Motor Mouth

"Ohai. I'm that guy..."
—Pale Kid Raps Fast
No. Who would name their kid that? I named myself that. My parents think it’s important for kids to have a heightened sense of self, so they asked me what I wanted to be called so I said “Goo Goo Ga Ga” because I was only a baby and it was like my thing to say all the time when I was a baby and did you used to say “mac” all the time when you were a baby? Cause that seems like a weird thing for a baby to say. I mean think about it: Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac-Mac.

A character who speaks if not constantly then often so quickly that it's hard to make out individual words and with the appearance of not having to stop for breath which sometimes makes it sound as though the audio track has been set to Fast Forward, this is often a facet of the Genki Girl or The Ditz who seems to be able to redirect the oxygen destined for their brain to their mouth whereas if smart characters do this they often fall victim to Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness usually this counts as the specific subtrope Gibbering Genius and it is also a trait of a character who is panicking upset afraid angry worked up or excited and launches into rapid-fire babble because of their emotional state.

[deep breath]

In advertisements this is Rattling Off Legal and in Music it becomes a Patter Song and can lead to Something Something Leonard Bernstein while for the absurd comic book examples where this is explicitly not addressed see Talking Is a Free Action. Characters may do this during a Character Filibuster to prevent others interrupting. In comics, Wall of Text and Wall of Blather are common.

Contrast... Dramatic... Ellipsis... AND! PUNCTUATED! FOR! EMPHASIS!

Examples of Motor Mouth include:


Advertising

  • In the area of commercials, the definitive Motor Mouth is no doubt actor John Moschitta, Jr, best known for his FedEx and Micro Machines commercials. He is (according to Wikipedia) listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the world's fastest speaker. Kids might remember him for the Micro Machines ads, but those who remember their childhood TV shows more clearly than the commercials may remember him as Blurr from the Transformers (listed below). In fact, he voiced both versions of Blurr. He's even worked with Robot Chicken in a parody of his own Micro Machines ads where he laments his failed marriage and describes his decided method of suicide... while Micro Machines cars drive about in playsets.
    • The dvd commentary for that Robot Chicken episode shows that he talks like that normally.
    • Not to mention Mr. Testaverde, the downright sadistic history teacher on Saved by the Bell.
  • "Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun!"
    • "BigMacMcDLT-aQuarterPounderwithsomecheese-Filet'OFish-ahamburger-acheeseburger-aHappyMeal-McNuggets-tastygoldenfrenchfries-regularorlargersize-andsalads-cheforgardenorachickensaladoriental-BigBigBreakfast-EggMcMuffinhothotcakes-andsausagemaybebiscuits-baconeggandcheeseasausage-danish-hashbrowns-too-andfordessert-hotapplepies-andsundaes-threevarieties-asoftservecone-threekindsofshakes-andchocolateychipcookies-andtodrinkaCocaCola-DietCokeand-orangedrink-aSpriteandcoffee-decaftoo-alowfatmilk-alsoanorangejuice-IloveMcDonald's-goodtimegreattaste-andIgetthisallatoneplace!"
  • In some countries, the medicine commercials usually have a notice how it's said that it's a medicine commercial, instructions should be read before using it and consulting the doctor in need is suggested. The speaking will be done within a few seconds.
  • Often heard at the end of radio commercials for automotive dealerships to slip in what would be, in visual advertisements, the fine print.
  • Lampshaded in one radio commercial where the announcer was interviewing the guy who rattles off disclaimers in commercials, while said guy's contribution to the interview is blisteringly-fast attacks of disclaimer speak. At the end of the commercial the announcer asked the disclaimer guy if his lips ever caught on fire. The latter admitted, "Occasionally."
  • UK example for the 1970s: "Lipsmackinthirstquenchinacetastinmotivatingoodbuzzincooltalkinhighwalkinfastlivinevergivincoolfizzin... Pepsi!"
  • At the end of government ads and Public Service Announcements in Australia: "Authorisedbytheaustraliangovernmentcanberra"
  • In Venezuela, Pedro Castillo's ads for Telcel where to demonstrate the coberture of the service he listed about 50 cities of the country in 20 seconds, only slowing to end ".. y la Colonia Tovar", The original ad isn't online, but here is the sequel ad where he pulls the same trick.


Anime and Manga

  • The cast of Galaxy Angel sometimes goes into Motor Mouth mode, often during the Post Episode Trailers where they argue at a hundred miles an hour.
  • Megumi Hayashibara's characters tend to have stints of Motor Mouthery. She's not the only Japanese voice actress to accomplish it on a regular basis, but she's arguably one of the best.
    • Lime from Saber Marionette J and its various sequels, is one of the best examples.
    • Contrast: REI.
      • Or not. Watch the final episode AU in Japanese.
  • Kotono Mitsuishi, Excel's voice actress in Excel Saga, is quite good at this, and Excel's English voice actress was almost as capable; however, Jessica Calvello nearly destroyed her voice after thirteen episodes (though that could have also been because of Excel's hoarse screech in Calvello's rendition). She was also the VA for Usagi Tsukino, and was able to showcase her talent in later seasons, usually during comedic episodes.
  • Speaking of Ms. Calvello, she also did the voice for one of the younger sisters in Kare Kano. In both the original and the dub, the voice actresses for the sisters would do the "Next Episode" previews in live action, with Motor Mouth that necessitates subtitles.
  • The main character Poemi, in the Excel Saga spinoff Puni Puni Poemi sometimes managed to be even faster. Fan translation subtitles would stack to the point where they cover half the screen. The English voice actress managed to survive the ordeal, though she blew her voice out on the second day of recording, according to the DVD commentary.[1]
  • Sana Kurata of Kodomo no Omocha can be a Motor Mouth Supreme when the mood strikes, far exceeding even Megumi Hayashibara's characters. When your subtitles come in entire paragraphs...
  • Haré, the main character of Haré+Guu, is prone to motormouthery when things just get too weird for him.
    • In the second season, Haré+Guu Deluxe, the opening of each episode includes Haré spouting out of a rapid-fire stream of chatter, which varies from time to time while Guu dances.
    • Haré's seiyuu, Rikako Aikawa, seems to specialize in this.
  • Ichiko from Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru. ("Oneesamaoneesamaoneesamaoneesamaoneesama....")
  • In Futari wa Pretty Cure, one of Nagisa's two "normal" friends is a Motor Mouth who occasionally punctuates her rapidfire speech with a triple repeat of a word.
  • In a Post Episode Trailer for Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo is so in shock that she starts speaking quickly, repeating words, and eventually reminding herself of the thing she was trying to distract herself from in the first place. "DaiiiiiiiisukisukisukisuKISU!!?"
    • Pudding, anyone?
  • Kyouka in Kyouran Kazoku Nikki speaks very fast very often, especially her dialogue in the show's opening theme.
  • Let us not forget the art teacher in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu.
  • Elf Princess Rane has several examples of the blue-haired guy speaking very quickly in gibberish (once humorously translated by the subbers as "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck..." Backwards).
  • Everyone in Gag Manga Biyori.
  • If you're going to watch the subtitled version of S-Cry-ed, make damn sure you can speedread. Straight Cougar's dialogue approximates a blur at points.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion. Apparently Misato (yet another Kotono Mitsuishi role) was like this in her college days; Ritsuko thinks she's "making up for lost time" (after spending her childhood years mute from the trauma of witnessing Second Impact). We don't get to hear her though, just see the stunned look on Ritsuko's face as she babbles on and on.
  • Graham Spector from Baccano!!. Just... Graham.
  • Kira Yamato from Gundam Seed mentally does this whenever he goes into programming a mobile suit, to demonstrate just how fast a Coordinator's mind works.
  • Normally quiet Miyako pulls off two notable instances of this. The contrast between her normal personality and these makes them stand out.
  • Pokémon: Hara-Hara Relay and Hara-Hara-Hara-Hara Relay. As for a character related example, Barry/Jun would likely fit this trope.
  • Ahiru can be like this in Princess Tutu, particularly when she's flustered. It's part of her "duck like" personality that she quacks out her words—since she's actually a duck magically transformed into a girl.
  • Akane Mitamura from Kono Aozora Ni Yakusoku Wo.
  • Filler Villain Daphne in Fairy Tail. Bonus points for frequently swinging from a cheerful and childish voice to a creepy deep one frequently.
  • Technically Anime and Singing, but the opening themes of K-On season two have Yui (and the other main characters, if they actually sing) sing so quickly that it's been commented that they sound like chipmunks, doesn't help that the pacing of the band behind them is even faster. The character talk at normal speed during the show, but the songs...
  • Mika from Morita-san wa Mukuchi has her own episode dedicated to the fact that this is her real defining trait.
  • The main character of Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei speaks at such a rapid pace that the subs fly across the screen and reading them can be a little challenging.
  • Speed Racer: Where to even begin?


