Fake-Out Fade-Out

"NO! NOOOOO!"

"You're like 'hey, November Rain's over!' No, it's not. There's more."

— John Mulaney, The Salt and Pepper Diner

Commonly used at the end of an episode or a song, a Fake-Out Fade-Out is where the scene/music fades out as if it were the end, at a place where that could be realistic and believable, then a moment later jumps back in (Your Princess Is in Another Castle!) with more stuff happening.

Not to be confused with Fake-Out Make-Out. Compare Stop and Go, where the music just suddenly stops for a second or two without bothering to pretend that the song's ending.

See also Pre-Ending Credits, Kaizo Trap and Fission Mailed, the gameplay equivalents.

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Examples:

Anime

• Bleach: After Wonderweiss shows up, one-shots Ukitake, and frees Harribel, Aizen, Gin and Tosen from their respective "prisons" and clearing the smoke for Baraggan, all of the Shinigami in Karakura Town are shown. Then we see Aizen's face and the screen slowly fades to black... only to quickly fade back in to show that the Visoreds have just arrived to join the battle.
• Bocchi the Rock! seemingly ends on the first episode with Hitori bombing her first band rehearsal, causing her to faint from anxiety and never pick up a guitar again. The credits roll... until Nijika reminds her they still have a show to perform.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld: After Nobita and Doraemon had escaped from the Devil's World back to earth, they managed to get Doraemon's sister, Dorami, to provide them with a spare What-If Phone Booth to reset the world back to normal. Yay! Roll credits... except, their friends are still in the magic alternate timeline, having been captured by Demon King Demaon earlier, and it turns out they still need to retrieve their friends first. The story then continues for a while until the final battle.

Fan Works

• Occurs at the end of Cam Steady's "Sonic Villain Rap Cypher". After all the villains have had their verses, the video reaches the end card. But then, the end card starts glitching, which is followed by Sonic.exe popping in unannounced to start up one last verse before the real ending.
• Sword Art Online Abridged Episode 12 ends on an ominous note, as Sugou/Oberon visits Asuna in her cage to gloat. It fades to black... and then fades back in as Asuna hocks a loogie on his face, making it clear that she won't be a Damsel in Distress this season.
• Vow of Nudity: In one story, the author posts a tongue-in-cheek end card right after Spectra loses a fight against a Giant Frog and gets eaten. (Then the story continues anyway and she wins by attacking from within its stomach.)

Film

• Basic Instinct has a notorious example. The film "ends" with Nick and Catherine kissing passionately on the bed. Fade out. Then fade back in: the camera pans down, revealing an icepick on the floor and leading the audience to believe Catherine was the killer all along—The Chessmaster and Femme Fatale rolled into one.
• In Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie after George and Harold prank the Invention Convention, they exit the school cheerfully, narrating how unusually short their movie was while end credits play behind them... and then Mr. Krupp bursts through the credits and demands them in his office.
• The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part seems to end in tragedy, while everyone starts singing a depressing song of giving up. We even get a "The End" title card, so all is lost—but Lucy still manages to find a way to inspire everyone, and the movie continues from there. The same "The End" title card would later be used when the film ends for real. Some theaters aided in this fake out by turning on the lights while it happens, usually the signal that the movie is over. When it's revealed to be a fake-out, though, the lights go back down as the movie continues to play.
• The scene in Looney Tunes: Back in Action when the car is plummeting from the air and stops abruptly because it ran out of gas. After the screen fades out, Kate protests "That's not how it works!" The scene cuts back in and the car hits the ground. Then it fades out again.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was quite guilty of this.
  • Probably the best-known example of this comes right after the Ring is destroyed. Sam and Frodo are stranded on an erupting Mount Doom, the screen fades out... and then it fades back in to show the Eagles coming to pick them right off the cliff-face.
• Parasite (2019) has an emotional scene of Ki-woo reuniting with Ki-taek after his plan to become wealthy succeeds. The camera fades to black as they embrace only to fade back in on Ki-woo in the semi-basement apartment, having imagined the entire scenario.
• Spanish film Rewind is about a young man who finds a magic camera that can make time rewind to were something is recorded. At some credible time in the movie, the protagonist dies and the credits roll...until someone else finds the camera and makes time rewind.
• Seven Psychopaths starts to fade to credits as Marty finishes his screen play and happy music plays, only for the film to continue in a matter of seconds with Zachariah reminding Marty that he forgot his message to Maggie in the credits and he was going to kill him.
• Sin City does a fake-out fade out before a Heroic Second Wind, to mirror a similar fake-out in the original graphic novel.
• Spectre: The movie ends with Bond and Madeleine walking away from the chaos. . .no, there's still one last scene of Bond visiting Q to retrieve his car, and then he and Madeleine depart.
• In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, Burger Beard reads a story about the Krusty Krab to the seagulls after obtaining the Reality-Writing Book. Fake credits start rolling after he concludes the story with a premature Downer Ending, until a seagull interrupts and complains that it can't end like that.
• In Turning Red, this happens a couple times.
  • The scene of Mei and Ming driving away from Tyler's birthday party Fades to Black only to fade back in for the actual climax.
  • The scene with Mei and Sun Yee bonding ends with a Fade to White only to fade back in for the epilogue.
• Vice also has a fakeout ending involving Dick Cheney not putting his political career instead of his family, but then the movie resumes and he does exactly that.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At the end of "Faith, Hope and Trick" Buffy decides to get on with her life, placing the ring Angel gave her at the spot where she was forced to kill him and saying goodbye to her The Lost Lenore. Fade to Black. Suddenly the ring is lit up, and a Back from the Dead Angel falls through a blinding white hole in the blackness.
• The Comic Strip Presents: Consuela. Happy ending, credits roll, needle zip, more stuff, sad ending, credits roll.
• The Doctor Who episode "Death in Heaven". After the Doctor and Clara part ways for seemingly the last time, the credits start to roll... only for it to abruptly cut to a man knocking on the door of the TARDIS. Said man is then revealed to be Santa Claus, setting up the series' Christmas special.
  • Done in "The Forest of the Dead," although without the fade-out. We're set up for a Bittersweet Ending, with the people saved in The Library rescued, but only at the cost of the Heroic Sacrifice of River Song. The Doctor leaves behind her sonic screwdriver and sadly walks away with Donna, while River delivers a final monologue... and then the Doctor runs back in, having suddenly realized his future self left him a way to save River's final memories.
• Game of Thrones "Kill the Boy" has Tyrion falling overboard and dragged underwater by a Stone Man, fading to black as he loses consciousness, which mirrors a chapter cliffhanger ending from the book. Then it cuts back in to show he was rescued by Jorah; the actual ending of the episode is Jorah inspecting a wound and learning he's infected with greyscale.
• Not the same scene, but Lost's second season finale seemingly ends with a fade out of Claire and Charlie...and then it fades back in somewhere in the Arctic, where two people discover the Island.
• The Monty Python's Flying Circus episode, "Michael Ellis", ends with Eric Idle trying to decide what ending to use for the show. When offered a typical slow fade, screen slowly fades to black as Eric mulls it over, saying "Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno." — and springs back.
• NCIS toys with this a bit: at the start of the episode and right after each commercial break, it shows the fade-to-gray that will come up before the next commercial or at the end of the episode. On a couple of occasions, however, the episode will get up to where the final gray-out is shown to be, and then continue on with another scene with a major plot point in it, making it hit you out of nowhere twice over.
• The Sherlock episode "A Scandal in Belgravia" ends with Mycroft Holmes telling John Watson that Irene Adler and asking him to lie to Sherlock that she was, instead, accepted into the CIA Witness Protection program. John lies but asks if Irene sent Sherlock any more text messages after their last encounter. Sherlock tells him it was just one, a goodbye message. John leaves, and the scene switches to Karachi, Pakistan, where Irene, dressed in a burqa, is on her knees about to be beheaded. They let her send one last text to Sherlock. As the swordsman raises his sword, she closes her eyes, and the scene fades... only for her to hear the moaning text tone she put on Sherlock's phone. The swordsman (Sherlock) tells her to run and charges the other men.
• The final episode of Ultraman Regulos wraps up everything six minutes in, with Regulos finally defeating the villain Commander Vulcan and avenging his comrades (sans Spica, who's the only Cosmo Beast Fighter still alive), and swearing on his deceased allies to pass their teachings to the rest of the galaxy. Then the credits roll, only for Dias and the Absolutians to arrive after the credits, kill Regulos' last living ally Spica, and abduct Regulos. Cue Downer Ending.
• Corner Gas has an episode where at five minutes in a simple solution is put forward, "Why don't you carry a wallet like everyone else?" It cuts to Hank holding a wallet and saying "You're right this solves all my problems." The image freezes and the closing theme is cued up signaling the end of the episode. The show cuts back to the previous scene and Hank waves off the idea saying "I'm not really a wallet guy." The actual conclusion to this subplot is exactly the same, Hank is holding a wallet, says "You're right this solves all my problems.", the image freezes and the closing theme is played.

