh GOD the Phony Guy. Pretty much just like the raccoon gag in "To Love and Die and Dixie" - he only appears four or five times in one season 3 episode, "The Kiss Seen Around the World" - except it stopped being funny after his second appearance. You could say his being brought back just to be killed off in "Something Something Something Darkside" was some sort of Karmic Death.
    • In "Stew-roids" Stewie repeatedly steps in front of Brian as he tries to go down the stairs, making an "oop" noise. He does this 12 times before stopping.
    • In the season 2 episode "If I'm Dyin, I'm Lyin" during the interrogation scene in "Gumbel 2 Gumbel" when Bryant Gumbel continuously mumble "Mmm Hmm" at the arrested criminal for about 20 seconds. It ends when the criminal asks Greg, "What the hell is wrong with him?"
    • The scene from "Quagmire's Dad" where Brian pukes for at least a solid 30 seconds.
    • Speaking of puke, there was also the "Ipecac contest" with Peter, Chris, Stewie and Brian repeatedly puking for about a minute.
    • "Oh, yeah, Drew. I wanna say hi to Lois, Brian, Chris, Stewie, Meg, Joe, Bonnie, Quagmire, Cleveland, Mort, Seamus, Adam West, Dr. Hartman, Bruce, Carter, Babs, Tom Tucker, Angela, Opie, Carl, Herbert, Jillian, Consuela, Giant Chicken, Greased-Up Deaf Guy!" "...Okay. Sure they're happy to hear that."
    • Another moment from the Star Wars "It's A Trap" where Luke nods to Lando, who nods to R2, who nods to Leia, who nods to C-3P0, who nods to Jabba, who nods back to 3P0, who nods to Leia, who nods to R2, who nods to Lando, who nods to Luke, who nods to a baseball player, who nods to Luke, who nods to Lando, who nods to R2, who nods to Leia, who nods to 3PO, who nods to the Sarlacc, who nods to Lando, who nods to Han, who nods to Leia, who nods to Luke, who nods to the guy playing the tuba which has punctuated each nod with a dramatic note, who nods to Luke, who nods to Lando, who nods to a clip of Ted Knight in Caddyshack saying "Well? We're waiting!". This joke is repeated a minute or two later.
    • Carter destroying a bus bench with a bulldozer. The scene eats up almost 2 whole minutes of episode time.
    • When homeschooling the kids in "Foreign Affairs", and talking about "The gayest music video ever", the show proceeds to play the entirety of Mick Jagger and David Bowie's "Dancing in the Street".
    • "Want to pick me up? Want to pick me up? Want to pick me up? Want to pick me up? Want to pick me up?"
      • Stewie actually killed the guy.
    • "Friends of Peter G." has Peter growing increasingly frustrated for waiting for the movie to start as the film shows several companies involved in making the movie, going on for at least 40 seconds.
    • A gag in "Ready, Willing, and Disabled" has Joe Swanson crying in the bar because he failed to capture a criminal that tried to steal donation money. He cries for literally 2 to 4 minutes as Peter, Quagmire, and Cleveland slowly and awkwardly leave the bar (with Peter then slowly coming back in through a window to get his beer). Seth MacFarlane lampshades the gag in the DVD commentary by mentioning that the animators overseas hated drawing scenes that dragged out in a slow speed.
  • MacFarlane frequently uses this trope in American Dad as well. He even lampshades it in "Phantom Of The Telethon," when Stan delivers a joke written by Steve and his friends.
Cquote1

 Stan: Some acts are too hot. Some acts are too cold. This act is just riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Barry (backstage): Joke-killer! He's a joke-killer!

