Everybody dance now!
"We saved the world. I say we party."
— Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Prophecy Girl"
It seems, particularly when everyone lives Happily Ever After, the typical response is to get everyone who was ever involved in The Hero's Journey, even if they only passed them on the street, together for a big celebration where everyone dances their feet off. Bonus points if the hero's enemies (and perhaps even the main antagonist, too!) attend the party. Mega points if it's in slow motion.
The Hero, or a member of their True Companions, may sing the song we're all rocking out to. The writers might also decide to use this opportunity to clean up some romantic loose ends, or throw in some last-minute heel face turns.
If it starts before the plot is resolved, it's a Concert Climax. Compare Dancing Theme, which happens during the opening rather than the ending. Closely related to "Everyone Comes Back" Fantasy Party Ending. See also Sudden Musical Ending, "Everybody Laughs" Ending, Food End, Dancing Mook Credits. It can happen during a Wedding Finale if the wedding guests break into a dance. It may overlap with Big Finale Crowd Song if there also happens to big crowd song to go with the dancing.
As this is an Ending Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The special DVD-only episode of .hack//SIGN, .hack//UNISON, which effectively concluded the original Morganna saga, consisted primarily of various characters from the series and the games gathering for a grand party, which culminates in an all-out dance.
- Played around with at the end of Dragon Ball Z, which features a filler episode entitled "Where Are You, Goku? Everyone's Partying!" during the conclusion of the Buu saga. It's not the very last episode, but it is the last one before things cut to the three-episode epilogue 10 years later that closes it out.
- Half-Lampshaded in the ending to the Hetalia: Axis Powers movie. One of the lines in the song was "Let's Dance!"
- The ends of most arcs in One Piece tend to have these. They ARE pirates, after all, and like to celebrate big victories with equally big and well-deserved parties and feasts. Though there usually is some dancing when there is music involved, their parties revolve more around eating (especially in Luffy's case) and getting drunk, however.
- The credits of Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2 had one to a medley of all the Precure openings and the main theme at the end.
- Pretty cure All Stars New Stage has one too.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- The Indigo League episode "Ghost of Maiden's Peak" ends with most of the main cast participating in a village's Obon (summer festival) bon odori (bon dance) clad in traditional yukatas, with Team Rocket providing the musical accompaniment on drums and flutes.
- Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys has the protagonists' Pokémon dance with pom-poms to the ending theme.
- Pokémon: Secrets of the Jungle has a Skwovet and Cramorant dance to the ending as well.
- Episode 45 of the Urusei Yatsura anime, "Lum-chan's Class Reunion," ends this way with Lum, Ataru and all their alien friends boogieing down to one of the show's ending themes, "Hoshizora Cycling" by Virgin VS. Fitting for a series whose early theme songs were unashamedly disco-oriented.
- Mostly played straight in Eiga Tamagotchi: Himitsu no Otodoke Dai Sakusen!. A huge crowd of Tamagotchis can be seen while some of them (such as Kuromametchi, Makiko, Lovelitchi, and Melodytchi) are dancing on a stage. However, some even dance while in the crowd.
Asian Animation
- The first end credits sequence for the first season of Flower Fairy, as well as the second and third seasons' end credits, show the characters dancing to the credits music.
- Jet and the Pet Rangers: Episode 1 ends with Jet and the Pet Rangers dancing around a campfire with a bunch of the kittens they saved, all singing about how they are happy to be clean and to be here alongside each other.
Comic Books
- Carl Barks' In Old California... sort of, in a rather bittersweet manner. Donald Duck and his nephews might have gone back in time to Spanish-ruled California and befriended a charming little family. Once they return to the present, they go where the family hacienda was...to find nothing but ruins, since the family, if it really existed, is of course long gone. So they erupt in dance and singing, as a way to honor the family they learned so much from...Just in time for someone to pass by and mumble about these "crazy tourists!"
- Some of The Smurfs comic book stories like "The Black Smurfs" and "Traveling Smurf" ended with parties.
- Asterix: Every story ends with a banquet in the village (with Cacofonix tied to a tree and gagged so he can't singnote ). Later stories lampshade this, with Obelix noting that their adventure can't quite be finished if there's no banquet.
- Dark Nights: Metal ends with the Justice League partying at Wayne Manor, with music provided by Damian, Jon, and Alfred.
Eastern Animation
- Each episode of Qumi-Qumi ends with cuts of characters dancing in the credits. The first three are random characters that have to do with the episode, while the fourth and final is always Bai-Baba with her spell drum, always poofing away just as the credits end.
Fan Works
- The Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "My Unsmurfy Valentine" ends with the Valentine's Day dance party that the Smurfs attend after dealing with being affected by Eros' lust arrows and most of the male Smurfs kissing each other.
- Half-Life: Full Life Consequences ends with a song performed by all the characters of the machinima. This was not in the original fanfic, but it did add onto the awesomeness.
- A song spawned by the fandom of the fic that the creator of the video versions was fond of.
Films — Animation
- All Dogs Go to Heaven does this but it happens in the background. After Charlie goes back to Heaven a chorus is heard singing "Hallelujah" smoothly until Charlie asks to make it more upbeat. This is heard through the scene where Carface tries to rewind his life-watch (like Charlie did earlier in the film) all the way to the beginning of the credits.
Charlie: Hold it, hold it! I know we're dead up here but so is the music! Come on, beat it up a little bit!
King Gator: Honey you know it! - Leading to the credits of An Extremely Goofy Movie.
- Arlo the Alligator Boy: The first part of the end finale song "Beautiful Together" has Arlo singing and celebrating with his friends and father with a dance party at the Met Gala.
- The Addams Family 2 ends with the titular family participating in a rave at their home, complete with a lot of Epileptic Flashing Lights.
- In Barbie and the Secret Door, Alexa returns to her world just in time for the ball. After dancing classically for a while, she turns it into a dance party.
- Played with in The Book of Life. Maria, Manolo and Joaquin's story ends there, but there's a little bit more in the "real world" after.
- Coco: The film closes with the Riveras, both living and dead, dancing around over Miguel's musical number.
- Despicable Me ends with the girls' just-for-Gru ballet recital turning into a disco party. Vector dances along on the moon.
- The ending of Despicable Me 2 had the main characters dance to the YMCA, as sung by a group of Village People minions (and one Carmen Miranda minion).
- The prequel Minions has a pre-credits dance party which includes virtually every character in the flick. Apparently Stuart's oh-so-Sixties rendition of 'Revolution' is so rousing that everybody's moved to shake a leg- heroes, villains, supporting players, extras, and even some people & creatures that got killed during the movie.
- It happens at the end of The Legend of the Titanic before the narrator finishes with the story to his grandchildren.
- A number of films in the Disney Animated Canon follow this formula.
- Pinocchio has the title character, Jiminy Cricket, Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo dancing in celebration of Pinocchio becoming a real boy.
- Saludos Amigos ends with Donald Duck and José Carioca dancing the samba in Rio.
- Sleeping Beauty ends at a party meant for Princess Aurora's return to the castle, and she and Prince Philip finish the movie dancing.
- The Aristocats. The dance ends with the two dogs telling the viewers that the movie is over.