Music

• Italian band I Nomadi (literally "The Nomads") did this with their song, "Là dove stanno gli dei" (literally, again, "There, where the gods are"): at a certain point (around the 4:00 mark) the music stops abruptly... only to start again with a quick fade-in. Not As Annoying As It Sounds.
• Psychostick's "#1 Radio $ingle", a Deconstructive Parody of formulaic Corporate Rock music, ends with a chorus that is "so freaking catchy it's stuck in your head for the rest of your life". And then, after a brief silence, "once again repeat[s] the chorus for dramatic effect, to remind you that it will be stuck in your head. For the rest of your life."
• Art of Trance's "Golden Rain" fades down to the sweeping acid synth pad at around 8 minutes, then brings back the "sparkle" synth sequence and chords for two more minutes before ending for real.
• The original extended mix of Binary Finary's "1998" does this at the point where the radio edit ends.
• Green Day's music video for "21 Guns" does this.
• Nena "99 Luftballons".
• "The Air That I Breathe" by Albert Hammond seems to end a few seconds before the rest of the band joins the singer and guitarist.
• Alabama:
  • "She and I" — the album version has one during the extended coda, then returning to full volume and then finally fading out for good. The single mix omits this (as well as heavily edits the coda).
  • "Jukebox in My Mind" comes to its natural conclusion...then a second later, we hear the sound of a coin inserted in a jukebox, then a needle on an LP, and then the song starts up again.
• Radiohead's "I Might Be Wrong" from Amnesiac fades out near the end before returning with a subdued instrumental section.
  • "Optimistic" from Kid A goes into what seems like the last chord, then there's a brief coda where they play a subdued, jazzy variation on the chorus section, which segues into "In Limbo". The radio edit is a few seconds shorter and uses the false ending as the actual ending.
• "Anywhere Is" by Enya.
• The Count Basie arrangement of the standard "April in Paris" uses it twice: after what seems to be the big ending, Basie instructs the band to play the last few bars "one more time". After the "ending" is played again, he asks for it "one more once". The third time, the song ends for real. Future performances of the song by other artists used that ending as well.
• "Are Everything" by Buzzcocks starts to fade out and then abruptly leaps up in volume and fades out from there instead.
• At what sounds like the end of "Bold As Love" from Axis: Bold As Love by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hendrix plays the same phrase three times, with the third time slightly longer and more percussive than the other two and flowing into drumming that one would expect to end in a final crash of cymbals. However, the cymbal crash to end the song never comes, and instead the drums rev up again, followed by another minute or so of Hendrix on the guitar.
• "Animal" by Def Leppard. Nice power-chord-laden chorus and then a sudden stop, right where you think it should end. There's a pause just barely long enough for the reverb to dissipate, and then...FULL-FLEDGED CHORUS REPRISE. Joe Elliot, the lead singer, chuckles slightly at the end, possibly lampshading this.
• KMFDM's "Bargeld" begins to fade out on the final chorus, but before it fades out completely, the music comes back at full volume for a final guitar solo.
• The original recording of The Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" (from The Beach Boys Today! album) features this, although the actual hit version recorded months later does not. The 2012 remix of the Today! version removed of the fade-outs.
  • "Heroes and Villains" had so many false endings that one radio DJ at the time nicknamed it "the disc-jockeys' nightmare".
• The Beatles' didn't do this in their earlier career, when their recorded work tended to sound like their live playing, with clean endings. But as they branched out in the studio, they became big fans of this trope.
  • "Helter Skelter" from The White Album fades out and then fades in again twice. Averted in the mono version of The White Album, however, in which the song fades out completely when the first fade would occur in the stereo version.
  • "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", from the same album, has a slight variation of this: in the end, it goes like:
  Happiness is a warm, yes it i-i-is... ......................... GUN!!! (and resumes for a bit)
  • "Strawberry Fields Forever" from Magical Mystery Tour does this because the band went out of time before the final mellotron section, so George Martin added the fadeout and -in to cover up the bad bit. The result was a Last Note Nightmare.
  • "I'm Only Sleeping" from Revolver.
  • "Rain", compiled on Past Masters sort of combines this with Stop and Go, after the line "Can you hear me?" Rather than a fade-out, everything comes to a crashing halt...then resumes for a proper fade after a Beat.
  • They even do this on "Free as a Bird" from The Beatles Anthology, the "new" single which the three surviving Beatles created in 1995 by fleshing out an old unreleased John Lennon recording.
  • One of Paul McCartney's solo songs, "Let 'Em In", has a variation on this: the song seems like it's going to fade out, and suddenly the song ends normally at full volume.
• This happens several times throughout The Mars Volta's "The Bedlam in Goliath" album. Certain songs sound like they've totally used up their energy and gone silent, but no, there's even more more expression and riffing. It's convincing when you can't remember which tracks are 6 minutes and which are 10 minutes.
• "Beg" by Evans Blue has a fake fade out near the end. It then picks up again for several seconds, before the song ends for real.
• Can's "Bel Air" fades out, fades back in and continues for two more minutes before finally fading for good.
• Freaky Chakra's "Blacklight Fantasy", the final track on the titular album.
• Turned into an Overly Long Gag in Status Quid's "Boring Song". Another end, another end...
• MISAMO's "Bouquet" appears to end on an orchestral section, only to return with a Truck Driver's Gear Change.
• U2 did this on their very first album Boy, fading out near the end of "The Electric Co.", only for it to fade back in and then run seamlessly into the final track, "Shadows and Tall Trees".
• Joe Walsh, "Second Hand Store" from But Seriously, Folks.
• Nickel Creek's "Can't Complain" appears to be fading out with the same peaceful string dirge it faded in with, until Chris Thile startles the listener with a sudden, raspy shout of "NO, SHE CAN'T COMPLAIN!"
• "The Cat Crept in" by Mud. End. And then the cat came back.
• "Chou Wasabi" by Julien Doré does this close to the end.
• The title track to the Rush album Clockwork Angels.
• Joy Division "Isolation" from Closer.
• "Cold Desert" by Kings of Leon.
• "Counting Backwards" by Throwing Muses gets to what sounds like a final chord about two and a half minutes into the song, and they let said chord ring out just long enough to make you think it's the ending - then a drum fill comes in and the song goes on for another 45 seconds or so. Because said drum fill is nearly identical to the one that started the song, the listener might be confused into thinking they've got the song on repeat.
• Sophie B. Hawkins' "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" builds to a huge instrumental climax with an Incredibly Long Note on top courtesy of Sophie, then begins to gradually fade out ... just kidding, there's a whole verse, chorus and coda left.
• Michael Bublé's version of "Sway" stops near where the song originally ended, only to resume with a Truck Driver's Gear Change.
