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Some plot happens in Erfworld
STAB * Actually, the sound of a wombat being stabbed is a scratchy noise of bristles scraping on steel followed by a rather unpleasant "squlorp!" noise, followed by a damp smack of hilt. But "scratch-squlorp-squithud!" lacks a certain pithiness
"I don't know how flinging someone actually made the sound 'fling'."
The Written Sound Effect is a basic technique for illustrating non-dialog sounds in visual media. The text is a transliteration of the sounds, usually written as onomatopoeia. But then some authors will start writing as sound effects words which only sound like onomatopoeia. "Bash!" and "Kick!" for instance, just happen to sound a bit like the impacts they're describing.
And then, some authors will take it too far, with words that aren't the least bit like sound effects, and are actually just the words for that action in loud capital letters. "Glare!" "Leap!" "Flourish!" and even "Idea!"
This is the Unsound Effect. It's a humorous technique, although it is also seen in fight scenes ("Block!" "Slash!").
Usually attributed to Richie Rich in the original Harvey Comics versions, which lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s. They included such effects as "BOUNCE!" for large rubber balls impacting a hard surface, and went on to "EXPAND!" when Richie utilized one of Prof. Keenbean's Applied Phlebotinum devices meant to go from pocket-size miniature tool/vehicle/etc. to full-size.
It's worth noting that manga has different but similar conventions regarding onomatopoeia. Manga has much more than can be done with an Unsound Effect. Japanese writers will use sound effects to denote sounds, like heartbeats or door slams, but also to represent more abstract events like "smiling" ("niko niko"), "sudden realization" ("ha") or "the sound of silence" ("shiiiiiiin"). These are known as phenomimes when they describe external phenomena and psychomimes when they describe psychological states. Some anime, generally the more surreal sort, turn these into actual sound effects.
See also Visible Silence, the Unsound Effect for no sound.
Related to Editorial Synaesthesia
Examples!
Anime and Manga
- In One Piece Chimney did her own sound effect for staring (shiiiiiiin).
- In this page
 during the Alabasta arc, the camel in the last panel gets, appropriately, CAMEL!!
- The Mahou Sensei Negima manga does this a lot. Of course, this is probably due to the translators being very faithful to the original; during a silent scene you'll see the giant "shiiiin" kana with tiny English "the sound of silence" written underneath.
- There's also a rather humorous "Pettanko" sound effect when Anya first sees Yue and Nodoka.
- The anime versions of Pani Poni Dash, Lucky Star, Hayate The Combat Butler, and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei have all used "staring" ("jiiiiiiiiii") as a vocalised sound effect, in SZS's case as a Running Gag
- Also in SZS, when The Voiceless Meru types abusive messages with her cell phone, we hear the sound "Meru Meru"
- The later seasons of SZS have all of the sound effects written on screen and read out loud with a humorously monotone, bored-sounding voice.
- This troper had this happen in real life while teaching at a Japanese Elementary school. Having a ten year old stare at you and say "jiiiiiii" is just a bit weird.
- Manga publisher Tokyopop used to do this, with some such sounds including "Stand", "Glare" and "Turn".
- Probably one of the funnier ones was "Cadillac!" in Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders.
- The manga MPD Psycho employs this trope in both humorous and straight forms, for instance, when Amamiya's glasses gleam with light, the other characters swear they can hear the "shing" noise that results. An example of the serious form of the trope in action is the "dokun" or "kadoom" noise that indicates Amamiya's personality changing.
- A burn victim in Detective Conan had a speech balloon reading "mouthing words" or something to that effect, having been too injured to say anything discernable.
- From Hayate The Combat Butler, we also have the inestimable: COINCIDENCE!
- Ouran High School Host Club, with "POINT".
- This troper once read a hentai doujin which featured as sound effects, among others, "ORGASM!", "CLIMAX!", and my personal favorite, "KA-FUCK!"
- American artist Smudge (just in case you were going to try to search for him) apparently thinks that the sound a (massive) penis makes when it's forced into a vagina is "FUCKIN-COCKA!"
