Music / The Lonely Island

L to R: Taccone, Samberg, Schaffer

"This is that 'The Lonely Island' TV Tropes page."
"Oh shit, TV Tropes? That's my joint!"
"Mine, too! But a lot of these busters don't know about it!"
"Well, let's tell these motherfuckers!"

The Lonely Island is a comedy troupe consisting of Andy Samberg and his lifelong friends Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. They're best known for their comical songs which combine modern pop production with juvenile, sometimes off-putting humor.

The trio first became popular on Saturday Night Live, with Samberg as a cast member and the other two as writers, gaining notoriety with their "SNL Digital Shorts" series of short films and comedy music videos which Taccone and Shaffer would direct. Their first, "Lazy Sunday," became a viral hit after getting leaked onto a then-fledging YouTube the day after it aired, and is widely credited with bringing the show into the 21st century.

Following their tenure on SNL, the group ventured out into recorded music, producing several equally successful and exceptionally memetic songs such as "I'm On A Boat" and "Jizz in my Pants," both of which became hit singles in 2009.

Outside of Lonely Island projects, both Jorma and Akiva have either written or directed other projects, including shows and movies that Andy has acted in. The trio have produced four films as a unit: Hot Rod, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), only the first and last of which did they not also personally record the soundtracks for.

Discography

• Incredibad (2009)
• Turtleneck & Chain (2011)
• The Wack Album (2013)
• Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
• The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience (2019)

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Murder these tropes, feed 'em to the fishes:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Not one of them can play a musical instrument. Justin Timberlake taught them how to compose their songs using ProTools.
• Adam Westing
  • Most of their guest stars play exaggerated versions of themselves. Michael Bolton is an easily distracted cinephile, Justin Timberlake goes after anything that moves, and Nicki Minaj has No Social Skills.
  • The trio themselves appear in Jack Johnson's video for "At Or With Me," with Andy (who parodied Johnson on SNL) as a loudmouthed jerkass version of himself heckling Johnson and the other two as his entourage. Johnson himself gets in on the action by scrapping with Andy, winning and then making peace with him.
• Aerith and Bob: Their names are Jorma, Akiva, and... Andy.
• Affectionate Parody: Of rap and R&B, and the respective cliches of both. For example, "Jack Sparrow" would be a typical "rip up the club" rap anthem with violent threats... if it weren't for Michael Bolton interrupting them. "Perfect Saturday" is also a Gangsta Rap anthem (especially parodying Ice Cube's "Today was a Good Day")... except it hinges on a fart joke.
• All Gays are Promiscuous: Inverted with "Spring Break Anthem", in which same-sex wedding ceremonies between men looking to settle down are juxtaposed with all the debauchery that straight college kids get up to on spring break. According to Schaffer, the song was meant to lampoon how society regarded spring break behavior as normal while simultaneously seeing same-sex marriage as deviant.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Happens to the spacecraft hosting the titular event of "Space Olympics". But that's the least of their worries because someone accidentally hit the self-destruct button.
• A Man Is Always Eager: From "I Just Had Sex":

  I'm so humbled by a girl's ability to let me do her
  'Cause honestly, I'd have sex with a pile of manure

• Ambiguous Syntax: During "Threw It on the Ground'', Samberg's girlfriend hands him her cellphone and says "it's your dad" (on the phoneline). He responds "Man, this ain't my dad! This is a cellphone!"
• And That's Terrible: "I think that it's wack to call someone wack!"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • The reasons for jizzing in your pants become... normal toward the end.
  • From "Who Said We're Wack?":
    How could the devil turn the blue sky black?
    How many babies born won't ever reach their dreams?
    And how could a person call another person wack?
  • "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions": "Denzel [Washington] walks, Will Smith walks, Mark Wahlberg is wearing a hat."
  • "We're Back"'s final verse, after a series of bizarre and offensive boasts, has Akiva mentioning he brings lunch to a homeless friend.
  • At one point in "Like A Boss", the protagonist crashes his car, sucks his own dick, and eats some chicken strips.
  • "Spring Break Party Anthem" extols the virtues of being a dudebro on Spring Break: drugs, misogyny, beer goggles, trashing hotel rooms, more misogyny, and MARRYING A MAN.
