Call on Me

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I'll be there
You've got a friend

A character is in over his/her head or had wandered into danger somehow. But as soon as he/she shouts the name of a love interest, friend, relative, bodyguard, ally, whatever, the character so summoned shows up to save the day.

Similar to Just Whistle, and a more benign cousin of Speak of the Devil. Compare Say My Name.

Examples of Call on Me include:

Anime and Manga

  • This is pretty much the first thing that happens in Hayate the Combat Butler, and continues on through the series. Anyone calling upon the titular Hayate summons him instantly.
  • Yuuno and Fate's Big Damn Heroes moment in the second season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was preceded by Nanoha mentally shouting out their names.
  • "I'm the one who's here! I'm the one who's gonna save you! CONTE!" Kind of a weird example, since he was actually summoning the robot to eat him so that they could...never mind.
  • In episode 5 of the Gravitation anime, Yuki miraculously pops up in the doorway when Shuichi screams for Yuki to help him.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima has a more direct version of this in the form the pactio partnership involves the mage having to yell the partner's name to call them immediately to the scene. Naturally, it backfires horribly at least once when Negi summons Asuna while she's taking a shower. While her crush is standing right next to him...
    • And for a non pactio version, as soon as Chisame yells for help against the cloth eating octopus monster Negi instantly appears and beats it to a pulp.
  • Kamina summons Simon in a rather suggestive way during the hot springs episode.
  • Fushigi Yuugi: Tamahome makes a promise to Miaka that he'll always be there for her, and they become so close that Tamahome is able to hear Miaka calling for him when she needs him.
  • Amusingly subverted in the Sengoku Basara anime. Seeing that Kasuga is determined to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Oda Nobunaga in spite of his efforts to dissuade her, Sarutobi Sasuke gives Kasuga what seems to be a whistle and tells her to blow it if she's in trouble. When that inevitably happens, the "whistle" turns into a rocket-powered glider. Kasuga later admits that she thought the whistle would somehow summon Sasuke to her rescue, and he replies that that would obviously be impossible. "But, hey, I'm here now!"
  • Subverted in Princess Resurrection by Sawawa Hiyorimi, Hiro's older sister, who will frequently sense Hiro in danger, only to ignore it and continue eating a parfait.
  • Happened once in RahXephon. When Ayato was trying to get to TERRA HQ on foot, he yelled out the Xephon's name and it immediately left its water tank, flying to him on its own.

Comic Books

  • Two words: "Superman, help!"
  • An issue of Thor set after Captain America's death had the titular God of Thunder visiting Cap's memorial and remembering a promise the The Avengers had made on his hammer - if one called, they would come no matter the distance. Thor's hammer had the power to pass between worlds. Thor was able to have a Dead Person Conversation with Cap by shouting "Avengers Assemble!"
  • In The Sandman story arc "The Doll's House", Gilbert tells Rose to read the name "Morpheus" aloud if she's ever in any trouble. Sure enough, when the serial killer Fun Land tries to rape her, she says it and Morpheus earns a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • The Golden Age portrayal of Captain Marvel was something like this. He was portrayed more as a distinct character, rather than as Billy Batson in an adult body.

Fanfic

Gandalf said"I wish Frodo and Merry and Pippen and Sam was here"and then a sword came out of nowhere and said"some wished us here"and then Gandalf turned and said"Frodo baggins why you doing here".

  • On the absolute opposite end of the fanfic merit scale, this is eventually what tends to happen whenever Apocalypse Rei senses that her God-Emperor is in danger.

Film

  • In Peter Jackson's The Two Towers, when Treebeard (carrying Merry and Pippin) learns that part of Fangorn forest has been felled for firewood by Saruman's orcs, he summons the other Ents, who arrive almost immediately - despite the fact that we've seen how huge Fangorn forest is, and Treebeard is now a very long way from where we last saw the Ents, and the Ents usually take hours or days to make important decisions anyway.
  • MacLeod calls Ramirez this way in Highlander II the Quickening, despite him being dead since the first film.
  • Subverted in The Night of the Hunter, when Uncle Birdie tells the kids that if they're ever in trouble, they can call on him. When they need his help, he's passed-out drunk. At least he's finished fixing that skiff.
  • The Transformers Film Series has a couple. The second film has Sam (and his dad) calling out for Bumblebee, who then busts in and starts slagging Mini-Decepticons like nobody's business. Later in the same film, Sam calling 'bee again signals our silent yellow hero to start kicking Rampage's tailpipe. The third film's trailer has Sam invoking this to call "Optimus!" to the field, upon which Prime flies in and starts carving through Decepticons.

