Big Finale Crowd Song

Kid Danger: How do all musicals end?

Captain Man: With a big, grand finale song?

Piper Hart: That has, like, a dumb message.

Kid Danger: Yes! Someone conquers a fear or something, and then they start singing a song, and then everybody joins in and then the musical is over!

— Henry Danger

Who doesn't love a good musical, with their showstopping performances and larger than life casts that each contain their own unique quirks and traits?

More often than not, there's bound to be a handful of musical numbers where a large group of people sing a song in unison, which is referred to as the Crowd Song. But what happens when nearly the entire cast returns for a large number? This is especially common when said number happens to be the very last number in the musical, likely as a means of provide the viewers with a final glimpse of vibrant, colorful cast of the characters, that make the piece memorable. Tis, we have what's known as the Big Finale Crowd Song, which is when a very large group of people — which tends to be nearly the entire cast — all join together for final number of the piece where they sing their hearts out in what's essentially a special way of thanking the audience of listening to their performances. May also double as a Triumphant Reprise, if a similar song was sung earlier in the musical.

Sub-Trope to Crowd Song. Compare with Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number, Dance Party Ending and The Eleven O'Clock Number, which occurs near the end of the musical, but there's still a considerable amount of time remaining.

This is an Ending Trope, which means nearly every single example will contain spoilers by default.

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Examples

Comic Books

• Giraffes On Horseback Salad (a movie proposal by Salvador Dalí turned into a graphic novel) ends with "Tomorrow Isn't Just Another Day", an uplifting song sung by the entire cast.

Films — Animated

• Encanto's final number is the film is "All of You" and let's just say Lin Manuel-Miranda really made it count. It contains several small reprises of many of the earlier songs, in a more cheerful context as sheer pressure and dysfunction of the Madrigals is finally being dealt with. Not to mention it contains a touching masterpiece where teamwork makes for light work as all bond closer as a family and a community, and all of the townspeople coming to the Madrigals' aid as a way to pay back for everything the family has done for them.
• The Lorax (2012) ends with "Let It Grow", where the citizens of Thneedville come together to allow Ted to finally plant the first Truffula tree in a very long time. Even Aloysius O'Hare gets in on it, solely to tell the populace to let it die and continue the status quo. The Once-ler is present for the sequence, but he speaks his only line.
• Moshi Monsters the Movie ends on the entire cast singing a song about teamwork called "We're in This Together".
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut: At the end of the song, the whole entire cast sings "Mountain Town Reprise", which has everyone on both sides of the U.S./Canada conflict join hands and sing a long line of words describing South Park.
