Mic Drop

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"All she needs is a mic drop. I swear, that's the only thing missing. She fucking owns everything that ever existed. She just needs a mic drop."

— The Nostalgia Critic, on the T. rex from Jurassic Park

A character having just delivered an awesome speech or performance will emphasize just how awesome (and explosive) it was by purposefully toppling a microphone stand or dropping the microphone from shoulder-level height just before leaving the stage.

Since this is a showy, arrogant gesture, comedy is frequently wrought by having self-effacing or rule-conscious characters do it. Expect a wide range of audience reaction, from rapturous applause to silence. This action is often, but not always, accompanied by the stock phrase "<Name> out" or "Peace out".

Can also be parodied by NOT cutting out the sound while doing this, creating horrible-sounding noise. This is also why people hold the mic up high before dropping it - it's a cue for the sound tech to cut power to it.

The term "mic drop" has also been adopted to refer to a definitive statement for which there is no valid comeback or debate ("He delivered the mic drop on the argument").

The mic drop also has connotations of an unspoken challenge, daring anyone who thinks they can do better to pick up the mic. If someone does rise to the challenge and picks up the mic, the mic dropper can be seen as a showboater who didn't quit gracefully while he was ahead, especially if the challenger subsequently outclasses him. On the other hand, if the challenger fails to meet the challenge, he'll probably be seen as a fool who can't recognize he's in way over his head.

Related to less-boastful use of this in stand-up comedy, the term is also used as Self-Deprecation akin to the Rimshot (this is usually accompanied by “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be here all week”).

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Examples:

Advertising

• This Jack in the Box commercial. Jack comes back to retrieve the mic so nobody trips.
• In this Verizon commercial, Thomas Middleditch announces the new plan, delivers a mic drop, then has to pull another microphone out of his jacket because he forgot to give a full description. The commercial ends with three microphones on the carpet and Thomas saying he's out of mics.

Anime and Manga

• Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel: After their "battle" (read: a brutal One-Hit KO) in the first film, Saber casually drops Rider's chain in a distinct echo of this trope, then follows it up with a tilt of the head as if to say "Was that all?"
• Zombieland Saga: At the end of Sakura's Reason You Suck RAP in episode 2, she throws the mike onto the stage.

Comic Books

• One alternate cover for Ultimate End, part of the 2015 Secret Wars event and the final end of Marvel's Ultimate line features a picture of Brian Michael Bendis, one of the main writers for the Ultimate line, dropping the mic.◊
• Alluded to in the title of the final collected volume of the Gillen/McKelvie Young Avengers, Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Space.

Films — Animation

• In the first teaser for The LEGO Batman Movie, Batman drops the microphone he's been beat-boxing on after announcing his movie.
  Batman: Batman out... Wait, wait, Batman back in! Forgot to drop the mic. [drops mic]
• One of the trailers for Minions has Bob (the youngest of the three) do it after delivering a speech to the crowd.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Luigi attempts to do it with his cellphone after dramatically boasting to Spike about the call they received from their mother congratulating them for their commercial. It only results in his phone's screen getting cracked.
• Tom & Jerry (2021): After Tom successfully ships Jerry out of the hotel, he boards up Jerry's mouse hole and, in a moment of triumph, mic-drops the hammer.

Films — Live-Action

• Tom Hardy as Bane does this in The Dark Knight Rises after giving his big speech to Gotham at the football stadium, tossing the microphone on the dead body of Dr. Pavel, whom he's just murdered.
• Drumline. In the climactic battle of the drumlines, the A & T players finish by all dropping their drumsticks.
• In Happy Death Day 2U, after Tree writes a complicated boardful of equations (which she had to forcefully memorize while living the same day over and over), she does this with the marker, with an added utterance of "Boom!".
• Faith does this after finishing a song in Strange Days.
• In Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny JB knocks the mic stand over after the D's first "concert" (a one-song amatuer/open mic night). The audience is not impressed.
• Hardy does it again in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, this time as the titular symbiote attends a rave to make a speech about acceptance and aliens.
• Max Renn does this in Videodrome after shooting down Barry Convex and subsequently screaming "DEATH TO VIDEODROME! LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!"

Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: Liz Lemon at the end of her high school reunion.
  Liz: Lemon out!
• Maeby in Arrested Development s4e12, giving her presentation on Fakeblock to a room of investors.
• In the pilot of Batwoman (2019), Alice standing in front of the camera that was to record the turning off of the Bat-Signal to inform the rich people of Gotham that Crow Security cannot protect them. She then topples the camera on its side, and it lands with the lens pointing at the Crow security officer she's just murdered.
• In The Big Bang Theory Leonard pulls a fake one of these, leading Sheldon to ask Penny "Who is this Mike Dropp?"
• Community:
  • Annie Edison finishing her eulogy for Star-Burns.
    Annie: Edison out!
    Dean Pelton: Wow. Let's maybe not drop the fifty-dollar mics. Okay?
  • Chang when admonishing Jeff for "taking advantage of the emotionally vulnerable".
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Jessica Williams ended an epic rant about racism with a mic drop ... which she first had to pull out from behind her desk because she wasn't using it during said rant.
• Comic Relief. Peter Dinklage does this at the end of his Red Nose Day song "I'm Still Going Strong" (about how his character on Game of Thrones hasn't been killed off yet).
• In-universe example in Game of Thrones: Season 3, Episode 4, "And Now His Watch Has Ended". After trading her largest dragon Drogon for the Unsullied army, Daenerys receives a ceremonial whip, a symbol of her ownership of the Unsullied. She then orders Drogon to incinerate slave master Kraznys and the Unsullied to sack the city of Astapor. She then declares the Unsullied to be free men instead of slaves, and they willingly choose to follow her. As Daenerys and her army leave Astapor, she drops the ceremonial whip behind her without so much as a backwards glance. Technically not a microphone, but the gesture and the sentiment are the same.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Ted claims to become "weirdly good" at beatboxing when drinking bourbon. Cut to him giving a performance at MacLaren's, complete with a mic drop and wild applause. Immediately afterwards, Lily points out that the bourbon only makes it sound good to Ted. Cut to the same scene, except Ted's performance is awful, and the mic drop ends in uncomfortable bar patrons and some nasty feedback.
  • Barney envisions pulling one at the hypothetical wedding between Ted and a girl Barney had called "dibs" on earlier:
    Barney: Ladies and gentlemen. I... had dibs! [audience gasps, Lily faints]
• In the 2018 live NBC performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, Alice Cooper sings "King Herod's Song" and drops the mic into the hands of a kneeling chorus girl (probably at the insistence of the sound technician). Notable in that Superstar and Cooper were both around long before the mic-dropping thing.
• Done by Peele (as Obama) on Key & Peele. A rapper in the street says "I'm the boss and the king!" Obama pulls up in his limo, takes the mic and says "I'm the leader of the Free World" and drops the mic.
• The actual Barack Obama did this on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at the end of a "Slow Jam the News" segment. Well, he didn't so much drop the mic as awkwardly set it down.
  • He did it again with a PDA in a "Mean Tweets" segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live! after responding to Donald Trumps tweet that he was the worst president ever: "Well, @realDonaldTrump, at least I will go down as a president!" Either harsher or hilarious in hindsight after the 2016 election, depending on how one sees it.
• In The Neighborhood, Gemma did a completely gratuitous one with her phone after making her point to Calvin (the phone wasn't involved in the conversation, they were talking face to face) and ended up cracking her screen.
• The Nightly Show: Neil deGrasse Tyson savagely dissed rapper B.o.B. (and anti-intellectualism in general) when the rapper insisted that the Earth was flat.
  Neil deGrasse Tyson: And by the way, this is called gravity! [drops the mic]
• Parks and Recreation: Ben Wyatt (pictured) after condemning Denmark in the Model United Nations.
• Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live seems to love this trope. In a recurring sketch where a number of eccentric characters come up to speak during a wedding/funeral/etc., he's played a character who exists for no other reason than to manically scream "WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!" and drop the mic. More recently, his character Riblet, who appears on Weekend Update to antagonize Michael Che by trying to one-up him as a news anchor, will typically finish his appearance with one of these.
• The Twilight Zone (2019): In the episode "The Comedian", Samir does this during his final stand-up routine because he erased himself from existence.
• Kimmy from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt does a mic drop during a presentation. It makes an ugly and loud feedback sound and everyone winces.