• Applied Phlebotinum:
  • The boombox from the eponymous song, which can make stuffy old men and women dance, erase racism and crime, and make rich people get loose. It also can cause elderly orgies.
  • Santana DVX, especially for animals.
• Ate His Gun: THE BOSS attempts this but ultimately doesn't go through with it.
• Atomic F-Bomb:
  • For Michael Bolton, "This whole town's a pussy...just waitin' to get FUUUUUUUUCKED!"
  • "I'm On A Boat" opens up with a very enthusiastic "AWWWWWW SHIT!!"
• Awesome Music: "Boombox" specifically invokes the power of this trope, and the last verse demonstrates the dangers of an overdose. invoked
• Ax-Crazy: Dreamgirl, from her eponymous song, talks to her shoe like it's her friend, yells all the time, pretends to be... something... and has threatened to stab the narrator in his sleep.
• Berserk Button: Depending on the song:
  • Being called wack
  • Jeans.
  • Boiled Goose.
  • "Threw It on the Ground"'s character is nothing but a series of these.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: In "Like A Boss".
  "...Black out in the sewer (Like a boss!)/ Meet a giant fish (Like a boss!)/Fuck its brains out! (Like a boss!)..."
  • "Spell It Out"; said spelling of the lyrics reveals the rapper fucks pigs for money.
• The Big Rotten Apple: "I Run NY" mocks this; it is sung from the perspective of New York's mayor and his complaints get progressively more mundane as the song progresses (at one point he nearly cries because the Chief of Police mocked his tie).
• Birthday Party Goes Wrong: In "Threw It on the Ground", a kid who's having a birthday party offers a slice of cake to the protagonist. Said protagonist not only makes a mockery of his generosity by throwing it on the ground, he throws the rest of the cake too.
  Happy birthday TO THE GROUND!!
  I THREW THE REST OF THE CAKE TOO!
• Blatant Lies: The narrator of "Threw It on the Ground" claims that "two Hollywood phonies" (Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Wood) attempted to give him an unwanted autograph. We see that, in truth, the two were having dinner and minding their own business, and he flipped their dinner table over completely unprovoked.
• Blunt "Yes": In "Like A Boss", when the performance reviewer asks the titular boss if he really chops his balls off and die on a typical day of being a boss, the boss simply replies with a laid-back "Hell yeah."
• Boastful Rap - "I'm on a Boat" and "We're Back" are mockeries of this. "Jack Sparrow" would have been this if not for Michael Bolton.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • The actions in Like A Boss grow more and more ridiculous, scatological, and/or violent as the song goes on, culminating in the protagonist castrating themselves, blacking out in a sewer, copulating with a giant fish, transforming into a jet to bomb Russia, and flying into the sun.
  • "Afterparty" is much the same way; the protagonist's empty life and emptiness is promptly punctuated with episodes of jerking off.
  • "I Run NY", in the midst of a mayor having a mental breakdown over the usual woes of running a major city with a dwindling budget, breaks into a verse of said mayor fighting giant mutant rats in the sewers.
• Brick Joke: "The following song is brought to you by Chex Mix."
• Bring My Brown Pants: "Trouble on Dookie Island", which is about a group of attempted bank robbers in a heist gone wrong who can't stop shitting themselves when things go bad, and even having to stop mid-chase to offload some "dookie weight" from their pants.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Jorma is left off of the boat ride (and taunted for it) amongst other indignities.
  • Who invited Steve?
  • He's also harassed by Ras Trent for being a "baldhead".
  • What kind of rapping name is Steve? ...Steve?!
  • "Mama", the Mom herself and her husband Dale. In a song about loving your mother.
• Call-Back: "After Party" uses this in regards to "Like A Boss" in the final verse, with "And then after that I pass out in the sewer, meet a giant fish, FUCK ITS BRAINS OUT!".
• The Cameo:
  • T-Pain in "I'm On a Boat".
  • Seth Rogen in "Like A Boss" (though the album version had Akiva Schaffer as Andy's boss; Rogen only appeared on the music video version that appeared on SNL as Andy's boss while Akiva played a hooded gun dealer).
  • Jenny Slate, Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Wood in the video for "Threw It on the Ground".
  • Justin Timberlake, Molly Sims, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler in "Jizz in My Pants".