- Beauty and the Beast... which, due to a tight production schedule, actually reused the animation from Sleeping Beauty and simply drew Belle and the Prince over Aurora and Phillip.
- Mulan ends with the ancestors dancing to pop music. In ancient China.
- Treasure Planet ends with a party held at the newly-rebuilt inn.
- Chicken Little's end credits have the characters singing and dancing to "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" (yes, the same song Ella Enchanted used about a year prior).
- A variation: Frozen (2013) ends with a skating party, as Elsa turns the courtyard into a skating rink and skates with Anna and Olaf. A bit of a Bookend with the beginning of the movie, where we saw Elsa and Anna playing with Olaf as children.
- Zootopia ends with Gazelle singing "Try Everything" in a concert attended by major and minor characters and many Zootopian citizens. A somewhat downplayed version of the trope in that having the concert actually makes logical sense in the context of the story and there are several notable characters that you'd expect to see that do not appear (such as Finnick, Gideon Grey, Manchas, Nangi, and The Reporters). The concert is even being shown in prison, and the Big Bad is shown watching it from their cell.
- DreamWorks Animation has this going for it too.
- Many of the Shrek films used this.
- The first film had the wedding reception held at the end. Everyone danced to "I'm a Believer", sung by Donkey. The home video and DVD releases added a Karaoke Dance Party sequence on top of this.
- The ending of Shrek 2: dancing to "Livin' La Vida Loca", sung by Puss and Donkey.
- Shrek the Third is the sole movie in the franchise that doesn't technically end with a dance party. It gets relegated to the credits where Donkey and Puss do a duet of "Thank You Falletin Be Mice Elf".
- Shrek Forever After ends with Weezer's Triumphant Reprise of "I'm a Believer."
- The credits of Puss in Boots has a kind of friendly Dance-Off between Puss and Kitty Softpaws that echoes their former, less friendly Dance Battle, to Lady Gaga's "Americano".
- Shark Tale has the characters dancing to "Car Wash" performed by fish versions of Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott before the movie ends.
- All three Madagascar movies end this way with "I Like to Move It" playing, with the first film in particular happening during the credits.
- Megamind ends with absolutely everyone in the city, even Titan in jail, dancing to Michael Jackson's "Bad". Complete with Minion making the Humongous Mecha dance.
- Home (2015) ends with Tip, Oh, Lucy, the Boovs, and some of their human friends dancing with each other, along with the Gorg and several species of aliens we're unfamiliar with in the space around Earth.
- Trolls: The movie took this trope to Deus ex Machina levels as it ends with Poppy being crowned queen and all the Trolls and Bergens dancing to "Can't Stop the Feeling!". This extends into the credits with Poppy and Branch singing "September" while dancing with the other main Trolls.
- The ending of Trolls: World Tour also uses this trope in a similar way.
- Spirit Untamed ends with Lucky Prescott and some of the other main characters at a local festival where Lucky's dad sings a song that his late wife wrote.
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken ends with Ruby joining the prom boat and dances with Connor and her friends before the credits.
- Many of the Shrek films used this.
- Fantastic Mr. Fox ends with Mr. Fox and his family dancing in the supermarket.
- Food Fight ends with a party after the wedding between Sunshine and Dex.
- Garfield Gets Real used this rather suddenly in the end, with everyone dancing as soon as Garfield and Odie get home.
- Gnomeo & Juliet ends with a montage while the characters dance.
- Almost the whole point of Happy Feet seeing that the movie is about a dancing penguin.
- Horton Hears a Who! (2008) ended on the cast singing and dancing to "Can't Fight This Feeling".
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Ice Age: Continental Drift have the characters dancing over the end credits.
- Ice Age: Collision Course has its dance party ending before the credits, with the characters dancing to a song from Brooke.
- Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch ends with Lilo doing her dance for the May Day hula competition along with Stitch, Nani, Jumba, Pleakley, and David on the stage at night...just for fun, as said competition had ended well after Lilo abandoned it to look for Stitch earlier.
- The ending of the main storyline of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, before Twilight goes back to the pony world.
- The Angry Birds Movie: Mighty Eagle puts on "I Will Survive" as the credits begin to roll, and all of the characters, even Red and Leonard, start dancing. Or at least Red's eyebrows start moving in rhythm to the music.
- The Nut Job: The end credits has the cast dancing to "Gangnam Style", joined by PSY himself.
- Recess: School's Out has one during the credits. Right after the movie ends, the main six perform "Green Tambourine" in a Disney Acid Sequence.
- Rio ends with the birds dancing (in the air!) and singing just like at the start of the movie, overlapping with Book Ends.
- Robots: The celebration in Rodney's hometown leads from Rodney's dad awkwardly playing the trumpet to the whole town dancing to James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing".
- Rumble: After Rayburn Jr's victory over Tentacular, he celebrates by doing what he knows best: Dancing. The other characters also dance during the credits.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, where this is actually how they defeat the villain.
- In the end credits of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the Bikini Bottomites are in a conga line.
- Toy Story series:
- Toy Story 2, with Wheezy singing "You Got A Friend In Me"
- Toy Story 3 has two separate dance parties in the credits:
- One is of the Sunnyside daycare toys dancing; it is implied that once they got rid of Lotso, they could all enjoy the place without fear of reprisal from him. In turn, several of the toys, including former minions of Lotso, were having a big dance party, with "We Belong Together" playing. A happy ending indeed.
- The other is Buzz and Jessie dancing to a Spanish version of "You Got A Friend In Me."
- Yellow Submarine, "It's All Too Much." (Yes, there's an epilogue after that, but that's the last animated section.)
- Hotel Transylvania combines this with Sudden Musical Ending.
- Hotel Transylvania 2 has the characters seen dancing as they resume Dennis' birthday party.
- Hotel Transylvania 3 doesn't have a Dance Party Ending, but rather a Dance Party Climax which sees Drac and co. dancing to the Macarena in order to defeat Van Helsing (to the point where the sheet music for his evil dubstep dances along and rips itself apart), and by the time the film actually ends with Drac proposing to Ericka, the film abruptly cuts to the closing credits.
- The first part of the credits for The LEGO Batman Movie features the Bat-Family and the Rogues dancing to a bouncy pop song.
- My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) ends with Songbird Serenade who is voiced by Sia singing "Rainbow" for all of the ponies at the Equestria Friendship Festival.
- Vivo ends with Gabi, Vivo, and later Marta preforming a song for the residents of Key West, with everyone dancing and singing along with them.
Films — Live-Action
- The extended Beatles concert at the end of A Hard Day's Night is a variant.
- Balls of Fury's cast singing/dancing-to "Pour Some Sugar on Me".
- Beetlejuice ends with "Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)" by Harry Belafonte, complete with a levitating Winona Ryder.
- The Best Man ends with the whole cast at a wedding doing the electric slide to the song, "Candy"
.
- The Brady Bunch Movie ends with the Bradys dancing around in their grid while also engaging in miscellaneous shenanigans (eg, Marcia simultaneously appears in both her spot and Jan's, Carol and Mike get kinky with a bottle of Wesson vegetable oil).
- Bridesmaids ends with everyone partying to "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips at the wedding reception.
