About: The Coconut Effect   Sponge Permalink

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An element that is patently unrealistic, but which you have to do anyway because viewers have been so conditioned to expect it that its absence would be even more jarring. The best example of this is the sound of horse-hooves. From the days of radio, banging two coconut halves together was the standard way to generate the sound effect of horse-hooves. Anyone who has ever actually been around a horse knows that horse-hooves rarely sound anything at all like that, and never sound more than just a very little bit like that. All the same, that sound became so ingrained in the public consciousness that even when it later became possible to insert much more realistic sound effects, the coconut sound effect was still used. The audience wouldn't accept horse hooves making a sound not generated by

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  • The Coconut Effect
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  • An element that is patently unrealistic, but which you have to do anyway because viewers have been so conditioned to expect it that its absence would be even more jarring. The best example of this is the sound of horse-hooves. From the days of radio, banging two coconut halves together was the standard way to generate the sound effect of horse-hooves. Anyone who has ever actually been around a horse knows that horse-hooves rarely sound anything at all like that, and never sound more than just a very little bit like that. All the same, that sound became so ingrained in the public consciousness that even when it later became possible to insert much more realistic sound effects, the coconut sound effect was still used. The audience wouldn't accept horse hooves making a sound not generated by
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abstract
  • An element that is patently unrealistic, but which you have to do anyway because viewers have been so conditioned to expect it that its absence would be even more jarring. The best example of this is the sound of horse-hooves. From the days of radio, banging two coconut halves together was the standard way to generate the sound effect of horse-hooves. Anyone who has ever actually been around a horse knows that horse-hooves rarely sound anything at all like that, and never sound more than just a very little bit like that. All the same, that sound became so ingrained in the public consciousness that even when it later became possible to insert much more realistic sound effects, the coconut sound effect was still used. The audience wouldn't accept horse hooves making a sound not generated by coconuts. While audiences have finally outgrown that particular quirk, there are others which persist. The ping sound made by a specular reflection; the click of a remote control, so ubiquitous that mobile phones tend to add clicking sounds to buttons pressed on their touch screen (although there is a logical reason for this as well - user feedback as to whether the button press registered or not); the loud thump of lights turning on or off; flapping sound effects for flying owls; or noisy explosions in space. There are also fistfight noises (the 'whump' of a person getting punched in the face, or the exaggerated smack of a boxing glove) that must be certain way or they won't be believed. In a medieval setting, whenever a sword is unsheathed, there needs to be a sound of scraping metal, even if the sheath is made of leather. (In modern settings, even looking at a knife will cue this noise.) In sword duels, there is a loud, echoing clash of metal when, in reality, swords just make a small 'tink' sound. Car and driving noises. "Wildest Police Chases"/"Wildest Security Camera Video"-type programs are big on this. Squealing tires and crunchy crashes are all dubbed in after the fact, especially in the cases featuring security camera footage, which rarely features an audio track. Mainframe hackers used to refer to this as green lightning after an unfixed bug in an IBM terminal monitor; the term came from the bug being left in so people would think the computer was "doing something". See also Reality Is Unrealistic, Audible Sharpness, Mickey Mousing, Radio Voice, Vinyl Shatters, Beeping Computers, V8 Engine Noises and the semi-related Extreme Graphical Representation. Related in concept is The CSI Effect and Eagleland Osmosis. Nothing to do with Coconut Superpowers (except insofar as both relate to Monty Python and The Holy Grail). Thankfully, this won't be causing any real-world casualties. We hope. Compare Aluminum Christmas Trees and Small Reference Pools. Also see Necessary Weasel. Examples of The Coconut Effect include:
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