History Main / KeyUnderTheDoormat

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[[folder:Film]]

* In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'', the key to the Tanglebrook Estate is hidden under the doormat.
* The ''Virtual Families'' game has a key under the doormat that unlocks the shed.
* The first puzzle of ''VideoGame/ManiacMansion'' is getting the front door key from beneath the mat.
* Checking under the front mat of Lefty's in ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry1InTheLandOfTheLoungeLizards'' gets you a snarky comment from the narrator, wondering why you'd expect to find a key there when the door is unlocked.

* In ''VideoGame/TombRaiderII'', Lara Croft finds the keys in the sun visor for the Jeep during the driving cutscene.
* In ''Rhiannon'', you're told outright that the key to the house is under a flowerpot. Note that the keys to everyplace else you'll need to unlock are well hidden.
* A key required for ''VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles: Return to Ravenhearst'' is on the front porch, under the ''cat''. No, you can't pick the cat up to get it, but bribing it with a mouse works fine.

* Not quite a video game, but an old text-based computer Adventure style game where you have to ''repair a malfunctioning nuclear reactor'' has you quickly arrive at a locked door where all you can see is the door and the doormat. No prizes for guessing where the key to the door is hidden.
* Double subverted in ''VideoGame/BrokenSwordTheSerpentsCurse''. Nico believes the key to her neighbor's apartment to be under the door mat but it's not there. It's hidden under the door mat's floor board.
* Early in ''VideoGame/VermillionWatch: Moorgate Accord'', the key you need is under a planter next to the front door.

* ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'' 3: In mission 10, the door to the CED Lunar Command Base is locked, but there's a keycard in a hollow tower that's right in front of the entrance.
* ''VideoGame/BugsBunnyAndTazTimeBusters'': In the cutscene just before facing [[FinalBoss Count Bloodcount]], the duo find the door to his tower is locked. Bugs immediately questions if creepy counts hide their spare keys like everybody else does, and checks under the doormat. As it turns out, yes, vampires do hide their keys the same way as regular folk.

* In ''Webcomic/LatchkeyKingdom'', if you find you're not strong enough to move the blocks in the BlockPuzzle, the spare key is on top of the doorframe.

* WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes:
** The Sylvester and Tweety cartoon "Tweet and Sour": Hoping to keep Sylvester out of the house when she is gone and away from Tweety, Granny hides the house key under the doormat. Unfortunately, she doesn't count on Sylvester already having hidden under the doormat himself!
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' remembers he keeps a spare key under his doormat after spending one whole episode stuck outside his pineapple.

* There is a key under a doormat in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/NedsNewt''. On the doormat is a huge picture of a key and an arrow pointing to one corner of the mat.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AllStarSuperman'' movie the key to the Fortress of Solitude is kept under the doormat. Lois is bemused and asks where the big gold key (a staple in Silver Age comics) went. Supes remarks that the doormat method is more secure. This is because the key is made out of dwarf star material and weighs half a million tons.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' where Scratch loses his memory and thinks he's Sonic's ally, he recalls that Robotnik leaves the key to his fortress under his "unwelcome" mat.
* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}'' Elisa knows that Matt keeps his on top of the doorframe to his apartment. Let me repeat, ''on top of the doorframe''. No tape, no string, just a key ready to be knocked off if someone slams the door too hard.
* In the WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} cartoon "Man's Best Friend", Goofy goes out for the evening and hides the house key under the doormat, and then Bowser sleeps on it. Unfortunately, a robber manages to find the key under the doormat, somehow not disturbing Bowser in the process when he lifts it up.

* In ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'' the key to his Fortress of Solitude is kept under the welcome mat by the entrance. But it's made of White Dwarf star matter and only he can lift it. This backfires when two hostile Kryptonians show up who are also strong enough to lift it.

* Subverted in ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff''. Ferris looks for the key, but his principal has already taken it.

* In Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''Film/DialMForMurder'', the key under the staircase carpeting is a [[IncrediblyLamePun key]] plot point.
* In ''Film/GranTorino'' the key is in the porcelain frog.
* In ''Literature/TheRailwayChildren'' movie, the man who takes the children to the house in the country from the railway station says that the people who live out there usually leave their keys under the door.
* ''Film/IndependenceDay'', Jasmine finds the keys to the fire truck above the sun visor.
%%* ''Film/TheRingTwo''
* This is how Colt gets into the BigBad's hideout in ''Film/LoadedWeapon1''.
* ''Film/AFairlyOddMovieGrowUpTimmyTurner'': Magnate's headquarters has the key hidden under the doormat.
* ''Film/StarTrek2009'': A deleted scene reveals that the young Kirk found the keys to his father's Corvette above the sun visor.
* In ''Film/EdgeOfTomorrow'', Rita finds the keys to the minivan above the driver's side sun visor.

