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Related to the Gilligan Cut, this is a comic device that brackets a hard cut with two versions of the same line. The first may be straight or even deadly serious, but the repetition ends up being funny:
"Jilly must be freezing her butt off!"
(hard cut to Jilly in the forest)
Jilly: "I'm freezing my butt off!"
Sometimes the echo is inverted:
"I'm sure Josh knows what he's doing."
(hard cut to Josh hip-deep in auto parts)
Josh: "I have no idea what I'm doing!"
The implication that both lines are being uttered almost simultaneously seems to have something to do with the resulting humor.
Note that when used in anime, this bit usually includes a sneeze from the referred person, because the Japanese are allergic to being talked about behind their backs.
This is Older Than Steam, being a classic trope of farce for several hundred years now.
Often used in the delivery of Hypocritical Humor. Compare with the plain old Ironic Echo, which comes several scenes later, and Strange Minds Think Alike. Another form of Tempting Fate. Not to be confused with Description Cut.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Cross Game, with some nice post-cut sarcasm:
Aoba: I bet he's nervous like hell. After all, this is the first game he can't afford to lose.
Cut to Kou sleeping
Kou's mother (from downstairs): Kou! How long are you going to sleep? Don't you have a game today?
Kou (half awake): Uh? Game? (Unfazed) God, I'm so nervous.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S with a bit more serious tone but still killed two birds with a stone.
Nanoha: *crying* I said I'd be her mother, that I'd protect her, but I couldn't be by her side. I couldn't protect her. I'm sure she's crying now.
Fate: It's okay. Vivio is fine. Let's save her together.
Later, cut to a captured Vivio. The Big Bad Mad Scientist Jail Scaglietti comes in ready to turn her into his "masterpiece". Vivio starts crying, screaming, and calling for her "mommy".
Quattro: *in a childish tone* The princess knows what's about to happen to her. You can cry all you want but nobody's going to come save you!
Comic Books
- In a scene
 from ElfQuest, both Leetah and Two-Edge say "I lost." Leetah has been trying to save a life, while Two-Edge has been playing a deadly game with everybody's lives.
- Runaways combined this with a subversion of the Evil Laugh. For full effect, Old Lace is a Deinonychus.
Mr. Wilder: I have no doubt [the children] are plotting to destroy us even as we speak.
*cut*
Molly: Bwa ha ha! I just put a hat on Old Lace! That is freaking hilarious.
- Empowered, when her wall clinging ability manifested.
Thugboy and Ninjette: Didn't know she could do that.
Empowered: Didn't know that I could do this...
- Great Lakes Initiative has just saved Christmas from a D List Villain, when this ironic echo cut appears:
Flatman: Man, I wish Squirrel Girl was here. This's our biggest adventure in months and she's missing it.
Uatu the Watcher: Congratulations, Squirrel Girl. By defeating Thanos, you have saved the entire multiverse. I wish I could have helped, but as a Watcher I am forbidden to interfere.
Squirrel Girl: Hey, that's okay, Uatu. Still, I can't believe me and Tippy-Toe took out the real Thanos!
Uatu the Watcher: Yes, Squirrel Girl, with my cosmic senses, I can confirm that that is, in fact, the one true Thanos, and not a robot, clone, or simulacrum.
- Well, it's older than the internet, at least. Orphan Annie does this!
Film
- How could we forget the BEST one? Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
Elsa: It's perfectly obvious where the pages are. He's given them to Marcus Brody.
''Professor Henry Jones: Marcus? You didn't drag poor Marcus along did you? He's not up to the challenge.
''Walter Donovan: He sticks out like a sore thumb. We'll find him.
''Indiana Jones: The hell you will. He's got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the grail already.
''[Cut to middle of fair in the Middle East, Marcus Brody wearing bright suit and white hat, sticking out like sore thumb]
''Marcus Brody: Uhhh, does anyone here speak English?
- Another example without the cut: Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Austin: (to his father) Like I'd ever let Goldmember get away.
*Foxxy Cleopatra enters the shot*
Foxxy: Austin? Goldmember's getting away.
- This is almost James Rhodes (Terrence Howard)'s entire purpose in the Iron Man film.
- Happened rather strangely in Love Actually. A man speaking English and a woman speaking Portuguese unknowingly say the same phrases in their languages, with neither understanding the other.
- Used often in Forrest Gump, sometimes with the variation of having Forrest mention something another character would say, only to cut to that character repeating it again.
Forrest Gump: Mama always said life was like a box a chocolates, never know what you're gonna get.
*cut*
Mrs. Gump: Life's a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you're gonna get.
