A standard gag is to have a character, bonus points if it's The Antagonist plugging/unplugging or twirling the plug while whistling. Alternatively, the letters burn out.
Compare Cut the Juice, when an In-Universe electronic device is unplugged, and Signs of Disrepair, when removing or disabling letters from a sign gives a location some new, and often disturbing, context. Sub-Trope of Title Sequence.
Examples:
Creators
- High Voltage Software, a video game-developing company, used this with its logo in the late 1990s.
Live-Action TV
- Hannah Montana: The opening starts with the show's logo turned glowing sign, multiple LED bulbs and all. It's mounted on a scenario in which the eponymous protagonist appears.
- Hot L Baltimore: Justified. The brief opening sequence makes use of the fact that, canonically, the letter E of Hotel Baltimore's sign no longer lits due to disrepair. In a sense, the play's window card also qualifies because it also omits the E marquee.
- Not Going Out: The title sequence shows the words as big multiple-lightbulb signs held up by Lee, Tim, and Kate. The lights go out when Barbara unplugs them. In subsequent series, it's Daisy, Tim's girlfriend, who unplugs them instead.
Music
- Caravan Palace: The music video of "Lone Digger" begins with a shot of the blue-purple neon sign of a night club that shares its name with the song. Then it cuts to the three anthropomorphic cats approaching it.
- Meghan Trainor: In the music video of "Me Too", Meghan's shortened artistic name, M-Train, appears on a blue neon sign right at the beginning.
- Melina KB:
- "Ex-Girlfriend": Inverted. In the music video, Melina (the current girlfriend) is competing against her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend both metaphorically (she was his long-time Childhood Friend Romance) and literally (in a track race). As a result of the latter, the song's title appears on the track's scoreboard as "ex-gf". The problem? While the scores are rendered in your typical LCD light bulbs, the words "Melina" and "ex-gf" are displayed in plain, non-glowing white letters.
- "I've Had Enough": Played With because it's not the title that glows but a key verse of the song's lyrics. The phrase "#Closed for the weekend" appears in several shots on a lit changeable-letters sign.
Theatre
- Ride the Cyclone: Since the kids had their accident at a fair, some iterations of the musical put a big multiple-lightbulb "Cyclone" sign at the top of the scenario. The poster
◊ of the Arkansas presentation styles the title this way, with the C (and the L, to a lesser extent) covered in blood.
Video Games
- Jak II: Renegade: The opening credits are shown as street signs. Daxter plugs in the final one, a huge neon sign of the game's title.
- Pana Der Hejhog: This Sonic the Hedgehog ROM hack opens with the SEGA logo blowing a fuse, until Pana rushes to the scene and kicks it back to life.
Web Animation
- Happiness: The short's title appears during the credits and it's stylized as a bright red neon sign of which a rat chews the wire, therefore turning it off.
Western Animation
- Dexter's Laboratory:
- In the title sequence, Dee Dee puts the plug in at the last minute, causing the sign to short out from Dexter repeatedly pushing the remote button to get it working (presumably in a hurry before the title sequence ends).
- In one episode's second segment, it's Mandark who puts the plug in, creating the title "Mandark's Laboratory". The title is changed back to the usual one in the third segment.
- Dilbert: The theme song ends with the title shorting out and then cutting to Dogbert twirling the plug while standing beside an outlet.
- Futurama: The opening title features a huge video screen displaying the producers' names before the Planet Express ship crashes into it.
- My Dad the Rock Star: The sign with the work's name is styled after multi-bulbed, rockstar lights. It fails to work, and Willie has to plug it in.
- Johnny Test: The opening sequence includes a short scene of Johnny and Duke rocking. It ends with Duke jamming his guitar, fireworks exploding, and a glowing, multi-bulb, yellow sign that reads "Johnny Test". Johnny's sisters pull down a lever to reveal the show's logo.
- The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show: The opening begins with the words "Richie Rich" flashing onscreen. Scrappy-Doo looks at the title with contempt, and he throws a switch revealing the rest of the title.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle: At the end of the opening of The Bullwinkle Show, several lights and letters short out. It occurs again at the end credits when executive producer Ponsonby Britt's name shows up.
