Post-credits scene

A post-credits scene (also called a tag, stinger, credit cookie, or coda) is a short clip that appears after all or some of the closing credits and sometimes after a production logo of a film, TV series or video game have run. It is usually included for humor or to set up a possible sequel.

The 1903 silent film The Great Train Robbery ends with the leader of the outlaw band taking aim and firing point blank at the audience (after having been killed in the previous scene).

One of the earliest appearances of a post-credits scene in a modern mainstream film was in The Muppet Movie in 1979, and use of such scenes gained popularity throughout the 1980s at the end of comedy films. In 1980, Airplane! ended with a callback to an abandoned taxicab passenger who was not a primary character, and who had not been shown since the film's first scene. The Muppet Movie also began a trend of using such scenes to break the fourth wall, even when much of the rest of the film had kept it intact. The scenes were often used as a form of metafiction, with characters showing an awareness that they were at the end of a film, and sometimes telling the audience directly to leave the theatre. Films using this technique include Ferris Bueller's Day Off (in which the title character frequently broke the fourth wall during the movie) and the musical remake of The Producers. The post-credits scene in the latter film also includes a cameo appearance by Producers creator Mel Brooks.

Post-credits scenes also appeared on the long-running TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000, introduced in the 1990 episode Rocket Attack U.S.A., continuing until the end of the series. With few exceptions, they highlighted moments from the films that were either particularly nonsensical or had simply caught the writers' attention.

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