Comic Books

  • Comics characters with Super Speed sometimes do this when excited; Impulse and his cousin XS are notable examples.
    • The Flash once broke the sound barrier with his motor mouth.
  • Maxine Hunkel, alias Cyclone, is a Motor Mouth, to the sometimes annoyance of her teammates in the JSA. She is not a speedster, instead she can create tornadoes.
    • In fact, when Power Girl extended her a JSA invitation, she threatened to immediately revoke it if Maxine didn't shut up for a minute.
  • Me; made clear by the fact that I'm sometimes called the 'Merc With A Mouth'.
  • Delight in The Sandman: Endless Nights.
  • The Amazing and the Ultimate Spider-Man are sometimes portrayed as this, quipping through and through during a battle, which often more than not, annoys a LOT his enemies. More the Ultimate, as he's a teenager who won't shut up at all sometimes. It is heavily implied that this is Spidey's form of coping with his fear during a battle. However, beware when he's silent...
  • Harley Davidson a.k.a Motormouth, from Marvel Comics.
  • Pixie of the X-Men drifts into this when she gets excited, nervous, or scared.


Film

Martin: I'm sorry but I didn't get half of what he said...
David: (In French) Don't worry, me neither, but as long as we got different halves we're good.

Orienter: You punch in at 8:30 every morning, except you punch in at 7:30 following a business holiday, unless it's a Monday, then you punch in at 8 o'clock. Punch in late and they dock you. Incoming articles get a voucher, outgoing articles provide a voucher. Move any article without a voucher and they dock you! Letter size a green voucher, oversize a yellow voucher, parcel size a maroon voucher. Wrong color voucher and they dock you! 6787049A/6. That is your employee number. It will not be repeated!

  • Last Action Hero when Lt. Dekker is yelling at Arnold in his office the second time. Steam comes out of his ears.
  • In the movie adaptation of Hogfather, Violet the Tooth Fairy is played as this, chattering on and on through a gag until Teatime threatens unspeakable consequences if she doesn't shut up.
  • Carl Showalter from Fargo. Can't even pull off total silence.
  • Actor James Lorinz plays this role in Frankenhooker and Street Trash.
  • One of Mark Wahlberg's favorite acting moves; when his character is upset, angry, or scared, he starts to babble.
  • Walter from His Girl Friday literally fast talks his way out of most problems and can get anyone to go along with anything. Hildy punctuates an especially rapid rant with "Sold American!" like an auctioneer.
  • Wilhelm Burgdorf from Downfall. The way he talks and rants throughout the film became a subject of a joke among those who make Downfall parodies, which earned him the nickname "fast-ranting boozing Burgdorf".
  • Motor Mouth is a common symptom among characters in 1930s/40s movies. Films like Green For Danger feature characters who rapidly bounce back and forth in conversations with one another, rattling off dialogue without ever stumbling over their words or having to pause for thought. It never noticed by the other characters (who often speak with equal velocity).
  • Ace Ventura has a tendency to go into Motor Mouth mode, especially when giving The Summation. You can tell when it starts: he takes a huge breath.
  • My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who..."
  • Another John Hughes example occurs in Weird Science. When Wyatt's brother comes home and finds the house a total wreck, Wyatt desperately tries to explain what happened with a rapid-fire summation of pretty much all of the movie's plot up to that point, delivered as one long run-on sentence.


Literature

  • While it doesn't come across nearly as well in the printed word, Betsy the Vampire Queen in the works of Mary Janice Davidson is a definite Motor Mouth. At least once, another character noted that not needing to breathe helped Betsy immensely on that score.
  • The Dragonlance setting of Dungeons & Dragons featured the tinker gnomes, an entire race of Motor Mouths. A gnome's full name consists of his entire family tree and a list of all notable accomplishments by his relations, and can take months to fully pronounce—though they usually refer to themselves by shortened versions that only take about half an hour. Three guesses as to why they call their ancestral home "Mount Nevermind"...
    • Also, a Second Edition fey race called Quicklings were apparently on fast forward all the time, to the point that they had to consciously slow down their speech to be intelligible to humans. Not that they cared.
  • In The GaratronamconductinganinspectiononTVTropesandamquitedisappointedthatIhavenotyetbeenmentionedonthispage. Iwillreportthisdefeciencytomysuperiorsandbepromotedformyefforts.
  • Tavi doesn't really come across as one to the reader, but Kitai does complain "do you ever stop talking?" after kissing him near the end of the second book.
  • Hermione Granger from Harry Potter was so excited to be going to Hogwarts in her first year, she talked very fast indeed.
  • The entire sparrow race in Redwall talks like this
  • Eilonwy from the Chronicles of Prydain is so talkative, that in a scene where the other protagonists were simply tied up, she ends up Bound and Gagged
  • Rupert Psmith in PG Wodehouse's novels. "I'm a man of few words myself."
  • In Good Omens, the Chattering Order of Saint Beryl is an entire satanic covenant of Motormouth nuns.
  • In Maximum Ride, Nudge is the perfect example.
  • La Falvine from Malevil is guilty of this. At best it's vocal white noise.
  • In Men At Arms, Detritus gets this when his brain cools down enough.
  • In The Pale King, Garrity haunts Post 047 by randomly appearing before examiners and talking non-stop.
    • Meredith, once she gets going. Some of her coworkers prefer examining tax returns to listening to her talk.
  • Shulamith Ploni in one story by Ephraim Kishon. Combined with No Punctuation Period.
  • In the Warrior Cats book Crookedstar's Promise, Crookedstar's apprentice Sagepaw.
  • Tahiri in the Star Wars Expanded Universe was like this as a kid and young teenager; her best friend Anakin Solo even noted that her presence in the Force felt like someone talking very fast without pausing for breath. Following a Split Personality Merge and becoming a Half-Human Hybrid of sorts (long story) she became somewhat quieter, albeit still with a playfully snarky sense of humor.


