Mundane Made Awesome/Other Media

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Fan Fic

• The Gatemaster would be an otherwise fairly typical Sonic the Hedgehog self-insertion fic if it wasn't for a massive dose of this trope, along with an insane length. Also a case of Tropes Are Not Good, as it only served to make the whole thing more pretentious and longwinded.
• ToyHammer has completely unnecessary use of Generation Kill-style callsigns and radio protocol used by the local nerd and the mini forces under his jurisdiction.
• Done in gloriously overblown epic-fantasy style with American politics here.
• Anything described with Purple Prose in Shinji and Warhammer 40 K.
  • For example, Shinji decides to clean the apartment: "Demons of untidiness! Fear me! I have come, with the mop of justice and the sponge of truth! I shall cleanse you from this home! Let it be sanctified with the sweet scent of the Emperor's soap!"
  • Lampshaded in chapter 20 part 1 when a couple of guys see Hikari, Kensuke and Toji walk to school:

"What the hell...?" said one of the boys to his best friend. "Your nose is bleeding...?" For once, it wasn't out of perverted thoughts. "It should be illegal to be that awesome out of just -walking-."

• The author of Deserving doesn't like using characters' names or the word "said", producing this effect when a discussion of interior design is peppered with phrases like "proclaimed the Chosen One". The unnaturally overdramatic diction employed by every character in every situation doesn't help matters either. Actual example: "LUBE! Always lube. Don’t make me repeat it," came the menacing voice. One glorious scene in which Harry Potter milks the giant cow and casts fireworks with his wand to make a point about someone's birthday party.
  • In general, domestic fic in which the characters talk about their mundane business with just as much portentousness as The End of the World as We Know It is very common, and invariably lands in this trope.
• Brendan Namron: Ace Attorney, being based partially off of the Ace Attorney games, uses this trope from time to time, especially in the courtroom.
• This video, spoofing the incredibly mundane opening lines of The Last War in which Hermione Granger is fretting over a pot of stew, plays this trope to the hilt by reading the account of Hermione's stew-making adventures in an exaggerated bombastic voice with added reverb and setting it to O Fortuna. And includes the actual phrase (and former trope name) "what do you mean it's not awesome" in the tags.
  • The creator of that video has taken to referring to the specific form of Mundane Made Awesome where narration is too epic for what it's describing as "O Fortuna moments", likening the effect to watching someone doing the housework with that backing track.
• There is a Kingdom Hearts fanfic that involves rock-paper-scissors... of DESTINY!
• In another Kingdom Hearts fanfic,, Cloud and Sephiroth are forced to resort to a thumb war due to a spell that prevents actual fighting. Notable in that it's presented EXACTLY as dire and significant as a life-or-death fight would be. Cloud loses, and cries in despair...before challenging Sephiroth to best-two-out-of-three. Roxas (who in this case is a voice in Sora's head) comments that "You have such weird friends."
• Becoming Female has several examples, such as this one:

"Yeah, I'm fine," I explained epically.

• Neon Knights has a fantastic example in the second chapter. Mari Illustrious Makinami takes on a fourth-grade math test. With Purple Prose and Shout-Outs to G Gundam, GaoGaiGar, Gurren Lagann, and Warhammer 40000. Even the line break separating this scene from the one before it is a massive example of this. And it all works.

GIIIIIGAAAAA! SCEEEEENNNNNE! BREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAK!

Professional Wrestling

• Any feud summary used in Professional Wrestling marketing of upcoming events. It's often less interesting to actually watch pay-per-view extravaganzas than it is the promotional videos explaining them. Extra points to TNA's promos for their annual Lockdown pay-per-view, which do a pretty convincing job of making a six-sided cyclone-fence cage look like it should be banned by the Geneva Convention.

Radio

• Parodied many times in The Goon Show, as in the following example:

Neddie Seagoon: (Portentously) Then... suddenly... Orchestra: LONG DRAMATIC STING Neddie Seagoon: (Feebly) ...Nothing happened. (Normally) But it happened suddenly, mark you!