Cquote2
    • "TUNGEE!!!"
  • MacFarlane has a pretty big influence on Seth Green's Robot Chicken--the show could be described as "Family Guy if they took out the bits about plot"--so to no surprise, to say the least, some clips are longer and tedious than others. This really comes into play in the second season.
    • Thing is, these clips are never seen again, and are thus funny.
  • Some of the lazier episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants use this trope excessively, often to the point that an entire episode will actually become this trope. Examples: "Slide-Whistle Stooges", "Blackjack", and "Grandpappy the Pirate".
    • While this is true, many older episodes had slightly more brief examples of this, such as the line "Have you finished those errands yet?" being repeated in part or in whole over twenty times in "Squid's Day Off", and SpongeBob screaming no less than 25 times in a row in "Graveyard Shift".
      • He goes on to laugh repeatedly when Squidward says he was joking.
    • From "The Algae's Always Greener":
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 SpongeBob: "A customer ordered a medium soda, and I gave him a large! I GAVE HIM A LARGE! I've soiled the good Krusty Krab name! Soiled it, soiled it, soiled it, soiled it! Soiled it, soiled it, soiled it, soiled it! Soiled it..."

Plankton: (poking Spongebob) "Where's the off button on this thing?"

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      • "...And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day....
    • Another example: SpongeBob repeatedly interrupting the doctor trying to remove Squidward's bandages, from "The Two Faces of Squidward."
    • The episode "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful" has almost no gags- other than "Squidward ends up next to litter, and is sentenced to Community Service whether it's his or not." SpongeBob gets CS once, Squilliam gets it once, and Squidward gets it eight freaking times... (He almost got it nine, even!)
    • "All That Glitters", where SpongeBob cries to...pretty much everything in Bikini Bottom about his broken spatula. "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-HHAUUUUUUUUUH!"
    • Zooming in on the patty in "Krusty Krab Training video" The narrator imitates a fanfare throughout, stopping to catch his breath partway.
    • "Another day, another nickel!" Squidward eventually shouts "IT'S NOT THAT FUNNY! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"
    • SpongeBob going over the activities he and Patrick have planned for the rainy day in "Pineapple Fever". Mostly, he repeats activities he's already stated.
    • "The Camping Episode" has this, and probably would have gone longer if Squidward hadn't stopped SpongeBob:
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 SpongeBob: Patrick's right Squidward, sea bears are no laughing matter. Why one time I met this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy's cousin-

Squidward: YOU'RE RIGHT!

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      • Also, the "Campfire Song" Song. Squidward doesn't bother to stop them, he just sits there with an annoyed look on his face.
    • And from Whatever Happened to Spongebob?: "Idiot boy, idiot boy, idiot boy, idiot boy..."
    • Another example in Dear Viking.
Cquote1

 Viking: This is Olaf. And this is Olaf. This is Olaf. Olaf, Olaf, Olaf, and um...

Other Viking: Olaf.

Squidward: So, lemme guess. Your name must be...

Viking: That's right. Gordon!

