alt title(s): Spinning Newspaper
"And the spinning... always the spinning. Let's see you do that
, computers!" (hurls laptop through the air)
Simultaneously showing the passage of time and the impact of events by showing newspaper headlines. For added effect, the papers emblazoned with these headlines spin towards the camera before pausing briefly and fading out.
The
Spinning Paper usually takes place against a black background but often fades in footage of people in animated conversation, using telephones or reading newspapers. It is also common to show the
Spinning Paper as an overlay on footage of printing presses. It is usually prefaced with either
a newspaper boy yelling "Extra! Extra!" or a shot of a stack of newspapers being delivered.
The
Spinning Paper is more commonly used in movies rather than TV shows and is such an
over-used cliché that these days it is usually used not for dramatic, but for comedic value, as in
The Simpsons.
Back in the days before this device had been done to death, some
B Movies would—as an alternative to printing up a custom faux-newspaper—apparently use certain stock layouts, with everything below the massive main headline cut-and-pasted from previous fake front pages. This is why certain news articles, like
"New Petitions Against Tax"
, appear on completely unrelated front pages with such frequency. Which
does lead one to wonder why, with the main headline proclaiming
Armageddon,
some papers consider "Building Code Under Fire" to be newsworthy.
A
Spinning Paper will often display the
Worst News Judgment Ever. See also
News Monopoly.
Examples
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Advertisement
- Parodied in a TV advertisement for Yogo, with the last paper of the montage saying 'Newspaper Readers Get Dizzy'.
Anime and Manga
- Played straight in Suzumiya Haruhi with a tabloid press newspaper, showing what would happen if Haruhi was to spread the picture of the computer club president groping Mikuru.
Film
- Believed to have been first used in Citizen Kane (1941).
- A not spinning version with printing presses appeared in Chaplins The Great Dictator (1940).
- There are spinning newspapers in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938).
- Seen in several previous films going back to early to mid 1930s, often in crime/gangster pictures.
- Played straight several times in the 1952 movie musical Singin' In The Rain.
- The film Bill And Teds Bogus Journey ends with a minutes-long comic headline sequence where various real-world publications detail the band's rise to fame and the resulting steps towards world peace.
- Spoofed in the film Airplane!, where two newspaper headlines are about the titular plane that is doomed to crash, and a third is about a child who ate his own foot.
- The sequel had third one about a man who undergoes sex change surgery and marries him-(her?)-self.
- In the film, Strange Brew, there is a spinning newspaper, but when it stops, it is revealed to have the wrong side up and a hand quickly reaches out to flip the paper over to show the intended side.
- The movie version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix features a series of dynamic and quite visually impressive Spinning Paper-esque headline montages, as well as using the moving pictures in the paper (Magic, people!) to transition smoothly from scene to scene.
- Used in The Incredibles, in conjunction with Practical Voiceover and fake news footage, to explain the Super Relocation Act.
- In Star Wreck 6, a very popular Finnish hobbyist-produced sci-fi parody film, newspapers headlines following P-Fleet's conquest of the world are shown in this manner within an old-style propaganda film within the show.
- Played straight in the BBC production of Ballet Shoes, with spinning theater posters.
- Played straight in Hoodlum.
- Played straight, but without spinning, in the first Spider-Man movie.
- Played straight in The Godfather Part III.
- And as a result spoofed in Mafia!. One of the headlines is "A spinning paper appears over a cathedral"
- Used in the George Lucas Throwback movie Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow (2004), along with a Practical Voiceover, to show that the robot attack on New York is part of a worldwide phenomenon. The short film version had the paper spin, the 2004 movie just had a pan across newspaper headlines from across the world.
- Used once in Tim Burton's Batman, when a Spinning Paper announces "BATMAN CRACKS JOKER'S POISON CODE!"
- Happens in the "The Meek Shall Inherit" number from the film version of the musical Little Shop of Horrors.
- In the film version of the musical Chicago, just as Roxie's verdict is about to be announced, a paper with the headline "Roxie Hart Innocent" is shown. It's also revealed that the newspapers printed up some "Roxie Hart Guilty" issues, just in case.
- Done humorously in the Shirley Maclaine film What A Way To Go, when successive spinning paper headlines of Variety become more and more tongue-twisting and ridiculous, some having every word start with the same letter.
- Occurs in the film Fatal Instinct.
