Name for the scene at the end of a movie--post credits

May 6, 2008 5:04 AM

Is there a name for the small scene that comes at the end of a film--after the credits?

Two summer movies I've seen so far have a scene after the credits. When did this start? The first one I can remember is Ferris Bueller admonishing the audience to go home, because the film is over. Is there a website that keeps track of this?

posted by ColdChef to media & arts (17 comments total)

A wild guess: movie industry people refer to it as a "tag". Again, that's just a wild guess.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:08 AM on May 6

Also a stinger. (Which I remember from MST3K).
posted by Wolfdog at 5:10 AM on May 6

(which article gives some plausible attempts at when did it start, too.)
posted by Wolfdog at 5:11 AM on May 6

Epilogue?
posted by MrMoonPie at 5:29 AM on May 6

IMDb calls these "crazy credits, but their "browser" function only lets you search, as far as I can see. There is a keyword search, though, and there's a list of "scene during end credits" movies with just under 150 titles.
posted by cgc373 at 5:43 AM on May 6

Filmsite.org's glossary goes with post-credits sequence, which it defines as:

"Either a throwaway scene or an epilogue that happens during or after the end credits; sometimes used as a bonus for theatergoers who remain to watch the credits, and partly to generate 'buzz' about the extra scene"

It gives a few examples, the earliest of which is Airplane, from 1980.
posted by xchmp at 6:05 AM on May 6

Didn't Monty Python do this in several of their movies? Wouldn't they predate Airplane by several years? (Or did they just do wacky credits?)
posted by Gungho at 6:30 AM on May 6

Post-credits scene at Wikipedia says The Muppet Movie (1979) was "one of the earliest."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:47 AM on May 6

I think also it is a tag, big with the Tarantino films
posted by femmme at 6:48 AM on May 6

I always called it a tag, and I wish it were easier to identify which movies had them, because we always wait in the theater until the credits are over now, just in case. Some tags have been essential to the storyline (I'm thinking of an XMen movie, and also Ironman this summer), while others were just throwaways, and a few movies that should have them have nothing.

grrrr inconsistency.
posted by misha at 7:02 AM on May 6

A few of the movies that I've worked on had them. We didn't really call them anything special, outside of their actual scene name/number or "that last shot".

A couple people I know call them "buttons" though. And I've also heard epilogue.
posted by dogwalker at 8:34 AM on May 6

Post-credits scene at Wikipedia says The Muppet Movie (1979) was "one of the earliest."

The rainbow broke and everyone fell off, right? I was 3, and I bawled my eyes out. I thought they all died.
posted by peep at 9:03 AM on May 6 [1 favorite]

Roger Ebert calls them "credit cookies" in an old 1998 review I read today. Personally, I call it the epilogue or coda.
posted by hot soup girl at 9:42 AM on May 6

"Tag" is primarily television-speak for the final bit of action at the end, but before the credits. Like when Star Trek would have Kirk, Spock and McCoy all having a laugh together. Example: Scotty reporting that he beamed all the tribbles over to the Klingons. Ha ha, roll credits. For a while it became a cliché for the final frame to freeze here, most often on one of the stars. In some scheduling blocks there might be an ad in between the end of the fourth act and the tag.

I know it's used for the movies, but it's not strictly correct because post-credits sequences are ... post-credits.

One of the earliest may have been Deliverance, although it's not strictly post-credits.
posted by dhartung at 10:56 AM on May 6

Might it be an Easter Egg? I know that it doesn't really seem like it in the traditional sense, but this Easter Egg FAQ, http://www.eeggs.com/faq.html, notes that a track hidden at the end of a CD with a long pause before counts as one, and it seems similar to me.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 12:33 PM on May 6

We always call them "Tag endings."
posted by piratebowling at 5:53 PM on May 6

I've heard it called "monk's reward" but apparently that's not a common term.

Okay - google tells me this comes from Ebert's movie glossary.
posted by O9scar at 7:34 PM on May 6