- In the space of two pages in the first chapter of Pandora Hearts, we have "GRAB," "FIDGET," "SURPRISE," and of course, "THREATENING ATMOSPHERE."
- Otome Kikan Gretel has a rather freaked out Yuu with the effect "startle." (next to, of course, someone who talks with hearts
- Chis Sweet Home uses a number of these, including things like "dejected" and "loom."
- When the author of Kaiji discovered there wasn't an onomatopoeia for dramatic tension, he invented his own: ZAWA.
- Manga such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Bleach, and Shaman King often throw "DOOM" on dramatic panels. Even more dramatic panels might get "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM".
- In Doctor Slump, Genki Girl Arale's greetings are so loud and boisterous that the sound effect for it ("KON'CHWA!", approximately, due to a Verbal Tic) easily dwarfs her and knocks the people she greets off their feet. The aliens attempt to weaponize this power, but fail every time.
- The presence of a Battle Aura or similar mind state (even an unshown one) is often accompanied with a "go go go ..." ("ゴ ゴ ゴ ...").
Comic Books
- In X-Men, at least one X-Babies encounter ("Mojo Mayhem") has gone this way (with arguing murmurs written as "argue" or "debate" or "mutter" and the like.)
- Subverted in an issue of the Thor comic book, where The Hulk hits Thor with an entire freight train (complete with attached cars). The editor's note on the page confesses that there's no onomatopoeia there because nothing they could think of would do the scene justice.
- The same thing happened when the Thing punched Sandman into his component particles while both were underwater.
- MAD Magazine, illustrating the reality of a six-man utility crew - one guy digging a hole (accompanied by the sound effect "dig") while the other five are in various states of leisure (accompanied by "eat", "siiiip", "snooze", "hang out" and "read").
- Another comic features a massive five-way collision accompanied by "HORRENDOUS UNSPELLABLE SOUND EFFECT!"
- One of their artists once told a detective story entirely in pictures and exaggerated sound effects (with a couple of unsounds). All the murder victims produced the same sequence of AAAARGH!..THUD...BOUNCE BOUNCE and, in the first case the guy who had been shot rounded off with a quiet BLEED BLEED. The detective was quite mystified by the screams until he realized that the killer was one Joe Aaaargh, alias Joe Eeeech, alias Joe Uuuuugh.
- The New Yorker had a cartoon by Roz Chast called "No Action Comics." It had sound effects like "MULL! MULL!" and "WORRY! WORRY!"
- Similarly, The Daily Show featured a comic mocking George W. Bush with sound effects such as "STALL!".
- Frequently used in Twisted Toyfare Theatre. Examples include Spider-Man running across some assorted Beanie Baby animals. Some go "moo moo", some go "oink oink" and some go "kangaroo sound kangaroo sound". And when he gets them to stampede, it's "angry moo, angry moo" and "angry kangaroo sound, angry kangaroo sound".
- German comic artist Ralf König is good at this. he rather describes the mood of scenes with his unsounds. One scene shows a guy laying in bed, hearing "sounds" like "cooking coffee" and "doorclap".
- The Tick is also fond of this, with this Troper's favorite being "CONTEMPLATE!"
- Amerimanga Ninja High School has used literal sound effects from the beginning of its run. They do sort of mirror manga's onomonepetic effects, but Ben Dunn has admitted he got the idea from Richie Rich.
- One example: a character lifts a huge tree out of the ground, to the sound of *UPROOT*
- Several comics have featured huge explosions with the unintentionally (maybe) hilarious BA-THROOM! sound effect.
- Sound of a toilet blowing up?
- The City Of Heroes comic has a mook cry out in pain: "MMORPG!!"
- De Familie Fortuin, a Dutch comic about the titular white trash family, has used such sound effects as *ENORMOUS EXPLOSION! FLYING BODY PARTS! BLEEDING GUMS! COOL MAN!* and *EXPLODING SCHOOL WITH EVERYONE INSIDE!*.
- A series of Disney albums had Goofy playing different historical persons. In the Beethoven story all sound words were composer names. Knocking on a door sounded like BACH BACH, knocking over a pile of stuff produced a loud BRAHMS and so on.
