"Hi,Bob, glad you could make it. Look, here come Ted and Sarah and Sean and Drew and Dan and Erin. You already knowRon and Jeremy andMary and Sue and Peter and Ben andSteve. Come sit down next to Ken and Eric and Lee, and then Jim and Frank and Maxwell and Fred can call the meeting to order."

A type ofInfo Dump specific toa large ensemble show, in which hordes of characters are introduced and immediately all referred to by name. They may be new characters, they may be old characters being reintroduced after a break, but they're all standing in a line and they're all perfectly happy to say their own names.

Intro Dump is a cross betweenDramatis Personae andEveryone Meets Everyone in the middle of a scene. It's different thanAvengers Assemble because everyone is already in one place. Sometimes each character will say their own name during aTraining Montage. Other times, the head of theirCast Herd segment will call everyone by name - and always by the order they're already standing in.

May be called as a sub-process during the bridge of anExpository Theme Tune. Also seeProduct Promotion Parade.

Anime andManga

• This happens inNegima in the form of Negi's class register, including the class' clubs and special notes on certain students. The new teacher himself wonders how he'll remember all this (he figures it out by the next volume)
  • Only natural considering that he's a 10 year old genius who mastered Japanese in only 3 weeks.
  • And thankfully afterwards the series then introduces the class the normal way.
• The first episode of the second season ofQueen's Blade has Nanael looking through her magical book and listing off every major character from the first season to quickly get the audience back up to speed.
• This is parodied in episode 17 ofSeto no Hanayome when a group of 8 gang leaders are introducing themselves to Akeno. After the third one, a card pops up explaining that they're just going to skip right to the last one.
• Banner of the Stars: The intro shows pictures of the various military commanders involved in the campaign, along with their name, rank, title, and fleet commanded
• In episode 7 ofTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann when Kamina and Simon meet their soon to be allies.
• At the end of the English opening ofPokémon Diamond and Pearl: Galactic Battles, there is a scene dedicated to Ash's party Pokémon (of the time) suddenly shouting out their names. Later on, starting with the episode "The Lonely Snover!", said Introdump is removed in favor of a revised, updated opening that includes scenes from the Japanese openings of "High Touch!" and "Pillars of Friendship!".

Comic Books

• G.I. Joe was particularly fond of this one, in both the comics and cartoons.
• Transformers did thisquite blatantly (andquite often) in the Marvel comics, almost always as part of aProduct Promotion Parade.
  • Not to mention the live action movie, where the Decepticons perform a roll-call for Megatron across America, and the scene in "exposition alley" where Prime introduces the other Autobots to Sam and Mikaela.
• X-Men comics usually averted this only by spreading it around:Chris Claremont usedTalking Is a Free Action to have everyone announce who they were and what they could do - just not all at once.
  • Ultimate X-Men, however, is not so successful. They do intro dump withevery other sentence, to the point where is becomes crossed withDepartment of Redundancy Department. It isjust that bad.
• Elf Quest does this in the first issue; while the characters are in different areas, they're all called with "sending" (telepathy) and drawn in a single panel, each with their name. The only ones absent are the chief who calls them and the few characters who'd been introduced in the Universe.

Fan Works

• Generally inevitably in stories taking place in other time-periods than the source material. AHarry Potter fic about his father's time at Hogwarts (for example) requires alot of new characters (both students and teachers) to fill the world. Inexperienced authors also often introduce too many original characters at once.

Film

• InThe Sound of Music, Captain Von Trapp has trained his children to march around and Intro Dump themselves at the sound of a whistle: "Liesl! Friedrich! Louisa! Kurt! Brigitta! Marta! Gretel!"
• The opening credits ofThe Dirty Dozen has a roll call of all the "Dozen" as they stand before Major Reissman(Lee Marvin). An MP reads each members name and his prison sentence while his face is in closeup.
• Serenity has a particularly elegant one to reintroduce the cast aboard the ship.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I does this in the second scene in an info dump meant to cover plot holes left by the previous movies; Bill Weasley in particular manages to claw his way out of the memory hole.

Live-Action TV

• The title sequence toPower Rangers Samurai includes the Rangers shouting out their names. (Depending on the season, bothPower Rangers andSuper Sentai involve large amounts of name-shouting throughIn the Name of the Moon andTransformation Name Announcement, but these aren't really for the purpose of introducing anyone.)
• Zoom's theme song is always one of these, dumping both the names of the revolving door cast and the show's mailing address.
• Cambot! Gypsy! Tom Servo!Crooooooooooooooow!
• "Hello, Bruce!"
• Mouseketeer Roll Call!
• The Gen2 opener ofSkins does thistwice in the same episode; first when everybody is allocated their classes in the gym hall, and then during the name-and-something-about-yourself bit in Sociology class.
• Viper did this quite often, where a character would explain in length something mundane the other characters already knew, just to 'expose' it to the audience. It was often just awkward.

