Basic Trope: The theme tune (or another song on the soundtrack) is hummed, sang, whistled, played or what-have-you within the show.
- Straight: Alice asks Bob "Do you know that song? The one that goes—" and starts humming the theme tune.
- Exaggerated: Alice hums the theme tune to Bob in order to identify it, then Carol walks past whistling it, then a parrot whistles it, then it plays on the radio, then it plays on Dave's iPod, then Edward plays it on the piano.
- Downplayed: Alice hums the first few notes of the theme tune.
- Justified:
- Alice is seen in the intro, so she actually sang or listened to the theme tune once, but it's unknown when the intro actually happened In-Universe, and she doesn't know either. If that makes sense.
- The Theme song is an actual in-universe song and it's really popular with the characters.
- The show uses a Real Song Theme Tune, and the characters are fans of that song.
- It's an educational show about music… the Theme Song could easily be used to demonstrate some of the subject matter of specific episodes.
- It's a Game Show that uses a theme song snippet for Big Win Sirens.note
- Inverted: A character sings a song during the show, that gets popular enough among the audience that it's turned into the theme song. However, the song is no longer sung in-universe after that.
- Subverted: Alice was humming a tune similar to the theme tune, but not quite.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice is tone deaf, and Bob suggests "Maybe you were thinking of this tune" and hums the theme tune.
- The theme tune then starts playing on the radio.
- Averted: The theme tune is never hummed, sang, whistled, played or anything in the show besides the intro.
- Parodied: The characters do the intro for no reason in the middle of the episode, then the plot progresses as though it had never happened.
- Zigzagged: A handful of tunes similar to the theme tune play In-Universe, some of which are the theme tune, and a few of which are interrupted after the first few notes.
- Enforced: The writers wanted an episode where Alice tries to identify a song, but couldn't find one that's not either copyrighted or obvious, so they chose the theme song.
- Lampshaded: "If we had our own theme music, that tune would fit"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: For whatever reason, the characters refuse to hum, sing, whistle, play, or otherwise mention the theme tune.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Is he playing the theme tune?"
- Implied: ???
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played for Laughs: Alice and Bob then have a conversation about how the song seems so familiar but they can't pin it down.
- Played for Drama: ???
Back to Diegetic Soundtrack Usage.
