I Forgot to Mention 'The Suicide Squad' Stinger and Here Are Ten More End Credit Scenes You May Have Missed

Egads! I've tried my best when writing and podcasting movie reviews to remember to mention any stingers that happened during or after the end credits. By this point, most people are aware that the MCU will have one or two extra scenes that often act as set-up and teasers for future movies. I rarely see someone leave during the credits for the latest Marvel movies, which proves how universally it is established that there is more to the movie, even as the credits roll.

For almost any other movie, people tend to want to head out as quickly as possible and leave during the credits. Unless it is a later screening, the movie staff is usually coming in with the plan to clean, because they've assumed everyone has left. The idea of sticking around during the credits is still not very common.

I almost never leave during the credits, because I like reading them, soaking up the score/song and just reflecting a bit on the movie that I had just experienced. This means that I'll almost always catch the stingers at the end. and I know that there are probably a lot more end credit scenes in movies than most think.  Though I confess that probably less than 50% of them are actually worth sticking around to see, if that is the only reason you remain in the theatre.

Despite trying to be the person that alerts readers or listeners to stingers, I probably forget more than half the time to mention if there was a stinger. I am so bad at it that there are many episodes of The Movie Breakdown where I apologize for forgetting to mention the stinger in a movie the week before.

It isn't just podcasts where I fail. In my The Suicide Squad review, I completely neglected to bring up that there was a mid-credit and post-credit scene. One was just a fun little gag to show the fate of a fan favourite character, and the other was to also show the fate of a character but to set-up a DCEU series for HBO MAX. Both were fun enough, and the final one does set-up bigger things, so fans of DCEU would obviously appreciate it.

I have no idea why I keep forgetting to mention stingers. The best reason that I can grasp is that I'm so busy trying to rattle off all the significant aspects of a movie while also trying to keep the review cohesive, I keep pushing the stinger mention off until the next thing I know, I have concluded my review, did the requisite proofreading and send it off to the world to read. The poor stinger gets forgotten like 10 year-old Christopher when picking teams for softball.

To make up for this guffaw and just for kicks, I will present ten more post credits scenes that you potentially missed or never even knew existed. Warning that this will contain spoilers, since none of them are in theatres or considered new.

The Silencers (1966): You may not even know about this movie, let alone know that it has a stinger. It is largely agreed that this was the first movie to have an end credit scene. The Dean Martin starring picture was based off Donald Hamilton's series of novels about US government counter-agent, Matt Helms. The novels were suspenseful spy-thrillers, but when Columbia acquired the film rights to eight of the books, they put Martin in the lead role and turned the stories into spy spoof pictures. 

At the time, many of the 007 pictures would have a simple text card at the end of the credits saying something like 'James Bond Will Return.' The movie created to partly parody the iconic super-spy series, decided to do even better than simple text at the end. The credits would end with Helms lounging on the bed with several scantily clad women and an overlain text promising that Matt Helm will return, then Helms expresses shock that we see him and hides his face in his hands. The words proved to be truth, as there were three sequels. 

Night of the Living Dead (1968): George Romero's horror classic is one of the most influential genre pictures due to how he reshaped how we viewed zombies and incorporated many elements that several other beloved movies would borrow. He also was responsible for one of the first movies to have things to see during the credits. The end credits show still pictures of bodies being piled up, and then after the credits, there was a scene of the bonfire that was made to burn the bodies. This has an extra eeriness since we know poor Ben was shot dead because they mistook him for one of the ghouls (the name for zombies).

The Muppet Movie (1979): All of the Muppets' pictures have been meta and fourth-wall breaking, but the original had the Muppets watching their own movie and during the end credits it showed them discussing the movie. When the credits finished, an exhausted Animal told the real audience to 'Go Home! Go Home! Buh bye' before falling backwards. The gag of telling the audience the movie is over and they should leave would be borrowed by several other comedies over the years, including Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Wayne's World, Deadpool and Shaun the Sheep Movie.

Airplane! (1980): This is one of the all-time best comedy stingers. Near the start of the movie, Ted Striker abandons his cab so he can buy a plane ticket and get on board to win back the heart of his ex-girlfriend. Anyone who has seen this movie knows that Striker never returns to his cab and goes on quite the adventure trying to save the crew and passengers on the dangerous flight in this disaster movie parody. Even though Striker never returns, the patron in his cab has stuck around the entire time. At the end of the credits, there is a scene where he grumbles that he will give his driver twenty more minutes to return.

Masters of the Universe (1987): I concede this is far from an important movie, but as a kid that had tons of the toys, religiously watched the cartoon series, was part of the fan club and subscribed to the official magazine, this movie was kind of a big deal for me. This stinger is interesting because before this, most of them were in comedies and were just designed to be a one-off gags. This was one of the first to be used to build towards a sequel and get audiences pumped. The end credit scene shows the thought-to-be-dead Skeletor's head emerge from a liquid and promise that 'I'll be back.' Unfortunately, it was on empty promise as the movie was a flop.

Super Mario Bros. (1993): In what is probably the best part of this cinematic trainwreck, the end credit scene has two Japanese businessmen make a proposal to Iggy and Spike for a video game based on them called The Super Koopa Cousins.  

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006): It is the ultimate have your cake and eat it too type movie moment. Charles Xavier is killed by Jean Grey's Phoenix rather early in the movie and it was one of those shocking moments where the audience then believes no one is safe. Considering how disappointing this picture turned out, there probably wasn't many that stuck around to the end of the credits. If they did, they would see a scene where Moira MacTaggert is checking on a comatose patient but is then greeted by voice of Xavier. We get the shock of him dying by disintegration during the movie, but then the promise he is somehow alive thus erasing that moment at the end of the credits. MCU would gleefully follow this path of getting the shock of killing a major character to only reveal they lived later in the movie. I know most people didn't see this end credit scene, as they were confused when Xavier returned in a mid-credit scene for Wolverine.

Iron Man (2008): Everyone expects a stinger at the end of a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie now, but I wonder how many stuck around to the end of this movie back in 2008? This scene was obviously made to appeal to comic book fans as most people wouldn't have a clue who Nick Fury was or what the 'Avenger Initiative' could be. The end credit scene with Samuel L. Jackson's only appearance in the movie is now iconic, as it is what essentially kicked off the vast cinematic plans and set-up the eventual Avengers movie. It also kicked-off the trend of stingers being used to launch sequels or spin-offs.

Fast Five (2011): It is not as well-known that some of the Fast and Furious movies have end credit scenes that set-up major things for the next movie. One of the biggest was done in this end credit scene where Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs is given a file regarding the hijacking of a military convoy and he discovers a recent photo of the presumed to be dead Letty. This was a huge one for Fast & Furious fans as Michelle Rodriguez's Letty had been killed in the previous movie, so this set-up huge things for the next movie as she revealed to be alive. This would start a tradition of bringing back beloved characters that had previously been killed off.

Hangover Part III: The third in the comedy series was criticized for deviating too much from the original two movies. A criticism that still baffles me to this day, because usually people are annoyed when a sequel just copies the original. It seems like Todd Phillips may have expected such criticisms as the mid credit scene is an over-the-top homage or parody to the two previous movies where the characters wake-up to see they have wrecked their hotel room and Stu has experienced a drastic physical change.

There you go, ten bonus stingers. As I write reviews, I'll try my best to actually include when a movie has a post credit scene. Though, I think part of the fun is discovering them for yourself.