End-of-Episode Silliness

Lisa: Who's playing that music?
Marge: Where's all that liquor coming from?
Homer: It's a party, Marge. It doesn’t have to make sense.

— The Simpsons, “Burns Baby Burns” (final lines)

When a show has resolved all the conflict and tied away every loose end, and now has nothing left to do for the tag, often they bring in End-of-Episode Silliness, a Tag which has no relevance to anything. Usually a bit of random dialogue.

Different from a Deus ex Machina in that all the plot points are already taken care of. If ever a show were to have a Deus ex Machina and End of Episode Silliness, the writers would probably be smitten from above.

Compare Oh, Cisco!. May be the cause of an "Everybody Laughs" Ending.

If you were looking for when a show's silly episodes come to an end, see Cerebus Syndrome.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Happens at the end of Episode 10 of Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth in the anime adaptation, with Rock Lee and Orochimaru doing a random slapstick fight as Shikamaru describes the scenario, and ends the episode with his own narration, much to the narrator's frustration.

Asian Animation

• It's very common for episodes of Happy Heroes to end with one last joke from at least one of the characters (with comedic antagonists Big M. and Little M. being common choices) after the action climax, to the point where naming all of the specific jokes would take a while. There are exceptions as well, usually episodes with more serious premises or climaxes (Season 3 episode 2, Season 7 episode 50, and Season 8 episode 7 are a few examples).

Films — Live Action

• A post-credits scene in The Avengers (2012) has the titular characters eating in silence in a shawarma restaurant.
• After wrapping up the Noir murder and jewel-theft plot, the 1949 film Manhandled ends on a bizarre note with a police car full of the main characters driving into the distance. Before it ends (with a cracked windshield filling thebscreen), the driver remarks that he'd removed the car's brakes and would worry about stopping a brakeszless vehicel "when the time comes." Seconds later, it does. The End.

Live-Action TV

• Governor Gatling of Benson would frequently meander off-topic with stories of his Navy and lumber mill friends. On very rare occasions, their relevance to the situation at hand became clear to anyone other than the Governor.
• Most episodes of CHiPs had a teaser that was totally unrelated to the main plot — often, it would be set at a local bar or a party, where someone tells a joke, Ponch kisses his completely hot girlfriend, someone blunders and everyone laughs ... so on and so forth, and the scene would stop several times while the end credits were shown on-screen.
• Almost every episode of Community ends with a final scene. Sometimes these scenes have some connection to an aspect of the episode. Usually, they will involve Troy and Abed.
• This happens in most episodes in the first two seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, including Rebecca and Paula attending a literal Vampire Weekend and a rapper, following a feminist awakening, making a list of "Bitches to Apologize To".
• In a deleted scene at the end of the first episode of Forever, as Henry and Jo get into her car to head for the next crime scene, Henry asks if they can have the sirens on. Jo gives him an exasperated/amused look and asks Henry how old he is, but she indulges him by turning on the sirens as they pull away, Henry grinning like a boy.
• Because of the mostly-improvised nature of the show, many episodes of The Monkees ended with a lot of time left over to kill–which they filled with backstage rapping, bloopers and/or another musical number.
• Moonlighting: When the fourth season finale wraps up the plot with several minutes to spare, Maddie breaks the fourth wall to tell the viewers it's because there's a Writer's Strike going on. The cast decide to make Herbert Viola sing "Woolly Bully" to fill out their timeslot.
• The tag for My Name Is Earl runs alongside the credits and often has the titular Earl and his brother Randy lying in bed in their motel room and having hilariously inane discussions. Or, in one episode, dancing "The Robot" to Styx's "Mr. Roboto".
• Tony Randall and Jack Klugman reportedly hated doing these on The Odd Couple (1970) because they felt the tag's only reason for being was to make viewers watch the last commercial. An example of one is the episode in which they think a ghost is in the air conditioner. The tag consists of Felix describing his hoped for funeral.
• The Sarah Silverman Program ends every episode with her talking to her dog, relating the lessons of the episode. Or at least she's supposed to. Sometimes she gets totally off-topic and invokes End of Episode Silliness.
• Used in SeaChange, in which a father and son would talk about odd things on a beach.
• Three's Company did this a lot, but these tags are often cut in the syndicated reruns. In particular, when Suzanne Somers was phoning in her part, Chrissy's phone calls were often of the End of Episode Silliness variety.
• Formerly named "Uncle Herbie" after the tradition in Welcome Back, Kotter of ending every episode with an old joke about one of Kotter's seemingly inexhaustible supply of uncles. ("Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Herbie?", "Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Larry?", "Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Seymour?", etc, etc.)

