History Main / DisappearingBox

* Played with in the segment directed by Creator/WoodyAllen for ''Film/NewYor 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 her son.

* The 1975 ''It's Magic! Magic! Magic! Game'' by Remco have the players as stage magicians, who must perform with their LovelyAssistant the DisappearingBox Illusion, as well as the SawAWomanInHalf and Levitating Assistant illusions.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/TheDarkKnight I'm gonna make this]] [[Series/{{Monk}} OCD detective]] [[Film/TheDarkKnight disappear.]] ''[a few minutes later]'' TADA! He's... ah, he's ''gone''.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/{{Monk}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3magician_5190.jpg]]]]

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

[[AC:{{Anime}} & {{Manga}}]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC: Film--Animated]]

[[AC:Film -- Live-Action]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:Music]]

[[AC:Other]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:{{Theater}}]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/TheDarkKnight I'm gonna make this]] [[Series/{{Monk}} OCD detective]] [[Film/TheDarkKnight disappear.]] ''[a few minutes later]'' TADA! He's.... ah, he's ''gone''. ]]

A RunningGag in this trope is that the person either escapes or doesn't know how to get back in, leaving the magician flabbergasted and the audience booing. For a more dramatic twist, instead of the volunteer reappearing alive and well, the magician opens the box and a corpse falls out. Sometimes, a curtain will be used instead if the subject is bigger.

[[AC: {{Anime}} & {{Manga}}]]

* In ''Anime/PokemonJirachiWishMaker'', the stage magician Butler plays this straight...except for the part where he has his Dusclops destroy the box instead of simply opening it.

[[AC: ComicBooks]]
* An old ''ComicStrip/LittleLulu'' story 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 mortified to find that it's a big fat jack o' lantern.

* A variation is used in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' to [[spoiler: help the unsuspecting Queen escape]]. [[BigBad Hopper]] catches on to it before it works as planned.

[[AC: Film -- Live-Action]]

[[AC: {{Literature}}]]

[[AC: LiveActionTV]]
* 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: 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.

** In firs episode during George Sr.'s retirement party, GOB hid his father in the tomb to hide him from the Securities and Exchange Commission. He hid behind the revolving door in the tomb, which kept him out of sight until the police dogs found him. This was broadcast in-universe on the FOX 6 news and GOB was subsequently kicked out of The Alliance of Magicians.
** The tomb continued to be part of GOB's blacklisted magic career and was used in "Public Relations" for his retirement home charity show. GOB hid Earl Milford in the tomb and Earl used the chance to escape the nursing home.
** The Aztec Tomb was stored in the model home's attic, where [[BatmanInMyBasement George]] successfully hid on multiple occasions, while on the lam.

* On ''Series/{{The Brady Bunch}}'' episode "Lights Out", Cindy becomes afraid of the dark after she watched a lady disappear in this manner at a friend's birthday party. (Cindy was so frightened she ran off before she reappeared.) Then, when Peter took up magic for the school's talent show and included this trick, Cindy agreed to be his assistant, thus mitigating her fear of the disappearing lady. Until Peter practiced it on Bobby, and Bobby refused to reappear as a joke, scaring Cindy once again.

* Music/EarthWindAndFire used to use a lot of magic in their concerts in the 1970's (Doug Henning and David Copperfield designed much of their stage shows). Their main set regularly closed with band members getting into a pyramid-shaped box, which would then rise off the stage. While the pyramid is in mid-air, the bottom would come apart, showing the band members had disappeared.

[[AC: Other]]

[[AC:{{Tabletop Games}}]]
* The 1975 ''It's Magic! Magic! Magic! Game'' by Remco have the players as stage magicians, who must perform with their LovelyAssistant the DisappearingBox Illusion, as well as the SawAWomanInHalf and Levitating Assistant illusions.

[[AC: {{Theater}}]]

** ''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...]]

[[AC: VideoGames]]
* In the 90s PC game ''Detective Barbie'', Ken volunteered for the act and left through the trapdoor as usual, but unknown to the magician or the audience, was kidnapped on the other side because he was carrying money the carnival had raised for charity with him onstage.

[[AC: WesternAnimation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' features this with The Great and Powerful Trixie! In "No Second Prances", she wants to perform the "Manticore Moonshot Mouthdive", which is the magician firing themselves from a cannon into the mouth of a manticore and then appearing in a box several feet away. She requires the aid of her "Great and Powerful Assistant", Starlight Glimmer, to make it work because [[spoiler: it apparently requires teleportation]].

* Played with in the segment directed by Creator/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 her son.

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial ''The Talons of Weng-Chiang'', stage magician Li H'sen Chang uses this in his act, and [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident tries to murder the Doctor with it]]. It backfires on him badly.
** It gets better. The Doctor walks out of the back of the cabinet, prompting Chang to utter the immortal line, "The bird has flown. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance One of us is yellow!]]"

* ''Series/{{TheBradyBunch}}'' episode "Lights Out", Cindy becomes afraid of the dark after she watched a lady disappear in this manner at a friend's birthday party. (Cindy was so frightened she ran off before she reappeared.) Then, when Peter took up magic for the school's talent show and included this trick, Cindy agreed to be his assistant, thus mitigating her fear of the disappearing lady. Until Peter practiced it on Bobby, and Bobby refused to reappear as a joke, scaring Cindy once again.

* The ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode "Sleight of Hank" Peggy being pulled on stage to help with this trick. The episode mostly involves Hank trying to figure out how the trick is done.

[[caption-width-right:350:I'm gonna make this OCD detective disappear. ''[a few minutes later]'' TADA! He's.... ah, he's ''gone''. ]]

[[AC: {{Film}}]]

* A variation is used in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' to [[spoiler: get the queen out]]. [[BigBad Hopper]] catches on to it before it works as planned.

* Earth Wind and Fire used to use a lot of magic in their concerts in the 1970's (Doug Henning and David Copperfield designed much of their stage shows). Their main set once closed with band members getting into a pyramid-shaped box, which would then rise off the stage. While the pyramid is in mid-air, the bottom would come apart, showing the band members had disappeared.

* An old ''ComicStrip/LittleLulu'' story 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.

* Played with in the segment directed by Creator/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.

* Young Franchise/IndianaJones used one of these to slip past his pursuers in ''Film/TheLastCrusade''.

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

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/TheDarkKnight I'm gonna make this OCD detective disappear.]] ''[a few minutes later]'' TADA! He's.... ah, he's ''gone''. ]]

* The Creator/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.