Mrs. Gump: Remember what I told you, Forrest. You're no different than anybody else is. Did you hear what I said, Forrest? You're the same as everybody else. You are no different.
*cut*
Principal: Your boy's... different, Ms. Gump.
Forrest Gump: Lieutenant Dan was always getting these funny feelings about a rock or a trail or the road, so he'd tell us to get down, shut up.
*cut*
Lieutenant Daniel Taylor: Get down! Shut up!
Forrest Gump: Bubba knew everything there is to know about the shrimpin' business.
*cut*
Bubba: I know everything there is to know about the shrimpin' business.
- From City Of God:
Knockout: Why didn't he kill me?
*Cut to Ze. Ze stops walking, turns around, thinking.*
Ze: Why didn't I kill him?
- In Singles, Linda is talking with her girlfriends after she and Steve have their initial one-night stand:
Linda: This guy plays no games.
*cut to Steve, talking with his friends*
Steve: I've got to play this one perfectly.
- Clear And Present Danger: An American sniper is targeting a drug lord's house for a laser-guided bomb when a garish yellow truck drives up to the house. His reaction is echoed by the drug lord.
Sniper: Oh what the hell is this?
cut to the drug lord
Drug Lord: What the hell is this?
- Hoodwinked does the second variety nearby the beginning.
Red: I decided to call Granny. If anyone knew what to do, she would.
*cut to Granny sewing*
Granny: I don't know what to do. I'm just a tired old woman.
- From The Fifth Element:
Cornelius: We're saved.
*cut*
Zorg: I'm screwed.
- From The Family Stone:
Everett, to his fiancée that he's about to introduce to his family: Don't worry, they're going to love you.
*cut
Amy, Everett's sister: I hate her.
Literature
- John Ringo tends to have these in his books, especially at chapter transitions. Watch On The Rhine, written by Tom Kratman, as part of Ringo's Posleen War Series (Ringo's name is on the cover of Watch only due to a marketing decision, not because he wrote any of it, as per a question/answer session at DragonCon, in 2007) has them nearly every scene change.
- The four Sonic The Hedgehog novels by Martin Adams love this trope, but in that case it tends to be a character's voice echoing the narrator or another character's thought processes.
Live Action TV
- 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd: Gwen's dad has suggested she get a part-time job to pay for an expensive watch she wants.
Gwen: Oh, no. Working in a fast food restaurant? There is nothing more humiliating than that.
*cut to her brother, Justin, who has been stuffed in a basketball hoop*
Justin: Oh, man. This is even more humiliating than working in a fast food restaurant.
- An example of an ironic echo without the cut comes from the Firefly episode "The Message":
Zoe: First rule of battle, little one: don't ever let 'em know where you are.
Enter Mal, whooping and hollering
Mal: Whoo-hoo! I'm right here! I'm right here! You want a piece o' me?!
Zoe: 'Course, there are other schools of thought.
- And a traditional one in the first episode: Mal tells Simon that Kaylee has died of a gunshot wound - after earlier promising that if she died, Simon and his sister would follow. When Simon finds out that Kaylee is alive and well, he says, stunned, "That man is psychotic." Cut to Mal, Jayne, Zoe and Wash laughing hysterically, as Wash chokes out, "You are psychotic!" (Mal, grinning, concedes, "I am a bad, bad man.")
- Later, when being interrogated by Alliance officers, Zoe brushes off questions about her and Wash by saying they're "very private people". Cut to Wash saying that the first thing that attracted him to her was her legs.
- Frequently used straight in Arrested Development, but subverted in the first season finale when twice, after baldfaced lies, it cuts to an insert saying "FOOTAGE NOT FOUND."
- The Bt VS episode Earshot takes this a bit further, as the 'echo' comes from what Cordelia is thinking, before she speaks — while everyone else is thinking one thing and saying another, Cordelia thinks "I don't see what this has to do with me" then repeats that exact phrase out loud.
- Delayed echoes are also used in "Life Serial", in which each act begins with Buffy saying "This is gonna be great" as she prepares for her next new job.
- House, "Humpty Dumpty": Dr. Cuddy was advocating a dangerous treatment, forcing House into the unusual role of being the voice of caution.
Wilson: This is exactly the type of thing you would do.
House: Well, obviously.
After cut, Stacy tells Cuddy: It's actually the type of thing he'd do.
- When the team makes the correct diagnosis in "Daddy's Boy":
House: Do a pet scan. Check his cervical spine. It's not gonna be good news. (cut)
Foreman: (to the patient's father) Mr. Hall, it's not good news.
