Title Drop - Television Tropes & Idioms

S-CRY-ed originally had nothing to do with its title. The manga attempted a very awkward Title Drop, by making it the "word of evolution" that lets anyone who says it change their Alter into a stronger form.
At the end of the Gravitation OVA's, an executive asks Tohma (in English) what Bad Luck's appeal is. Take a wild guess what he says.
One Piece is named after the greatest treasure in the series, that also happens to be the ultimate goal of the main character. Obviously, it's referenced its share of times as a result of this, though not quite as often as one might expect.
Mai-HiME has Nagi address Mai as, well, Mai-hime (princess Mai: first meaning). But the meaning of this title is a lot more convoluted. HiME is itself an acronym used inside the series to describe girls with powers similar to Mai's (Mai the HiME: second meaning). And the anime just happens to share title with a famous novel by Mori Ogai called "Maihime" (Dancing Girl: third meaning), which is referenced by Nagi's constant metaphors alluding to dance. Add the fact that "mai" is homonymous with the English word "my" (My princess/My girl with HiME powers: fourth and fifth meanings), where My-HiME seems to be the accepted romanization, and you probably have the ultimate Title Drop.
- The English-subtitled version uses the "Mai-HiME" romanization until the end of episode 16, where the title is well and truly dropped.
Done when Mew Ichigo first names her group of sentai Magical Girl "Tokyo Mew Mew". Thereafter, they're usually referred to as "the Mew Mews" unless there's something very serious going on where they need to live up to their name.
Futari Wa Pretty Cure has a Title Drop in the girls' In The Name Of The Moon speech, as does Yes! Precure 5. Splash*Star does it a little differently: the speech simply uses "futari wa Pretty Cure", but the Eleventh Hour Superpower is called "Precure Spiral Heart Splash Star".
In Galaxy Angel: Eternal Lovers, Tact accepts that he has, for better or worse, become The Captain of the Moon Angels, and they're off to save the galaxy again... so they really shouldn't be named after the White Moon anymore. They then adopt the name "Galaxy Angels". However, they're back to "Moon Angels" by Galaxy Angel II. This makes sense, as they're now Older And Wiser and no longer the main heroines. Whether the Rune Angels will do a similar Title Drop in future games is yet to be seen.
In Serial Experiments Lain, every episode title is a single word, which invariably gets mentioned in a meaningful context in that same episode, although it doesn't necessarily mean what the viewers thought (for example, "Psyche" is a type of processor Lain installs in her Navi, and "KIDS" is the codename of an experiment conducted by a Mad Scientist years ago).
In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Lagann's most powerful form is called "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann". It's about the size of a galaxy.
- In addition, the title of every episode is also a line spoken by a character in that same episode—each story arc uses a line from a different character. Naturally, whenever the episode's title is spoken, it's a hugely dramatic moment. (Well, more so than usual.)
- Which made it kind of weird for the dub, which (at least for the broadcast version) may show the slightly altered version of the line used in the dub, or a different line in the episode, and episode guides may use the original, the dub version of the line, or a different line in the episode. For example, the original name and Title Drop of episode 6 was "You're Gonna Bathe Till You're Dizzy!", the episode said it was the dub version of the line "Sit in the Hot Tub 'Till You're Sick", and episode guides label it "All of You Bastards Put Us In Hot Water!". This is confusing. Additionally, it's released as simply Gurren Lagann, technically making the series Title Drop the third episode. This also renders the series Title Drop a half non-sequitir to someone that didn't know the series original name, as they kept it untranslated.
  - Another minus for the dub: in the original, the TTGL name is stated outright, twice even (once after the mech's formation, and the second time during Simon's World Of Cardboard Speech). The dub editted both instances, changing the words instead.
Mahoromatic's second series, Something More Beautiful, drops its title during a climactic battle with The Mole.
The series Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex sounds like a confusing title, but does make sense in the context of the show. The first part comes from the movie, which dealt with the meaning and nature of the human soul (or "ghost") when artificial intelligences could convincingly simulate human thought and most humans were at least partially cybernetic. The second part refers to the occurrences where several people with cyberbrains come together to perform some action like a flash mob, but there doesn't seem to be a leader or even someone who originally came up with the idea, much less communication between these people beforehand. To add an additional layer, episodes were labeled as either "Stand Alone" or "Complex", depending on whether they related to that season's arc.
Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (When the Cicadas Cry) applies in one of the chapters. Keiichi says it when he plans to kill Satoko's uncle.
- A number of Image Songs and OP/EDs for the series also count. "Higurashi ga naku" appears in the first opening (which is named for the series) as well as a few other places, and "Higurashi no naku koro ni" is in a version of "Dear you" as well as in one of Rika's image songs.
- The recent anime adaptation of Umineko No Naku Koro Ni (When the Gulls Cry) has pulled this with Battler in one of its episodes.
  - The original Umineko no Naku Koro ni visual novel uses this phrase several times; it generally refers to the end of the story, when the storm will subside, causing the seagulls to return to the island, so the people can hear the seagulls cry again.
    "......That's right. ...When the police come...When the seagulls cry, the crime will be solved."
    "......Once the typhoon has passed, when the seagulls cry, everything may be resolved."
    "I see. ......We'll definitely be able to understand each other. ......When the seagulls cry."
    "...That's right, when the seagulls cry. ......I will remain silent until then."
    "When the seagulls cry, nobody will be left alive..."
    ".........When the seagulls cry, everything will end, I guess. Done, done, the end, the end. So refreshing."
Spice And Wolf gets its Title Drop from an onlooker at the end of the sixth episode, with Lawrence meeting back up with Horo after requesting the spice pepper as payment from a business arrangement and having a fable about a devil eating a spice merchant related to him.
In Kanon, the title comes from Pachelbel's "Canon" ("Kanon D-dur" being its original German name), which is played in the coffee shop. It isn't until the middle of the series that two characters engage a metaphor-laden dialogue referring to it, embodying the themes of the series.
An example of the second type: Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun ("My condolences, Ninomiya-kun"), ends with the show's title as the final spoken line by Hosaka as he overlooks another normal, chaotic morning with the many women surrounding Shungo Ninomiya.
Gasaraki mentions the "Gasara" quite early on, but "Gasaraki" doesn't get mentioned until halfway through the series. The two are related, though.
Near the end of the first volume of Berserk, Puck looks on the carnage left behind by Guts's battle with the Snake Baron and whispers in shock, "...berserk..."
It's become something of a trend in Gundam to name a series after the Mid Season Upgrade Gundam rather than the one the protagonist starts out with. This goes back all the way to Zeta Gundam, where the title mech wasn't even built until about twenty episodes in and the main character started out with what basically amounted to a souped-up version of the original Gundam, but the trend has become more pronounced in recent years.
- G Gundam: The God Gundam doesn't show up until the beginning of the Gundam Fight finals. In the dub, it was renamed "Burning Gundam", which leaves the title unexplained.
- In After War Gundam X, aside from being named for the title mech, each individual episode was taken from a character's dialog that episode.
- Gundam SEED Destiny: The Destiny Gundam comes along when the series is more than half over.
- Gundam 00's titular robot didn't even make an appearance until the very last episode of the first season. And even then we had to wait until episode 2 of the second to actually see it in combat.
- An odd example occurs in the Gundam SEED side story manga X-Astray, where the main Gundam is orginally called the Dreadnought, but is rechristened the X-Astray after it's equipped with a back-mounted remote weapon system shaped like an X.
- Gundam Wing avoid this. The titular mech is the Gundam the protagonist starts with.
  - A more conventional Title Drop occurs in the movie, Endless Waltz, where one of the villains describes human history as such.
The Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh! drops the name, the Toei version a few episodes in while "Duel Monsters" has this in its opening monologue. "Yu-Gi-Oh" means "King of Games".
In volume six of Hayate No Gotoku, Hayate finally develops a Finishing Move. The name of this move? The "Hayate no Gotoku", however, it's written as "Whimsical Hurricane", and not "Hayate The Combat Butler".
- That is literally what the title means: Just Like the Wind.
- In the ImageSongs of the second season, each character has exactly one Image Song with "Hayate no Gotoku" in the lyrics.
Dennou Coil doesn't even mention the titular Dennou Coil phenomenon until episode 20.
It's not an episode of Toward The Terra unless there's a Title Drop at least once. Usually at the end of a dramatic speech.
FLCL (Subverted) — The title of the series, though it comes up frequently, has almost no meaning in the grand scheme of things. Or even in the short-term...
Kamon: Ah, your brother's away, so she sinking her fangs into you, Naota! Fondling around! Fooling around! FOOLY-COOLY!! ...What's fooly-cooly?
Naota: How should I know? I'm still in grade school!
Full Metal Alchemist is the Code Name of Ed, who has a prosthetic arm and leg made entirely out of metal. His brother Al is an animated suit of armor, which causes people who haven't met the duo to think Al is the "Full Metal Alchemist". The Japanese metaphor of the "heart of steel" (Edward being, in Japanese, the "alchemist of steel") also refers to the brothers' dogged determination.
Sora Wo Kakeru Shoujo wastes no time. It drops its own title at the end of the first episode.
The "Reservoir" in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles was explained in chapter 213... Six years after the start of the series. It refers to the water reservoir under the Clow Ruins, which is apparently the fulcrum for the Big Bad's Xanatos Roulette. The "Tsubasa" part isn't revealed until the very last chapter and in hindsight is at least half glaringly obvious to almost every fan.
Briefly in Mahou Sensei Negima, the Nakama (who ultimately became the Ala Alba) after gathering and building their team and many arguments on a name, chose to be called the Negima-club. Evangeline (the club advisor) disliked the name and re-named them the aformented Ala Alba (white wing) after the lead's father's old group, the Ala Rubra (Crimson/Red wing). Outside of Eva's earshot they still prefer calling themself the Negima club.
During the first volume of the manga Vagabond, Takezo (soon to become the famous samurai Miyamoto Musashi) declares "I left home knowing I'd never go back. From this day on... I'm a Vagabond."
Bokurano had one in Chapter 55, although the impact was Lost In Translation if you read it in any language that doesn't have multiple ways to say "I".
The very last words spoken in Welcome To The NHK are... "Welcome to the NHK." That's also the title of the last episode.
In (at least the dub of) Dinosaur King, the title is refers the title Dr. Z plans to bestow on himself one he brings as many dinosaurs into the future as possible in order to build a "dinosaur kingdom".
In the finale of Slayers Evolution-R, Xelloss calls Lina and her group by the series title.
Paranoia Agent never drops its own title, but every episode has its title appear in some way during the episode proper. The last episode's title appears on a sign that is promptly destroyed by the final form of Shonen Bat.
In Ninja Nonsense, when Miyabi first arrives, she tells Shinobu to "Stop this..." and you know the rest.
Shakugan No Shana does this in an interesting way: Shana is the female lead, and "shakugan" (burning eyes) is part of her title, "Enpatsu Shakugan no Uchite," but they aren't used together until episode 23, in reference to her dual identity as a person and a Flame Haze.
In Descendants of Darkness, Muraki, during one of his Tsuzuki-torture moments, says to him that they are the same in that they are both - you guessed it - "descendants of darkness."
After looking quite non-sensical for some time, the Oddly Named Suffixes of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's and StrikerS were eventually title dropped by Fate at the end of the latter's ninth episode, telling the young rookies that they are the titles of two kinds of excellent mages. In case you wondered why "A's" was pronounced like "Ace", that's what it's supposed to mean.
Fushigi Yuugi's theme song is entitled "Itooshi Hito no Tame Ni". Its last episode is called "For My Loved One", the English translation of the song's title.
Revolutionary Girl Utena does this with its final episode, in which the title of the episode is also the last line of dialog in the series.
The protagonist of Shangri-La drops the title as the very last word of the series.
In almost every manga by Misturu Adachi, every chapter is titled after a phrase that is said within that chapter. This is, however, a chapter title drop and not a series title drop.
In Code Geass Nightmare of Nunnally, After Alice takes on the Mark Nemo and becomes Nunnally's Knight, she becomes known as "Alice the Code Geass, Knightmare of Nunnally." Rolo shouts this title after she uses the Flame of God and escapes with Nunnally.
- While not quite as overt, in the main series the title is dropped in as Lelouch briefly mentions both of them in a monologue of his. Some people also believe he eventually obtained a Code in addition to his Geass by the end of the show.
In the English dub of Digimon Adventure, the Digimon introduce themselves with "We're Digimon! Digital Monsters!", referencing the text on the show's logo.
- In the Japanese version of Digimon Tamers there are constant Title Drops (since the title is a term used for the children who have Digimon partners), but the one that stuck was the official flag of the team with "Digimon Tamers" written on it.
The title of Project ARMS refers to an experiment in which ARMS are installed in four children. Double meaning in ARMS also (while two of the children recieved their implants in their arms, ARMS is used in the sense of "weapon")
While the main lead of Angel Densetsu is the titular angel, Leo thinks he's the devil incarnate. And shortly after says to Ikuno that she is an angel (and she even gets an angel cover like Kitano usually does). Could be either spoofed or played straight: this is after both the Heel Face Turn and the Villain Realization of Ikuno, but she's still Ax Crazy like nobody's business.