Radio

• Well before Gabe Kotter, Gracie Allen also had a long line of strange relatives to wrap up episodes of The Burns and Allen Show. All George needed to do was ask "So Gracie, what's new with your Uncle Charlie?", then sit back and react while Gracie spoke for three minutes.

Web Video

• At the end of the Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd, after the Nerd gives his ultimate evaluation on the game, he first imagines what a commercial for the game would be like, then tries to find out how fast you could drive the truck in reverse.

Western Animation

• The Fairly OddParents!: "Mind Over Magic" ends with Chip Skylark coming out of Cosmo's head and singing, as Timmy and Wanda eat chocolate and snap their fingers along.
• Often if the credits scene at the end of an episode of an episode of Phineas and Ferb isn't a reprise of the second segment's song, it tends to be a silly scene that often acts as a Brick Joke to a scene from earlier in the episode, such as Lawrence repeatedly saying "Fossils! Dun dun dunnn..." into a tape recorder ("It's About Time!") or Carl dancing to a song called "Dr. Coconut" in hula gear ("Spa Day"). Sometimes this occurs to the episodes themselves, such as the kids' spontaneous "There Is No Candy In Me" rap at the end of "Picture This!".
• Common with Scooby-Doo, often involving Scooby or Shaggy or both.
• This is done a fair bit by The Simpsons (particularly in later episodes; the earlier episodes do have them, but not very often), e.g. the episode where Mr. Burns captures the Loch Ness Monster. The episode ends with the monster working at a casino, and it and Homer talk about the low quality of the casino's cocktails.
  • Another episode ("The Great Money Caper") shows The Summation being interrupted by Otto Mann running in and shouting, "Surf's up!", and then the show ended with some shots of random Simpsons characters surfing.
  • At the end of "Lisa's Sax", after a short montage of Lisa playing her saxophone in previous episodes, we cut to the Simpsons' living room, where Grampa attempts to play peek-a-boo with Maggie, only to declare, "My retinas have detached again!" and start stumbling around the house to the amusement of Marge, Homer, and Apu.
  • "The Canine Mutiny" ends with Chief Wiggum doing karaoke to reggae music, which continues over the credits.
• Sonic Boom: "Return of the Buddy Buddy Temple of Doom" ends with Sonic, Tails, Amy and the formerly enslaved Gogobas returning to Gogoba Village and its Chief, appearing to end on a warm note. As the screen fades to black, Tails interrupts, saying that they forgot to end on a joke. A couple of pies then proceed to fall out of the sky and land on him.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "My Pretty Seahorse" ends with a random Overly Long Gag of Patrick repeatedly trying to walk through a doorway, only to get stuck because of the wooden plank nailed to his head.
  • "FUN-Believable": Rube signs off, only for SpongeBob and Patrick to show off a trick they've learned: spelling out "Funbelievable!" with their bodies. It turns out Squidward is watching the episode (as part of a Brick Joke), he calls it horrible, then shuts it off.
• The Time Squad episode "The Prime Minister Has No Clothes" ends with a Benny Hill-style chase.
• Maxwell Atoms applied these to the end credits late in the run of his two shows 'The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne.

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