Law & Order Dun-Dun Sound
Trademark: Law & Order Dun-Dun Sound
First Used: September 1990
First Registered: September 2006
Current Owner: NBC UNIVERSAL MEDIA, LLC [1]
Trademark Type: non-traditional trademark; sound mark
Primarily Associated With: entertainment services, namely a series of on-going dramatic television programs
Brief (and likely incomplete) History: [2]
You sit down to watch TV: “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.” And then you hear that recognizable and iconic sound: “Dun-Dun.” Without looking at the screen, you know right away that Law & Order® must be on.
Officially known as “The Clang” and sometimes also referred to by fans as “Chung-Chung,” the "Dun-Dun" sound was created by Mike Post, a prolific TV theme composer and sound designer, also known for his work on other successful TV shows, such as The A-Team, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue. Post was tasked with creating a sound that would effectively signal scene changes and set the tone for the series, encapsulating the seriousness and drama of the legal and criminal proceedings depicted in the show. The iconic sound is a mashup of several different sampled noises, including a jail door slamming, a hammer hitting an anvil, different drum noises, and (get ready for this one) 500 Japanese men stomping their feet on a wooden floor, among other synthesized sounds.
Over the years, the “Dun-Dun” sound has become one of the most recognizable audio cues in television history. Even decades after its creation, the “Dun-Dun” sound remains an integral part of the Law & Order series, continuing to be used in new episodes and spin-offs.
Interested in learning about other TV-related trademark registrations? Check out our posts on the NBC Chimes sound mark and the Hanna-Barbera Star motion mark.
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[1] NBC Law & Order, https://www.nbc.com/law-and-order.
[2] This is What Justice Sounds Like, NBC, available at https://www.nbc.com/law-and-order-hq/exclusives/dundun-button; Law & Order turns 25 today, as does the greatest sound effect in TV history, Vox, posted September 13, 2015, and available at https://www.vox.com/2015/9/13/9313391/law-and-order-sound; The story behind the famous ‘dun-dun’ sound on ‘Law & Order’, TODAY, posted February 24, 2022, and available at https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/law-order-dun-dun-sound-story-famous-noise-rcna17526.
[3] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 3,137,680, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=3137680&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.