• Most of Deep Purple's songs have more or less a full repeat, not counting the coda but often including the intro.
• "Dirty World" by the Traveling Wilburys seems to end when the lyrics stop, then it picks up again for the last minute to close it out with the actual song ending.
• Matthew Sweet's "Divine Intervention" pulls a "Helter Skelter" (fades out, beat, then fades back in).
• "Vertigo" by Monster Magnet, the final track of Dopes to Infinity. Think the record's over? Wait two more minutes.
• DragonForce ends many of their songs in this fashion- just when you think they're going to ring out on a big, final chord, oh no! Here comes another thirty seconds of sweep arpeggios, scales and kick rolls!
  • Former lead singer ZP Theart used to do this live, holding the last note of "Heroes of Our Time" for absurd lengths of time.
• The Art of Noise's "E.F.L." does this twice in its full length version, though on some appearances the second fake ending is treated as the real end.
• Pavement's "Elevate Me Later" goes into what sounds like a Big Rock Ending, then jumps right back into the main riff again for another 30 seconds. "Trigger Cut / Wounded At :17" and "Shady Lane / J Vs. S" might count, although the titles suggest the instrumentals that Fade In after their endings are separate interludes that just aren't on their own tracks. In fact "Wounded at :17" originally was the main riff of a full song called "Nothing Ever Happens".
• Brazilian band Skank had one in their Signature Song, "É Uma Partida de Futebol". The music video tries disguising it as the supposed fade out (at about 4:04) occurs while an announcer is talking.
• Flemish singer Louis Neefs’ “Ik heb zorgen” has a false ending that managed to fool both the audience at the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest (who began to applaud prematurely) and the Austrian commentator!
• "Everything Fades to Gray" by Sonata Arctica is an odd example. The song seems to be just the intro to the album it's on but now with vocals. It ends when the instrumental intro ends, then after a few seconds jumps back in and plays for about another minute.
• Midnight Oil's "Read About it" doesn't fade so much as it appears to end. Then, following a pause, returns with a reprise of the first verse.
• "Anne's Song" by Faith No More fades out completely, then fades back in after a few seconds of silence, just abruptly cutting off once it's come back to full volume. To add to the abruptness, the very next song on Introduce Yourself, the title track, has a Lyrical Cold Open.
• Queens of the Stone Age loves this, as well as "false endings" in general.
  • "God Is in the Radio" fades out to a nearly inaudible volume after two choruses and a bridge, but fades back in for the big ending.
  • "Someone's in the Wolf" does basically the same thing, to a lesser extent.
• Florence + the Machine's Dog Days Are Over fakes you out about a minute before it's ending.
• Ludwig van Beethoven's rondo finales often have codas that get quieter and quieter as the tempo slackens, only to come back in full fortissimo vigor in the last few bars. Examples of this include the Piano Sonata No. 3 in C Major, Op. 2 No. 3; the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15; the Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 19; the Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60; the Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73; and the Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101.
• "Free To Be...You And Me" by The New Seekers, from the album of the same name, has a fade-out near the end of the song, and then the music picks up again for the next half minute before it fades out again. The ending is in turn reprised for the album's outro.
• Living Colour's "Funny Vibe".
• "Heart" by the Pet Shop Boys, to represent one's heart skipping a beat.
  • The single version of "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" also has one, in homage to the Beatles examples above.
• "Heat Waves" by Glass Animals seems to end with a short, string-based reprise of the chorus, until the drum beat kicks in a few seconds later, and the chorus repeats itself one more time before the song fades out.
• Also pulling a "Helter Skelter": Sebadoh's "Flame."
• The last verse of "Homeboy" by Eric Church is just acoustic guitar and Church's voice, with even the guitar picking slowing down towards the end, as the narrator pleads with his brother to come home and make peace with their aging parents before they die. He holds the last note for a second or two— and then the other instruments crash back in for a long, energetic musical conclusion.
• The Taranchula song "Moving Very Slowly", from Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits.
• The Stone Roses song "I Am The Resurrection" comes to an end and then keeps going. That's probably more Stop and Go, but it still counts.
• Billy Swan's "I Can Help"
• Hüsker Dü's "Ice Cold Ice" fades out and after a couple seconds of silence, there's a final loud guitar chord.
• In classical music, Beethoven does a variant of this - not so much a fade-out as what sounds like a plausible ending cadence, only for the work to keep going. This is particularly egregious in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony. Igor Stravinsky does a similar trick in the Sacrificial Dance from The Rite of Spring.
  • The "Fifth" example is discussed in "The Timpanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, 1942" by SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson.
  • Dudley Moore's "And The Same To You" from Beyond the Fringe does the same thing; it's a Beethoven parody.
• KISS's "I Love It Loud"
• On BT's Ima album, at the end of "Blue Skies (The Delphinium Days Mix)", the song starts to mix into "Embracing The Future", but fades out, then the "Sasha's Voyage of Ima " megamix starts with that same song. On ESCM, the closing track "Content" has a fake-out ending at around its halfway mark.
• Brooks & Dunn's song "Indian Summer" provides a jarring example. It's a slow, wistful song about a schoolgirl who was impressed by a football player's skillful performance at a hometown game, and ended up sleeping with him, only to have her life ruined when he bragged about it to his friends afterwards. This is, of course, fatal to one's reputation in a small town, and she ended up having to drop out and move across the country to start over. At the end, the singer regretfully admits that he was the Jerk Jock and now, looking back on it, he wonders if things might have been different had he acted differently. Fade out... a perfect place to end. And then it jumps back in with a strong guitar slide and one last exultant rehash of the chorus, about how cool the whole experience was.
• "I Never" by Rilo Kiley seems to end at an appropriate spot...but then just dives right back in.
• "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" by Roxy Music fades out around four and half minutes into the song, then fades back in for another minute before ending for real. Amusingly, some early pressings of the song had the running time of the song being a minute shorter than it really is because of this.
• Glenn Miller and his Orchestra's "In the Mood" gets quieter and quieter towards the end, then jumps back to full volume for the finale. Recorded 1939, it might be the earliest example in popular music and possibly even predates fadeouts in general; what is believed to be the earliest example of a fadeout in a commercial recording, "Catfish Blues" by Robert Petway, was recorded in 1941.