Literature

• TheBabysitters Club does this in the beginning of each book, to the point where the first two chapters are completely formulaic- the first chapter will establish the main character and the plot, the second chapter will be a club meeting and will describe each character. It's easy to just skip the first two chapters and still comprehend what's going on.
• Ditto withAnimorphs. In fact, most serial Scholastic books probably begin with an introdump.
• In Chapter 3 ofNine Princes in Amber, the amnesiac main character stumbles onto a deck of cards bearing the images of his 12 living siblings. This simultaneously jogs his memory and serves to allow the author to name each sibling, physically describe them, and tell the reader what the protagonist thinks about them.
• After the second book in theHouse of Night series, this happens in every book. Usually with the same stock descriptors, such as describing Jack and Damien as gay, describing Erin and Shaunee being exactly alike except for their race, describing Zoey's best friend Stevie Rae, and in later books, describing Aphrodite.

Theatre

• The first third of the musicalStarlight Express is one giant Intro Dump, where each of the 20+ characters gets at least a verse to introduce themselves.
• In the original production ofStarmites, the titular band of heroes had four members aside from their leader, and they briefly introduced themselves toAscendedFangirl Eleanor in theirWe Are Song. Four names, each followed by "At your service, miss!" isn't so bad and is a pretty concise introduction, but subsequent youth theater productions have expanded the mites' ranks to sometimes as many astwenty kids. And they all say their names in the song. Every. Last. One of them.
• The song "Jacob & Sons" inJoseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (originally the opening number) introduces all 12 sons by name.
  • An early song idea forJesus Christ Superstar would have done the same with the 12 Apostles.
• "It Sucks to Be Me" introduces the residents ofAvenue Q along with their various grievances.

Web Comics

• Sluggy Freelance plays it straight up in this comic where the main character is dumped in a magic school against his will.http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050828
• Last Res0rt doesn't do this immediately... until the titular Reality Show's Series Premiere, whichintroduces all the players in short order. Mostly justified in that, well, it's what Reality Shows DO, even if we already know a few of the players that were introduced earlier.
• This page ofMurder She Writes.

Western Animation

• TheFuturama movieBender's Big Score begins with a role call of the main cast - just in case viewers forgot who was who in the years since the show went off the air, or for the benefit of some poor schlub who bought the DVD without seeing the show first.
• InSuperfriends, Lex Luthor would frequently introdump the Legion of Doom. This was memorably parodied in aCartoon Network commercial.
• The Backyardigans has anexpositoryopening song which begins with the five main characters introducing themselves.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! had an Intro Dump during its opening sequence as well, with the six members of the titular Hyperforce (if Chiro counts as one) shouting out their names.
• The first episode ofMetalocalypse quotes the not-veryExpository Theme Tune: "Gentlemen: Skwisgar Skwigelf, taller than a tree. Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee. William Murderface Murderface Murderface.Pickles the Drummer, doodeley-doo, ding-dong, doodeley-doodeley-doo. Nathan Explosion. I'm afraid that's all we know, gentlemen."
• Transformers, as pictured above. Heck, their wikihas a page just for this.
  • Any episode of theTransformers Generation 1 cartoon introducing a new subgroup will have a scene where all of them gets a line or two and says their name (such as "Heavy Metal War" where Scrapper feels the need to call out all the Constructicons instead of just saying "We're all here.")
  • Beast Wars opening 2 parter has LOTS of this. First the Maximals picking their own new names (Based off their beast modes). Every transformation sequence in the two parter is also this, with a character being zoomed upon, saying his name and activation code as he transforms.
  • Transformers Animated has a scene in the first episode where most of the Decepticons are named and show off their personalities.
  • Transformers: Robots in Disguise does this in "Battle Protocol!" while the Autobot Brothers are responding to Optimus Prime.
  • Theopening sequence to every episode ofTransformers Cybertron has Optimus Prime announce six Autobots' names.
• Parodied in the Simpsons episodeThe Twisted World of Marge Simpson. Cletus buys 300 pretzels to feed his children, and then proceeds to call them all out of the house by name...all twenty-six of them. And then they're never mentioned again.

• Trope
• Pacing Problems
• Just for Pun
• Intro Dump