Acting like a Broken Record in Movies Movies Movies Movies Movies Movies, both Animated Animated Animated Animated Animated Animated and Live-Action Live-Action Live-Action Live-Action Live-Action Live-Action
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Films — Animation — Films — Animation — Films — Animation
- Arlo the Alligator Boy: The New Yorkers have a habit of repeating "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"
- Some Dingo Pictures films play a short background music loop throughout the film even when other music plays, such as the jungle music in Animal Soccer World and the Creepy Circus Music in Wabuu the Cheeky Raccoon. In the latter, the background track even plays over itself in one scene.
- From The Emperor's New Groove: "I don't think you're really my great aunt. I think you're my great great great great great (cut away scene, cut back) great great great great (Yzma shoots him a look), great great aunt."
- The seagulls in Finding Nemo have a very one-track mind: "MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!"
- In The Great Mouse Detective, the heroes are strapped into a Death Trap driven by a record player. Fortunately, the record starts skipping, pausing the countdown. Unfortunately, Basil is too busy having a Heroic BSoD to take advantage of it. When Dr. Dawson shouts at Basil, the record skips across the record to near the end.
- Igor: After Eva's failed brainwashing, Igor laments, "It's just failure after failure." Scamper continues, "...after failure after failure after failure." When Igor shoots him a look, he just replies, "I thought we were counting off all your failures." Igor takes up the line again himself after Eva demands a bigger trailer but stops once Scamper starts doing it, too.
- The Lion King (1994) has Simba wake up Mufasa by repeatedly saying "Dad!" over and over.
- The Polar Express
- Steven: "I didn't do it!" (rewind) "I didn't do it!" (rewind) "I didn't do it!" (rewind) "I didn't do it!" (rewind) "I didn't do it!" (rewind) "I didn't do it!" (rewind) "I didn't do it!" (etc.)
- There's also a literal broken record that skips during the "ring-a-ling" part of "Silver Bells".
- Shrek Forever After has a kid incessantly asking: "Do the roar!"
- In Toy Story, Woody gets into a fight with Buzz and hits his main speech button several times before the whole recording can come out, resulting in him saying "Buzz—Buzz—Buzz—Lightyear to the rescue!" The Little Green Men in the claw machine are also very repetitive, saying things like "The Claw!" and "You have saved our lives! We are eternally grateful!" over and over.
Films — Live-Action — Films — Live-Action — Films — Live-Action
- One of the manifestations of Howard Hughes' mental illness in The Aviator is a tendency to repeat a sentence over and over, in an uncontrolled fashion. It's quite chilling to see Hughes sitting in a car with his hands clapped over his mouth, eyes squeezed shut as he fights with himself to stop.
- "You see what happens, Larry?!" — Interrogation by Vandalism scene in the The Big Lebowski.
- Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hospital ends with the villainous Professor Millar unveiling his vision of humanity's future; a brain housed in a plastic pyramid. As a demonstration of its intellect, Millar has the brain recite Hamlet's "What a piece of work is a man" speech, but it gets hung up on the final words, repeating "how like a God!" until the film ends.
- Bug (1975) has a scene where a woman comes looking for the main character. Hearing his voice coming from his cabin, she steps inside. What she finds is the place swarming with the killer bugs he has managed to breed, and his recorder repeating the phrase "I have gone too far. I have gone too far. I have gone too far. I have gone too far..."
- In Dude, Where's My Car?, at the drive-through: "And then?"
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: While sneaking into Forge's castle, Simon creates an illusion of Edgin playing the lute to distract the guards. But his foot gets stuck, breaking his concentration. What follows is the Edgin illusion being stuck on the verse "Celebrate lasses" before devolving to "Brate, brate, brate, brate, brate". Once the illusion breaks down to the guards' utter confusion and worry, the illusion just starts spouting what suspiciously sounds like a rapid-fire F-bomb.
- Henrietta's last words in Evil Dead 2 are "Hey! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!" before Ash stomps on her severed head and replies with "Swallow this" before blowing her head clean off.
- Fight Club: "His name is Robert Paulson."