  • Jack Black in "Sax Man" - not so much as cameos as is the whole song.
  • James Cameron and Steve Martin in two separate Laser Cats sketches.
  • Will Ferrell (an SNL cast member from 1995 to 2002) and J. J. Abrams (the guy who created Lost) in "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions".
  • Natalie Portman, of all people, launches the Cluster F-Bomb from hell in the aptly named "Natalie's Rap".
  • Julian Casablancas (from The Strokes) in "Boombox".
  • Justin Timberlake in "Dick in a Box", "Jizz In My Pants" and "Motherlover".
  • Kiefer Sutherland in an episode of their eponymous "sitcom." It was unintentional.
  • E40 as Carlos Santana in Santana DVX.
  • Blake Lively, Jessica Alba, Akon and John McEnroe in "I Just Had Sex".
  • John Waters and Nicki Minaj in "The Creep".
  • Rihanna in both Shy Ronnie skits.
  • Michael Bolton in "Jack Sparrow"
  • Alec Baldwin and Tom Petty in "Great Day", before telling Andy to get out of their dressing room.
  • Snoop Dogg on "Turtleneck and Chain".
  • Santigold in "After Party".
  • Beck in "Attracted to Us".
  • Lady Gaga in "Three Way".
  • "Reba Mcentire" (Kenan Thompson in a red wig) on the bonus track "Two World's Collide" from Incredibad.
• Cargo Ship - In-universe, the crew apparently bone their turtlenecks in "Turtleneck and Chain".
• Cloudcuckoolander - The "Normal Guy". Michael Bolton, of all people, in "Jack Sparrow".
• Cluster F-Bomb: I'm On A Boat, among others.
• Chekhov's Gun: "The following song was brought to you by Chex Mix."
• Cool Boat: Surprise! I'm on a Boat takes place on one! Who'd have thought? It features T-Pain, lifejackets, the crew (except Jorma) having their dreams fulfilled, and sex with mermaids.
• Crack Pairing:
  • invoked In one promo for an awards night Andy was hosting, he was claimed to be the son of Michael Cera and Jack Black.
  • The entire band and an alien in the eponymous single.
  • Andy writes "freaky fanfiction where cartoons fuck" in "We're Back!", specifically, he wrote Rule 34 of CGI Garfield and Marmaduke, helpfully illustrated in the music video.
  • Falcor and Atreyu in a skit.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Shy Ronnie. Shame he only gets a verse off.
• Crying After Sex: In the song "I Just Had Sex" the singers celebrate having sex for the first time; they either don't recognize or don't care that it wasn't very good. Among other things, one singer admits he "cried the whole time, (Doesn't matter, had sex!)"
• Cutting Back to Reality: The end of "Great Day," where the coked-up singer Dennis sings that they're all in the Matrix, and everybody around him begins moving extremely slowly. Cut to a couple watching Dennis by himself, moving slowly and making weird noises.
• Dance Sensation: Mocked with The Creep, a parody of memetic dance songs that explains how to perform this dance. It's so effective at its intended function that it's never going to catch on.
• Deconstructive Parody:
  • "Space Olympics" starts off by boasting about how awesome the titular premise would be...before diving into the myriad problems that such an event would pose, like athletes only getting one meal a day because of the budget running out, an unenforceable curfew due to no light or sound, various events being "TOTALLY CANCELLED" because physics makes certain sports completely unplayable in space, and all the oxygen running out.
  • "I Run NY" mocks all the rappers claiming they run New York City by having the mayor go through constant budget issues, Union Protests, and services running out.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Yes. Yes, they did. In a song called, say it with us, "I Just Had Sex!"
• Don't Explain the Joke: "Last week thought I saw you on the street, turned out it was a bag of trash/just a big ol' bag a'trash/(I thought you looked like a bag of trash)"
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: In "Threw It on the Ground", the protagonist rejects a free hot dog and throws it on the ground, insisting he's a well-off adult who "don't need your handouts!"
• Drugs Causing Slow-Motion: Parodied at the end of the music video for "Great Day". Dennis, high on coke, declares that everybody lives in The Matrix and everybody slows down in Bullet Time accordingly. Then it cuts back to a sober couple watching Dennis, who's just moving slowly for no reason.