Close Anime

Parodied by the Upright Citizens Brigade, when a man tells a video store clerk that he had the title line in Star Wars. The man claims that, in a scene that was cut in the final release, he wanders into the Millennium Falcon for no good reason, says, "I'm just so tired of all these star wars," and walks out.
- Mad Magazine's parody of the first film opened with a character in the midst of a space battle saying "Boy, this movie sure is noisy! Maybe that's why they called it-" splash opening title: STAR ROARS.
Parodied hilariously in the (fake) Pac Man trailer.
Police Officer: It seems to be some kind of man... some kind of Pac Man.

Close Comedy

Three of the Sin City books' ("A Dame to Kill For," "The Big Fat Kill," and "That Yellow Bastard") titles occur in either dialogue or narration. The film adaptation also works in the first story's retroactive title, "The Hard Goodbye,".
In DC Comics' new weekly series Trinity, every story (there's two per issue) is named for a snippet of dialogue.
- Since "Trinity", while it refers to the main characters, isn't an official team name, does its repeated use qualify as well?
Marvel Adventures: Iron Man # 6 has the phrase "Destructive Reentry" used twice. It's a Meaningful Title, considering the issue.
The first big Spider Man event of the Brand New Day era made sneaky use of this trope. It had what sounded like a pretty typical comic title until Norman Osborn dropped it in-story:
Osborn: For every life you save... there's a million new ways to die.
Issue 24 of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead has the best one. It gets a double-page spread to itself, and then another page when it's repeated.
Rick: It's obvious now that I'm the only sane one here! We already are savages, Tyreese. You especially! The second we put a bullet in the head of one of these undead monsters— the moment one of us drives a hammer into one of their faces— or cut a head off. We become what we are! And that's just it. That's what this comes down to. You people don't know what we are. We're surrounded by the dead. We're among them— and when we finally give up we become them! We're living on borrowed time here. Every minute of our life is minute we steal from them! You see them out there. You know that when we die— we become them. You think we hide behind walls to protect us from the walking dead! Don't you get it!?
Rick: We are the walking dead!
Rick: We are the walking dead.
Birds Of Prey doesn't get a Title Drop until issue #86, when Lady Blackhawk suggests that it might be a fitting name for the team.
Watchmen almost does this with the phrase "Who Watches the Watchmen?" but the graffitti is never shown completely.
- In The Movie, "Watchmen" is the name of the alliance. However, the Graffiti still remains.
- Ozymandias mentions that JFK had part of a speech he intended to give in Dallas that read "We in this country, in this generation, are by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom." Unfortunately, he was assassinated (possibly by the Comedian), by those Ozymandias described as on "the walls of world tyranny," before he could deliver it.

Close Comic Books

John Freeman got on his motorcycle and said "its time for me to live up to my family name and face full life consequences"