* In ''Film/ThePhantomCarriage'', when the hero comes home after his release from prison and finds the door locked, he remembers the key under the doormat.
* A flashback in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' shows us that back in the 40's, pre-serum Steve Rogers kept his house key hidden under a brick just outside his front door.
* ''Film/FatalAttraction''. Dan breaks into Alex's apartment using the spare key that he finds on top of the door frame.

* In one of Paul Goble's [[Myth/NativeAmericanMythology Iktomi]] storybooks, there's a "handwritten" note opposite the title page, reading "GON 2 THE POWWOW--KEY IS UNDER THE MAT." SacredHospitality, or another case of Iktomi not being as smart as he thinks he is?
* DiscussedTrope in ''Mr. Bean's Scrapbook'', a tie-in for ''Film/{{Bean}}'', in which Mr. Bean easily finds the key to get into an unfamiliar house because "if you have the choice of hiding your key under a brick or under Kermit the Frog, which do you choose? EXACTLY". In a bit of HypocriticalHumour, the appendix indicates that Mr. Bean ''also'' keeps his spare key under a model of a frog, albeit a photorealistic one.
* ''Literature/TheAIGang'': As seen in ''Robot Trouble'', Dr. Weiskopf keeps a spare key in a fake rock outside the front door. Wendy calls it "Cute, but not very effective."
* ''Literature/HannahSwensen'': In ''Apple Turnover Murder'', Hannah and Mike get into a discussion on the subject. Mike doesn't approve of the obvious spots, like under a doormat, a flower pot or inside a fake rock (which is where Hannah happens to keep hers). On the other hand, he thinks Norman's hiding place for his spare key -- inside the mouth of a concrete statue of a moose -- is brilliant when he finds out.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' and associates break into Cuddy's house at one point. Chase tells House his plan isn't going to work, then House pulls the key from under a vase, later reasoning that a person like Cuddy probably has several keys stashed within 50 feet of her door.
* In one ''Series/{{Lost}}'' flashback, young Miles found a dead man's apartment key under a white stone rabbit. White rabbits are a motif on the show. As Miles talks to dead people, it was implied that the man told him where the key was.
* Lowell did this on ''Series/{{Wings}}'', revealed in an episode where the whole gang goes to Boston to be in the audience of a talk show. Thinking that he may have left his iron turned on at home, he announces to the camera his address and key hiding place, asking someone to check for him. Predictably, this leads to thieves stealing everything he owns. ("Except the iron...which was off!").

* In ''Series/{{Psych}}'', Gus wonders how Shawn was able to get into his house, and Shawn points out that the key hidden under a fake rock is a bit obvious for a ''second-floor'' apartment.
* In ''Series/GilmoreGirls'', pretty much all of Lorelai Gilmore's neighbors knew that the spare key was in the turtle.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' telemovie with [=Paul McGann=] in, the car-key version was done with, of all things, the ''TARDIS'' (it's behind the "P" in "Police Box," should you ever need to know).

* In the first episode of ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'', Alan gets into Charlie's house as his fake key-hiding rock is kept out in the open, due to Charlie often coming home so drunk he wouldn't be able to find it if it was in a pile of rocks.