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  • Garfield and Friends features an episode, "How To Be Funny", where the titular cat explains the fine points of comedy and admits repetition of a stupid Visual Pun like being handed lightbulbs after yelling "Lights!" can get funnier with time.
    • One recurring gag in US Acres is that whenever Orson sorts his books, he always has to put one in particular - Deja Vu, the Sensation of Experiencing Something You Have Experienced Before - away about five times in a row. This gag was eventually lampshaded when after the third copy he stopped, looked down, and started going through the stack of books...all of which turned out to be Deja Vu.
    • In the U.S. Acres episode "Bad Time Story", Bo, Lanolin, Roy, and Wade take turns fighting over who reads a "Chicken Little" like story. At one point, Wade reads a Long List of all twenty seven people who are off to see the king, including Eggy Leggy (Sheldon), Wormy Squirmy, Catty Fatty (Garfield), Beaver Cleaver, and Puppy Wuppy (Odie)!
  • In the Sealab 2021 episode "Vacation", the suggestion that Quinn is in his room with a prostitute twice prompts a segue into a ridiculously long chain of characters going "Uh-oh!" The Rule of Three comes into play at the end of the episode, as Quinn interrupts the beginning of a third such chain.
  • In the DuckTales episode "A Whale of a Bad Time", Scrooge McDuck is informed that a shipment of ice cream (in which he'd concealed half his fortune) has been eaten by a sea monster, which causes him to go berserk and spend about a minute jumping around the room repeatedly yelling "A sea monster ate my ice cream!!" before his nephews can subdue him.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: When Billy thinks clowns "want to become the dominant species" and then proceeds to spend nearly half a minute straight yelling that they'll "Destroy us all!". In the made for TV movie "Wrath of the Spider Queen", he is cut off half-way before starting another such joke.
    • DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! I'll take the chicken. DESTROY US ALL!
    • In the episode where they visit a retirement home for elderly monsters, Billy is reluctant when he finds he has to go through a portal to Another Dimension to get there. Grim and Billy get into an argument loaded with rhymes on the word "dimension" that goes on for long enough that Mandy gets sick of it and pushes them both through the portal before leaping in after them.
  • In South Park, "Canceled", this trope is spelled out. Kyle is asked to activate the satellite dish in Cartman's rectum, and each time he approaches, Cartman farts and laughs. Everyone agrees it is no longer funny, and Cartman does it again, prompting the others to laugh and Chef to proclaim it funny once more.
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 Cartman: "...She's a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch! Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch, she's a stupid bitch! Kyle's mom's a bitch and she's just a dirty bitch!"

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    • The main plot of "Jared Has Aides" consists entirely of people confusing the word "aides" with "AIDS", to the point where the titular Jared starts flogging a literal dead horse.
    • Then there's Terrence and Phillip vs. Steven Abootman in "Canada on Strike".
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 "I'm not your friend, buddy!"

"I'm not your buddy, guy!"

"I'm not your guy, friend!"

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  • Drawn Together is also no stranger to the Overly Long Gag.
    • In the first episode, Captain Hero wishes for a hot black woman to appear, at which moment Foxxy Love walks through the door. He then wishes for a 12-year-old girl and a donkey to appear, and proceeds to wait...and wait, and wait, and wait...
    • In the first season finale, the housemates stage a sit-in in an attempt to deliberately make the show boring so that the producer will be forced to give them some perks. And true to their word, the sit-in consists of them doing nothing but sitting there and blinking for well over a minute.
    • In "Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree", Spanky Ham draws a fart out for an entire 60 seconds.
    • In "Alzheimer's That Ends Well", The senior citizens make a call to Boba Fett with a rotary dial phone. As long as it sounds.
      • The third season had this as a stinger during the credits, featuring a clip from the episode looped or altered somewhat. Though there's always a climax.
    • In "Breakfast Food Killer", while the characters onscreen are completely motionless, there is an offstage dialogue of Wooldoor talking to someone outside the audition room for a good 1 or 2 minutes about nonsense.
  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast: The "Fire Ant" episode, as originally aired, contained a ten-minute-long sequence consisting entirely of Space Ghost following an ant to its house to kill its family. No action, almost no dialogue, just Space Ghost following an ant.
  • Twelve Ounce Mouse would sometimes have two Overly Long Gags running concurrently. In episode 5, Fitz and Skillet have an extended shoot-out with an offscreen assailant while Peanut tries to rob the Diner. In episode 11, Shark spends half the episode trying to get his car started, while Rectangular Businessman spends the other half trying to decide which one of many identical harmonicas to buy. By the end of the episode, neither has succeeded.
  • The credits sequence of the Phineas and Ferb episode "It's About Time!" consists of Mr. Fletcher saying/humming "Fossils! Dun dun dun!", in an imitation of the end of a museum tour tape he listened to earlier in the episode, repeatedly for about half a minute.
    • "I, Brobot" has a several-seconds-long clip of Candace running screaming to the basement and hiding in the panic room.
  • The Simpsons: This trope could easily be called "Rake Scene". Given the origin of the rake scene, the probable circumstances that determine exactly how overly long an Overly Long Gag could probably be described as "how much time needs filling?"
    • The scene from "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds", where Homer tries to eat chips which are repeatedly stolen from his hands by the greyhound puppies. This happens eight times, and the first four are recognisably the same footage as the second four, except for Homer saying "This time," before the last one.
    • In the episode "Pranksta Rap", Milhouse tosses a frisbee six total times, picks it up each time, until he finally says, "This is no fun without Bart. He used to watch me while I did this."
    • In "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson", when Cletus Spuckler introduces his 44 children to Marge and Homer.
    • From "Last Exit to Springfield": "DENTAL PLAN!" "Lisa needs braces!" "DENTAL PLAN!" "Lisa needs braces!" "DENTAL PLAN!" "Lisa needs braces!"
    • In another of the "Sideshow Bob tries to kill Bart" episodes, Bob and Bart fall off a dam, yelling the entire way, and have to stop yelling to take in a breath, before they continue to yell.
    • From "Homer's Barbershop Quartet":
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  "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP! - "Number 8" - BURRRRP!

