History Main / AirVentPassageway

* Used in Literature/AgeOfFire, where the two dragon siblings escape from a raid on their home cave by escaping through naturally formed air passageways.

*** Also worth noting, spike notices, and in a singsong voice says “some-one's-in-the-cei-ling”.

* ''FinalFantasyVII''

* In ''ElGoonishShive'', Noah uses air vents in the process of hunting a magical creature and the trope is discussed in the commentary.

* Classic ''{{Traveller}}'' supplement ''Action Aboard: Adventures on the King Richard'' by FASA. An entire section of the book details how the air ducts can be used to move around the ship.

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''. Fry and Bender try to escape from a brig through a steam pipe vent. Unfortunately, the steam pipe is full of steam. At least they got a good steam out of it.
** Also {{Lampshaded}} in TheMovie. While trying to destroy a "Death Star", Al Gore's head in a jar flies a through an air vent actually ''labeled'' "Achilles' Vent", lasers a-blasting, successfully destroying it.
*** In ''Bender's Game'', Fry and the other travel around [[BigBad Mom's]] factory through a tube that sends chickens to the Nibblonians. It works, but they have to shove their way through a lot of chickens.

However, most attempts to sneak in or out via air duct aren't very successful since people tend to be fairly large and ducts tend to be fairly small. There have been numerous cases where enterprising criminals have attempted to rob a store by sneaking through the ducts end up getting stuck. The usual ending is the embarrassed criminal being rescued by the fire department and then promptly handed over to the authorities.

* Attempted unsuccessfully by a [[TooDumbToLive dumb criminal]] who got stuck in a pizzeria's air vent while attempting to rob the place after hours. On top of that, he was a former employee who was recently fired.
** Successfully done by serial killer Ted Bundy. While in prison awaiting trial on one of many murders he was suspected in, he climbed through the roof of his cell (he had dieted and lost enough weight to make this possible), crawled across the floorboards into the adjoining warden's apartment (the warden and his wife were out at a New Year's Eve party), and simply walked out of the apartment into freedom. He was caught several weeks later, but not before adding several more victims to his list.

* In RealLife, small animals tend to be more successful at this trope than humans (they're small enough to get inside easily, they're light enough that the ducts can support their weight and they don't make as thunderous a noise while they move around).
** Depending on the animal, they can still be very loud as claws or nails make a racket running on metal.

* In JohnCWright's ''FugitivesOfChaos'', Vanity finds an accessible air vent. On the other hand, she has an ability to find secret passageways that weren't there before she looked.

* A variation happens in the Italian movie ''{{Diabolik}}'' (featured on the last episode of ''[[MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]''), where the title character scales up a castle wall using a pair of devices consisting of three hand-activated suction cups attached to a handle. Of course, Mike and the Bots have a field day with it.

* In ''[[LoisAndClark Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman]]'''s DieHardOnAnX episode "Fly Hard", Jimmy Olsen manages to escape unseen into the air vent system when terrorists initially take over the Daily Planet. Once he exits the system, however, it doesn't take long before he's found and neutralized.

* Valve [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on this trope in ''Left4Dead2'' with the ever-epic lines of Ellis; In Dark Carnival, he says "if there's one thing video games have taught me, it's that good shit comes from crawlin' through vents". (Unlike in ''{{Half-Life}}'' the vents do not lead to anything particularly important, however.)

* In "Turnabout Prophecy" of the AceAttorney manga, this is averted. The ventilation pipes themselves are too small to crawl in, but it is possible to crawl in the area where the pipes are.

* The only reason the title character's client in the third case of ''Apollo Justice: AceAttorney'' is accused of the murder is that it's a LockedRoomMystery and he's the only one small enough to fit through the vents (where they found his fingerprints). He did escape the crime scene through the vents, but didn't commit the murder.

* While searching an enemy ship in ''FairyTail'' the Exceeds (who are about the size of a cat) are shown crawling through an air vent, wondering about the necessity of it and complaining about how narrow it is. When they ask why they're in their instead of searching the rooms like a normal person, Happy says [[RuleOfCool "No particular reason"]].

* Used in AgeOfFire, where the two dragon siblings escape from a raid on their home cave by escaping through naturally formed air passageways.

* Parodied in ''TheAdventuresOfSamuraiCat'', in which a cruise ship's air vents "... appear to have been ''designed'' for covert transportation." -- "That would explain the moving walkways and vending machines."

->''2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.''

* Parodied in ''{{The Adventures of Samurai Cat}}'', in which a cruise ship's air vents "... appear to have been ''designed'' for covert transportation." -- "That would explain the moving walkways and vending machines."