* In ''Series/TheBernieMacShow'', Bernie gets locked out of his house by the children in a hot day after he punished them and had the air conditioner fixed. With every door and window locked, the last place to look for is the key under the doormat. Brianna was sent to get the key, but was taken by Bernie and leads to a negotiation with the other two kids.
* ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'': Hutch keeps it on top of the door-frame. None of the repeated times the bad guys break into his place ever seem to convince him to stop doing this.
* In one episode of ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'', Jordan and Danny are locked on the roof of the studio. They try to get the attention of a bum by throwing a rock [[strike:at]] near him. Then Danny remembers there [[strike:is]] was a hide-a-key rock on the roof.
* ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'': When Rita and Zedd are fleeing from the Machine Empire, she asks her father if they can stay at his place. He agrees and says he'll leave a spare key under the mat.
* An episode late in the run of ''Series/TheFactsOfLife'' played an interesting and somewhat clever variant. Tootie and Natalie go to the city to visit an artist friend of theirs and find a bum sleeping next to her door. They check the instructions to find the key and they're directed to the bum's head. Sure enough, they remove the bum's hat to find the key resting on his scalp. The "bum" turns out to be a dummy.
* Parodied in an episode of Series/{{Chucklevision}} where the duo are delivering and installing a heavy fireplace. They look under the mat and can't find a key so they assume they got the apartment number wrong when they find a key under the other mat. It turns out the instruction was look under the "cat" as in a little porcelain cat so it turns out they've been renovating (read: wrecking) the wrong place.
* Also parodied on the absurdist show ''Series/StellaUS'', where Michael, Michael & David explain to the landlord that their spare key is kept under the doormat, but it's off at the cleaners and he'll need to go pick it up from there. The landlord comes back about an hour later, flops the mat back down in its place, and lifts it to find the key that suddenly appeared underneath.

* In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "Hope," Garcia's friend, who's been abducted by this week's unsub, keeps a spare key tucked into her door frame. The team points out that this is because the titular Hope is her daughter who was abducted eight years ago, and her mother still has (also-titular) hope that she'll return one day, and will need the key to get in. They also point out how much easier it made it for the unsub to get close to her, though he didn't use it to abduct her.
* In ''Series/Supergirl2015'', Superman leaves the key to the Fortress of Solitude right in front of the door. It gets covered with snow, considering where it is, but he doesn't even bother with a mat. When Kara laughs at it, James points out that Superman and Kara are just about the only ones who can ''lift'' the thing, considering it's made of super-condensed white dwarf star matter.
* In the cold open of the finale of ''Series/BreakingBad'', Walt steals a car [[spoiler:to get back to Albuquerque]]. After a vain attempt to hotwire it and a close call with a passing police car, he tentatively pulls down the sun visor and, sure enough, the keys drop right in his hand.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Superstore}}'' it's shown that Glen keeps the keys to his car in the front wheel well when they're locked in the store and he tries to get a passersby to retrieve his phone in the car. Unfortunately the guy steals his car.
* The cold open to an episode of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' sees Malcolm and Reese come home from school to find nobody's there and the doors are locked. Malcolm retrieves the fake rock with the spare key and holds it up in front of Reese who grabs it and uses it to break a window to get inside.
* In the "St. Christopher's Prayer" episode of ''Series/TheFugitive'' (2000), Richard Kimble tells his sister to leave the front door of the family home unlocked so that he can sneak in to visit his dying father. Unfortunately, another family member unaware of the plan locks the door, leaving Kimble to scramble frantically (he only has a few seconds before the garbage truck that is blocking the view of the house moves and reveals his presence to Inspector Gerard) until he remembers this trope and gets inside JustInTime.

* In the Radio Drama ''The Father Gilbert Mysteries'' "Where The Heart Is", Mr. Eckhart concludes that someone broke into the church's crypt by using the key hidden under the flower pot beside the door. Father Gilbert chews him out for keeping a key there, as it's the first place anyone would look.
* Similarly in ''Radio/AdventuresInOdyssey'' Connie jumps from tree to ledge to window in order to get into Mitch's apartment. Mitch tells her that she could have just used the key under the mat. A rather unsafe place for an FBI agent to hide a key though...

* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': When Qwill is staying in the Klingenschoen cabin in Mooseville in ''The Cat Who Went Underground'', he notes at one point that a spare key is hidden in a hollow log at the bottom of the log rack on the porch. When considering other places that someone might look for a key (to get in and feed his cats, if something happens to him), he thinks of obvious places like on top of the doorframe or under the doormat.

* In a commercial for [[Advertising/EnergizerBunny Energizer batteries]], Count Dracula, who is hired by the Supervolt battery company to steal the Energizer Bunny's battery, gets locked out of his castle chasing the bunny. He has the key to his castle under his "[[VampireVords Velcome]]" mat, but before he can use it to unlock the door, the morning sun rises, and he says, "[[FamousLastWords Oh... great.]]" before it vanquishes him.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/IronFist2017'', Danny Rand tries to enter his former residence from fifteen years ago using a key he knows is hidden outside (on top of the lintel rather than under the mat). RealityEnsues and it doesn't fit as the lock has been changed.