- Caddyshack, including Rodney Dangerfield's line "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!"
- The Chuck E. Cheese Made-for-TV Movie Chuck E. Cheese in the Galaxy 5000 ends with Chuck E. and his teammates, as well as everyone on Planet Orion, singing and dancing to "We Did It" to celebrate his victory at beating the X-Pilots and winning the Galaxy 5000.
- Dirty Dancing, includes a now legendary leap off the stage into the audience by Swayze, who at that point had reinjured his knees and was in considerable pain, but did it anyway so there'd be a visually impressive hook to the scene.
- Ella Enchanted, to the tune of "Don't Go Breaking My Heart".
- The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu ended with a rejuvenated Manchu rocking out with his band.
- And the revelation that his next great threat against Western Civilization would be... rock and roll.
- Footloose - "Everybody cut, everybody cut! EVERYBODY CUT FOOTLOOSE!"
- Justified in this particular instance, considering that overturning Bomont’s ban on dancing was the protagonist’s entire goal.
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin ended with everyone dancing to "The Age of Aquarius" after said virgin lost his virginity.
- French Cancan, after spending most of the film showing how the Moulin Rouge and its trademark dance were created, ends with a nine-minute performance of the cancan interspersed with all the plot threads coming together. And it is AWESOME.
- One of the film adaptations of GeGeGe no Kitarō ends with a yōkai dance party.
- Get Over It features a dance party led by supporting character Sisqo. He partners with Vitamin C to do a cover of "September." The rest of the cast, including future big stars Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster, Zoe Saldana, Mila Kunis, and, yes, Carmen Electra get together for a five-minute boogie over the closing credits.
- Girl Walks Into A Bar ends with three of the main leads dancing in a bar.
- God's Not Dead ends with most of the main characters attending a Newsboys concert.
- In the big carnival scene at the end of the film Grease everyone is singing "We Go Together".
- The Great Outdoors ends with Dan Aykroyd and the cast dancing in the hotel's bar to the song "Land of 1,000 Dances."
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has the main characters dancing during the third portion of the credits. And the Grandmaster, too.
- Harriet the Spy finished with the characters dancing to James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing".
- Hitch ends with the cast dancing to an upbeat song at a wedding.
- Want to see Jennifer Love Hewitt hula dancing? The end credits for House Arrest are for you (she and most of the rest of the cast get on down in Hawaii there).
- The Holiday ends with the two couples and their kids dancing around a Christmas tree.
- In & Out has one crossing with Video Credits as every actor is listed as their character appears dancing.
- Incest! The Musical has a Concert Climax which occurs at prom, and flows easily into the Dance Party Ending. The film ends with the whole school dancing to "I Know It's Wrong."
- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back had the eponymous duo singing with Morris Day and The Time at the end of said flick at the after-party for the in-movie movie Bluntman and Chronic.
- Jojo Rabbit ends with the titular protagonist and Elsa, the Jewish girl who's been hiding in his house, dancing in the streets after the Allies liberate their town. Jojo's mother had previously said that dancing was something people did to show they were free. Elsa had also told him that dancing was what she wanted to do when the war was over and she was free to ,well, not have to hide in the crawlspace of someone's house.
- Labyrinth is looking set to have a standard Or Was It a Dream? ending, with Sarah's companions appearing one by one in her mirror. Then when she tells Hoggle she still needs them sometimes, suddenly they're all really in her room dancing to "Underground". With silly string.
- The Last Days of Disco ends with a Fourth Wall-breaking example; the main character and her Love Interest board a subway train to the sounds of "Love Train" by the O-Jays, with no indication that the song is in any way diegetic... until the two suddenly start dancing to it, leading to everyone else in the car joining in, until we eventually see people on the station platforms disco dancing as the train passes.
- Film/Marmaduke ends with the canine characters dancing to "What I Like About You" which turns out to be a commercial for Bark Organics.
- Mighty Aphrodite: The Greek Chorus gets one.
- The end of Mirror, Mirror. And quite an elaborate one at that.
- Mother (2009) has one of the most gut-wrenching examples of this. The protagonist’s mother is on a bus tour meant for showing gratitude for mothers; all the other mothers are dancing happily, while she sits in her place, horrified at what she’d gone through, namely trying to clear her son’s name and ending up killing the only witness who can testify that he was guilty and hearing her amnesiac son recalling she tried to murder him and kill herself. She then uses the needles she can use to erase memories on herself and joins the party.
- The ending to Much Ado About Nothing (1993) involves the entire cast, including the extras, getting down outside a villa in Italy. It's HUGE.
- The 1955 musical adaptation of My Sister Eileen ends with the entire Greenwich Village neighbourhood and the Brazilian navy dancing the conga.
- Night at the Museum. The first and third movies play this completely straight. The second movie has a variation: the characters aren't actually dancing, but they are taking guests around the very crowded and successful museum, there's party music and flashing lights in the background, and the mood is quite festive.
- Mick Travis walks into a dance party filled with most of the characters he's met previously in O Lucky Man!.
- The film version of The Pajama Game ends with the Sleep-Tite Fashion Show suddenly turning into a wild dance to the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway." (The original stage version, by contrast, ends with the full cast singing the title song.)
- The Muroe and Gornicke families dance to "Route 66" at the end of RV.
- Rat Race ended with all the characters dancing (and then stage-diving) at a Smash Mouth concert as the band played "All Star."
- The Replacements (2000) ends with the eponymous players line dancing (again!) to "I Will Survive."
- Return of the Jedi concludes with the famous scene when the heroes party with their new Ewok friends. Yub Nub! The George Lucas Altered Version (which replaced the original music for this) coupled this with a lot of other parties from various planets that have suffered under the Empire.
- At the end of The Ringer, a stage performance of Romeo and Juliet morphs into one of these.
- Rollo and the Spirit of the Woods ends with the now befriended rolleys and elves celebrating and dancing together as Samuli Edelmann sings "Juhlat alkakoon" ("May the celebration begin" in Finnish).
- Rushmore ends at the wrap party for Max's play, with the cast and crew dancing to Faces' "Ooh La La".
- The credits to Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit has the characters dancing and singing to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".
- The ending of Slumdog Millionaire. Even the kid versions of the leads join in.
- The Smurfs 2 ends with the Smurfs dancing to Britney Spears' "Ooh La La" at Smurfette's birthday party.
- St Trinians and St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold end with the school partying the night away after accomplishing their latest wild caper. Real band Girls Aloud plays the school band in the first film and leads the school's infamous chanting.
- Sunny has the reunited group of women dancing to "Sunny" by Boney M. at Choon-Hwa's funeral. It's a Call-Back to how they used to dance together as teenagers several decades ago.
- A rather surprising one at the end of Tanna. What seems like a Downer Ending, with Wawa and Dain killing themselves after Wawa refuses an Arranged Marriage, ends with the tribe deciding to abandon the custom of arranged marriages and allow marriages for love. Cue singing and dancing by the whole tribe in celebration, freeze frame, roll credits.
- The indpendent Canadian dystopian film Terminal City Ricochet's second-to-last scene features the people of a liberated Terminal City enjoying a concert by legendary Canadian punk band D.O.A..
- There's Something About Mary features the cast singing and dancing to "Build Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations.