Close Fan Fiction

Near the end of Layer Cake, a major character who's struggled to the top explains how life works to the protagonist. He sums it up with a Title Drop. The main character is then seen having dinner with his friends and deciding he doesn't want to be part of organized crime anymore. Guess what they're eating.
Similarly, at the end of To Sir With Love, "Sir" (Sidney Poitier) gets a coffee cup tagged "To Sir With Love" from the class of former delinquents he taught.
- It's also a song!
In Once Were Warriors, a Title Drop occurs at the end of the film in an exchange between Beth and Jake:
Beth: Our people once were warriors.But unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit.If my spirit can survive living with you for 18 years, Then I can survive anything.'''
Done interestingly in You Can Count On Me: at the end, the lead character's brother asks her to remember what they used to tell each other back when they were kids. This was the title sentence, but neither one of them actually says it.
A number of times in the James Bond films (excluding the ones named after a significant character or object):
- From Russia With Love
- Thunderball — it's the name of the operation to retrieve the missing nuclear weapons.
- "You Only Live Twice, Mr. Bond."
- On Her Majestys Secret Service (though the "On" is never used)
- Live And Let Die — It's stated by Bond and appears in a Name That Tune scenario.
- For Your Eyes Only — it's what Melina Havelock says before removing her dressing gown.
- A View To A Kill — May Day and Zorin, looking at San Francisco:
  May Day: What a view!
  Zorin: To a kill.
- "It must have scared The Living Daylights out of her" — Uttered by Bond after he shoots a rifle out of Kara Milovy's hands.
  - The same sentence was said verbatim by Bond in the novella, under exactly the same circumstances.
- The World Is Not Enough— Uttered by Bond when he confronts Elektra King:
  Elektra: I could have given you the world.
  Bond: The world is not enough.
  Elektra: Foolish sentiment.
  Bond: Family motto.
- The Casino Royale is the casino where the tournament is held.
- "So you live to Die Another Day...Colonel."
- Accidentally averted in Tomorrow Never Dies; originally it was titled Tomorrow Never Lies, with the intent that this would be the slogan of Carver's newspaper, Tomorrow.
  - They pulled it in the video game version, however. As he's dying, Carver pushes the three minute countdown for the nuclear launch and drops it horribly out of place.
- Though "Nobody Does It Better" is the name of the Theme Tune from The Spy Who Loved Me, it still drops the movie's title.
  - But does it so classy: I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me, it tried to hide from your love light, but like heaven above me. The spy who loved me, is keepin' all my secrets safe tonight.
Each of the movies in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy feature a Title Drop, mostly to stem the confusion about what they refer to. In the first movie, Elrond proclaims "You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring!" In the second movie, Saruman says "Who now dares to stand against the union of the two towers?" In the third movie, Gandalf says to Denethor "It is not your place to deny the return of the King, steward!"
- The second is a touch of Adaptation Decay, as while the meanings of the first and third titles were already pretty clear, the books never came out and said which of the three towers that figured decisively in The Two Towers were the titular ones. The movie line refers to Saruman's tower, Orthanc, and Sauron's fortress of Barad-dur. Supplementary information show that one of the two towers referred to is one that isn't in the film, so it wouldn't make otherwise.
  - If you do the figuring, there are four combinations of towers that make sense: Orthanc and Barad-Dur, Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, Orthanc and Minas Morgul, and Orthanc and the Hornburg. Keeping in mind that Minas Tirith had very little to do with the second volume, we can rule out the second combination.
- Peter Jackson also had a habit of dropping chapter titles into The Fellowship of the Ring, although having characters refer to "A long awaited party" and "A shortcut to mushrooms" was more in-jokey than portentous. Composer Howard Shore got in on the act in the titles of some of the pieces of the score he wrote.
  - Bilbo's line "I'm not at home!" may refer to the chapter Not at Home from The Hobbit.
- Also: "There is only one Lord of the Ring and he does not share power!"
The movie Chinatown is infamous for having nothing to do with Chinatown except for one offhand and cryptic reference, which, while obviously important, appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
Manos The Hands Of Fate: The Master says
Manos! God of primal darkness! As thou hast decreed, so have I done. The hands of fate have doomed this man. Thy will is done!
I Know Who Killed Me had a really bad drop, since it didn't even make sense in the context of the scene (hint: she wasn't killed).
- Then again, does any of I Know Who Killed Me make sense?
  - Apart from Lindsay Lohan playing a stripper?
Averted in the 2007 Transformers: while the titular robot factions (Autobots/Decepticons) are mentioned all the time, the word "Transformer" is only used to describe an electric device.
- An exact Title Drop was also absent from the second, as while The Fallen was referred to, and he is mentioned as seeking revenge, both are not mentioned in the same sentence. (although he says "Revenge... is... mine!")
- Thats pretty par for the course, save for Beast Wars. Most series may attempt a drop of the series' Catch Phrases: "More Than Meets The Eye" (Which this movie does) or "Robots in Disguise".
The Black Cat had nothing to do with its title, so a black cat walks through some scenes, just to make some sense of it.
The title of Full Metal Jacket is mentioned by Leonard Lawrence when describing some live ammunition before he uses it to kill his drill instructor and himself.
To some degree: "I have had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' plane!"
- It's a kind of chicken-and-egg story: Snakes On A Plane was the working title when the movie was in production, then it was going to be changed to something less colorful. When Samuel L Jackson heard this, he informed the producers that the title was the reason he signed on in the first place. So the movie embraced the feeling, and re-shot certain scenes for an R rating. So the title secured the star, who kept the title, which caused reshoots, which led to the Title Drop.
The title of the movie Kiss of the Dragon refers to the special forbidden technique that Jet Li uses to kill the Big Bad.
A threefer occurs in The Rundown, which Title Drops the title ("Your kid was a tough rundown, Billy"), the working title (sign reading "El Dorado" vandalized ot read "Helldorado") and an alternate title ("Welcome to the Jungle, tough guy").
The movie Dead Birds tries to pull a non-verbal version of these. The only scene where a dead bird ever appears — and yes, it's only one — has a dramatic sound in the background, and equally dramatic camera zooming on the only one dead bird that's never mentioned again. The result is that it simply feels ridiculous.
Failed in Plan Nine From Outer Space: Criswell says "My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?" Grave Robbers From Outer Space was the original title, but the backers of the movie had it changed.
- The producers who changed the title of Bride of the Atom to Bride of the Monster ruined another Ed Wood Title Drop.
In the giant mutant ant flick Them!, the title is what a traumatized young girl screams when given a whiff of formic acid.
The latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight, has a Title Drop as the last line spoken. Also, Harvey Dent says at a press conference, "The night is darkest just before the dawn", and though that's more referencing one of the themes of the film, it's a clever way of doing it by dropping the syllables of the title.
The Last King of Scotland performs a Title Drop in one of Amin's speeches. This is because one of the titles Amin gave himself was "The Last King of Scotland" (the others being "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular").
The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter has Bastian's late mom's last words be a Title Drop of sorts. Proof.
The Babylon 5 made-for-TV prequel movie seems appropriately titled In the Beginning, taking place a decade before the series. The movie fleshes out the Earth-Minbari War and how the Minbari, with vast technological superiority, very nearly wiped out the human race with only a single military loss. Near the end, Delenn asks another of the Minbari ruling body if there is any glory in genocide. The reply is, "Not as much as in the beginning."
Give My Regards To Broad Street drops its title twice, during flashbacks to the same moment. It takes the second flashback for us to learn, and for the protagonist to realize, its significance.
"Next Saturday night, we're sending you Back To The Future!"
- "No! It can't be; I just sent you Back To The Future! "
  - "Hey, Doc! Where you goin' now? Back To The Future? "
"We got a ''Black Hawk Down."
- Also a case of circumstances forcing the Title Drop: most radio conversations, including the "We got a Blackhawk down" line, were taken verbatim from the radio conversations that occurred during the operation. The book author named the book after said line, then the movie came out and used the same title.
Towards the end of Free Willy, the Kid Hero says "Let's free Willy!"
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The title is a line from an Alexander Pope poem, which Kirsten Dunst recites at one point.
Melvin Udall says to a room of psychiatric patients: "What if this is As Good As It Gets?"
The working title of The Toxic Avenger was "The Monster Hero", so that phrase shows up repeatedly. As it stands, the trope is averted - nobody uses the phrase "Toxic Avenger".
"He could have Total Recall within the hour!"
Done in the most Anvilicious manner in High School Musical 3: Senior Year: not only is the title of the Show Within A Show "Senior Year", but our protagonists end the show by singing a goodbye-to-the-audience song as the Title Drops down in front of the screen (in the style of the first movie's poster). And just to make sure that we know what kind of "high school musical" they're on about, they jump up, again like the first movie's poster.
At the end of the 2008 film Doubt the Head Nun, having just ousted the priest she suspected of molesting a child, breaks down in front of another nun sobbing "I have doubts! I have such doubts!".
The end of We Were Soldiers has a war photographer narrating "..for we were soldiers once, and young". This is directly lifted from the historical novel "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young", which ends the exact same way.
Inland Empire does include a conversation in which the title is mentioned. As it is a David Lynch film it is difficult to say what meaning, if any, the conversation is meant to lend.
"Maybe that's what hell is. An eternity In fucking Bruges."
"We who watch, are we... The Condemned?"
- Also Narm. Oh god, so much Narm.
"But I believe that Love, Actually, is all around us."
The climax of I Love You, Man.
In Splendor in the Grass, the Wordsworth poem where the title is coming from is discussed at an English class.
Some Like It Hot:
"Junior": Syncopators. Does that mean you play that very fast music... jazz?
Sugar: Yeah. Real hot.
"Junior": I guess some like it hot. I personally prefer classical music.
The Name Of The Rose as the most subtle Title Drop ever:
Adso: And yet, now that I am an old, old man, I must confess that of all the faces that appear to me out of the past, the one I see most clearly is that of the girl of whom I've never ceased to dream these many long years. She was the only earthly love in my life, yet I never knew, nor ever learned, her name.
- The book's Title Drop is also intentionally opaque, showing up only in an untranslated Latin epitaph in the last line in the novel: Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. Which translates roughly to "the ancient rose continues to exist through its name, yet its name is all that remains to us." A line that touches on several of the book's themes.
A particularly brilliant title drop occurs in the Anthony Perkins / Stephen Sondheim-penned murder mystery The Last of Sheila. Seemingly referring to the puzzle-happy Clinton Green's obsession with his wife who was killed in a hit-and-run accident ("I wonder if we'll ever hear the last of Sheila?" says one character), the title is actually a clue to a puzzle set up near the beginning of the play, which ultimately reveals Clinton's murderer: Each of the six guests / suspects are given 'dirty secrets' that actually are the secrets of one of their fellow guests. Each secret corresponds to a letter in the word "Sheila"; the murderer is uncovered when one guest acting as detective cracks the puzzle and realises that the murderer replaced the final secret, "Alcoholic", with "Hit and Run Killer", in order to guilt someone into confessing their accidental killing of Sheila. As the detective points out, "the last of Sheila isn't an H, it's an A."
Lucky Number Slevin, during The Reveal.
Mystery Men has a Title Drop in the final scene, which the heroes hilariously do not accept as an Appropriated Appellation.
Reporter: Well, whatever you call them, Champion City will forever owe a debt of gratitude to these mystery men.
The Sphinx: Wait! Wait, that's it. We are... the Super Squad!
Too many musicals to list have title songs, but the movie version of The Pajama Game deserves credit for having the title card appear word by word as Hines sings, "The Pajama Game is the game I'm in..."
Gone Baby Gone:
And if that girl's only hope is you, well I pray for her. 'Cause she's gone, baby. Gone.
Independence Day had a Title Drop at the end of the President's Rousing Speech.
At the beginning of the first Lethal Weapon "Well, I guess you should be classified as a Lethal Weapon", Murtaugh says to Riggs.
The Naked City (1948): "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
- Also used for the subsequent TV series.
When André Baptiste calls Orlov the Lord Of War. He does it again later, when he is persudading Orlov to take up the arms trading business again.
Clear And Present Danger: The President uses a Title Drop, in contrast to his earlier, more vague Spy Speak, to initiate an illegal war against the drug cartels.
- Generally speaking, the President of the United States can name any person or group a "clear and present danger" to the safety and security of the USA. This is roughly equivalent to a Mafia don saying that he dislikes someone immensely: don't expect said person to last very long.
Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun, spoken by Hercule Poirot. Don't remember if it was in the original book.
Black Rain
"What was his name? The, uh, departed."
In Ocean's 12, someone refers to the team as "Ocean's 11", the name of the previous movie. One of the characters later complains about this.
In Nil By Mouth, Ray gives a speech about his father that goes some way toward explaining his behaviour. During it, he mentions an incident in which he saw the words 'Nil By Mouth' written above his father's hospital bed.
In the film Go, the word "go" is something of an arc word, being used with particular emphasis several times. It varies in meaning from "run away" to "ejaculate."
In Paul Greengrass's film Bloody Sunday, the local cinema's billboard advertises a showing of John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday. Ironically, Schlesinger's film is about a bisexual love triangle and has nothing to do with Greengrasses's film or the historical events upon which it is based.
Corpse Bride contains a number of title drops, as most of the inhabitants of the underworld refer to Emily as either "the bride" or "our corpse bride." Victoria, the living bride, also uses it once when speaking to the minister.
Victoria: Victor is married to dead woman. He has a corpse bride!
This happens in Law Abiding Citizen.
In the closing scene of A Bridge Too Far, Lieutenant General Frederick Browning sums up the main strategic blunder of Operation Market Garden in this manner.
Lt. Gen. Browning: Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far.
Kingdom Of Heaven deserves some credit for making its title drop fit in naturally with a larger conversation about what it is that makes the Holy Land so appealing to many pilgrims.
Balian: What could a king ask of a man like me?
Godfrey: A new world. A better world than has ever been seen. A kingdom of conscience. A kingdom of heaven.