Live Action TV
- Playing on this trope was an episode of Married With Children made during the baseball strike in 1994. One spinning headline reads something like, "Baseball Player Spinning Papers", before showing someone doing just that.
- Lois And Clark has spinning newspapers from across the world reacting to Superman's debut in the pilot. They do it again when he leaves Earth in the last episode of Season 3. On both occasions the trope is dealt with more or less straight... until the final paper is a supermarket tabloid with a ridiculous headline.
- In the Doctor Who 2008 episode The Unicorn and The Wasp, three newspaper front pages telling about Agatha Christie's disappearance are shown in this manner.
- Lampshaded to death in British children's comedy series Roger And The Rottentrolls. When a new Rottentroll Prime Minister is elected, the newspapers are nailed to a wall and Yockenthwaite is seen spinning them by hand.
- In an episode of Scrubs, the Janitor puts his newsletter The Janitorial on a stick and spins it to get this effect.
- Parodied in an episode of Facts of Life where Tootie fails her driving test.
- Parodied in a couple of sketches in The Kids In The Hall, one with headlines telling of teenager Bobby's below-average poetry and songwriting, and another with Simon & Hecubus ("Simon Eats Soup In A Fit Of Rage")
- Parodied in Police Squad! where a paper reading "Chump KO's Champ in Bar Fight" is followed immediately by another reading "Champ OK's Chump for Title Fight".
- Given this trope's popularity in old B Movies, it should come as no surprise that it shows up many times in various episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, often with a Proportional Article Importance joke about the new petitions against tax, as seen in the link above.
- Used as part of the autobiographical musical Bret and Jemaine perform in the final episode of Flight Of The Conchords - though, because it's a stage performance, they just turn down the lights and have a black-clad Dave slowly walk towards the front of the stage while twirling the paper.
Theater
- Shakespeare's Richard III summarizes an entire civil war with a series of messengers arriving at Richard's headquarters.
Video Games
- The first Destroy All Humans uses it straight at the end of each stage... if you can call the increasingly implausible cover-ups for the mayhem Crypto has committed "using it straight". You'll also see a Spinning Paper if Crypto gets killed, describing the cover-up used for the capture of his body.
- Shows up at intervals in Day Of The Tentacle; each new headline alludes to Purple Tentacle's progressing plan for world domination.
- Whenever a new feature is unlocked, you enter the playoffs, or you pitch a perfect game, this happens in Backyard Baseball.
Web Comics
- In Kevin And Kell, a newspaper with headlines discussing the destruction of Rabbit's Revenge and Danielle's death blows by on the wind at the graveyard.
Western Animation
- The paper at the top is from the Hey Arnold! ep "Married" during a Dream Sequence.
- In an episode of The Fairly OddParents they did a spinning paper, and then pulled out to show it in the middle of Timmy's room with Cosmo spinning it in midair. Wanda complains that she can't read it, so Cosmo proceedes to spin her along with the paper.
- This trope was used much earlier in "Foul Ball", where Chester, son of the worst Major League baseball player in history, suddenly becomes ridiculously good at the game (thanks to Timmy's wish). Cue not newspapers, but magazines with Chester's face plastered across them (and ending with a picture of Timmy on Pack Mule Monthly)
- Also spoofed on Robot Chicken, with a headline reading to the effect of "Spinning Paper Voted Lamest Cinematic Cliche."
- Parodied on The Simpsons; after being played straight with two newspapers announcing plot points, a third one bears the headline "Spinning Newspaper Injures Printer".
- Another is in a Couch Gag: "Couch Gag Thrills Nation".
- The Springfield Shopper announcing Homer's challenge to Gentleman Thief Malloy is stolen by Malloy as soon as it stops spinning.
- Done several times in the Transformers Animated episode "Three's A Crowd". when Dirt Boss and the Constructicons start taking over gas stations and oil refineries. It's rather obviously metaphorical, since this all seems to take place in a single day (unless the Autobots were spending all week trying to get Lugnut out of that hole). Also it's The Future, they may not even have newspapers.
- Parodied on The Oblongs with the first two having headlines about a "local hero woman" and the third one with a headline about the "unexplained newspaper spinning continuing."
- Played straight in Batman The Animated Series.
- The student election episode of Clone High has one of the best spinning paper gags. The main headline is the sensible and plot-relevant "New Polls In: JFK ahead", but below that is "New Poles In: Tetherball Club Ecstatic".
