History Main / DisappearingBox

* There's an interesting version in the NeilGaiman short story "The Queen of Knives". The magician makes the child's grandmother disappear (after stabbing knives and swords through the box), but she never comes back.

* In ''Series/{{Columbo}}'', episode "Now You See Him," the water tank escape act that the Great Santini uses to establish his alibi when he shoots Jesse Jerome has got some traces of this. What the audience sees: He scrunches himself up into a water crate that is then sealed shut and tightly secured with chains and padlocks. The crate is hoisted up into the air, and dumped into a water tank at the rear of the stage. After a few minutes go by, the crate is returned to the front of the stage, and is opened, to reveal Santini's daughter, while Santini reveals himself to be one of the black-suited and masked assistants on stage performing during the intermission. What really happens is that the wooden crate has a false bottom, and is positioned over a trapdoor when it is on the stage floor. Santini hides in a break room underneath and changes outfits while the crate is in the tank, then sneaks back up to the stage. It is a 15 minute waiting period, so he uses the crate as an opportunity to pose as a waiter to get to Jerome's office and shoot him.

* An old ''ComicBook/LittleLulu'' had Tubby watching a magician's show. When the magician makes Annie apparently turn into a bird by such a box, he volunteers to be the next person inside-- and finds that it uses a trapdoor to drop him under the stage. He decides to sneak back into the theatre to see what the magician "turned him into"-- and is motified to find that it's a big fat jack o' lantern.

* In one episode of ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', the original black ranger Zack performed this magic act for some local children. During the act a monster attacked, so Zack had to use the box as cover to teleport out - and made it part of the show.

* ''KamenRiderDouble'' had an arc centering around a magician who used a [[TransformationTrinket Gaia Memory]] to turn invisible and pull off this trick; the main conflict came because she didn't want to give it up, and Isaka wanted it to kill her in order to "mature" so he could add its power to his own.

-->--'''Becky''', ''Detective Barbie: The Mystery of the Carnival Caper''

* Played with in ''TheTommyknockers''. Hilly Brown's disappearing trick was actually a machine that teleported people to Altair IV, a [[ForbiddenPlanet forbidden planet]].

* Played with in an episode of ''{{Matlock}}''. The lovely assistant goes in and disappears...only to replaced by the corpse of the magician's scumbag manager.

-->Dale: I'm telling you Hank, it's done with twins!

Since it is a DiscreditedTrope and easy to perform, children are usually doing this magic trick. A magician will have to really make it presentable or impossible in order to wow the audience.

Related: SmokeOut

* Subverted in ''Film/ThePrestige''. One of the magicians creates a turn that appears to be a disappearing box, but is actually a simple trapdoor [[spoiler:that drowns the original magician straight after [[OpeningACanOfClones cloning]] him to the back of the auditorium to finish the act]].

* CirqueDuSoleil's had quite a bit of fun spoofing this trope over the years.
** ''{{Mystere}}'': Brian Le Petit chooses a man from the audience to step into a crate for this. [[spoiler: Or so Brian leads us to expect. It's a trap -- he locks the guy in it so he can head into the audience to woo his date! Oh, and then he loses the key...]]

** ''{{Zarkana}}'': Pocus the clown is put into a box for this trick, but with the protagonist Zark [[MagiciansAreWizards having lost his actual magical abilities]], it takes a while to pull off. Once Pocus ''is'' vanished, he reappears in a [[HumanCannonball nearby cannon]]...

** ''BananaShpeel'': Two boxes, one on each side of the stage. The idea is to "teleport" ''one'' performer to the other, but by the time the act is done, it seems half the cast has been through the ringer.

* In ''Series/Columbo'', episode "Now You See Him," the water tank escape act that the Great Santini uses to establish his alibi when he shoots Jesse Jerome has got some traces of this. What the audience sees: He scrunches himself up into a water crate that is then sealed shut and tightly secured with chains and padlocks. The crate is hoisted up into the air, and dumped into a water tank at the rear of the stage. After a few minutes go by, the crate is returned to the front of the stage, and is opened, to reveal Santini's daughter, while Santini reveals himself to be one of the black-suited and masked assistants on stage performing during the intermission. What really happens is that the wooden crate has a false bottom, and is positioned over a trapdoor when it is on the stage floor. Santini hides in a break room underneath and changes outfits while the crate is in the tank, then sneaks back up to the stage. It is a 15 minute waiting period, so he uses the crate as an opportunity to pose as a waiter to get to Jerome's office and shoot him.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/TheDarkKnight I'm gonna make this OCD detective disappear.]]]]

* Done in ''KittyNorville'', the box seems to take her to another world/dimension.

* Featured in the magician's act in ''[[{{Cranford}} Return to Cranford]]'', with a heartwarming twist.

* {{Penn and Teller}} do a version of the box trick, where Teller is apparently dissembled into his head, legs, and hand. First, they do the trick normally. Then, they use completely transparent boxes to show how it's done. (And, because this is Penn and Teller, the second run through manages to be even more awesome. Mainly because it shows how much skill it takes to actually pull it off.)
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H81A3bU68k View it here.]]

* {{Penn and Teller}} do a version of the box trick, where Teller is apparently dissembled into his head, legs, and hand. First, they do the trick normally. Then, they use completely transparent boxes to show how it's done. (And, because this is Penn and Teller, the second run through manages to be even more awesome.)

** ''Banana Shpeel'': Two boxes, one on each side of the stage. The idea is to "teleport" ''one'' performer to the other, but by the time the act is done, it seems half the cast has been through the ringer.

* In ''{{Leverage}}'', they perform this trick in order to get the CEO up to unlock a door requiring a retinal scan. Their way of doing it: they switch his box with an empty one when it passes behind a sheet.

* Variations are used in ''DamnYankees'' for Joe Boyd's metamorphosis into Joe Hardy at the beginning, and back at the end, sometimes with quick-change costumes, other times with separate actors.

* ''KamenRiderDouble'' had an arc centering around a magician who used a [[TransformationTrinket Gaia Memory]] to turn invisible and pull off this trick; the main conflict came because she didn't want to give it up, and [[CompleteMonster Isaka]] wanted it to kill her in order to "mature" so he could add its power to his own.

* The WoodyAllen story "The Kugelmass Episode" has the eponymous character use such a device to be put in the book ''MadameBovary'' so he can have an affair with her. HilarityEnsues.

* Played with in the segment directed by WoodyAllen for ''New York Stories'': The protagonist's (overbearing) mother is invited onstage and enters the box, but doesn't reappear. But later on, she magically materializes in giant form over New York and proceeds to embarrass his son.

* Done in ''WesternAnimation/MaxAndRuby'' with Max as the volunteer and Ruby as the magician.

* Subverted in ''ThePrestige''. One of the magicians creates a turn that appears to be a disappearing box, but is actually a simple trapdoor [[spoiler:that drowns the original magician straight after [[OpeningACanOfClones cloning]] him to the back of the auditorium to finish the act]].

* The ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode "Sleight of Hank".