Creative Closing Credits

Next Station: Liam Neeson Avenue.

"The end credits for Pixar films are more entertaining than half the films I see."

— Richard Roeper

Closing Credits usually consist of a black screen and white text. The names of the cast and crew scroll slowly up the screen, while some sort of music plays. After the various moments of Funny, Heartwarming, Tear Jerker, Nightmare Fuel, or Awesome, they're pretty anti-climactic. Most people leave once the credits start, because hey — Closing Credits can be boring.

But they don't have to be! Sometimes, the producers shell out a bit of extra coin and the result is closing credits with awesome music, awesome graphics, and an awesome concept. These credits exist to entertain the audience even after the film is over, so they'll stick around— and the cast and crew will finally get some of the recognition they deserve. ^note  Usually, after this is done, the credits will be white on black scrolling anyway.

Or they would, if the audience weren't distracted by the totally awesome credits.

Can also happen with the opening credits if they are more than just Title Cards, with Animated Credits Opening being prime examples. In this case, the creativity part of this trope aims to establish tone and style instead of complementing them after everything has been said and done.

Some of these are in the form of a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue or Hilarious Outtakes, but most are simply interesting takes on the credits sequence. See also Credits Montage, Mini-Game Credits, Finale Credits, Video Credits. Compare Credits Gag (a joke within the credits), The Stinger. Contrast Artistic Title, Animated Credits Opening. Expect fan rage if a TV broadcast treats this to a Credits Pushback.

If you have further interest in the subject, Forget the Film, Watch the Titles and The Art of the Title Sequence are entire sites devoted to showcasing creative closing and opening titles (with accompanying Word of God and videos).

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Example subpages:

• Films — Animation
• Films — Live-Action
• Video Games

Other examples:

Anime

• End of Evangelion has the ending credits in the middle, between the two "episodes" that make up the movie. This was done so the ending could cut to black. The credits also spiral up the screen while spinning.
• Happy Science movies always have these kinds of closing credits.
  • The Mystical Laws: The ending credits roll at the right to show pictures of Shou's further journeys throughout the world to preach his message as the new General of Hermes' Wings and Savior of mankind, unifying the people of Earth with the spirit world they ignored for so long.
  • The Rebirth of Buddha: The credits roll while showing a sequence of scenes that serve as an epilogue for Harry Budson, Tousaku Arai, and ultimately flash-forward to the Amanokawa family, from which Sayako is implied to have become a talk show host like Mari Kimura in adulthood. Afterward, the sequence stops and starts showing images of Japanese cities obscured with a golden Dharma wheel, and the very last shot is a close-up of Master Sorano's stoic eyes.

• Sakura Wars: The Movie has cherry blossom leafs are falling from the top left corner while the credits scroll up on a black background.
• The final episode of the OVA series El-Hazard: The Magnificent World ends with a series of pastel drawings under the credits, which show selected bits of "what happens after".
• The anime adaptation of Seitokai Yakuindomo has an unusual spin on this in that its first season's closing credits is an entirely separate mini-story with its own main character.
• While the credits of most Trigun episodes show a fairly generic montage of the setting, the final episode's credits show Vash travelling back to the village where he left the insurance girls, after defeating Knives, as a sort of silent epilogue.
• The My Dear Marie OVA ending shows the life of the title character if she had been a normal girl instead of a Robot Girl, from birth to career and marriage.
• In Sailor Moon Crystal, the scenes during the Ending Theme "Gekkou" (Moonbow) are a fully animated depiction of the romance between Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion, as they wander out to an ocean shoreline Holding Hands, against a Scenery Porn vista of waterfalls, a moonbow and a shooting star, with the moon and starry night sky reflected in the water as they walk. The credits end as they kiss.
• The credits of The Last: Naruto the Movie are a series of stills of the characters attending Naruto and Hinata's wedding. Right at the very end, Naruto and Hinata's silhouettes turn to each other and kiss.
• The amount manga on the bookshelves change with the beat of Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san's ending theme, like a music visualizer.

Asian Animation

• Boonie Bears: The end credits of Seasons 4-7 show multiple animations of the characters, some of them directly interacting with the credits text (such as Logger Vick running into it, for example).

Fan Works

• Once Upon a Studio: Version 2.0 is a recent remake of Disney's centenary short, which also shows the beginnings its own creative credit sequence. While perhaps not quite as creative yet as the credits for the existing short, the concept art for the credits of this version shows various Disney characters all grouped together, even including on the final slide an old official drawing of Mickey Mouse dating back to the 1980s. This preliminary versions would doubtless evolve into more elaborate credit boards if Version 2.0 ever became a reality.
  • Creators Matthew Muir and Lauren Sharpe are also credited under the "Story" section.