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had a moment like this in episode 20, when Arthur comes back home and finds a mysterious present: a fishbowl engraved with these words: "So long, and thanks for all the fish." The musical score gives one the impression of some legendary item.
  • He later discovers an interesting message when he holds it up to his ear and taps it.
• Italian radio comedy show "610" (in Italian, spelling each digits of the title results in an insult) has a sketch based on this trope, involving "Pier Maria Carletti", a character 100 times dumber and weaker than an average man. When he ate his own vegetables after they got corrupted by an alien fuel, he gained a superpower: his strength, as well as his brain, got enhanced. But becoming 100 times stronger than he was, ironically Pier Maria Carletti becomes - therefore - like any other average guy. This didn't stop him from making a superhero costume however, resulting in the "super hero" Normalman. Also, as a twist on your usual Clark Kenting (despite both Pier Maria and Normalman wearing glasses), he has to obfuscate stupidity!
• On I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, there's a few rounds where the studio audience have to know the name of a work. What do they do? Announce that they're going to display the title of the work on the megabyte magic of their liquid-crystal satellite-linked all-purpose laser display board...which is just the producer coming on stage with a cue card. This also serves to confuse the listeners at home, who wonder why the studio audience start laughing when the title is shown.
  • Also, this is mixed with Lyrical Dissonance in the round One Song To The Tune Of Another. The panellists have often sung the words of something mundane or humorous to the tune of something extravagant and melodramatic -- like The Marrow Song to the tune of There'll Always Be An England.

Stand-up Comedy

• Brian Regan has a bit about military inventions and how they all have awesome names. Then along came a device that allowed soldiers to communicate effectively over long distances. It was called the walkie-talkie.

Theater

• Compared to Greek drama, very little of Japanese Noh drama plays contained actual drama. Much of it featured characters going about everyday tasks and situations, with the actors extremely slow recitation of lines and expressive mannerisms allotting for drama portion.
• "Second" from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Who knew two prepubescent kids taking turns spelling words like "zoonosis" and "astrobleme" could be so epic?
  • An earlier scene has a character spell "weevil" in slow motion.
• The Greek Chorus in the musical Allegro breathlessly anticipates a child's first steps and glorifies his learning to walk with the heroic marching song "One Foot, Other Foot."
• You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown has a complex, metaphor-laden quartet, crossing multiple musical styles, and has at one point four main characters singing four different melodies with four different texts, reaching an intense musical climax and showing off the vocal talents of the soprano lead. The subject of the song? A 100-word book report on "Peter Rabbit."
• Super Robot Wars Z: Doing the Monkey in a post-victory dance.