Close Film

To Kill A Mockingbird: Heard in a tale Atticus relates over dinner. If it weren't for the use of the Title Drop, his tale would seem unimportant at the time, but it turns out to be a metaphor for one of the major themes.
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof: Maggie uses the phrase to describe her life.
The title of each Harry Potter book takes the form Harry Potter and the X, where X is something the reader hasn't yet encountered, but usually finds out about within the first few chapters. (The exception is the final book — not till over halfway through do we find out what the title means.) Books six and seven use Title Drops at the end of chapters, creating suspense: we know immediately that Harry is dealing with something very important. Of course, he doesn't know this.
- The one exception is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While Sirius and Azkaban are mentioned repeatedly, the title is not repeated word for word. Also, Azkaban had been mentioned in the previous book.
  - And, strictly speaking, there isn't a Prisoner of Azkaban in that book - the whole point is that Sirius is no longer a prisoner at Azkaban, he's out making a nuisance of himself.
- Of course, the identity of the Half-Blood Prince isn't actually important to the plot.
The last five words of the novel The Silence of the Lambs are "the silence of the lambs," in reference to an intense conversation Clarice had earlier on with Lecter about witnessing lambs being slaughtered as a child. In the movie, the conversation appears virtually unchanged, but the words "the silence of the lambs" never specifically come up, leaving some audiences quite confused about what, exactly, the title meant.Lecter does, however, say "Have the lambs stopped screaming?" to Clarice at one point.
Every version of Stephen King's The Dead Zone has featured the phrase "the dead zone." However, oddly enough each version ascribes the phrase a different meaning. In the original novel it referred to parts of Johnny's brain which had died during his coma, which became important when he had a crucial vision of the future — some elements of which he couldn't make out because they were in "the dead zone." In the movie, Johnny explained to another character that his visions of the future were different from his visions of the past or present, in that they had a "dead zone" — his way of describing a sense that the events weren't solid or fixed, but could be prevented. In the TV series, Johnny's powers stem from the fact that his brain was badly enough damaged during the coma that certain mental functions were re-routed through an area which had up until then been dormant — a "dead zone."
The Pendragon Adventure gets a lot of usage out of this trope, with the title usually relating to the turning point of the territory that has to be saved. It begins in the very first book, The Merchant of Death. Eccentric tradesman Figgis reveals himself to be selling tak, a deadly explosive. The Milago people are constructing it into a bomb as part of La Resistance. Cue Title Drop.
In Brave New World, John the Savage replies to Bernard's invitation for him to come and live in the "civilized" world by quoting Miranda's words from the final scene of Shakespeare's Tempest, pausing when he comes to the Title Drop.
- He later recites the same words (and Title Drop) as an Ironic Echo, after his disillusionment with the values of said "civilized" world.
The book I Am Legend has a very good Title Drop as the very last line. The Movie on the other hand changes the ending completely and thus forces in a very inelegant Title Drop at the very end that doesn't even make grammatical sense (ironically Executive Meddling made them change the ending from something that was similar to the book, but had no such Title Drop).
In both of Paul Robinson's books In the Matter of: The Gatekeeper: The Gate Contracts and In the Matter of: Instrument Of God, each chapter's title comes from a line of dialog used in that chapter.
It takes some time for The Catcher In The Rye to mention the proverbial catcher in the rye.
Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis, waits until the final chapter to mention the title, making its meaning clear by context.
Atlas Shrugged has a paraphrase of its title about halfway through, at the climax to one of the many Author Filibusters.
An interesting (and awesome) variation: The Star Wars Expanded Universe delivers a Title Drop for one of the films in one of the books, when Admiral Pellaeon says: "Although you may win the occasional battle against us, Vorrik, the Empire will always strike back."
A Song Of Ice And Fire, both with the series name (though not until the second book) and the individual books A Game of Thrones and A Feast for Crows.
- Note that while the title has been briefly mentioned, as of book four it is still not known what it actually is, though a popular theory has been pieced together from context and evidence. Rhaegar Targaryen believed that "the song of ice and fire" was something to do with the Prince Who Was Promised. At first, he thought that the Prince was his son Aegon, but later concluded that he'd been mistaken. This is what led him to seduce Lyanna Stark (Targaryen = fire, Stark = ice), presumably in the hope of fathering a Stark/Targaryen child who would be the Prince Who Was Promised. Since the role of the Prince Who Was Promised is to fight the Others, the titular song is the cyclical/prophetic saga of a hero battling against the Others to save mankind.
The Avi book "Sometimes I think I Hear My Name" uses itself as the last line spoken.
House Of Leaves is the title of a book Navidson brings with him on a journey into the labyrinth. It also occurs in one of the supplementary appendices which are connected with the main narrative, as part of a poem.
The phrase "only revolutions of ruin" appears in Only Revolutions, in both Sam and Hailey's stories, towards the end of the book, as both are vowing to destroy everything because the other one has died.
Title Drops occur in many, if not all Discworld books. "The Colour of Magic", "The Light Fantastic", "Night Watch", "Thief of Time" and "Thud" is even of the sort that the true title reference is explained later as having been different from the assumed reference, due to the cover (at least on the American printings).
Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series takes each of its titles from the text of the book, usually from dialog between characters but occasionally from description; there is also quite often an excerpt from the Prophecies of the Dragon at the beginning or end of the book that does a Title Drop. The individual chapters within the books follow the same trend, though more loosely, often referring to an event or location which is not described in the exact phrasing as the chapter title. The ninth book, Winter's Heart, is in many ways a crux to the entire series, and this is foreshadowed in that the title phrase appears somewhere in almost every book in the series.
The title of All Quiet On The Western Front appears on the last page. It's the official report of combat status on the day the narrator dies.
The last two words of every Sharpe book except the last two are the title, which often requires some slightly clumsy prose.
Happens in every single book of the Sword Of Truth series, except for Soul of the Fire (a title which, incidentally, can't really refer to anything in the book. There is a fire spirit, but it's explicitly described as not having a soul). Variation in that the Blood of the Fold of the third book were first mentioned in the second, and the last title, Confessor, as it's the title of one of the main characters, had been in common usage in the books since the first one.
"They seemed to be staring at the dark, but Their Eyes Were Watching God."
The first book in the Left Behind series gives a Title Drop in advance, as the characters excitedly discuss the formation of a "Tribulation Force".
Lord Of The Flies by William Golding at the end of chapter 8 A gift for darkness, Simon speaks to a "pig's head on a stick" who is referred to by the narrator as "The lord of the flies" when it speaks to Simon.
About halfway through Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Meyer Landsman starts using the card of the titular organization in place of his revoked police badge while investigating a murder, prompting most people to ask, "What the hell is the Yiddish Policemen's Union?"
Dan Abnett carefully drops titles in most of his Warhammer 40000 novels. Notably, the Gaunt's Ghosts series and the Eisenhorn books.
A Scanner Darkly has this line: "Does a passive infrared scanner... see into me-—into us-—clearly or darkly?"
A great one happens in the short novel/novella They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, where the title is used in the last chapter as an explanation for why the main character shot his depressed girlfriend who couldn't kill herself—he had to put her out of her misery. (Don't worry, not a spoiler, it's the first thing in the book.)
The Crying of Lot 49 plays with this. The title is the final line of text, and deliberately makes absolutely no sense until then. It turns out that the 49th lot (property) at an auction is maybe relevent to the mystery, and Oedipa is waiting for that lot to be cried (sold). The book ends just before the crying starts, because Thomas Pynchon likes doing that sort of thing, so we never find out what happens.
Iain Banks does this at times in his The Culture series, probably most notably in Use of Weapons, and also in Look to Windward and Matter.
Jennifer Government (though you can see it coming from the beginning of the chapter, lessening the impact).
I Am The Cheese: The title drop is the first person narrator's comment on the last line ("The cheese stands alone") of the Ironic Nursery Tune he has been humming to himself throughout the novel.
From the moment King Solomon starts referring to the Hand Of Mercy, it's clear that Helen and Clem aren't just reassembling some old angel bones.
Tom Clancy usually puts the title of his novels into the text, usually at a critical point in the story or at the climax.
Chapter 25 of Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath concludes thusly:
The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
The Color Purple does it towards the end of the book. It is somewhere in the middle of a long list of small things to be grateful for and enjoy. This philosophical/religious discussion would be totally unremarkable without the Title Drop.
Lilies Of The Field has the protagonist quote scripture to try to get the stingy, English-deficient mother superior to pay him for his work.
Near the end of The Lord Of The Rings Frodo is mentioned to have written The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King.
In an interesting take, several Sherlock Holmes tales are TitleDropped in other stories, so he may refer to "the adventure of the speckled band", for example, in discussing previous cases.
In the companion book to the Uglies series, Bogus to Bubbly, which explained many things that were left out of the series, Word Of God states that the last word of each book was the name of the next book. Scott Westerfeld says that the first two were unintentional, though.
- The first two? There are only three books in the series, so the last words of the first two would be the only relevant ones. Unless you're including Extras...
The Killer Angels title drops in response to the "What a piece of work is man...," quote from Hamlet. The movie uses the same structure but is titled Gettysburg.
A rather clever example in the original novel A Clockwork Orange; it's the title of one of Frank Alexander's manuscripts, and Alex, upon seeing it, remarks on what a stupid title it is. Later, after being "rehabilitated", he suddenly blurts it out.

