What do you call the clip that plays after the credits of a film?
You’re sitting through the credits, waiting, waiting, waiting for that little piece of film, anticipation high. Will it be a clip for the next movie? Or an inside joke. Sometimes you wait, while people start to leave around you, and at first you think ha, they’re not on the in. Or you wonder if this time you’ll be left high and dry.
Then the clip shows, and it’s the perfect after dinner treat to a great meal. Or maybe it’s more confusing than the movie itself. (How many of us knew who Thanos was after the first Thor movie?) Sometimes the clip can feel like a gratuitous ad. Sometimes the clip can spark more conversation than the actual movie itself.
What term evokes the same anticipation as Easter Egg?
But what do you call the darn thing? Jared Ficiur of moviepilot.com calls it an “end of credit scene” in this this post, where he lists Every Marvel End Credit Scene.
Bryan Coda of Yahoo Movies calls it the “post-credits coda” in this article, where he talks about the X-Men clip at the end of Spiderman 2. Which makes sense, considering that coda is defined on Google search as “The concluding passage of a piece of movement, typically forming an addition to the basic structure.”
But while end-credits coda and end of credit scene are both accurate, neither terms captures that delicious zest that can be gained by a delicious after-film treat.
Neither term evokes the same anticipation and fun that the term Easter Egg does in reference to the little hidden gems you have to search for in a movie. As George Wales says here in this post on gamesradar.comi, “T
he only thing better than enjoying an old favorite is catching a new tidbit the second (or third or fourth or fifth) time around.” A Fortune Cookie
So we in the Kaleo clan have taken to calling them cookies, short for fortune cookies. (Or rather Mama-Kaleo has taken to calling them fortune cookies, and Rug-Rat Kaleos after much eye-rolling refer to them–when all else fails–as cookies.) Like a fortune cookie you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes they’re a gem–a treat you tuck away in your pocket. Sometimes they’re wise. Sometimes they’re worth a laugh or two. Sometimes they’re so lame they make you want to open another one to get rid of the bad after-taste. There are even the dud ones that are perfect in their imperfection. Papa-Kaleo’s all time favorite cookie–the one he can’t help but laugh out loud when he says it or hears it–wasn’t een one he found. It was from the book Big Nate by Lincoln Pierce: “A
n unlit candle frightens no monkey.”
The way Papa-Kaleo feels about that fortune is the way I feel about my all-time favorite clip. It had no meaning. It was not a commercial or a teaser for the next film. My favorite clip was just a moment of humanity. I’m talking about the clip at the end of the avengers movie.
A side note:Wikipedia credits The Muppet Movie (1979) as one of the earliest instances of having a post-credits scene and has a workup on other appearances here.
What do you call the thingee at the end of the movie? And what’s your favorite? And if you could add one to any non-marvel/non-disney film clip, which would you add it to?
