History Main / Earworm

* In the ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' MusicalEpisode “[[Recap/StarTrekStrangeNewWorldsS2E08SubspaceRhapsody Subspace Rhapsody]]”, the episode ends with Uhura humming one of the songs sung in the episode, only for some of the crew to glare at her. She stops and sheepishly admits it was one of these.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' MusicalEpisode “[[Recap/StarTrekStrangeNewWorldsS2E08SubspaceRhaspody Subspace Rhaspody]]”, the episode ends with Uhura humming one of the songs sung in the episode, only for some of the crew to glare at her. She stops and sheepishly admits it was one of these.

SubTrope of InnerMonologue. Ear Worms are frequently the tool used to produce PsychicStatic. Especially powerful ones can also serve as a BrownNote. If the repetitive music that is the cause of someone's woes is not just in memory but ongoing, it's IncessantMusicMadness.

Although many of us have had experiences with Ear Worms, please stick to listing [[Administrivia/InUniverseExamplesOnly examples where a song's catchiness is commented on or demonstrated in-universe]]. Describing ''what'' makes a song catchy is almost impossible for most people who aren't music theory experts, meaning that the odds of subjective examples being Administrivia/ZeroContextExamples are extremely high (as was the case with a past version of this trope).

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel ''Dark Mirror'' by Diane Duane, Deanna advises Picard to cultivate an Ear Worm in order to [[PsychicStatic block]] her MirrorUniverse counterpart's telepathy. He chooses George Strong's parody of "The Song of Hiawatha":

* In ''Literature/CenterburgTales'' a record dropped off at Uncle Ulysses' lunchroom by a mysterious stranger contains a song so catchy that most of the town ends up singing it uncontrollably. The only remedy is to get a ''different'' song stuck in their heads: "Punch, Brothers, Punch" from Creator/MarkTwain's "A Literary Nightmare", mentioned below. And then once one person is sent out on their way out of town with "Punch, Brothers, Punch", all is back to normal-- then someone plays the ''[[HereWeGoAgain other]]'' side of the record...

* In Robert [=McCloskey=]'s ''Centerburg Tales'' a record dropped off at Uncle Ulysses' lunchroom by a mysterious stranger contains a song so catchy that most of the town ends up singing it uncontrollably. The only remedy is to get a ''different'' song stuck in their heads: "Punch, Brothers, Punch" from Creator/MarkTwain's "A Literary Nightmare", mentioned below. And then once one person is sent out on their way out of town with "Punch, Brothers, Punch", all is back to normal-- then someone puts on the ''[[HereWeGoAgain other]]'' side of the record...

* ''Website/CollegeHumor'' lampooned this in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyEIM2cpkoE "One Week" song parody]]: Streeter plays an amateur band player who gets so obsessed with a catchy song that it drives him insane, leading to sexual dysfunction, hallucinations, threatening his girlfriend's parents with a hammer, threatening his own fans with a handgun, attempting assassination, and eventually ending up in an insane asylum.

* Cephalic Carnage, [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs pot-smoking]] and [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic incredibly talented]] inventors of [[{{Grindcore}} Rocky Mountain Hydro-Grind]], paint the fourth wall red with their rather catchy song "[[http://www.metalinjection.net/tv/view/5824/cephalic-carnage-ohrwurm-video-nsfw Ohrwurm]]", though [[SchmuckBait don't visit]] that [[SurrealMusicVideo music video]] unless you're prepared for {{Squick}}. (And have some amount of BrainBleach on hand.)

* In the episode "Pichichus enamorado" from ''Las Aventuras de Hijitus'', Oaky constantly sings a serenata song for his vecinita which she gets annoyed fast. Cue to also the dog Pichichus singing that song. Later, La vecinita de enfrente sings her serenata to Oaky much to his dissapointment.

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': One sketch centers around a group of mobsters meeting at an Italian restaurant to discuss money owed to the boss. However, the group is distracted by the restaurant's main act (host Creator/PeterDinklage) singing an 80's techno song about his "Space Pants". Eventually, the boss tells them they can wait until the song's over as it's too catchy.

* ''Series/{{Yellowjackets}}'': In "[[Recap/YellowjacketsS2E8ItChooses It Chooses]]" Taissa complains that [[Music/{{Live}} "Lightning Crashes"]], the song to which she and her fellow survivors had been dancing in previous episode, is going to be stuck in her head for a while.

* ''WebVideo/BroniesReact'': In the video for the episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E13ThePerfectPear The Perfect Pear]]", upon hearing the quite aptly titled "You're in My Head Like a Catchy Song", WebAnimation/SilverQuill just quips "Hello, earworm."

** The Musical cliptastic countdown special, which shows the top 10 favorite songs, voted by the viewers. In it, the villain Doofenshmirtz tries to hypnotize the "Live Studio Audience" with one of these. ("My name is doof and you'll do what I say... Woop Woop!") They get un-hypnotized when Agent P plays the number 1 requested song, which is "Gitchie Gitchie Goo" (and, as commented by Doof, "the never-before-seen extended version!")

