The Stinger / Live-Action TV

• America's Got Talent has two
  • One at the end of the Season 14 finale live-broadcast as a Mood Whiplash, delivered by Slappy Squirrel, following Kodi Lee's win as well as some emotional moments.
  Slappy Squirrel: It's over. Go away! [slams the door]
  • The Season 15 finale live broadcast ends with the official trailer for the 2020 reboot of Animaniacs' being shown for the first time as a final surprise for the viewers.
• An "advertisement" for Icelandic Ultra Blue that appeared on [adult swim] ends with Dr. Samuelson telling you to buy the stuff. He then talks into the back of his wristwatch saying that "Phase One is complete" and all the scientists smile at the viewer as creepy music plays.
• The season finales of Agent Carter have these. The first one involves Dr. Fennhoff's cellmate being Arnim Zola, Red Skull's HYDRA scientist, and the second involves Thompson being shot by an unknown assassin.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has one of these after every episode, the first most notable being after episode two, when Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) appears.
• Conversational Troping in the closing theme of Alas Smith and Jones, which explains that they're not going to do this:
  That's it, there'll be no funny bits,
  After this bit, this is the end of it,
  No tiny titbit, stuck on just after it,
  This is the end, end, end, end, end.
• In Auction Kings, most episodes end with some kind of finagling with an incident earlier in the show, such as an item purchased or some altercation, making this double as a Brick Joke.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003) often featured bonus scenes in this manner, often after the official airing slot was over therefore thwarting many efforts to record it for later viewing.
• And the clown jumped over the moon!
• Blackadder does this with the season finale of each series. It also tends to end with him (and the rest of the main cast) dead, leading to a bit of Fridge Logic.
  • The Black Adder has one in the first and last episodes. In the first the three witches who told Edmund he would be King of England suddenly realise he wasn't Henry Tudor, and in the last once all the rest of the main cast is dead of poison, Baldrick and Percy burst in shouting "Don't drink the wi... oh."
  • Blackadder II features one where it is discovered that Prince Ludwig (Hugh Laurie) has murdered the entire cast, and has now taken the place of Queen Elizabeth I (neatly explaining why she was The Virgin Queen).
  • Blackadder the Third's: The whole season finale revolved around the plot that Blackadder had swapped places with the Prince Regent so the former could fight a duel with the Duke of Wellington in the latter's place, which had inadvertently ended with the Duke shooting the real Prince Regent (and Blackadder - masquerading as the Prince - becoming King). In the stinger, the real Prince (supposedly dead) turned out to not be dead at all, that in fact he had a cigarillo case as well (calling back to an earlier scene where Blackadder had survived a cannonball to the chest because he had one in his pocket). Then, he searches around in his pockets and realises "Damn, I must have left it on the dresser" and promptly dies.
  • Averted in Blackadder Goes Forth, because there were no jokes to be made.
• Defunct British Soap Opera Crossroads used these (in its original incarnation), with a very brief coda (usually just a line or two) inbetween the end credits and the Vanity Plate. This type of stinger was later resurrected by the unrelated teen-aimed soap Hollyoaks.
• The "Moment of Zen" at the end of The Daily Show, usually a slightly longer clip from one of the day's stories but sometimes just a random funny video.
• Disney Channel Original Movies have been known to have these:
  • Adventures in Babysitting (2016): As the end credits roll the children are looking the pictures that Lola (one of the two babysitters) has sent them of their adventures that night. The last shot is one of Mrs. Anderson looks in horror at a picture she was sent by mistake of the Andersons' dog Lady Marmalade being hurriedly cleaned up by two of the kids during their (successful) attempt to clean up the house/their new car before the Andersons got home...
  • At the end of High School Musical, Zeke is surprised in the gym by Sharpay freaking out over the cookies he made for her earlier, which she finally ate and loved.
  • Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure had one where Ryan Evans, absent for the whole movie despite it being set where he goes to school, turns up to explain that he was on tour with a show, congratulate Sharpay on becoming a star, and get stuck in her foldout bed. For some reason this didn't make it onto the DVD.
  • Teen Beach Movie ends with the characters from Wet Side Story arriving in the real world, and meeting a surfer played by Justin Bieber.
  • In Zapped, Zoey's boy-controlling cellphone - which she stepped on and smashed in the gym climax - is discovered in the trash. It still works...
• Doctor Who:
  • "Death in Heaven", in lieu of the usual "Next Time" preview, instead has a Stinger partway through the credits that sets up the Christmas special.