Live-Action TV

• CHiPs in its first season run. Every Episode Ending with a comedic moment.
• For several years, the closing credits of the British Soap Opera Crossroads reflected the title by alternating horizontal and vertical roller captions.
• Henry Danger uses letterboxed clips of various scenes throughout the episode as the end credits roll to the series' theme song, with the exception of "Super Volcano" which used an extended sequence of Ray and Schwoz's dancing. Its spinoff, Danger Force, did the same format using muted Hilarious Outtakes from the episode.
• My Name Is Earl had outtakes over the credits after the episode which frequently referenced Smokey and the Bandit.
• Blackadder
  • Blackadder II ended each episode with Edmund walking away from the camera into a garden, while being followed by (and interacting with) the minstrel singing the closing theme (an episode-specific Expository Theme Song).
  • Blackadder the Third ended each episode which its final scene frozen and turned into a woodcut-style illustration, which would then scroll upward and reveal the credits as a theater program from a Regency-era play.
• Police Squad!'s gag ending. The characters in the last scene all freeze in place as though the last frame of the scene has been frozen to allow the credits to roll over it (similar to how credits were handled in many live-action adventure series over the years). The credits do roll, but the film keeps rolling as well - it's the actors who aren't moving! This allows for all sorts of weirdness (see the show's article for more on this).
• Ernie Kovacs would frequently end his shows with creative end credits. For example, one program featured credits over vignettes where a Snidely Whiplash-style villain unsuccessfully threatens a damsel in distress.
• Nickelodeon uses this concept to announce winners at the Kids' Choice Awards: Names on T shirts, faces on banners, stickers, etc. Sadly this became phased out in 2013 in favor of the more conventional "winner's name placed on a glossy envelope" that all other shows have (except that it's partly covered in the channel's trademark slime).
• The Monkees Christmas Episode has the behind-the-scenes crew and office workers saying hello to the camera during the closing credits.
• Since series two James May's Man Lab has closed each episode with a unusual musical instrument, or group, playing the theme tune as the credits scroll over them.
• The Fast Show would interrupt the end credits with random sketches that were even more brief than usual, often one-offs starring non-recurring characters. In some cases the end credits became totally different, such as when the two Off-Roaders went 'Over the top' when playing paintball and were frozen in dramatic freeze frame as in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the finale of Blackadder Goes Forth.
• Frasier: A Brick Joke is usually resolved in the closing credits.
• The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Puppet Show" plays the credits over the Scooby Gang performing on the school talent show in a hilariously poor execution of Oedipus Rex.
• At the end of the Animal Planet documentary African Cats, accurate credits scroll up the right side of the screen. On the left side, short clips of the program's various wild animals appear, with production credits for the animals (e.g. "Underwater Photography: Hippopotamus") as captions underneath.
• In 2015, Brazilian channel TV Globo decided to air a humongous special to celebrate their 50th anniversary entitled TV Globo 50 Anos. At the end, they decided to honor their past by running a credit crawl of their past and present employees...all of them. A total of 11,091 people! The closing credits even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for "The Most Names Credited in a TV Show." You can watch the clip here, it's oddly mesmerizing.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 occasionally continued aspects of the show into the credits. "Daddy-O" showed the credits constantly restarting when Frank accidentally let the button get clogged with strained carrots, "Teenage Crime Wave" uses a similar gag only involving Frank getting maced, and "Tormented" had a grenade go off, making the credits themselves briefly rattle around, to name a few.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? usually ended with Drew Carey having one of the cast members read the credits in an unusual way or while something unusual was happening. Such as this one in with Wayne Brady reading the credits while Ryan Stiles and Jeff Davis held his arms and Colin Mochrie tickled his butt. The applause and laughter were so loud and continuous that it's hard to tell if he even got one name out.
• Keeping Up Appearances: During the ending credits in each episode, Hyacinth is seen laying the table for a candlelight supper. At the very end, "produced and directed by" appears on the screen, and Hyacinth puts a nameplate underneath saying "Harold Snoad".
• The Mandalorian credits are played over beautiful concept art of scenes featured in the episode.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • WandaVision, in keeping with the "classic TV sitcom" motif, features a credits sequence of red, green, and blue subpixels (technically phosphor dots) arranging themselves to look like different locations in Westview or items like the original comic costumes of the Scarlet Witch and Vision.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier:
    • In Marvel tradition. The credits scroll over walls or shutters covered in broken propaganda posters and graffiti with American iconography. The credits listing themselves first appear as classified documentation which is overwritten by the actual credits, similar to the opening credits for Godzilla (2014)).
    • Taken a step further with the main cast section of the credits, in which, similar to WandaVision, each episode has only the names of any actors whose characters appear in that episode appear during the corresponding section with something represantive of them (i.e. Emily VanCamp not being credited until Episode 3 onwards despite her character's picture appearing after those of Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan's characters), while Mackie and Stan alternate top billing between episodes.
  • Loki: The show's end credits show different things within the TVA, such as their propaganda, equipment and case files. When each text of credits appear, they are briefly shown out of order and sometimes have its letters flipped or enlarged, before reasserting itself back to normal. The TVA logo is also included alongside it, often as an outline. Certain changes can be seen in the end credits sequence between episodes; specifically, the productivity posters in a locker during the "Costume Design" credit, and the mugshots for the "Casting" credit.
    • The credits for Episode 3-5 doesn't have the distorted text effects; they Fade In and out normally.
    • Like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the section showing the show's starring cast only shows the names of the actors whose characters appeared in that episode and like in the latter, the names only show in the respective sections (i.e. Sophia Di Martino's credit being shown in the section with the water cooler in from the second episode onwards).
  • Downplayed with What If…? (2021), which simply shows concept art used for the preceding episode's events.
  • Hawkeye (2021) has blocky, simply colored animations meant to evoke David Aja's artwork.
  • Moon Knight (2022): The closing credits are a montage of people/locations/items from the show all covered in moonlight.
  • Ms. Marvel (2022) has shots of the streets and buildings of Jersey City covered in artwork, mostly taken from the original comic. The episodes set in Pakistan use the same idea, but in Karachi.
  • She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: The closing credits are a sequence of courtroom sketches, mostly humorous moments of Jen's life as a Hulk.
• American Born Chinese (2023): The end credits of reach episode feature a montage of Gene Luen Yang’s sketches of characters from the original graphic novel.
• The Big Comfy Couch has the credits roll over a starry background as a crescent moon rises from behind the couch. Loonette would jump over the moon after the credits
  Loonette: And the clown jumped over the moon!.

