The xylophone is a pitched percussion instrument with tuned wooden bars struck by mallets, with roots in Southeast Asia and Africa before becoming a staple of Western orchestras, school music rooms and early cartoon scoring. Its short, bright attack made it ideal for animation footsteps, twinkles and comic emphasis in the twentieth century, and that association carried into games, apps and online videos. Short recorded clips are now reused as notifications, transitions and meme punctuation where a clean, instantly recognisable musical sting is needed.