- Coupling does it a lot. One of the best examples: Susan has found a porn video in Steve's VCR.
Patrick: You can't tell anything from a title like Inferno.
Steve: Patrick, Inferno isn't the full title.
Patrick: Well, how bad can it be?
(hard cut)
Sally: Lesbian Spank Inferno?!
- In the Scrubs episode which the Janitor gets to narrate, this trope is slightly modified by contrasting the Janitor's inner monologue with JD's inner monologue.
Janitor [inner monologue]: Now help him up so he still thinks there's hope yet for our relationship.
JD [inner monologue]: Even though the Janitor had basically kidnapped me and imprisoned me for a day in a water tower, as he helped me up, I couldn't help but feel there was hope yet for our relationship.
- The second example at the top of this page plays out almost word for word in an episode of Eureka.
- In fact, the only difference was probably that the character in question was not, in fact, Josh.
- Done frequently in Father Ted. For example, in the first episode Ted is delighted that he has been chosen to be interviewed for a TV programme on priests on remote islands. Cut to the office of the producers which shows that he was about the fiftieth choice.
- From Tentacles of Doom: Ted says that all sorts of care and consideration go into the changing of the official class of holy relics. Cut to an office in the Vatican, where a priest idly presses a button on his computer keyboard and says "What about the Holy Stone of Clonrichert?" Second priest, not even looking up from his newspaper: "Whatever."
- Occurs in several episodes of Frontline. This troper's favourite is when Emma accuses the producer of feeding the controversy around a supposedly racist writer the show has been attacking. Mike responds, ''What, you think we sat at a whiteboard and mapped this whole thing out?" Cut to Marty, who is planning the week's stories on the writer on the whiteboard.
- In That70s Show episode "Radio Daze", Donna has just said over the radio that she doesn't have a boyfriend:
Max: The point is, we're selling an image here, and an available Hot Donna is good for ratings.
Donna: Oh. Well, what the hell. Eric won't have a problem with this.
Cut to Eric in his basement.
Eric: What the hell? I have a problem with this!
- In "Burning Down the House" (though using a split screen instead of a cut):
Eric: Hey, I sang to Donna. Yeah, she kinda melted. I mean, she called me a dink, but I don't think she meant it.
Donna: Eric was such a dink tonight. And I mean it.
- In the Stargate SG-1 episode The Quest, Vala Maldoran says, earnestly, regarding the map to the holy grail, "we would never dream of stealing it!" Cut to the team in a pub, where Vala says, "we have to steal it."
- The Greys Anatomy episode "I Saw What I Saw" does this repeatedly, as a series of past events is pieced together from stories told to a review board.
Lexie: Dr. Karev seemed to have it under control.
Dr. Adamson: Karev seemed totally out of control.
- In How I Met Your Mother, Ted and Robin have just had their first fight, and are talking it over with their respective best friends:
Lily: He's upset because you won't listen to him, not because you don't like some movie.
- Used in a non-humorous way on an episode of Newswipe, where it shows footage of an interview of a criminal psychologist on what TV news shows shouldn't do whenever a mass murder takes place (such as turning the murder into an Anti Hero), intercut with images of news shows doing exactly that.
Machinima
- Red Vs Blue does this several times:
Church: Private Mickey was the first to go. He was halfway across the base when he started screaming bloody murder. (Cut to Mickey spinning around and shooting) Mickey: Bloody Murder! Bloody Murder!
Church: Tex walked up to him, pulled Jimmy's skull right out of his head and beat him to death with it. Tucker: Wait a second, how do you beat someone to death with their own skull? That doesn't seem physically possible! Church: That's exactly what Jimmy kept screaming! (Cut to Jimmy being beaten to death with his own skull) Private Jimmy: This doesn't seem physically possible!
Simmons: Grif, don't you understand that because we lost Sister, we're horribly outnumbered? We already lost Donut and Sarge, now it's four on two. The Blues are probably gearing up for an enormous attack right now! At any moment they're gonna come over that hill, guns blazing, yelling "CHAAAARGE!" (cut to the Blues, under attack) Church: RETREEEAAATTTT!!!
Church: Man, I hope Tucker's having an easier time with his part of the plan. (Cut) Tucker: Crap. This isn't going very well at all!
Donut: Okay, 'cause I'm saying right now, if they came at us with their tank, I'm gonna totally freak out. (Cut to Tucker, Lopez, and Sheila) Tucker: Man, I sure hope they don't totally freak out when they see us coming. (Later) Donut: Oh no, it's true! I'm gonna freak out! I'M FREAKING OUT!