• Dull Surprise:
  • Those Two Guys of "Just Two Guyz" and "We Like Sportz". Just two guys having a good time...
  • In "We Like Sportz" they manage to combine this with Large Ham.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: In "Like A Boss", the Boss concludes his day by turning into a jet, bombing the Russians, and crashing into the Sun and dying. And that's a typical day for him, apparently.
• Excrement Statement: The protagonist of "Like A Boss" attempts to hit on a coworker, gets rejected, and later takes a dump on her desk.
• Face Death with Dignity: As the narrator of Space Olympics puts himself between the athletes and advancing alien hordes, he takes one last moment to "stare death in the face" and acknowledge that he's going to hell for all his sins.
• Flanderization: "Dick in a Box" was a parody of cheesy '90s sex ballads. By "3-Way (The Golden Rule)", the protagonists had evolved into Disco Dans living in a caricature of the '90s.
• Flat "What":
  • Andy in "Jack Sparrow", in response to Michael Bolton's non-sequitur chorus.
  • Akiva in response to the alien's request to have intercourse in Incredibad.
• Flipping the Table: The climax of "Threw It on the Ground" has the protagonist toppling the dinner table of two "Hollywood phonies".
• Foreign Culture Fetish: Ras Trent may not know that much about Jamaica but he sure loves it.
• Gag Penis: Shy Ronnie, of all people, claims he hung a "giant ass noose off his giant ass dick".
• Giving Up on Logic: The entire band winds up doing this in regards to Michael Bolton's performance on "Jack Sparrow". They eventually give up trying to get the song back on track and just sit back dumbfounded and watch Bolton go.
• Grave Humor: In "Like A Boss", after the Boss dies from crashing into the Sun, he's honored with a tombstone that reads "He was da best".
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Despite the Guys' affinity for "sportz", "We Like Sportz" mentions "shooting hoops through the Super Bowl". They also lump golf and (in the music video) frisbee with competitive sports like football, tennis, and hockey.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: In Rocky, the titular boxer rips off Andys and beats him with them.
• Groin Attack: In "Like A Boss"
  "Chop my balls off! (Like a boss!)"
• "Groundhog Day" Loop:
  • "After Party" plays with this, the narrator going through a cycle of living a playboy lifestyle, having an existential breakdown, masturbating in various locations, joining Alcoholics Anonymous, sleeping with a prostitute, losing his hand in a game of dice, then going back to his old ways. Then going through the same cycle the next week.
  • In "Like A Boss" the boss claims all the crazy things he does is all on a daily basis.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: The narrator of "Threw It on the Ground", who'll let out his rage by throwing things on the ground at the slightest provocation.
• Haute Cuisine Is Weird: "Boombox" has a running joke with snooty white people eating boiled goose. It then extends into street vendors in New York and the daily meal in old folks homes. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?:
  • The two singers in "No Homo", specifically of the "doth protest too much" variety. It starts out with complimenting another man's shirt and saying that he'll have beautiful children, then progresses to knowing every word of Mystic Pizza to suggestions of men skinny-dipping, nude wrestling, and finally sex, following everything with NO HOMO!.
  • Part of the reason the Guys brag about watching sports in "We Like Sportz" seems to be this, with Guy #2 mentioning how "watching sports with girls is a pain", and Guy #1 insisting they're "just two normal guys hanging out having fun!"
• Heroic Sacrifice: The narrator in "Space Olympics", against the alien hordes.
• Hipster: The narrator of "Threw it on the Ground".
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the song "I Fucked My Aunt", guest singer T-Pain claims that he had sex with his aunt too, but unlike Jorm, Akiva, and Andy, he wasn't actually demented enough to make a song about it... as he's participating in a song about fucking aunts.
  • Akiva (along with the other members of the band) are annoyed that Michael Bolton keeps referencing Pirates of the Caribbean (and other movies) yet he makes a reference to Top Gun in his own verse.
  "'Motherfucking iceman, I'm the top gunner!"
• I Love the Dead: Nicki Minaj, of all people, in "The Creep".
• Informed Ability: The Sax Man is the greatest musician alive according to Jack Black's narration, though you would never know from his few feeble notes on the actual song.
