Smash Cut

Yeah, Propofol is kind of a trip.

A Smash Cut cut occurs without warning in the middle of a scene and transitions abruptly to another, and is often intended to give the audience a startl—

Very often, it goes something like this:

Bob: I'm so not gonna —
[smash cut to Bob doing whatever he was about to say he wouldn't do]
Bob: ...Dammit.

Can also be combined with Gilligan Cut, or Ironic Echo, though a Smash Cut is defined by the lack of warning that it is coming and the fact that it usually cuts someone off mid-sentence. It can be used effectively to create a Mood Whiplash. This is also a popular technique for going to credits, or for when someone wakes up from a Nightmare, so it often overlaps with Catapult Nightmare. Compare Ironic Echo Cut, Jump Cut, and Smash to Black.

Overlaps with Interrupted by the End. Not to be confused with the Canadian movie Smash Cut. Compa—

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Examples:

Advertising

• One Progressive commercial features an in-universe ad for "Progressive Park", a theme park based on the insurance company and what they do. The ad ends by saying the park is "fun for the whole fa-" and then, a cut to Flo and her coworkers looking at Progressive Park's completely empty parking lot.

Anime & Manga

• In Chainsaw Man, during one of Aki's flashbacks, Himeno persuades him to smoke a cigarette for the first time and Aki swears that it will be "the first and last cigarette" he ever lights up. The very next panel cuts back to the present with Aki asking Himeno if she has any cigarettes left.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, Diavolo uses his Stand, King Crimson, to create and exploit in-universe smash cuts, erasing ten seconds of time to skip over events he doesn't want to happen and attacking his enemies when they're caught off guard.
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, chapter 83, we follow Yue briefly after she sees Negi and Nodoka off on their date. In the last two panels of the page, she bumps into someone and apologises. The scene then abruptly cuts back to Negi and Nodoka, and it's not until four chapters later that we return to this scene and find out that she bumped into Negi himself.
• In the Neon Genesis Evangelion episode "Moment, Heart, Together", Asuka splits the episode's Angel into two independently acting enemies. Shortly after, the episode abruptly cuts to her and Shinji in a NERV officer room, being debriefed via photographic slides on the comically ridiculous ways each was beaten by the Angel.

Fan Works

• Blixemi: The Tadpole section of "What Your Other Favorite Warrior Cat Says About You" can't even finish the entire reading before it jarringly cuts to talking about Needlepaw instead, just to emphasize the point about Tadpole fans not getting to finish their sentences.
• In Bring Me All Your Elderly!, the Gaang and the movie characters are spotted by a collection of Fire Nation soldiers. Given the wimpification of the movie universe, Sokka says they can easily take the soldiers — cue them being led into the Earthbender prison in chains before Sokka can even finish his sentence.
• A Delicate Balance ends one of its chapters with Twilight and Applejack joking about Pinkie watching them through a telescope. The next chapter opens with none other than Pinkie watching them through a telescope.
• Fledglings, or: Everything's Better With Penguins: The Sunflower Official within Tawaki's missions attempts to address Mal and Anis, but is cut off by a scene transition taking them elsewhere before it can finish its sentence.
  Quite unfortunately, (the Sunflower) then turned back. Who are you and why am I not in my off—
  The agents found themselves at the door of RC 4096, inside which Tawaki was apparently meeting his partner.

Films — Animated

• In The LEGO Movie, during the climactic final battle, Wyldstyle bemoans the fact that Emmet - who made a Heroic Sacrifice by throwing himself into an abyss earlier - isn't there to see it.
  Wyldstyle: He'd say something adorable, like-
  [cut to Emmet, still falling]
  Emmet: AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
• Used in Planes when Dusty is flying inside a train tunnel just as the train is about to enter. As he exits, the train is just inches from his face, and then...smash cut to a white screen and no sound, and then Dusty appears to be flying in Fluffy Cloud Heaven (actually a misty valley in the Himalayas).
• In Turning Red, Mei tells her mother that she has a favour to ask and it cuts immediately to her mother's answer which is revealed to have come after Mei just finished an elaborate presentation supporting her request.