* Referenced in TerryPratchett's ''OnlyYouCanSaveMankind'':

* In JohnCWright's ''{{Fugitives of Chaos}}'', Vanity finds an accessible air vent. On the other hand, she has an ability to find secret passageways that weren't there before she looked.

* In a ''{{Dilbert}}'' strip, Alice tells naive intern Asok "You must climb through the Jeffries tubes to reach the furnace before it fries us all!" He gets stuck half-way in, but that was her plan: "Today, Asok learns that life is not like ''StarTrek''."
** With Asok's lower body handing out of the vent, Alice puts up a sign that reads "Spank the Intern $.50"

* In ''{{Dilbert}}'', [[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-03-20/ Asok learned]] that this was a bad idea the hard way.

* In ''[[LoisAndClark Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman]]'''s DieHardOnAnX episode "Fly Hard", Jimmy Olsen manages to escape unseen into the air vent system when terrorists initially take over the Daily Planet. One he exits the system, however, it doesn't take long before he's found and neutralized.

* Partially subverted in ''{{Wild ARMs|1}}'': only Hanpan, the little mouse sprite belonging to one of the main characters, is small enough to navigate the air vents.

* Inverted in ''[[Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries Calvin and Hobbes: The Series]]'': Andy and Sherman are ''captured'' by a [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters possessed]] air vent.

* In an episode of ''StargateAtlantis'', Zelenka crawls through a vent to turn the city's power back on, although in this case the air vents are the same size as you'd find in the real world so he did have a very hard time moving around. In ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', the aforementioned team uses this trope ''every'' time they're on a Goa'uld mothership.

* Justified in ''{{The X-Files}}'' episodes "Squeeze" and "Tooms", since the killer -- Eugene Victor Tooms -- is a mutant whose power is to be capable of squeezing through tiny openings.

* ''{{Unnatural History}}'' subverts this hysterically. Jasper tries to think of a creative way out of the room he's trapped in, and the camera focuses on a air vent duct. The next shot show him struggling futilely to pry the vent free.

* ''NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'': Many ASimplePlan requires use of the school's elaborate, labyrinthine air ducts, which eventually gave out in the GrandFinale.

* ''{{Mythbusters}}'' tested this trick along with a variety of other cat-burglar techniques. Jamie used the common technique of using powerful hand-held magnets to climb the vertical shaft, only to cause a ''thunderous'' sound as they connected to the vent walls, defying the point of it being a "stealth" technique. Adam, on the other hand, used vacuum "cups" on his hands and feet that would grip the vent. Though it wasn't nearly as noisy, it was far from silent, and the equipment lacked reliability (breaking down several times during the course of the show) and it was tricky to use. Adam himself said that he wouldn't trust his life to such machinery.

* The Australian series ''{{Escape from Jupiter}}'' features a moonbase and space station/makeshift rocket that both feature large air ducts. Of course, they're also likely some sort of Jefferies tubes -- just built in case of need for extended residence.
* Famously {{Lampshaded}} in ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'':

* Lampshaded and subverted in the ''[[TheMiddleman Middleman]]'' episode "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol":

* On the ''{{Friends}}'' episode "The One With the Birth", Phoebe, Susan and Ross get locked in a janitor's closet in the hospital. Phoebe tries to escape through the vent but gets stuck, while Susan and Ross just get let out by the janitor.

* The old ''{{Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea}}'' series was rife with this trope, especially in the later seasons, when it seemed every third episode had a villain or Monster of the Week or regular character evading a villain or [=MotW=] getting into the ventilation system at some point. Played straight for the most part, although somewhat subverted in that the ducts themselves were quite roomy, and the vents were about a yard square or more in size, hinged like a door with a latch that anything brighter than a rock could operate, allowing convenient access.

* Lampshaded on ''{{Leverage}}'': "Looks like Parker's going to have to climb through the air duct again..." Somewhat justified in that Parker is a) a master thief with an extensive knowledge of building layouts, and b) petite.

* ''{{Seinfeld}}'', when George uses an air vent to break into his office after his boss tries to get him to resign by barricading it.

* In an episode of ''StargateAtlantis'', Zelenka crawls through a vent to turn the city's power back on, though in this casse the air vents arethe same size you'd find in the ral world so he had a very hard time moving around. In ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', the aforementioned team uses this trope ''every'' time they're on a Goa'uld mothership.

* In the first season finale of ''ExoSquad'', after taking their attempt to use [[BigBad Phaeton]] as a hostage fails, [[TheSquad Able Squad]] escapes the Brood Chamber via the air ducts. Typhonus responds by sending troops into the tubes; why the tubes were made big enough for Neosapiens to walk around in isn't explained. Then he reroutes the ventilation so the tubes are flooded with poisonous "volcanic gas". Exactly why the heck someone would build a ventilation system that allows that isn't explained either.