• In-Joke: Motherlover references Dick in a Box twice (throwing away empty boxes with dickholes in the beginning of the video after being released from prison, and the last verse's lyric "This is the second best idea that we've ever had"), being that they both feature Justin Timberlake.
• Insufferable Imbecile: The protagonist of "Threw it on the Ground", who throws whatever is held in front of him onto the ground with little provocation and with very poor reasoning, even throwing a slice of birthday cake onto the ground and proceeding to throw the rest of the cake onto the ground out of spite. In the end, the thick-headed jerk gets his comeuppance when he lashes out on two "Hollywood phonies" and they retaliate by tasing him in his butthole. The lesson he claims to learn from this is "You can't trust the system", when a more applicable lesson would be "There are consequences to being rude and ungrateful to everyone."
• Intercourse with You:
  • Parodied in "Dick in a Box", which is a parody of all those sex ballads of The Nineties and Present Day.
  • "Bing Bong Brothers" flat-out mocks this, as a parody of the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)".
  Hey girl, from over here your butt looks soft
  Maybe if I could touch it, I could tell if it's soft
  Tell me if it's soft, cause I'd really like to touch it
  And then I'll show you my penis (you guys)
  • "I Just Had Sex".
• I Take Offense to That Last One: For some reason, the boss is unwilling to verify to his own boss that he claimed to have sucked his own dick, while the rest of his claims of doing sexual harassment, attempting suicide, turning into a jet and crashing into the sun, self-castration, bestiality with a fish, etc. are not things he bothers to deny.
• Ironic Echo: In "Threw It on the Ground", the protagonist rejects a free hot dog, insisting "I'm an adult!" who doesn't need "handouts". Later, after going on a spree of throwing so many other things on the ground, he once again insists "I'm an adult!" While he was never a mature adult to begin with, as he violently threw said hot dog on the ground, that case of "I'm an adult" can be chalked up to a (warped) case of Don't You Dare Pity Me!, as the second instance is just him being a full-on Insufferable Imbecile.
• It's Snowing Cocaine: In "Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton)" in a parody of the Scarface scene Bolton-as-Tony Montana is shown doing this, and mentions "mountains of cocaine" in the lyrics.
• Jerkass:
  • The trio in "Japan", who are fucking over their label company and eventually dump an old man in the river.
  • The narrator of "Threw It on the Ground", who is oddly angered by being handed things and responds by breaking them from tossing them to the ground. This comes to a head when he topples the dinner table of a couple of "Hollywood phonies" who he claims tried to give him their autographs (in the music video, the two of them were just minding their own business), and gets tased in the butthole for his efforts.
• Jizzed in My Pants: The Trope Namer.
• Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy: The rampage in "Who Said We're Wack" is started when someone tells the singers they heard someone at the club saying they knew someone who said the singers were wack.
• Laser Blade:
  • Totally canceled.
  • Space Discs: Also canceled!
  • And all other events are pending!
• Laser-Guided Karma: The obnoxious narrator in "Threw It on the Ground" gets tasered "in the butthole" by Elijah Wood and Ryan Reynolds after he flips over their table in a restaurant.^note One could say that this is Taser-Guided Karma.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: "I Just Had Sex" has the singers celebrating having sex for the first time. They don't recognize or care that the sex wasn't very good and lasted 30 seconds or that their partner was clearly unimpressed, all that it matters is that the Quest for Sex was completed.
  She kept lookin' at her watch (doesn't matter, I had sex!)
  But I cried the whole time (doesn't matter, I had sex!)
  I think she might've been a racist (doesn't matter, I had sex!)
  She put a bag on my head (still counts!)
• Mind-Control Music:
  • The song in "Go Kindergarten" convinces the audience to do all sorts of weird things, including things which shouldn't even be possible, like making their butts drink helium and speak in a high-pitched voice.
  • The eponymous box from "Boom Box" causes people to lose control when they hear music coming from it.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: The entirety of "Who Said We're Wack".
  I AM NOT WACK, NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY! WHAT DID YOU SAY? DID YOU SAY I'M WACK?!
• Mundane Made Awesome: Something of a speciality of the group. Many of their songs involve giving a bombastic R&B/Hip-Hop/Pop treatment to subject matter that is usually quite mundane:
  • "Like A Boss" is mostly the boss talking about how he does stuff like a boss. It starts off fairly ordinary ("Talk to Corporate LIKE A BOSS!") but ends up going to some rather strange places ("Turn into a jet LIKE A BOSS!")
