History Main / AllClothUnravels

* This happened to WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'s swimsuit in the Al Brodax short "The Bathing Beasts".

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainFlamingo'': At the end of "Portrait of a Superhero", just when Milo is about to take a family portrait in a nice outfit, Avi founds a blue string in the floor and starts to unravel. It was revealed that the string that he was unraveling was actually Milo's outfit, revealing his [[GoofyPrintUnderwear goofy flamingo underwear]] during the photo shoot.

* In ''Manga/CaseClosed'' a series of [[HilarityEnsues bizarre and improbable events]] results in Haibara's sweater unraveling until she's down to her underwear, while trapped in a freezing cold delivery truck.

* This is the very first thing that happens to poor ComicBook/SpiderMan after the entire ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' debacle, when he tackles three female criminals, one of them being able to control threads. He's forced to don web undies and has the entire incident shown off across New York. It gets worse when it turns out the web formula is a little ''too strong''.

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opjrAAECrRw an episode]] of the German TV show ''Series/BerlinBerlin'', 2 girls sneak into a nightclub with one of them wearing a crochet skirt. In the process, the skirt gets caught in a window and the obvious happens.

* Happens to ''ComicBook/LittleAudrey'' at the end of one short story. She walks on oblivious as her panties are on display.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'': Happens to Rossweisse in a short special when she's having a study session to help Issei pass his exams. After he saves her from falling out the window, he notices a string loose and tries to pull it out, causing her suit to get shredded to bits and leaving her in underwear and stockings. Rossweisse then starts crying in embarrassment over [[DefiledForever how she can't get married now]].

* The mummy variant happens in ''WesternAnimation/TheMrMenShow'' episode "Science".

* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}''

* In the ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'' episode "Snob in the Grass," Samantha Stephens used this trope to get revenge on a RichBitch.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E7TheSpaceMuseum The Space Museum]]", the eponymous museum is labyrinthine enough that Ian unwinds Barbara's cardigan in order to use the wool à la Theseus. To be fair, he is shown to have some trouble starting the sweater's disassembly, and Barbara has to take it from him and pick open a starting point; but after that it's just treated as a ball of yarn with a long single thread (which, as usual with string in a labyrinth, runs out too soon).
** At the beginning of the Doctor's fourth regeneration in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E1Castrovalva]]", the Fifth Doctor completely unravels his [[Creator/TomBaker previous incarnation's]] [[ScarfOfAsskicking scarf]] while wandering about the TARDIS hallways searching for the Zero room, presumably so he could find his way back to the console room.

* The video for Korn's ''Coming Undone'' has the whole band - instruments and all - [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSJXle3LP_Q&t=2m35s go through this with the aid of CGI]]. At first, it's just the fingers on Jonathan Davis' right hand but, by the end of the song, all four of them (at the time; Brian "Head" Welch hadn't returned to the band yet) are just a haphazard pile of vanishing ribbons on the ground.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Gargamel's robe gets unraveled in this fashion at least twice in ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'', not to mention Sassette's overalls and Brainy's bandage wrapping.
* Exaggerated in the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarepants'' episode "The String". Squidward has a loose string on his shirt, which [=SpongeBob=] pulls. It ends up unraveling his entire shirt...no, scratch that, ''everyone's'' shirts. [[SerialEscalation And it doesn't stop there.]] In fact, it doesn't stop until [=SpongeBob=] unravels the entire ''universe,'' and is then unraveled by Patrick, making Patrick the only living thing in existence. [[BizarroEpisode Yeah.]]

* The ''Homer Price'' story "[[http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:DlRSOxNW774J:www.runyonsway.net/Homer%2520Price/04.%2520MYSTERY%2520YARN.doc+World%27s+Champion+String+Saver&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Mystery Yarn]]" has a woman mysteriously beat two men to become World's Champion String Saver, even though her ball of string was smaller. [[spoiler:The story doesn't explain, but astute readers will notice that when she starts unrolling it, she's wearing a "robin's egg-blue dress with the pink trim at the bottom", which is later described as a "robin's-egg-blue blouse with the pink skirt" and finally a "dress with the robin's-egg-blue trim at the neck".]]

* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' a series of [[HilarityEnsues bizarre and improbable events]] results in Haibara's sweater unraveling until she's down to her underwear, while trapped in a freezing cold delivery truck.

* In the film ''Film/MouseHunt'', Lee Evans's character is stripped by a string factory when he damages the machine's fuse box. For anyone curious, read the [[note]]it was knitted upside down so it would unravel from the bottom up[[/note]] or see [[http://www.knittingtipsbyjudy.com/cel2.html here]] for how it was done.

* Gargamel's robe gets unraveled in this fashion at least twice in ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'', not to mention Sassette's overalls and Brainy's bandage wrapping.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1615423198038665400
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[[quoteright:300:[[ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_threads.png]]]]

* Happens to ComicBook/LittleAudrey at the end of one short story. She walks on oblivious as her panties are on display.