Live Action TV

  • Both Six (Jenna von Oy) and Blossom (Mayim Bialik) on Blossom could rev up their speech to extraordinary speeds—and on at least one occasion did so in perfect unison [dead link] . This is a trait that Six apparently inherited from her mother Sharon [dead link] (Gail Edwards). (A transcript of the latter link can be found here.)
  • One of Vanessa's friends in the later seasons of The Cosby Show could—and did—talk so fast and without stopping for breath that Cliff referred to her as "Turbo Tongue", and responded to every outburst she made with the same non-comprehending, "Thank you."
  • Two words: Jim Cornette.
    • Compounded by the fact that he yells at about two hundred decibels or so. He had to be either a former auctioneer, or he missed his calling with it.
    • Fun fact: He developed the motormouth shtick because he got used to having more interview time before switching promotions in '85.
  • Elliot in Scrubs occasionally communicates at "the speed of light", as J.D. puts it, mostly when she is angry about something. Of course, it's played for laughs, and other females are capable of understanding her, if not being able to talk just as fast.
    • Sarah Chalke has said in interviews that speaking incomprehensibly rapidly was one of the first of the character's traits listed on the audition script.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Picard describes someone who does a variation on this:

Picard: "He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic so that no one had a chance to interrupt ... it was really quite hypnotic."

    • Data was also known to drone on, especially in earlier episodes, until Picard interrupted with "Thank you, Mr. Data." In the ST:TNG pinball game, if you gutter a ball without scoring during a Bonus Round, and you hear Data's voice, press both flipper buttons simultaneously, and you'll hear Picard's "Thank you, Mr. Data" and get an additional 10,000,000 points.
  • Pushing Daisies: Ned is prone to babbling like this whenever he's nervous. And he is nervous a lot.

Ned: I was bored and snooping really just bored and trying to entertain myself so it was more really ipso facto snooping like when you go into the bathroom and read all the magazines and go through the medicine cabinet and I found this!

    • Generally everybody speaks rapidly, including guest stars, and conversational replies and rejoinders have little if any gaps in-between speakers.
  • David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor (the tenth) has a tendency to speak at a blurring pace when thinking or just generally excited which, combined with an equally prominent tendency for Expospeak and Techno Babble, makes his speech nearly impenetrable to those without a pause button and/or a script.
    • Or are auditory-first.
    • This little moment from the episode "42" is a great example. I dare you to figure out if he takes a breath during any of it.

"Any number that reduces to one when you take the sum of the square of its digits and continue iterating it until it yields 1 is a happy number, any number that doesn't, isn't. A happy prime is both happy and prime. Now type it in!"

With you, did he do that thing where he'd explain something at, like, ninety miles an hour, and you'd go, 'What?' and he'd look at you like you'd just dribbled on your shirt?

    • Martha noticed too:

Trust me, just nod when he stops for breath.

    • The Fifth Doctor had a milder version of this trait.
  • Brad's girlfriend Angela on Home Improvement in season 5.
  • Stephen Colbert from time to time, especially when reciting from the Bible. The actor has said that he learned to do it quickly because he thought church would go by faster that way.
  • Monk's "Neighbor" Kevin Dorfman
  • The whole cast of Gilmore Girls, especially Lorelai and Rory. The show's scripts were apparently twice the size of your standard television script due to this characteristic. Jared Padalecki once joked that the main requirement to work on that show was the ability to speak very fast.
  • Peter Scolari's Michael Harris on Newhart.
  • Hawkeye from Mash had a tendency to do this once in a while. Particularly in the last episode.
  • Averted, big time, in the "Slow Talkers of America" skit by Bob and Ray.
  • Tyres on Spaced, presumably a symptom of his somewhat excessive speed habit, which has also left him with Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny.
  • Willow, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's earlier seasons, had a tendency toward going into what fanfics call "babble-mode".
  • Fred on Angel has a tendency towards this, usually in combination with Techno Babble.
  • Abby, of NCIS. Perhaps it's her prodigious Caf-Pow intake.
  • Adam Savage is prone to this, especially in the 2009-2010 season.
  • David Hewlett is known for how fast he can belt out pages and pages of dialogue, especially as Rodney in Stargate Atlantis.
    • Michael Shanks as Daniel Jackson does the same thing in Stargate SG-1. As a result, the writers predicted the Stargate Atlantis season 5 two-parter with Michael Shanks as a guest star would have a much longer script than usual since Jackson and McKay would spend a lot of scenes together spouting Techno Babble. According to the commentaries, they were right.
    • And then there's the time McKay gets stoned on Wraith enzyme.
  • Carly from iCarly tends to do this, especially when she's feeling hammy. The best example would be her long rant about why she kissed bad boy Griffin in "iDate a Bad Boy".
  • The titular character in Sherlock. Particularly in the third episode, when Moriarty gives him ten seconds to prove his solution before he kills a child.
  • Martin Querly of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is this. In fact, he gets so into talking that someone's able to put a cardboard cutout in front of him and he won't even notice.
    • This trait apparently runs in the family, since his sister is the same exact way.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: Michael Palin as the host of Spectrum. Why does he talk so fast? What do I mean when I say "talk"? What do I mean when I say "fast"? What do I mean when I say "what do I mean"? Yes, tonight on Spectrum *cue 16-ton weight*
  • Rachel in Glee whenever she is feeling outraged about something. Taken up to Eleven Fifteen in Vitamin D when she was hooked on Sudafed.

[rattled out in under 20 seconds, while hyper-ventilating] Thank you so much, it really is a pleasure. While the Boys chose a selection of songs that cast an eye inwards on the irresponsible life choices and sexual hunger of today's modern teens, we have chosen a selection of songs that speaks to the nation as a whole during these troubling times filled with economic uncertainty and unbridled socially - because if there is two things America needs right now, it is sunshine and optimism. Also angels... Okay.

  • In the first Day in the Life episode of Night Court, lecherous DA Dan Fielding, his nookie threatened by an obstinate defendant, rattles off an extensive list of charges in a manner that would make an auctioneer envious, stunning the judge and court, to the point where he had to yell "Hurry up and gavel!" just to get their attention.
  • From his very first conversation in the "Pilot", Abed in Community is shown to have a habit of unloading a bit too much information unless someone stops him.
  • After having taken some "energy pills", Morwena in Doc Martin develops a bad case of this. The energy pills turned out to be methamphetamine.
  • Kelly from The Office is well known at Dunder-Mifflin for being one. When she's plotting revenge on Jim and Dwight, Pam figures out she's up to something because she says hello to Jim without talking his ears off for 15 minutes. There is also a hilarious scene where the office has a gambling pool going involving Kelly explaining Netflix to Ryan in a single breath for over two minutes.
  • Brook, from The Amazing Race 17, at one point she talked through an entire boxing Roadblock.

Music

  • Many songs by Tonedeff, though the current record stands with the following verse from "Most High," delivered at 13.5 syllables per second. If you blink, it becomes incomprehensible.

And that's the reason I figured I'd make an appearance, / I'm here to severely sear your hearing, so many curves it interferes with your steering. / Clearing the way for the viral decay, and I'm shearing away at the sneer on your face at a furious pace. / If you jeer in dismay, you’ll be tearing in pain till you’re fearing the Plague / and revering our place in history. Set up for destiny. This’ll be our seminal symphony. / Given to me, the mic'll be a symbol of victory, and that's whenever the T-o-n-e hits the beat. / Simply put: We’re sticking the hook into your foot, so when your crew steps, the flu sets / And you get tainted, it’s plain as day, the strain is The Plague, bitch!

  • "Capital H" by Motion City Soundtrack: "Singing songs from the balcony as the city crumbles under the powers of an evil doctor rocket science monster with capabilities to destroy the entire universe."
  • The Avett Brothers song "A Slight Figure Of Speech" starts out with perfectly intelligible lyrics, but after the second chorus, it descends into a blisteringly fast mishmash before slowing back down.
  • Canadian musician Lights is known to be like this. For example, this line from her song, "Ice":

"I'm lookin' at you / lookin' at me / what can I do / but say sorry / It's a little late / but you just know I want you to be happy / what am I gonna have to say to get away with it, this time? / I know that you're upset, and you're happy just to sit and hate me / but I'll make a bet that you'll be better to forget about me / even better yet I'll little light melt that ice, ice, baby....."