  • "I'm On A Boat" is basically an epic set of beats combined with lyrics describing how the group is, well, on a boat.
  • "I Just Had Sex" gives the full-on power ballad treatment to two guys rejoicing over what appear to have been some very underwhelming sexual encounters.
  • "Lazy Sunday" treats two guys going to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as if it were a hardcore gangster rap about planning a heist and indulging in conspicuous over-consumption with the proceeds.
  • "Space Olympics" declares athletes winners just for passing drug tests.
• Never My Fault: The Insufferable Imbecile narrator of "Threw It on the Ground", after being tased in the butthole by Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Wood for flipping their table over, comes to the conclusion that "YOU CAN'T TRUST THE SYSTEM!" It never occurs to him that it might have been because he was an ungrateful Jerkass.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Played for Laughs in Ras Trent, a song about a white college kid convert to Rastafarianism and being as stereotypical as possible.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • "Rocky", where Andy fights the titular boxer. Rocky breaks Andy's jaw, nose, ribs and eye socket, knocks his teeth out, fractures his shins, rips his arms out, throws acid in his face, and pees on him. The ref then declares Andy legally dead.
  • And that was the night I fought Rocky!
• Overcrank: Adds emphasis when the main character from "Threw It on the Ground" demonstrates the song title.
• The Paranoiac: The characters in "YOLO" become consumed with paranoia in their desperation to keep anything (IE: pretty much everything) that could harm them away.
• The Peeping Tom: Played for equal amounts of laughs and squick in "Do the Creep", which features Jorm, Akiva, and Andy sitting on a tree limb to peep through a window, and Nicki Minaj hiding in a locker to watch boys change after gym.
• Porn Stache: The Bing Bong Brothers.
• Potty Failure: "Trouble On Dookie Island" at first starts out like a typical Boastful Rap about getting in a shootout at a club, but midway through the protagonist is afflicted with extraordinarily prodigious diarrhea.
• Precision F-Strike: FUCKING PLAY SOMETHING, SAX MAN!!!
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Ras Trent. See Not Even Bothering with the Accent.
• Product Placement: Chex Mix in Dream Girl.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: At the memetic part of 300, I Jizzed. In. My Pants.
• Sampling: The main chorus of "Jack Sparrow" samples (appropriately enough) "He's A Pirate", Klaus Badelt's main leitmotif to the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
• Schmuck Bait: The end of "Who Says We're Wack", where the boys found out who said they were wack by having first the ladies put their hands up, then the fellas, then whoever said they're wack, before telling everyone else to put their hands down. Apparently, whoever called them wack kept their hands up, because they were quickly picked out of the crowd.
• Serial Escalation:
  • The eponymous Dreamgirl gets uglier with every verse. How ugly? Listen for yourself.
  "It's music to my ears when you scream in your sleep."
  • Similarly, "Like a Boss" deals with the day of a boss. Most of the earlier stuff is fairly mundane boss stuff (workshops, birthdays, synergy), then after getting rejected by his love interest Debra, getting sued for sexual harassment, followed up with a failed suicide attempt, degenerates into scoring coke, crashing his car, self-fellating, eating chicken strips, self-castration, having sex with a giant fish in a sewer, turning into a jet and bombing Russia, and finally crashing into the sun and dying. On a daily basis.
• Serious Business: Another trademark of the band. Many of their songs involve taking something mundane or silly to incredibly absurd lengths of seriousness. Such as:
  • "Who Says We're Wack": Being called 'wack' is, to the group at least, one of the most devastating insults imaginable.
  • "Santana DVX": In which a the band celebrates a champagne released from a vineyard owned by Carlos Santana thusly:
    On the seventh day, it's been said God rests
    But on the eighth day, he made the DVX
• Shot in the Ass: When the singer of "Threw It on the Ground" interrupts "two Hollywood phonies" having dinner, it "turns out they had a taser, and they tased me in the butthole!"
• Shout-Out:
  • The trio are playing Punch-Out!! in Incredibad. The ending of the song ("Stop stop stop! [Crash] Surprise, everyone!") is also a reference to the ending of N.W.A's "100 Miles and Runnin'".
