The Graduate Homage Shot



Start with a wedding, going along more or less as expected. As things approach "I do", everyone turns to the back of the church. There, banging on the glass and calling the name of the bride or groom, is the interloper.

The trope name comes from the Ur Example at the climax of The Graduate. Most of these examples are straight parodies and/or Homage Shot (s), the rest are copies of copies due to Popcultural Osmosis (ala Pieta Plagiarism).

Usually part and parcel with the Wedding Deadline.

Advertising

 * The famous series of UK Renault ads, "Papa and Nicole" ended this way.

Anime and Manga

 * For a non-anime-specific trope, this one shows up in a ton of Anime (especially ones from the '80s); obviously the movie went over big in Japan.
 * One episode of Kimagure Orange Road plays this one just like the movie  also notable for continuing the homage with them running away and the scene on the bus.
 * The climax of the first Urusei Yatsura movie finds Lum pounding on a stained-glass rosette and calling "Darling!!" (they get on a bus too, but it's not really a homage).
 * Dirty Pair OVA #6 has Kei (in nun disguise) pounding away from the choir loft at Yuri's wedding. In this case, she isn't trying to move in on either half of the couple. She just needs to warn Yuri that the groom's "family" is on to them.
 * Ogami and Sumire's super-combo animation in Sakura Wars shows him crashing her wedding and eloping with her on a moped.
 * The Live Action Adaptation of Great Teacher Onizuka has Onizuka do this to a teacher one of his students has a crush on; subverted when she refuses to confess her feelings.
 * This piece of promotional artwork (warning: large file) for Lucky Star parodies the scene from The Graduate right down to the costumes.
 * Homaged in Kuragehime's OP.
 * Happens in Tantei Opera Milky Holmes when Milky Holmes - Sherlock + Claris and G4 try to stop Sherlock's wedding to Prince Pero. Kokoro, of course, shouts "Dumbass!" into the church.

Film

 * Trope Namer, of course, is the wedding scene from The Graduate, pictured and quoted above.
 * Used in Wayne's World 2 (Wayne interrupts the wrong wedding).
 * Then does it again at the right wedding. Much hilarity ensues.
 * Not a wedding, but Sam of Love Actually does this when he spots his crush from a glass-walled walkway suspended nearby her terminal at the airport. Though the shot is on the other side of the glass and a medium close-up, not even the audience can hear him.
 * If you listen really, really hard... yeah, maybe just my imagination.
 * In Saving Face a woman rescues her mother from marrying a man she isn't in love with in this way.
 * Steve Martin does this in The Lonely Guy, only to find out he's burst in on the wrong wedding.

Television

 * Parodied in Monk, when the main character interrupts two weddings in one episode by yelling the bride's name and banging on a door. Same priest, same bride, mostly the same guests, same guy lets him in.

Video Games

 * The Secret of Monkey Island does this, complete with the "ELAINE!" cry.
 * Though it is merely one of the dialogue options in this scene.
 * Bonus points for the bride's name actually being Elaine though.
 * Actually naming her Elaine was an afterthought. Originally she was just going to be Governor Marley, with her first name never being given. When the "ELAINE!" joke was thrown in, they decided to actually make that her name.

Western Animation

 * Parodied in an episode of The Simpsons with Grandpa Simpson. He breaks through the glass and falls to the floor below and keeps yelling.
 * Quite possibly a reference: In the filming of the wedding scene for The Graduate, the church they filmed the scene in was, in fact, concerned that in banging on the window Dustin Hoffman would do just that, which is why he extends his arms the way he does (he reasoned that just flapping his hands at the end of his wrists like that wouldn't put enough pressure to break) and gives everyone the impression that the director wanted him to be a messianic figure there.
 * Ben using a giant cross as a weapon in the famous scene doesn't really counter that impression.
 * In the Teen Titans episode "Betrothed"; in the midst of fighting to get to Starfire to tell her that she's being tricked into her wedding, Robin bangs on a window and shouts her name to attract her attention.
 * When Daria gets assigned to writing a fictional story starring people she knows, her first idea involves Jane interrupting Kevin's and Brittany's wedding and ends with Jane and Kevin escaping on a bus. The animators even went so far as to shift to letterbox while showing their insecure expressions, probably to simulate a VHS or TV broadcast of The Graduate in which only the opening and ending credits appear in widescreen.
 * Parodied in Family Guy with a Bar Mitzvah.