While reading the Dealbreaker screenplay clichés thread I got to thinking, what about tropes or cliched sound effects that used to be popular but are never, or at least seldom used these days?
One I mentioned in that thread was the “needle scratch” comedy sound effect. Kids these days wouldn’t even know what it was in reference to.
How about the “show regular has an evil double show up for an episode, who not only looks but sounds exactly the same, and fools all their friends and relatives. Hijinks ensue”. That used to be very common, showing up not just in sitcoms but dramas as well— Little Joe on Bonanza had an evil double in not one but two separate episodes. Last example I saw of that dumb old trope was an episode of Monk where a mob guy who was a dead ringer for Monk got killed and the FBI convinced Monk to go undercover as him. Hijinks ensued.
Another sitcom staple of old was the “long-married couple find out their marriage was not valid for some reason”. Hijinks ensue. I just saw an example of that on a Gilligan’s Island where Mr. and Mrs. Howell find out the minister who married them was not properly ordained (somehow this was such a scandal that news of it reached their radio in the South Pacific). Fortunately the Skipper saves the day by marrying them “at sea” on a raft in the lagoon.
I remember an episode of My Three Sons in which Rob had an evil double who was hitting on all the girls at his school and alienating them. So of course they were turned off when Rob would ask for a date, and he couldn’t figure out why.
Mother-in-law tropes seem to have gone out of fashion, as has that of the overbearing, overprotecting mother or father like Mrs Morgenstern and Lew Marie.
The forceful kiss (and general male dominance as successful romantic approach).
Male and female leads arguing. She doesn’t want to be told what to do. Then he grabs her, rams his face into hers and suddenly she’s putty in his arms and bends happily to his will.
Hitch has a scene where Will Smith literally explains that if you want to kiss a woman you lean in till you’re almost touching and let her close the final distance if she chooses, which is as good an indication as any that the trope is dead.
Amnesia after being hit on the head. Fixed by another hit on the head. Very common in 60s sitcoms.
Similarly, a hit on the head changes the character’s personality, which changes back if you hit them again. I recently saw The Addams Family use this.
The “Oh, no, not again” ending. Character has a wacky problem which is resolved just before the end of the show. And happens again at the vey end. Gilligan’s Island used this often.
Yes, like the romantic comedy of old where the woman shows no interest in a guy and he relentlessly pursues her to the point of full-on stalking until she finally agrees to go out with him.
In the fifties ‘going steady’ required that you have dinner with the girl’s family. After dinner you helped clear the table and washed the dishes, she washed, you dried.
God help me, as I occasionally fall into the abyss that is TikTok. One of the more popular audio memes that gets used is the record scratch effect followed by the, “ Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got into this situation…”.
Is there a name for the trope where the main character has just “made it” as a big star, and to get this point across we see a montage of real magazines with fake covers depicting the character on them? (Couple of examples below) With the decline of the relevance of magazines it would make sense that we don’t see this one anymore.
More common in radio dramas of the 40s, but a very common trope was a man who has an invalid wife and decides to try to murder her. Sorry, Wrong Number is the most famous example, but it happened all the time.