- Speaking of Disney, a Darkwing Duck comic in Disney Adventures had some offstage action indicated with words like "BLUDGEON" and "ASPHYXIATE." Lampshaded by onlookers.
- Does it count if you shoot vampires with a BANG BANG BANG ETC.... (in neat Ariel font, no less)?
- BOWL! DREAM! MAGIC!
Film
- During an action sequence in Hot Fuzz, Nicolas Angel actually says "Idea!" where you might otherwise have the 'ding' of an Ideabulb. Later, his partner shouts "Bang! Bang!" while firing a gun...for no reason whatsoever.
- Subtitles for the hearing impaired can come off a bit like this when done badly. There's no better mood killer in the middle of a romantic moment than seeing *dramatic music intensifies* pop up on screen.
Literature
- Gaspode, a talking dog in the Discworld series, says 'woof'.
Live Action TV
- Monty Python's "Bicycle Repairman" sketch had intertitle cards with effects like: "Screw!", "Bend!", "Inflate!", and "Alter Saddle!"
- Monty Python also had the traffic court sketch, in which the jury and audience react to a surprising revelation by saying, in unison, "Consternation! Uproar!"
- The 1960s Batman TV series did this in every fight scene.
- The Monkees parody this in one episode with a fight that has words like Rumble! Plink! Plank! Plunk! Miss! Foo! Bing! Bong! Bang! Splat! Kretch! Plop! Splinter! on the screen. (At the word Kretch, Peter Tork stops fighting, looks into the camera, and says, "Kretch???" before they agree to stop fighting and start breaking furniture.)
- When a piece of viewer mail on Attack Of The Show asked what kind of sound effect they would want to have if they were in a comic, Kevin Pereira admitted he would want the word "SKANK!" to pop up when he slapped someone in the face.
- The Muppet Show did a sketch entirely in action and spoken sound/unsound words. It started with a creature (possibly played by Animal) trudging through the wilderness while muttering "trudge trudge trudge" until it got interrupted by something flying past with a loud "FLY! FLY!" which made it stop and go "ponder... ponder... ponder..." as it, well, pondered the strange event. After this had happened a couple of times the wanderer lost its patience and went "fret foam" as it picked up a hesvy stick, and the next time the flyer passed it got stopped by a massive SMASH SMASH!
- On The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien visits a Foley stage and makes his own sound effects, including a shout of "Throw baby!" when a character throws a baby.
Newspaper Comics
- In an early (1950s-era) Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown is perplexed when one of his friends jumps into a pond with a "ker-SPLASH!", and another one jumps into a pile of leaves with a "ker-LEAF!".
- One Bloom County featured the wonderfully memorable " unprovoked KICK!"
- A Calvin And Hobbes strip has Calvin walking around in Galoshes that go "Galosh galosh galosh"
- In a school strip Susie asks Calvin to name the old capitol of Poland, and hears him mutter "KRAKOW! KRAKOW!" which happens to be the right answer but is really a sound effect from his daydram about Spaceman Spiff fighting aliens.
- The Wizard of Id is fond of this trope, using such sound effects as "Deliberate deliberate deliberate" for a jury.
- This troper recalls reading a Garfield comic where Garfield was unscrewing a saltshaker with the sound effect *unscrew* hanging in midair. Even at such a young age, he recalls wondering how that sounds any different from just plain ol' screwing. There have been many other instances of Unsound Effects throughout the comic's history, but this was the most blatant one in this troper's memory.
- One Foxtrot strip used *crank* and *uncrank* for the sound of someone turning up, then turning down, a thermostat.
- For Better or For Worse is in love with this trope—partly because every other Sunday strip is mostly silent, save for the Unsound Effects flying all over the place. This troper recalls one panel where the family dog was eating something accompanied by *gobble snarf eat*.
- Another, dealing with Elly's frustrations with a fax/copier, had UNPLUG, although the design of the balloon made it ambiguous whether that was a sound effect or Elly loudly vocalizing the action as a form of venting.