Podcasts

• Lup from The Adventure Zone: Balance does this during the IPRE press conference.

Pro Wrestling

• A.J. Lee after delivering a "Reason You Suck" Speech to the entire Diva's Devision.

Theatre

• Hamilton has Thomas Jefferson do one of these at the end of his solo during the first Cabinet Battle. James Madison catches it for him.

Video Games

• The "I'll Just Leave This Here" taunt of Rath from Battleborn has him drop one of his swords like a mic.
• In Divekick, Kick's win pose has him pull a mic from his pocket and drop it on the ground.
• At the end of the final DLC Trespasser for Dragon Age: Inquisition, a variant occurs with the Writ that authorized the Inquisition. The Inquisitor can, after being wrung out by Ungrateful Bastard kingdoms two years after saving them from Corypheus, give them an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech, tell them the Inquisition is disbanded, and then drop the writ (which is a hefty tome).
• Inverted and Played for Drama in Friday Night Funkin', where The Boyfriend drops the mic in presumed shock when he fails a song, complete with a thud and feedback from the mic as it hits the floor.
• In Rivals of Aether, dropping a microphone is Pomme's default taunt.
• Skullgirls: Beowulf's 5MP^note standing medium punch has him deliver a straight punch with a microphone in his hand. Holding MP causes him to drop the mic for a second overhead hit, giving him some crowd hype to work with in the process..
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge: April O'Neil's victory animation has her drop her reporter's microphone to taunt the boss she just beat.

Web Comics

• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: this comic in the votey.
• In Sinfest, Monique does a mic drop at the end of one song. Problem is, a recently awakened devil microphone is passing by, earning its enmity.
• Subnormality has a mic dropping off the stand and then off the stage to punctuate the speakers' points in an appropriate manner.
• In Whomp!, M Dude instructs Ronnie to drop the Mic and ends up accidentally throwing it in the crowd and directly into the face of an audience member. M Dude applauds.

Web Original

• Bennett the Sage: Forms a gag in Anime Abandon during the Fatal Fury: Double Impact review: Bennett says that Krauser, after unleashing an epic No-Holds-Barred Beatdown/Break the Badass moment on Terry Bogard, has essentially just done the equivalent of the following:
  Drops a mic.
  Holds out his other hand, holding two mics.
  Drops them.
  Pulls out a sack, filled with mics, and starts spilling them out onto the ground.
• The Champions: When the members of the "Expensive AF" group square off with the Dortmund players at the arcade, Alphonso Davies mic-drops the Whack-A-Ref hammer after trouncing Giovanni Reyna at the game and getting a perfect score in the process.
• In Epic Rap Battles of History:
  • Elvis Presley does this in "Michael Jackson vs Elvis Presley".
    Elvis: Later weirdo, Elvis is leaving the building!
  • In "Tony Hawk vs. Wayne Gretzky", Gretzky substitutes his hockey stick for the mic as he concludes his lines.
• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • In his review of Jurassic Park, the Critic, while gushing over the T. rex's awesomeness, says it should have done a mic drop at the end. He does one at the end of the review for the hell of it.
  • In the review for Rogue One, in the re-creation of the fight between Darth Vader and the Rebels, after slaughtering all the Red Shirts Vader drops his lightsaber like a mic. "Dark Side, motherfuckers!"
• In Sword Art Online Abridged Yui gives a scathingly sarcastic retort to Yulier in Episode 10. Kirito responds with parental glee.
  Kirito: Holy cow, Yui! That was amazing! I wish I had like a tiny mic for you to drop!
  Asuna: Oh my god, that would be adorable!

