History Film / ThatThingYouDo

* ThingOMeter: The local contest is determined by an "applause-o-meter" where a homecoming queen (or something) moves her arm in response to audience encouragement. When the Wonders "break the needle" she whips her arms from one side to the other, clearly defining them as "Wicked".

** NoAntagonist: Tom Hanks's explicit ethos when writing the movie was "no bad guys in my movie". While the band eventually splits and lead singer Jimmy dumps his girlfriend, it's born more out of clashing personalities and goals than outright villainy or antagonism. Even both of the band's managers are on the up-and-up with them, even though Mr. White's ideology of touring and marketing goes against Jimmy's desire to make a follow-up record.

* RageQuit: The last straw for Jimmy is being told by Mr. White that they're going to get to do an album finally, only for him to dictate under terms of their contract that it will be a cover album rather than original songs. Jimmy quits the band instead, leaving Guy the only original Wonder left.

** The film does a very good job of getting period details such as cars, clothes, and signage right. The guitars are also correct -- at the start, the boys have appropriate garage-band instruments for the era [[note]] Specifically, Danelectro guitars and basses [[/note]], and later they get equally appropriate upgrades [[note]] Lenny plays a Fender Jaguar, and Jimmy plays a Rickenbacker 360/12 [[/note]].

* RageQuit: The last straw for Jimmy is being told by Mr. White that they're going to get to do a second album finally, only for him to dictate under terms of their contract that it will be a cover album rather than original songs. Jimmy quits the band instead, leaving Guy the only original Wonder left.

** All the actors that make up The Wonders are actually playing their own instruments and singing, the result of months spent rehearsing as a ''de facto'' band prior to filming. (Asked about the many reps of the song throughout the movie, Tom Everett Scott pointed out that "We had to hear it a lot more than anyone else!")

* AndImTheQueenOfSheba: After Jimmy gets angry at the group and storms off, Faye tries to explain that Jimmy's a genius and is just as hard on himself as everyone else. After she leaves, Guys scoffs, "If Jimmy's a genius, I'm [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Thant U Thant]]."

* ArcWords: Guy is fond of quoting "I am Spartacus" from, well, ''Film/{{Spartacus}}'' (which had come out four years before the InUniverse date), which serves to nicely describe the movie's arc. It becomes the name of the track he plays with Del.

* FakeBand: Pretty much every band or singer shown or mentioned in the film. Averted with actors playing The Wonders themselves, as they all were taught how to play their instruments.

Naming themselves the 'Oneders' (as in One-ders) on the sound-for-the-time logic that a PunnyName worked for Music/TheBeatles, the band intends to perform a slow ballad written by Jimmy and Lenny called "That Thing You Do". The night of the comp, however, Guy leads them off at a much faster tempo than they'd rehearsed, giving them no choice but to transform it into a snappy pop number. ''Auteur'' Jimmy is upset, but the crowds are seen dancing in the aisles, and they win the talent show.

* GarageBand: At the beginning of the film, the Wonders (as they will eventually be known) play on cheap instruments and rehearse in a garage.

** Jimmy plays with this. On the surface, he presents himself as a "true artist" type and is the one who is most invested in the band itself; of the others, Lenny is clearly more interested in having fun and enjoying the pop-star life while it lasts, Guy is more into jazz and is not overly invested in the band itself, and the bass player seems to view it more as a hobby before he fulfills his true calling of joining the Marines. However, it's pretty telling that when you look closer, most of his interests seem to revolve around the commercial and ego-boosting opportunities of the music industry rather than the pleasure of creating art for its own sake; he obsesses over contracts and track listings (specifically ensuring his songs are on there) and, tellingly, for all his clashes with Mr White, continues to work with the same record label with his subsequent band.

* MusicIsPolitics: The band learns this the hard way.

* AffectionateParody: Of those early-1960s {{One Hit Wonder}}s formed after the success of Music/TheBeatles in the United States, and UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion that resulted. [[invoked]]

** Jimmy attempting to take full credit for writing the titular song, when Lenny wrote it with him. He also ''begs'' Bob to do his romantic ballad on the B-sing of their initial record. This establishes Jimmy as somewhat self-centered and an InsufferableGenius, two traits start to become more and more obvious as the film goes on.

* AffectionateParody: Of those early-1960s {{One Hit Wonder}}s formed after the success of Music/TheBeatles in the United States, and UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion that resulted.

** Jimmy plays with this. On the surface, he presents himself as a "true artist" type and is the one who is most invested in the band itself; of the others, Lenny is clearly more interested in having fun and enjoying the pop-star life while it lasts, Guy is more into jazz and is not overly invested in the band itself, and the bass player seems to view it more as a hobby before he fulfills his true calling of joining the Marines. However, it's pretty telling that when you look closer, most of his interests seem to revolve around the commercial and ego-boosting opportunities of the music industry rather than the pleasure of creating art for its own sake; he obsesses over contracts and track listings (specifically ensuring his songs are on there) and, tellingly, for all his clashes with Mr White continues to work with the same record label with his subsequent band.

** The band's name in all of its iterations (One-ders, Wonders) is itself a pretty big clue of what [[OneHitWonder their eventual fate]] after "That Thing You Do!" is going to be.