- This Is the End: Once Jay, Seth, and Craig get to Heaven, they all party with the Backstreet Boys.
- Tropic Thunder features this ending, though only the Corrupt Corporate Executive is dancing.
- Trevor Nunn's film of Twelfth Night ends with dancing at Olivia's wedding.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit. After the will is revealed and Toon Town is saved, the assembled toons dance while singing "Smile, Darn Ya Smile".
- Even The Three Stooges had one in the 1951 film short, "Hula-La-La".
- Oddly, Zatoichi has such an ending with tap dancing. Including characters who were killed during the film. It's most likely an excuse to show off the contemporary percussion group's skills one last time (in all fairness, they're awesome).
- The fairly bittersweet ending of Zorba the Greek involves something like this. Throughout the film, Zorba dances whenever he feels unhappy, his way of diverting negative feelings into something greater. After everything the characters have sought to accomplish comes to naught, Basil, the main character, decides he enjoyed the experience anyway, and asks Zorba to teach him the dance he does. The final scene is the two dancing, turning a sad moment into a celebration.
- In You People, when Amira and Erza finally marry after being arranged by Shelly and Akbar, everyone on both sides of the family dance together in various ways.
Literature
- The finale of Beauty Queens combines this with a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
- Elminster - The Making of a Mage, though it was not the very ending.
- Katt Loves Dogg: The epilogue is set at the All Animals Ball, in which many interspecies couples are seen dancing. Oscar and Molly aren't, because they're sitting on the thrones from being crowned king and queen of the ball.
Live-Action TV
- The series finale of Beverly Hills, 90210 ends with the gang dancing the night away at Donna and David's wedding reception.
- In similarly cathartic fashion, the 2005 BBC adaptation of Bleak House ends with a wedding reception between Esther and Alan, specifically an outdoor waltz. All the characters - bar those that are dead - from the miniseries are there, including some you'd think wouldn't have been invited. The scene ends in the middle of a shot of the dancing, and with the music continuing over the credits, implying that though our time with the characters has ended, this joyous dancing is going to go on without us.
- The performance of Swan Lake put on in the finale of The Big Leap ends like this.
- The season 12 finale of Degrassi: The Next Generation ends with Mo sparking a spontaneous dance party to "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" and the entirety of his fellow 2012 graduates just having a hell of a sendoff. He dedicates it to his girlfriend, Marisol.
- In the Castle episode "Last Call", after solving the case, the cast leaves together to share a drink at "The Old Haunt" while singing Billy Joel's "Piano Man".
- Return to Cranford ends with everyone doing an elegant and stately waltz — which was actually quite a risque dance for the time period. But good God did they have to earn it!!
- Used several times in Doctor Who: In "The Dæmons", "The Doctor Dances", and "The Big Bang". Notably filled with innuendo in "The Doctor Dances", because Steven Moffat spends the entire episode using "dancing" to mean something else entirely.
- The series finale of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman ends with everybody dancing at Colleen and Andrew's wedding.
- The first-season finale of ER ends with the gang dancing at Carol's aborted wedding reception.
- This occurs in an episode of GLOW (2017): when Debbie unexpectedly runs offstage due to Mark appearing in the audience, Rhonda improvises a rap of her own invention to close out the show. This is also the last scene of the episode, making it both an in-universe and out-of-universe example.
- The Mentalist:
- Episode "Copper Bullet" ends with the team enjoying themselves at a concert of some band. Everybody's dancing — Jane with Lisbon, Abbot with his wife Lena, Wylie with his crush Vega — except for Cho who decides to get another taco (and doesn't seem to mind that he's not with anyone, plus he's chuffed because he has just learned of his promotion).
- The series finale "White Orchids" ends with Jane and Lisbon's wedding. The last but one scene has their friends and family dancing happily to song "September". The series ends with the newlyweds glowing with happiness, Teresa telling Patrick she's pregnant.
- Subverted in the Moone Boy episode "Moone Dance": At the school dance ending, only Martin dances (with his imaginary friend), while everyone else stares at him instead of joining in.
- Odd Squad:
- The episode "Soundcheck" ends with Oprah and Otto dancing to a mashup remix between the titular band's new song "Gonna Add One" and their song "Take Away Four". Olive, on the other hand, does a Big "NO!" when the remix comes on and crawls away from the scene crying.
- "Swamps N' Gators" ends with Olive and Otto, along with Bradley and Mrs. Kansas, dancing with Gary the Gator, a character from the titular board game.
- "Box Trot" ends with the Mobile Unit getting down with a newly-reformed Form-Changer, Monsieur Papier-Mache and Lady Bread at the former's birthday party.
- "Three Portals Down" ends with Osmerelda and Oswald dancing to some music provided by Dr. O's steel pans.
- "Monumental Oddness" ends with the wedding reception of the two French brides from earlier in the episode, with the Mobile Unit (including Omar, on video call via a tablet that Osmerelda holds) all getting down and having a good time at the Eiffel Tower.
- In the season two finale of Orphan Black, four of the Leda clones, along with Felix and Kira, have a dance party in Cosima's apartment. The scene was widely praised for its masterful editing (since all four clones are played by the same actress).
- Outsourced: The series ends with a dance party after Rajiv's and Vimi's wedding.
- Pistvakt: Every episode ends with at least one of the protagonists dancing to an old record at Bengt-Hans' bodega, usually preceded with the line "put the CD on, Beng-Ha!" In his first appearance, Yngve even gets in on it minutes after almost having frozen to death.
- Every episode of teen game show Pressure 1 ends with the four contestants dancing to the theme song, often with the host joining in.
- The Prisoner (1967): In a defining moment for British television, and one the most notorious pre-Gainax Gainax Ending sequences, almost the entire second half of the final episode is a Dance party ending. Really. Then, credits.
- Saturday Night Live was known for this trope, especially during the late '80s; when the writers couldn't think of a way to end a sketch, they'd have the characters shout, "Let's Lambada!" Frequently happened on Wayne's World and Sprockets.
Dieter: Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!
- The season 2 finale of Schitt's Creek, "Happy Anniversary," concludes with Johnny Rose telling his children, "Tonight, we are dancing as a family." The scene ends with the Rose family happily dancing together to James Morrison's Precious Love as the rest of the cast joins in.
- Appears in the Scrubs episodes "My Bright Idea", where Carla becomes pregnant, and "My Cold Shower", after Keith proposes to Elliot, as everyone dances at the local bar. Subverted when, after what is otherwise a happy occasion, we see JD taking a cold shower thinking "It should have been me."
- Sesame Street: "The King Who Ate Only Chicken" ends with the king calling an impromptu dance to celebrate his introduction to complete meals.
- Every episode of Strangers with Candy.
- Switched at Birth's "Dance Me To The End Of Love" has several dance scenes, mostly fantasy (which brings the normally reality-based series into full-on Big-Lipped Alligator Moment territory). The final scene, with all the regulars getting on down at Casa del Kennish, isn't one of them.
- Every episode of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego All together now...
Do it, Rockapella!
- Yo Gabba Gabba!: Once an Episode there's a big dance-mix Surreal Music Video at the end that recaps the episode.