    • And that's said just barely under, what, 20 seconds?
  • Barenaked Ladies: "One Week".

Gonna get a set of better clubs/you know the kind with tiny nubs/just so my irons aren't always flyin' on the backswing/
Gotta get in tune with Sailor Moon/'Cause that cartoon has got the boom anime babes/ that make me think the wrong thing

    • It may be worth noting that there's at least one live version of the song which floats around on the filesharing networks which shows that the band themselves can't always get it right in their own performances.
      • IIRC, there's an entire verse to the song that appears in the CD booklet that is never actually sung in the song... So apparently, they didn't even get it right in the studio, either.
  • The Weird Al Yankovic song "Hardware Store", which lists sixty-two items in thirty-two seconds, with a total of 258 syllables. It's why he refuses to do it in concerts.
    • For that matter, the verses of "White and Nerdy" tend towards this, albeit due to the type of rap that Weird Al is parodying. Reportedly, the CD version was sped up, and Weird Al then spent several months getting up to speed before putting it in his concert lineup.
    • Also "Jerry Springer" which is a parody of "One Week" above.
    • Not to mention a certain part of "Your Horoscope for Today".
      • "Now you may find it inconceivable or at the very least a bit unlikely that the relative position of the planets and the stars could have a special deep significance or meaning that exclusively applies to only you, but let me give you my assurance that these forecasts and predictions are all based on solid, scientific, documented evidence, so you would have to be some kind of moron not to realize that every single one of them is absolutely true. WHERE WAS I?" (all typed in one breath, thankyouverymuch...)
      • Note that the issue with singing along here is not the speed, but rather that the cadence of the song makes it difficult to get the entire thing out in one breath - which you need to do, or else you miss words.
    • The snippet of "You Oughta Know" used in "The Alternative Polka" is also sung really, really quickly.
    • "Everything You Know Is Wrong" isn't particularly fast, but contains far too few places to stop for breath.
  • hide did this quite often, but most notably in "Celebration" with X and specifically on the songs "Dice," "Bacteria," and "Doubt" from his solo works.
  • Craig Finn of Lifter Puller and The Hold Steady, with a hefty dose of Alliteration and assonance in his songwriting.
  • In The Nineties, midwestern rappers were known for using this style. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Twista (who held the Guinness Record for Fastest Rapper), and Da Brat are the best known.
  • Even Nas tries his hand at motor mouth rhyming, here: "Big Things".
  • REM's "It's The End of the World As We Know It". "The other night, I dreamt of knives, Continental drift divide, Mountains sit in a line. LEONARD BERNSTEIN!"
  • "It's The End of the World As We Know It" is then done even faster by Canadian band Great Big Sea, who shorten it by a minute and a half without skipping any of the words and even adding an extra chorus at the start.
    • And "Mari-Mac", which gets faster and faster and faster as the song progresses: even the instruments can hardly keep up with the hair-raising speed, let alone the singers.
  • Tom Lehrer's "The Elements," which uses the same tune as the Major-General's Song, and "New Math".
  • Busta Rhymes.
  • Dizzee Rascal certainly qualifies.
  • Blues Traveler's "Hook":

Suck it in Suck it in Suck it in/If you're Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn/
Make a desperate move or else you'll win/And then begin/
To see what you're doing to me/This MTV is not for free/
It's so PC it's killing me/So desperately I sing to thee/Of love...

  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers' version of "They're Red Hot", compressing a three-minute jazz ditty from the 1930s to less than a minute in length.
  • In the Dead Kennedys' anti-consumerist rant "Drug Me", Jello Biafra delivers the lyrics at a breakneck pace.
    • And in I Kill Children, Stealing People's Mail... Really, just a lot of the time.
  • "B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)" by Outkast.
  • The country song "I've Been Everywhere", originally performed by Australian singer Lucky Starr and covered by Hank Snow and Johnny Cash among others, has the protagonist very quickly rattling off a Long List of the various locales to which he's traveled.
    • The original Australian version basically goes "I've been to Tullamoreseymourlismoremooloolabanambourmaroochydore (dissolves into near-incomprehensibility)."
    • Part of the reason for the near-incomprehensibility comes from the actual names of the towns. Yes, we Aussies have some rather strange town names.
    • The Scared Weird Little Guys' version has a section talking about South-East-Asia:

I've been to Peking Nanking Chunking Hiroshima, Shengyang Kwaiyang Pyongyang Yokohama, Hang Chow Weng Chow Fu Chow the Gold Coast, Shanghai Samurai Lum Thai Fukiama, Hong Kong King Kong Yang Tong Sukiyaki, Nagasaki Hirosaki Takasaki I should be so lucky...

  • Quite a few songs by Sublime, notably their first hit "Date Rape" and the duet "Saw Red" between Bradley Nowell and No Doubt's Gwen Stefani.
  • Several of Lady Sovereign's songs on Public Warning show off her ability to do this. The title song even has her just saying huge incomprehensible sentences.
  • Big Punisher was known for this in his earlier material. Not only did his Puerto Rican accent easily lend itself to this trope, his lyrics were positively tongue twisting. The song "Twinz" (a remake of "Deep Cover") is particularly memorable:

I'll rub your face off the Earth and curse your family's children, like Amityville and drill the nerves in your cavity filling, insanity's building a pavilion in my civilian, the cannon be the anarchy that humanity's dealing...