• "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry seems to end when the car noises come...and then the song starts up again, repeating the first three verses.
  • "Baby Jump" does almost exactly the same thing, with the song winding down, with the singer shouting "ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT-UH!" ...and then they all take it from the top and sing the first two verses and chorus again.
• Michael Jackson notoriously abused this trope on Invincible, which, combined with the Epic Rocking nature of most of the album's tracks, left listeners feeling somewhat worn out near the end of each song.
• The 1975's "Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You?".
• J.S. Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565. Apporaching the end of the Toccata section, the music enters a state where it seems that it will end entirely (complete with a long chord). Instead, it starts with the Fugue, and the music continues for at least 6 more minutes.
• Caravan's "Jack and Jill" does a repeat and fade, but then launches back into a segment based on a Noël Coward quote.
• "Centerfold" by The J. Geils Band appears to end with the group singing the song's main melody, but it then continues for an additional 45 seconds with instruments playing the melody before ending for real with the song being whistled.
• The Cure's cover of "Purple Haze" on the Join The Dots boxset begins to fade out, then quickly back in, then out again.
• Josh Groban's You Raise Me Up does this.
• "Satisfy My Soul" from Bob Marley's Kaya fades out, then a Last Note Nightmare sound comes back in, before it is finally over.
• "Keep Your Distance" by Patty Loveless comes to a dead stop and then picks up for one more repeat of the chorus.
• My Chemical Romance's "Kids From Yesterday" fades out completely, and then two secs later, it comes again with a similar, if not exactly, sound like on the beginning.
• The Bloodhound Gang's cover of "Kids in America" (off of their first album) fades almost completely to silence, only to come back in for 8 or so seconds and then fade out for real.
• Twenty One Pilots' "Lane Boy" does this by having the song seemingly end only to transition into a 30-second drum solo. Many fans believe that the outro was unnecessary, and likely confused listeners since the drum solo was not included in the song's music video.
• "Left and Right in the Dark" by Julian Casablancas fades out properly before slamming the volume right back up for one second, ending the song.
• "Listen to the Band" by The Monkees has what sounds like a cold ending, leaving just a soaring steel guitar line that fades out, but then an organ fades in and starts playing a bridge, leading up to a reprise of the chorus.
• "Long Agos and Worlds Apart" by The Small Faces.
• Of Monsters and Men has a fairly subdued one in "Love, Love, Love".
• Blind Guardian pulls one of these on "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight."
• Mr. Bungle's "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz" ends in combination of electric organ and drums fading in silence. After a couple of seconds, the song suddenly jumps back with vocalist's series of brisk shouts and finally ends in atonal clusters.
• Brad Paisley's "Me Neither": A guy at a bar keeps trying to pick up this girl, and she keeps turning him down, so he pretends that he didn't really want to either and he was just testing her. In the end, he's finally ready to give up.
  "Do you think it's time for me to end this song?"
  * dead stop*
  * a couple moments of silence*
  Me neither!
  * big long instrumental to finish up*
• Dream Theater has "Misunderstood", which fades out...and then fades back in.
  • More recently, they also have "At Wit's End", which fades out, but it fades back into the instruments playing in what sounds like an echo chamber, rather than capping off the song.
• Terry Jones's Monty Python song "I'm So Worried" from Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album does this twice.
• Motörhead did this with their song 'Overkill' by playing a Big Rock Ending, only for the drums and bass to do the intro again and launch into the main riff. Twice.
• "Murder Mitten" by I See Stars.
• The song "Static" from Mutations by Beck.
• "My Stupid Mouth" by John Mayer has the lyrics go: "I'm never speaking up again...starting now." <fade out> "One more thing!" Quite apt.
• Foo Fighters, "Next Year".
  • "Rope" does it twice, one at 2:45, and the other at 4:00.
  • "Come Back" is arguably the most notable instance in the Foo Fighters catalog. A seeming fade out that doesn't quite fade completely, followed by a long instrumental which THEN fades out... and kicks right back up.
  • "In Your Honor" and "White Limo" each return with a bloodcurling scream.
• Guns N' Roses is known for this at times; "November Rain" has a fake-out ending at about six minutes, and "Street of Dreams" has one with about a minute to go into the song.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic lampshades this twice in the song "Now You Know". "Double Fake-Out!"
• The Modest Mouse song "Ocean Breathes Salty" stops for a second after a climactic noise at 2:40, and then restarts to finish about a minute later.
• The Corrs' cover of "Old Town".
• MGMT's "Kids" from Oracular Spectacular fades out almost completely before a sudden reprise of the chorus. Amusing when it fakes out people dancing in clubs.
• Lacuna Coil's "Our Truth" does this at the end. The song fades out over a repeating riff, only to fade back in and immediately end.
• Croove's OUTLAW from the DJMAX series has a complete stop in the middle that will ALWAYS throw off those new to the song, unless they're familiar with general rhythm game song lengths or have already heard and memorized the song's patterns.
• Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky", from their Out of the Blue album, fades out and stops partway through the song, only to start back up with a guitar-heavy section with a choir, with the song's actual end being a vocoded voice saying "Please turn me over" (referencing the song's status as the last song on that side of the record).
  • Before that, was Shangri-La - the final track on A New World Record, a dramatic and heartbreaking reprise of the album, featuring melodies and themes from previous songs blending into one.
  • And before 'that' was Boy Blue from Eldorado - where they did it at least twice.
• Buckner & Garcia's "Do The Donkey Kong" from their Pac-Man Fever album where it fades out before jumping right back into the chorus.
• "Parade" by Justice.
• "Pasadena" by The New Temperance Seven seems to end after a long instrumental break, then comes in again with a slightly shorter instrumental break, stops again and finally ends with a short riff.
• Arctic Monkeys' "Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But..."
• Les Baxter's hit '50s instrumental "The Poor People of Paris" has one of these.
• Spacecorn's version of "Popcorn" combines this with Letting the Air out of the Band.
• 2 Live Crew's "Pop That Pussy".
• Alice in Chains' "Rain When I Die."
• Ramones' "53rd & 3rd" from Ramones does this, though without a literal fade-out.
• "Rock is Sponge" by Joujouka, famously featured in the fourth stage of Rez, does this during the mid-track breakbeat. The version heard in-game omits this section.
• The Clash's song "Safe European Home" does this, it fades out until you can only hear the drums, then rushes back in to end very abruptly.
• "The Sailor" by Bright Moments has an odd variant of this with no dead air, instead after the chorus the song slows and a chord plays which usually signals the end of a song, but while this is playing the vocalist starts singing another verse.
