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"Kings' swords are big and shiny and magical and have jewels on and when you hold them up they catch the light, ting."
Corporal Carrot, Guards Guards
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This is the sound made on television (most often cartoons) by things which are shiny or cast a glowing light. Any time you see a gleam or Lens Flare, this is likely to occur, especially if the gleaming thing is someone's impeccable teeth or something very expensive. If the shiny thing is a weapon, this is Audible Sharpness. If not, it's this.

Intrinsic to both the Twinkle Smile and A Twinkle in the Sky. In fact, it lends the "twinkle" to both those terms. See also Power Glows and Everything's Better with Sparkles.

Examples of Audible Gleam include:


Advertising[]

  • Advertisements for Orbit gum.
  • This is actually where the term "bling" comes from. It came from a toothpaste commercial where they would sing the jingle and go "(whatever brand name it was) gives you *bling*... confidence!" The "bling" part was the onomatopoeia given to the moment when the person would give a Twinkle Smile. Eventually, the term was used for anything considered shiny. Remember, All That Glitters, so the definition came to this natural conclusion.

Anime and Manga[]

  • The Pokémon anime contains the most famous example: the Team Rocket trio's signature "ping" accompanied by a star whenever they blast off.
  • Pretty Cure in all its forms abuses this mercilessly. The good guys (well, girls) win because they are shinier than the baddies.
  • Fushigi Yuugi gets a special mention for the glowing body symbols.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh, there's a special one for the Millennium Items, and the light always shines left-to-right, in the same way. The fans call it the "Millennium Trill".
  • One notable example is in the Toonzai broadcast version of Dragon Ball Kai where a couple explosions have glitter digitally edited to them, presumably to soften the blow. Of course, a glistening sound effect accompanies this.
  • Digimon Xros Wars likes to use this a lot, especially when they combine into Shoutmon X7.

Comic Books[]

Film[]

Literature[]

Live-Action TV[]

  • This was Lyle Waggoner's trademark, especially on The Carol Burnett Show and Wonder Woman.
  • The sunstones in Dinotopia.
  • Played for a Running Gag on the Canadian sketch comedy series Royal Canadian Air Farce, referencing the very obviously bleached-white smile of then-Canadian Alliance party leader Stockwell Day. Every skit featuring Day would include at least one close-up shot of him showing off his Twinkle Smile, with the requisite "ting!" sound effect.
  • Max Capricorn's gold tooth does this in the Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned", prompting the Doctor to deliver the bemused line "It really does that?"
    • Played straight in the episode "The Time of Angels," in which the beams of the flashlights torches make noise as they're swept around.

Music[]

  • A recognizable (though, naturally, gleamless) Audible Gleam shows up puzzlingly in of Montreal's "Triphallus, to Punctuate!": "Now that I'm not a virgin to you, you'll never walk...(bling)...alone!"
  • Utilized in both the song and music video for Weird Al's Headline News.
  • In "Obli-Dee, Obli-Dah" by The Beatles, an Audible Gleam is heard when they mention the diamond ring Desmond buys for Molly.

Video Games[]

  • The statues on the Triangle islands in The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. And many more things.
  • In Halo, everything the Forerunner ever built, and everything the Covenant ever modified from them.
  • Naaru. At first, it's beautiful. But if you sit long enough in Shattrath City...
  • In Lego Batman, Catwoman convinces Penguin and Killer Croc to rescue her from jail by holding a diamond up and creating an Audible Gleam that they can hear over a walkie-talkie.
  • The first Discworld game includes a quest in which you must take the sword that goes "doink" and make it go "ting" by finding a dwarven Blacksmith and getting him to tune it.
  • In the Fire Emblem series, used along with a flash of light when attacking with most legendary weapons, such as the Falchion, the Twelve Crusaders' Holy Weapons, the Eight Generals' Divine Weapons, and the Sacred Twins.
  • Shiny Pokémon (Pokemon of a different color than usual) will appear accompanied by some shiny stars and the appropriate sound effects. Also, various moves, like Moonlight, will have shiny sound effects.
  • The opening sequence of the Genesis/Megadrive game "M.U.S.H.A." has one of this most intense (and awesome) audible gleams this troper has ever heard. Just listen to it!

Web Original[]

Western Animation[]

  • Richie Rich, animated version
  • Cinderella as portrayed by the Disney Animated Canon - doing all those transformations makes a lot of audible gleaming.
  • Tinkerbell in Disney Animated Canon - fairy/pixie dust creates an audible gleam.
  • A diamond in a treasure room tempts Plastic Man in an episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold by catching the light just so and gleaming audibly so he loses his resistance.
  • The Mayor in Disney's Chicken Little is attracted to a shiny penny that gleams audibly.
  • Parodied in Futurama (in Bender's Game), when the Die of Power is cast, a chorus sings the number rolled.
  • Parodied when Plankton says "Ting! Sparkle sparkle" as he holds up the (fake) golden spatula he's trying to tempt SpongeBob with.
  • Dexter's Laboratory has used the same sound effect for this (the sun's gleam off of Dexter's exo-suit seen here in Dexter Dodgeball) and for Audible Sharpness (the same gleam, off the Dexter Family Mecha's twin swords right around the 20:00 mark in Last But Not Beast). Of course, either example comes with copious Lens Flare.
  • Early episodes of the original Transformers series had this during the "scene-change" sequences; the gleam was eventually dropped. Furthermore, it's actually the same one heard in many of Filmation's works (see example below).
  • This was a recurring sound effect in many of Filmation's productions. In fact, it's even featured in the first version of the company's Westinghouse-era (post-1983) logo.
  • The Huntsman's shiny teeth make this noise during his Bragging Theme Tune.
  • In the The Legend of Korra episode "Welcome to Republic City" a park-dwelling Hobos boasts of the attractiveness of his resident bush, which then Bishie Sparkles with accompanying twinkle noise.

Real Life[]

  • This trope led to a notable and wide-spread bit of slang. "Bling" describes anything shiny, via a verbal approximation of the sound shiny things notionally make.
  • Considering it's just a highly focused beam of light, the noise an industrial laser makes might qualify.
  • Fluorescent lights.
  • CRT screens (the old, big TVs) whine when they show anything very bright. You normally can't hear it over the sound of whatever you're watching, though.