Church: If he starts giving him mouth-to-mouth, I'm leaving. (cut to Simmons and Grif, trying to resuscitate Sarge) Simmons: Maybe you should give him mouth-to-mouth. (cut back to Church and Sarge) Church: I'm leaving.
Tucker: He must be one smart sonuvabitch.
(Cut to Donut, completely lost with the flag)
Donut: Man, I am so freakin' lost!
Sarge: Let's say the Blues are launching a coordinated offensive.
(Cut to Blue Team)
Church: Where the heck are we? I don't even know this map!
Tucker: Where are the weapons?
Caboose: Which base is ours?
Radio
- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series includes this exchange:
Arthur: This probably seems a terrible thing to say, but you know what I sometimes think would be useful in these situations...A gun of some sort.
Lintilla: Will this help?
Arthur: What is it?
Lintilla: It’s a gun of some sort.
- This Troper isn't sure this is an Ironic Echo Cut, since there is no cut and Lintilla apparently heard most of Arthur's comment, but it's the closest trope.
Video Games
- Super Robot Wars Original Generation uses this very well. This major boss shows up and just kinda toys with the good guys before leaving. After the good guys get back to base, one guy remarks that the villain seemed to have been showing off, but another one blows him off, says that's something the protagonist would do instead. Cut to villain hideout. The Dragon notes that he was showing off, and the villain owns up to it.
Giado: Mon, I think he wuz just showing off! A mecha otaku, I swear!
Garnet: Can't be! He's not at all like Ryusei!
*cut to enemy base*
Shuu: You were just showing off, weren't you?
Bian: ... Yeah, pretty much.
- Disgaea manages to use both versions at the same time!
Kurtis: There's no way Gordon's in trouble. He's probably already defeated the Overlord and is on a picnic somewhere going "La la laaa."
*cut to Gordon, enslaved by the Overlord, on a picnic somewhere
Gordon: La la laaa!
Web Animation
- From Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner
Strong Bad: Well, I didn't get a chance to pummel Homestar with my fists, or beat him in a race, but I did succeed in turning him into a publicly humiliated criminal fugitive without a girlfriend. And I didn't even have to use my A-K.
Strong Bad enters his basement and finds Homestar seated on the couch.
Homestar: Oh, hey Strong Bad.
Strong Bad: Homestar?! What are you doing here in my hallowed halls?!
Homestar: Now that I'm a publicly humiliated criminal fugitive without a girlfriend, you're the only friend I've got, so I'm gonna go ahead and crash here for a couple of weeks or years until I put my life back together.
Webcomics
Web Original
- A variation in the REDEARTH88 episode "Creepy Stalking 101":
Linc: I hate dogs.
Cut to Bucket the dog bounding towards Linc, pulling Rachel along behind her.
Rachel: Oh my God! She's friendly, I promise!
Linc: Oh, I love dogs.
- In Book II of The Lonely Winds, Cynthia is sitting at a computer watching a presentation on the team’s mortal enemy, the Crown of Thorns. The speaker, George, has been rambling about how the Crown loves to use minions and bullied allies in helping her toy with those who try to hunt her down. Cut to George and Will locked in an isolated room with two of the Crown’s minions advancing on them:
George: You know, I really should have seen this coming.
Western Animation
- Inverted echo example: Hey Arnold!, "Cool Party": Gerald is certain that he's cool enough to be invited to Rhonda's party, mostly because best friend Arnold has already been invited as well. Hard cut to Rhonda telling her best friend Nadine that Gerald has been put on the geek list, much to Nadine's surprise... and Gerald's when he finds out from Phoebe.
- In fact, they played this trope into the ground over the course of the series.
- Rocket Power: Otto, wanting to go surfing while playing hooky, thinks he has tricked his dad into giving him surfboards for him and Sam via a phone call. He hangs up.
Otto: Relax, dude. Raymondo totally bought it.
*cut to Raymondo hanging up as well*
Ray: Oh, man, I didn't buy that for a second.
- Courage The Cowardly Dog used this to do a Double Subversion of the Gilligan Cut in an episode where Muriel received free tickets for an ocean liner. Eustace, her husband, isn't interested.
Eustace: I'm not getting out of this chair. Gilligan Cut to ocean liner at sea. The scene changes to Eustace on the deck... still in his chair from the previous scene. Eustace: Nope, I'm not getting out of this chair.
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Aang's trying to sabotage a Fire Nation war machine, but the Earthbenders nearly hit him with friendly fire.
Aang: *calling up to them* General Sun, tell your soldiers to stop shooting rocks down here!
Sun: *not hearing Aang over the noise* Soldiers, whatever you do, don't stop shooting rocks down there!