• "Sandblasted Skin" by Pantera fades out completely at 3:25, playing nothing for a minute and a half before starting again with the same riff it ended on.
• The Flaming Lips' "Scratching The Door" turns this into an Overly Long Gag, fading out then fading back in about 4 times over the course of it's final two minutes, before finally settling on sort of a Last Note Nightmare instead (Mark Coyne shrieking "LET ME IN!")
  • "Chrome Plated Suicide" is a more conventional example, fading out once and abruptly fading back in at the end of the song.
• Chromeo's "Sexy Socialite".
• "She Said" by Barclay James Harvest.
• "Do You Love Me" by The Contours fades way down at about the point where it sounds like it should be fading out, but then suddenly crashes back to full volume and goes on for a little more. The trick was reused in the soundalike sequel "Shake Sherrie".
  • The version on Tiny Toon Adventures plays with this by adding a second one, followed by an abrupt end as Babs (who was plucking her eyelashes) yells, "Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!!"
• Fountains of Wayne's "Sick Day"
• "Smooth" by The Kentucky Headhunters does this. It starts to fade out during a solo but then fades back in.
• Brett Eldredge's "Somethin' I'm Good At". The song seems to end and the instruments cut out... just as Brett says "You thought it was over" and another verse kicks in.
• Soundgarden's "Somewhere", with a slow, non-complete fade-out, followed by a slow fade-in, still with the same Big Rock Ending until the proper ending moments later.
• A little over two minutes into Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" this happens.
• Stina Nordenstam's "So This is Goodbye".
• Lady Gaga's "Speechless".
  • Her song "Again Again" inverts this; it ends extremely abruptly, leaving you asking, "That's it?"
• Cream have an arguable example from the live version of "Spoonful". The song kind of dies out at the end, short pause. Then out of the blue, Jack Bruce wails one last, extended "EVERYBOOODY'S CRYIN' ABOOOOOOOUT IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT" and the band launches into the patented chaotic ending.
• "Stars" by Hum seems to end only a few seconds in.
• Tobacco utilizes this in some of his songs, including "Streaker".
• "Summergirl" by The Mayfield Four stops quite abruptly, then just as you're about to turn off the stereo it comes back in again, and after a brief instrumental interlude treats you to a Moment of Awesome from singer Myles Kennedy (later of Alter Bridge): a soaring wail so high and held so long (F#5 and 22 seconds, to be precise) it sounds positively superhuman.
• Supertramp’s “Lover Boy” fades out before coming in, at full volume, with one final verse.
• The original single mix of Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds" (some album versions don't have it, though).
• "Sweet Release" by Trouser Enthusiasts seemingly winds down at the 6-minute mark, then builds back up with a series of repetitions of the lyric "Release me, release me, and let me breathe/live again", the song continuing for another three minutes.
• The third movement of Paul Hindemith's "Symphonia Serena" has a coda which returns to the bracing original tempo to give the contrapuntal theme one last go around, but the strings don't take their mutes off and there isn't much of a crescendo before the volume starts falling off again, with eventually the only instruments still playing even very faintly being the violas and occasionally the piccolo. Suddenly the loud brass fanfare that began the movement returns to end it.
• System of a Down does this every once in a while.
  • "Soil" from their self-titled debut, almost ends with a middle eastern-sounding guitar riff before the instrumental stops, only for Serj to scream "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU TAKE HIM AWAY FROM US, YOU MOTHER FUCKERRRR?!!!" before an angrier, louder version of the main riff of the song kicks back in before it ends.
  • The song "Question!" off of their double album Mesmerize/Hypnotize has a mellow guitar outro that slows down. After a few seconds of silence, the band kicks back in FULL FORCE with the band reprising the song's bridge.
• Talking Heads' "No Compassion" from Talking Heads: 77.
• "Thank You" by Led Zeppelin.
• The Smiths' "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" fades out, then back in before carrying on for another minute and fading out again. Inverted, however, with "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" where the song fades out rapidly and then fades slowly back in at the start of the song.
• When "This is How We Do" rather abruptly ends, Katy Perry complains and says "Bring the beat back!", and the song does exactly that.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's cover of "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & The Drells contains a false fadeout. It resumes with the spoken line, "Here we go again".
• James' "Vervaceous".
• The Bangles' "Waiting for You" fades out, fades in for a 30 second instrumental, then fades out again.
• "Keep On Dancing" by The Gentrys is an interesting version, as the "false" fade-out in the middle of the song actually was intended to be the end. The original recording, at 1:30, was deemed too short to be released as a single, so the song was artificially extended by repeating the first half. Thus, the "real" fade out is technically the same as the "fake" one.
• Textbook example by Electric Six in "Waste of Time and Money", where it fades out at the end...only for another blast of music to come in afterwards, then it ends for real.
• "The Way" by Fastball.
• Ditto "We Know Who Our Enemies Are" by mewithoutYou.
• DJ Jimi's "Where They At". The beat comes to a halt, there's a second of silence and then... "Sliiide and do the Pussy Pop!"
• "White Punks on Dope" by The Tubes.
• "Witch Hunt" by Petra fades back in after it's nearly faded out, only to have the audio deliberately start to glitch, bending upward in pitch and then back down before ending on what's basically the digital equivalent of a Record Needle Scratch.
• Walk the Moon's song "Work this Body" has a rather abrupt one.
• "Zodiac Shit", "Satelllliiiiiiiteee", and "Mmmhmm" (all on the same album) by Flying Lotus both have natural endings and then outros that follow that sound like different songs entirely. "Mmmhmm" is a unique example since its outro is used to transition into the next song, "Do the Astral Plane".
• Lisa Ono's version of Saliane had this at the near-end. The song ends abruptly (not fading, though) and then continued again.
• The full version of Sig Sig by Kors K.
  • Keeping on the Bemani note, the full version of Kachoufuusetsu.
• Matti Laamanen - Flakes (Ferry Corsten Remix). In the middle of the song, to boot.
• Madness's 'On The Beat Pete' closes with a string of successive fade-outs before finally ending for real.
• The "Red Line / White Line" version of Ministry's "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" seems to end at 6 and a half minutes, especially since it goes back to the spoken word style of the intro, making the listener expect Bookends - instead it segues into screeching brake sound effects and a much slower section that seems totally unrelated to the rest of the song other than using some of the same Spoken Word in Music, which then fades out. The album version and radio edit remove the outro though, and it's never been played live that way either.
• Midland's "Final Credits" seems to end as it fades out at around the 6-minute mark, with the sampled vocals singing "Because neither one of us / Wants to be the first to say goodbye..." before everything comes back for about another minute.

