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Either a brief crescendo stab of music used to enhance the drama of the current situation just before an Act Break (called a "dramatic sting" when used this way), or a brief comical stab on music to enhance a punchline at the end of a scene (most famously, the so-called " rimshot" — ba-dum-bum-ching). About 95% of TV shows use them.
"Sting 'em and sling 'em" is a phrase used to describe this kind of break. "Ok, we Rack Focus on the jilted bride, then sting 'em and sling 'em."
When used for a cheap shock, the sting becomes a Scare Chord.
A common version of lampshade hanging is when a character is shown to have ''heard'' the sound effect, it often crops up in the form of something like "Who keeps doing that?'' or "Ok, seriously. Knock it off." An even better lampshade, or perhaps an outright subversion, is when the characters themselves provide the sound effects—"Dun dun DAH!".
Compare Screamer Trailer. Do not confuse with the musician Sting.
Examples
Anime
Comic Books
- Before his Seven Soldiers reboot, Klarion the Witch-Boy demanded that people refer to him as "Klarion... bum bum BUM... the Witch-Boy". He even refused to help characters who did not insert the dramatic sting. (You should not be surprised that Peter David came up with this.)
Film
Live Action TV
- CSI loves using this one, with a crescendo of ominous music at the end of an act being chopped off dramatically by a Hard Cut to black.
- The most well-known dramatic sting is also on a Crime And Punishment show: Law And Order and its chung-chung.
- ...which was supposedly meant to evoke a steel cell-door closing dramatically, according to Word Of God
- ...Or possibly, depending on one's age, the most well-known dramtic sting is on yet another Crime And Punishment show: Dragnet and it's trademark four-note sting.
- Who Wants To Be A Millionaire enhances the drama with an excessive number of musical stings and light changes dropped into the middle of gameplay.
- Old-school Doctor Who, which made heavy use of multiple-episode storylines and episodes ending in cliffhangers, went through a period where every single episode ended with the same musical sting, which was written into the beginning of the music that ran over the closing credits. The 2005 series resurrected the sting, using it at the end of The Teaser and just before the closing credits.
- Similar to the Doctor Who example above, both East Enders and The Bill have had very distinctive "drumbeat" stings, which would punctuate the final scene of an episode at the point of a cliffhanger, and lead into the credits.
- The original series of Star Trek had stings worked into various motifs, which, like all of the music, were endlessly reused in different episodes.
- Lampshaded and parodied an episode of Roseanne. The family has to deal with taxes, and every time someone says the word "audit"—DUN DUN DAAAAAAH! The characters then look around to see where the sound came from.
- How the heck did we miss Scrubs? A loud noise during a showdown between Cox and Kelso turns out to be JD trying to break a coffee pot (stuck on his hand) against a metal pole.
- NCIS's foomp and change-to-grayscale effect.
- In The Whitest Kids U Know sketch "Opus", the character Rex Bosworth sings "BUM BUM BAAAAH!!" after he reveals what Freddy must do to free himself from Mt. Everest.
- Every episode of Lost will end with either this or a montage set to Source Music.
- The IT Crowd. "Mum, stop calling me at work!"
- 60 Minutes arguably has a sting of its own: the distinctive ticking of the Aristo stopwatch that appears to end every news story.
Video Games
- The Victory Fanfare after a battle in Final Fantasy games.
- The "Doo doo doo dooooo!" whenever you find an important item in the Legendof Zelda games.
- Wait: do you mean the trumpety "Doo dududu ''doooooo''!
 " fanfare or the up-down "dadadada-dadadada" chime when you accomplish something important?
- Neither, think of the phrase "You got the thiiiing!"
- Played with in The Phantom Hourglass: once when Link opens an empty treasure chest (the sting gets cut off), once when Link has just been vigorously shaken about by Linebeck (the sting is distorted) and once when Link receives a harmful item (the sting takes a grim tone).
- Used for the sake of obscure reference when Joey picks up a duel disk in episode 27 of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series.
- Evil Genius uses Stings to warn you anything that needs your immediate attention, such as an enemy agent breaking into your base or a super agent arriving into your base.
- The first, PSX Digimon game played a happy little sting whenever you convinced a new Digimon to come join the town. Subverted when the chime starts playing, but veers off into minor key like a breaking-down music box when Ogremon abruptly makes a Villain Exit Stage Left instead.
Web Comics
- In 8-Bit Theater, one of Red Mage's greatest (and most annoying) obsessions is to sing out a Sting for dramatic effect any time something major occurs.
- Elan from Order Of The Stick also did this a couple of times.
Web Original
- At the end of Ron's Disease, after Hagrid smacks Dumbledore with a cudgel with a resounding clang and otherwise no apparent effect on Dumbledore, Harry exclaims (to a sting), "OHMYGOD, he's an android!" Hagrid looks around in confusion, saying, "Wha-?" (to another sting). Dumbledore finally replies, "Yes, it's true, I am an android - a gay android." What follows is a rather original Lampshade Hanging of your typical Dun Dun DAAAH! sting, with the DAAH! lasting about five or six seconds.
Western Animation
Other
- Older Macintosh computers sometimes play a Sting (the “Chimes of Death”) when they fail a crucial hardware check on boot, with the notes of the ditty telling a savvy tech what's wrong even when video doesn't work.
- PCs are more boring, and use POST beep codes. In this case, if you hear anything other than a single beep, something very bad has happened.
- Anyone who actually hasn't turned off Windows sounds will hear sounds for all kinds of things, including the rather jarring sound made when the computer can't complete something.
- The Dramatic Prarie dog had no drama until the sting was provided. (Dun dun DUUUUUN.)
- The Drama button, for all of life's unnecessary drama.
- George Lopez uses a snippet of a mariachi song (don't know the tune) to represent Mexicans in some of his jokes. For example, he asks "Who do you think is controlling this state? Guess!" (play song)
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