Music

• Giorgio Moroder's E = MC incorporates the album credits into the music itself. On the final track, Giorgio reads the credits aloud (with his voice run through a vocorder) over the backing beat.
• Subverted with Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Unique to that album is a production credit along the lines of an Either/Or Title: "Produced by Chris Thomas or Bill Price" (emphasis added). According to Price, he and Thomas agreed to use this type of credit owing to band manager Malcolm McLaren's screwy approach to producing the album vs. the singles. Essentially, Price was hired to produce the LP and Thomas the singles; Thomas had already produced their smash hit 7" "Anarchy in the UK", but was unavailable to produce the LP, leading McLaren to hire Price for the LP but to rehire Thomas to record single-ready renditions of certain songs from the album. Sometimes songs recorded for the singles were relegated to the album, and sometimes the album cuts were reworked as singles at McLaren's behest. So when it came time to sequence the album, they had multiple different tracklistings to choose from, and McLaren's tactics led the pair to conclude he was trying to screw both of them over by crediting only one for working on the entire album so he didn't have to pay royalties to both. To get around that, the two mutually agreed on the unusual credit, and agreed that regardless of which one got paid for the album, they would split it between themselves rather than try to get McLaren to pay both of them fairly.
• NMIXX's "DASH" video has rolling credits that can't pass the top of the screen, instead creating a pile of letters that falls through the bottom of the screen at the end.

Puppet Shows

• Bear in the Big Blue House: For Seasons 1-3, it simply shows the big blue house open with its rooms shown before it closes. For Season 4, the camera zooms away from the big blue house to show all of Woodland Valley before it shows Luna setting and Ray rising.
• The Muppet Movie; the Framing Device is that the Muppets are watching a movie about how they got started. At the end, Sweetums bursts through the screen. The credits are show with shots of the Muppets chattering amongst themselves until, at the very end, Animal yells, "GO HOME! GO HOME! Bye-bye."
• The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss: The Season 1 credits feature still frames of scenes from certain episodes.
• In the unaired 1962 Jim Henson pilot, "Tales of the Tinkerdee," as Kermit is trying to hum his minstrel melody one more time, and moves closer to the camera, the wall scrims behind him loudly and quickly close, embroidered with the names of the cast and crew. This throws Kermit off sometimes, and on the last credit, he hums the last note for a split second before the final curtain closes on him.
• In 31 Minutos, most of the episodes include a scene during the credits, frequently an extra scene or a new song (not included in the Ranking Top). Sometimes it could be a simple frozen image.
• The Muppet Show credits run over the orchestra playing an instrumental of the theme song, sometimes with variants like Rowlf playing it solo.

