Line #42 Main/OpeningCreditsCastParty


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4	[[quoteright:350:[[{{Series/Friends}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/friendscastparty_9.png]]]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:[[SarcasmMode Totally not staged]] for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-HbHCcK58 the opening credits.]]]]
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7	You might never see them all in one place during the show itself. They [[CastHerd move in their own circles]] and [[FourLinesAllWaiting follow separate storylines]]. Yet there they are every week, all these people that are somehow connected to each other, standing there self-consciously with fixed grins and arms around each others' shoulders for a big gang portrait, like they're at a family reunion and someone broke out the video cameras. Are we looking at the actors, or the characters? It's kind of hard to tell.
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9	If they're not just standing there, they're on the move, walking together like a chorus line, and that blurs things even more. They're all dressed and made up like their characters on the show, but why would they be all walking together, and so purposefully? It feels like the camera has caught the actors heading for the set at the top of the shooting day. If it's particularly heroic, it's a TeamPowerWalk, but it might just be the cast walking together in a tight group in exactly the sort of fashion you'd never see them do on the show itself.
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11	What's perhaps strangest about this trope is that, whereas the TitleSequence is most often compiled by [[TitleMontage raiding your own show for clips]], these awkward group portrait or kick-line moments usually have to be filmed specially, on purpose. The other big problem here is that if the cast changes, you have to reshoot the cast party with the new cast, sometimes over and over again--perhaps unpleasantly drawing attention to [[PutOnABus missing faces]] and [[TheScrappy unloved interlopers]].
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13	To fully qualify for this trope, the credits cast party needs to show the cast artificially grouped together for the camera, essentially breaking the FourthWall, rather than just interacting as they would on the show. Bonus points for getting all the cast together even if some of them would never be together in the show.
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15	Compare CoversAlwaysLie, when it's only the cover art that does this.
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17	Supertrope of the VFormationTeamShot, where the Gang of Five poses in a heroic V. Compare the TeamShot and EstablishingTeamShot, where the gang are posed together. Compare TitleMontage, where the opening titles harvest various clips from the show instead.
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19	----
20	!!Examples:
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22	[[foldercontrol]]
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24	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
25	* The opening of ''Manga/BungoStrayDogs'' shows all three main organizations quickly, nicely lined up for a split second.
26	* Most openings of ''Manga/CaseClosed'' / ''Case Closed'' feature really big Cast Parties - the detective kids, the Mouris, the Tokyo Police, Hattori and Kazuha, FBI, end so on.
27	* In the fifth and final opening of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', there's a long shot where the main and supporting casts pass the POV on all sides with jubilant expressions, regardless of whether the person next to them is a staunch ally or sworn enemy.
28	* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' have a love for ending sequences where multiple members from enemy factions improbably stand together in the same area. The first ending sequences of each show are pretty melancholy, being a pan over the characters looking sad standing among the wreckage of their HumongousMecha and spaceships. ''Destiny'''s third and fourth endings are more jubilant, with them (even some who died in the previous show) hanging out at the countryside or the beach or just floating together in space.
29	[[/folder]]
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31	[[folder:LiveActionTelevision]]
32	* The original ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'' began doing this at the top of its opening credits starting with the second season, ganging its cast in front of a photo-shoot-style white background, laughing with each other and smiling for the camera. (Of course, this being Beverly Hills, it's not too hard to believe that bunches of beautiful teenagers are doing photo shoots together every day of the week.) They carried the trope forward for the rest of its ten-season run, and given the [[RevolvingDoorCasting constant cast changes]] it had to be reshot on a regular basis, seeming less and less spontaneous each time, until it was finally rammed into the ground with the many-times mutated cast milling around looking like they were just hanging out waiting for the series to finally die.
33	* The sister show of ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'', ''Series/MelrosePlace'', had one of these at the very earliest stages (i.e., pre-Heather Locklear), with the huge, unwieldy cast marching down the eponymous street arm in arm in an intimidating phalanx of put-on camaraderie. The shot appeared both at the start of the credits and at the end, too, just to remind you that you really did see something that false in the opening titles.
34	** The less-noticeable but possibly more bizarre flashes shown of all ''eight'' cast members [[SocialSemiCircle huddled around the far half of a pool table]], ''Last Supper''-style, with some combination of them attempting to somehow play in those cramped conditions is another example.
35	* Similarly, the opening credits of ''Series/{{Popular}}'' featured the entire main cast at a photoshoot together, despite the premise of the show being that the two main groups of characters hated each other, and the unpopular, brunette clique weren't exactly the photoshoot types. Bonus points for including the two 'parent' characters who, as the show went on, were rarely seen outside of the opening sequence.
36	* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' and some of its spin-offs routinely end their opening credits with the four main principals striding purposefully down a corridor together, presumably because that's where the courthouse vending machine is.
37	* ''It's a Living''[=/=]''Making a Living'' started off its credits with its waitresses all joining up to merrily walk arm in arm toward the big steel skyscraper atop which sat the luxury restaurant they worked in. The show's troubled history and revolving door cast meant this artificial scene was reshot more than once.
38	* The opening of ''Series/CharliesAngels'' originally included the three angels, Jill, Sabrina, and Kelly, walking together toward the camera partway through the credits--the premise being that the three left police work together to work for Charles Townsend. When Jill was replaced by Kris (Cheryl Ladd), this was reshot with Sabrina and Kelly walking together, and Kris coming in from the side to join them. And so on.