    • Big Pun is definitely no slouch: "Dream Shatterer" is also a good example of fast rhyming.
  • Savage Garden's "I Want You". The lyrics are sung at full speed and only slow down when they hit the bridge.
  • Relient K's "The Only Thing Worse Than Beating a Dead Horse Is Betting On One" starts out this way.
  • Jason Mraz does this in a lot of his songs.
  • Streetlight Manifesto does this in "Everything Went Numb". In fact, the only words that aren't spoken at amazing speeds in the entire song are "Na na na na [bunch more na's] na.")
    • Of course, the dissertation-for-lyrics style Kalnoky is (in)famous for added another degree to this, as there's so little repetition to the song (even the chorus, sometimes). And don't get me started on Point/Counterpoint...
      • If you want to listen to a new Streetlight Song, for the Love of God, look up the lyric sheet first. You will NOT get it on your own. Ever. Case in point.
    • This gets turned Up to Eleven during live shows, when the band will play songs 30-50% faster.
  • Scatman John
  • Miku Hatsune's "The disappearance of Hatsune miku -DEAD END-", where the chorus is so fast that it's impossible to hear a single word.
    • Aided greatly by the fact that "Miku Hatsune" is simply the name for a specific setting on a singing voice synthesizer...
      • And justified by the fact the lyrics are about the character/program trying to say it's last words as it's uninstalled.
      • Many Vocaloid and Utauloid songs do this like Soune Taya's Passion
    • She's shown almost pushing it here in her concert with "Ura-Omote Lovers".
    • Incredibly, this cover of The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku by an ordinary human singer who somehow could actually keep up with the insanely fast tempo.
    • The Singing Passion of Hatsune Miku, which is rated 9 red stars Project Diva 2nd. One must try to play it in the hardest difficulty to understand the intensity.
  • John Michael Montgomery's "Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)" is sung with the tempo of a livestock auctioneer, as the entire song is about the narrator meeting and "bidding" on a pretty woman he saw there.
    • The chorus of "Be My Baby Tonight" is also extremely fast, though not as fast as "Sold".
  • Garth Brooks' "Ain't Goin' Down til the Sun Comes Up" is at least as fast as "I've Been Everywhere" mentioned above.
  • The Offspring, who usually sing pretty swiftly, pushed it up to eleven with their latest album, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. In the song "Shit is Fucked Up", they list off roughly twenty-three things wrong with the world today. IN 14 SECONDS. Must be heard to be believed.
  • Thrash metal often has a rapid-fire vocal delivery delivery, but few come close to the tongue-twisting, run-on insanity of Sean Killian of Vio-Lence, who sounded like he was delivering the lyrics while hyped up on a mixture of caffeine, cocaine, and speed and bouncing off the walls. Observe.
    • Older Slayer is a particularly relevant example (especially 'Jesus Saves').
    • Dark Angel also deserves a special mention, especially "The Burning of Sodom," which contains quite possibly the fastest vocal delivery of any thrash song ever.
  • Strapping Young Lad does this a fair bit, but no where is it better represented than "Oh My Fucking God". Let's just say the title is apt...
  • Guns N' Roses, "Garden of Eden". And they had the guts to make a Follow the Bouncing Ball video.
    • I feel very sorry for that ball...
  • Underground rapper The Jokerr
  • Mariah Carey isn't as extreme as some of the other examples here, but her song "We Belong Together" is sung pretty quickly; the words tend to blur together if you're not paying very close attention.
  • Freddie Mercury sings "Stone Cold Crazy" and "Dead On Time" in this fashion.
  • The Monkees' "Goin' Down" does this in its first couple of verses.
  • To those not familiar with the genre, any reggae/dancehall song could be perceived as this trope, especially the ones with chatting/toasting (and especially ones involving "patois").
  • A key facet of Japanese avant-gardist Daisuke Inoue's performances as Mazeru na Kiken is his tendency to speak so rapidly that he becomes impossible to understand without subtitles, and even then, those tend to flash by at seizure-inducing rates.
  • Bandleader and comedian Phil Harris sang a lot of songs this way, especially his signature "That's What I Like About The South".
  • The Dead Milkmen have done this, most notably on the song "Moron."
  • A large section of Bartolo's aria "A un dottor della mia sorte" from The Barber of Seville.
  • Reunion's 1974 hit "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)", where the singer rattles off names of popular musical figures at a breakneck pace during the verses.
  • Rubber Biscuit, by The Chips (and later covered by The Blues Brothers, with Elwood performing the vocals). Most of it is all nonsensical scat singing, but for Elwood, it plays to a strength Dan Aykroyd has—his ability to motormouth off massive screeds of lyrics or words. The scat singing is interspersed with just as nonsensical stories from the author's week, e.g., "the other day, I had a coooool water sandwich, and a sunday go to meeting bun. Bow bow bow."
  • The Meat Puppets' "Sam", where each verse is basically one run-on sentence without any pauses for breath.
  • Jason DeVore, lead singer for Authority Zero, has a reputation for one of the fastest deliveries in their genre, Carpe Diem Drunken Sailor. Many of their slower songs even have periods of extremely fast vocals for seemingly no other reason than for him to show off Movement, it starts at about 3:12.
  • The World/Inferno Friendship Society's lead singer, Jack Terricloth, does this in many of their songs.
  • City of Cold by Raised Fist and a few others of theirs, what's more impressive is that, being Swedish, english isn't their native language.
  • The mostly unintelligible chorus to Letters To Cleo's "Here And Now". For the record it's actually "The comfort of a knowledge of a rise above the sky above could never parallel the challenge of an acquisition in the here and now".
  • Ayumi Hamasaki in Evolution, especially the Time is Pop and Eurobeat remixes, as well as some of the concerts in which she sung the song fast. Even those familiar with Japanese have commented on their inability to keep up with the chorus lines of the song.
  • A lot of Hardcore punk bands tend to have this going on, Toxic Narcotic is a good example (he gets progressively faster as the song goes)
  • Ministry's "TV II" and it's sequel/SpiritualSuccessor "WTV". Gibby Haynes' guest vocals on "Jesus Built My Hotrod" combine this with Scatting.
  • Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo has his moments, particularly in "Goodbye Goodbye":

You're always puttin' the make on my friends always giving them eyes and the dirty lies 'bout me and you well I'm through it's the end of the line for you babe here's a ticket one way Cincinnati I'm sendin' you home to your ma and your daddy so don't try to call me you'll only be wastin' your time!

  • Any Patter Song singer becomes per se a motormouth, for the duration of the song.
  • This is a trademark of Disturbed's output. Notable songs include "Voices" and "Liberate".
  • French 60s band Les Double Six.
  • Gorillaz "Clint Eastwood" has a famously quick, slurry rap solo, leading to a wide variety of Mondegreens.
  • Early one, the ska-punk band The Flatliners made a significant use of this trope. The best example is their song There's A Problem. Yes, it has lyrics. Yes, it makes sense.
  • Tally Hall, particularly red tie Joe Hawley, is prone to this, especially the stunning bridge to Ruler of Everything (which peaks with three people singing the Motor Mouth line simultaneously).
  • Eminem seems to have this down to an art. Not only does he sometimes get very fast, he combines it with complex rhymes and obtuse lyrics. Not to mention the fact you hardly ever hear him audibly breathe.
  • Josh Gracin's "Nothin' to Lose" has a very fast set of verses, while "Favorite State of Mind" has a rapid-fire chorus. Both songs were co-written by Marcel Chagnon, whose solo work sometimes exemplifies this as well.
  • The chorus to Stone Temple Pilots' "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart" involves Scott Weiland singing "So keep your bankroll lottery eat your salad day deathbed motorcade" with no pauses whatsoever.
  • The Deathray Davies "Plan to Stay Awake". Possibly it's referenced with the line: "Never though I'd get this far". Take a listen
  • היא התיישבה ליד פסנתר (she sat next to a piano) a song by the Israeli band Gazoz is sang entirely in Motor Mouth, just listen
  • An even better Israeli example will be Mashina's הכל התחיל בנאצר (It All started In Nazer), the fact it's a Word Salad Lyrics doesn't make it easier to understand
  • Emilie Autumn 's interviews, She just knows her stuff and can explain it in DETAIL
    • That's nothing. Try listening to "I Know Where You Sleep." It's difficult to keep up on the album, if you're singing along. When she's singing live, though, she goes faster.
  • The Veronicas, Untouched as an example of this trope.
  • The conclusion of the studio version of "Une Valse à Mille Temps" by Jacques Brel, which has to be heard to be believed. Even during concerts he was unable to match the speed of this studio delivery.
  • We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel.
  • The songs "Emancipate Myself" by Thirsty Merc:

Every breath you t.. As if I'd sing that song to you, you probably think you deserve it at the present time. But if only you knew how you treated me when we were together then you might understand.
Remember the time you made me wait for a month when you had exams, which I was cool about but then the night you finished you barred me from all your plans and you went out with other people.
Now I'll always give you the benefit of the doubt and I think there's enough natural maturity floating around for the tension and release time to even out between two people like you and me.
And I've been thinking and since we've broken up I've realised things were mostly in your favour and a normal person wouldn't put up with this but for some stupid reason I don't wanna move on.