Other

• The Pastry War -- whose name itself is a demonstration of this trope -- was a conflict between the Kingdom of France and the United Mexican States which engulfed both the Republic of Texas and the United States. The entire Mexican navy was captured by French forces and the war lead to former dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna resuming his position as President of Mexico. Santa Anna's autocratic regime caused Mexico to disintegrate and contributed to Texas becoming annexed by the USA. How did this war arise? Because the Mexican Government refused to pay compensation to a French baker whose shop had been looted by Mexican officers.
• The Japanese tea ceremony would appear to be a simple matter: one person brews some tea and serves it to one or more guests, who accept it with gratitude. In fact the ceremony, chadō, is a staggeringly complex ritual with over a thousand variations which may require a lifetime to master.
  • You can't hurry a good cuppa.
  • The tea ceremony has degrees just as like martial arts.
• The interface to Apple's Time Machine backup software. A backup program is one thing, but a backup program that features a series of windows receding into the background to indicate which backup you're restoring from, all over a painstakingly rendered animated star-field backdrop, that's Epic right there. At the time of this edit, Apple had neither confirmed nor denied that the next version would play Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra while in operation.
• Does Howard Dean count?
  • BWAAAAGH!
  • Only in the way it was covered, not anything he did. As Diane Sawyer pointed out, you couldn't even hear him over the enthusiastic cheers of his supporters. It was only when the "news" people stripped out the crowd's voices that his yell seemed weird and out of place. Anybody who was there could attest to the truth of this.
• Dog mocks Hitler, how can it not be awesome?
• A piece of music called (depending on the variant) either "Entry of the Gladiators" or "Thunder and Blazes" must be pretty awesome, right? Well, actually, it's the circus clown music.
  • Performed by a full military-style band, the music itself is pretty awesome. That still makes it an example of the trope, though, because the having a big, brassy march as background music for some guy in whiteface falling on his prat is perhaps a bit over the top.
• Exploding Head Syndrome is much, much less awesome than it sounds. It doesn't even involve heads exploding!
• Apparently there is a condition where your head really can Asplode by thinking too hard and much. Supposedly mainly affects chess players and academics.
  • Actually, it only affects one particular chess player, and it doesn't bother him too much...
• Ohhhhhhhhh, the Alcatel OmniPCX phone exchange promotional video. What do you do when your engineers fail? You call James Bond to save the day!
• Every single word spoken by Don LaFontaine, aka the original Trailer Voice Guy, ever. The man could make ordering a burger at McDonalds sound like the ultimate battle for the fate of the world. ("In a World where burgers are grilled, one man will rise to fight...for the fate of a cheeseburger.") Witness for yourself what happens when you put Don and four other famous Voiceover Guys in a limousine and tell them to drive to an awards show. R.I.P, Don, the world is a less Awesome place without you.
  • "It's never too early... for a salad." About 3:05 in this video.
• The Backside of Water at the Jungle Cruise in the Disney Theme Parks. Some skippers have been known to go off into a massive speech upon approaching it, declaring how incredibly amazing it is. Even the normal spiel generally involves referring to it as "The Eighth Wonder of the Natural World" and announcing "The back! Side! Of! WATER!!!"
  • The skipper will, inevitably, be disappointed to discover that it looks a lot like the front side.
• In an essay in Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris details his aversion and hatred of computers, and among his complaints is their presence in movie scenes that fall under this trope. "Each tiresome new Thriller includes some scene in which the hero, trapped by some version of the enemy, runs for his desk in a desperate race against time. Music swells and droplets of sweat rain down onto the keyboard as he sits at his laptop, frantically pawing for answers. It might be different if he were flagging down a passing car or trying to phone for help, but typing, in and of itself, is not an inherently dramatic activity"
• Warhammer 40000 does this to anything worth mentioning, then paints it black, covers it in skulls, and sets it on fire.
  • Unless it paints it red, because "red wunz go fasta!"
    • And then they do.
  • And then there's this Adeptus Mechanicus quote about turning on an engine:

Toll the Great Bell Once! Pull the Lever forward to engage the Piston and Pump... Toll the Great Bell Twice! With push of Button fire the Engine And spark Turbine into life... Toll the Great Bell Thrice! Sing Praise to the God of All Machines

• Flair Bartending.
• Billy Mays, from the various Ridiculously Loud Commercials for cleaning products he's done (RIP Beardman).
  • Also the ShamWow guy. His headset puts it over the top.

"Stop having a boring tuna! Stop having a boring life!"

• • • On top of that -- introducing the Rap Chop (remixed, not original, sadly).
• Thisvideo sets a flooding storm drain to Latin. From the video:

"SHOUTING LATIN / MAKES FOR DRA-MA / THAT'S WHY YOU'RE ALL STILL WATCHING"

• Zinedine Zidane is even more awesome with Ominous Latin Chanting.
• The Physics Department of the University Of Wales has a "Centre for Explosion Studies". That can't really be as cool as it sounds.
  • If such a department needs to be made cooler, just see if Michael Bay is willing to lend a hand.
  • Syracuse University has (or had) the Center for Really Neat Research (which most of it really was).
• Joel Bauer's business card.

Joel Bauer: It doesn't fit in a rolodex because it doesn't belong in a rolodex.

