I just recently became aware of the Wilhelm Scream, an audio phenomenon in which the exact same girly-man scream has been used in a staggering amount of movies since its first appearance in the fifties. The above video charts its use, starting with The Charge at Feather River when it is first uttered by its namesake, Wilhelm the cowboy. It is most notably used in a huge amount of LucasFilm movies.

While the video is pretty good, it's by no means comprehensive. Apparently Tarantino is quite fond of it as well.

But the comments on the Digg post where I found this bring up the topic of recycled noises in games, and the commonplace occurrence of games and movies using each other's noises, as well. Particularly DOOM, which I imagine used one of the cheapest and most common sound libraries. After hearing them hundreds of times while we play, we cannot help but be jarred by them in other media. That happens to me constantly, usually with noises from the pinkies or cacodemons.

I would love see a compilation video of recycled game noises. Someone get on that, yeah? Eliza Gauger

Original Digg post [Digg]