- A Zits strip showed Jeremy taking a test, with the Unsound Effect "Essay! Essay! Essay! Essay! Essay!"
- Pens in the Pearls Before Swine world make "write write write" and "scribble scribble scribble" sounds when used. The creator, Stefan Pastis, admits to this bit of creative license in the book commentaries.
Music
- P.D.Q. Bach's Good King Kong Looked Out has a choir singing an Unsound Effect - "hear", in this case - because seriously, what onomatopoeia could possibly used?
Video Games
Web Animation
- On Homestar Runner, the Teen Girl Squad comics do this a lot. "Children!" "MSG'd!" "Weirded Out!" "Late 360 Shove-It to Boneless'd!" and the immortal "POSSUMS..."
- The Angry Video Game Nerd parodies the Adam West Batman show's visual onomatopoeia in the second Batman episode. Visuals include "Biff! Marty!", "Splash!", "Jugyiop!", "Wakawaka!", and "FUCKBALLS!"
- Likewise, whenever the Adam West's Batman's theme song plays in The Nostalgia Critic, similar visuals may be included, such as "LAME!" or "PLAGIARISM!"
- One segment from AMV Hell 4 involved a Paranoia Agent / Batman mash-up. In it, Shonen Bat/Lil' Slugger is beating down people with his bat, while the typical Written Sound Effect staples seen in Adam West's Batman. The last one of the bunch (it's very briefly seen; you have to be quick to catch it) is OMGWTF!. The clip was titled "Shonen Batman".
- The Ogres on Unforgotten Realms frequently mutter the words "Ogre Sounds" to no one in particular.
- Yahtzee does this occasionally in his Zero Punctuation reviews. One notable example showed someone rotoscoping images by sitting at a computer that made the sound, "Rotoscope rotoscope."
Web Comics
- Erfworld, as pictured above. Also includes sound effects like "Warn", "Sweep", or even "redox". Interestingly, it avoids this trope more often than not, sometimes confusing readers as to what the sound effect represents. For example, some were unsure what "free-deep" was, until it was explained that it was a cricket chirp.
- Some of the comic's pop-culture references are written into sound effects (e.g. "NWOBHM" — New Wave Of British Heavy Metal).
- The joke of the PLOT effect is, of course, that it is also representing the sound of what's happening.
- Other sound effects include "YTMND," "NSFW," and "4CHAN."
- Nicely parodied by Antihero For Hire.
- Framed!!! used effects like "walk" for walking.
- dead.winter used "mop" for someone being hit with one in this strip.
- Sinfest uses this nearly every other strip, notably here, here, here, here, and here ("VERKLEMPT!" It's Yiddish for "quite upset or emotional.")
- Gunnerkrigg Court: "Spankies!", "Trundle", SLAM DUNKIN, "Rocket!".
- Badass Muthas does this.
- "Sucker Punch'd!" in many Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures strips. [1] [2] [3]
- DMFA also had "De-Pantsu'd!" and "De-Dressu'd!".
- And "Ker-Pwned!"
- User Friendly had some 'interesting' sounds for coffee brewing: "sizzle", "congeal", "fold proteins", "curdle", "sprout". Of course, given that previous coffee-brewing efforts have intentionally created a brew that has the properties of Xenomorph acid-for-blood and one that was made with parts of Hastur, this may indicate a success.
- In another strip, when someone was writing a program to trick someone else, the Unsounds were 'Code Plot Plan' as he was typing.
- No Need For Bushido uses these in nearly every comic.
- The Adventures Of Dr. McNinja: Dr McN jumps on a motorbike driven by a ninja and whispers something in his ear to creep him out and throw him off the bike. The resulting sound effect is "Creeped out enough to be thrown easily from the bike". This is then Lampshaded in the Alt Text which reads "Oh come on. That is not a real sound effect at all."
- The Wotch and its spinoff Cheer! do this heavily, with examples such as: *Ka-girl* *open*, *swap*, *stare*, *harm*, *regress*, *swap*, *gravity*, *vertical ascent*, *tie up*, *disguise*, *not there* *...psyche*, and many more. Yes, with the asterisks.