• Once Upon a Studio ends with all the characters singing a rousing rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" to restore their morale after Goofy's failed first attempt at the group photo. The song becomes so uplifting that other characters soon begin to step in to fix Goofy's mistake, and it eventually becomes a huge chorus sung by everyone, as their photo is taken.
  • A recent fan remake of OUAS, however, shows an even more epic and grandiose rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star", this time initiated by Cinderella and Rapunzel, with Raps starting the song off on her guitar, and Cinderella singing the first two lines "When you wish upon a star/Makes no difference who you are", before handing over to Belle and the Beast. This version steadily gains momentum as more and more characters join in, and again, begin to step in to fix Goofy's earlier mistake. This even includes a notable moment with Ariel and Eric, Aladdin and Jasmine, and Rapunzel and Eugene all joining hands as they begin singing the final verse, followed soon after by Tarzan and Jane, before Cinderella and the Prince gently finish it off. With the camera now safely set up and everyone now in place, Mickey and Cinderella eagerly invite everyone (including the audience) to join in. Everyone then proudly sings the final verse one final time, before Cinderella and the Prince gently cap it off with the first line of their own tune; "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes", with Rapunzel and Eugene singing the first line of the chorus to "I See The Light" with arguably even more gusto, and Aladdin and Jasmine doing the same for "A Whole New World", and everyone sings the final line of When You Wish Upon a Star one more time; "Your dreams come true!", as the photo is finally created. The orchestration this time round is even fuller, and is John Williams-esque, allowing it to go out with an even bigger bang.
• Used frequently in the endings of the Trolls franchise.
  • Trolls ends with most of the Pop Trolls and Bergens engaging in the musical number of "Can't Stop the Feeling!", after the Bergens learn that they don't need to eat Trolls to feel happy. At the same time, the villains Chef and Creek are kicked out of Bergen Town and into the wilderness, where they end up eaten by a monster.
  • Similarly, Trolls Holiday ends with all of the Pop Trolls and Bergens singing a cover of Madonna's "Holiday" to celebrate the first "Troll-A-Bration Day".
  • Trolls World Tour: The "Just Sing" sequence near the end of the film involves the Trolls from all the major tribes and minor subcultures progressively joining in the song's performance, which is started and ended by Poppy alone. This symbolizes the reunion of all the Trolls after the previous events that happened in the film.
  • Trolls: Holiday in Harmony: Downplayed with "Together Now". While most of the Trolls in the cast perform to an extent, the song mainly focuses on Poppy and Branch's singing, with Tiny Diamond and Prince D also getting their own verses midway through.
• UglyDolls has "The Big Finale". It starts out as a Dark Reprise of Moxy's opening song "Today's the Day", before it changes to a reprise of "Unbreakable" as all the dolls alike join her in rebuilding the portal, followed by a big Triumphant Reprise of "Couldn't Be Better", as both Uglyville and Perfection celebrate the permanent merge and union of both worlds.
• Wakko's Wish has the Triumphant Reprise of "Never Give Up Hope" where everyone joins the Warners in singing the movie's moral.