  • In order to do The Creep properly, you need to look like John Waters.
  • Michael Bolton in "Jack Sparrow", much to the trio's annoyance, keeps singing about Pirates of the Caribbean, Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, Scarface (1983)...
  • Akiva makes a reference to Top Gun in his own verse in "Jack Sparrow".
  "Motherfucking iceman, I'm the top gunner!"
  • From "Rocky":
    "Here's a little story that I think you'll like/ Its not about Shaq or Iron Mike."
  • I'm on a Boat has T-Pain sing to a painting of Poseidon from Age of Mythology.
  "Poseidon look at me, oh"
• Shrinking Violet: "Shy Ronnie",
• Slasher Smile: John Waters advises you to do this for "The Creep".
  • Elijah Wood has a hilarious one in the video for "Threw It on the Ground" while he's tasing Andy in the butthole.
• Smug Snake:
  • "Punch You in the Jeans" and "I Don't Give a Honk"'s narrators both consider themselves superior to a standard fashion choice and people cursing, and punish both by throwing hands.
  • The narrator of "Threw It on the Ground" is your typical know-it-all rebel hipster raging at everyone else for being mainstream.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The entirety of "Great Day," a peppy song that sounds like it could be something out of Marry Poppins, while it's about a businessman whose life has completely fallen apart & clearly has a very serious drug problem.
• Space Opera: "Space Olympics" is a deconstruction— Turns out, sports in SPAAAACE don't work so well.
• Speed Sex:
  • One of the guys who just had sex in “I Just Had Sex” describes it as the best thirty seconds of his life.
  • "Afterparty" has a joke about how the woman the protagonist invites back to his room "leave[s] real soon".
• Spoiling Shout-Out: In "Jizz In My Pants", one of the increasingly-absurd jizz-in-pants triggers is finding out that "Bruce Willis was dead at the end of Sixth Sense".
• Spoof Aesop:
  • Boombox: A boombox is NOT a toy.
  • Threw It on the Ground: YOU CAN'T TRUST THE SYSTEM!
  • Dreamgirl: Chex Mix = Number One.
  • After Party: You can't spend your whole life jerking off.
• Stealth Parody:
  • Oddly "I'm on a Boat". If it wasn't obvious enough...
  • "We're Back" is far more obvious, but it's a mockery of self-aggrandizing Boastful Rap. Possibly a specific parody of "My Dick" with over half of the verses referring to the members', 'well', members.
  • "Jack Sparrow" partially mocks boastful club anthem raps. The other half just turns into Michael Bolton singing about various films.
  • "Turtleneck and Chain" is another club anthem parody.
  • "Attracted to Us" mocks contemporary power-pop music regarding girls.
  • "Spell It Out" parodies old-school 90s rap that relied on spelling out words to emphasize or rhyme lyrics.
  • The trilogy of "Dick in a Box", "Motherlover", and "The Golden Rule" all parody 90s slow-jam RNB hits; it's most obvious in "The Golden Rule"'s music video, where 90s fashion and VHS is on full display.
  • "Perfect Saturday" is not only a parody of Ice Cube's "Good Day", it's a general parody of West Coast g-funk and gangsta rap, complete with extremely angry spoken word breakdown threatening all haters at the end.
• Stealth Pun: The music video for "I Just Had Sex" includes them winning medals in the sex Olympics because they "came first".
• Stylistic Suck:
  • 'Laser Cats', wherein Andy and Bill Hader attempt to pitch their ultra-low-budget Z-movies, each time getting them thrown out of an office at the end. Even James Cameron's approval doesn't help.
  • Any video that involves Guy #1 and Guy #2, who sing in a bored monotone.
  • "Ras Trent" is a bad, generic psuedo-reggae song with nonsensical rhymes and gratuitous references to Rastafari that make it clear the protagonist has no idea what he's talking about, as part of a general Take That! to people like the protagonist.
  • "We're Back" is a loud, call-and-response rap anthem... with lyrics bragging about small dicks, infected dicks, creepy fanfiction fetishes, erectile dysfunction, and giving back to the homeless.