Films — Live-Action

• Apollo 13 does this with the news that Ken Mattingly, due to his being exposed to German measles^note It's simply called "the measles" in-film, but the disease that was involved in real life was rubella, not rubeola would be kicked off the flight and replaced by Jack Swigert. We first see Swigert's reaction; his Big "YES!" is interrupted by Mattingly's shocked and distraught expression.
• Axe Murdering with Hackley: Sometimes, someone will get under Hackley's skin. Whenever this happens, the movie cuts to a shot of Hackley throwing their body into a dumpster.
• The first film in the Final Destination series ends this way.
  "So, who's next?"
  [Sign falls down, camera cuts to black as the sounds of crashing metal are heard]
• Funny Girl: Partway through the wacky Swan Lake parody which Fanny has been flailing and mugging her way through, the scene abruptly changes to her sitting alone in the dark after the show, sullenly smoking a cigarette.
• Used comically in John Carter. John lunges at the Union troops who've come to collect him...and is instantly knocked out. When he wakes up in a chair in front of a Colonel, John lunges at the officer, punching his would-be captors and...Smash Cut to John back in the chair, now handcuffed. The Colonel starts talking, and John leaps up again to dive out the window! Smash Cut to John being thrown into a holding cell.
• The ending to Inception: Cobb's totem starts to wobble as the scene smash cuts to black and the credits begin to roll.
• Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has this in the end before the credits roll. The teenagers (who had just won the game and return back to their world, as well as changing the timeline) hear the Jumanji drumbeats in the school, it smash cuts to Fridge smashing the game console with a bowling ball that he found whilst in detention.
• Lawrence of Arabia has the title character trying to figure out how to help the Arabs do something to strike against the Ottoman Empire before the British army completely dismisses them as useless. One key Ottoman stronghold is Aqaba, but they have heavy artillery pointed at the seaside port, the only logical point of entry as on their other side is a large desert. When a child throws a rock at his back, Lawrence gets an idea.
  Lawrence: Aqaba. Aqaba, from the land.
  [Cut to]
  Ali: [standing quickly] You are mad!
  • Another one earlier in the film; Lawrence, stationed in Cairo at the start of the film, has just been given his new mission and is contemplating a burning match. As he blows it out, the scene cuts immediately to the Arab desert.
• Left Behind (2014) provides a very nice smash cut when the Muslim pulls something out of his luggage and points it at a suspicious passenger — cut to a man being blasted through a glass door in front of Chloe, back in New York. When we return to the plane, it turns out the Muslim is holding an electric toothbrush.
• Metropolis: Joh Fredersen is sitting in his high-rise office and looking out over the city skyline at night, marveling at its vibrant activity. Cut to the underground Heart Machine, the city's main power station, which his workers have just destroyed — half-buried under wreckage, on fire, spewing electricity everywhere — then back to the office as the whole power grid goes down.
• A subtle but effective one comes from No Country for Old Men. During Chigurh's confrontation with Carla Jean the scene cuts to Chigurh walking out of the house, then abruptly cuts mid-step to him in the car. The second cut is off time with what normal films would do with that type of cut (not even transitioning with the audio) so it throws the audience off.
• The Secret of Roan Inish: During the Separate Scene Storytelling of the story of Sean Michael.
  Grandfather: But the shame was too great, and he tore it from his neck... and he went for the schoolmaster and began to beat on the man, crying out —
  Sean Michael: (cursing in Irish)
  Grandmother: Hugh! (cut back to Grandfather's house) Please! She's a little girl!
• Serenity: We cut from River being told to "lie down" to her having a needle shoved into her forehead in a lab. Joss admits on the commentary track that much of the camera work in the first few minutes, which includes several Smash Cuts and Hard Cuts, are designed to show River's fractured mental state, and by contrast when we first see the titular ship it's done in a Oner to establish a sense of safety.
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: When R2-D2 tells C-3PO that he will put something in his head, the latter refuses, but it cuts right in the middle of his complaint, with the next scene showing his memory restored.
• The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: Nicolas Cage's final battle against the Big Bad abruptly cuts from Nick's daughter tossing a knife to him, to the battle as depicted in the movie Nick helps write about his experience in Mallorca.
• War had these just about every second, to the point where you say "This is ridiculous!" ten minutes into the movie.
• Werewolves Within: At the start of the movie, there's a cut from a man screaming as he's being dragged of by his unseen attacker, to Finn screaming while driving in his van.
• We Were Soldiers: During one battle sequence, the frenzied noise of gunfire, explosions, and jet planes making bombing runs on the battlefield abruptly cuts to a close-up of a vacuum cleaner as Colonel Moore's wife tends to the housecleaning at home.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: After the heart-wrenching song "Cheer Up Charlie", there is a smash cut to a violent Western in the homeowner of a golden ticket finder.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey: One of the most famous examples in film history. In the prehistoric prologue, the ape who just used a bone to kill another of his kind tosses the killing implement up in the air. It turns end-over-end in slow motion—then instantly cuts to a large, scientifically sophisticated space station, bridging the gap between millions of years in a few seconds.

Literature

• The penultimate chapter of Shatterbelt ends quite abruptly as Tracy's premonitions come to fruition. Cut to some time later as Mr. Klein, driving from South Australia to Melbourne, turns on the radio to learn that his town has just been hit by a major earthquake.

Live-Action TV

• Angel:
  • "Over the Rainbow" had Wesley happily declare "We're winning!" during a battle. Smash Cut to the aftermath of the battle and the group tied up.
  • There's a particularly good example in "A Hole in the World", which starts with a flashback to when Fred leaves her home and parents in Texas for LA.
    Fred: Mom, I'll be careful. Boring, even.
    [cut to Fred in the present day screaming as she torches a wall crusted with demon eggs with a flamethrower]
• Better Call Saul: To demonstrate the kind of schedule Kim has been working the Mesa Verde case solo, we're shown her setting a timer for five minutes to take a nap in her car. The instant Kim seems to fall asleep, the scene jumps to her being awoken by the timer, without the camera changing position. This foreshadows a scene later in the season after she's taken on even more work. A similar cut goes from her driving her car to the instant it impacts with a guard rail.
• Yeah, Joss Whedon loves these. A particularly heart-wrenching example is in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Selfless" which goes from Anya singing an upbeat song about how much she loves Xander to her with a sword through her chest after Buffy impaled her, she gets better quickly but the audience doesn't for a while
  • Several more appear in "The Body", cutting from imagined scenes of Joyce's recovery to her dead body.
  • A more light-hearted version from the Musical Episode is cutting from the midst of Tara's highly-suggestive love song ("You make me—" (complete)) to Xander hinting Tara and Willow have slipped away for some nookie.
  • Even better, just before this, Tara lays down on the bed, with Willow starting off straddling her, and then moving off-screen to somewhere... lower down in regards to Tara. The scene then actually cuts her off at "You make me com-" creating an additional joke with the smash cut to Xander's "I wonder what Willow and Tara are up to."
  • "Anne" features an absolute doozy, where a three-minute Oner of the bustling Sunnydale High School featuring a busier than ever library and at least six different sets of characters having conversations... smash cuts to Buffy, completely alone and silent in her dingy LA Skid Row apartment.
• Doctor Who:
  • At the end of "Revelation of the Daleks", the Doctor is telling Peri where he'll take her for some peace and tranquility.
    "I'll take you to-" [closing credits]
  • "Doomsday": A newscaster warns people to stay in their homes for safety. Cut to Cybermen effortlessly breaking into a family's home to attack.
  • "The Lazarus Experiment": "The biggest danger here is choking on an olive!" Immediately, enter the monstrous Lazarus!
  • "Human Nature" begins with an Action Prologue of the Doctor and Martha fleeing into the TARDIS while being shot at, and after taking off, the Doctor discovers that their pursuers have the technology to follow them through time and space, leading him to make a decision. So he pulls a pocket watch out from under the console and tells Martha to take it because "This watch, Martha, this watch is–" cut to John Smith waking up from a dream in 1913.
  • Lampshaded rather sinisterly in "Forest of the Dead", where Donna apparently lives in a computer-generated television reality, where these cuts actually happen with nothing in between.
    Dr. Moon: [walking with Donna in a garden] Shall we go down to the river?
    [they're suddenly by the river]
    Donna: You said "river", and suddenly we're feeding ducks.
  • "Time Heist": When the Doctor picks up the TARDIS phone, the scene suddenly cuts to himself, Clara, and two strangers all holding memory worms. This one is plot-relevant because a moment later we find out this is how they subjectively experienced it - they can't remember anything between picking up the phone and right now.
  • "The Girl Who Died": When the Doctor decides to give the villagers he is training real swords, the scene cuts to the village being on fire.
• Used hilariously to conclude the penultimate Season 2 episode of Galavant
  Jester: [singing] Or will we leave all our viewers with pain and anger,
  Just like we left them last year?
  Could we just stop once again, on a huge cliffhanger—
  [Smash to Black]
• In an episode of The George Lopez Show, Benny vows to do something horrible to George for rigging a productivity contest. George thinks she's bluffing. Cut to George crying over his broken golf clubs.
  "AY DIOS MIO!!!"
• The Lost episode "The Constant" uses Smash Cuts to show Desmond's jarring transitions between 1996 and 2004.
• Malcolm in the Middle does this frequently. A notable occurrence was in an early episode at the school Francis goes to. He went up to a bunch of guys who acted like an organized cult and told them to stop harassing everyone, repeatedly saying "Just Stop." It cuts to Francis telling his roommate and bodyguard to "Just Stop Packing." as the roommate is packing his bags to leave for the weekend. Needless to say, the cult members start harassing Francis.
  • Another example happens in Poker #2 when Hal is talking to his poker buddies about how love and trust are what keep a relationship healthy, which cuts mid-sentence to Francis telling his friend Eric the same thing. It definitely goes steps towards showing that Hal and Francis have similar relationships with their wives.
• The Nanny was fond of this trope, often overlapping with Gilligan Cut or Ironic Echo Cut.
  • In "The Playwright", Fran is out on a date with her high school classmate, with whom she's reconciling due to teasing him during their school days. The date goes well till he suddenly proposes to her.
    Fran: You know, Jeffrey, this isn't such a bad date after all.
    Jeffrey: Good. Marry me.
    Fran: You're kidding, aren't you?
    Jeffrey: Please.
    Fran: Oh, Jeffrey, it's incredibly flattering and, well, I hope you don't take this the wrong way...
    (cut to Jeffrey standing on a ledge)
    Fran: Jeffrey, Jeffrey, don't jump!
• A Stargate Universe episode had body-swapping communications devices "blink" as a result of the spaceship carrying them going in and out of FTL. This resulted in people who were temporarily borrowing other people's bodies thousands of light-years away, getting jerked back into their own for a few seconds with no warning at all.
  [Destiny drops out of FTL]
  Eli: [in the control room] All right, this is ridiculous. Jumping back and forth without any warning is completely—
  Eli: [back in his hotel on Earth] —unacceptable! [looks around] Seriously?
• In the Supernatural episode "What Is And What Should Never Be", a scene of Dean thrusting a knife into his stomach cuts to Sam yelling Dean's name, and we realize this is real life Sam waking Dean from the djinn induced dream.
• On Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, when the head of the A/V club gets hold of the Book and starts editing reality, one hapless student finds himself facing a different room in the school every time he turns around enough for the camera angle to change.

Theatre

• Rock'n'Roll: The text directly states that scene breaks should end in smash cuts. Scenes are followed by thirty to sixty seconds of music in a blackout, with 'sleeve notes' projected to accompany them. The next scene then launches immediately, midway through the song, "without fades or builds", jumping straight in - light and sound both start at the same moment.

Video Games

• In the Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People episode Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, this happens when Strong Bad tries to edit around Coach Z's bad acting. It fails:
  Dangeresque: I solved the kidnapping case, Renaldo! She was kidnapped by a monster with a broken heart.
  Renaldo: That's the dumbest— [jump cut] Dangeresque, you're a genius!
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: The E3 trailer opens with Sakurai giving a very basic description of Smash. It immediately cuts to a black screen with the words "THE END" in white text, quickly followed by a "(Just kidding.)"
• Weaponized by the Final Boss of the Genocide route in Undertale who, during his second phase, begins Smash Cutting you out of and into his various Bullet Hell patterns, giving you a split second to assess your ever-changing situation before he lays the smack down on you. It's just as unfair as it sounds and is not even the most unfair thing he pulls on you during the fight.
• In Highway Blossoms, in the "EZ Mode" of the game, an extremely condensed version of the main story that lasts two minutes, Amber offers to take Marina to the music festival she wanted to attend with her grandfather. In the next line of dialogue, without a loading screen or scene transition, Amber and Marina are shown at the festival, with Marina announcing they're there.

Web Animation

• The Happy Tree Friends episode "False Alarm" starts off with Lifty and Shifty selling Nutty a dump truck full of candy. They dump the candy on him, but before it falls on him the scene cuts to him in the hospital with the candy having impaled his stomach and him getting it surgically removed.
• In this video of The Most Popular Girls in School, this also counts as a bit of a Curse Cut Short.
  Shay: Shit!
  Mackenzie: Goddamn-(Smash Cut to Shay and Mackenzie strangling each other)
• In the Ricesnot video "haunting bones", Bones gives Therapist advice on his date. The second tip he gives is to show his butt. The very next scene? Bones and Therapist in court, being sued for sexual harassment.
• From RWBY, when Ruby meets Glynda and realizes her hero is a huntress:
  Ruby: You're... a huntress... Can I have your autograph??
  [scene cuts to Ruby being reprimanded by her hero in an interrogation room]
• Ultra Fast Pony combines this with Medium Awareness for the end of the first episode.
  [Night Moon Mare is freed, and will soon destroy the world.]
  Twilight: Don't worry, I have a pla-
  ["To be continued..."]
  Twilight: Dammit!

Webcomics

• El Goonish Shive uses this when Catalina tries to figure out how to make up for spreading a rumor about Elliot being gay:
  Catalina: I'll think of something! I'll come up with an argument so airtight that
  [cut to Catalina kissing a surprised Elliot on the lips]
• Played straight, and then subverted in The Order of the Stick #855, while discussing a dungeon's poorly disguised traps. Earlier, Vaarsuvius had fallen into one of the traps when distracted by realizing the results of Familicide.
  Elan: Roy, what about Vaarsuvius?
  Roy: I didn't see any signs of a wizard battle outside. Ether V's not out there, or has managed to stay hidden. As much as I want to find V, we'll be no help if we get picked off at long range. We'll need to figure out later what happened to Vaarsuv-
  Haley: [upon spotting the trap door V fell into] Look! A trap door!!
  [cut to V lying at the bottom of said trap door]
  Roy: Nice catch, Haley. In the old days, we would've just fallen in!
  Elan: We're improving!
  [Later]
  Haley: Pit trap. Saw blade trap. Some sort of shifting wall trap.
  Belkar: Geez, this is the lamest dungeon ever. No monsters, and even *I* can spot the traps!
  Roy: Well, you have to remember that most of this was probably covered with illusions while the Draketooths were still alive. All these walls look the same, so I bet it was easy to get turned around with a few choice mirages until you walked into a death trap.
  Belkar: Yeah, but what kind of a moron would be so distracted to fall into one of them now [that there are no illusions]?
  [beat panel]
  Roy: Huh, I really felt like there was going to be a cutaway panel there.
  Haley: Me too!
  Belkar: Weird.

Web Original

• Carmilla the Series does this more than once. As a general rule, it is combined with a Gilligan Cut.
• Crossed Lines: In episode 6, The Mail Bag Snag, Benjamin is called away to help with the drains (Mr. Traverse's tunnel system) being flooded. The railway yard worker decides to draft Cojack to take over Banjamin's railway maintenance work. Cojack refuses but is then told his alternative is to work for Mr. Traverse. It then cuts to Cojack on the line helping with railway maintenance, much to his chagrin.
  Cojack: sigh This is humiliating.
• The ending of the "Extinct Walk-Around Characters" episode of Defunctland ends on this. Disney Dan catches onto one of Kevin's seeming obsessions with talking about a court case involving a Tigger actor that was accused of harassing a teenager and says he is not going to make a video detailing the various Tigger costumes just so Kevin can cover it. Of course, that ended up being exactly what Disney Dan did.
  Kevin: I WILL FIND A PLATFORM TO TALK ABOUT THAT COURT CASE SO HELP ME GO-[Smash Cut to credits]
• In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - a particularly bleak one and heartwrenching one at the very end that will have you desperately waiting for another scene. There isn't one.
  • An earlier one is played for laughs when Dr. Horrible details (on his video blog) his plan for his next big attack. He signs off, and we immediately cut to his next blog, showing him battered and bruised, where he explains that his list of viewers evidently includes Captain Hammer and the Los Angeles Police Department, and that he needs to be more careful about what he says on his blog in the future.
• A "smash" cut indeed for Pretty Dudes, paired with a Gilligan Cut as Alexander learns a thing or two about what's possible with his body.
  "Rearrange my guts?"
• Happens in Door Monster's The Guards Themselves.
  Noam: Ritchie, there isn't just some store where you can go pick up bags of-
  Cut to them knocking on Lincoln's door.
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged does this hilariously in the abridging of the second Cooler movie: Goku and Vegeta are set upon by an army of Metal Coolers. They both power up, only for the scene to cut immediately to Goku and Vegeta captured in the Big Gete star. All we know about the fight is that all one thousand Coolers kicked Vegeta in the dick.
• A scene from The Gmod Idiot Box uses one of these, when Coach suffers from a volatile form of gonorrhea.
  [Nick sitting at a computer.]
  Coach: Aaaaaaaggghhh!!
  [Coach blasts a hole through the wall with flames shooting from his groin, frying Nick into a charred husk.]
  Nick: Coach...you do that again, and I will bury you alive.
  Coach: AAH—!
  [Coach is barely holding it in.]
  Nick: Coach...!
  Coach: Eeyaaaaagghh—!!
  [The entire building explodes, and we smash cut to Coach's hand sticking out of the ground, giving the middle finger.]

Western Animation

• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • Half of the time when something explodes, the scene immediately cuts to the following scene, or the episode ends, as in the case of the episodes "The Watch", "The Boss", and "The Sucker".
  • In "The Heart", Mr. Robinson types "How to Brainwash Kids" online. Cut to Rocky bailing him out of jail. It happens two more times - the second time it happens, he stalks Gumball and Darwin and brings them "more followers", and the next time when he accidentally violates 14 international peace agreements after getting out some of his old "toys" for them.
• Archer has a very idiosyncratic trick of cutting people off mid-sentence and having the dialogue in the new scene either responding to, echoing, or finishing off whatever the previous speaker had been saying.
• Occasionally accompanies the more hopeless plans on Avatar: The Last Airbender. For instance, in "The Cave of the Two Lovers", the Gaang decides they're not going to walk through the eponymous haunted cavern, they'll just fly instead. Smash Cut to a Fire Nation artillery battery using them for target practice, and they change their minds. In the Extras version of this episode, the smash cut was lampshaded.
  Sokka: Secret love cave, let's go.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The new Justice League, still a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits at this point, is about to go take on Darkseid. Martian Manhunter encourages everyone with a Rousing Speech...and we cut to everyone chained up in Darkseid's dungeon. While he got to finish his sentence, it was sudden and unexpected. And hilarious.
• In the first episode of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, the gang are at a university and Scooby and Shaggy find a gourmet vending machine in the cafeteria. When the machine jams as they try to get a turkey, Shaggy tries to reach in and get it himself, then it suddenly jumps to him stuck in the machine with a "ding" sound. Scooby and the Monster of the Week follow suit.
• Bojack Horseman: In a flashback to his sitcom days, Bojack is shown to be comically unaware of how this trope works. He insists on inserting a scene in between the smash cut to explain the joke.
• Jorel's Brother: Happens in scenes related to the Running Gag of never revealing the titular character's real name. Usually, when he has gone missing, his dad Mr. Edson asks, with a slight stutter: "Hold up, where is..." and then immediately cuts to a scene of Jorel's brother wherever he actually is, just before Mr. Edson completes the sentence saying his son's name.
• Family Guy: Occurs in "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar" when Peter gets in trouble for cracking a sexist comment to a female employee.
  Peter: Why do women have boobs? So you got something to look at while you're talking to 'em! (laughs)
  (the employee is frozen with shock)
  Peter: So you got something to look at while you're talking to 'em! (laughs)
  (still nothing)
  Peter: So you go—
  (cut to Peter entering his boss's office)
  Peter: You-You, uh...You wanted to see me, Mr. Weed?
• In Futurama, we have the producer's favorite smash cut ever from the episode "Put Your Head on My Shoulders":
  Bender: Wait. You mean people will pay good money for romance? Hmm. I think I have a scheme so deviously clever that I—
  [Smash Cut to courtroom and judge banging his gavel]
  Judge: $500 and time served.
  Bender (with a gold tooth, fur coat, and two hooker bots): Stupid anti-pimping laws!
  • Another example happens right at the end of "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", when Zoidberg starts to sing his song and it smash cuts to the credits. We then hear Zoidberg sigh.
  • Most of "Time Keeps On Slipping" is held together entirely by Smash Cuts, with the twist that the characters don't remember what happened in between.
  • From Bender's Big Score:
    Nudar: Tough times earth chumps. We're repossessing your TV. Seems you can't afford it now that you're unemployed!
    Zoidberg: We're not unemplo-
    (Cut to the crew being kicked out of the office.)
  • In "Proposition Infinity", Amy and Bender have a torrid and illegal romance. They spearhead a campaign to make robot/human relationships legal, and actually win. Amy says now they can openly have a serious, monogamous relationship.
    Bender: That's righ— monogamous?
    (Cut to Bender on a beach somewhere with two fembots.)
• Gravity Falls: In "The Last Mabelcorn", Mabel and crew decide to pick a fight with Celestabellebethabelle and the unicorns, and both charge, but just as they are about to plow into each other it suddenly cuts right to Dipper.
• I ♡ Arlo: At the very end of "Get Lost!", Bertie is about to sing the song she wrote upon getting inspiration from the city, but before she can, it cuts right to the end credits.
• In every episode of Invincible (2021), (at the end for the first episode, the beginning for the rest), someone will use the word "invincible", but instead of us hearing it, it'll smash cut to the title credit so we see it.
• In Skwisgaar's Establishing Character Moment in Metalocalypse, the scene hastily smash cuts back to Mordhaus before Skwisgaar finishes explaining to an old lady what a GMILF is.
  "Guess what, you are a GMILF. That is a grandmother I would like to-"
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • From the episode "Ponyville Confidential": Rarity, at Sugarcube Corner, is dismissing the idea that Sweetie Belle is the gossip columnist "Gabby Gums".
    Rarity: How could you say such a thing, Twilight?! [Sweetie Belle] is the most innocent, most lovely-
    [cut to Rarity, back home, finding her diary in Sweetie Belle's saddlebag]
    Rarity: MOST EVIL PONY IN EQUESTRIA!
  • "Owl's Well that Ends Well" has one of Twilight gently praising Spike as he sleeps to angrily confronting him about the astronomy book he accidentally burnt.
  • In The Stinger of "Magic Duel", a mouthless Pinkie complains, then Twilight magically restores it. Pinkie opens her mouth to speak, but before she can, it cuts right to the closing credits.
  • Done again in the final scene of "Princess Spike". After everyone helps fix the bejeweled statue, someone foolishly gives him a bouquet of flowers from the Dragon Sneeze trees, which sets him off again, but right when he is about to destroy the statue once more, it cuts right to the end credits.
• Peg + Cat has no time for a Fade to Black. Immediately after the last scene in the segment, it cuts to the stinger both for the first and second segments of the episode. After the second stinger for the second segment, guess how many seconds it took for the show to cut to the credits?
• The Powerpuff Girls: In the final scene of "Mommy Dearest", Professor Utonium is at a loss of words once again when he encounters a visiting woman who heard of Sedusa getting arrested and offers him a pie. Shocked at this, the girls fly up to interfere, but right when they reach the door, it abruptly cuts to the end shot.
• In one Robot Chicken sketch, a boy wanting to be like his father attempts to shave with a straight razor. Before the razor even touches his face, it cuts to his dead body being lowered into the ground.
• Happens a few times on The Simpsons:
  • In "Homer Goes to College", the nuclear physics professor invites Homer to demonstrate how a particle accelerator works. Smash Cut to students fleeing and screaming from the building, which is now glowing green.
  • In "Whacking Day", Bart attends a Catholic School and is told to recite a psalm. Unable to think of one, he settles with "Beans, beans, the musical fruit / The more you eat, the more you toot...", before cutting to Bart being chased out by the class.
    "Avert your eyes, children! He may take on other forms!"
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Tea at the Treedome", Sandy discovers SpongeBob and Patrick have nearly dried up. This is accompanied by a cut from her dropping her tea glasses to a live-action shot of a sponge and starfish.
  • In "No Weenies Allowed", SpongeBob is finally allowed access to the Salty Spitoon, and runs in happily; smash to him in an ambulance injured all over from slipping on an ice cube upon running in.
  • The episode "Krusty Krab Training Video" ends with the narrator saying, "Okay! The [Krabby Patty] secret formula i—" (cut to black)
• Every episode of The Venture Brothers ends with a smash cut into the ending credits.

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