Crowded-Cast Shot

That's some casting couch. And this isn't even all of them.

"Everybody, get in here!"

— Phil Ken Sebben, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

A gag which calls attention to the fact that a show has a large cast. In response to some summons, event, or strange series of coincidences, the show's entire cast winds up in a single shot, often cramped into an enclosed space. Phonebooths were an early version, followed by elevators, but most modern shows put their own spin on this. The humorous absurdity of such a situation is augmented by the viewer's sudden realization that he recognizes everyone, or the characters trying to fit everyone into a small, small, SMALL setting.

Compare Group Picture Ending.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The ad campaign for WWE's '08 Royal Rumble involved the more prominent members of its roster rioting in a subway car. Actually, this trope is used a few times in the shows themselves. The aforementioned Royal Rumble may also qualify as an example.

Anime and Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: The series title is not an exaggeration in that there are more than 25 girlfriends by the 150th chapter. As such, mass reaction shots become increasingly common the longer the series goes on. A frequent recurring example is whenever Rentarou introduces a new girlfriend into the Rentarou Family, there's a single panel with a chibified headshot of every prior girlfriend as Rentarou is asking permission to include her into the family.
• Back in an earlier theatrical short for Anpanman, there was a shot at the end credits showing off every character that had appeared in show since then. However, the cast has expanded to so many characters (and now holds the world record for most named characters in an animated series!), that the amount seems tiny compared to now.
• Dragon Ball did this several times. One of the most notable in the last issue of Z which features all the heroes giving their thanks to the reader.
• Fullmetal Alchemist did this◊ for the penultimate chapter, including dead characters, and in the 4th anime opening of Brotherhood.
• The season two opener of Gintama has basically every major character make their way into the Odd Jobs' apartment.
• The cover of Volume 31◊ of GTO: The Early Years has nearly every named character on it, even ones who only appeared in one chapter hundreds of chapters ago.
• In Infinite Ryvius, the penultimate shot of the opening credits zooms out from Yuki to reveal a massive crowd of kids before zooming back in on Kouji and most of the other regular characters.
• Every entry in the K series has one of these for a poster. They are usually standing in the Shibuya Scramble intersection, wearing trendy clothes of the sort that most of them aren't likely to wear in the story.
• Episode 17 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has a scene where Fujiwara is leading the student assembly in singing the school anthem. While most of the students are random extras, just about every character who has appeared up to that point in the series can be picked out of the crowd (all properly arranged by their grade and class), and there's even a few Early-Bird Cameos.
• An early episode of Maison Ikkoku has the cast spending most of an episode trapped in the bottom of a dried-up well. Why didn't they help each other out, you wonder? The nosy neighbors were just fine partying in the bottom of a well, and the rival suitors didn't want to be the first to leave. After all, the other one would immediately start hitting on Kyoko, right?
• A Naruto Omake from around the time of the "Search for Tsunade" Arc has nearly every character introduced in the series thus far packed into two scenes: The opening ceremony for a kind of Ninja Olypmics, and a really long line for the restroom that a diarrhea-stricken Naruto needs to use.
• This overcrowded chapter cover image of nearly every Marine in One Piece together with the Straw Hats, including some that have not been shown yet.
• Pretty Cure All Stars is really fond of this. Just look at its article picture and this other poster, also from New Stage 2.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Played with in where as a part of a plot relevant episode every superpowered girl introduced at this point shows up; the monster is immediately fed up with what's likely a one-sided fight. The same episode lampshades how small the average Japanese house is, as none of the characters can even engage in a fight without tripping over each other.
  • One of the actual lines from the Cloverway dub.
    Eudial: Hold them off!
    Daimon: "Hold them off?! THERE'S TWENTY OF THEM!"
  • A later episode has Sailor Moon, The Inner Senshi (Including an Untransformed Minako), Uranus and Neptune, all 3 Sailor Starlights, the Monster/victim of the day, and 2 villains, Sailors Lead Crow and Aluminum Sirein, all in Usagi's kitchen. That's 13 people. The only regulars not there are ChibiUsa and Tuxedo Mask (Both Put on a Bus this season) and Pluto and Saturn. (The former is presumably at home watching the latter.)
    • Their methods of arrival there are all coincidental as well. Seiya came to visit Usagi to make sure she was alright with her parents and brother away (Calling himself her "Bodyguard", their being Senshi still unknown to each other). The Inner Senshi also decided to stop by to check on her. Uranus and Neptune's car broke down right outside Usagi's house, while Taiki and Yaten came to get Seiya when a TV crew came by doing door to door dinner interviews (forcing everyone except Minako to hide, particularly the Starlights due to them being idols) when the cameraman was attacked by the Villains and turned into a monster.
• Sgt. Frog:
  • Several events in later episodes routinely reunite at least one member of each alien race shown in the series up to that point, although most only return as background cameos.
  • Episode 296 is the biggest example in this series. The first half, featured piles of letters and cards sent by old minor characters. In the second half, there was a competition involving one member of every alien race shown in the series up to that point.
• Two of such happened in Zatch Bell!. One in which Zatch celebrates with all the defeated Mamodos after Clear Note is defeated. And again when Zatch sends a letter to Kiyo from the Mamado world with a picture of him and the others after he's crowned the new Mamado king.