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Rocket sums up Groot's situation.Rocket: Well, he ain't talking good like me and you, so his vocabulistics is limited to 'I' and 'am' and 'Groot'. Exclusively in that order.
- In Hannah Montana: The Movie, during the filming of the video for "The Best of Both Worlds", the CD that they're lip-syncing to keeps repeating, "Best of both, best of both, best of both..." until the CD player gets smacked, and it finally ends, "Best of both worlds."
- JFK gives us Jim Garrison explaining that the shot that killed Kennedy could not have come from behind him since his head recoils to his back and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
- In Joe Versus the Volcano, Joe's Mean Boss is first encountered in an interminable phone call repeating the same few phrases: "He can get the job, but can he do the job? ... I am not arguing that with you!"
- The Little Rascals: In the short "The Pinch Singer", the gang auditions for a talent show. During Buckwheat's act, he pretends to whistle to a prerecorded tune on a record, but it gets stuck at one point, and he has to pretend to go along with it for a long time until Porky finally hits the record, allowing him to finish the song.
- Half the dialogue in Manos: The Hands of Fate is this. It's a bad movie. We all think so. It's a bad movie. It will be dark soon...
- In Mechanical Violator Hakaider, Michael (a corrupted version of Kikaider) devolves into this as he dies."I am justice, I am justice, I am justice, I am justice..."
- In Midwinter Night's Dream, Jovana's echolalia causes her to sound like one sometimes. At one point, she repeats the same word over and over again during an entire conversation.
- Chuy the autistic kid from Mimic, after spotting one of the Judas breed cockroaches which had grown to the size of a human being, mistakes the sounds it makes for the squeaking of shoes. He repeats "such funny, funny shoes", over and over.
- In Molly (1999), Molly has a tendency to repeat any swear words people say in front of her.
- "Are you an effective team?" — one of the first signs that something is pretty wrong in Oblivion (2013).
- Office Space has the "Corporate Accounts Payable Nina speaking... just a moment!" greeting from one of Peter's coworkers, used to underscore just how annoying it is to work at Initech.
- Rain Man: "I'm an excellent driver."
- Used several times in RoboCop (1987):
- "Hahaha! I'd buy that for a dollar!"
- "I know you. You're dead. We killed you. We killed you!" (RoboCop records and plays back) "You're dead. We killed you!"
- "Murphy, it's you... Murphy, it's you..."
- "I had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake. Now it's time to erase that mistake. I had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake. Now it's time to erase that mistake..."
- Two scenes in The Room (2003) get repeated about five times each: Lisa has a conversation with her mother in which she says she no longer loves Johnny, and Lisa seduces Mark with him being completely surprised each time.
- The Shining: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play...
- In Son of the Stars, Xinxin repeatedly chants "Noodles" while his mother takes him to a restaurant to get pork noodles.
- Space Jam: A New Legacy: This briefly happens to Al G. Rhythm as a result of a minor glitch.Elmer: Where's the other half of the cwowd?
Al G.: Uh, they should be tuning into the livestream right about... right about... right about... Ugh! Buffering, it's so embarrassing. Right about now! - A very nasty example appears in the movie Spun when the protagonist leaves a girl tied to his bed, blindfolded, for a full day, with a stereo at full volume playing the first two seconds of her favorite song as a broken record.
- In Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Ricky mutters "A-Train" to himself over and over again, then "G-Train" and "I-Train".
- In the 1975 film, The Stepford Wives tend to do this when something goes wrong.
- This is used very chillingly in The Strangers with a looped segment of "My First Lover" by Gillian Welch. The very same loop was used in the horror short No Through Road
. - The little-known 1978 British/Polish film The Water Babies: "Stop, thief! Stop, thief! Stop, thief! Stop, thief! Stop, thief!..."
- This was the cover copy for the published script for Westworld: "Nothing can possibly go wrong... go wrong... go wrong... go wrong..."
- In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, when Roger does a song and dance routine for the bar patrons set to the tune of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", at one point in the song he sings about how as a toon he feels no pain as he smashes a plate over his head, the record gets stuck at that part and he repeats "No pain" seven times while smashing the plates before Eddie stops him.
- The Killer Robot from Zathura only ever speaks the following five words:
