A Running Gag that is always associated with a particular situation; the audience expects it whenever that situation comes up, but may not always find it as funny after the nth repetition. Yet, removing the gag for a while will make the audience ask where it went.
Usually not put in every episode, but frequently enough it becomes associated with the show as a whole. Writers may even start to make increasingly complicated setups and punchlines just to keep the novelty.
Anime and manga have become associated with Megaton Punch gags to the point that it's customary for Japanese Media.
If it's regularly being Lampshaded, then it's also an Overused Running Gag. Somewhat similar to Obligatory Joke (the joke may be incredibly lame, but everyone's expecting you to make it).
See also Character Exaggeration.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Crayon Shin-chan: Most of parks in the universe tend to have unusual names in succession for each episode they are contained. Usually they have quirky statues of their entrances or the entrances themselves. For example, the entrance of the Kujo Scallion Park (九条ネギ公園) has a scallion statue, the Today, I'll Pay Today; Don't Do That, Mr. Nakamura, 'Cause I'll Pay Today Park (今日は私が払いますよタメですよ中村さん私が払いますから公園) has an Overly Long Name and a statue of two men and one female cashier, and The Dolphin Doing Sit-Ups Park (フッキンするイルカ公園) has a weird statue of a dolphin who is sitting up with its abs.
Comic Strips
- Peanuts:
- Charles Schulz once said that he was in a bit of a bind regarding the strip's annual gags like Lucy and the football, and Linus and the Great Pumpkin. Some people complained the gags were stale, but even more people complained if he tried to skip them. He tried to keep them fresh each year by providing new twists on them each time; for the football gag in particular, he eventually limited himself to doing it only once per year.
- Schulz admitted that Pig-Pen was a one-joke character for whom he quickly ran out of material, but—much to his confusion—proved so popular with readers that he felt obligated to have Pig-Pen make occasional appearances to keep his fans happy.
Fan Works
My Hero Academia
- What it Means to Be a Hero: In all manner of situations such as practical sessions (and even, off-scree), Joyato Hikari will suplex a character or two just because. It's become a running gag that whenever she appears, someone will get suplexed.
Films — Animation
- The Mitchells vs. the Machines: Whenever we see one of Katie's home-made films, Monchi is bound to appear on it as the main character. Combined with the dog's "no brain cells" stare, the in-universe Special Effects Failure, and the bizarre situations Katie puts him through, those sequences are always a good laugh.
Live-Action TV
- California Dreams: Brent Gore cites this as the reason he left the show in its third season; as his character gets reduced from the focus character of the show to a one-trick pony who mostly shows to whine 'Aww man' when things don't go his way.
- Home Improvement: Wilson's un-shown lower face becomes. Originally, he just stands behind a fence on stage. As the show progresses, Wilson is shown out of the house more and set designers go to town to find ways to keep the portion of his face hidden with props. In all these cases, he is never shown, being obscured by at least three props in the scene as he moves around the set. Even at the final curtain call, actor Earl Hindman comes out holding a miniature fence in front of his face. Hindman is even known to do out-of-character appearances—for instance, interviews about his experience working on the show—with his face obscured.
- The IT Crowd: The apathetic Roy will always answer the phone with "Hello, IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?" In later seasons they progress to "Is it plugged in?", and later still "I'm sick of saying that... what do you WANT?!"
Theatre
- Tsukiuta: The second act of every production is a dance live performed by the idol main cast, and at the beginning of the act, the members all introduce themselves briefly. Hirai Yuuki, who took over as Fuduki Kai from episode 9, has done the following gag at every performance he's been in at least through episode 13: he starts by giving a standard sort of introduction, then stops as if thinking of something... then he puns some word he'd just been saying into the name of the venue. He then runs back and forth across the stage, puts his arm around someone else's shoulders, and/or shouts "Sooo-re!" ("Thaaaat's it!"). It's incredibly cheesy, and he even seems to cringe at himself. When he tries to skip it, the other Procellarum members don't let him, especially since Washio Shuuto returned as Haduki You.
Video Games
- Metal Gear: The cardboard box started out as a really overpowered gag item in Metal Gear 1 and has made an appearance in every game since, as it is now a signature item of the series, though changes in gameplay mean it has become progressively less and less useful. It even makes an appearance in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which unlike the rest of the series is a Stylish Action game with Optional Stealth.
- Metroid: It's become customary for Samus in the main Metroid saga to have to destroy a major facility on a given planet, if not the planet itself (or accidentally do so) because it's unsalvageably riddled with the resident biological threat. In the Prime storyline, the reasons vary but a planet is almost always nuked from existence.