Cquote2
    • The episode "Dancing Homer" has this with Bleeding Gums Murphy singing the American National Anthem at the start of a baseball game. He starts singing at 7:30. He finishes singing at 7:56. And by the time he is finished, Lisa is the only one who is still genuinely paying attention.
    • In the episode "Crook and Ladder", Homer takes sleeping pills that may cause mood swings. The next gag is at least 30 seconds worth of Homer saying "Mood Swings!" in different tones.
    • One of the later seasons has an episode where Ralph Wiggum tries to play "Duck Duck Goose" at a party, or rather "Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck..." (etc.)
      • Come on, if it weren't for the creators of TV Tropes, Ralph Wiggum's Duck Duck Duck etc. gag would be the Trope Namer.
    • Homer listing all the jobs he's had to Marge whilst sitting in bed. Marge goes into their en suite and comes back in with him still talking.
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    • On several occasions, a character will fall over, then be trampled by several members of a marching band. And an elephant.
    • There's also the scene from "Grade School Confidential" when Martin is inviting people to his birthday party, he hands one to Nelson saying "Here you are Nelson!" and Nelson pushing the invitation off his desk while making a "pfft" sound, this goes on for about 30 seconds.
    • The Sweetest Apu. Homer's reaction is almost the longest gag in the whole show. Which is saying something.
    • Rainier Wolfcastle's bratwurst commercial, a parody of Oscar Mayer's. "Mein Bratwurst has a first name, it's F - R - I - T - Z! Mein Bratwurst has a second name, it's S - C - H - N - A - C - K - E - N - P - F - E - F - F - E - R - H - A - U - S - E - N..."
    • Homer's comically long long-distance phone dial in "In Marge We Trust".
  • Taken to its logical extreme by Futurama; "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad", a special episode included on the Bender's Big Score DVD, takes the gag and runs with it for twenty-two minutes, the entire length of the episode. There are some other gags included ("Guests of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad stay at the famous Cragmont Human Cage!"), and, indeed, the whole point is that, in order not to miss these shorter gags, the viewer has to sit through the entire episode. Some of them are so short that they can easily be missed by fast-forwarding through them.
    • Into The Wild Green Yonder gives us Leela's attempts to protect a leech, which keeps attacking her; she reflexively crushes it, then regrets it, then it comes back to life and attacks her again.
    • Actually subverted in "Bender Gets Made", the one where Bender joined the Robot Mafia. After seeing that the Robot Mafia are going to be attacking the Planet Express Ship, Bender does an extended Spit Take that, just as it looks like it is going to become an Overly Long Gag, cuts to commercial.
  • Dexters Laboratory used this quite a bit, usually centering around endlessly repeated shots of Dexter typing on a keyboard, tightening a screw, pulling the same lever, etc. One commercial lampshaded this by asking after about thirty seconds of the screw-tightening, "Isn't he going to overtighten that thing some day?"
    • In one episode starring Mandark, every sound made was similar to his signature laugh. For the entire episode.
      • Ha ha ha! Ha-ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha-ha ha ha ha!
      • Chew chew chew! Chew-chew chew chew chew! Chew chew chew! Chew-chew chew chew chew!
      • Boo-Hoo hoo! Boo-Hoo hoo hoo hoo! Boo-hoo hoo! Boo-hoo hoo hoo!
    • Youtube video makers particularly enjoy making videos of particular scenes, like Dexter eating corn for ten minutes or drinking milk for ten minutes.
    • "The Continuum of Cartoon Fools" opens with about half a minute of Dexter making faces and funny noises while apparently timing a storyboard, and ends with Dexter spending about a minute lamenting the fact that he's locked himself out of his secret laboratory in his efforts to keep Dee-Dee out.
  • Lampshaded in an episode of Freakazoid ("Virtual Freak"), where Freakazoid and the Lobe take an overly long time to fall from the top of a mall.
    • The premise of the episode "Relax-O-Vision" was a running gag that quickly grew old. This was eventually subverted at the end, when Freakazoid beats up the suit who came up with the idea in the first place.
    • A perfect example is the Hand-man segment in the first episode, noted as such on the DVD commentary.
    • Another episode has Fanboy surprise Freakazoid, who has just downed a smoothie. Freakazoid proceeds to spit out more papaya juice than could possibly fit in his whole body in sync with fifteen different dramatic BGM chords. In what may be the most awesome Spit Take ever, this goes on for a solid twenty seconds.
  • This is Invader Zim's bread and butter. Take for example, this quote from "Tak: The Hideous New Girl", in which Tak has just started to explain her evil plan to Zim, starting with "Part 1" - crippling his base's functions.
Cquote1