* {{Foil}}: Jimmy to Guy. While Jimmy presents the image of the "True" artist "Doing it for the music," he's really more interested in playing the industry game than actually connecting with other musicians, while Guy is genuinely interested in music and goes out of his way to connect with his idols. Jimmy attempts to take sole credit for the writing of "That Thing You Do," despite not only writing it with Lenny but without Guy it wouldn't have become the hit that it was. Meanwhile Guy takes no credit for the song's success, despite being crucial to it's development. Even in the end, Jimmy goes on to become a Play-Tone executive while Guy opens a school to teach aspiring musicians.

* InsufferableGenius: Jimmy. After he pitches a fit and storms off at lunch late in the film, Faye tries to explain away his behavior by saying his standards are very high because he tested at genius levels in high school, but by then even she's not believing it anymore. Mr. White also acknowledges he has talent, but a bad attitude for a band leader. He's the only member of the band to continue producing pop music, although Faye and Guy end up as music teachers and open their own school. It's also questionable how much the "Genius" part actually applies; while he can certainly write some good songs and clearly has musical talent, he actually has some surprisingly dodgy creative instincts (he seems obsessed with making everything a slow ballad, and it's fitting that the key thing that makes "That Thing You Do" was Guy's contribution, not his), suggesting that he might actually just be Insufferable.

** The bassist is a forgettable member who leaves while the band is on tour, a couple months before his planned departure, and is replaced by a session musician without anyone missing a beat. However, the title song was, in real life, written by a bassist and puts the bassline front and center.

* LyricalDissonance: Changing the tempo of the song makes it a peppy pop tune, but the lyrics are still Jimmy's lament about the girl who's "breaking my heart into a million pieces, like you always do".

** While he was definitely upset that he was being ordered to cover songs owned by PlayTone, and to record "That Thing You Do" in Spanish, the last straw for Jimmy was that, while he was, by contract, allowed 1 original song on each side of the LP, Mr. White wouldn't allow him to record "any of that lover's lament crap", which is implied that Jimmy had brought to record. Mr. White wanted additional up tempo (snappy) songs.

*** Another slightly oblique Beatles Shout Out; "That Thing You Do" starts off as a slow ballad, but when Guy ups the tempo of the drumbeat, turning it into a quick-paced pop song, it becomes a very popular #1 hit. Something similar happened with "Please Please Me", which was originally written as a Music/RoyOrbison-style crooner, but it didn't really click with the band and the producer until they sped it up a bit -- and it ended up becoming the Beatles' first ever #1 hit.

** The film does a very good job of getting period details such as cars, clothes, and signage right. The guitars are also correct -- at the start, the boys have appropriate garage-band instruments for the era, and later they get equally appropriate upgrades.

*** The bass player disappearing and being replaced by a session player for the live TV broadcast and for (what would have been) their first album recording refers to two incidents within the Beatles career. The first is to the recording of "Love Me Do", where Ringo Starr (who had recently been hired by the band after Pete Best was fired) was not allowed to play on the recording by George Martin, who had already hired a session drummer and did not want to rely on an unknown. The second was during the band's 1964 world tour, when Ringo (again) fell ill and was unable to play, requiring the band to temporarily hire another session drummer (Jimmie Nichol) to fill in for him. The latter is also alluded to by Faye falling ill when the band travels to California and missing several of the gigs they do.

'''Heckler''': You're a jerkhead!\\

'''Heckler''': Eat my shorts, Captain!\\

* InsufferableGenius: Jimmy. After he pitches a fit and storms off at lunch late in the film, Faye tries to explain away his behavior by saying his standards are very high because he tested at genius levels in high school, but by then even she's not believing it anymore. Mr. White also acknowledges he has talent, but a bad attitude for a band leader. He's the only member of the band to continue producing pop music, although Faye and Guy end up as music teachers and open their own school.

** Of the One-ders/Wonders, Jimmy is the one who is most into the band as an opportunity to create art, being the one who worries over contracts, nags Mr. White about cutting an album, and is far more interested in his ballads than a pop song, and so on. Of the others, Lenny is clearly more interested in having fun and enjoying the pop-star life while it lasts, Guy is more into jazz and is not overly invested in the band itself, and the bass player seems to view it more as a hobby before he fulfills his true calling of joining the Marines.

** Achieves BrickJoke status when at their biggest performance before the television appearance, they're the star act... and ''still'' mechanically unplug their instruments and quickly leave the stage.

* CoolShades: Mr. White gives Guy a pair when he signs the band, and renames him 'Shades' in the process. "Wear them at all times. They're your trademark." When a reporter later asks why he's always wearing them, he can only awkwardly say "Well, I ''am'' the drummer."

** Jimmy is obsessed with lover's lament ballads (which becomes a major point of contention), and the title song was supposed to be one. Meanwhile, he has a loving and devoted girlfriend in Faye, who he can only describe as "sort of like" my girlfriend, and it's implied ''he'' cheats on her with Diane Dane during the state fair tour. (Then again, Jimmy is probably dating Faye on the rebound, and the song is about his former girlfriend, which is why he doesn't take her seriously as a future partner.)

'''Mr. White:''' Yeah, you do. One-hit Wonders. [''looks at Guy''] A ''very'' common tale.

--> "One-hit Wonders. A very common tale."