Yesterday I went to see Shrek 2 and during the credits, the moviemakers had added an extra scene that was quite hilarious. It got me to thinking…
In the past 10 years or so it seems to me that more and more movies are adding little extra bits for movie goers to see during the ending credits. Sometimes they are funny little bits involving characters from the movie. Sometimes they show bloopers that were not used in the movie. Sometimes they even add a very short scene that lets movie goers know that there will most likely be a sequal.
This seems to be a growing trend to do this. It used to be that this sort of thing happened very rarely.
So why is it that more movies put special things in their ending credits nowadays?
Hmmm… maybe because everybody working on the movie wants the audience to stay in their seats while the credits roll, so that someone mine notice THEIR name in particular?
Just a guess. (The real trick is figuring out some way to put these sort of extra sequences into the budget, LOL.)
People think I’m weird when I sit through the credits, but I do it for just that reason. Plus I like to listen to the end credits score, and make fun of some of the names. The latest Harry Potter credits were a lot of fun to watch since the whole thing was laid out like a Marauder’s Map. And Se7en was disturbing since the credits rolled down the screen instead of up. You’d be amazed how off-putting that little detail is.
Anyway, I like to think I’m being rewarded for giving these hard working members of the movie indusrty their due. They ain’t called “credits” for nothing.
If you go to see Dodgeball, stay till the very, very end.
See also:
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
The Muppet Movie
Lethal Weapon 2
Hal Needham/Burt Reynold action flicks always used to show bloopers at the end.
Jackie Chan has been putting outtakes at the end of his films for decades. He said in an interview it was to show that real people were doing actual stunts and really getting hurt sometimes. These scenes from his HK films (when he was really in his prime) are alternately hilarious, amazing and cringe-inducing, you don’t leave the theatre until the screen goes black.
“Wild Things” includes scenes during the credits that flesh out the movie itself.
Fairly inspired on the part of the Toy Story/Bugs Life/Monsters Inc folks to begin throwing those in.
There was even one Pixar release (I think it was Monsters Inc.) that added even more “outtakes” a couple of weeks after the initial release. I wonder how many people saw it again for that purpose.
Not exactly the same thing, but people have been doing funny stuff in the credits for a while (think Police Squad!). I’m pretty sure Monty Python did it too (apart from the obvious example in the opening credits of The Holy Grail) - it does seem to be more popular now though, especially in animated movies.
Airplane had a lot of humor in the ending credits. (Just off the top of my head, someone was listed as “Generally in charge of a lot of things”…it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.)
Here I thought this was going to be about day players being listed in the credits, and I was all set to whip out The Shanghai Gesture which may be the only movie to give the extras an on-screen (collective) credit.
