When at a wedding, funeral or any other social occasion with music, the second the characters hear a certain song announced by the band or the DJ, they and everyone else proceed immediately to the dancefloor to dance along to it.
The song in question need not be a Dance Sensation — in fact, it may not even include any lyrical references to dancing or have been originally written with any specific choreography in mind. Often the participants will know the (usually not very complicated) moves by heart without any instructions being provided, but a Dance Sensation may still have the same effect on the crowd.
If this happens at the end of a story, it may be part of a Dance Party Ending.
Examples:
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Films — Live-Action
- 13 Going on 30: Jenna helps liven up a dull Poise party by leading everybody to dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
- The Best Man: The movie ends with everyone doing the Electric Slide to "Candy" by Cameo.
- Dancin' Thru the Dark: When the band performs "Shoe Shine", there are dancers up on the stage performing actions that the rest of the crowd follows along with.
- In Hannah Montana The Movie, Miley decides to perform "Hoedown Throwdown" at the concert raising money to save Crowley Meadows. Everyone at the concert gets on the floor to listen, and after she demonstrates some choreography once, they're able to perfectly recreate it for a huge dance number.
- The ending of Hitch has the main cast dancing with the song "Now That We Found Love" by Heavy D & The Boyz being played at Albert and Allegra's wedding
- Jenny's Wedding ends with the DJ at the wedding putting on "Conga" by Gloria Estefan and the characters forming a conga line.
Live-Action TV
- Derry Girls: On different occasions, the girls immediately hit the floor along with several others to dance to "Rock the Boat" by The Hues Corporation and "Saturday Night" by Whigfield.
- Family Matters: In "Life of the Party", Steve manages to liven up a party by getting everyone to dance
to "The Urkel".
- Full House: In "Crushed," Joey serves as the deejay for Stephanie's birthday party. When he puts on a Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch cover of "Good Vibrations", all of the preteen girls hit the dance floor and perform an elaborate routine.
- How I Met Your Mother: During Punchy's wedding, Robin wants to talk to Barney if he still does have feelings for her until Barney pulls her in for a dance with "Groove is in the Heart" by Deee-Lite being played which got the wedding guests joining the fun.
- Killing Eve: In the series finale, Eve accidentally ends up officiating a wedding and does the Electric Slide to "Candy" along with the guests at the reception.
- The Office (US): In the In-Universe film Threat Level Midnight, Michael Scarn starts doing a dance called "The Scarn" and rapping, causing everyone in the bar to join him.
- Queer as Folk (US): The iconic opening to "Dancing Queen" by ABBA has this effect on the guys in one early episode—not that you'd know it in streaming versions in which expensive-to-license songs like that were replaced.
- Still Game: Jack and Victor manage to lift the mood at a dull party by putting on "Beautiful Sunday" by Daniel Boone, which naturally leads to everyone getting up to do The Slosh.
- This Way Up: The fourth episode of the second series ends with everyone at the fundraiser (except Richard) doing the Electric Slide (again, to "Candy").
- Trueloveis another show featuring the electric slide by Candy, this time at the christening of Ken's granddaughter.
Western Animation
- BoJack Horseman: In "Escape from LA", BoJack tries and fails to instigate this by having the DJ play "Do the BoJack".
- Futurama: Inverted in "The Luck of the Fryrish". Fry's brother Yancy was preparing for his upcoming wedding, and finds The Breakfast Club soundtrack among an old collection of records. He decides to save it to clear out the guests at the end of the reception.