  • Surprisingly, "Face the Raven" had one after the credits, revealing that Rigsy has been returned to Earth safely, and has spray painted a flowery memorial on the TARDIS for the late Clara Oswald. The "Next Time" preview appears immediately after that. This was noted as being the first time the series had ever done an actual proper stinger. (It actually backfired, as many fans tuned out before the credits ended. As a result, when the memorial appeared again in a later episode, many did not understand where it had come from.)
• The Flash (2014), much like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., does this after almost every episode, often to tease about mysterious characters like Harrison Wells.
• Frasier had a dialogue-less stinger at the end of each episode, under the metaphorical closing theme.
• Game On: "Roundheads and Cavaliers" ended on one of these which is a reference to Matt having just been Other Darrined that episode. It features the cast preparing to watch Roseanne. Martin then asks "I wonder who's playing the daughter this week?!" to which Mandy responds with: "Don't you just hate that, when they keep the same character and change the actor?" Both Mandy and Martin then look subtly yet strangely accusingly at Matt, sitting between them on the sofa, who proceeds to look worried.
• Going Postal episode 2 had one. Following the credits, we are shown Deputy Postmaster Toliver Groat and Stanley Howler arriving back in Ankh-Morpork on the postvan, Groat reminds Stanley that they left their winning lottery ticket in the hotel in Überwald. The last shot of the series is of them whipping the van round and presumably driving back to get it.
• The Christmas 2-parter episode of Season 2 of Ghosts (US) has one after the credits.
• The Season 2 finale of Hannibal had one, showing Hannibal flying off to Europe, with Bedelia beside him. Season 3 finale had another one, with drugged-up, one-legged Bedelia sitting at the table, her leg roasted and serving as the main course.
• After the credits of Hee Haw, Cathy Baker says "That's all!"
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981) did this for episode three of the TV series, explaining which character bruised their arm in the attack. (This was the same stinger as in episode three of the radio series, from which it was adapted.) Done at the end of the chapter in the book, as well. In fact, it's a Brick Joke; the beginning of the missile attack sequence is interrupted by the narrator, and in order to alleviate any undue stress, reveals several plot-relevant points, adding that someone on board the Heart of Gold bruises their arm. The identity of the person who is bruised, however, is withheld at this point, since it was not particularly plot-relevant, and considered a safe level of suspense. As a result, the reveal is tacked on, seemingly as an afterthought.
• Hollyoaks has both dramatic and comedy stingers. They range from scorned lovers looking longingly at a photo of their lost love to relatively young women having random dreams about seducing the middle-aged pub landlord.
• Home Improvement generally featured bloopers.
• The Sunny Side Up Show had a website promo play after the final link and before the following show (usually Caillou).
• Janda Kembang: The finale has a post-credits scene showing what happens to Salmah and Laila one year later.
• The last episode of Jejak Suara Adzan has a post-credits scene showing the "five-years later" epilogue.
• Laugh In usually threw in a few additional gags after the closing credits (which ran over the Joke Wall segment). Gary Owens would always make a self-depreciating gag concerning how the show was pre-recorded (example: "This broadcast was pre-recorded to give the cast a chance to make a run for it.") During Arte Johnson's run on the show, Arte would appear as a Nazi soldier and say "Veddy interestink!"
• Monty Python's Flying Circus subverted this trope every way possible. Some earlier episodes ended with an additional stinger pertaining to a previous sketch (such as Karl Marx and Che Guevara enjoying the afterglow), or a non-sequitur (an explosion followed by Michael Palin saying, "And then...") or an entirely different sketch ("The Argument Clinic"). One show displayed the closing credits immediately after the opening credits and then did the show, making the entire show the stinger. Even the first few episodes of Season One, which adhered more closely to the norm, featured narrative stingers that dealt with the show ("And the final score for 'The Epilogue'; God exists by two falls to a submission.")
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the Trope Namer) had a clip from that episode's featured movie, usually the silliest bit of acting or dialogue from the film. Ridiculous laughter was a common feature.
  • This started during the second Comedy Central season, the third of the show's production counting KTMA. For those keeping score, the episode was 205, Rocket Attack U.S.A., with a blind man walking around while a siren blares before uttering "Help me."
  • It was always preceded by a blaring guitar chord (the end of the closing theme), leading some to call the entire sequence the "Blang".
  • Season 8 featured some unusual stingers in four consecutive episodes — "The Thing That Couldn't Die", "The Undead", and "Terror from the Year 5000" (all featuring Pearl and Prof. Bobo visiting the Observer planet) all feature the Observers holding their brain pans up to the camera while a sting plays (their best brains, get it?), while "The She-Creature" had Bobo laying in pain after his failed attempt to fix a flat tire on Pearl's Widowmaker.