 "Part 2 is --"

"NOOO! My beautiful base!"

"Part 2 is --"

"NOOO! My beautiful base!"

"Part 2 --"

"NOOOO! My base!"

"Part 2 --"

"NOOO!"

"Part --"

"NOOO!"

"Okay, I'm — "

"NOOO!"

"Okay, I'm going now."

"But you didn't tell me what your plan was."

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    • Similarly:
Cquote1

 "I am-"

"Who are you!"

"I am-"

Who are you!"

"I am-"

"Who are you!"

Cquote2
    • Also similarly, from "Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy"
Cquote1

 "A hunter-destroyer — "

"What is it?!"

"A hunter-destroyer — "

"What is it?!"

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    • And yet again similarly:
Cquote1

 "ZIM!"

"WHAAAAT?"

"ZIM!"

"WHAAAAT?"

"ZIM!"

"WHAAAAT?"

Cquote2
    • A scene from "Megadoomer" showed Zim in the titular battle mech behind a smiling woman in her car at a stoplight shouting "Hey, move it! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! ..." and then finally "You invoke my wrath?!" and as the light turns green and she moves, "Victory for Ziiim!"
    • There was also the opening to "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars", where Invader Zim was on screen with the Tallest, shouting "My tallest! Hey! My tallest! My taaaalleeest!" for three hours straight (actually a minute on-screen).
Cquote1

 Tallest Red: I was curious to see when you'd shut up on your own. But it's been three hours now, Zim. THREE HOURS!!!