- Both series use them to the point that an actual sound effect in either goes on to become pretty rare, and there's a running gag of "ka-something" sounds. "Ka-zap" eventually becomes "Ka-*effect here*" which is how "ka-girl" got started (and eventually became a verb. "Why am I always the one you ka-girl for a joke?") Eventually, you have stuff like "Ka-annoyed!" after too many transformations, and "Ka-meraderie!" when 32 tries to gloss over the fact that nobody believes she's the person she's standing in for by acting all chummy. This troper's personal favorite is "ka-asking-for-it!"
- These two Heroes Of Middlecenter strips.
- Here's a variation from ''Pastel Defender Heliotrope'' (panel 4)
- In El Goonish Shive, shrinking with "shrink soda" gives off a "sha-rink!" sound.
- And also "insert rather ordinary door bell sound here".
- Zebra Girl uses this in one strip, alongside a Message From Ed that states that the creator has no idea what the actions depicted would actually sound like, so he's just gonna make things up.
- This A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible comic uses "GASOLINE". Others used include "MOONROCK" and "COMBINE".
- "Bang" not for you? Gone with the Blastwave has -BULLET SOUND-
- Don't forget the legendary "shotgun" sound from the impossible to find green comic.
- xkcd dabbles with this occasionally. This strip has "park" as a sound effect.
- 8-bit Theater examples include:
- This Irregular Webcomic strip is composed entirely of Unsound Effects.
- Adventurers! had several. One strip in the final boss battle gives us "Slash! Cleave! Bisect!" Another from earlier has "That sound ninjas make when they jump silently!", and then later "That same sound from the last comic about jumping ninjas!"
- A staple in Beaver And Steve comics.
- T-T-T-TIMEWARP!
- Casey And Andy has the Mime Assassin firing an invisible sniper rifle with "SILENCE!"
- Also this strip, which has "Silence" amongst others.
- From Bigger Than Cheeses: SPINE!
- Also "SMITE!" and "Headdesk!" and probably a few more.
- BOJANGLES! serves both as a description of WHAT is getting hit and a pretty damn good Unsound Effect for getting hit there. I use it myself now.
- Bludgeon! Scythe!
- Loserz had "Flee!" in this strip, "Stampede!" in this one, and also "Splurge!" and probably more.
- Amazoness! gives us "Maim!" "Eviscerate!" "Impale!" "Slice!"
- The Face Full Of Alien Wing Wong VG Cats script has "icky noise" in the penultimate frame.
- The reviving effects of CAFFEINE! (also pictured◊ in Must Have Caffeine) are shown in this Questionable Content strip.
- Don't forget SCORN! which actually seems to have physical form.
- Jeph Jacques loves these in general. In one guest comic he drew, the characters of Niego walk into Coffee Of Doom and are promptly assaulted by Raven with a chair, with the Unsound Effect of "CHAIR!" and "CHAIR AGAIN!" as they're beat upon.
- The Dada Comic Listening to 11.975MHz takes Unsound Effects to a whole new level. Of course, it makes some sort of twisted sense in a comic where the dialogue also makes no sense...
- David Gonterman seems fond of "Kick!" There is also this strip. If you can figure out what the heck is going on, please share.
- The "chief" character's warning came too late, it seems, as someone already made a move and got trashcanned, while the "vixen" is now blowing a bubble of chewing gum. The rest of the comic goes directly into "I Am Not Making This Up" territory (and in several places, makes me wish for some kind of mind/eye bleach).
- Schlock Mercenary: Schlock's signature plasgun charges up with the sound effect "Ominous hummmm....". On one occasion where it's broken and he tries to fire it, the (lack of) sound effect is "Ominous silence."
- This cartoon from Deviant Art utilizes a lot of unsound effects, like *drink*, *belch*, *incredible loud belch*, and *crickets chirp*. Strangely, it also includes the best onomatopoeia for a power belch this troper has ever seen.