• Somewhat of a literal example in the short-lived 80s game show The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime- the "Stinger'' would be a letter that wasn't in the puzzle- it'd be shown to the viewers, but not to the contestants. If they hit it, they lost their turn to the other team.
• The long-running Canadian children's series The Polka Dot Door has a closing animation accompanied by the show's ending theme song after the credits.
  "The Polka Dot Door, the Polka Dot Door
  See you soon at the Polka Dot Door
  for songs and stories and so much more
  Through the Polka Dot Door!"
• Power Rangers went with the bloopers-during-the-credits version from Zeo to Space (the fourth-to-sixth seasons).
  • Power Rangers RPM ends with the Rangers retiring from duty, the world returning to life, and Venjix alive and hiding within Scott's morpher. It would be nine-to-ten years before that finally paid off.
• Uchu Sentai Kyuranger has a particularly funny one. At one point there's a stinger at the end of an episode starring Stinger, the orange ranger. He even lampshades it. "Ha ha, how funny, a stinger for Stinger."
• QI: The eighth season Christmas episode "Hocus Pocus" ends with a demonstration of stage illusions, in which Graham Norton "beheads" special guest Daniel Radcliffe''. A brief stinger after the closing credits shows Daniel Radcliffe's head in the basket, turning suddenly and grinning to the camera, presumable to assure his fans that he's okay.
• Raven has a few examples:
  • The final episodes of The Secret Temple and The Dragon's Eye spinoffs both show Nevar, who was thought to have been killed, turning out to be alive.
  • For the revival, two episodes from both series use a stinger of Nevar temporarily escaping the desolate realm he was trapped in and picking up a gold ring from the river used for the challenge Dead Man's Gorge.
• Red Dwarf has one for the episode "The Beginning". In it, the Dwarfers discuss the time they were attacked by a corrosive chameleonic microbe (a reference to the Series VIII episode "Only the Good.." which ended on a cliffhanger and was never resolved) which Rimmer claims to have saved them from. Kryten is about to set things straight but he is interrupted by Hogey the Roguey before he does so.
• Both the UK version (Shameless) and the US version (Shameless) feature this in the middle of the ending credits, usually showing a short funny scene concerning one character's storyline from that episode.
• Appeared occasionally in the British sketch comedy Smith and Jones. This is noteworthy because it happened in complete defiance of the closing theme song, which claimed that "That's it, this is the end of it / No tiny titbit stuck on just after it".
• Cirque's television series Solstrom had stingers after each episode's credits. They generally served as one last joke involving a character or two, but the Grand Finale also revealed that the matronly woman who turned up in each of the previous 12 shows is the observer/narrator's mom.
• Israeli teen vampire drama Split's first season's last episode ends with Dima and his clones dancing around, with Dima saying, "The blood age is over... Now it's our turn! OUR TURN!" and finally roars ominously at the camera.
• Switched: After the credits of the last episode, we see the four teens meeting after school to hang out. They've clearly become friends.
• Thunderbirds: Almost all the episodes have a short and usually funny scene at the very end, after the rescue has taken place.
• Titans (2018): A scene after the credits in the episode "Dick Grayson" has the Project Cadmus facility located somewhere in Metropolis where "Subject 13", a clone of Superman, who escapes the containment in a laboratory and frees Krypto from a Kryptonite cage, whose eyes glow red.
• Every episode of The Vicar of Dibley has a stinger in which Geraldine tells Alice a joke — often a rude one — and Alice would completely fail to understand it or take it far too literally. Sometimes played with: In the episode where Alice gets married, Geri tells the joke to David Horton while she's on her honeymoon, and is delighted that he actually gets it; In the episode where Geri gets married, Harry explains the basic principles of a joke to Alice since Geri isn't going to go on the honeymoon until she gets it; and in another episode with an extremely rude joke, it turns out Alice understood it perfectly, she just didn't find it funny.
• Throughout season 5, The Walking Dead (2010) had a number of post-credits scenes featuring the return of Morgan, who the audience had last seen in a single episode two season prior. And before that, not since the very first episode.
• You Can't Do That on Television had "This has been a [blank] production", where the blank is a pun referencing the subject of the episode, followed immediately by a Self-Deprecation gag also relating to the episode's theme.
• Zoom would have an extra scene between the closing credits and funding credits, usually a blooper reel or an advertisement to visit the show's website.

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