39	* The sprawling cast of ''Series/{{Soap}}'' required ''three'' cast pictures in the opening credits -- the Tates, the Campbells, and all of them together. This had to be redone more than once because of cast changes, resulting in different gags: first a fight breaks out among the characters, then another version had the ceiling collapse on them as they stiffly pose, then a return to the fight idea.
40	* The second round of credits for ''Series/EightIsEnough'' involved, somewhat plausibly, the Bradford brood forming a human pyramid under the show's cascading title, which then collapses. But the real awkward posing comes just a bit later, as the odd number of alphabetical-order co-starring cast members ends up putting Willie Aames backed up against a wall [[https://youtu.be/mkytMx-kPWE?t=235 pretending to share a laugh]] with two of his on-screen siblings, Dianne Kay and Connie Newton.
41	** In later seasons this becomes Aames, Kay, and Newton ''very unconvincingly'' [[https://youtu.be/mkytMx-kPWE?t=446 washing dishes together]]. Note that in ''both'' set-ups one of the three--Aames in the first, Kay in the second--visibly glances off camera to make sure they need to keep going.
42	* The beginning and end of the ''Series/GrowingPains'' opening credits showed the Seavers standing together outside their house for a family portrait. The reprise changed every year, as the characters went back into the house leaving one of them to mug for the camera.
43	* ''Series/FullHouse'' gives everyone their own introduction shot. But by the end of the credits, they're all goofing around and having dinner (seasons 1 and 2), a cookout in the backyard (season 3), or a picnic (season 4 through the end of series).
44	* After the first season, ''Series/FamilyTies'' avoided having everyone posing awkwardly together by having an anonymous hand working on a ''painting'' of the Keatons posing awkwardly together.
45	* The opening of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' has the characters goofing around a fountain in the park. The odd part isn't that the characters are all together (they almost always are in the show itself), it's that they're apparently having a late-night party in the middle of a deserted park... that has a ''couch''!
46	** The two parter "The One That Might Have Been" went to the trouble of re-recording it with the alternate versions of the characters (most obviously the straight-haired Businesswoman Phoebe, the glasses-wearing Writer Chandler, and of course, Fat Monica). And in this reality, Rachel ''isn't'' really part of the gang, but is there anyway.
47	* Certain later seasons of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' showed a shot of Mike and the Bots waving to us from the viewport of the Satellite of Love. But then, MST has NoFourthWall, so it's kind of a trope subversion (as well as a parody of a similar shot at the end of the credits for ''Series/BabylonFive'').
48	* The opening of ''Series/LizzieMcGuire'' has the main cast playing with a ball in front of an abstract background.
49	* The early seasons of ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' followed the family around the dinner table. In later seasons the opening had to be changed due to the [[TheOtherDarrin replacement of a main cast member]]. They switched from eating pizza to Chinese food to playing poker with pretzels and candy. They forfeited this in favor of a montage of [[ThroughTheYearsCredits time-progressed photos]] of each cast member as they were credited. Which lampshaded the cast change.
50	* ''Series/TheCosbyShow'': The first season was a photo montage, but subsequent seasons had increasingly complicated dance numbers featuring the cast dancing to various re-arrangements of the theme song.
51	* ''Series/MartialLaw'' climaxed its season one opening credits with the cast walking purposefully towards the camera (which had to be redone ''twice'' -- the first time because Tammy Lauren left, and the second time due to Arsenio Hall joining).
52	* ''Series/ThreesCompany'' showed the entire cast at Santa Monica Pier (seasons 4-5) and the Los Angeles Zoo (seasons 6-8).
53	* ''Series/{{Skins}}'' starting in series two has the cast playing around and having fun. Of course, so they won't be like those American teen shows they add the sex, drugs, drinking, and drama so it would be more in character for them.
54	* ''Series/BluePeter'' tried this in the late 90s... only for Richard Bacon to be suddenly sacked over a drug scandal, requiring a hasty rethink.
55	* The credits of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' mostly are mostly a blur of images showing the universe's and humanity's development over the years, but ends with a shot (updated each season) of all of the main characters on the couch eating take-out together. While such dinner scenes were very common early in the series, they've become much less common as characters start relationships and get married. Also, in the credits version, the characters are crammed together so they all fit in one frame.
56	* The opening credits of ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' end in a TeamPowerWalk with all the main characters.
57	* The opening credits for ''Series/GirlMeetsWorld'', season 3, ends with all the main characters walking together - with the show's logo projected on the ground in front of them.
58	[[/folder]]
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60	[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
61	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' mocked this at one point with their fake ad for 'Shoving Buddies', the new show coming this fall on the FOX network. It had the cast doing this, just this, for about 5 minutes.
62	* In ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', because the two featured segments (''Garfield'' and ''U.S. Acres'') were very strongly segregated, this was usually the only place the characters from both of them could be seen together.
63	* ''WesternAnimation/SchoolhouseRock'' very rarely had characters appear in more than one song. Despite this, VHS and DVD compilations from 1995 until at least 2002 begin by showing everyone gathering at Conjunction Junction Diner.
64	* Slightly subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'', due to it taking place during the closing credits of season 3, rather than the opening credits, but the sequence depicts Anne, Sprig, Hop Pop, and Polly messing around, dancing, and laughing together in a fantasy [[{{Animesque}} anime-like]] world.
65	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Bluey}}'' has her and her family doing a freeze dance game, complete with a ThemeTuneRollCall ending with Bluey as the winner of the game.
66	[[/folder]]

Context Main / OpeningCreditsCastParty