    • "Someday, Someday" by the same band, while not as fast as the above, crams a lot of lyrics into individual lines:

So we've already established the fact that things are gonna be different in the future baby.
And you've reiterated the fact that you don't want to get into something that's just gonna have to end later.
Now I know our lives are changing and I've seen it coming for a while too, don't get me wrong.
And I've been going outta town baby it's gonna happen more, we gotta be strong but now

  • Emilie Autumn in her interviews in particular. She just knows her stuff, but also I Know Where You Sleep and Opheliac would be the best examples of this trope.
  • Tech N 9 ne in general, but "Worldwide Choppers" takes it over the top - aside from Tech N9ne himself, it features eight other rappers (including the previously mentioned Busta Rhymes and Twista) who use this style. Twisted Insane's verse in particular is so fast it's almost incomprehensible.


Stand-Up Comedy

  • Brian Regan says that his favorite part of a monster truck rally is afterwards, when the driver is speaking to a reporter about any anomaly that may have occurred with the vehicle.
  • On the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Jeff Foxworthy postulated that the reason many NASCAR fans can't stand Jeff Gordon is because he enunciates his speech, whereas other drivers go off on Southern-accented Motor Mouthing run-ons.

Jeff: "And as Southern as I am, I'm goin', 'Do what? Were there any words in that?'"

  • Invoked Trope by Mindless Self Indulgence's Jimmy Urine in Stupid Motherfucker: "Is this simple enough for you? Does everybody understand? Are you all still following following me? Should I talk slower like you're a retard? Should I talk slower like you're retarded?" MSI is usually fairly understandable in speed, if not pronunciation.


Theater

  • In the musical The Witches of Eastwick, Suki begins the song Words, Words, Words as a shy little stutterer. By the time she's halfway through the song, she's speedtalking/-singing.
  • The Modern Major-General's song in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance gets a lampshade hung on by the end, with everyone excitedly calling for the General to do it even faster!
    • Gilbert and Sullivan did this again in the patter trio "My Eyes Are Fully Open" for Ruddigore, later adapted into Pirates of Penzance.
    • "The Speed Test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie, which is to the tune of the Ruddigore song. And then they do a double-time reprise.
    • This comes up in all the operas, in the parts played by George Grossmith. He apparently wasn't much of a singer, so the writers gave him material that emphasized diction and comic presence. There's "I am the very model of a modern major-general" and "I'm telling a terrible story" from Pirates, "As Someday It May Happen" from The Mikado, "When I Was a Lad" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "My Eyes Are Fully Open" from Ruddigore, "I've Jibe and Joke" and "O a Private Buffoon" from The Yeomen of the Guard, etc.


Tabletop RPG

  • Phil Foglio's What's New with Phil and Dixie comic in Dragon #67 (November 1982) had an example (see the last two panels).
  • The harpies (who are, unlike their mythical counterpart, anthropomorphic bats) in the Swedish game Gondica have a language that lacks stops between words, basically consisting of really meaningful shrieking. When they learn to speak the languages of non-harpies, they have a very hard time to actually make pauses, and a typical harpy quote is said to be "WhatdoyoumeanImspeakingtooquickly?".
  • Gnomes in Dragonlance talk this way.


Video Games

  • Wendy Oldbag from the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series tends to do this. When angered or annoyed, she'll often launch into a rant that both players and in-game characters have trouble keeping up with. Richard Wellington from the first case of Justice For All also does this a few times.
  • Marine the Raccoon from Sonic Rush Adventure is something of a Motor Mouth, while fitting in every single piece of Australian slang ever conceived.
  • Another Day's Pin Prof from The World Ends With You:

Shooter: Wow, you know all about pins?
Pin Prof: A bit. See, first of all: you say pins? I say sharp design. All those tiny little graphics, framed in tiny little circles... There's a whole little world in there, and that's not even mentioning the symbolism! If you go back and look at the design process, you'll find a whole treasure trove of--
Neku: NO! Stupid kid got him started! Now he won't shut up for at least three days!

  • Sieg in Suikoden Tierkreis fits this perfectly (at least in the English version), since he's a talkative hero unlike any protagonist from the other games in the series. He goes out with a bang.
  • Gretchen Hasselhoff of Backyard Sports.
  • Mass Effect 2. Mordin Solus. Combines with Terse Talker and Thinking Out Loud. Frequently annoys Shepard.
    • Many Salarians share this trait; hyperactivity innate part of Salarian biology. (Presume any who talk at standard speed catering to sluggish-thinking aliens). Professor Solus remains champion.
      • Or, in the case of Captain Kirrahe, talking at normal speed because that speech wouldn't have worked at normal Salarian speed.
      • A large part of it has to do with the fact that Salarians have a much shorter lifespan than humans (about 40 years, as opposed to humans who can live up to around 150).
    • Telling Mordin to slow down will result in him....trying...to...slow...down...nothat'stakingtoolonghaveworktodo.
      • The game offers multiple paragon/renegade interrupts aimed at shutting him up.
    • Tali also has a tendency to talk very quickly when she's nervous which she describes as being a defensive mechanism. If the player decided to pursue her romantically, her flustered, rapid-fire delivery is made very apparent and she acknowledges it this as being a defense mechanism in the moments that lead up to the consummation of Shephard and Tali's relationship.
  • Done hilariously in Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. A goomba who generally simply repeats the last word of the previous speaker's sentence suddenly starts talking. And talking. NONSTOP. After he's done everyone stands around in stunned silence for a few seconds until his supervisor simply says "Whoa."
  • Crunch Bandicoot tends to speak like this in the Radical Entertainment Crash Bandicoot games.
  • Rufus from Street Fighter IV doesn't know when to shut up. Just look at his win quotes—while everyone else has up to two lines of text in big, easy-to-read font, Rufus has three lines of font half the size text that positively stuffs the text box to the point of bursting.
  • In Grandia II, (not actually done audibly and kept only in text dialogue) when the party reaches Roan's castle the first time, one of the ladies-in-waiting who serves as the castle guide has a rather unique way of giving directions - she takes a deep breath, then babbles out the entire guide to the requested specific place in the castle as quickly as possible in one breath.
  • Dance Dance Revolution has a song called "Super Star", by DJ Rich, where the second verse is unhearably fast.
  • Lucca's Cameo in Xenogears.
  • Colette in Wild ARMs 2.
  • Volteer from The Legend of Spyro Trilogy is known for his motor mouth, evidently due to being an electric dragon. It also doesn't help that he uses really big words.
  • ADOM has quicklings. They spew out their chat lines without any spaces. That's as close to this trope as it's possible in a roguelike. It might be justified - in the game, a "speed" value is assigned to all beings. The base speed of a player character of any race is 100. A basic quickling's is 400, and it only goes up with rank.
  • Pokémon Black and White has an odd example with the character N. In his first appearance, your childhood friend comments on how he talks too fast, but his actual speech is normally spaced, even with ellipses. In-game, his dialogue text just appears really fast, even when you have the message scrolling speed set to the maximum.
  • Wheatley from Portal 2 has apparently decided to make up for the protagonist's muteness by never, ever shutting up, talking continuously whenever there's a quiet moment that allows him to get up some momentum.
  • Not a specific character trait in Star Ocean the Second Story, but a learnable fighting skill to the magic using characters to be faster in combat.
  • Tobli from Final Fantasy X-2 is definitely this.
  • Merrill from Dragon Age II. Several times throughout the game she says "I'm babbling again. I'll shut up now."
  • Touhou Project:


Web Comics

Welcometothewonderfulhouseof teddtedd'shouseisyourhouseplease feelfreetostayaslongasyoulikeand letitbeknownifyourehavingnightmares it'sokforyoutosleepinmybedwelcome!

HINATALIESORRYTODROPVIOLETONYOULIKETHISIREALLYAPPRECIATEITHAVEFUNYOUTWOOKBYE

  • Newshounds:

Wellthatsitfortodaysepisodeofbigbilliondollarsurvivorchallange2001thankyoufortuninginseeyounexttimeBYE!