Radio

• The Goon Show has some fun with this on more than one occasion. In particular was Ten Snowballs that shook the World where, after a particularly abrupt end to the story, their announcer struggles to read the end credits while being set upon by an angry mob from the audience.

Web Animation

• The Bid Dad Wolf: The short ends with Holan sitting in a rocking chair holding his newborn child, while a moon changes phases in the top corner of the screen. When the moon is full, both Holan and his child are in werewolf form.
• The credits sequence of episode 7 of Inanimate Insanity II has an instrumental of the song featured in the episode, "Keep on Cleaning".
• Season 10 of Red vs. Blue first shows pictures of the voice actors (and animator Monty Oum) before displaying the credits proper along graphics of objects from the animated scenes.

Web Original

• ars PARADOXICA has a voice narrating a solvable coded message after the credits, in the form of numbers and the "weather in Tulsa". Additionally, the credits involve the line "ars PARADOXICA is brought to you by the internet", with a new description of the internet for each episode.
• In The Strange Case of Starship Iris, all end credits are narrated as if the preceding episode was a report about the Iris case, with the actor names being used as 'aliases' of the characters.
• Welcome to Night Vale has a proverb at the end of each episode, after the credits, always nonsensical and usually a little creepy on top of being funny. They usually take a common saying and subvert it somehow. Example:
  What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? I don't know, but I've trapped it in my bedroom. Please send help.
  
  Do the carpets match the drapes? No. You're the worst interior decorator. Please leave my home.
  
  Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never quite describe the pain.