Professional Wrestling

• The Horror Show at Extreme Rules 2020 had as its main event Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt facing each other in a swamp. Braun eventually kicks Wyatt into the water. When he doesn't surface, Braun declares it over and starts walking away as the show's closing copyright notice appears... only for Wyatt to reappear and drag Braun into the water.
  • Happens again at Extreme Rules 2022 following Matt Riddle's victory over Seth Rollins. Then the lights turned off. You will hear someone singing "he's got the whole world in his hands", then his old Firefly Fun House friends appears, along with a mask on the announce table, and another person with the Fiend's mask. Who's that walking out of the door?... Why it's no other than the returning Bray Wyatt.
  Bray Wyatt: I'm here.
• Survivor Series 2023 already had the return of Randy Orton, so despite taking place in Useful Notes/Chicago, many people were happy with just the one legend returning as, once again, the copyright notice appears over a wide shot of the Allstate Arena when…
  [burst of static].
  • Cue the entire wrestling fandom becoming absolutely unhinged as hell freezes over and CM Punk returns to the one place everyone thought he would never come back to.
• NXT TakeOver: Chicago had as its main event a Tag Team Championship ladder match between #DIY and the Authors of Pain. Despite losing the match, #DIY members Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano play to the crowd who give a standing ovation to them. Cue WWE's typical closing copyright notice to end the show ... only then does Ciampa pull a Face–Heel Turn on Gargano by throwing him onto the set and putting him through a table.
  • It also happened again at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia when the show's closing copyright notice appears alongside a disappointed Gargano and his wife following his NXT Title match loss ... only for Ciampa to return from injury since Chicago and attack Gargano with a crutch right afterwards.
  • NXT Deadline has Bron Breakker successfully retain the NXT Championship against Apollo Crews. The closing copyright notice appears, only for Grayson Waller, who just won the men's Iron Survivor Challenge, to appear with a stunner.

Theatre

• In Anyone Can Whistle, Cora's accomplices shuffle offstage at the end of "I've Got You to Lean On," and Cora pretends to follow them, but she returns to take a final bow by herself as the orchestra suddenly resumes its former tempo.
• In Closer Than Ever, the first verse of "One of the Good Guys" ends with a rallentando e poco diminuendo on a calm tonic chord that prompts the singer to get ready for his exit. However, a louder chord reminds him that he still has a second verse to sing:
  "That's not the end, as you suspected..."
• "Those Magic Changes" from the 1994 Broadway revival of Grease has a fake ending, followed by what would be considered a "reprise" in the mind of the character singing it.
• The stage version of Scrooge (1970) does this with Jacob Marley's ghost. After Marley shows Scrooge the phantoms, he disappears just long enough for Scrooge to think it was a dream before reappearing to talk some more.
• "Bon Vivant" from the operetta Song of Norway has the chorus starting to exit during the fade, only to jump back in.

