Sometimes after a musical number, characters are just as spry as usual, but sometimes they aren't so lucky. This is when, after a musical number (or after that one character's part in a musical number), one or more of the characters appears tired.
They might just be a bit out of breath and go back to normal in a few moments, but they could also be genuinely sleepy and need to have a lie-down, and sometimes they straight up fall asleep.
This can be justified as some musical numbers involve dancing, which could be tiring for unfit characters and children, but sometimes the character is usually both old enough and active enough to dance a lot without getting tired, leading to Fridge Logic. However, another justification is that it's not the song that's tiring them out but rather the fact that it's nearly their bedtime, as seen often in kids' entertainment.
There are many reasons why writers might use this trope and most of them are Played for Laughs. Sometimes, it's just a gag, nothing more. Sometimes it's meant to invoke a sense of finality (i.e "Yes, the song really is over now!") because the character is too tired to continue, or maybe the character is tired because the dance moves or lyrics are hard to keep up with. The character might start to tire before the end and be really sleepy and/or fall asleep at the end, invoking a sense of challenge ("Can s/he do the whole thing without falling asleep?!"). Sometimes, however, the writers just couldn't think of another way to end the song.
Another variant is lullabies that work on the one singing the lullaby, which is usually played for laughs (especially when it doesn't work on the one being sung to) and often done with an incompetent mother, father, or babysitter. Another variation involving young children is when the song is sung by a toddler or a Brainy Baby and they end up tired because it's nap time. Sometimes the character starts singing slowly or works lyrics about tiredness into the song.
Can overlap with Go-to-Sleep Ending and is related to Musical World Hypotheses (because it proves that, yep, it really did happen, as opposed to being imaginary or a framing device).
Examples:
- In "The Updated Nations of the World
", an updated version of "Yakko's World" from Animaniacs, the song ends with the guy falling asleep on the floor. This is unlike the regular version, wherein Yakko didn't even appear tired.
- In Steven Universe: The Movie, Steven and Greg fuse into Steg while singing, though by the end of the number, Steven collapses to the ground, having nearly exhausted his powers.
- After the first big musical number in Trolls, everyone holds the pose while breathing heavily after all the acrobatics they just did. Poppy even sounds a little out of breath when she responds to Branch's comments.
- Descendants: After singing the impromptu song "Did I Mention?", Ben appears out-of-breath and sweaty. This is justified, given that he was quite literally, in-universe, singing and dancing on a sport's field, wearing a heavy jersey and padding, after a game no less.
- In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the "Time Warp" musical number ends with all the participants collapsing to the floor.
- In Singin' in the Rain, the "Good Morning" number ends with Cosmo, Kathy, and Don collapsing onto a sofa with mock-exhausted expressions.
- In The Adventures Of Uncle Lubin, Lubin is singing his nephew Peter to sleep but falls asleep himself.
- The Two Princesses of Bamarre: A variant gets Played for Drama. After declaiming the moment Drualt kills Yune, Meryl stops, tired. Addie notes the oddity, given that she usually recites until the story has finished and every question has been answered. Then Rhys tells Addie her sister is showing the first signs of the Gray Death.
- In The Muppets (2011), when Gary, Mary, and Walter leave Smalltown USA after the "Life's a Happy Song" number someone announces "They're gone!" and everyone just falls to the ground in relief and exhaustion.
- Sesame Street:
- At the end of the rendition of "All Together Now", the family falls asleep. However, the girl soon wakes up again.
- At one point, Grover sings a song about around, over, under, and through, and is puffed out and tired at the end.
- One song is about a guy named Mando (one of the many bilingual characters whose languages are English and Spanish) finding words in Spanish that rhyme with his name, but the last one is a word which he translates as "Mando needs to rest".
- The song "Take a Rest", which was about napping, ends with Bert, Cookie Monster, and Grover napping together.
- "My Furry Little Shadow" ends with Grover falling asleep and his shadow asking, "Where did my little friend go?" before falling asleep itself.
- Suzie Kabloozie falls asleep after singing "Every Kitty Sleeps".
- Ernie is sleepy at the end of "I Love My Toes" and goes back to bed. Justified because he woke up in the middle of the night to sing the song.
- One song about the number twenty involves the boy singing it going to bed at the end, however, it's not the song that made him tired so much as the fact that it was already bedtime.
- In the "Elmo's World" skit about building, a construction worker sings about her job, and then takes a nap. She then continues to sing the song in her sleep.