  • Spellshocked:

OhImsosorryIpromisetoneverblowyouupagainifyouletmeliveandnotshowmeanyofyourhorriblescarspleasepleaseplease

  • Nodwick:

WerestealingthestarofelysivanaandIcantlieevenifitstoanobviouslybadmanlikeyousoifeeltherightthingtodoistobuyyourhollowtomakeituptoyou!

  • Ubersoft's Help Desk:

Philsgoneberzerkandisstringentlytestingsoftwareandtheprogrammersareworriedthatmaybehesgoneoffthedeependbecausehes-forcingthemalltorewritecode!

  • Suicide-for-hire:

NOOOLEMMEGOSHE'SGONNATELLTHECOPSANDWEGOTTASTOPHERBEFORESHEDOESIDON'TWANNABEAPRISONBITCH-WEDON'TEVENNEEDTOHIDETHEBODYWECANEATBACONFORAYEAR
YEAHHEREWEGOCANISEESOMEI.D.THANKSWOULDYOULIKETHATGIFTWRAPPEDYOURTOTALCOMESTOSOMEBIGASSNUMBERDON'TSHOOTYOUREYE-OUTMAN.

  • The Suburban Jungle:

OHMYGODI'MSORRYI'MSORRYPLEASEDON'TKILLME!

  • Slightly Damned:

SoRheaItoldSnowyIlovedherandshecriedandIwasworriedandthenshehuggedmeandsaidshelovedmetooandthenwekissedandit-wasreallygreatandthen

OWOWOWOKAYIDIDN'TMEANITIDIDN'TEVENWANNADOITTHEYMADEMEDOITASABETOWOWSTOPOW!
LookIgotmyswordfixedanditissocoolandsharpenedandIlikehowthelightgetsallshinyatthetipandIcango"skaaaaaa"and-"wooosh"and...
GeelookatthetimeIcantbelievehowlateitisIdontthinktheresanypointinlookingforanymorestuffgottagonowbye!


Web Original

  • Tom from Echo Chamber when explaining a trope to a non-Troper:

Tom: Romantic False Lead is when there's like, two characters, right? And they may or may not hook up at some point in the future. Meanwhilethere'sanothercharacterwhocomesalong, andbecomesatemporraryromanticinterestofoneofthecharacters, whichcanbeusedtoheightenthestakesandtheneglectedfeelingsoftheothercharacter--
Porn Girl: Yeah. Uh huh. When someone asks "how are you doing", they don't actually care.

  • Ryan Higa is probably the crowning example of this trope. Especially in his parody advertisements like the "Big Bouncing Inflatable Green Ball".
  • Aside from Memetic Badass Cornshaq, Slowbeef himself becomes one during his playthrough of the timed Arise 3, much to the confusion of Diabetus and the watchers.
  • Nintendo Capri Sun, while not normally a Motor Mouth, decides to try it in this video.
  • Randy Hayes from My Way Entertainment, better known to the internet as "OH YEAH IT'S THE JUGGERNAUT BITCH AND IMMA WHOOP THE SHIT OUTCHA ASS, BITCHASS MUTHAFUCKA!"

The Juggernaut: *After having nearly fallen down a trap door* Whoa, Jabba the Hutt! Aw hell no, I seen what the fuck happened in Star Wars andthismuthafuckaain'tfixingtobebitingonmygoddamnbootscauseI'llbeattheSHITouthisass, BITCH!

Dr. Seuss: ...
The Cat in the Hat: *Jaw Drop*

    • That's George Watsky playing Shakespeare there, who provides the page quote.
  • Brental Floss' With Lyrics cover of the Banjo-Kazooie theme is very nearly auctioneer-fast in parts. Especially the opening: "ThisthewitchtheycallGruntildastrongresemblencetoBroomHildakidnapsBanjo'ssisterTootywithaplantostealherneauty!"
  • Microsoft Sam Reads Funny Windows Errors: Done a lot. Including "GODDAMNITSONOFABITCHPIECEOFSHITMOTHERFUCKINGASSHOLEFUCKFUCK".
  • As the title would suggest, this is a staple of Zero Punctuation. Yahtzee edits out his pauses to achieve this effect.
  • Ruby Rose in RWBY tends to ramp up into a full motormouth when excited.

Western Animation

  • Boomhauer from King of the Hill is a Motor Mouth to the point of also being The Unintelligible.
    • Although he's apparently unintelligible even when he slows down; in the episode where Hank's workplace explodes, he tries to call 911. Upon being asked to slow down, he says something like "That... dang... go... boom!" before fadeout.
    • Most of what he's saying is him simply separating nearly every word by the words "dang ol," "man," "talkinbout," or "tellyouwhat." What makes it funny is that Mike Judge supposedly based the character's method of talking from a phone message he got from a wrong number, and was so perplexed and amused by it that he decided to base an entire character off of this random wrong call.
  • In Loonatics Unleashed, Rev Runner's Super Speed is emphasized by having him talk super fast.
  • Goo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is a perfect example.
  • Quicksilver from X-Men Evolution talks faster than the other characters by just enough. It's a nice touch of Glamour Failure when he's in civilian dress. Of course, justified in that everything he does is faster than the other characters.
  • One episode from The Fairly OddParents when Timmy wishes for only dessert and everybody becomes hyper the next day.
    • F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,A For AJ,F!
    • And now, I'm gonna run a marathon! But first, FAIRY GODPARENTS, FAIRY GODPARENTS, FAIRY GODPARENTS!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Both Transformers Generation 1 and Animated Blurr. Though each has a very different style: G1 Blurr repeats himself constantly, while Animated Blurr's dialogue is so densely informative (and contains enough Expospeak) that every word counts (though he ironically spent his first appearance as The Voiceless).
    • It should be noted that both versions of Blurr are voiced by John Moschitta, mentioned above.
    • Also, there is Bluestreak, who plays it in a different manner than either Blurr; Bluestreak simply never shuts up as a means of coping with being the only survivor of his hometown's destruction, as if he's trying to drown out his own thoughts and memories.
  • Luna from The Boondocks has a very weird speech pattern, where if she starts to get upset, the rate at which she is talking rapidly accelerates mid-sentence.
  • Ginger Snap from Strawberry Shortcake.
  • Daggett does this in an episode of The Angry Beavers when he discovers a camera poking out of the sink.

Daggett: NORB! There'sanalieninvasioninthebathroom!
Norbert: ...What?
Daggett: THERE'SANALIENINVASIONINTHEBATHROOM!
Norbert: Woah, speak slowly and put spaces between your words.
Daggett: [takes a deep breath] There's an alien invasion in the bathroom.

Charlie: I'm-a sorry. We no got-a la bellatiaradelunocacciatoritetrozinacurobudemarinaradelapiazaregutinaemuzarellafina. *Turns to the audience, blows raspberry*

  • One Animaniacs episode has the Warner Siblings having to put up with a man who just won't shut up (voiced by Ben Stein). To say that he annoys them to no end would be putting it mildly.
    • Ironically, when the guy finally decides to leave them alone at the end of the episode, the Warner's were so used to his endless babbling that they can't handle the quiet.
    • Yakko, aka Mr. United States Canada Mexico Panama, also fits this trope.
  • A Family Guy cutaway shows that Cleveland was a fast-talking auctioneer, until a totem pole fell on his head, causing his current slow speech pattern.
  • The Iron Giant: When Dean lets Hogarth have some espresso (described as "Coffee-zilla"), the boy launches into a rambling rant about school, ending with the expected request for more coffee.
  • The Blabbermouth of Echo Island from Here Comes the Grump. It's right there in the name, too.
  • Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is very prone to this:

"Isn't this exciting? Are you excited? Because I'm excited! I've never been so excited! Well, except for the time I saw you walking into town and I went GASP!, but I mean really, who can top that?"