Video Games

• Happens on occasion in Ace Attorney, where sometimes it looks like the trial won't end in your favor and it cuts to black only for someone to object.
• In Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, the reveal of The Company Man Aveline was after was her own step-mother and the ending of the game seems to be of Aveline agreeing to join the Templars with her step-mother, but the credits was cut short with a Citizen E which when killed reveals that there's actually more to the ending that Abstergo left out.
• Battle Traverse has a pretty cruel take on this if you complete a 2-loop run of Hard mode or complete Extreme mode. As the credits start rolling, the pilot of the helicopter escorting your character home warns of an imminent threat from behind. Cue the True Final Boss!
• In Call of Duty 3, at the end of the first level, the battle seems to come to an end, the squad is in a house having a break, the screen starts fading out... just before a tank shell bursts the wall of the house open.
• "Max 300" and "Maxx Unlimited" from Konami's DanceDanceRevolution series. Pretty obvious you're not done when there are still arrows to hit, but bystanders often don't know about that.
• In the Christmas Episode of The Darkside Detective, after the Krampus has been defeated and Santa rescued, the "Case Closed" caption appears and the usual outro music plays — and then there's a shout for help from offscreen, and there turns out to be one more puzzle to solve.
• During the ending of Dead Space 2, Isaac calmly sits down with a tired look on his face as the Marker is about to explode with him in it. Emotional music starts playing and the credits start to roll as a computerized voice urges all personnel to evacuate. The credits are abruptly interrupted with a message from Ellie, who calls Isaac a bastard for trying to get himself killed and declares that she's punching a hole through the roof with a gunship in order to save him.
• The second-to-last stage of Dinosaurs For Hire pulls this on you after you defeated a boss... which turns out NOT to be the Final Boss.
  Well done! Game's over. Thanks for playing... NOT!
  This Final Boss is a mystery, no one has ever made it this far before... [cue the real Final Boss battle]
• Donkey Kong Country starts to roll fake credits after beating the second phase of the boss fight. All of the names in the fake credits are the names of the game's enemies. After about a screen's worth, K. Rool comes back and you go back to fighting. The real credits end up being much more of a spectacle.
• Everhood does something similar after you pick up your arm. It cuts to black, the real credits start to roll... and then they slow down, the music runs down like a record, and the screen wipes to the trippy kaleidoscope background you've encountered before, now with the Frog there to teach you how to use the arm and why you needed it back.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising: Just after defeating Medusa, the credits (of the original game) start to roll and Pit and Palutena are having a cheerful conversation. Out of nowhere a voice tells them to hold on, and a hand tears through the credits roll, revealing the true Big Bad of the game, Hades. Really the game is only a little over a third of the way completed at this point, though this fact was hidden rather well.
• In Kirby Star Allies, after defeating King Dedede in Story Mode or Hyness in Guest Star, the credits roll super-fast as if you have beaten the game. Then they rewind before revealing what comes next: the purple Jamba Heart that possessed King Dedede in the former and the emergence of Morpho Knight in the latter.
• In the iOS game Layton Brothers: Mystery Room, sometimes when you think you have solved the case, the suspect may pull this on you.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has an hour long epilogue of cutscenes which seemingly resolves every series plot point, followed by a credits sequence which abruptly ends on a credit for Big Boss, under a unique voice actor who'd never played him before. This cues another 20 minutes of "debriefing" cutscenes. There's even a stinger conversation after the true credits are done.
  • The two main games that came after 4, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, feature entire gameplay chunks after the initial credits. Peace Walker has you doing side quests and building your own Metal Gear until an unexpected True Final Boss appears and kick-starts the game's true ending (which is also followed by a stinger after the true credits). The Phantom Pain takes it even further: After the first credits, a trailer plays for Chapter 2, followed by half a dozen new story quests and a mind-bending final mission which itself has a stinger post-credits scene. Even after all that, there's several important cassette tapes to listen to which flesh out certain character motivations during, before and even after the game's events.
• The finale of Modern Warfare 2's campaign sees a mortally-wounded Soap pull a knife from his chest and throw it into General Shepherd's eye while he's occupied beating Captain Price to a pulp. As the three of them lay motionless the screen starts to fade out... but fades back in as Price regains consciousness and hobbles over to Soap.
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: After beating Ch. 4's boss, a shape shifting ghost who at one point turns into Mario and copies his attacks, you get the Crystal Star and the end-of-chapter message plays. The narration describes Mario putting Creepy Steeple behind him and moving on to his next adventure destination... and then returns to scene on top of the Steeple. Turns out, that was the ghost doppelganger Mario that walked out, and the real one has had his name and identity stolen.
• Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows: Entering the return elevator from the Forgotten (5th and last visible from the start) Bunburrow shows the credits despite there clearly being more things to do and the game continues without a fanfare.
• Persona 4: In the original version on the Play Station 2 after defeating Adachi and Ameno-Sagiri, the player is lead to believe that the story is over, but during the final day at Inaba, they can visit Junes and it eventually leads to the reveal of the person at the gas station the protagonist meets when first arriving in Inaba and shakes hands with being Izanami, who was the cause of the whole thing. Because of how it was set up in the original version, many players may end up missing it completely. Persona 4 Golden would fix this by the inclusion of the new character Marie whom her role is in the added third semester which unlocks after you max out her Social Link, which gives the player the hint that the case may not be completely over.
• In RayCrisis, "Son Dessein" starts to fade out at one point, then cuts to the next section with a Scare Chord, at least on the OST.
• The credits start rolling in Resident Evil: Outbreak shortly before the True Final Boss fight.
• Rhythm Heaven
  • This happens at the end of Remix 10 in Rhythm Heaven Fever, twice. Savvy players will catch that in both previous games of Packing Pests, which ends the remix, the game didn't end until the hands caught their paychecks...
  • Inverted at the beginning of Figure Fighter 2, where gameplay begins before the visuals even fade in.
  • In the main story of Rhythm Heaven Megamix, the player watches Tibby as he ascends back to his home in Heaven Land using the power of the Lush Tower. Tibby says goodbye, the credits roll... and Tibby falls back to Earth because the Lush Tower alone wasn't enough to get him back home.
• Happens after rescuing Leon in Rune Factory 4. The main character chooses to take his place and stay trapped in the Forest of Beginnings forever, credits start rolling...And then Ventuswill stops the credits with a roar and breaks in to get you back to Selphia.
• Skylanders: SuperChargers: The Darkness has been sealed away by the Dark Rift Engine, causing a massive dark vortex to swallow it up, and the credits roll, with the vortex still there. Suddenly, The Darkness escapes from the vortex and the Skylanders have to defeat it and push it back in.
• Solatorobo: Red the Hunter has a very convincing case: The game "ends" with Red using an unexplainable human transformation to defeat Bruno and finally sealing away Lares, fulfilling the goal he and Elh agreed upon at the beginning of the story. After the credits roll, however, the crumbling pieces of Lares reawaken, and a man in silhouette is shown looking over two humanoid figures. The game will then immediately clarify, "this is not the end of the story", and upon the next time you start up your save data, the second half of the game will begin.
• Sonic and the Black Knight has the credits roll after fully defeating King Arthur and many players who have played the game actually thought that this is how the game ended because of it, even though if they were to go to the level select menu, they'd learn that the story is not even over yet.
• In the reveal of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the trailer blacked out right after Wario's mishap. Several seconds go by... then the Codec alert popped up.
  • They did something similar for the fourth game's reveal. The clip showed the Villager as a newcomer, the title was shown, and a 2014 release date was revealed as the image gradually fades out...then "NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING!" pops up accompanied by a klaxon, cutting to Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and Kirby looking up at a short blue robot standing on a cliff.
• In WarioWare Gold, the credits begin to roll like normal after Wario is defeated in the tournament by the player only for 9-Volt to interrupt the credits since he and the rest of the group are demanding payment from Wario for their help on the game. When they get their money off him, the credits begin for real.

Web Animation

• Done twice in a row in the Homestar Runner episode, "A Death-Defying Decemberween".
  Strong Bad: So, The Cheat's helping Homestar the cheat, eh? I wonder what would happen without that mattress there... Hmm...
  (scene starts to fade out, but abruptly fades back in)
  Strong Bad: Oh, wait. Homestar would probably die! I gotta go move it!
  (scene fades out again, before fading back in)
  Strong Bad: I was really wondering for a second there.
• Happens after a Big "WHAT?!" in the Matt 'n' Dusty episode "Flipper's Revenge".