Close Literature

Mystery Science Theater 3000 makes a habit of commenting whenever a Title Drop occurs in one of their movies. Usually with Joel/Mike and the Bots saying in unison, "We have a title!"
Doctor Who, obviously. Used fairly straight the first time in An Unearthly Child where the Doctor had no clue who "Dr. Foreman" was supposed to be, and mostly used as an in-joke since.
- The episode "The Long Game" has a belated Title Drop; it ends without any reference to what the title meant at all. Not until the Doctor returns to the same location 100 years later, in "Bad Wolf", does he realise "Someone's been playing a long game." (The title of "Bad Wolf" had, of course already been dropped all over the series.) And of course not mentioning the "Long Game" of the title until a later episode is itself a reference to the concept of the long game.
- Several stories from the original series had their titles shoehorned into the dialogue. Examples include "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", "State of Decay" and "Battlefield".
The meaning of the title Star Trek is fairly self-evident, so they managed to go without doing this for thirty years. Then, in Star Trek First Contact, Zephram Cochrane says, "So you're astronauts, on some kind of star trek?" (although in the Star Trek The Next Generation finale Q nearly does it: "It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars").
- Though he does drop the title of the finale itself: "Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, All Good Things must come to an end."
- This is also done in some episodes such as "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky".
- Also in Star Trek VI, Chancellor Gorkon proposes a toast to "The Undiscovered Country: the future".
Farscape includes a Title Drop in the form of the ship that yanks Crichton to another part of the galaxy — its name is Farscape One.
On Heroes, whenever someone does a Title Drop, you know to listen, and that they're probably (but not necessarily) right. This is especially true if they pluralize it.
- In later episodes of the first season they start using the villain too, but it doesn't really roll off the tongue the same way.
Arrested Development lampshades the series title in "Forget-Me-Now" as Rita laments the puerile sense of humor of American men.
Rita: "And they think the stupidest things are funny."
Michael: "Yeah, that's a cultural problem is what it is. You know, your average American is in a perpetual state of adolescence, you know, arrested development."
Narrator: "Hey, that's the name of the show!"
- The pilot episode had a newspaper headline proclaiming "Arrested Developer!"
In the second season, Stargate SG-1 frequently had a character reference the episode's title, but it always sounded more akin to Cochrane's "some kind of star trek" comment than anything profound.
While The West Wing doesn't qualify as a whole, a number of episodes do on their own, such as "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc", "An Khe", "Eppur Si Muove" and the finale "Tomorrow" (it's the last line spoken in the entire show).
- That being said, characters frequently refer to "The West Wing", but it doesn't really count, since they're just talking about where they work.
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip also has "The 4 AM Miracle".
Most episodes of House feature Title Drops of the episode titles, which are otherwise not shown.
Slings And Arrows deliberately avoids dropping the title: in the first rehearsal where Jack (who's playing Hamlet) reads the "to be or not to be" soliloquy, he misspeaks and says "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune".
Three of the four episodes of a miniseries called The Way We Live Now had one of these, although usually the exact wording would be changed to something like "The way people live now."
In Lost, many episodes feature Title Drops (even bizarre phrases such as "Tricia Tanaka is Dead"). But the series' name is hardly Title Dropped, with only four episodes using the phrase "We're lost".
The writers of Buffy The Vampire Slayer hammered home the fact that Bianca Lawson's character wasn't your average single-episode guest star when she introduced herself as "Kendra, the vampire slayer."
- Used straight in the first episode of the third season, where a demon asks each of his prisoners their names (with the insinuation that he will kill them if they actually claim one). Our protagonist responds quite cheerily, "I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer!" Cue the carnage.
- Subverted in season 7, where Buffy was moonlighting as a counselor for troubled teens. ("Buffy the vampire slayer would break down this door." "And Buffy the counselor?" "Waits.")
- There are a few episodes that do their own title drop, as well, such as "Lie To Me" and "Two to Go". Also, the musical episode, "Once More With Feeling", has the title in a line of the second-last song.
Many episodes of Angel featured Title Drops, though not every one of them. It also wasn't necessarily a key moment of the episode. Prominent ones include "A Hole In The World" and "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been".
The Sopranos Title Drops almost every episode. This became more and more noticeable as the series went on and got more and more unusual titles. In the first season, for example, there were titles like "Meadowlands" (though that, in a subversion, wasn't actually said until the following episode), "College", "A Hit Is A Hit", and "Nobody Knows Anything" (which was used at least twice in the ep). In the sixth season, you had things like "The Fleshy Part Of The Thigh" (which is where a supporting character offers to shoot a wannabe gangsta rapper, nonlethally and with minimal complications, in order to give him street cred).
That Girl famously ended its opening segments with somebody pointing at the title character and saying "That Girl!", with a sometimes contrived and convoluted lead-in to get to that point.
Saturday Night Live ends its opening skit with "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", a slightly rearranged version of the show title which had its origins in the rather obscure fact that when the show launched in 1975, its actual title was Saturday Night rather than Saturday Night Live due to the fact that the latter title was already taken for the short-lived Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell.
Because of its Idiosyncratic Episode Naming, the title for each episode of The Amazing Race will be heard once during the episode.
The X-Files is fond of this trope, especially for their myth-arc episodes. A few however are misnomers and refer to scape goats and not the real culprits. An example would be the episode The Red Museum which featured the titled cult who were victims in the mystery, not the culprits like the town believed.
Every episode in the HBO miniseries Generation Kill, though the conversations are often not particularly important to the plot.
- Depending on how you interpret the scene, "A Burning Dog" could be a subversion. Nate Fick drops the title not long after Bravo is ambushed in front of a bridge. He is also deliberately apathetic of objections and critical of his men for pointing out flaws in the mission instead of being gung-ho about it beforehand, since he has no actual control over it (he's just following orders as much as his men are following his,) and doesn't think that fixating on the problems is going to help at all. Fick's men have had nothing but respect and confidence in him until now and, indeed, this doesn't really change afterward. However, the atmosphere after the ambush, if not the outright looks on most of the Marines' faces, suggest that the point and the metaphor he's trying to make with the Title Drop are unappreciated and inappropriate.
In the last episode of Boy Meets World:
Cory: "Boy Meets World"... now I get it!
Parodied in Two And A Half Men. There is usually a Title Drop in the episode, but it is usually a completely irrelevant line that gets little attention drawn to it and has no impact on the plot.
- Mr Show also does this, choosing completely random lines as the episode titles (like "Oh, you men!").
Almost every episode of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister ends with a character, usually Sir Humphrey or Bernard, responding to something Hacker has said by saying "Yes, (Prime) Minister."
Parodied in Blackadder when Edmund decides to take the name of The Black... Vegetable! Fortunately Baldrick suggests a better title for ~~the series~~ his Lord.
Twice thus far in Being Human (that I remember, do correct me if I'm wrong): once in the Pilot and once in the finale.
Possibly played with in the Supernatural episode "Wishful Thinking." Sam claims to be writing a book to get a witness to talk to him. When she asks the title, he has to think quickly to come up with "Uh, well, the working title is... Supernatural?"
Name an episode where Smallville doesn't Title Drop the episode title (usually awkwardly, glaringly, and embarassingly) and I'll (not really) pay you a hundred dollars.
"I guess it's not so bad, being dead like me."
Alton Brown referring to the Iron Chef America participants as "Your Iron Chef's, America" in their introduction seems a pretty blatant attempt at this.
In an episode of Leverage, the Villain of the Week remarks that as long as he is holding Nate and Sophie hostage, he "has leverage."
- "We provide... leverage."
Every episode of GoodEats begins the same way:
- Alton Brown: Why, (food of the day) isn't just delicious, it's—
- Intro Tune: Good Eats!
Every episode of The Beiderbecke Trilogy (The Beiderbecke Affair, ...Tapes and ...Connection) uses the first line of dialogue as its title.
Being Human has the lead characters often discuss what exactly it is to "be human".