Films — Live Action

• The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland ends with Elmo and the whole Sesame Street gang singing and dancing to a Triumphant Reprise of the movie's opening song, "Together Forever".
• Disney Channel's musicals have a recurring tendency for this trope.
  • Descendants
    • The first film has "Set It Off" where Mal, Ben, the rest of the Core Foue, and the students of Auradon Prep are at a post-coronation party. It's also meant to symbolize how the Core Four are trying to step out of their parents' shadows.
    • The second film has "You and Me" which is essentially about always being who you are at heart, and not trying to be someone you're not.
    • And the third film has "Break This Down" which closes the film trilogy on a banger with the Isle's barrier officially being taken down for good and most of the Isle's residents going to Auradon with both parties taking part in a very large ensemble number.
  • High School Musical
    • The first film has "We're All in This Together" which as performed by the entire school, including the jocks, the brainiacs, the skate dudes, the cheerleaders and the Wildcats. There's a reason this song is the Signature Song of the franchise.
    • High School Musical 2 had "All For One", once again sung by the cast as the celebrate the end of their hard work with a pool party.
    • Senior Year has the self-titled, "High School Musical" performed by the seniors in East High celebrating their graduation. The song ends with the main cast standing in front of red curtains.
  • Teen Beach Movie
    • The first movie has "Surf's Up" which is sung after Mack and Brady return home and Mack finalizes with her Aunt that she wouldn't going away to boarding school.
    • Teen Beach 2 has the ensemble cast singing That's How We Do, after the plot of Wet Side Story has been rewritten into a more prorgessive film, and altered Mac and Brady's history.
  • Z-O-M-B-I-E-S (2018) for each of their movies:
    • The first film ends with both zombies and humans singing a Triumphant Reprise of "BAMM" at the block party in Zombietown, in celebration of both kind becoming united.
    • Zombies 2 ends with "One for All", sung by the humans, zombies, and werewolves at Prawn.
    • Zombies 3 has "Nothing But Love", as Addison decides to make Seabrook the aliens' new Utopia and everyone in Seabrook celebrates their graduation as well as everyone becoming a family.
• Dora and the Lost City of Gold: has the film's take on "We Did It", where Dora, Diego, Sammy and Randy sing about the adventure during the school dance, accompanied by the other students.
• Fame ends with the high school music students singing "I Sing the Body Electric" during their graduation in senior year.
• Grease has the iconic "We Go Together", in which Danny, Sandy and their friends respond to the prospect of not seeing each other after graduation by singing their big showstopper.
• Hairspray (1988) has a prime example of this with characters beyond the show-within-a-show dancers joining in such as Motormouth Maybelle and Edna getting verses. In the stage musical version, even the villains join in on the fun.
• Mary Poppins
  • The original film ends with "Let's Go Fly a Kite" were George Banks has officially reconnected with his children and realized the true worth of family.
  • Mary Poppins Returns ends "Nowhere to Go but Up" where most of the characters have fun with balloons.
• In Moulin Rouge!, after Christian and Satine reconcile during the premiere of the Show Within a Show, the show bursts into a chaotic finale – the cast sings a mashup of other songs from the movie ("Children of the Revolution," "Your Song," "One Day I'll Fly Away," "Come What May," "The Show Must Go On") as they stop the Duke from killing Christian. (Averted with the movie itself, which ends as it began, with Toulouse singing "Nature Boy.")
• Mr. Bean's Holiday, while not a musical, ends with the entire cast lip-synching to "La Mer" by Charles Trenet as Bean finally reaches the beach. The final shot is of the entire cast ?singing? to the camera in a massive crowd shot.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian attempts to take away from the downer ending of crucifixion with "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
• The Muppets
  • The Muppet Movie ends with a Triumphant Reprise of "The Rainbow Connection", after the Muppets finally make it to Hollywood and achieve their dreams of stardom and are making their movie.
  • The Muppets (2011) ends with a big Triumphant Reprise of "Life's a Happy Song" featuring a large crowd of New York citizens dancing and singing along with the Muppets, as they begin their new era together.
  • Muppets Most Wanted ends with a revised version of "Together Again" (previously sung in Muppets Take Manhattan) occurring after Kermit gets out of serving a prison sentence.
