History Main / IncessantMusicMadness

* The ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop'' episode "Dr. Horatio's Magic Orchestra" features Pete winning a set of sentient instruments at an auction. They constantly play "When the Saints Go Marching In." Pete is less upset by how incessant the song is, and more because that specific one reminds him of one time in a school band where he ruined a concert during the song. It causes him to give the instruments to Goofy and Max (which doesn't actually stop him from hearing it), threaten to seriously injure PJ when he(innocently) decides to whistle along, and finally tries to destroy the instruments or abandon them in the middle of nowhere. The other characters, however, help him get past his hatred of the song.

* ''CheechAndChong 's Next Movie'' features a stoned Chong pretending to be Jimi Hendrix...with his guitar hooked to a ''big'' amplifier. The entire neighborhood quickly knows he's playing, and even Cheech has trouble getting inside to stop him; the sound blasts keep slamming the front door in Cheech's face.

* In ''TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Vader is torturing Han and Chewbacca in the hope that Luke would psychically sense their torture and come to rescue them. Chewie's torture is by incessant high frequency sound.

* During ProtonJon's Let's Play of ''Super Kaizo World'', he hears the "Time's Running Out" alarm so many times after reloading save states at the very beginning of the level that he eventually pleads for it to stop. He later adds, "I'm not sleeping tonight, guys. This is my [[HellIsThatNoise nightmare sound]]."

* A NationalLampoon comic strip had a guy with a downstairs neighbor who had the worst taste in music, who left for a couple of weeks with his phonograph playing Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" - the record started skipping, repeating "owe my soul to" over and over. Nobody could get in and shut it of, and eventually the guy ended up on the street, blank-eyed and chanting [[MadnessMantra "Owe my soul to Tennessee Ernie...Owe my soul to Tennessee Ernie..."]]

* Maw Maw from ''Series/RaisingHope'' will incessantly play "The Chinese Torture Songs" (Chopsticks) whenever she gets near a piano.

* In ''TheGoldenGirls,'' the ladies get back from a long car trip to Atlanta (they live in Miami.) Rose walks in the door singing "Three bottles of beer on the wall..." She gets down to two, then quits and says she going to bed. Dorothy jumps on her about this, "You get all the way to 'two bottles of beer,' then you quit?" Rose cheerfully says, "Drives you nuts, doesn't it?"
* In {{Scrubs}}, JD imagines Colin Hay of the band Men at Work singing his song "Overkill" on the sidewalk, while playing a guitar. He starts to follow JD, still singing, showing up in increasingly improbable places, like an elevator and taking the place of a corpse at the morgue. At last Dr. Cox tries to talk to JD while this is going on, loses his temper, and smashes Colin's guitar.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode, "Multiple Meats", Shake splits Meatwad into several dozen pieces - each of which survives and becomes a mini-Meatwad. Frylock gets them to sing "Three Billion Bottles of Beer on the Wall" (and then leaves), driving Shake insane and causing him to cut his (non-existent) ears off and eventually commit suicide.

* In a famous (or perhaps infamous) episode of ''Series/TheGongShow'', every single act that came out on stage sang Morris Albert's "Feelings". The judges began fighting over who could gong the act first.

Sometimes, someone is singing or playing a musical instrument or a [[JungleDrums drum]] -- not to be malicious or anything -- and he just WILL. NOT. SHUT. UP., until it finally makes another character yell for him to stop or just start screaming insanely, or lash out in some way. It doesn't necessarily have to be ''bad'' music (though it often is), it's just that it's incessant (or sometimes just in a style the hearer just can't stand to hear) and goes beyond the hearer's point of enduring, and to him it becomes like NailsOnABlackboard and he just wants it to end. The "madness" is usually figurative and temporary, but can occasionally be literal and permanent.

* ''AnimalHouse''. At the toga party, some guy is playing a guitar and singing when Bluto happens by. After listening to the singing for a while, Bluto takes the guitar away from the guy and smashes it to pieces against a wall. Watch it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvR6d08L3nc here]].

* Brave Sir Robin's Minstrels in ''MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''. (Though that probably has more to do with the lyrics than the quality of their singing).

* ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', the Cheese Shop sketch. When John Cleese's character enters, there are some guys playing Greek music and dancing. After several minutes of the annoying music in the background, he turns around and yells, "Will you shut that bloody dancing up!" and they stop playing.

** Cheri Oteri's appearance on ''CurbYourEnthusiasm'' was as a mentally unstable nanny who was driven mad by constantly hearing the ''LooneyTunes'' theme while working at an amusement park. She sings it constantly and it drives her into a murderous rage.

Related to BigShutUp, which is often the outcome. Also related to DreadfulMusician. Can be related to ItWontTurnOff. Could be a case of TheThingThatWouldNotLeave if this happens inside a person's house. Compare BrownNote, which is a related trope. (The difference? This trope is when the music is not harmful itself but irritates you to madness; Brown Note is when the music is ''inherently'' harmful.) Also compare LoudOfWar, which is this trope done maliciously. ''Also'' compare HellIsThatNoise. Not to be confused with EarWorm. Make it so only one character (or a few) can hear the music, and it becomes a form of TerribleTicking.

* In ''Webcomic/OrderOfTheStick'', Elan often drives his teammates to this.

* In the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Qpid", Q turned the bridge crew into Robin Hood and his merry men. Geordie became the Alan a-Dale analog, and kept plucking annoyingly at a lute. Finally Worf had had enough, walked up, snatched the lute and smashed it against a tree (in an homage to the ''AnimalHouse'' example above).