  • "The Old Saloon" is an overstuffed DJ/radio "remix" of three drunks at a saloon drinking piss, with the DJ constantly and loudly screaming his name, laid over with unnecessary sound effects.
• So Bad, It's Good: In-universe, the three boys wish to be the "Greatest Bad MCs on Earth" in the song "Incredibad".
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: "I Run New York" parodies the many songs that position the singer as an untouchable gangster-figure in control of an entire city by referencing the numerous administrative difficulties that come from actually being an official in charge of the orderly running of a massive city.
  Yo, I run New York, it's a pain in the ass
  The city's crowded as fuck and it's covered in trash
  And the sanitation chief just shoveled shit in my face
  Another transit strike? Aw, fucking great
  I can't wait to have another meeting with the labor union
  So the mob can bend me over and then shove their fucking shoe in
  But I do it, so you can sip your pumpkin latté
  I literally run New York and it's exhausting!
• Take That!: The band has stated that "Spring Break" was primarily meant as a takedown of immoral behavior (e.g. engaging in obscene displays of drunkenness and nudity, vandalizing hotel rooms, engaging in random unprotected sex, etc.) that is considered acceptable among adolescents in Spring break for seemingly no other reason than that it's traditional.
  Samberg: That song ended up having multiple points. The original one was about how acceptable spring break has become, and how it's so terrible for young people, especially girls, to deal with it. But once we were actually watching the video, it became clear that there was another layer, and it was pointing out how so many of the macho, aggro dudes who have such a problem with gay marriage have no problems with acting like fucking animals on spring break.
• Tempting Fate: Dreamgirl: "You say you're gonna stab me in my sleep, but you won't!"
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Most of "Who Said We're Wack?" is the singers stating how angry and shocked they feel that someone called them wack, and how whoever said they're wack is incorrect. "Someone said we're wack! Why would they say that? I don't think we're wack."
• Those Two Guys:
  • "Just Two Guyz"'s, uhm, guys. Also, in "We Like Sportz". We're just two guys, hanging out, having fun. Right, Guy Number Two?
    • Yeah, Guy Number One.
• A Threesome is Manly: What the duo attempt to convince the other of in the song "3-Way".
  It's not gay if it's in a threeway! With a honey in the middle there's some leeway!
• Title Drop: The album title Incredibad is name dropped in the last line of the last song.
• Touched by Vorlons: According to "Incredibad", the source of their musical talents.
• Trademark Favourite Food:
  • Half the world is eating boiled goose in "Boombox".
  • Chex Mix in Dreamgirl. Yes, there's a reason...
• The Treachery of Images: One verse in "Threw It on the Ground" has the narrator's girlfriend hand him her cellphone, saying it's his dad (on the phone). He in turn asserts that "this ain't my dad — this is a cellphone!" Three guesses as to what he does with it after.
  "My dad's not a phone! DUH!"
• Twist Ending: The last few verses of "Dreamgirl" abruptly switch to talking about Chex Mix.
• Undead Author:
  • The boss in "Like a Boss", who apparently survives self-castration and flying into the sun unscathed on a daily basis.
  • "The doctor came out and pronounced me dead, and that was the night I fought Rocky."
• Understatement: The host of the Space Olympics announces that there are "minor" scheduling adjustments...like a bunch of events being cancelled.
• Unexplained Recovery: The eponymous protagonist of "Like a Boss" claims he goes through a fair bit of physical abuse, like chopping his balls off and dying by flying into the Sun. Yet he's lounging at his chair during a routine performance review, alive and well.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In "Threw It on the Ground", the protagonist is offered several items for free, including an energy drink, a hot dog, and a piece of a kid's birthday cake. Not satisfied with politely declining, he takes these items and violently throws them on the ground. Bonus points for the poor birthday kid, because he throws the rest of the cake too.
• Unflinching Walk: "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" mocks and pays tribute to this trope. Subverted at the end, when Will Ferrell and Andy flinch as a building explodes and start running.
• Useless Accessory: In "Boombox"
  "Whoa-oa-oa, everyone was wearing fingerless gloves..."
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: In "Like A Boss":
  "Puke on Debra's desk! (Like a boss!)
• You Shall Not Pass!: Space Olympics: "As you file to your escape pods, I'll distract the alien hordes. And as I stare death in the face I know my sins will take me to Hell.

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