- Zebes was introduced as a major location in Samus' backstory and an important location for the Chozo. In Metroid 1, killing Mother Brain in Tourian activates the main Pirate base's self-destruct sequence, and Samus also destroys a Pirate flagship in Metroid: Zero Mission. When Samus returns in Super Metroid, killing Mother Brain again triggers a chain reaction that destroys the entire planet.
- SR388 in Metroid II: Return of Samus and Metroid: Samus Returns is not immediately destroyed, but Samus does exterminate all the Metroids, save a single hatchling. The planet is summarily overrun with X parasites, and when Samus herself is infected on a return mission in Metroid Fusion, the parts of her suit are sent to the BSL Research station in high orbit. When the X overrun the station, Samus and ADAM prime the self-destruct explosives and cripple the station's orbit to intercept the planet with the intention of destroying them both. The reason the X were not active in the aforementioned Return of Samus and its remake was because the Chozo created the Metroids to predate upon the X, forcing them into hibernation to avoid their own extinction. In Dread, Quiet Robe reveals that the Thoha - the Chozo that created the Metroids - wanted to exterminate SR388 to destroy both the Metroids and the X, but Raven Beak had other plans.
- Metroid Dread lampshades this trend when ADAM orders Samus to "treat [the Federation's] lost assets with care", meaning the E.M.M.I. sent there. There is no known explanation as to why the planet began to implode when the Itorash crashed down and Raven Beak was infected and killed soon after.
- Tallon IV in Metroid Prime survives Samus' visit, though the Artifact Temple is destroyed along with the crater over which it rests after Samus kills the titular creature, which the temple was created to contain.
- Aether and Dark Aether in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes are locked in a battle for planetary energy, and one of them will be utterly destroyed if it loses all of it. Dark Aether got the short end of the stick, and Samus stabilizes Aether with the seized energy assets.
- In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the planet Phaaze, a Genius Loci home to Phazon and the Leviathan (the main threats of the Prime saga). It has a symbiotic relationship with Aurora Unit 313, which Dark Samus summons to merge with. The latter's eventual destruction at the hands of Samus causes Phaaze to collapse and take all the universe's Phazon with it. Norion, Bryyo, Elysia, and the Pirate Homeworld are fine despite their varying stages of Phazon corruption at the time Phaaze was obliterated.
- The Oubliette in Metroid Prime Hunters was created to imprison Gorea, and the creature's destruction is followed by the vessel's own eradication.
Webcomics
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Bob's roof has to get destroyed at least once per story arc. Bonus points if it gets destroyed, fixed, and re-destroyed in a single storyline.
- Irregular Webcomic!: Readers expect the characters to spout puns like there's no tomorrow for the most inane reasons. It has been subverted on some occasions, like the 2008-07-14
entry, to lampshade the absence.
Websites
Web Video
- Bro Team Pill: Combined with his own running gags and mocked in the Guns of Icarus review.
"I sure hope JEFFREY shows up! Or that I end up in a SEWER!" (Laugh Track)
Western Animation
- Family Guy: Much of the humor is based on Non Sequitur asides that play off the characters' metaphors. Occasionally, an aside doesn't happen, causing the character to flinch, "Oh? We're not doing one? Right?"
- Phineas and Ferb: A great deal of the humour comes from the formulaic plot and its Once an Episode running gags and catchphrases. To keep them fresh, the show will constantly tweak, rotate, or make them pointedly absent in funny ways.
- Pinky and the Brain: Brain frequently asks, "Pinky! Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" before a zany scheme, prompting Pinky to agree, before spouting a goofy non-sequitur. They occasionally turn it on its head, with Pinky thinking the same thing once, then discarding it as too absurd. On one occasion, time they hold an entire conversation about it. In one episode told from Pinky's point of view, the viewer sees his train of thought leading up to his non-sequitur, and it makes perfect sense.
- South Park: Kenny's frequent deaths are one of the original hooks for audience attention. The creators quickly grow tired of the joke, however, and go to extreme lengths to lampshade or subvert it. They eventually leave Kenny dead for a whole season, then bring him back and only kill him off occasionally. In a later episode, it's revealed that Kenny actually remembers being killed, but his friends don't. His mother gives birth to him again each time, and he matures to his current age overnight.
- Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Space Ghost abuses his Destructo Ray to blast the guest or Zorak when he tires of them.