Western Animation

• Done twice in Archer in the episode "The Wind Cries Mary":
  • Archer is boasting about Lucas Troy and drops the control room mic.
  • Pam when she finds out no one (except Cyril) has filled out the Peer Review forms, despite the low employee numbers (even though there were 50 agents and a full office plus a receptionist in the pilot).
• In Batman and Harley Quinn, Harley does a mic drop after singing a very sexually suggestive song in a Bad Guy Bar. It Makes Sense in Context.
• FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman': In the Humble Media Genius video "Getting the Most out of the internet", Ruff does this during his song.
• King of the Hill: In the episode "Manger Baby Einstein" Luann grabs the microphone at the local kid's pizza joint and scolds her former puppet show fans. She ends her rant by dropping the mic.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: In "You Are Rad", Rad dramatically drops the mic after his turn in a rap battle... and Enid scolds him for being careless with her equipment.
• One episode of Phineas and Ferb features a musical award ceremony, one of the nominees being the song "Trees are Made of Wood". The entire song consists of the title line followed by a mic drop.
• Rick and Morty: Blim Blam, the Starfish Alien Rick had chained to the wall, does this with a Universal Translator of Rick's after unleashing an enormous "The Reason You Suck" Speech on Beth and Jerry. Then, he realizes having one of those is actually pretty useful in general and comes back for it.
• The Simpsons: In "The Old Man and The C Student", Springfield is awarded the Olympic Games, but when the Olympic Committee arrives to make it official, Principal Skinner makes the mistake of allowing Bart to perform a comedy routine. Said "routine" consists of Bart insulting every single member of the Committee before performing a mic drop. The Committee are not amused and immediately yank the Games away from Springfield.
• Steven Universe: In "We Need to Talk", during Greg's jam session with the Gems, Pearl showboats through a Fusion Dance with Rose Quartz, then finishes Greg's song with a mic drop. Afterwards, she tells him that his relationship with Rose won't last, since he's only human. Greg takes it as a challenge, and pulls a mic drop of his own in response... then immediately picks it back up.
  Greg: Ah, jeez, what am I doing? These things are expensive.

Real Life

• As microphones are sensitive equipment that can be easily damaged by such a shock the sound tech will hate you if you do this. It's also a good way to never be welcome at an open mic again as the hosts don't appreciate you abusing the equipment that they are providing for your use.
• During an open-source science conference, this guy catches a couple of startup entrepreneurs presenting his technology as if it was theirs. He climbs on stage, slams the microphone on the ledger, pushes them aside, and finishes the presentation himself by shouting at the audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMKDTTZgu1M
• President Barack Obama himself did this as he finished his speech at the 2016 White House Correspondents Dinner, his last as President of the United States.^note Possibly in homage to the Key & Peele sketch, or, perhaps, to Kobe Bryant's farewell address a few days earlier, though Kobe doesn't drop the mic.
  President Obama: It's been an honour and a privilege to work side by side with you to strengthen our democracy, and with that, I have just two more words to say... Obama out.
• For April Fools' Day 2016, Google added a feature to Gmail which allowed you to do a Mic Drop on a conversation, courtesy of the Minions. Since the button that does this was in the same place as the "Send and Archive" button, it ended badly for the unlucky few office workers who accidentally sent it to their boss who instead saw their message as being (unintentionally) insincere and insensitive.
• BTS made a song called "Mic Drop". It was inspired by Obama's speech at the White House Correspondents dinner.
• Audra MacDonald did a mic drop at the end of the 2013 Tony Awards ceremony, singing a song with Neil Patrick Harris summarizing the ceremony (written and accompanied by Lin-Manuel Miranda).
• At the end of the last concert that the original line-up Sex Pistols played, after covering The Stooges "No Fun", John Lydon snarled "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" at the audience, added a disdainful-sounding "Good night," then dropped the mic and left the stage... and the band.
• Alex Turner, frontman of Arctic Monkeys, did this at the end of his speech at the 2014 Brit Awards for Album of the Year. Turner lampshaded it beforehand by saying "Invoice me for the microphone if you need to".

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