* ''Literature/HannahSwensen'': In ''Apple Turnover Murder'', Hannah and Mike get into a discussion on the subject. Mike doesn't approve of the obvious spots, like under a doormat, a flower pot or inside a fake rock (which is where Hannah happens to keep hers). On the other hand, he thinks Norman's hiding place for his spare key - inside the mouth of a concrete statue of a moose - is brilliant when he finds out.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/IronFist2017'', Danny Rand tries to enter his old house using a key he knows is hidden outside (on top of the lintel rather than under the mat). RealityEnsues and it doesn't fit as the lock has been changed years ago.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' and associates break into Cuddy's house at one point. Chase tell House his plan isn't going to work, then House pulls the key from under a vase, later reasoning that a person like Cuddy probably has several keys stashed within 50 feet of her door.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/IronFist2017'', Danny Rand tries to enter his old house using a key he knows is hidden outside (on top of the door jamb rather than under the mat). RealityEnsues and it doesn't fit as the lock has been changed years ago.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/IronFist2017'', Danny Rand tries to enter his old house using a key he knows is hidden outside. RealityEnsues and it doesn't fit as the lock has been changed years ago.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AllStarSuperman'' movie the key to the Fortress of Solitude is kept under the doormat. Lois is bemused and asks where the big gold key (a staple in Silver Age comics) went. Supes remarks that the doormat method is more secure. This is because the key is made out of dwarf star material and is '''really''' heavy.

* Bart did this in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. In order to get into the locked school, he...yeah. Homer also did it it one episode TWICE, the first time to get into the nuclear power plant, the second time to get into the reactor! And furthermore, even the key inside the plant was hidden under a small rock lying on the pristine floor, potentially subverting this trope. Chief Wiggum done this to get in the police station while Bart's class is waiting outside during a field trip.

Do you need to get into your house... or perhaps someone else's house... quickly? Have you suddenly realized you locked your keys ''inside'' your house, so that now you not only can't get your car started, but you can't get into your house to get your keys? What do you do? Why, you look under the doormat, of course!

* In the "St. Christopher's Prayer" episode of ''Series/TheFugitive'' (2000), Richard Kimble tells his sister to leave the front door unlocked so that he can sneak into the family home to visit his dying father. Unfortunately, another family member unaware of the plan locks the door, leaving Kimble to scramble frantically (he only has a few seconds before the garbage truck that is blocking the view of the house moves and reveals his presence to Inspector Gerard) until he remembers this trope and gets inside JustInTime.

* In the "St. Christopher's Prayer" episode of ''Series/TheFugitive'', Richard Kimble tells his sister to leave the front door unlocked so that he can sneak into the family home to visit his dying father. Unfortunately, another family member unaware of the plan locks the door, leaving Kimble to scramble frantically (he only has a few seconds before the garbage truck that is blocking the view of the house moves and reveals his presence to Inspector Gerard) until he remembers this trope and gets inside JustInTime.

* A key required for ''Return to Ravenhearst'' is on the front porch, under the ''cat''. No, you can't pick the cat up to get it, but bribing it with a mouse works fine.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' and associates break into Cuddy's house at one point. Chase tell House his plan isn't going to work, then House pulls he pulls the key from under a vase, later reasoning that a person like Cuddy probably has several keys stashed within 50 feet of her door.

* In ''Series/{{Supergirl}}'', Superman leaves the key to the Fortress of Solitude right in front of the door. It gets covered with snow, considering where it is, but he doesn't even bother with a mat. When Kara laughs at it, James points out that Superman and Kara are just about the only ones who can ''lift'' the thing, considering it's made of super-condensed white dwarf star matter.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' and associates break into Cuddy's house at one point. Chase tell House his plan isn't going to work, then House pulls he pulls the key from under a vase,

* In a commercial for Energizer batteries, Count Dracula, who is hired by the Supervolt battery company to steal the Energizer Bunny's battery, gets locked out of his castle chasing the bunny. He has the key to his castle under his "[[VampireVords Velcome]]" mat, but before he can use it to unlock the door, the morning sun rises, and he says, "[[FamousLastWords Oh... great.]]" before it vanquishes him.

* One is mentioned in ''The Cat Who Went Underground'' by Lillian Jackson Braun.