Literature

  • The Ranyhyn in Thomas Covenant, magic horses who always show up when called, even if they're weeks away, thanks to convenient psychic powers.
    • Nom the sandgorgon.
  • Sort of used in the Sword of Truth series, where a dragon who gives another one of its teeth can simply concentrate and--once—the dragon will appear very rapidly to aid the caller.
  • Chrestomanci. Appears whenever he's called, not always when it's convenient for him. Often he appears in his dressing gown.
  • Variant in Harry Potter: help comes for Harry not only because he said Dumbledore's name but because he did so in a way that demonstrates loyalty to Dumbledore.
  • In The King's Buccaneer, Pug gives Nicholas a charm that will summon him if his name is called. He uses it once early on when things are bad, and then Pug pulls a Deus Exit Machina for the rest of the story until the last minute, while being pursued by a ship full of zombies led by a superpowerful necromancer, Nicholas calls Pug again. Pug arrives on the back of a dragon and promptly obliterates the enemy.
  • A book called The Marshal, no relation to the TV show, featured an apparent ghost who, as the cover blurbs put it, seemed to be summoned by the cries of innocent people threatened by murderers in late-20th-century California. He wore late-19th-century clothing and carried an unusually long-barreled Colt Peacemaker ... later identified as having once belonged to US Marshal Wyatt Earp.

He hears the victims' screams, and he is there. The bullet-spitting image of Wyatt Earp! But Wyatt Earp is dead ... isn't he? (Front cover blurb)

then lifting his head toward the ceiling and the skies beyond, he cried out a name in an awful voice. A dagger in an ebon hand cut short his cry, and the golden head rolled on the ivory breast.
 As if in answer to that desperate cry, there was a rolling thunder as of celestial chariot-wheels, and a figure stood before the slayers, as if materialized out of empty air. The form was of a man, but no mortal man ever wore such an aspect of inhuman beauty.

    • In "The Frost Giants Daughter," the title character, Atali, is saved from Conan when she shouts "Ymir! Oh, my father, save me!"
  • Tom Bombadil taught Frodo and his friends a song they could sing if they were ever in trouble and needed his help. It only works if they sing it while on Tom's property, however.

Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow,
By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!

  • In the Young Wizards series, 'names' are a rather complex subject. However, your given name is still a part of you, so it can be used in a summoning spell. Though, as far as summonings go, it's less "I command you to come hither!" and more "Hey, we need you here, could you please make your way over at the earliest convenience?"

Live Action Television

  • In Knightmare, sometime-ally Hordriss could be summoned to aid the dungeoneer by having him say his calling name, "Malefact", three times. Other characters had calling names too.
  • Leo and other whitelighters of Charmed can hear their charges anywhere as long as they are not in the Underworld.

Myth and Legend

Tabletop RPG

  • 3.5 D&D has Truenaming - which, near the high levels, gives a feat called "Say My Name And I Am There". By giving a True-nickname, the character can be summoned by their comrades; the character is aware of who is summoning them, what the general situation is, and can choose whether or not to be teleported.

Video Games

  • Characters in the Persona series will either shout out "Persona!" when summoning the titular magical beings, or they'll shout out the persona's name, which can be hilarious when the persona is named something very non-threatening ("PIXIE!")
    • Back in the original Shin Megami Tensei, the game begins with the main character encountering, in order, the Law Hero, Chaos Hero and Heroine in his dreams. He is specifically told to call their names in order to summon them (which was how the game worked its character-naming into the story). In the case of Heroine, doing so broke up a ritual to drain her powers.
  • OOOOUUUUEEEENNNNDAAAAAANNNN!!!
  • "TASUKETE EIRIIIN!"
  • Although chronologically inaccurate, in Shadow Hearts: From the New World, Johnny gets an ability called "Phone Call" where he pulls out a cellphone (it's in 1929, where did he get that thing?) and shouts "Lenny!" into it, and sure enough, Lenny comes rushing in and clobbers the enemy using a power he got from the previous game.
  • In the Final Fantasy series, it is implied Summoners must do this when they Summon various monsters to attack. Such as Final Fantasy IV when you learn to summon several monsters, they say something like "You have proven your strength. When you need my help, call my name."
  • In Majora's Mask, Link is told by the four giants to "Call us." Of course, the poor kid has to do quite a bit of legwork before he can successfully do so.
  • The "Path of Glouphrie" quest in RuneScape ends with the Player Character stuck in a Death Trap. As you start to collapse from the poison gas, you cry out mentally for help. Lo and behold, the telepathic gnome Hazelmere from earlier in the quest hears you and teleports in to rescue you just in time.
  • As a Hero, (albeit a Nominal Hero), Rance will frequently protect the women who call his name just at the nick of time. He even invokes the trope once in a while.

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • "Scooby-Doo, where are you?!" Always yelled out by Shaggy. Scooby enters the scene a second later.
  • Used in quite a few Tom and Jerry cartoons. Jerry has called on Spike the bulldog and Muscles (Jerry's gangster cousin), usually with a whistle. A similar cartoon involved a black cat that crossed paths whenever called. He is temporarily stripped of his luck-confounding power when he is painted white.

"When you find yourself in danger,
When you're threatened by a stranger,
When you think that you will take a lickin';
There is someone waiting
Who will hurry up and rescue you;
Just squawwwwk for Super Chicken!"

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