< Ear Worm

Ear Worm/Live Action TV

"Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming. Will it stop?"
—The Master, Doctor Who

"Magi! Magi magiro! Magi! Magi magika!"

Songs that cross from the TV... Into your brain.

"Here's the mail, It never fails, It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes I want to yell, 'MAAAAAAAIL!' "
"We just got a letter, We just Got a letter, We just got a letter, Wonder who it's from?"

"Love, exciting and new/Come aboard, we're expecting you..."

"Baby, don't hurt me/ don't hurt me/ oh-oh..."

Hartnell Troughton Pertwee...Hartnell Troughton Pertwee...Baker Baker McGann...Baker Baker McGann...Hartnell Troughton Pertwee...Hartnell Troughton Pertwee...Baker Baker McGann...MCCOOOOYYYYY... DAVISON DAVISON DAVISON DAVISON...

We are the mutant race
Don't look at my eyes don't look at my face
We are the mutant people
Don't look at my eyes don't look at my face


We are the mutant race
You don't look alike me, I don't look a like you
We are the mutant people
We're gonna march ourselves right out of this zoo

We've got laughs from coast to coast(Pause)to make you smile./We might look at each of you to capture all that style/for the red white and blue and those funny things you do! America, america, and this is you./ Stories from the friends next door (pause)they never told/you might be a star tonight so let that camera roll/ for the red white and blue, and those funny things you do America, America, and this is you.

It's no viral video that people play and play
It's more like an infection that you can't make go away!
Listen once to this refrain
And it's burned into your brain!
That's the World News Polka!

But wish no more, my life you can take
To have her please just one day wake

Take a look
It's in a book
A reading rainbow (reading rainbow)
A reading rainbow (reading rainbow)

"What's a, what's a doodle do? What's a, what's a doodle do?"

"Rubix Cube, 80s Pop / Platform Shoes, 50s Frock,
Harry Potter, Fluffy Toys / Paris Hilton Kissing Boys!"

Stephen Colbert: That song just digs into your brain like an alien parasite.

  • The series Medium has this in the episode "The Song Remains the Same", with Alison having "I Will Survive" blaring in her head making her shout and barely hear what people are saying. At one point the "record" skips, only continuing when she got closer to the broken iPod of the missing girl.
  • An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation features a Ear Worm in the form of an Ironic Nursery Tune (on music box, natch) that produces enough Psychic Static to freak out Troi to the point of madness.
  • Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger VS Abaranger:

Jasmine: Please excuse me. (place hand on Ryouga's hand)
Narrator: (while clipshow of Abaranger goes on) Jasmine is an ESPer. Whoever she touches, Jasmine recaps his memories.
Jasmine: Seems true for now. I have my doubts for them though -- (walks to the camera) -- Aba-Aba-Aba-Aba-Abaranger!
Umeko: What the heck was that?
Jasmine: Don't know either. It was on loop in his brain.

  • The Seinfeld episode "The Jacket" has George dealing with the fact that "Master of the House" from Les Misérables is stuck in his head.
  • Scrubs
    • The episode "My Musical" ends with the current current Sacred Heart patient humming the song she heard the staff sing when she first entered the hospital which is ironic because her eardrums going to explode is what threatened her life in the first place.
    • Also the episode where they can't get the Erasure song "Give a little respect" out of their heads.
  • "Goodies Rule OK", a The Goodies' special, has them (among other things) writing a motivational song called "Bounce!", which causes everybody who hears it to perform the accompanying dance. Britain goes bankrupt because everybody is bouncing instead of working.
  • An episode of the Battlestar Galactica Reimagined reboot has a song suddenly and mysteriously force its way into the heads of four characters. They aren't even sure what it is or where it came from, but for several days, they hear it everywhere, driving them slowly insane. Apparently, if your brain gets infected by a driving cover of "All Along The Watchtower", you just might be a Cylon. (Said cover is also a powerful Ear Worm in real life.)
  • Doctor Who
    • A Jon Pertwee-era episode has Jo Grant resist the Master's hypnosis by reciting "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carroll.
    • Speaking of the Master, he's apparently had the same Ear Worm continuously since he was eight, when the last Time Lord president implanted it in his head. He once spread it to the entire human race in order to take over the world.
  • British comic duo Hale & Pace did an episode with this as a running gag.

You're never going to get this song
 Out of your head, out of your head,
 You're never going to get this song
 Out of your head, out of your head

Then later, after it's gone on a bit...

The only way to get this song
 Out of your head
 Fire some lead
 Into your head

He does. They sing the song at his funeral. He sits up out of his coffin screaming.

Murdock: I've had "Three Blind Mice" by the Lennon Sisters goin' in my head for the past three days.

Loreli: I finally found out how to get "Lazy Hazy Crazy Days" out of our heads. Just sing "It's a Small World" over and over.

  • In Good Luck Charlie, Bob describes a jingle as the basic concept of an Ear Worm: "A catchy little tune that sticks in your head and drives you a little bit crazy."
  • Naor's Friends (basically the Israeli version of Seinfeld) has an episode in which a woman gets the song "Shuvi laYam" stuck in Naor, Dedi, and Weizmann's heads out of spite, because they were frustrated with how long it took her to finish her business on the ATM machine they were waiting to use. It got so bad they called a specialist, who played the Ketchup Song ("a lesser catchy song") in their heads on repeat for long enough to get it out, but warned them not to hear the original song for 24 hours. As luck would have it, the café they went to got robbed while they were there, and "Shuvi laYam" started playing on the radio... Which made them angrily take down the robbers, who were armed with machine guns, pepper the radio into smitherenes, and save everyone in the café. At least the song got out of their heads...
  • On How I Met Your Mother Ted and Marshall are on a long road trip in a car with a casette tape of "500 Miles (I'm Gonna Be)" stuck on an endless loop.

Ted: I am. So. Sick. Of this song.
Marshall: Don't worry, it comes around again.
Ted: What do you mean?

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  1. ↑ It's not a Disney Channel original, but it's where the show was most famous on.
  2. ↑ They often use this song to close their albums and concerts. It also appears on "Skinnamarink TV", a later show they did.
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