End-of-Episode Silliness

When a show has resolved all the conflict and tied away every loose end, and now has nothing left to do for the tag, often they bring in End-of-Episode Silliness, a tag which has no relevance to anything. Usually a bit of random dialogue.

Different from a Deus Ex Machina in that all the plot points are already taken care of. If ever a show were to have a Deus Ex Machina and a End-of-Episode Silliness, the writers would probably be smote from above.

Compare Oh, Cisco.

As an Ending Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.

Examples of End-of-Episode Silliness include:

Live-Action TV

• Formerly named "Uncle Herbie" after the tradition in Welcome Back, Kotter of ending every episode with an old joke about one of Kotter's seemingly inexhaustible supply of uncles. ("Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Herbie?", "Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Larry?", "Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Seymour?", etc, etc.)
• Like Gabe Kotter, Gracie Allen also had a long line of strange relatives to wrap up episodes of The Burns and Allen Show.
• Tony Randall and Jack Klugman reportedly hated doing these on The Odd Couple because they felt the tag's only reason for being was to make viewers watch the last commercial. An example of one is the episode in which they think a ghost is in the air conditioner. The tag consists of Felix describing his hoped for funeral.
• The tag for My Name Is Earl runs alongside the credits and often has the titular Earl and his brother Randy lying in bed in their motel room and having hilariously inane discussions. Or, in one episode, dancing "The Robot" to Styx's "Mr. Roboto".
  • The same thing was done in an Australian TV show (Sea Change)in which a father and son would talk about odd things on a beach.
• Three's Company did this a lot, but these tags are often cut in the syndicated reruns. In particular, when Suzanne Somers was phoning in her part, Chrissy's phone calls were often of the End-of-Episode Silliness variety.
• Governor Gatling of Benson would frequently meander off-topic with stories of his Navy and lumber mill friends. On very rare occasions, their relevance to the situation at hand became clear to anyone other than the Governor.
• The Sarah Silverman Program ends every episode with her talking to her dog, relating the lessons of the episode. Or at least she's supposed to. Sometimes she gets totally off-topic and invokes End-of-Episode Silliness.
• The Avengers, at least during the black-and-white days with Diana Rigg, would always end episodes with Steed and Mrs. Peel going somewhere - in a car, in a boat, in or pulling a rickshaw, whatever. Sometimes the scene would be loosely connected to the episode's plot, sometimes it was just there.

Western Animation

• This is done a fair bit by The Simpsons:
  • E.g. the episode where Mr. Burns captures the Loch Ness Monster. The episode ends with the monster working at a casino, and it and Homer talk about the low quality of the casino's cocktails.
  • Another episode of the The Simpsons shows The Summation being interrupted by Otto Mann running in and shouting, "Surf's up!", and then the show ended with some shots of random Simpsons characters surfing.
  • At the end of "Lisa's Sax", after a short montage of Lisa playing her saxophone in previous episodes, we cut to the Simpsons' living room, where Grampa attempts to play peek-a-boo with Maggie, only to declare, "My retinas have detached again!" and start stumbling around the house to the amusement of Marge, Homer, and Apu.
• Also used occasionally by South Park, Family Guy, Clerks the Animated Series—it does seem to happen more often in animation, almost always deliberately for humorous effect.
  • "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister Conway Twitty."