Cquote2
      • Interesting to note is that Jhonen Vasquez himself said in the commentary that he would have made that entire gag last the entire episode if he could get away with it.
    • And who could forget when GIR asked Zim if he was going to make biscuits for 45 seconds?
    • I'm gonna sing the Doom Song now!
      • I think GIR deserves a special prize for that, seeing as it apparently lasted six months for Zim.
    • The Zim writers apparently love this trope. In fact, "Zim Eats Waffles" is essentially an episode-long Overly-Long Gag. And it's hilarious.
  • Dr. Rockso's constant repetition of "I do cocaine!" in Metalocalypse. It was mildly funny at first, then it became annoying. But by season two, the fact that he simply would not stop saying it made it inexplicably hilarious.
    • This was actually lampshaded as a OLG. "...Yes. You've told us. Repeatedly. Please stop."
    • There's also the DVD Easter Egg scene of Nathan Explosion reading from Hamlet. Very, very badly. For twenty minutes. And then there's a second Overly Long Gag in the credits...
      • Many of the DVD extras consist of Overly Long Gags, though not usually as long as the Hamlet one. There is an 8 minute feature of Pickles sitting in his underwear on a bed babbling incoherently while on drugs, and another that's about five minutes of the Bishop guy tuning his guitar and trying to play simple chords while grunting to himself. Some of these are more successful than others.
        • Another 12-minute "deleted episode" sketch features all 5 members of the band sitting drunk in a darkened room trying to name all the "great metal bands" ("metal" being a catch-all term for "brutal") they can think of. It begins with your standards (Black Sabbath, Metallica), then grows increasingly esoteric (Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Redbone), to just plain absurd (Hanson, ABBA).
    • Stops copies me. Stops copies me.
  • In Home Movies, Jason keeps trying to add overly long jokes about barbarians acting barbaric to a movie script. Melissa refuses to transcribe them past a point, saying, "That's where I think the joke ends!"
    • "Can I axe you a question?"
  • In one episode of Duckman, he and Cornfed become plumbers.
Cquote1

 Hans: I am Hans, may I help you gentlemen?

Eric Duckman: You betcha Heintz, we're from AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-1 Plumbing.

Hans: You're from AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-1 Plumbing?

Cornfed Pig: Yes, we're from AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-1 Plumbing.

Lady Calowina Worthington-Ford: Ah, are these the men from AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-1 Plumbing?

Hans: Yes, they say they're from AAAAAAAAAAAAAA ...

Eric Duckman: All right! C'mon, we don't even have a plot yet.

Cquote2
  • Clone High called this a "wacky stack", and tried to avoid it.
  • The Danger Mouse episode, Quark Quark features a robot named Grovel...who does...every single time his name is mentioned!
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force does this in the episode "Super Birthday Snake," when Frylock is arguing back and forth with his zombified friends about whether or not he killed them. A good quarter of the episode's length is nothing but variations on "No I didn't!" "Yes you did!" It's not funny until Carl bursts out with "You so frickin' did!" Then it's hilarious.
  • Chowder does this a lot. For example:
    • "Would I!" Would you?" "Would I!" Would you?" "Would I!" Would you?" "Would I!" Would you?" "Would I!" Would you?" "Would I what?" "Radda Radda!" "Yes I would thank you."
    • Also, the title of the 'Big Ball' episode (which doubles as the name of the game featured in it), Mung always refers to the name of the sport in full. It is fast-forwarded once, but only once, and said fast forward is also ridiculously long.
      • The name? Oh, you mean Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Babble Flabble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka Two Ton Rerun Free for All Big Ball?
  • The View Askewniverse cartoon Clerks the Animated Series:
Cquote1

 "Caitlyn has a kissing booth? Like, for charity?"

"Yeah, only it don't cost nothin' and it's not for charity."

  • leaves and comes back*

"And there's no booth."

  • leaves and comes back*

"And it's more than just kissing."

  • leaves and comes back*

"And you don't have to be a guy."

  • leaves*

  • beat*

  • comes back*

"Dude, she's cheating on you."