This also happens in Season One.
Zuko: *looking at map with Aang's route traced on it* The Avatar is clearly a master of evasive maneuvering.
After cut, Sokka looks at the same map: You have no idea where we are, do you?
- The Simpsons does a variant of this using a single character then proceeds to give it a good old Lampshade Hanging.
Homer: "Thanks Moe, how can I ever repay you?"
Moe: "Hey, some things mean more to me than money."
[Cut to Moe being given several wads of money]
Moe: "Like a whole lot of money!"
Soldier: "Why did you just say that sentence fragment?"
- And when Homer tried to buy a hair regrowth serum, but can't because it's way out of his price range. This upsets him:
Homer: (sobbing) see you later, pal. Thanks for nothing.
[Cut to Homer retelling story to family.]
Homer: (angrily boasting) so i tell him, "see ya later, pal! Thanks for nothing!"
- And an inverted echo, when Homer fails an initial plan to crash Moe's car in an insurance scam and tries an alternate plan in full view of witnesses (including Moe):
Moe: Homer, you idiot.
Homer: Homer, you genius!
- Fairly Odd Parents does this with Crimson Chin comics - the narrator will say what's happening to the unsuspecting citizens, and then the citizens will echo it, including a guy at the end saying, "We were so unsuspecting!"
- In "Foul Balled", Timmy sticks up for Chester after his wish to make him the best baseball player ever wears off after Chester stops being friends with him, therefore going back to his crappy baseball playing. Note that the following quote may not be accurate.
Timmy: We're 40 points up, in the 9th inning, and 3 outs left, there's no WAY you'll catch up with us!
*cut to the scorebored where the Bankees are catching up with the Losers*
Chester: I can't believe they're catching up with us.
- Used four times in an episode of Sushi Pack as it cut between Tako and Maguro hurtling toward Earth on an asteroid, and the rest of the team trying to figure out what happened to them.
Maguro: If there is a way to signal the others of our location, they could help.
*cut to the others on Earth*
Ikura: If only we knew their location, we could help.
- Not totally sure it counts, but the very last scene of Transformers Generation 1 begins with something like this.
Cerebros, on the restored Cybertron: "It's a miracle."
[Cut to the villains' base, where baddies are bickering]
Galvatron: "It's a miracle we finally got this flying junkpile of yours stablized!"
Megatron: The Autobots would never fire on their ultimate weapon.
[Cut to Sentinel Prime slamming his fist down]
Sentinel Prime: I say we fire on [Omega Supreme] now!
- Family Guy - In "The Son Also Draws", Peter claims to be Native American to get the family car back from a casino after Lois gambles it away:
Lois: Peter, there is no way they're gonna believe you're an Indian.
*cut to casino office*
Indian Casino Worker: He's an Indian, all right!
- In the Phineas And Ferb pilot "Roller Coaster":
Linda: Candace, be honest. Aren't the boys a little young to be building a roller coaster?
(hard cut to Phineas and Ferb working on their roller coaster in - and through - a tune-up shop)
Shop Owner: Aren't you a little young to be building a roller coaster?
Phineas: Yes. Yes I am.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Frylock in the episode "The Clowning", where Carl is slowly being mutated by an outer space clown virus, Frylock runs from the room saying he knows what he's doing. Out in the hall, he tells Meatwad and Shake, "I have no freaking idea what I'm doing."
- From Cats Dont Dance:
Tilly: Well?
Sawyer: I can't do this.
Tilly: And?
Sawyer: I can't do this.
Tilly: So?
*CUT* Sawyer: I can't believe I'm doing this...
- From The Chipmunk Adventure:
Simon: They're going to sacrifice Theodore tonight!
Alvin: Over my dead body!
Cut to the three of them suspended over a ravine, about to be sacrificed.
Simon: You mean over our dead bodies!
- The Codename Kids Next Door Grand Finale:
In the future
Adult Number 2: Suffice it to say, Father was not happy finding us in his house.
Flashback
Father: I am not happy finding you kids in my house!
- From Invader Zim
Professor Membrane: Anyone who would build a space-time object replacement device is a complete moron.
Zim: Gir! The space-time object replacement device is complete!
- The Christmas Special The Year Without A Santa Claus has an exchange where Santa says (of two AWOL elves): "Poor little guys. They must be scared to death," which is followed by a hard cut to one of the elves saying "I'm scared to death!"
- Is this the 1974 stop-motion version, or the 2006 live-action version?
- From Monsters Inc:
Mike: Then I guess we just waltz right up to the factory.
Next day
Mike: I cannot believe we are waltzing right up to the factory!
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