Close Live Action TV

The lyrics of The Beatles song Why Don't We Do It In The Road? are... "Why don't we do it in the road?" repeated over and over. It doesn't just have a Title Drop, it is a Title Drop.
- No, it has another line: "No one will be watching us."
- The Beatle's song Glass Onion actually Title Drops a handful of their previous songs, coming off a bit like a catchy clip-show.
Similar to The Beatles examples, the lyrics to an Indonesian song, I just want to say I love you, is just that repeated over and over, with differing tones.
In general, it's more rare for a song to NOT have a Title Drop than to have one. And when it doesn't, it usually leads to Refrain From Assuming.
- This goes double for title songs in musicals.
- For example, many people think the title of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is actually "Major Tom", but it isn't.
- Additionally, most albums are named after one of the songs, which is a type of Title Drop.
U2's two albums Rattle & Hum and All That You Can't Leave Behind feature Title Drop in songs of not the same name (Bullet The Blue Sky and Walk On)
Treble Charger's fifth album, Detox, was plucked from a line in the single "Hundred Million".
Take a step off your soapbox and see
What it's like on the ground
Check your ego in detox, baby
Cause you're coming unwound and it's killing me
Three of Catherine Wheel's albums include the album title in a song with a different title:
- Ferment: "I'm fermenting, can't you see?" from the song "I Want to Touch You"
- Chrome: "It fulfills my sense of real, a chrome protection" from the song "Crank"
- Adam and Eve: "Tree to fruit, apple to seed, you are the A in Adam and Eve" from the song "Delicious"
Pink Floyd's song "Brain Damage" does this for the album it's from: "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon"
- And "Eclipse" finishes with " There is no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look alight is the sun".
- Their last two albums have title drops, but no title song:
  From the song "One Slip": A momentary lapse of reason, that binds a life for life
  From the song "High Hopes": The ringing of the division bell had begun
Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" does this for Clouds - clouds being the subject of the first verse of the song.
Oasis' "To Be Where There's Life" does this: "Dig out your soul cos here we go"
Petra had two albums (On Fire, Wake Up Call) named after non-titular song lyrics. Oddly, the former also contained a different song entitled "All Fired Up".
Dave Matthews Band's album Under the Table and Dreaming is a lyric from the song "Ants Marching". The album Before These Crowded Streets is a lyric from the song "The Dreaming Tree".
Dream Theater title-drops the album names in the lyrics to songs in a few of their albums.
- When Dream And Day Unite: "Only A Matter Of Time" ("And though the time will come when dream and day unite")
- Images And Words: "Wait For Sleep" ("Where images and words are running deep")
- Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory - The main title is never mentioned, but the subtitle is in the song "Home" ("Decadent scenes from a memory")
- Octavarium is the title of the last song in the album ("Trapped inside this Octavarium")
  - In addition to the obvious ones listed above, the title for Train of Thought appears as an instrumental called "Stream of Consciousness".
- Systematic Chaos: "Constant Motion", almost ("Random thoughts of neat disorder") (Neat disorder = systematic chaos)
- Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence kind of does it with the line "The turbulence deep inside" from "Losing Time/Grand Finale" on Disc 2.
- A Change Of Seasons, partially ("Seasons change and so can I" from "Another World")
Van Morrison often names his albums after non-titular lyrics: Veedon Fleece (from "You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push The River"), Common One ("Summertime in England"), No Guru, No Method, No Teacher ("In The Garden"), Poetic Champions Compose ("Queen of The Slipstream").
An interesting variation: Rush's "Limelight" from the Moving Pictures album features the line "caught in the camera eye." "The Camera Eye" is the title of the next song on the album.
The Foo Fighters CD Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace doesn't have its title said until the final song, "Home", which also gives it context.
DragonForce loves to Title Drop its song titles in other songs: just one example of many is the line "Through the fire, through the flames" in the song "The Flame Of Youth."
Ayreon also does it a bunch of times, sometimes not even on the same album. The Final Experiment's name is dropped by Merlin in the tracks "Prologue" and "Ayreon's Fate". The Human Equation is actually title-dropped (almost) on the next album, 01011001, in the song "The Sixth Extinction" ("We must resolve this human equation"). The Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer gets its subtitle dropped several times throughout the story, though the first time is heard right at the start of "Beyond The Last Horizon" on the album Actual Fantasy, when the familiar line "Dream Sequencer system offline" is spoken long before we learn what the Dream Sequencer is or even that it's important to the story. Actual Fantasy is the first line of that album, as well as the name of the first track. Universal Migrator is dropped twice to my recollection, both in "Chaos" ("I will now take you back to the Big Bang, and the birth of the very first soul, called... the Universal Migrator") and in "To The Solar System" ("Please abort Universal Migrator sequence"). Also referenced in "Ride The Comet" from 01011001 ("Journey on the Migrator trail"). All in all, this serves to tie the album's stories into each other and keep the continuity and plot of the whole Ayreon universe going. Ayreon is also the name of a character who features mainly in The Final Experiment, but is spoken about or referred to in many other albums, although usually not by name.
Mastodon does this on Crack the Skye, both as their song title Crack the Skye and on the song "The Czar": "Spiraling up through the crack in the sky/Leaving material world behind/I see your face in constellations/The martyr is ending his life for mine."
Let's not forget Alanis Morrisette's Jagged Little Pill (from "You Learn"), Nirvana's Nevermind ("Smells Like Teen Spirit"), and Dexy's Midnight Runners' Too-rye-ay ("Come on Eileen").
The Counting Crows title-drops the band itself on their song A Murder Of One ("as you stood there, counting crows").
British art-rock band Gentle Giant used the phrase "Hail to power and to glory's way!" on two tracks from their album The Power And The Glory. They also made a song with the same title as the album, but it was not included on the original album - Only on the B-side of a single from that album.
On the track "Tempus Fugit" from Yes' album Drama, the word "YES!" is mentioned so often, and with such pathos, that you'd think they were trying to make "Tempus Fugit" the band's title song.
- Drama was the first (and as it turned out, only) Yes album not to feature lead singer Jon Anderson, so maybe they were just trying to reassure listeners that they were still Yes.
German Metal band Axel Rudi Pell does this on the song The Gates of the Seven Seals on the album Oceans of Time. The words in bold are titles of the band's past albums: ''The thunder/the smash/the cracks between the walls/The black moon pyramid once filled with magic /now it's gone.
Metallica mentions their own name in the song Whiplash on the album Kill 'Em All;
Hotel rooms and motorways
Life out here is raw
But we'll never stop
We'll never quit
'Cause we're Metallica
The first line of the lyrics of "Chelsea Girl" by Ride is "Take me for a ride away from places I have known". (Incidentally, this is the first song on their first record.)
Counting Crows pulls the line-as-album-title trick twice, with This Desert Life and Films About Ghosts. Hard Candy and Recovering the Satellites share names with full songs, while August And Everything After has the distinction of being named after a song that didn't make the cut. Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings is a little different.
British rock band Muse uses this in their most recent album The Resistance, with the line "You are my muse," in the song "I Belong to You."

Close Music

The January 9, 2008 strip of Pearls Before Swine has a Title Drop responded to by cheering, noisemakers, confetti, balloons and a rubber chicken dropping down from the ceiling with the title card.
Rat: That was odd.
The "final" strip of For Better Or For Worse has a Title Drop at the end of the final panel of the nominal (it's complicated) Last Strip Ever.

Close Newspaper Comics

In a bizarre twist, the late Mitch Hedburg named his comedy albums after a punchline to a joke on his previous album.

Close Stand Up Comedy

Frequently done with title songs in musicals (too many to list).
Shakespeare does this occasionally:
Helena: All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown;
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
...
Duke: Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.
...
Prince: For never was a story of more woe// Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
...
This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,
And Dromio my man did bring them me:
I see we still did meet each other's man,
And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
And thereupon these errors are arose. (The Comedy Of Errors)
...
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show. (The Taming Of The Shrew)
When the curtain opens on the prologue of Fiddler On The Roof, we see and hear the fiddler playing, and a Title Drop is the very first line in the show. The fiddler, who plays no part in the plot, is explained by Tevye to be a metaphor for the tenacious existence of Anatevka and its people.
The opening scene of the musical Damn Yankees has one Title Drop in dialogue (what Joe says when Meg asks him if the Washington Senators won the game he was watching) and another in the song "Six Months" ("Those damn Yankees! Why can't we beat 'em?")
The Importance Of Being Earnest is both the title of Oscar Wilde's play, and what one of the main characters announces that he has learned in the very last line of that play.
"There are no angels in america" re: the lack of spiritual or ethnic history in the nation's culture—it's a big rant about how everything is political.
In the opening scene of The Music Man, one of the salesmen on the train calls Professor Harold Hill a "music man" during the "Rock Island" patter.
Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet does this unabashedly, as the script calls for a lightning strike for emphasis upon delivery of the line.
In You Can't Take It with You, Grandpa drops the title in reference to Mr. Kirby's wealth.
"Thou hast come to join The Yeomen of the Guard."
- "They are pirates! The famous Pirates of Penzance!"
Possible example: during the finale of Les Miserables, the chorus sings "For the wretched of the earth/there is a flame that never dies." "The wretched" is a common translation of the play's title.
In Drew Hayden Taylor's Someday, the word "someday" is pronounced exactly twice: at the very beginning of the play, by the mother, Anne, who states that she'll be rich "someday." She wins the lotto and also fulfills her dream of meeting Grace/Janice, her daughter who was taken away by children's aid 35 years earlier. The family reunion seems to be going well until Grace, now the rich lawyer Janice, asks why she was taken away and Anne tells her the truth, that it's because they were Native Canadian and poor. Janice can't accept that answer and realizes how different she is from her birth family, having been raised by an upper-middle-class family while her mother and sister live on reservation. She leaves quite brutally and merely states "I'll be back... someday." This is the most chilling line of the play, especially since it started set up as a play about dreams being fulfilled. Made even more poignant since in the sequel, Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, she does come back... for Anne's burial.
Given that the word 'Wicked' is spoken often in the 2nd act of the eponymous show, there is one conversation where Elphaba emphasises to Glinda that she is now "the WICKED witch of the west," which is important.
- More whimsically: "For the first time, I feel... wicked."
Inherit The Wind has Matthew Harrison Brady quote scripture. It becomes considered for his epitaph.
"Don't forget that a few years ago we came through the depression by the skin of our teeth. One more tight squeeze like that and where would we be?"
In Whos Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, the Title Drop occurs as a bit of drunken singing (parodying "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf," of course).

Close Theatre

A Title Drop usually occurs in the longer winded articles.
- Was Lampshaded in the I Am Not Making This Up page, as many entries used Pot Holes to the page for no really sensible reason. Now that page is gone. Title Drop with care.