• Extreme Shepherding.
  • Similarly, Extreme Ironing.
• Dr. Seuss story-time is epic.
• Arguably, the entire town of Columbus, Indiana. A small town in the US with several buildings designed by modernist architects, resulting in the town having more national architectural landmarks than several large cities.
• Several manufacturers of obscure industrial equipment are prone to this. Some people, nightly, have to deal with the terror of working with a machine called the Predator SS... which shrink wraps boxes placed on a pallet. And sometimes must wear a garment called the Revolution XR 55, a simple safety harness.
• Brian Blessed.
  • Brian Blessed is exactly that awesome. A short read about his life is like the cliff-notes version of a Norse saga or something.
• Tim Pawlenty kicked off his presidential campaign with two ads that were just made of this trope. Stephen Colbert was quick to parody it.
• Google has recently made a tool called Search Stories which lets you upload videos of Google searches with epic camera pans and epic music if you like.
• Sixteen words: Betty White in a Metal Bikini Wielding a Flaming Chainsaw While Riding a John Ritter Centaur.
  • No, that is definitely awesome.
• EXTREME RICE.
• Apparently a GPS manufacturer created an application that turns the voice into Darth Vader's. A "making of" shows how it's a full-fledged example of this trope.
  • You can also get Norio Wakamoto to narrate your GPS for you.
  • Sadly they didn't do a "making of" video when Brian Blessed joined the ranks of Tom Tom's satnav voice actors Oh, YES, THEY DID!
• Boris Johnson explaining the origin of Ping Pong
• What do you mean cleaning a room isn't awesome?
• A new sport from Germany: Sporthocking...EXTREME SITTING!
• Indoor Cycling Gymnastic Championship
• As a rule, music from your favorite video games can greatly enhance your life experience. Try playing some of the synth classics or rehashes by The Advantage or The Black Mages while writing a paper or simply walking around. The fact is this genre was intended to make everything you do in games (shopping, hiking, fighting, talking, breaking vases) infinitely more exciting. This effect naturally translates itself into Real Life.
• CPR... with a toilet plunger!
• The Breaking Dawn Part I trailer. Wedding invitations, a ceremony, scenes from a honeymoon, and Bella's Dull Surprise scored with Ominous Latin Chanting.
• Inception Music Makes Everything Intense.
• T.E. Lawrence wrote about how he once parodied Auda abu Tayi's way of telling stories like this.

'This was a close parody of Auda's epic style; and I mimicked also his wave of the hand, his round voice, and the rising and dropping tone which emphasized the points, or what he thought were points, of his pointless stories.' -- 'I told how we left the tents, with a list of the tents, and how we walked down towards the village, describing every camel and horse we saw, and all the passers-by, and the ridges, 'all bare of grazing, for by God that country was barren.' -- 'And we marched: and beyond the what-do-you-call-it there was a what-there-is as far as hereby from thence, and thereafter a ridge: and we came to that ridge, and went up that ridge: it was barren, all that land was barren: and as we came up that ridge, and were by the head of that ridge, and came to the end of the head of that ridge, by God, by my God, by very God, the sun rose upon us!'

• The epic frog.
• ORRE NO CHYUU DORRE DA!? Courtesy from them playing a Yu Yu Hakusho game.
• This game of Jenga.
• Slinky on Treadmil
• "THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBER OF THE SOCIAL COMMUNITY OFTEN RECEIVES HIS INFORMATION VIA VISUAL, SYMBOLIC CHANNELS." It sounds like Anderton's Unusual User Interface! Actually, it means "people read". Verbosity is enough to make Dick and Jane sound like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Let me try. "Jane Russell - not to be confused with Jane Roberts - is the central object of this account. Of particular note is her general appearance, which has been made to conform to her many cinematic roles as a performer. Russell preserves her appearance through a comprehensive regimen of jogging. Uncertainty regarding the veracity of the previous averment is to be confirmed through visual channels. Lastly, the author would like to encourage Russell in her program of moderate physical exercise." Read: "See Jane. Jane is an actress. Jane runs to stay good-looking. See Jane run. Run, Jane, run."