* The old comic "G.I. Joe" (not to be confused with the famous [[Franchise/GIJoe Hasbro's franchise]]) featured the character (created by Dan De Carlo) Wendy the Waf, a blonde military girl. In a story, "Eyes Right", she models for a new Waf uniform that is wrapped in a blade of a plane, reducing the uniform to a mini-skirt.

* In the comic strip adaptation of ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'', Betty asks how Wilma knows her dress is unraveling. Wilma replies that the man following them is a string collector, and he has accumulated a very large ball of string.

* Happens in ''WesternAnimation/TheManCalledFlintstone'' when Barney Rubble tries to use Fred's tie to get down a 100-foot drop from a prison cell window. The entire tie unravels into a single thread as Barney tried to climb back up it.

* In Creator/LaurelAndHardy's ''Film/WayOutWest'', Stan is helping Ollie get a locket off his neck — Stan starts pulling at a loose thread and soon unravels most of Ollie's underwear.
* In ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'', the mummy version happens when Rocky is unwrapped.

* The kids of ''Film/TheMonsterSquad'' dispose of The Mummy using this method.
* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the Joker sticks a grenade into a prone bank employee's mouth. The guy can only watch helplessly as Joker strolls away to his getaway vehicle, trailing an unravelling thread from his jacket, which pulls the grenade pin once it gets slammed in the door. [[spoiler:It was just a smoke grenade. The guy is not amused.]]

* Happens to the main character Josefine in the end of "Should a Schoolgirl Tell". A strand of cloth gets caught in a chair, unravelling her skirt. She walks on obliviously while flashing her panties.

* In Creator/ShirleyJackson's very slightly autobiographical book ''Literature/RaisingDemons'', on a family trip to New York, 6-year-old Sally ties the loose thread of her knitted hat to a seat in the train before getting off: "I'd like to see ''that'' train get away," she says. Things don't get really challenging until the hotel turns out to have a revolving door.
* In the ''Literature/{{Mahabharata}}'', Yuddhisthra has lost ''everything'' in a dice game against his brother-in-law Duryodhana. Including his (and his brothers') wife Draupadi. Duryodhana and Karna want to "put Draupadi in her place" for scorning them, so they [[AttemptedRape try to rape her]] in front of their court (and her now-defeated husbands). She prays to Krishna for help, and since she had once bandaged a wound on his finger using a piece of her sari, he returns the favor: as Dushasana pulls on her sari, it's extended until the Kauravas just give up and stop.

* The ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' episode "Wizards vs. Werewolves" includes the mummy variation.
* It happens to Turbo's poncho in ''Series/LiftOff''. Unlike other examples, however, they are able to get Ricardo to repair it before too much damage is done.

* One recurring sketch by Armstrong and Miller involves an accident-prone presenter who continually ends up destroying priceless historical artifacts. Guess what happens in the one where there's a centuries-old tapestry.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "The Space Museum," the titular museum is labyrinthine enough that Ian unwinds Barbara's cardigan in order to use the wool à la Theseus. To be fair, he is shown to have some trouble starting the sweater's disassembly, and Barbara has to take it from him and pick open a starting point; but after that it's just treated as a ball of yarn with a long single thread (which, as usual with string in a labyrinth, runs out too soon).
** At the beginning of the Doctor's fourth regeneration, the Fifth Doctor completely unravels his [[Creator/TomBaker previous incarnation's]] [[ScarfOfAsskicking scarf]] while wandering about the TARDIS hallways searching for the Zero room, presumably so he could find his way back to the console room.
* In a (possibly ad-libbed) bit from the opening of one episode of ''Series/TheSonnyAndCherShow'', Cher finds a stray thread on her dress and quips that it's held together by three threads, so stay tuned to see whether she finds the two others!

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opjrAAECrRw an episode]] of the German TV show ''Berlin Berlin'', 2 girls sneak into a nightclub with one of them wearing a crochet skirt. In the process, the skirt gets caught in a window and the obvious happens.
* ''Series/{{Qi}}'' featured an un-knitting machine invented by Imogen Hedges, on the 'K' season Christmas episode, "Kris Kringle". The machine unravelled a scarf that Alan Davies was wearing and wound the yarn back up into a ball.
* In the ''Series/FullHouse'' episode "Wrong-Way Tanner", D.J.'s necklace is stuck to the sweater Steve is wearing, while Stephanie videotapes her family for her school project. Once Stephanie makes it clear she intends to share her videotaped footage to her classmates, D.J. starts chasing her, leaving behind a trail of sweater thread in her wake, while Steve futilely holds onto the thread. When the Tanner family views the clip late in the episode, the sweater is shown in the footage to have been already in tatters and Steve mentions that his mother can use the remaining parts of the sweater -- the sleeves -- as leg-warmers.

* Webcomic/KarateBears [[http://www.karatebears.com/2012/12/watch-me-unravel.html do this from time to time.]]
* According to ''Webcomic/TheBookOfBiff'', [[http://thebookofbiff.com/2012/10/03/1642-undone/ "String theory states the sweater can be destroyed by pulling a single thread as distance is increased in opposite directions."]]

%%* Happens at least once to WesternAnimation/KickButtowski.

* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'': In "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty", Kitty unravels a comforter of the bed and Taz has to knit it back together.