Close TV Tropes Wiki

Spoofed in Escape from Monkey Island:
Carla: Do you have any idea how difficult it is to escape from Monkey Island?
Guybrush: No, how difficult is it to [with overly dramatic emphasis] Escape from Monkey Island?
In Metroid Prime, you can tell the creature the Space Pirates have been studying will turn out to be pretty nasty once you learn that it's been code-named... well, take a wild guess.
Fire Emblem tends to name each games Mac Guffin [The] Fire Emblem, in the one scene per game this alternate name is mentioned in examples of this trope
The World Ends With You—welcome in that we get to find out what the hell they were smoking when they came up with that one. (Turns out it's suggesting that the parts of the world you ignore might as well not exist, and with Neku (who is told this) that means a lot might as well not exist. Thank you, Title Drop!)
- As a bonus, the game also namedrops the Japanese title, What A Wonderful World, ad nauseum near the end of the game.
- In the English version, we got the English title explained. The Japanese title was explained at that same point in the Japanese version (FYI, it means the world was always an amazing place; Neku just refused to notice)
Dante's demon-hunting business in Devil May Cry shares its name with the game.
- And there's a more direct Title Drop in the third game, which explains that Dante named the shop after a line spoken by Lady at the end of the game during a Sand In My Eyes moment, telling him that even a demon might cry over his brother (seemingly) dying.
"A Mad World, huh? I'll fit right in."
The phrase "Sonic Heroes" was apparently rammed into the game of the same name for no reason. Both Sonic and Eggman use it to describe Team Sonic, but it also appears in Team Chaotix's theme song, meaning that it might describe all the main characters... even though they have completely different reasons for fighting Eggman and actually fight each other every so often.
In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, when Luke Atmey insists on describing himself as an "Ace Detective," Phoenix awkwardly introduces himself as "Phoenix Wright... Ace Attorney." Of course, being Phoenix Wright, the whole scene is not an especially important conversation, especially because Pearl and Maya insist on also being "Ace"... spirit mediums.
In The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess the title of "Twilight Princess" is originally given to Princess Zelda, as she continues to rule her people even as they are in the twilight. It turns out that is actually a Red Herring, and the title really refers to Midna, who is supposed to be princess of the actual Twilight realms. Of course, if you didn't figure that out after the fourth dungeon...
- "I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive our carelessness... O Twilight Princess."
- And five subtitles of the Zelda series are important items in-game (Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Majora's Mask, Minish Cap and Phantom Hourglass).
- Also, the Oracle games. In fact, every Zelda game's subtitle after A Link to the Past fits this pattern. You can even include said game if you consider that the original Japanese subtitle was Triforce of the Gods.
  - The English title was a reference to the fact that the game was in fact a prequel. Supposedly.
Boktai: The Sun is In Your Hand has a Title Drop that's unusually hard to spot. During the final boss fight, Django and Sabata refer to the power of "Our Sun". (You know it's important because there's a voice clip and because Django, who's usually a Heroic Mime, speaks.) So? As it happens, the game's original Japanese title — Bokura no Taiyou — means "Our Sun". The English title is a sort of orphaned abbreviation for this that means nothing in the game.
In John Woo's Stranglehold, Damon Zakarov tells Big Bad Wong, in his demands that he hand over Hong Kong to him, "Your stranglehold has lasted far too long."
While the ARMs in Wild ARMs have always been an important plot element in every game, the series never did a full Title Drop... until the fourth game where ARMs are weapons made from Nanomachines, and the most powerful of them assimilates the inmates of Illsveil Prison, turning them into, you guessed it, Wild ARMs.
Planescape Torment doesn't use "planescape"—but then, the game is properly called Torment. (Calling it Planescape Torment is like calling another game, for example, Forgotten Realms: Baldurs Gate.) Torment starts getting dropped at about the midpoint of the game, increasing in frequency from there.
On that subject, Baldurs Gate mentions the city fairly early on, and as the latter third of the game takes place mainly there, it's hard to avoid it being mentioned. Throne Of Bhaal has the war between Bhaalspawn be around and for the titular location, so it gets mentioned as well. On the other hand, Shadows of Amn doesn't use the title, though the nation of Amn it takes place in is mentioned; nor does Tales of the Sword Coast, with similar mention of the region.
Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter do this—Icewind Dale, the name of the region it takes place in, much more easily, of course.
Clearing four lines of blocks in Tetris is called a Tetris.
- Not to mention that Tetra is a prefix for anything four (tetrominos are the blocks for anybody who wants to know).
- In Tetris: The Grand Master, the highest rank obtainable is Grand Master.
Olivia's poems seem nothing but a cute character moment until she recites the final stanza of her last: "But now we dance this Grim Fandango..." It refers to the four year journey to Eternal Rest taken by all but the most virtuous souls.
Lampshaded in the preview for Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free, as well as in the game itself:
Strong Bad: Onward to Strong Badia! Strong Badia the Free!
Homestar Runner: Hey, that's the name of this-
Strong Bad: Shut up!
All the Metal Gear Solid games after the first have subtitles, and engage in Sub Title Drops:
- Solidus: We will be The Sons of Liberty!
- In MGS3', the subtitle Snake Eater is taken from the operation Snake carries out for the most of the game, named as such because he's taking on the members of the Cobra unit.
- Ocelot: Behold! Guns of the Patriots!
  - Said "Guns of the Patriots" being Ocelot's plan to hijack the SOP (Sons Of The Patriots) system.
- And of course, Snake's old "Metal Gear?", which he (well, his dad) even managed shoehorn into MGS3, set before the titular Metal Gears existed. You could practically hear Hideo Kojima patting himself on the back.
- For fairly obvious reasons, Portable Ops didn't manage. It tried hard, though, and involved an optional scene where Snake commented about how the operation felt 'portable'.
- Probably the most meta one in the series, though, is a repeated series acronym drop from Drebin in Metal Gear Solid 4, as he screams (about a tank that is chasing them) 'we've got an MGS on our asses!' and 'We've gotta shake off the MGS!'. The scene ends with the MGS getting flipped into a ravine as the characters carry on. Interpret that as you may.
- Metal Gear: Ghost Babel averted this as well. There is a "Project Babel" in the plot, which forms half of the subtitle, but the subtitle Ghost Babel was mainly chosen because it conveniently shared the same initials as the Game Boy.
Grand Theft Auto III has a mission called "Grand Theft Auto", which also happens to be one of the most difficult Watch The Paint Job missions in the series. It later plays with the title in a mission where you must steal a package from the airport, called "Grand Theft Aero".
Skillfully used in the first Geneforge game—the title initially seems to be just an oblique reference to the series' essential conceit—bioengineering in a fantasy environment by use of magic. However, when it turns out to actually be the name of the Lost Technology that serves as the series' ongoing Mac Guffin and Artifact Of Doom, the player instantly recognizes his goal for the remainder of the game.
Megaman Battle Network 4 manages to shoehorn its subtitle (Red Sun or Blue Moon, depending on the version) in twice—once for the tournament and once for the giant laser. Near the end we learn that the tournament was a front for finding a netbattler to stop the asteroid, except this falls through because that was the BACKUP plan.
Towards the end of Super Robot Wars Original Generation, when the party members are briefed on the EFA's plan to launch a counterattack on the Balmarians, it is revealed that the name of the plan is Operation SRW. After the briefing, when the other party members are wondering what SRW stands for, Ascended Fanboy Ryusei guesses it right, but none of the others believe him.
- To be exact, Ryusei believes it stands for Super Robot Wars, while Manic Pixie Dream Girl Excellen jokes that it's Sexy Romance Weapon.
  - Ironically, the game as it exists in America is technically called Super Robot Taisen. Getting Crap Past The Radar for naming rights disputes, Atlus?
- The feat is duplicated in Endless Frontier; the party gets the Gespenst Phantom, Alteisen Nacht, Weissritter Abend, and Arkgain to join them as backup units, and they are dubbed "Support Robot Weapons".
Kingdom Hearts made use of the titular Kingdom Hearts as the real Mac Guffin the big bad in both main title games was after, where all the hearts go. although not immediately apparent, it does not take overly long for the title to be explained.
- The second game, Chain of Memories, has a few conversations where a metaphorical "chain" of memories shackling Sora's heart is mentioned.
  - Namine later states that memories are linked together in a similar way when talking about reconstructing Sora's memories.
Dead Space has the final chapter in the game rather appropriately titled, er, "Dead Space". Which is kind of funny when you realize it's the only chapter that takes place on a planet instead of a ship in space.
- Of course, the actual significance of the title is made clear when it's explained that the Marker create a sort of "dead space" around itself that keeps the Necromorph bacteria and the resultant creatures dormant.
From Ace Combat Zero: "We'll start over from Zero with this V2..." (complete with capitalization in the subtitles). The EU non-numeric titles Distant Thunder, Squadron Leader and The Belkan War all show up in their respective games.
- And of course, Shattered Skies-—both a dialogue phrase and the name of AC 04's eighth mission.
The main heroines of Tsukihime and Fate Stay Night has the title of the game, or part of it, as the name of their true ending. Actually makes a lot of sense in the case of Tsukihime (Moon Princess) since the title is direct reference to her.
- Tsukihime's "sequel", Kagetsu Tohya, has a character in a side-story named Souka Tsukihime. Incidentally, she's the graphic designer's favorite character.
"And so began the story of the wanderer... the vagrant."
Golden Sun has a title drop, but if you play only the first game you wouldn't know it, since the term only shows up in the lead-up to the final battle of the second game.
Arthur Miller's All My Sons: Joe says at the end, "Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were."
Throughout the entire history of the Final Fantasy series, the only time those words are mentioned together is in Dissidia: Final Fantasy, when Chaos refers to the ten warriors and Cosmos' journey as being the Final Fantasy.
- Although in Gilgamesh's Final Fantasy XII boss cameo, his ultimate attack is called Ultimate Illusion, a synonym to Final Fantasy.
This happens in I Wanna Be The Guy, towards the end.
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom features two drops of the subtitle, with first the veteran in the bar, and later Admiral Tolwyn, giving the full line, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." At the end, Blair asks Tolwyn, after stating that his plan would cause many deaths and force humanity to become barbaric, "Is that the price of freedom?" in a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Hobbes addresses Blair as, "Wing Commander" in Wing Commander II.
- In Wing Commander: Prophecy, Maniac toasts, "to the free and easy life of the Wing Commander."
- In the film, Angel describes herself to Blair as, "your Wing Commander."
- The third game's subtitle, Heart of the Tiger, is Blair's title among the Kilrathi, which also serves as the phrase to awaken Hobbes' true personality.
Mega Man X 8: Paradise Lost. Guess what is the name of the Final Boss' Desperation Attack?
In the Touhou Project games, Spell Cards have names which generally take the form of something like Love Sign "Master Spark", and this is used for a Title Drop a few times for the final Spell Card of the Final Boss. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, Yuyuko's final spell card (before her Desperation Attack) is titled Cherry Blossom Sign "Perfect Cherry Blossom of Sumizome"; in Mountain of Faith, Kanako's final attack (but only on Normal and Easy Mode) has no "sign" part of its name (though it is far from unique in that regard) and is simply called "Mountain of Faith". (On higher difficulties it is ""Virtue of Wind God"").
- Also, Tenshi from the fighting game spin off Scarlet Weather Rhapsody gives us Scarlet Weather Rhapsody for all Mankind
- In Imperishable Night, the "sign" part of all of Kaguya's Last Spells are called Imperishable Night's End. Furthermore, the "sign" parts for her five normal spellcards are all called Impossible Request, which matches her stage title "Five Impossible Requests".
  - There's also Mokou's spell card Imperishable Shooting.
You know that stuff just got real when humans bring in their Sword Of The Stars dreadnought class. No other space conquest game has a suitable name.
- The original game and its Expansion Packs also perform a Title Drop at the end of their intro voiceovers:
  "We learned to wield the Sword of the Stars." *cue previously mentioned dreadnought firing its Wave Motion Guns*
  "Born of fire, born of steel, born of science, Born of Blood."
  "My people are no longer hiding, and now we darken your skies, like A Murder of Crows."
Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri doesn't really count, as Planet orbits the star system, so it comes up quite frequently. The expansion, Alien Crossfire, does the drop in the cinematic, explaining that two opposing alien factions have landed on Planet, and the humans will thus be caught in the alien crossifre.
"its time for me to live up to my family name and face full life consequences!"
The second Another Code game pulls it off near the end, though in a variation it only mentions the subtitles (Gateway of Memory in Japan, A Journey Into Lost Memories in Europe):
Ryan Gray: Do you understand why your father brought you here, Ashley? It was to open the doorway to your memory. To open that door and embark on a journey into lost memories.
In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Jill ends her opening monologue stating that her escape from Raccoon City will be her "last escape"; a reference to the Japanese title, Biohazard 3: Last Escape.
This troper recalls the original Star Ocean having a Title Drop, but isn't sure.
"Don Pachi" means "leader bee." Throughout the series, you collect bee icons, and upon fulfilling certain requirements for one of the games, you get to fight the True Final Boss: a flaming bee, the leader of the enemy forces you've been decimating. And in the first game, the elite air force you're training for is known as DonPachi Squadron.