Comic Books

• In the first issue of Forever Evil (2013), the Crime Syndicate gathers an audience of over eighty super-villains. Readers familiar with the DC Universe can probably recognize all of them.
• Superhero comics, especially long-running ones, love this trope.
• Wonder Woman (1987):
  • The two page spread at the end of issue 174 contains 53 super heroes, plus enough of the cape and leg of two more to identify them.
  • One page manages to have a shot of all the major Olympians (plus Hades) in addition to their Roman iterations alongside Diana, and while this grouping easily passes 26 characters each with enough detail to be clearly picked out of the crowd it doesn't come close to containing the entire supporting cast.

Films — Animated

• Coco ends with the whole Rivera family — living and dead — gathering around Miguel as he performs for them.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut ends with hundreds of characters from every episode of the show up to the movie singing the reprise of Mountain Town.
• The Simpsons Movie: When it's revealed that the toxic silo that led Springfield to be enclosed in the bubble belongs to Homer, an angry mob marches to the Simpson home, comprised of countless Simpsons characters, including various one-shot characters.
• At the end of Storks, the entire cast shows up to encourage Tulip to meet her biological family.

Live-Action TV

• Done almost once an episode on the American version of The Office, usually in the conference room scenes.
• M*A*S*H used this once, with Hawkeye setting the new record for "Most People Crammed Into An Automobile".
• ER (YMMV) during the final season.
• Seinfeld includes most of its memorable minor and recurring characters in the finale.
• Done on The Daily Show 2008 election special and on Jon Stewart's final episode when every available current correspondent crowded into one shot to cover the 2015 Republican debate which then kicked off many, many correspondents returning to honor Jon.
• A Muppet Family Christmas also featured the Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock casts.
• Survivor has one of these with the whole cast every season.
• The surreal short film Too Many Cooks keeps trying to end on a shot of the family and lead cast while the figure of how many people get piled into the cast escalates.

Music video

• The original video for the song We Are the World had 44 people (including the choir) singing, including songwriters Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. The number of singers increased in version 25 for Haiti.

Video Games

• This is used as a special attack in Skies of Arcadia. The captain shouts to attack, and the entire active crew shows up, each using their own abilities to help out.
• Ever17 had this in the end after Blick Winkel goes back in time and retcons Takeshi and Coco back to life
• Promotional artwork for Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc usually features one of these. With so many main characters, it is almost necessary.
  • This trope becomes a major plot point in the first game. Four group photos of the class are discovered, and the mastermind is revealed to be one of the people in them.
• At the way way end of Viewtiful Joe's ending, there is a majestically drawn frame of every main character, every boss, and almost of all of the game's baddies, with Joe and Silvia celebrating up front. Also, the cover of Red Hot Rumble has all the playable characters scrambling around, looking toward the sky in a high, wide-angle shot.
• The opening of Mega Man: The Wily Wars features a cast shot of all of the characters in the first three games of the series (and a Met). Considering that there are 28 characters in the shot^note Mega Man himself, Roll, Proto Man, Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, Rush, and the 22 Robot Masters from Mega Man 1-3 — the Met brings it up to 29, it's a tight fit.
• In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, in the final cutscene ("Agent Clank's Next Mission"), there's one of these in a theater, which includes characters from the first 3 games, such as the Hoverboard Tournament Hosting Girl, Skid's Agent, Helpdesk Girl, Edwina (the girl who upgrades Clank with the Hydro-Pack), the General from Planet Batalia, that guy with the drill and the Raritanium, Abercrombie Fizzwidget, Billy and his Protopet, The Mathematician, the New Age Mystic, the Hypnomatic Builder (and his sock puppet), and some others.
• Although not in the game itself, the end of the "We are Overwatch" short shows all the game's 21 playable characters available at launch (as of May 2018, 6 more have been added, with 3 being added per year on a steady schedule).
• Super Smash Bros. had these for a few promos. The largest thus far for Ultimate which features every playable character who showed up in the series up to that point. "Everyone is Here" indeed.

Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater crammed 3 quartets of warriors in the same room.
  • And then Warmech wanders in.
• Least I Could Do spends two or three strips having a bunch of recurring/one-off characters poking their heads in - to note that not one of them minds if John uses the Valentine's Day contest for some petty revenge against Rayne.
• The 1000th comic strip of the Grand Blues! Gag Series of Granblue Fantasy features a wallpaper of almost the entire cast (in their chibi appearances)◊, which coincides well with the 4th Anniversary of the game.
• This Homestuck Flash starts becoming this trope about halfway through. Then characters keep coming. And no, it still isn't everyone. Mind you, a lot of them are alternate versions of the same characters.
• The Ennui GO! strip "Tetrapods Reign Eternal" is a splash page with 83 unique characters in attendance at Izzy, Darcy, and Tanya's wedding (discounting the brides themselves).

Western Animation

• Bob's Burgers: The season 6 finale/100th episode "Glued, Where's My Bob?" ends with Bob and Louise singing a reprise of "Bad Stuff Happens In the Bathroom", which ends with them getting joined in by the rest of the family, then dozens of supporting characters and extras standing in the street outside the restaurant.
• One of the earlier running gags in The Simpsons, beginning with most of the town being crammed into Ned Flanders fallout shelter, until the world became fleshed out enough that nearly every potential person was a bystander.
  • There's also the mob scene in the movie.
  • Plus the posters. And the intros, too, especially the HD one with fields of people being shown in about two seconds—and yes, a sufficiently devoted fan can name everyone.
• In Taz-Mania's Christmas episode, Taz's father narrates the closing of the story mentioning the heartwarming arrival of "all our friends who were sadly cut for screentime" before they arrive en masse for a "heartwarming cast shot."
• On several occasions in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Phil Ken Sebben would call everyone in via the PA system, and they would all be there after the cut. (Plus a few random characters who have nothing to do with anything, like a bear.)
• In X-Men: Evolution the Professor's study and the control room of the Danger Room (where most the exposition takes place for the show) got progressively more crowded as the show went on.
• The The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "Duck!", in which everyone ends up in the same jail cell because of an evil ghost duck, including Hector Con Carne, who protests "I'm not even on this stupid show anymore!"
• In one episode of Fanboy and Chum Chum, every single character that's been in the show (and even some that haven't appeared yet) are in one car at once. The roof has magical stretchiness to accommodate.
• The final song "Carpe Diem" in the Phineas and Ferb episode "Roller Coaster: The Musical" has every single character which had appeared in the show so far. Incidentally, this highlighted just how weird a cartoon with giant floating baby heads, animal secret agents, and alien bounty hunts is.
• This promotional poster for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic made for Comic Con 2011 features not only all the main characters, but a huge selection of well-known side and background characters. They threw in everypony from the Shadowbolts to Lyra and Bon-Bon to Pinkie Pie's Companion Cube party guests from "Party Of One"!
  • Later one-upped by this◊ official poster featuring several season 2 cast members.
  • A more modest one was added to the opening of season 4, with Spike and several secondary characters added to the shot of the Mane Six that closes out the intro.
  • The season 5 finale ended with a Crowded Cast Shot showing many (but not by any means all) of the many, many named characters from the show.
  • The season 9 climax ended with a Big Damn Heroes moment which some fans have dubbed the Army of Friendship. This included a huge number of minor characters, former antagonists, and every royal ally Twilight had befriended over the past series.
• Done in the last stand-alone Futurama movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, which at the time stood a good chance of being the last Futurama work. Near the end, a large crowd is gathered to watch the opening of Leo Wong's huge minigolf park that spans half the galaxy. Each of the hundreds of characters in the bleachers is recognizable from previous episodes.
• The South Park theme song in later seasons ends on a crowd shot of several characters, some of whom only appeared in a single episode. The end shot gets updated with different characters every five or so seasons.
  • The poster for the movie has every character that appeared in the show's first two seasons crowding around the title logo.
• The final shot of The Owl House is most of the cast waving goodbye to the Collector (though it's deliberately framed in a way to make it look like it's directed at the viewer).

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