- Strip 12 of OMFE averts another trope by having an orbital cannon fire with a mighty "NOSOUNDINSPACE"
- Irritability used DETERMINATION!
- Used in place of actual sound effects most of the time in Reality Experiment, particularly "Sound of window smashing!"
- The Noob has "Zerg! Zerg! Zerg" for an onrushing horde. Zerg rush, get it?
- That's not an unsound effect, but a battle cry. A particular (rather clueless) guild is named Z.E.R.G. (short for Zealot Elite Righteous Guardians). That, of course, is the joke.
- NerfNow has "ZEEEERGLINGS" for the sound of Zerglings, er, being Zerglings. And loving it.
- After several more conventional sound effects, the sound effect on the last panel on this page gets a bit abstract.
- Used to indicate a Groin Attack in Order Of The Stick #586.
- One episode of Bristled features GRAB!
- Ironic Shining Light of Doom!
- Geist Panik is absolutely in love with this trope. Notable examples include "Ka-Evil!", "SPAS-12", and, in one case where even the author appeared at a loss, "Um... Fish Noises?"
- And even more recently, "Hoping! ... Real Hard!!" along with "Ominous!" as the Knob squeezes a juice-box.
- There's also "Bush Hat!" "Shadow!" and "Steve Says Hello!". By the way, Steve is a plant.
- And then there's "Passive Aggression!"
- A recent strip features perhaps the ultimate: a sound effect in Unsound Effect form. "WHOOSH SOUND!"
- A recent one gave this troper a little squick with "Better than Sex!" Of course the reason it was squicky was that it was associated with a headshot on a zombie from a sniper rifle.
- And a Beyond The Impossible even-more-ultimate example: "Whatever Sound Something Like That Makes!!!◊"
- How about "No HMO Will Ever Cover This!"? That's another good one.
- One of Gil's recent inventions in Girl Genius, the Hand Cranked Runcible Gun makes the sound "Spork! Spork! Spork!" as it fires... Sporks.
- The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob makes frequent use of this trope, perhaps most notably when space explosions are depicted as "SILENT KABOOM!"
- Achewood has one that crosses over with Bilingual Bonus: diis aliter visum translates from Latin to "the gods decided otherwise". Highly appropriate for one who has come Back From The Dead.
- Dandy And Company: Christmas decorations appear with a massive JINGLE!
- Tails From The Mynarski Forest inverts this by using real words and names that sound like real sound effects, such as "GDANSK!"
- MS Paint Masterpieces uses "telprot!" (yes, that's spelled correctly) for teleportation.
- This Stuff Of Legend strip: SUPER SPECIAL SHOVE OF DOOM!
- The defunct Sprite Comic 194X had a strip wherein a character hits several people with his "Volunteerin' Stick," making sound effects such as "PERSUADE!" (194X's archive doesn't allow direct links to comics; this happens in #70.)
- This Tale of the Cave strip features insults hidden in the miss sound effects. Naturally, the protagonist shoots the sound effect guy. This is the only shot he has successfully made to date.
- BUTTT
- Mac Hall had one strip where a human character in The Matrix universe who points out the film's plotholes is blasted by a laser gun, which makes the sound *VOIP!*. Not really an Unsound Effect...until one sees the strip immediately after, where one of the machines points out a plothole, and is blasted by a *VERY ADVANCED VOIP!*
- Friendly Hostility does this a lot. One strip featured a character opening and then closing a sash window, with the sound effects *UUUUP* and *DOOOWN*.
- The Cyantian Chronicles has used:
- "*Pity Me*", Including the asterisks while Khaelis was giving Darius Puppy Dog Eyes.
- Akaelae has recently used both "Pounce" and "Glomp" as sound effects.
- This keyboard in Wasted Talent goes "leet leet!"
- ILLUMINATE PLEASANTLY
- Also from Sluggy Freelance: "glitch" (for sword-stabbing), "chakat" (for gun-cocking... but only if they're set to "Mexican Standoff"), "wallet" (for mugging), and of course "lower da boom".