Western Animation

• Daria: Its "alter-ego" credits showcase the characters in an array of alternate personae, costumes and even other animation styles. For example, Quinn as Hello Kitty, Mr. O'Neill as Mr. T, etc.
  • The movie "Is It Fall Yet?" has supposed bloopers, while "Is It College Yet?" used the "alter-ego" format for a not-necessarily-canon "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
• The credits for Downtown always roll over a short, dialogue-free scene that may or may not be canon. If the characters have mentioned any kind of rumour or urban legend during the episode, for example, the credits animation will show the rumour to be absolutely true.
• Wakfu: The credits of each episode have a small scene acted out by a character or characters from that episode alongside them, while a silent clip from the next episode plays behind them. Four out of the first seven episodes are simply the main characters introducing themselves, but the other episodes all have little skits attached. The season finale's credits show most of the secondary characters and what they've become.
• Bob's Burgers virtually always shows the family at work in the kitchen, with some action carried over from the story, accompanied by an original song also featured in the story.
• Sofia the First's "Holiday In Enchancia" has the credits appearing above the royal castle as they always do, except this time with snow falling; "Ghostly Gala" features the castle on a dark and cloudy night and farther away; and the pilot "Once Upon A Princess" doesn't have it at all, featuring as it does a live-action Ariel Winter singing interspersed with scenes from said pilot.
• The credits to the Codename: Kids Next Door sometimes have watercolor painting of events taking place immediately after special episodes, for instance "Operation: G.R.O.W.-U.P." has Sector V rebuilding their treehouse.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender has viewers "take flight" over the mountains where Aang used to grow up in. In a similar manner, The Legend of Korra gives viewers a "boat ride" of Republic City. Both series had relaxing ambient theme tunes.
• Peg + Cat gives us drawings by Peg on a graph paper as the instrumental version of the theme plays in the background. Some of the drawings are from the book, "The Chicken Problem" which inspired the series. Be careful though, first-time viewers may get caught off guard by the show's habit to cut the the credits immediately after the final stinger.
• Credits to Gravity Falls are accompanied by an additional scene serving as an epilogue. In addition, the credits themselves will normally have an encoded message that hints at either that scene or of the true nature of the area. The final episode's end title was an elaborate series of animated photographs done in the style of the pages of Mabel's summer memories scrapbook.
• Both versions of Animaniacs give us a timelapse of the California sky turning from daytime to nighttime at Warner Bros. Studio.
  • The 1993 version includes a brief animation of the Warners saying goodbye to the viewer. It changes every episode.
• The Owl House: The credits consist of several Match Cuts of Luz traversing through several landmarks of the Boiling Isles before meeting back at the Owl House with Eda and King.
  • Season 2 gives us a museum painting montage of Luz's life in the Boiling Isles.
• Bluey: The credits for almost all of the episodes has Bluey doing her dance from the theme song as a musical highlight from the episode's events plays in the background.
  • As of Season 3, Bluey dancing is replaced by an object or a brief animation that served as a highlight of the episode's events that previously occurred. Examples include Bluey doing an emu dance from 'Housework', Uncle Stripe trying and failing to show off the car's new functions from 'Pizza Girls', or Bingo showing a stopwatch from 'Obstacle Course'
• Big Nate has the credits accompanied by a comic strip, drawn by Lincoln Pierce, from the original Big Nate comic series, which the show is based on. Usually, the comic strip shares a reference to the episode that just occurred.
• Elinor Wonders Why: The outro showcases different locations of Elinor's world that represents each season of the year (Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall), which includes a shot of Elinor, Ari, and Olive sporting sunglasses.
• Despite Luke Pearson's Hilda having nothing but a black screen and just text, viewers get a catchy mystery/adventure tune, known as "Hilda's Theme", playing in the background. But one exception goes to the first and third episode of the series' opening trilogy in the first season. The crossfade transition from the final scene to the credits in both episodes was pretty cool.
  • The credits began to get more creative in Season 2. "Hilda's Theme" is heard less frequently ^note Heard in episodes 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.. For majority of the season, songs by various artists are heard that usually have something to do with the plot of the episode. Notable examples include, "The Life of Hilda" by Bella Ramsey ^note Heard in episode 7, "Witch's Wand" by Sloan ^note Heard in episode 3, and "The End" by Frankie Cosmos ^note Heard in episode 13.
• Steven Universe uses snippets of larger songs as part of its ending credits: for example, some episodes will have individual instruments playing, while others may have the full instrumental, and still others the music and lyrics. Overall, the first three seasons had twenty different ending themes that come together to form "Love Like You". Seasons 4 onwards continues the trend with an untitled second song that uses ambient noise that slowly and ominously builds up with piano, strings, and a corrupted voice calling the titular character's name.
• In "I Want to be a Cavegirl" from Little Princess, the instrumental of the show theme used in the closing credits has the cavegirl drumbeat heard within the episode mixed into it.
• 1973 experimental short Frank Film has creator Frank Mouris reciting the credits to the short on one of two simultaneously playing narrative tracks.
• Wander over Yonder has an animatic for an extra scene in the credits, relevant to something that happened in the episode.
• The Loud House: The closing credits of "11 Louds a Leapin'" are shown over a snowy field, with the show's normal closing credits theme being replaced by an instrumental of "That's What Christmas is All About".
• The credits for Milo Murphy's Law consist of various transparent images throughout the episode that just showed.
• The credits for Ready Jet Go! have simple doodles of all the characters scattered around the credits, with some of them even foreshadowing certain episodes. It even includes half of the show's theme song, without Craig Bartlett's vocals. The special Back to Bortron 7, technically being part of season 2, includes newer doodles, including Mindy in a space suit, which foreshadows the fact that Mindy eventually went to space in this season.
• On Peppa Pig, anytime a character or characters sing a song with a story, it will generally be reprised during the closing credits, instead of the normal theme tune instrumental.
• In Jorel's Brother, the credits feature an extra scene that happens after the events of the episode, sometimes having nothing to do with the actual episode.
• Each episode of The Dragon Prince has a series of sketches that can range from jokes about the episode (for example, a weird dream that Ezran described), scenes of a character's past (Callum and Harrow fishing, a young Soren watching Claudia do magic) or foreshadowing for the future (an elf's hand in the magic mirror, Corvus picking up traces of the prince's trail).
• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): Each episode contains a unique animated looping moment related to the episode, such as characters dancing.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Fitting the special's prehistoric setting, "Ugh", has the credits and ending theme done in a prehistoric style.
• The closing credits of PB&J Otter always have brief clips of memorable moments from each episode and use an instrumental of one or two songs featured within the episode.
• The opening to The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" has Marge killing the little people in FOX network ads and cooking them into her meatloaf, with their detached body parts spelling out the title and credits.
  Homer: Mmm... Developed by.
• Work It Out Wombats!: The closing credits has Malik, Zadie, Zeke, and Super, along with other characters, in still poses, reacting to the names of the creative staff of the show. Notable moments include Malik taking notes on his phone and the wombats' grandmother Super watching the credits with a proud smile on her face.

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"It's over! Go away!"

—Slappy Squirrel

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