- The Victorious episode "Tori the Zombie" ends with everyone dancing to disco music after Sinjin turns it on and encourages them all to "just go with it".
- The Zoey 101 episode "Zoey's Balloon" ends with Zoey and the gang dancing the Macalana on the PCA campus.
Music
- "Dance, Dance, Dance" finished I'm With You by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, putting a cheery ending to an otherwise dark latter half of the album.
- "Stay Young Go Dancing" by Death Cab for Cutie finishes Codes and Keys. This is likely intentional— Ben Gibbard had wanted to write happier music at the time, and even if it doesn't apply to the rest of the album, it certainly applies to this song.
- Blue Moves, one of Elton John's darker albums, ends with the exuberant "Bite your Lip (Get Up and Dance)".
- Spotlight On Optiganally Yours ends with the get-up-and-dance song "Beebo", which plays out like it's part of a live performance at a party. There's even an emcee encouraging the audience to shout "Beebo!" at the end of every line and concludes by signing off on behalf of the band.
- After listening to an hour of the results of economic inequality, gang violence, and sexism from 5 gang members, N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton ends on.. "Something 2 Dance 2". A Gangsta Rap album ending on a dance song. The original strategy for N.W.A. was that Arabian Prince (A founding member of N.W.A.) was going to produce radio hits by creating the Electro-hop that was big in L.A., meanwhile songs like “Fuck Tha Police” were going to be underground, but at least people would know the album existed because the Electro songs would be on the radio. Arabian Prince was also successful before N.W.A., so when the checks started coming in, he realized he was making more money solo than he was as a member of the group. Arabian Prince had a meeting with Jerry Heller and Eazy-E and told them he wanted more money or he had to step away. To them it was clear that the “reality rap” was going to be the focus of the group instead of the Electro-hop, so they allowed him to step away, to continue to do what had already made him successful before.
- Zucchero: Inverted with the song "Bacco Perbacco", whose video has Zucchero performing a country-flavored song in front of an audience that is dancing sensually in pairs. This is the first song of the album Fly; and the following songs are not only less cheery, but those that were released as singles don't involve any dancing in their videos.
Music Videos
- The ending to Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" video. Complete with bonfire.
- Hank Williams Jr.'s "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight." Not only did it end with a party (with all of Bocephus' rowdy friends), the party went on (by some accounts) for at least three days after shooting for the video ended.
- The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye" is a pretty typical Performance Video... until the "hela, heba helloa" part kicks in at the end, and the last 25 seconds or so become an exceedingly bizarre little dance party.
Professional Wrestling
- Combining this with Summon Backup Dancers, a match between Will Ospreay and Ricochet at Wrestle-Con turned into this. After they both dropped into their Three-Point Landing in the centre of the ring, their back-up dancers/dance-off teammates rush the ring and do a three-point pose of their own: Marty Scurll, Lio Rush, Jason Cade, Sami Callahan, Dezmond Xavier, Ryan Smile... and a disgruntled Drew Galloway.
Radio
- Subverted in the last Story Interlude of New Dynamic English where Larry invites all of the hosts to a house party albeit no dancing.
Theatre
- Many Renaissance Festivals conclude a day at the faire with a Pub Sing or a similar musical finale in which the various musical acts and members of the Village Ensemble lead everyone in song and dance. The festival's monarch (King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth I at most Ren faires) usually attends. There's much singing and dancing, and the audience is invited to sing and dance along. Of course, towards the end of the Pub Sing/finale, there's often a soft, sentimental song such as "Wild Mountain Thyme" to let the audience know the merriment for today is nearly over.
- Many operas with happy endings have the ensemble do a short dance, especially the 18th-century ones labeled "tragedia con lieto fine" (Mozart's Idomeneo being a good example).
- Gilbert and Sullivan, oh yes they do! With laughing song and merry dance!
- There is some evidence to suggest that in William Shakespeare's day, many plays (including tragedies) ended with all the players getting up and doing a rollicking jig for the audience. The evidence for this includes:
- The play within a play (which is a tragedy) in A Midsummer Night's Dream. And after it, in place of the epilogue, Theseus asks them for their Bergomask, which is a rustic country dance. After they've gone to bed, the fairies show up and have a dance party of their own.
- The last lines of Much Ado About Nothing:
Think not on him till to-morrow:I'll devise thee brave punishments for him.Strike up, pipers.Dance- The lines before the epilogue in As You Like It:
Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites,As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.A dance- The end of Twelfth Night, with the song "When but I was and a little tiny boy." Some productions make the song a dark epilogue instead.
- Henry VI Part III ends with:
Sound drums and trumpets, farewell sour annoy,As here, we hope, begins our lasting joy.Dance and exeunt
- In fact, it's become a tradition at the modern Globe Theatre for every play performed there, whether it's tragic or comic, to conclude with a big song and dance and send everyone home happy.
- As mentioned in Film, a lot of musicals end this way.
- After curtain call, most productions of Hair end with audience members joining the cast on stage to sing and dance to "Let The Sunshine In," making it a pretty inclusive Dance Party Ending.
- "Letting Go" from the 2008 and 2011 runs of Vanities: A New Musical. Ironically, it takes place right after Mary's mother's funeral.
- "You Can't Stop The Beat" from Hairspray.
- The reprises of "Dancing Queen" and "Mamma Mia" from said show, plus the introduction of "Waterloo!"
- Do you want Bohemian Rhapsody? Oh Alright then...
- Most Greek and Roman comedies end up with a reconciliation of the antagonists and an actual or symbolic wedding, which included dancing.
- The Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Jungle Book does this by tacking on a gratuitous scene where the animal cast rocks out to "Jungle Rhythm" from The Jungle Book 2.
- In Trouble in Tahiti, the movie "Trouble in Tahiti" ends this way, as Dinah describes it:
Ev'rything now is cleared up and wonderful;
Ev'ryone is happy as pie;
And they all do a great Rhumba version of
"Island Magic," of course!
It's a dazzling sight;
With the sleek brown native women
Dancing with the U.S. Navy boys,
And a hundred-piece symphony orchestra! - Finale ends with a ball in times square, celebrating the last day on earth.
Theme Parks
- Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem at Universal Studios exits out into a dance party room where guests can meet Gru and the Minions with disco music blaring.
Video Games
- In the SNES adaptation of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the Rangers celebrate their victory by heading to the Juice Bar, where Zack steps onto the dance floor and busts out some moves as the credits roll.
- Space Channel 5 is a series that is all about dancing. The entirety of both games, start to finish, has the characters (all background characters included) dancing along with the music, since it's a rhythm game. The second game ends with, after just defeating a bad guy whose entire M.O. was getting the entire galaxy to dance, the entire galaxy breaking out into dance in order to lead into the credits. Every character from the game is seen dancing in parade format down a rainbow summoned, presumably, from the power of dance, right through space.
- Fahrenheit has some of the characters dancing during the credits. (Not Mooks)
- Normality ends with the characters throwing a dance party.
- Used in the two Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan games and Elite Beat Agents. Justified in that everyone dancing together is what saves the world from a meteor, the sun freezing over and an alien invasion respectively.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time featured all the NPCs dancing around a bonfire after the defeat of Ganon.
- God Hand has this, involving all the characters dancing the game's Bragging Theme Tune.
- Parodied in Banjo-Tooie, when all your allies get together and and have a dance party...before you fight the final boss. They won't let you join until you've finished saving the world. Then once you go back after defeating Gruntilda, the party's already over and they've eaten all the food. So they celebrate instead by playing hackey-sack with Gruntilda's skull.
- The original Banjo-Kazooie did this too, after you rescue Tooty... who then berates you after the credits to get off your lazy ass and go finish off Gruntilda.
- Thrill Kill allows you to do this with the last opponent standing rather than performing a Finishing Move. Each character has their own dance that they can do, with the opponent joining in and mimicking the dance. Although a subversion would be Cain, who lights the opponent on fire and dances around their thrashing body while he does a Native American like bonfire dance.
- In the first PaRappa the Rapper, the final stage of the game takes place at a concert, and it has PaRappa and all of the teachers from the previous stages, who are dancing behind you, perform in front of a crowd. Uniquely, PaRappa is actually coming up with his own verses as opposed to mimicking the stage teacher. However, the trope here will quickly be removed when you start doing poorly. When you're on the brink of failing, only two teachers will actually still be singing to you.
- The spin-off game, Um Jammer Lammy, will also share this tradition with a rock concert this. As such, the previous characters met in her 15 minute adventure will have a "crowd performance" as they dance to a solo meant for them. Like before, they will leave once Lammy starts doing very poorly.
- And this is done once more in PaRappa the Rapper 2. However, this time they will all leave as soon as things start going down, as opposed to sticking around for a bit.
- Super Mario RPG ends with the Mushroom Kingdom throwing a parade while the credits roll. Paper Mario, too.
- Given the game's concept, DanceDanceRevolution has done this in its credit rolls a few times. The earliest one was just a black screen with the chosen character dancing, but later versions have featured dance-themed endings; including SuperNOVA 2 (which mainly had some space related imagery interspersed with some shots of the characters), the Hottest Party series (which has usually involved silhouettes of a dancer), X (which had live action scenes of people playing the game itself), and X2.
- However, at the same time they've managed to subvert this too; the Japanese console version of Extreme started with an acoustic version of "Graduation" accompanied by the title screens of all the major arcade versions, but then switched to gameplay footage from past versions (which did have characters, a feature dropped from arcade versions on DDRMAX, but backported into the home versions)
- Deus Ex has an Easter Egg "ending" where this happens.
- TimeSplitters Future Perfect has Cortez dancing in a disco after saving humanity.
- Dynasty Warriors
- Dynasty Warriors 2's credits
- In Dynasty Warriors 3, the ending cutscene shows the victorious kingdom having a banquet, while a female officer and some other women dance for entertainment. While Wei and Wu have their own main female officer(Zhenji and Sun Shangxiang, respectively) perform the dance, Shu didn’t have a female officer at the time, leading to them having the otherwise unaffiliated Diaochan perform their victory entertainment, even though many of the Shu officers can actually kill her early into their story.
- In Dynasty Warriors 5, the flamboyant Zhang He leads his army in a dance in his ending. He does this again in 9.
- Dynasty Warriors 2's credits
- True Crime: Streets of LA also has an Easter Egg ending in which Nick Kang and FBI Agent Masterson have a dance-off. Kang wins.
- Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude ends this way.
- The Japanese Flash game Charisma, has its ending as possibly the wackiest variant ever, complete with utterly nonsensical English subtitles. Since you play as a band's singer in a recording studio, it's possible to screw up the song as well.
- Kirby has a variation of this. Kirby dances at the end of each stage. Often he splits into three so he can have a dance party by himself.
- This is pretty much the only redeeming factor of Limbo of the Lost, along with the So Bad, It's Good song that accompanies it. Just see for yourself.
- The Typing of the Dead has a bunch of zombies in glass tubes at the end — but if you type out the names in the credits, they bust out and do their best Thriller impression.
- 'Splosion Man has this as its finale — by 'Splosion Man cosplayers, no less.
- The Wheel of Time computer game had this after the end credits. Watching a Myrddraal dance is pretty disturbing, actually.
- Bayonetta has a very long dance sequence at the end involving Bayonetta dancing with just about every character in the game.
- Jet Force Gemini subverts, parodies, or does something to this trope, seeing as it first ends with a standard award ceremony celebration with fireworks and trumpets and the usual sort... and after a fadeout and a record scratch, Juno is hilariously badly getting down with his bad self in a nightclub the team visited earlier as the credits roll. His teammates, Vela and Lupus, are too embarrassed of him to join.
- The Neverhood ends with Hoborg, king of the Neverhood, first making some more people—since he and Klaymen don't really make for a "party" by themselves. Then the party itself happens. "And now it is time... to GOOF OFF!" The ending doesn’t stop there, however- realizing that both Willie Trombone and Big Robot Bil are still dead, Klaymen and Hoborg bring them back to life, ending the game on a very happy note.
- Weaponized in the ending of Star Wars Droidworks, in which you reprogram the Imperial Assassin Droids into dancing droids via an override code that actually says "DANCE". The cutscene even shows disco lights activating over the factory floor while the assassins dance their way off the assembly line.
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police Second Season includes this in the closing credits, at Sybil and Abe's wedding.
- The standard ending in Chrono Trigger is a dance party/parade.
- Broken Reality: The end credits has everyone on NATEM dancing under fireworks. This is after the Gainax Ending the player character experiences, so it at least gives some emotional closure that everyone else is doing fine.
- Every "year" in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles ends with the characters in the player's home village dancing around a bonfire.
- If you get the good/true ending in World of Final Fantasy, the main portion of the game's closing credits consists of the Lillikin (chibi) forms of the game's major cast and the Final Fantasy characters from past games dancing to the upbeat J-Pop song "World Parade."
- Plants vs. Zombies. The zombies are dancing, too.
- Outcast (1999). Complete enough of the game and it's side quests and you get a secret dance credits for the cast. Once the game ends, it shows the percentage you've achieved. Something above 90 % is required.
- Syphon Filter 2 has a bonus clip that features all the game's main characters, friend and foe alike, dancing at a disco club. Appropriately enough, the clip is titled "Congratulations! Party Time!"
- Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge ends with Pumpkinhead dancing around after you give him the item meant to "quell his soul". Notably, the actor in the suit had to remove the feet in order to do so. It counts since he's the last surviving character. It's also enough to drive you to madness.
- The end credits of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron has Jazz and Bumblebee dancing while Soundwave plays a remix of "The Touch".
- In MySims Kingdom, while you certainly haven't completed all the available tasks, the reward for achieving level 5 is your own island, named <player name>'s Island — which looks suspiciously like the Isle of Magic — where you can build without using Mana. Your receipt of this reward is kicked off by a dance party attended by every Sim on each island you've visited by that point, and the credits.
- The Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3, the last piece of content released for that set of characters even though it's before the ending, ends with all the surviving crew members having one of these.
- Saints Row IV ends with The Boss and his/her homies (and Zinyak!) dancing to Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It", and it's awesome!
- Saints Row (2022) has this as an unlockable epilogue obtained after controlling the entire city and buy up all the businesses, where the Boss and their homies sing and dance to "Love Shack".