- At the end of "Siesta, Fiesta" (a song pointing out that the Spanish words for "nap" and "party" respectively rhyme despite the concepts being nearly opposite), Rosita takes her nap after singing the song because her mother told her to.
- In the Under the Umbrella Tree episode "Gloria Can't Sleep," Holly tries to help Gloria sleep by singing her a lullaby, but the song puts Holly to sleep instead.
- Yo Gabba Gabba!:
- The Gabba Kids at the end of the Super Music Friends Show in "Nature."
- Muno at the end of "Happy Thoughts" in "Sleep."
- In A Little Night Music, "Liaisons" concludes with Mme. Armfeldt actually falling asleep—in the middle of a word, no less.
- Evoked in Annie Get Your Gun when Annie mentions that every time she sings her younger siblings a lullaby, she's the one who falls asleep while they stay awake. She succeeds in singing them to sleep with "Moonshine Lullaby," though.
- In the Aladdin stage show that played at Disney California Adventure, the Magic Carpet would trudge out onstage after "Whole New World" and collapse while Genie posts a status update to Twitter ("Song is over and Carpet is tired"). Of course, as the Carpet is mute and can't sing, it has more to do with the fact that it just ferried Aladdin and Jasmine across the world on a really long road trip.
- In the Moshi Monsters song "Moptop Tweenybop", Blingo's verse ends with him declaring he's running out of breath and falling asleep.
- A variation in Alphablocks. E sings a song explaining about who he is and it ends with him collapsing due to being tired, however, the implication was that he wasn't tired from the song per se, but rather from being the most common letter in the alphabet.
- In Animaniacs, Yakko Warner sings the entire English dictionary. He's tired before the ending and nearly falls asleep at the end, but wakes up and says, "Zaire!", completing the song.
- In Central Park, Season 1 "Dog Spray Afternoon", at the end of "If There's a Will", Helen ends the song by repeating "way" several times, but she starts to lose her breath and then declares she's done.
- In the first episode of season 2 of Clone High, Scudworth sings a "We Didn't Start The Fire" style song to the assembled students, catching them up on everything that's happened since the show's original cancellation. After a six-hour time cut, Scudworth is sweating, disheveled and lets out a sigh after he finally finishes the song.
- Looney Tunes: In "Ducking the Devil", Daffy Duck lures the Tasmanian Devil back to the zoo by singing. As it's a long walk, Daffy gets progressively more tired as he goes along, and by the time he arrives, he's too hoarse to sing another note. Fortunately, he pulls out a mister to soothe his throat and sings the last note that gets Taz inside his cage.
- In the Martha Speaks theme song, Martha starts singing verbs ending in "-ates", but gets out of breath. She then perks up and adds "hyperventilates" to the list.
- Mira, Royal Detective: Mira was once in such a hurry she asked Mikku and Chikku to perform their transformation sequence faster than usual. Mikku and Chikku are tired at the end. Mira isn't.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: At the beginning of "Party of One", Pinkie Pie goes to each of her friends to sing them an invitation to a party she is throwing for Gummy. She gets more exhausted from singing with each friend, and she is completely worn out after finishing the song.
Pinkie Pie: Next time, I think I'll just pass out written invitations.
- The Rugrats episode "Accidents Happen" has the 'lullaby' variation: baby Dil wakes up in the night and cries, so his father, Stu, jokingly sings to him, "Rock-a-bye, Dilly, Daddy is here. Maybe I'll get some sleep in next year," and then instantly falls asleep.
- The Simpsons:
- The final segment of "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase", The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour, ends with a big musical number, at the end of which the Simpsons are panting heavily behind forced smiles.
- "Bart Sells His Soul" begins with Bart pulling a prank on the church by replacing the opening hymn with "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", the elderly organist manages to play the entire 17 minute song before passing out right after the final note.
- Sonic Underground: "Mobodoon" involves Sonic and family finding the town they were born in. They just finishing celebrating with their Once an Episode song when Robotnik's minions arrive. Since their musical instruments double as their weapons, the song ends up leaving the hedgehog's gear drained and leaving them at a disadvantage.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Band Geeks", Plankton is practicing his harmonica solo, but he’s so small he has to run back and forth until he’s exhausted and collapses on the floor.
- At the end of the titular song in "Best Day Ever," everyone has already left the theater while SpongeBob is still singing. Squidward is tired, but Mr. Krabs tells him to continue.