Cquote2
  • Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends: the scene of Bloo being massaged by the sound-operated cactus. (although it plays over the end credits).
    • There was also the shot of him making weird noises repeatedly to make them dance. Fosters tended to use this trope pretty often, probably to make the episodes fill 25 minutes.
    • The scene from "Squeeze the Day" where a bored Bloo amuses himself by making fun of the way the TV news weatherman talks. "It's hooooot in Topeka..."
    • "Coco?" "Yes." "Coco?" "Yes." "Coco?" "Yes." "Coco?" "Yes..."
    • Wilt repeatedly shouting "NO!" for thirty seconds straight at the end of "Where There's a Wilt, There's a Way".
  • Animaniacs has the Who's on Stage? skit, an homage to the infamous Who's on First? skit.
    • The Wakkorotti concerts also might count as this. Ha ha, two minutes of burping!
    • An in-universe example would be the Warners' "early" solo cartoon, "Flies in the Ointment", which concerned the siblings getting flypaper stuck on their butts.
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 Daffy Duck: "Oh, sure, it might have been a good idea for a short, but this thing lasted eight hours. Eight. hours.

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  • Looney Tunes' Duck! Rabbit, Duck! Bugs puts up a new season sign whenever Daffy mentions he is another animal. This goes on for the entirety of the film. Eventually...
Cquote1

 Elmer: Oh, Mister Game Warden, I hope you can help me. I've been told I can shoot wabbits and goats and pigeons and mongooses and dirty skunks and ducks. Could you tell me what season it weawwy is?

The "Game Warden" (actually Bugs in a Game Warden suit): Why soitainly, my boy, (whips out a baseball) it's baseball season!

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    • Elmer then goes insane and shoots the baseball repeatedly.
    • "Porky Pig's Feat" has a memorable moment when the Manager of the Broken Arms Hotel, driven into a state of fury by Daffy's antics, attempts to break down the door to his and Porky's room. The rug gets pulled out from under him, and he goes tumbling down the stairs. The next 30 seconds are spent watching him fall down step after step, going "Ee! Ah! Oh! Ah!" until he crashes at the bottom. The second time around, he fakes it.
  • Back at the Barnyard has an episode where the animals think the farm is about to be sold because they've overheard that "Buyers are coming" that day. After turning away several "Buyers", one person shows up looking for "The Beyer family reunion." He then explains that his surname is Beyer, the family reunion is being held there because the farmer's wife's maiden name is Beyer, all the other people who showed up earlier were named Beyer, etc. His explanation goes on for nearly a full minute.
  • Were Back a Dinosaurs Story: Stubbs the clown's resignation. The Nostalgia Critic went through bursts of "SHUT UP!" halfway through (and for once, he wasn't extending the gag himself...it really was that long.).
  • On The Critic, Jay once showed a scene from the Director's cut of JFK. It was just Jim Garrison saying "Back, and to the left" over and over.
  • Titan Maximum. In the pilot episode of all places, during the 50-second long falling death of Spud.
  • In The Emperors New Groove, Yzma pretends to be a relative of Pacha. Just like the Dragon Ball example above, Pacha's son Teepo follows Yzma around the house, saying that Yzma couldn't possibly be his aunt, but she could be his "great great great great great...(and he goes on)"
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 Yzma: All right! Are you through?

Tipo: ...great-great-aunt.

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  • A Tex Tinstar segment of The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show featured the Wrong Brothers sleeping, and Tex riding up to them...and the Wrong Brothers sleeping...and Tex riding up to them...and the Wrong Brothers sleeping...
  • In The Venture Brothers episode "Every Which Way But Zeus", Brock and Col. Gathers have a discussion of a stripper's breasts, which they describe as "mournful tits". They go on discussing how "sad" her breasts were in every way imaginable for about a minute.
    • Look into THE NOZZLE...THE NOZZLE is calibrating...do not look away from THE NOZZLE...
  • An episode of Yogi Bear did this to highly unfunny levels. A dog is going after a criminal in a bear suit, who dives into the hole of a tree. He keeps barking at it until his owner (the sheriff) pops out and glares at him. He keeps barking for a good 2 minutes.
  • "Al! Buddy! Al! Don't leave me hanging! Al! Al? Al? Al! Al! Al! Al!"
  • The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Lolly Poopdeck's painfully drawn out delivery of the punchline of a joke in "Day Without Laughter".
  • In Tom and Jerry Blast Off To Mars the Martian King falls down a ridiculously-long flight of stairs. After a few bounces it cuts to some of the guards playing cards. Then back to the king, still on his way down. Then to a couple of the guards flirting. Then back to the king. Then to the guards getting married. Then back to the king. Then to the guards holding several small children. Then he finally hits the ground.
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 Martian King: I Meant to Do That.