- After finally defeating the Sinistrals in Lufia: The Legend Returns, the heroes decide to go home and party. Except the Sinistrals weren't quite dead.
- The canceled BIONICLE: The Legend of Mata Nui had the entire island break into an (unintentionally?) hilarious dance celebration over the Makuta's apparent defeat. This was actually part of the story as it had originally been envisioned — every victory was supposed to be followed by a dance, however the idea got dropped when the Story Team realized how ridiculous it was.
- In EarthBound (1994), when you choose to end the game, all the characters on-screen face to the camera, and repeat walking animations for a while before the credit rolls.
- Gobliiins 4 ends with a concert.
- Lone Survivor has this happen in its Yellow ending.
- Sacrifice has the ending credits include a dancing troll.
- The ending of the Muramasa: The Demon Blade DLC Fishy Tales of the Nekomata has this as its first ending. Except it's cats dancing on their hind legs.
- Persona 4: Dancing All Night exaggerates this trope, being the Grand Finale of the Persona 4 storyline and a Rhythm Game.
- The most hilarious version of this being done is in Super Robot Wars Z. In the mission completing Overman King Gainer, after all the enemies are beaten, all the remaining heroic units on the stage will gather round and start dancing. All heroic units, no matter how stoic or if they're Super or Real types.
- The end credits of Dragon Ball Z Infinite World feature Giru dancing to a song fittingly titled 'Dragonball Party'.
- Just Shapes & Beats ends with all of the friends you've made along the way at a disco, with the main antagonist as the DJ. This is actually very fitting, since it's a rhythm game relying heavily on its use of EDM.
- After finishing the final level of Eras of Alchemy (having aided an alchemically powered AI in recreating all forms of life on Earth after an environmentally devastating meteor strike wipes out most creatures on the surface), players are treated to a dance party. HERA's avatar and the human sprites dance joyfully.
- While AI: The Somnium Files has several endings, the final Golden Ending concludes this way. With almost every surviving character, regardless of plot importance, coming together to dance. It would also count as a Sudden Musical Ending if not for the fact that one character did have a solo version of the song earlier. Though this time everyone joins in.
- The sequel does the same thing, although the game's not really over after the dance party. A scene shortly before the dancing starts provides the final clue on how to unlock the game's secret final ending.
- Hylics 2 ends with your party performing in a rock concert attended by various other characters, including some former antagonists.
- Bram The Toymaker: The special ending of the game has Bram The Toymaker and a couple of life-sized Creepy Dolls dancing in his house.
Visual Novels
- In Daughter for Dessert, after the protagonist is acquitted, Amanda, Kathy, Heidi, and Lily throw a not-going-to-prison party for him, and crank up the jukebox for some music. If he still has to choose between Amanda and one of the other girls, the choice is mandatory here.
Web Animation
- The Haloid Fan Film ends with one of these. It's... interesting.
- Homestar Runner
- The Halloween toon "Most In The Graveyard" has the gang enjoying "the extended dance remix of the Goblin song".
- Strong Bad's story in the Strong Bad Email "flashback" ends with "And so, The Cheat mashed play on an extremely expensive jam-box with high-speed dubbing and everybody put their weight on it!"
- The ending of Ducktalez 3, which features nearly every single character dancing to "Macho Duck."
- Bravest Warriors has the episode "Butter Lettuce".
Wankershim: [tears off shirt] BUTTER LETTUCE PARTYYYYY!!!!!!
- The How It Should Have Ended parody of BioShock ends with Jack getting rid of the Little Sisters and celebrating with the citizens of Rapture.
- Most episodes of The Bear Show end with the heroes Mario, John Cena, Daddy Bear and the others getting some of what they call "Victory Pizza" after saving the day.
- DEATH BATTLE!:
- The Deadpool vs. Pinkie Pie episode sees Pinkie throwing Deadpool a birthday party when he mentions it's his while berating the ScrewAttack staff.
- There's also a dance party ending from Boba Fett vs. Samus Aran Remastered, though this one serves as a tribute to the late Monty Oum.
Websites
- Nobody Here: In "Think", by asking for a hint and then checking the help section again, you will be given the option to "try something else". This will cause the box that Jogchem was trapped in to disappear and for him to start dancing, celebrating his freedom.
Web Videos
- To express her irritation with Dreamworks's tendency to do this, The Nostalgia Chick ends her "Dreamworks vs. Disney" two-parter with one of these.
- UltraJMan's Let's Play of Chakan: The Forever Man ended with him making the title character dance at the Hub Level to Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me, complete with singing. This was to make up for the actual ending, or lack thereof.
- This is how any conventional "Harlem Shake" video ends.
- The Cartoon Man ends with Roy and Karen doing a crazy "salsa dance" together.
- The first two episodes of The Misadventures of Skooks end like this. The second doubles as a Gainax Ending, with a scene suddenly ending with the camera zooming in on Shaggy's open mouth...where Shaggy is dancing to "Professional Griefers" for the rest of the episode with a bunch of random characters (including Dale wearing a deadmau5 head.)
- The last part of JonTron's Starcade miniseries ends this way. I'm feeling like a star, you can't stop my shine...
- Positively Dreadful's "Top Five Commercials" ends in two comic book nerds arguing over Marvel and DC Comics. When told they can enjoy both, well, this happens.
Western Animation
- The Adventure Time episodes "Trouble in Lumpy Space", "All the Little People" and "Shh" end this way.
- Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers episode "Marshmallow Trees." Yay, the mutated bugs transformed into high-grade compost, and the problem with the eponymous trees has been solved. Let's break out the fiddles and banjos, folks. (OK, we're dealing with a Space Western...)
- Given who the series focuses on, All Hail King Julien has several episodes that end this way.
- The Bugs Bunny short "Fresh Hare" has an ending in which, having been asked by Canadian Mountie Elmer Fudd if he has any last requests before he's executed, Bugs bursts into a rendition of "I Wish I Was in Dixie" and then manages to rope the firing squad and Elmer into the act to sing "Camptown Races". Bugs even points out the improbability of this ending ("Fantastic, isn't it?"). note
- The ChalkZone episode "The Smudges" ends with the characters dancing. Also, almost every episode ended with a music video segment with the three leads performing a song, oftentimes leading to this trope.
- Episode 4 of Clerks: The Animated Series ends like this Explanation ...almost. Then the courthouse burns down and everyone escapes to find a sweatshop studio staffed by Korean animators being beaten by an evil overseer rat AND BEAR WAS DRIVING! WHY WAS BEAR DRIVING! HOW CAN THAT BE!
- One of the earliest animated examples can be found in The Cookie Carnival, where the entire cookie town with the exception of the queen and king dances at the end of the short.
- Each episode of Dora the Explorer seems to end this way.
- On The Fairly OddParents!, the episode "Boys in the Band" ended with everyone dancing to Icky Vicky.
- Using the idea of Your Universe or Mine?, there's one at the end of the second Fairly Odd Parents/Jimmy Neutron crossover entitled the "Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 2: When Nerds Collide".
- At the end of season 2 of Fast & Furious: Spy Racers, after the Big Bad is defeated, Frostee broadcasts an old video clip to her brainwashed minions where she says "Stop the fighting! It's time to dance!" So they do.