Close Video Games

Ten years in, and Pete Abrams still hasn't revealed just what "Sluggy Freelance" actually means. That hasn't, however, stopped him from dropping one of the two words without the other here and there like delicious, fan-baiting sprinkles.
Parodied in this Dinosaur Comics comic.
Appears in The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja here, to mark the strip's transition to full color.
- Chapter titles often get dropped as well in a visual gag, as in "Punch Dracula" (guess what the good doctor finds himself forced to do?) and "Revenge of the Hundred Dead Ninja" (appears on a theater marquee at the beginning of the strip)
Subverted in one of the first Schlock Mercenary strips. The name has not been used since.
- Yes it has. It's the name of the cartoon Show Within A Show about the Toughs.
- And the narrator mentions it here.
Similar to the For Better Or For Worse example below, the last two words of Better Days were... well, just that.
It was the worst case of Chopping Block he'd ever endured.
El Goonish Shive lampshaded this by featuring a goon in one comic for this exact reason.
In Least I Could Do, John does this and gets bitchslapped by the creator.

Close Web Comics

The serial web-novel Fine Structure is somewhat sporiadically updated; one of the chapters is titled simply "this is not over and I am not dead" in all-lowercase. It seems as though the author is commenting in the title on his somewhat sporiadic update-schedule, and apologizing (such as it is) for the relatively late update, right up until the Big Bad (a Sufficiently Advanced Alien in human form) says those exact words and then proceeds to shoot himself.
- Also, in the very first chapter, the title of the series itself is referenced. It's rather stealthy, however:
  
  Then it's over, Heaven number seventy-nine dopplering into our wake, torn bodily from its extradimensional moorings, fine structure bucking, scattering and shattering.
  
  This is made more interesting by the fact that this chapter was incorporated retroactively. However, the author had apparently written it with the intention of adding it eventually.
Another web-novel, Fragile, features this trope in two different parts that use the title in them - once in the middle and another time at the very end. Both times, the title refers to Severin, with the latter referring to his mental state and the former just generally referring to Page's perception of him.

Close Web Original

Lampshaded in Drawn Together "Lost in Parking Space, Part Two:"
Xandir: There is hope! As long as we're together. Drawn to—
Spanky: You say "drawn together," and I swear to Christ, I'm gonna cave your skull in with a tire iron, and eat what drips out.
Xandir: Alright, fair enough.
- Before that, the first season finale ended with a standard Title Drop narrative voiceover.
- The episode ends with Xandir saying it and horrible sounds playing over the sudden fade to black.
The second season finale of Avatar The Last Airbender is called "The Crossroads of Destiny", with Iroh using the title almost exactly when he tells Zuko that he is at a point where he has to choose which path in life to take.
- Not to mention the third episode, where Aang muses, "If the Fire Nation found this temple, they would've found the others... I guess I really am the last Airbender."
"Let the fight take place here, on this strange, primitive world. And let it be called... the Beast Wars!" The conflict is then referred to as such occasionally throughout the series, Megatron claiming that he's won the Beast Wars as he reaches the climax of a Xanatos Gambit, for example.
- Doesn't apply in Canada where due to regulations, the show was not allowed to have the word "War" in its title, and was thus called "Beasties"
- Several episodes feature title drops. For instance, in "A Better Mousetrap", after Rattrap sets off the Sentinel defense system, leaving him stuck inside, Dinobot remarks "It seems as though you [Rhinox] have built a better mousetrap."
War Planets (a.k.a. Shadow Raiders) gets a Title Drop during a Rousing Speech in the first season, before the attack on planet Remora: "We've stopped being planets at war and become planets of war!"
An episode of GI Joe had an awesome Title Drop. In the episode "Money To Burn", Cobra... burns United States money, but as usual, GI Joe beats them.
Ripcord: Like Cobra, you have money to burn.
The end of the first arc of the Justice League cartoon has both a Mythology Gag and a Title Drop. Superman wonders if they shouldn't start a team, and give it a name they can be called by collectively.
Flash: What, like the Superfriends or something?
Superman: More like a Justice League.
- In the same series (or rather, in the Unlimited season), a Title Drop was given to another DCAU series: Batman Beyond refers to Amanda Waller's project to continue the Batman legacy, resulting in the conception of Terry Mcginnis, Batman of said series.
The Simpsons episode "Worst Episode EVER", actually drops it with Comic Book Guy's response to finding out he had a cardiac episode.
- And the episode where Homer meets a man who thinks he's Michael Jackson:
Man: I'm Michael Jackson from The Jacksons.
Homer: I'm Homer Simpson from The Simpsons.
- Also parodied in the Left Behind parody.
  Strawman Atheist: It's the Rapture, Shawna, the Rapture. The virtuous have gone to Heaven and the rest of us have been ... left below!
  Homer: "Left below" ... Where have I heard that before?
  Lisa:Dad, it's the title of the movie.
  Homer: Gasp! It's everywhere!
With the name of the show also being the name of the title-character title drops were common in Kim Possible, but in the first movie 'A Sitch In Time' they also manage to drop the title of the opening lyrics of the theme-song into casual dialogue.
Referenced in a Family Guy episode, where Peter is at the movies and hears the drops in Clear And Present Danger and As Good As It Gets (and also a parodic one, Superman 4: The Quest For Peace). Later in the episode, a cop says "I don't appreciate drug addicts in my town. I'm a family guy!", much to Peter's delight.
In The Venture Brothers episode "The Buddy System", Dr. Venture tells his son "They're here to see Rusty Venture, if there was a cartoon called 'The Venture Brothers', maybe it would be different."
- In the episode "The Invisible Hand of Fate", said episode's title is said twice by two different characters to Billy Quizboy.
The Danny Phantom episode "Flirting With Disaster" had Tucker and Sam finish a sentence that involves the title; "Long night...of flirting with disaster?" Obviously it refers to Danny's dangerous Dating Catwoman relationship with Valerie.
"You've started something. A brave, bold new era in crimefighting."
- The scene is turned a little funny when you realize that the episode writer was Joseph Kuhr and Batman is talking to The Red Hood aka Earth 3's Joker.
- Batman also makes a Title Drop as the final line of the first season finale.
Ren and Stimpy lampshade this shamelessly in the episode "Marooned." After their spaceship crashes on a distant planet, Ren confirms that they have no way to get home. "We're marooned!" he sobs. "Just like the title of this cartoon!" replies Stimpy.
Amusing aversion: in the finale of the third season of Reboot, the cast makes a gamble to have the User 'reboot' the computer and thus restore Mainframe. When the screen goes blank, however, the User types in 'Re Start'. In a convention panel the creators lamented that they didn't think to title drop at that oh-so opportune moment.
- On a more general note, the title is regularly dropped as the command word for characters changing format to interact inside of a Game.
“Don't be hasty. Not until I see those Street Fighters pummelled to dust, which should be any moment now…”
- YES!! YES!!!

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