- "Glitch" and "chakat" are proper sound effects, positively visceral and metallic, respectively. Anyhow, overall the unsound effects in Sluggy Freelance vary on a scale between humorous and action-explicating; these often overlap, such as in "stabbity stabbity STAB" being used for three consecutive attempts at stabbing the same target that keeps moving out of the way. Of course, the line to sound effects isn't entirely straightforward either.
- Ahem! May I present: Hugamundo!
- "CREEPY ORGAN MUSIC BUILDING TO CRESCENDOOOOOOOOOOO"
- Honeydew Syndrome once used *facepalm*.
- Not So Distant uses this quite a bit. Amusingly, "stab" was not used when the main character was stabbed in the leg (splorch), but it WAS used earlier when a pillow got stuck to one of his head spikes (preceded by "flop" as he flopped onto his bed).
- BOOOAAAT!
- Scary Go Round has Ryan DESPAIR at Shelley and Amy's antics.
- Lampshaded in Ansem Retort, by the titular character.
- Much later, bats. Then Larxene.
- Lampshaded and justified in Digger a number of times, including the page quote, as well as with SOUNDS OF DISTANT ETHEREAL CHANTING! *
There is no feasible onomatopoeia of this. .
- Something Positive: "Throwing sound here."
- As evidenced by LOVEFEAST, sometimes grins have to be onomatopoetic.
- Woods For The Trees had an "ASS-PINCH."
- Hijinks Ensue featured a chainsaw that goes "CHAINSAW".
- A Skewed Paradise: Stool to the face!
- These have become something of a Running Gag on Daisy Owl. A recent strip indicates the tucking in of a bib with "tuck tuck", while the Alt Text explains "that sound effect was originally going to be "bib bib bib" but I felt the world was not ready".
- Kevin And Kell: Dope Slap!
- Turn Signals On A Land Raider used these occasionally. The effect in the last panel of the last comic is, fittingly, "KA-DISCONTINUE!" when an Imperator Titan kicked Jack.
- The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon gives us AWWKWAAARD!
- The Touhou fancomic Touhou Nekokayou often uses these to compensate for the fact that it's hard to show actions in create.swf, i.e. "ready to pounce," or even for exposition, i.e. the same strip also has "was just faking it."
- Las Lindas: MESS!
Web Original
- Some hovertext on CuteOverload includes "Perforate! Unspool!" and then goes into "Verb! Another verb! Yet another completely different verb!"
- During The Angry Video Game Nerd's fight with the Joker in the second half of his Batman review, sound effects such as 'MARTY', 'JUGYIOP', and 'FUCKBALLS' appear.
Western Animation
- Fairly Odd Parents once had "Replacement hamster!" as a Written Sound Effect. For someone being punched: HURT!
- This Troper can't remember any specific examples right now that he is 100% sure about, but seems to remember "Poof-eth."
- Unsound Effects are practically a Running Gag on Fairly Odd Parents at this point; they show up in nearly every episode.
- You mean the words written on the "Poof" clouds when Cosmo and Wanda (actually any magic-using character, actually) does something with magic. Usually, they're related to a wish or another event. Norm the Genie, on the other hand, only has "GONG!". The Pixies have "PING!", as well. Unsound effects show up a great deal in the Crimson Chin comics, which of course are parodies of normal superhero comics, which love this trope.
KA-CHIN!
- This troper's personal favorite comes from the opening cutscene of a Fairly Odd Parents videogame, where Cosmo summons up Da Rules with the "Poof" cloud "PLOT DEVICE!"
- Appearances by Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy on Sponge Bob Square Pants often use these as part of their being a Batman spoof: "HANG UP!" "SIT!" "WINK!"
- KING ME! when the characters were playing checkers.
- The Looney Tunes short "Now Hear This" climaxes with a gigantic explosion, accompanied by the words "GIGANTIC EXPLOSION" appearing onscreen, probably one of the most unimaginative onomatopoeia ever devised.
Real Life
- Truth In Television: Used in online games with text-only communication, or text-only communications for that matter. For example, *slap* means you slapped someone. *Bang head* means your headbanging, and so forth, and who could forget *Facepalm*?
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