• Score: A Hockey Musical ends with "Hockey, the Greatest Game in the Land", where Farley Gordon decides to start playing hockey again, after previously quitting due to disliking the fighting aspect. In the first part, Farley shared his pacificism beliefs with the others, although his teammates are appropriately unsure whether is beliefs are right. But after he strongly hugs one of the opponent players to the point where they nearly chokes themself, the opponent agrees not to force him to fight, and the rest of the team quickly follows suit. The second half of the song's essentially a celebration of they can all appreciate hockey, despite all of their differences and the Brampton Blades adopted Farley's philosophy on not be so rough. Nearly all of the film's major characters take part of the final number — even the antagonistic Coach.
• Rat Race sees the characters getting down on-stage to Smashmouth singing All-Star which was an incredibly popular song at the time.
• Snow Day 2022 has "The Best is Yet to Come", sung by the entire cast of children as they celebrate their success at defeating Snow Plow Man and earing a second snow day before winter break.
• Film/Spirited ends with a reprise of "Christmas Mornin’ Feelin’" sung by every character in the musical. At the end of the song, the entire crew joins in.
• This Isthe End has Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel's characters celebrate getting into heaven with a song and dance number.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit ends with the whole crowd of Toons, having learned that Toontown has been bequeathed to them, all singing a Triumphant Reprise of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile".
• The short film Once Upon a Studio concludes with all 543 characters from Walt Disney Animation Studios singing a reprise of "When You Wish Upon a Star." as they gather for a big group photo, celebrating the company's 100th anniversary.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical Episode "Once More With Feeling" ended with a group number called "Where do We Go From Here?"
• The Colbert Report ended with Colbert (the character) ascending to godhood while Colbert (the actor) moved on to host The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but as a final farewell to the show, Stephen was joined by Jon Stewart and they sang "We'll Meet Again" as a curtain call, with many guests and recurring characters joining in, some by video but many more in person.
• Henry Danger takes advantage of this trope in its Musical Episode where Frankini traps Swellview under a curse to be essential stuck singing. Piper and Kid Danger are aware of how musicals tended to end with a character conquering a fear, and they'd exploit the trope by singing the appropriately titled "The Cheesy Grand Finale", which is just as non nonsensical as it sounds. But hey, it did break the curse, so overall it accomplished its task.
• Schmigadoon!'s final number of the first season, appropriately titled, "How We Change/Finale" has the residents of Schmigadoon promise to be more open about themselves rather than in being trapped in their 20th century classical musical role. Plus, this particular number is noticeably done in a more modern style compared to the midcentury-style songs the rest of the season's songs were.
• Has happened on Sesame Street many times.
  • The New Year's Eve special Sesame Street Stays Up Late ends with the entire street gang ushering in the new year with the song "Faces That I Love".
  • Episode 3636 ends with a Triumphant Reprise of the "Baby Song", this time with Big Bird joining the grownups, as he postpones his beach trip to the next day so he can help them take care of the babies they're babysitting.
  • Both Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and Elmo Saves Christmas end with the entire street gang singing "Keep Christmas with You (All Through the Year)".
  • In the Season 30 premiere, the final main scene of the street story ends with the whole street singing "Welcome" as they give Alan a happy welcome to the street.
  • The 35th Anniversary special "The Street We Live On" ends with Elmo and the whole cast singing "The Street I Live On" as they express their love for Sesame Street.
  • The street plot for Episode 4046 ends with Elmo, Rosita, and the whole gang singing a Triumphant Reprise of "Something in the Air".
  • Episode 4265's street scene ends with Big Bird, Elmo, Abby, Chris, and the former Good Birds all singing and dancing to a triumphant finale version of Big Bird's song, "Happy To Be Me".
  • The 50th Anniversary Celebration ends with the whole cast, old and new, singing a rendition of "Sing".
  • Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy ends with the whole street gang singing a Triumphant Reprise of "That's Home", to celebrate Tango being adopted by Elmo.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has the franchise's first Musical Episode, "Subspace Rhapsody", in which a Negative Space Wedgie creates a musical reality aboard the Enterprise that spreads throughout The Federation and the Klingon Empire. The crew then figure out that the only way to seal the anomaly is to invoke a grand finale, because that's how musicals always end.