    • This was later weaponized in "The Last Roundup", where Applejack is forced to admit why she's working at a cherry orchard instead of coming home to Ponyville by being subjected to Pinkie Pie's incessant rambling about Inherently Funny Words.
  • On the NSA profiles on The Incredibles DVD, the deceased heroine Blazestone was this.
  • Everybody in the Dexters Laboratory episode "Mock 5", seeing how it makes fun of Speed Racer's English dub.
  • In the Thundercats 2011 episode "Song of the Petalars", the Lilliputians young Petalar Emrick is like this on meeting the Thundercats, rattling off questions to Lion-O about his species and his sword with breathless excitement while climbing vegetation to get a better view of them.
  • The Simpsons: "BARTDOYOUWANTSOMEBROWNIESBEFOREYOUGOTOBED?!"
  • Phineas from Phineas and Ferb is always going on about something, as a foil to his step-brother and Heterosexual Life Partner, Ferb. The only time he's been shown to be quiet was when he was brainwashed (and that was in a dream).
  • Niblet's little sister Rebound in the 2010 Pound Puppies series.
  • The Legend of Korra gives us Ikki, is the middle child of three airbending children between a Little Miss Snarker older sister and a Cloudcuckoolander younger brother, but is the more energetic and talkative of the them to the point it annoys their father, Tenzin, and his rival, Tarllok. She never stops.


Real Life

  • Auctioneers.
  • Another Real Life example: Actor Edward G. Robinson sometimes achieved this (see his role as Barton Keyes in Double Indemnity), purportedly on the first run-through without having to do a second take.
  • The game reviewer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. His segment on The Escapist isn't called "Zero Punctuation" for nothing.
    • If anything, Yahtzee has gotten faster and more intense; he sounds positively sedate in his older videos compared to his newer ones. He has stated that the fast talking was by accident. Apparently he keeps it up and edits the pauses out, because it's funnier that way.
    • What's even better is that, for April Fools' Day, Yahtzee posted a video of his character sitting by a slow-ticking grandfather clock, while slowly reciting a few lines from from John Keats' poem Ode To Melancholy.
  • Benedict Cumberbatch, though even he has some trouble keeping up with his character's lines in Sherlock.
    • Just look at how long his answers are in this interview. This man has A LOT to say!
  • Sir Ron Lionheart. See for example here.
  • Watch a Policy/Cross-X Debate round. Try to understand what they're saying. On some national circuits, speeches sound less like words and more like a low hum.
    • It's not necessarily because they have to, but because of the strategic advantage. A "spread" debater will throw so many arguments at their opponent it will actually be impossible to answer them all. Thus, any arguments left untouched can be claimed as enough to warrant a victory.
      • In some tournaments, actually, spreading has been made illegal due to this problem. This L-D debater knows the pain of spreading. However, it is quite necessary in C-X rounds; since they are all about cramming all your evidence in, you've got to talk fast.
    • To go with the other Speech and Debate examples, in some Extemporaneous speaking rounds, participants speak so rapidly it can be hard for the judge to hear what they're saying. Though, to be fair, it's very hard to cram all your facts and sources into a seven minute speech
    • Bear in mind that most judges are likely to rank you down if your speech is too fast for them to catch it all.
  • Popular Youtube vlogger Michael Buckley of the What The Buck Show.
  • Actor James Woods could probably power entire cities with the force of his non-stop chatter.
    • Case in point - his portrayal as Hades in Hercules.
  • Neal Cassady, known by some of his friends as Speed Limit. "Just passing through folks don't mind us my schedule just happened to coincide with Mr. Kesey's here and all the redundancy you understand not to mention the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson and the worst of the poems of Schiller huntin' and peckin' away as they did except of course insofar as where you draw the line that is but in any case I believe it was at let me see Sebring yes and when Fangio with the exhaust valves wide open and the petcocks too that you've sometimes seen starting with Wordsworth you see and working backward..."
  • Sports announcers, especially in basketball and hockey.
    • Any basketball fan who grew up in Los Angeles before this decade grew up with the rapid-fire play-by-play of legendary Lakers announcer Chick Hearn, particularly his famous "This game's in the refrigerator: the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard, and the Jell-O's jigglin'!"
    • Parodied in one song by System of a Down, who know a thing or two about talking way too fast.
  • Chris Tucker made his career off of this.
  • At first, Mexican people claimed they didn't understand Panamanian singer Flex/Nigga when he talked. Fortunately for them, now he talks a lot slower.
  • Hondurans are notable in that they don't have an accent, however their speech pattern is still distinguishable to other Spanish speakers because of this trope.
    • This has lead to some annoying Verbal Tics in most young Hondurans (and adults if not corrected, which in turn can lead to some embarrassing Inter-American meetings) like inadvertently joining words that commonly go together to form a nonexistent combination, like taking es and que to form Esque (this is so common that first graders will write it like this, though it's usually corrected by the second grade), and most noticeable (and embarrassing even amongst Hondurans even though we all have done it at least once) is to inadvertently change the S in the middle of a word for a J while Motor-Talking, famously leaving the already mispronounced Esque as Ejque. This tics can also happen in other countries, like Colombia, but it's usually attributed to their accent and not their Motor Mouth (Lucky bastards).
  • Chileans, combined with this trope and the fact they have a very unique accent, are a nightmare for people from other Spanish speaking countries to understand.
  • Sirius XM radio DJ Terry Young is nicknamed "Motormouth" since his delivery tends to be mumbled and very fast. And incredibly irritating.
    • In fairness to Young, he's basically making a conscious effort to mimic the style of Top 40 radio DJs in the '50s and '60s, who very often utilized this trope.
  • Youtube Let's Play-er Raocow isn't usually spectacularly fast, but the way he rambles on without pause, or concern for the topic he was speaking on four words ago, inspires awe in all but the most jaded of viewers. Apparently (and fortunately for people trying to talk to him) this is something he does semi-on-purpose, and having an actual conversation with him brings a much more normal speech pattern.
  • Fran Capo. The video clip goes into more detail about how she can talk so fast. Good luck trying to understand what she says when she's going for speed.
  • Colombian Football (soccer) commentators, like Édgar Perea.
  • Creationist Duane Gish has become so infamous for his tactic of throwing off massive amounts of antievolution facts in lectures and debates that it's become known as the "Gish Gallop."
  • This can occur as a result of psychiatric conditions such as mania and schizophrenia, wherein it is called Pressure of speech.
  • This can also be a warning sign that the person you're talking to is on stimulants, and can be induced from anything from too much caffeine and/or nicotine right up to meth. That said, meth Motor Mouth tends to have distinctive features (specifically the speech tending toward being accusatory or angry or paranoid) as opposed to the more "nervous" Motor Mouth that results from a chain-smoking and coffee session, for example, or the "I LOVE EVERYONE AND YOU'RE ALL MY BEST FRIEND" Motor Mouth that's seen in the more annoying ecstasy users.
  • Welsh stand-up comedian Rhod Gilbert.
  • Anyone in a panic, pain or flooded with stims/adrenaline can be this.

[deep breath] You should go to a different page now if you have read the examples seriously are you still reading this?

  1. ↑ Fun fact: The DVD commentary for Puni Puni Poemi is one of very few is 5.1 surround sound!
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