- The Futurama episodes "Mars University" (), "Fry and the Slurm Factory" and "Crimes of the Hot".
- The I ♡ Arlo Season 1 finale "The Uncondemning" ends with Arlo, his gang, and everyone at Seaside by the Seashore singing and dancing as they celebrate the community's Uncondemning party.
- Inverted in a sense on Jimmy Two-Shoes where the season 2 intro has a Dance party ending.
- Kaeloo: This happens at the end of one episode, and Mr. Cat and Stumpy are highly disappointed as they's been expecting a huge fight scene instead.
- The Grand Finale for Kim Possible followed this trope to a T. They even threw in a beach party!
- The previous finale, So The Drama and the episode "Queen Bebe" do it too. Both parties are previously established - the first is Kim's junior prom, and resolved the romantic loose end of Kim and Ron hooking up.
- This is the ending of the Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episode "Gailbreak".
- Almost every episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ends with the Sensational Six performing the Hot Dog Dance, while recapping on what they did throughout the episode.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2": After all the chaos of the two-part season finale has died down, the episode ends with the real wedding between Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, including the ponies dancing at the reception (organized by Pinkie Pie, of course), with Ensemble Dark Horse DJ PON-3 at the turntables.
- "Pinkie Pride" also ends this way, with the hooves-up song "Make A Wish".
- Also occurs in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls with the reprise of 'This is Our Big Night', which features the Humane Six busting some moves at the Fall Formal after defeating Sunset Shimmer.
- The Oh Yeah! Cartoons short "The Feelers" ends with the titular rock band of anthropomorphic insects grooving to their own song in celebration of the news that Mr. Katzeneisner is interested in having them work for him.
- The Patrick Star Show: "Neptune's Ball" ends with the Star family, King Neptune, and the people at the ball partying outside Patrick's house.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- Has one at the end of their hour-long episode "Summer Belongs To You". It also features the first full-length (i.e. 3+ minute) song to play on the show (when most are about 1-2 minutes) and it further cements Candace and Jeremy as the Official Couple.
- And another at the end of "Rollercoaster: The Musical!", where pretty much everyone we've ever met gets into the act. Also includes a cameo by Kenny Ortega!
- Again in Star Wars crossover with the cast of both franchises getting down.
- There is also in the series finale, 'The Last Day of Summer' where all the characters dance and sing 'Thank You for Comin' Along' and recap all the shows key moments.
- In a slight variation, the Season 3 finale of ReBoot ended with the cast attending a Broadway style musical recapping the events of that season sung to the tune of the Major General Song.
- The season finale of Rick and Morty's first season has one. It's the only season finale so far to have this, as all the others are Bittersweet Endings, Downer Endings, or in one case, an "Everybody Laughs" Ending.
- The Secret Show: The end of the episode "A Purrfect Villain" sees Sweet Old Grandpa and the bunnies performing the Fluffy Bunny song in the briefing room while everyone else is watching fireworks outside.
- The Simpsons:
- The episode "Burns Baby Burns" lampshades this, as Journey's "Any Way You Want It" plays them out to the credits. The sudden abundance of music and drinks from nowhere is lampshaded.
- In "Tales from the Public Domain", after finishing the Hamlet portion of the story, Homer claims that it was made into the film Ghostbusters. Cue the family dancing to the movie's theme song.
- Episode "How the Test Was Won" ends with Principal Skinner lifting the ban on dancing and the school dances to "Footloose". Even Superintendent Chalmers.
- Episode "Replaceable You" ends with a dance party to "Golden Years".
- The Smurfs (1981) episode "A Chip Off The Old Smurf" has the Smurfs having a dance party at the end after the locust invasion has been stopped, though with Baby Smurf showing off his hidden magical talent before the scene cuts to black.
- "The Mr. Smurf Contest" ends with the male Smurfs not only taking turns dancing with Smurfette at the Harvest Moon Ball, but also waiting to have a turn with Sassette as she dances with Papa Smurf.
- South Park
- Parodied in the Bittersweet Gainax Ending of "Butterballs", where Stan "jacks it in San Diego", dancing while removing all his clothes in open downtown San Diego streets while a Big Band/Barbershop Quartet song plays (with the singers even being featured in some shots).
- Played straight in the Bittersweet Ending of the "South ParQ Vaccination Special", where all the adults in South Park (along with several other minor characters that only appeared once) celebrate their vaccinations for the COVID-19 pandemic with this, as it puts the pandemic under control... for the adults, at least.
- Parodied at the end of the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Slimy Dancing," in which Squidward wins a talent show by accidentally inventing a new dance move while cramping up inside SpongeBob's body. The episode cuts to an "epilogue" in which a boy frightens his mother by imitating the dance move. Following this most of the main characters suddenly show up in the kid's house and start doing the dance.
- An episode of Teen Titans Go! end with all the Cyborg and Beast Boy clones running from a tyrannosaurus...and everybody immediately stopping and dancing to disco lights. Including the Dinosaur.
- The first season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) ends with the Turtles and April partying after stopping an Alien Invasion.
- Total Drama Island (2023) ends with Chef declaring a dance party after the winner claims the million dollar prize money, and Chris informs the contestants that they are all invited for a re-match the following season.
- Happens at the end of Tokyo Mater where everyone in Tokyo, Japan actually celebrate Mater's victory over Kabuto by having a dance party in the streets of Japan, with Kabuto being stripped naked as a result of him losing to Mater in a race.
- The first three seasons of Winx Club end, usually after the villain's defeat, with an end-of-year party where all the characters dance happy. Season 4 and 5 in addition have the Winx sing.
- Wishfart:
- At the end of "What's Up, P. Buddy?", Dez has to explain to Tsuni why she and a bunch of others are at an abandoned factory. Deciding the real answer is too bizarre, he tells her they're celebrating her birthday. Tsuni is initially confused since it's not her birthday, but she decides she's cool with it and joins the celebrations.
- "We Can Eat Sand!" ends with everyone in the city celebrating Puffin's birthday on a very crowded party boat (which they had all been teleported onto after Akiko accidentally wished everybody in the city away).
Real Life
- At the end of World War II there was apparently, actual dancing (as well as kissing random women) in the streets. At least in the allied countries.
- World War I ended with dancing on the street. Even the Germans were happy the war was done. The dance party was short-lived for them though.
- New Year's Eve celebrations are this for the calendar year. The most notable one out there is Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve shows on ABC.
- The Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies are thoroughly staged and planned, have the solemn Lighting of the Flame, and generally do their best to impress everyone with awe and majesty. The Closing Ceremonies, on the other hand, are basically one big excuse for a party. With, you guessed it, dancing. And rock stars. And the host country good-naturedly spoofing themselves. As far as the "dance party with good-natured self-spoofing" goes, Canada seems to have won that crown in Vancouver.
- Figure skating events typically have an "Exhibition Gala" show at the very end, which let the skaters perform non-competitive routines for the audience. The results are often Denser and Wackier than the competitive programmes due to the lack of judging and significantly relaxed rules, and the night often ends with every skater getting together to give the audience a send-off.
"Whew! We finally finished the entire page... Let's dance!"