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 Pinkie Pie: Are you excited? Because I'm excited! I've never been so excited! Well, except for the time I saw you walking into town, and I went GASP!, but I mean really, who could top that?

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    • Near the end of "A Friend in Deed", Pinkie tries to chase Cranky Doodle Donkey down and tell him that she's "really really really really really really really really [etc.]" sorry for ruining his scrapbook.


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Real Life[]

  • A letter written by a Union soldier serving under General McClellan during The American Civil War described the daily routine at the D.C. garrison as one long string of drills. (The entire letter was read aloud during part one of Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War.)
  • A Japanese rock band asked Tom Green of all people to sit in on drums for them one night. The result was, simply, Tom playing the drums. And playing. And playing. And playing. Long after the song had ended.
  • When Flava Flav his 50th birthday, at the party celebrated with the longest "Yeeeaah, boyyyyy" in history.
  • For numerous long gag made into names in real life, check this index.
  • Depressingly averted on YouTube. Your video can (and has, in the case of some YouTube Poopers) be removed for using an overly long gag. According to their "Community Guidelines", "It's not okay to post large amounts of untargeted, unwanted, or repetitive content, including comments and private messages."
    • YouTube videos are damned Serious Business.
    • It's not as if this actually stops people from uploading ungodly numbers of "character X does momentary action Y repeatedly for 10 minutes while Yakety Sax plays in the background" videos, of course. So it's sort of used and averted at the same time.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged owner Little Kuriboh has had his account terminated nine times, the last of which being on February 26 2012, and it has been restored seven times. We are currently awaiting his restoration for the latest one. However, far from being frustrated by it, he loves to make fun of it in his videos, blaming it on Team 4Kids in the latest series.
  • The John Isner vs Nicolas Mahut tennis match at Wimbledon 2010 got like this at times. The bloke doing the writeup for the Guardian certainly thought so.
  • A paper presented at the annual meeting of the Annals of Improbable Research: Chicken Chicken Chicken.
  • Knock knock. Whose There? Banana. Banana who? Banana. Banana who? Banana. BANANA WHO! After at least 10-50 more times...Orange, Orange who? Orange ya glad I didn't say banana!
  • THIS TROPE! This trope page is in itself an Overly Long Gag
  • The value of pi. 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211...
    • All irrational numbers, for that matter.
  • The full chemical name of Titin. Which has 189,819 letters. Seriously.
  • A perfect example on >1=28150&overlaytype=multimediaviewer&name=hpvideo2&csid=ux-en-us&initialmoduleindex=3 this clip of X-Factor.
  • Famous writer Mark Twain would on occasion go on tours where he would tell stories and run routines that were known to be hilariously funny. On the night of one such performance, Mark Twain stepped on the stage and proceed to stare at the audience for several minutes without saying a word. The confused audience stared back for a VERY long time, until finally they started to chuckle slightly. This was followed by some light laughter, and before long the whole audience was inexplicably in stitches. This led into a very successful (and more typical) performance by Mark Twain for the rest of the evening.
  • The Owl Channel is a website that broadcasts a live feed of the nest of two barn owls, Roy and Dale. As of the time of this entry, the male barn owl has brought the female 87 rabbits over the course of about two months. Eighty seven. For those not familiar with barn owls, that is ridiculous.
  1. Donations submitted to the charity effort would determine how long the players would play Desert Bus. The more donations, the longer the playtime, with the whole thing going up on a stream.
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