Music

• Pink Floyd: The penultimate track in The Wall, "The Trial", sees every major figure in Pink's life — his abusive teacher, the wife he scorned, and his overbearing mother — show up to deliver each verse of the song. The trio sum up the events that brought him to his bitter, self-destructive current state, with Pink himself responding with the feeble excuse that he's just "crazy," before a representation of Pink's conscience emerges to give a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech, sentencing Pink to "tear down the wall" and reintegrate with society after spending his life pushing everyone around him away.

Theatre

This trope is extremely common in American stage musicals.

• The end of A Chorus Line, in which every one of the tryout dancers, even the ones rejected at the beginning, come onstage in full costume and perform the full version of "One", the dance number they were all learning at the beginning.
• "Not Alone (Reprise)/Goin' Back To Hogwarts (Reprise)" from A Very Potter Musical is sung by everyone in the wizarding world. The full company sings "Goin' Back To Hogwarts" during the finale in the sequel, but the song is sung by only Harry in A Very Potter Senior Year.
• The end of The Music Man, when the boys' marching band that was actually created and trained without Professor Hill knowing about it (he thought he was just scamming the townsfolk as usual) comes on to perform a reprise of "Seventy Six Trombones".
• "Oklahoma!" from Oklahoma!, when the whole cast (except Jud, who recently died) sends Curly and Laurey on their honeymoon by singing of the great world ahead of them in the new state of Oklahoma.
• Hairspray: The big finale number (both in the musical and the movie adaptation) is You Can't Stop the Beat.
• Hamilton's final number "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" centers around Eliza, the title character's widow, working and publishing stories to ensure that her husband's legacy lives on; but it also explains what happened with the surviving characters after Hamilton's death: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Angelica, even Aaron Burr. However, it's more subdued than most examples, ending with the cast softly singing "who lives, who dies, who tells your story?" as Hamilton leads Eliza downstage to show her all of the people who have just seen the story of his legacy- namely, the audience.
• The Prom: The entire cast joins together in singing "It's Time To Dance" as they celebrate the new inclusive prom, concluding with Emma and Alyssa's Big Damn Kiss.
• Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber concludes with the many cats attending the Jellicle Ball, where Old Deuteronomy will choose which cat ascends to the Heavyside Layer, and from thence to a renewed life as a kitten. The cast sing a reprise of "Mister Mistoffelees" before exiting the stage.
• Les Misérables has the reprise of "Do You Hear the People Sing", in which the entire cast of characters returns for the final number, including nearly everyone who appeared during the film.
• The SpongeBob Musical has the reprise of "Bikini Bottom Day" where all the Bikini Bottomites sing and perform their own instrument to celebrate their survival. Even Patchy the Pirate manages to join in the middle of the song.
• Tanz Der Vampire: the big finale song is Der Tanz der Vampire (rewritten on Tonight is What It Means to Be Young), and features Herbert and Magda leading the graveyard vampires on the stage (in the original version). Later versions include a vampirized Sarah Chagal and Alfred in gothic leather outfits. Some Viennese/German productions/revivals have the Count Von Krolock join the vampire crowd in the finale.

Video Games

• Wandersong has this as the climax to its final chapter, where everyone in the world joins with the Bard to sing the Earthsong (or rather the "Wandersong", as they were forced to improvise the last Earthsong piece they didn't get) in an attempt to avert the end of everything.

Western Animation

• Descendants: The Royal Wedding special ends with "Feelin' the Love", in which the whole Auradon gang sings and celebrates Mal and Ben's wedding day.
• The Fairly OddParents!: The Made-for-TV Movie School's Out! The Musical ends with the whole cast singing a Triumphant Reprise of "Kids Just Being Kids" as they celebrate the world returning to normal and everyone can finally enjoy summer vacation.
• Family Guy parodied this with "If More People Join In The Song Will Get Better".
  Now you're having fun cuz we're in the isles / Even the bad guy is singing along!
• The final episode of Freakazoid! ended with the entire cast singing "We'll Meet Again."
• The Loud House episode "The Loudest Thanksgiving" ends with the Louds, the Casagrandes, Bobby, Ronnie Anne, Maria, and the Casagrande pets all singing about how grateful they are.
• Peg + Cat: Most episodes end in everyone who featured in the episode doing a musical number about the episode's Aesop.
• Phineas and Ferb has several contenders for finale crowd songs.
  • "Summer Belongs to You"'s final number has a triumphant dance party as Phineas and the gang celebrate successfully managing to travel the world before sunset, with Phineas, Candace, and Isabella each getting their own verses in the song.
  • "Rollercoaster: The Musical" ends with "Carpe Diem" and features nearly every character who had appeared on the show up to that point.
  • "Last Day of Summer" serves as the Grand Finale of the whole series, so naturally this trope would apply here as well. The final song, "Curtain Call/Time Spent Together" (aka "Thank You For Coming Along") has the cast recapping some of the their major adventures with even Doofenshmirtz and Monogram getting in on the number, along with Phineas and his friends.
• 3rd & Bird: Elliot's debut episode ends with everyone singing an anti-prejudice song about how "different is good".
• The Walt Disney Presents episode "This is Your Life, Donald Duck" concludes with a huge crowd of Disney characters, at host Jiminy Cricket's behest, gathering together to pay tribute to Donald, singing two songs as they do. As they parade onto the stage, they sing a Triumphant Reprise of "Quack Quack Quack Donald Duck" (which originated in another episode, "A Day in the Life of Donald Duck"). After everyone is together, they all sing, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". Donald is touched by this gesture as his nephews all jump into his arms as well.

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