A series of three notes, the first two are short, the third is elongated. You would hear it in, say, a cheesy soap opera or horror movie (or, more likely, a spoof of same), to indicate a shocking or horrifying revelation.
“The phone call is coming from within the house!” [cue effect]
“The murderer is… my evil twin!” [cue effect]
You get it.
Oh you mean like at the end of this short sequence of Ren and Stimpy?
(Safe for work) the music starts when it is revealed that someone is watching. (Kirk Douglas too :) )Yes, that’s exactly it!
I don’t know if it has an official name, but it is commonly called the “dun dun dun” sound effect, sometimes with an alternate spelling such as “dun dun duuuuunnnnn” or with similar emphasis on the last note.
Googling “dun dun dun” will give you lots of hits. If there’s an official name for it (other than dun dun dun) you can probably find it that way.
Shock horror effect
Yep. Dun dun DUN!
I’m not giving any hits to the big evil G, so forgive me if this isn’t the right effect, but there’s also http://www.dramabutton.com/
Now you can have it on command!
It’s called a musical sting:
It sounds to me like a snippet of the theme from Dragnet. (Listen to the three notes before the narration begins…)
Beethoven’s Fifth?
I hear this musical inflection as two notes followed by a diminished chord rather than a third single note.