Webcomics

• Homestuck
  • After a very silly animation in which the main character sings the song "How Do I Live" while reenacting the final scene from Con Air, curtains close with the text "END OF ACT 4" under them. In the next panel they reopen. PSYCHE.
  • Also used in the song "Time On My Side", seeming to end before cutting back in with an Audible Sharpness sound effect, and in "Unite Synchronization".
  • Later parodied... and then done again on the NEXT PAGE.
• This happens in chapter fifteen of Orange Marmalade with what looks like an extremely dramatic turn of events, using the writer's usual ending for each chapter. Turns out the character in question was only joking.
• Sleepless Domain: Generally, a simple text box reading "End of Chapter [#]" marks the last page of each chapter in the comic. On what appears to be the final page of Chapter 18, however, this text box is shattered into pieces, and the scene continues into what is thereafter titled Chapter ???. The chapter's true conclusion isn't until several pages later, this time with an intact "End of Chapter 18" box.

Web Original

• In Flander's Company, the season 4 episode "Karma Tsunami" ends with the surprise return of Jean-Luc Shredder. The ending credits start, but Armand yells for this to stop, demanding an explanation.
• Nerdwriter's video on "How Emily Dickinson Writes a Poem" fades out at the 1:50 mark but then is revealed not be over just yet. He does it again at the end but this time it's a subversion.
• OPEM: The Short Film ends with a PlayStation Ending Video, It cut to black for few seconds... but it cut to Michael Shooting The Police, continuing the Short Film for 2 Minutes.
• Linus Tech Tips: After Linus drops one of his 60 20TB hard drives in "Dream has Too Much Money", Jake claims he is leaving the video an not going to finish building the storage server, making the end screen show up briefly.
• In the SuperMarioLogan video "SML Movie: The Pantry", after they go into the pantry, they hear the door automatically close behind them after a broom fell onto the handle. After Bowser Junior simply tries to open the door, the door opens immediately. The episode's SML Question is shown, though in the background audio of the SML Question screen, Junior snaps Cody out of his imagination and tells him that the closet door just closed. After Junior tries to simply just open the door for real this time, it is locked.
• In Ten Little Roosters, when Ryan is trapped in a hole, quickly running out of oxygen, he lies down on the ground and appears to pass out. It fades to his framed picture and plaque, indicating that he's died. Then the picture falls to the ground abruptly and shatters. And then we cut back to Ryan smashing the glass ceiling, and escaping from his prison.

Western Animation

• Used towards the end of the Beast Wars episode "A Better Mousetrap", as Sentinel shuts down outside the Maximal ship Axalon. According to Rhinox, Sentinel would only shut down if an intruder had been neutralized, thus making the Maximals fear that Rattrap, who was trying to shut it down, is dead. Thus, as they mourn, starts to Iris Out when Rattrap exits the Axalon, saying "Boo-hoo, boo hoo!"
• Done while Beavis And Butthead watched the Godley & Creme video "Cry".
  Singing: Cryyyyyyyy...
  Beavis: Well I'm glad that's over—
  Singing: CRYYYYYYYY!
  Beavis: AAAAAH!
  Butt-head: Now it's over—
  Singing: CRYYYYYYYY!!!
  Butt-head: AUUUGH!
  Beavis: AAAAH! STOP IT!
  • Watch it here.
    • When they watch "Stars" by Hum and this happens, they decide the song really is over and simply change the channel - even though, as noted in the Music section, it happens seconds into the song.
• An episode of Daria about Daria and Quinn on a road trip seems to cut to commercial right after Daria reveals that a hitchhiker stole all their money. Then the commercial bumper is interrupted by Quinn revealing that actually she spent it all to buy clothes.
• Used in the Looney Tunes classic Duck Amuck. Daffy Duck wants to "get this picture started," only for the camera to Iris Out onto a "The End" card... which Daffy promptly pushes out of the way with a shout of "NO! NO!"
  • Reused in the namesake Nintendo DS game, with Daffy wanting to "get this game started", and the camera irises out to a Game Over screen. He pushes that out of the way as well.
  • Foghorn Leghorn does this at least twice (Crowing Pains and A Fractured Leghorn), just to get in one last line of dialogue.
  "You gotta keep on your toes. Toes, that is!
  One time I darn near starved to death! Wouldn't tell him I was hungry!
  • In Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers after Bugs runs off screaming in terror after encountering his own doppelganger, the "That's All Folks!" card pops up, complete with the ending music...before Bugs appears in front of it, saying "Hold it! You didn't think I'd let it end like that, did you?" before the cartoon continues and he investigates where the doppelgangers came from.
• The intro to Fillmore! pauses as if it's going to end but the music starts up again and it lasts a few seconds more.
• The Futurama episode "Put Your Head on My Shoulders" ends with a heart-shaped Iris Out on Bender claiming that the events on the episode were just as he planned. Suddenly, Leela calls him out and the scene irises in again. The episode then ends on another heart iris... on Bender's exploding butt.
• A Goof Troop episode used this. A gang of bullies (The Pharaohs) forced Max and P.J. from visiting their favorite hangout ("No geeks on the Pharaohs' turf!"). With the intervention of Max's former babysitter, they turn the tables and win a contest against them claiming the hangout as their own. When the Pharaohs try to return, Max, P.J, and the babysitter tell them "No geeks on the Pharaohs' turf!" Cue fade out, then fade back in with Max telling them "NOT!. Come on in, you guys."
• Hilda played it straight at the end of "The Storm". Just when it seems that Hilda was presumably dead, the ending music begins to kick in as the screen fades to black. Only for the music to stop abruptly as Hilda regains consciousness.
• The end of the South Park episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die" involves an a Iris Out, followed by an Iris In of Eric Cartman imitating the classic Looney Tunes farewell dialogue.
• Rock Paper Scissors: On the episode ''The First Lou Episode", this happens when Lou gives Rock, Paper, and Scissors a list to make him lower their rent and Paper chooses to help him become a pop star, Scissors disgruntled at the idea proposes to just pay the rent, cue to the credits, then the music stops with Paper popping in proclaiming that they'll do it.
• Underfist: Roughly five minutes into the special, Irwin gives up on his Halloween night and heads home. Cue the camera zooming out past Endsville and the Earth, while a song about giving up plays and fake credits roll. The credits are then interrupted by Mindy asking Irwin for help, at which point the scene rewinds back to Irwin.
• Wander over Yonder: "The Gift" seems to end the same as "The Gift 2: The Giftening" ended with Wander and Sylvia hearing Lord Hater's Big "NO!", the two smile, and we cut to black...but then Sylvia has a shocking realization ("Hold on...Wander, do you know what this means?!"), we snap right back to them in horror, then Hater does a Big "YES!", continuing right from where the episode ended.
• A Mighty Mouse operetta shows Mighty Mouse in flight to rescue Pearl Pureheart who is in a dire strait. The picture starts to iris out as the narrator tells us to see what happens next week when suddenly he yells "STOP!", the picture freezes as the iris out stops.
  Narrator: Gosh, we can't wait till next week. Show us what happens now...won't you? (Iris opens back up and the cartoon resumes to its conclusion)

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