* "This is the Chorus", by Morris Minor and the Majors, (a parody of all the late 1980s Stock Aitken Waterman hits), has the line: "This is the Chorus, This is the Chorus, It goes round and around and gets into your brain".

*** During the review on GuiltyPleasure songs, "Tik Tok" by Music/{{Kesha}} and "You Belong With Me" by Music/TaylorSwift have a bad effect on the Nostalgia Chick.

*** The Critic's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vxk6zblj20 "Top 11 Catchiest Theme Songs"]] video is entirely about this trope. At the end, he gets extremely agitated while urging the viewers to warn people about these songs and not let them hear any, especially ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|1987}}'' (woo-oo!).

* ''WebVideo/{{React}}'': ''Kids React to WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}}'' (the first cartoon series):

* Taken to a ''very'' dark extreme in the ''Creator/JunjiIto'' short "Songs in the Dark". A woman hears a busker playing a song that is so catchy it literally alters her brainwaves and repeatedly plays over and over in her head, driving her insane in the process. Many others who heard the song ended up committing suicide.

* Poor WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}} was constantly tormented by the theme song to D.W.'s favorite inane kid's show, "''[[WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus CRAZY BUS, CRAZY BUS, RIDING ON A CRAZY BUS]].''"

* ''VideoGame/FortuneStreet'' has a level based on the original ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'', complete with requisite remix of the overworld music. When selected as opponents, Mario says how much he loves the song, while Bowser roars that he'll never get the song out of his head.

* In ''Webcomic/TheBedfellows'' strip "Jacked Ass", Sheen gets sick of Fatigue playing the "[[Franchise/MyLittlePony My Little Donkey]]" theme song loudly, so he yells at him to turn it down. Then he gets the song stuck in his head when he starts [[ADateWithRosiePalms playing with his penis]], causing him to sing it. He angrily struggles to get it out of his head, but he couldn't stop singing it, resulting in an AtomicFBomb he screams out in rage.

* Music/{{Rihanna}}'s ''Umbrella'' became this for a lot of people, and not in an especially good way.

* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'', episode "This Is My Jam", has "Summertime Lovin', Loving in the Summer (time)" which becomes so relentless catchy that it eventually takes on physical form. The guys end up countering it by creating their own Ear Worm and blasting the Summertime Song, resulting in [[ThePowerOfRock the two songs manifesting as giant glowing men who duel with guitars]]. Yeah, it's [[WidgetSeries that kind of show]].

* ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'': Kyoko [[PsychicStatic keeps her favorite rock song in mind to protect herself]] during a brain washing session.

* Sato in ''Anime/WelcomeToTheNHK'' is consistently tormented by the theme song to the ShowWithinAShow ''Magical Girl Pururin'' played by his neighbor Yamazaki. Once he befriends Yamazaki and he is introduced to the show, he often finds himself humming the tune, and even adopts it as his ringtone!

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Survivors" features an Ear Worm in the form of an OminousMusicBoxTune that produces enough PsychicStatic to [[TerribleTicking freak out Troi to the point of madness]].

* In ''Manga/MyMonsterSecret'', Akane takes [[ChristmasCake Akari's]] appearance to make a short movie parodying your typical MagicalGirl ShowWithinAShow, called ''Magical Akalyn''. If Asahi's reaction in the volume 10 omake is anything to go by, the show's theme song is an Ear Worm (though the fact it was played in a loop for maybe more than an hour on the radio didn't help).

* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': In '"[[Recap/CheersS3E14 The Heart Is a Lonely Snipe Hunter]]" has the "The Sunny Side of the Street" song passed on.

* In Robert [=McCloskey=]'s ''Centerburg Tales'' a record dropped off at Uncle Ulysses' lunchroom by a mysterious stranger contains a song so catchy that most of the town ends up singing it uncontrollably. The only remedy is to get a ''different'' song stuck in their heads: "Punch, Brothers, Punch" from MarkTwain's "A Literary Nightmare", mentioned above.

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'': While in "The 10th Kingdom", the Trolls discover ''Music/TheBeeGees'', and subsequently can't get the songs out of their heads.

Subtrope of InnerMonologue. Ear Worms are frequently the tool used to produce PsychicStatic. Especially powerful ones can also serve as a BrownNote. If the repetitive music that is the cause of someone's woes is not just in memory but ongoing, it's IncessantMusicMadness.

* In ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman: At Death's Door]]'' by Jill Thompson, Delirium deals with the demons that crash Death's party by infecting them with obnoxious songs.

* [[http://NationalLampoon.com The National Lampoon website]] created a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFiuIJVUsAs parody]] of [=TimeLife=] Classics CD music collections: ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Songs That Get Stuck in Your Head]]'' -- "Each song has been improved to include ''only'' the parts sure to embed in your brain! With [=TimeLife=] "Songs That Get Stuck in Your Head", you now can choose the songs you ''want'' to get stuck in your head!" The most prominent example of the Ear Worm trope in this parody: Daniel Powter's "Had a Bad Day".\\\