History Main / BathroomBreakOut

* In ''DayOfTheTentacle,'' Laverne uses this excuse to get out of her cell and use the Chron-O-John.

* In the book Things Not Seen (no page for it), the main character, who has turned invisible, uses a bathroom to change from winter clothing that lets no invisibility show through, to being naked.

* In ''{{Empowered}}'', Emp talks about how she thought about doing this but decided against it, because it might dissaude crooks from allowing captured heroines to use the bathroom in the future.

* In Dorothy L. Sayer's ''Unnatural Death'', Bunter shadows the (female) suspect all the way to a major London railway station, where he sees her enter the ladies' room. He waits at the door. . .and waits. . . and waits. The suspect, thinking she might be trailed, had earlier that day checked a suitcase containing a black cloth coat and a black felt hat; she put these on, re-packing the case with her fur coat and red straw hat. (Remember, women's hats in those days frequently concealed most of the face.) Hence, Bunter was looking for an empty handed woman in a fur coat and a red straw hat; he never noticed the woman in the black cloth coat and chat carrying a suitcase.

* This was how Mas Selamat, a captured terrorist leader, escaped from custody in Singapore.

Related to GuardsMustBeCrazy.

* In ''TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'', Tuco is captured by Union forces and transported by train, with a Union soldier handcuffed to him as a guard. Using his bathroom break as a pretense to get near the door, he jumps out of the moving train and takes the guard with him.

* General Koskov ditches his KGB bodyguard/minder via the restroom stall window near the start of ''TheLivingDaylights''.

* In the ''GetSmart'' film, after Max is arrested by the Air Marshall (they thought he was a terrorist) he asks to go to the bathroom, where his parachute is to leave the plane. But first he has to get out of the cuffs...

* In ''{{Charmed}}'', Paige, Henry, and Billie are being held hostage in a bank by one of Henry's parolees. Paige tells the parolee that she needs to use the bathroom and he checks with the manager to make sure that there are no windows for her to escape through (not knowing that she is a whitelighter). Once in the bathroom, Paige orbs back to the manor.

* Kate in ''{{Lost}}'' escaped her police escort at the airport this way.
* ''{{CSI}}'' "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom?", the suspect asks for a bathroom break. After taking longer than he should, they bust down the stall door, thinking he escaped, but instead, he committed suicide by suffocating himself with a plastic bag.

* In ''FoylesWar'', a spy manages this on a train. The small-town cop she gets away from says it was like ''TheLadyVanishes''.

* President Uno does this during the ''CodenameKidsNextDoor'' episode "Operation W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E.".

* ''TransformersAnimated'' "Survival of the Fittest" Sari tricks the guard into letting her go to the bathroom, and then escaping by knocking him out when she claimed it wouldn't flush.

* In ''ArrestedDevelopment'', Buster goes to the bathroom then climbs out of the window to get away from Lucille II.

* Subverted in ''BoardwalkEmpire''. Agent Sebso is delivering a witness to another prison in order to protect him. He pulls over the car saying he needs to relieve himself. [[TheMole Sebso]] then kills the witness and hits himself on the head with a rock to make it look like a struggle. When asked later, Sebso says that the witness said he wanted to use the bathroom and then tried to make his escape after Sebso removed his cuffs.

* Subverted in ''AvatarTheLastAirbender''. Toph is captured by Xin Fu and Master Yu, (her old earthbending mentor) in a metal box, and tries to escape by saying that she needs to go to the bathroom. Yu almost falls for it when Xin Fu points out that this is probably a ploy and they ignore her request.

* On ''TheSimpsons'' when Homer was taking Bart to a behavior correction camp Bart escaped by climbing out the window of the restroom at a highway diner.

* Subverted in ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]''. Toph is captured by Xin Fu and Master Yu, (her old earthbending mentor) in a metal box, and tries to escape by saying that she needs to go to the bathroom. Yu almost falls for it when Xin Fu points out that this is probably a ploy and they ignore her request.

Once alone, Bob makes his crafty, and usually narrowly executed, escape through the bathroom window, an [[AirVentEscape air vent]] or some other really unlikely exit. Frequently, the GenreSavvy hero is waiting for them.