It closed the book, flashed before the credits and made the record needle finish its slow journey around the disc. Couples rode off into sunsets, criminals were locked up, arias swelled. And then: poof -- it was over.

That was before sequels, syndication, spinoffs and sampling. It was before remixing, rerunning, recycling and re-releasing.

These days, you can't turn on the radio without hearing a new song sampling an old loop; you can't watch basic cable without catching an old rerun in syndication; you can't hit a movie theater without seeing a preview for a sequel; and you can't walk down Broadway without finding a movie turned into a musical, often destined to be turned back into a movie.

You might call it the end of The End.

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REPEAT, FAST-FORWARD

Sequels and homages are a time-tested tradition. Shakespeare wrote three sequels to Henry VI, one of which was Richard III. Hollywood has spun out variations on themes since the days of the Keystone Kops. Musicians have nicked riffs from other songs for as long as we've been recording music, and surely before.

But never has the process spun out in such a dizzying, multitentacled frenzy.

Let's take "Legally Blonde." The Reese Witherspoon movie was a box-office smash, so there was soon "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde." Then the movie was adapted into a Broadway musical, and the Broadway musical was shown on MTV. DVDs were released, a cast album recorded, a tie-in Barbie sold and a series of young adult novels put on the shelf.

It became "Legally Blonde: The Juggernaut."

That reflects the new economy of movies: Most don't make back their cost in theaters. They do it later in other markets, including DVDs. And because they're so expensive, studios look to formulas to cut their risk.

"The average Hollywood movie is about $65 million," says Todd Berliner, associate professor of film studies at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. "When you're talking about that much money and the fact that most movies do not make money in theatrical release, you have to use some measures to stabilize the risk. Genre, stars and sequels -- those are very potent tools for doing that."

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SLIGHTLY REVISED UNDER THE SUN

It's not just Hollywood that's risk-averse these days as cross-branding takes hold and established monikers extend themselves. Your Tabasco pepper sauce doesn't end at the dinner table; it shows up in your Slim Jim meat snack. And your minty-fresh mouthwash? It goes beyond the bathroom and makes a cameo in your chewing gum.

In the entertainment industry, record sales are down, TV audiences are scattered and entertainment options are nearly unlimited. So it makes perfect sense to rely on proven sellers.

Want to make sure your new single gets traction? Why not use a successful hook from a '70s disco song? Got a book you'd like a teen girl to read? Try a "Gossip Girl" imitation. Hoping to reach "Sex and the City" fans? Give them their choice between the original book, the upcoming movie, the TBS reruns or two close TV cousins, "Lipstick Jungle" and "Cashmere Mafia." And don't forget the DVDs and soundtrack.

The author Jonathan Lethem has even encouraged this kind of artistic thievery with his Promiscuous Materials Project. Lethem provides short stories and song lyrics for $1 apiece to filmmakers, dramatists and songwriters -- a sort of open-source code for artists. Likewise, David Byrne and Brian Eno have offered up two tracks from their album "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" for online remixing and sampling.

Even material that got a lukewarm reception the first time around is now considered ripe for redo. Think "The Dukes of Hazzard" starring Jessica Simpson or the popular adaptation of the movie flop "Xanadu" on Broadway. If it bombed the first time around, it's still not immune from a multimillion-dollar reproduction.

And if the rinse, repeat cycle starts to wear thin, Hollywood can simply reboot and start again. "Star Trek" is getting a prequel just like "Star Wars" and "Batman" did. "Superman" was reimagined with a new cast and darker themes.

The math is pretty simple: In Hollywood, a sequel can generally be counted on to return two-thirds of the profits of the original. The question is, why does it sell so well?

In a word: comfort.

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THE JOY OF THE SAME

"Audiences can have conflicted relationships to sequels," says Paul Budra, an associate professor of English at Simon Fraser University in Canada and co-editor of "Part Two: Reflections on the Sequel." "They want to see the character, world, or story again, but they obviously don't want exact repetition. They want the same, but with some variation."

Done correctly, recycling can be a beautiful thing. Without sequels, we wouldn't have "The Godfather II," "Terminator 2," "Aliens" or "The Empire Strikes Back." Without sampling, there'd be no "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve.

But when critics and fans talk about sequels, they're usually talking about disappointment. For Hollywood, the general formula means taking what worked in the first movie -- the stars, the violence, the sex -- and amplifying it.

If the remake rarely beats the original, why do audiences keep watching?

In simple terms, they are hoping to recapture the joy of experiencing a good movie for the first time. Nostalgia can set in almost immediately.

"I don't think there's anything qualitatively different about people who see 'Legally Blonde' as a movie and then on Broadway than for an opera lover to see 'La Traviata' performed by Pavarotti, and then again by Placido Domingo," says Berliner.

Seeing something that's known to be appealing reduces the viewer's risk as much as the studio's. If you know you enjoy "Star Trek," you don't have to bother reading reviews.

And perhaps there's a comfort in familiarity -- think of it as a bedtime story, repeated each night.

In these uncomfortable times, who can be disappointed by a sequel like that?

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Lisa Tolin is asap's deputy editor. For her sequel, she'll become deputy editor of the AP's Lifestyles department.

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