History Main / LowClearance

* PlayedForLaughs in [[https://garfield.com/usacres/1988/08/21 this strip]] in ''ComicStrip/USAcres'', where [[TheDitz Bo]] hits his head on a tree limb. [[GrumpyBear Lanolin]] asks him how many times Bo has hit his head on that tree limb, and Bo goes to his room to count the tally marks on the wall, which add up to ''132 in total''. He goes back to Lanolin to report the statistics... [[TooDumbToLive where the tally goes up by one at that moment]].

* Franchise/{{Batman}}'':

* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** In a blooper [[ThrowItIn they left in]] ''Film/ANewHope'' a stormtrooper [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBQaLuqwtl8 hits his head]] on a door that didn't open ''quite'' enough.
** Later, in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', a Scout Trooper falls victim to a rope strung between two trees on Endor, which violently snags him off of his speeder bike.
* According to the movie, this is where Series/MaxHeadroom's name came from -- the last words seen by Edison Carter before getting clocked by the sign.

* This is how the bad guy in ''Film/{{Speed}}'' meets his end. As he and the protagonist are fighting on the top of a runaway subway train, he gets clocked by an overhead light, chopping off his head.
-->'''Howard Payne:''' I'm smarter than you, Jack! I'm smarter! I'm smarter!\\
''[hanging light decapitates Payne]''\\
'''Jack Traven:''' Yeah? Well, I'm taller.

* ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'':
-->'''Scotty:''' I know this ship like the back of my hand. ''[bangs his head]''

* ''Franchise/JamesBond'':
** ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'': Blofeld encounters a low branch while fighting Bond on a bobsled.
** ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'': While brawling atop a train, Bond and his assailant have to drop flat in when they reach a tunnel, before resuming their fight once they can stand again.

* In the remake of ''Film/NarrowMargin'', Creator/GeneHackman's character and the witness he's protecting are confronted on the train roof by a ProfessionalKiller.
-->'''Gene:''' You know what I like about you? You're tall. ''[train enters a tunnel]''

* In ''ComicBook/WynonnaEarp'' #8, a werewolf standing on the roof of the Black Badges' car gets knocked off when Dolls drives under a low-hanging road sign.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'', the titular character ducks to avoid getting knocked off of where he is standing, like the example pictured above.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCurseOfTheWereRabbit''. Gromit is operating a lady were-rabbit puppet on top of Wallace's van when they go through a tunnel and the puppet is knocked off the roof, pulling poor Gromit along with it.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant'': as Hogarth is chased by the Giant, he hits his head on a low-lying branch.

* ''WesternAnimation/WallaceAndGromit'': ''WesternAnimation/ACloseShave''. The sheep are stacked up high on top of Wallace in his sidecar, and have to duck together to avoid a low bridge.

* ''Film/TheBatman2022'': Batman jumps off a skyscraper and deploys a wingsuit to glide to safety, breaking himself with a parachute. Unfortunately he's gliding under a bridge at the time and the parachute gets caught on it, causing Batman to have a nasty fall.

* According to the movie, this is where Series/MaxHeadroom's name came from--the last words seen by Edison Carter before getting clocked by the sign.

-->'''Howard Payne''': I'm smarter than you, Jack! I'm smarter! I'm smarter!\\
''(Hanging light decapitates Payne)''\\
'''Jack Traven''': Yeah? Well, I'm taller.

-->'''Scotty:''' I know this ship like the back of my hand. *bangs his head*

* Franchise/JamesBond:

* ''Film/TheDarkKnight'': Some of The Joker's goons use harpoon guns and cables to snag a police chopper during a high-speed chase.

* ''Film/It2017'': In the teaser trailer Georgie chases his paper boat down the street and runs headlong into a police roadblock. It's a brief moment of comic relief before he [[DeathOfAChild meets his horrific fate.]]

-->'''Gene:''' "You know what I like about you? You're tall." ''(train enters a tunnel)''

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Uncharted}} Uncharted 2]]'' features a TraintopBattle with the occasional signal light and sign flying past. Don't get to a good position to avoid them? Bye bye, Nate.

* From the ''WesternAnimation/JosieAndThePussyCats'' cartoons by Hanna-Barbera, specifically "A Nemo's A No-No Affair", the villain tumbles into a motorcycle sidecar occupied by Alexandra Cabot. Alexandra pulls on his nose, because girls fight funny. The villain rises to his standing height to menace Alexandra, but a low-hanging conduit fulfills this trope, and the villain is ejected from the sidecar.

** In the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E9RealtyBites "Realty Bites"]], Homer has bought Snake's convertible car during a police auction. Snake escapes from jail to get his "baby" back, and at one point strings wire across the road to cut Homer's head off as he drives by. Homer happens to serendipitously duck as he goes by the wire, but Kirk Van Hauten isn't so lucky: as he complains that his sandwich wasn't sliced by holding it in the air, the wire slices his arm off.
** The "dodging wooden signs and stone bridges" version is mocked and double subverted in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E3PleaseHomerDontHammerEm "Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em"]], where, during a [[ItMakesSenseInContext sword fight with shrimp and peanuts]] on top of a moving school bus, Skinner and Bart don't bother to duck and [[MadeOfIron smash straight through a heavy stone bridge like it's made of cotton candy]], but panic and jump from the bus when they see a pair of oncoming, flimsy wooden signs.

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': [[Recap/KimPossibleS4E17CleanSlate "Clean Slate"]]: Drakken confronts Kim on top of the train, and ends up getting knocked off when the train heads into a tunnel.

* In the opening of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' season two, a Talisman-powered Finn suffers from this during a fight on top of a truck. He lives through it thanks to the immortaliy talisman, [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp but comes to regret swapping the healing one]].

-->'''Dastardly:''' It's my own private...(''now puzzled'') Bridge? ''What'' bridge?? (''He and Zilly collide into the bridge facade then tumble to the ground'') Oh...''that'' bridge! ('' grins sheepishly'')

* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, AntiAir defenses could be supplemented with cables either strung between poles or anchoring "Barrage Balloons". The balloons would be allowed to float at a height of a few thousand feet, and low-flying aircraft would run the risk of clipping a wing on the hard to see cables. While these obstacles could be easily avoided by simply flying higher, this made the plane far easier to intercept with aircraft or artillery.
** Incidentally, this is also why pilots are advised to give a wide berth or fly well above radio towers. While the tower, covered in warning lights and painted red and white, is often easy to see, the support cables often ''aren't'', and are easily capable of downing aircraft that fly into them.
** This was inverted in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1998) Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998]], where an American EA-6B Prowler three very stupid Marines were joyriding in accidentally flew into a cable car's suspension cable. The multiple-inch-thick steel cable was severed, dropping the car and killing all passengers, whereas the plane, while damaged, made it home. Not unsurprisingly, the USMC shortly thereafter removed most of them from its ranks via dishonorable discharge and denied their pensions. The single Marine acquitted of the charges due to this incident remains a sore point between Italy and the US to this day.

* WebVideo/TheSlowMoGuys conducted [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7klO0p092Y&ab_channel=TheSlowMoGuys an experiment]] of exactly this.

* ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' - Blofeld encounters a low branch while fighting Bond on a bobsled.

* A variation in ''Film/TheBatman2022''. Batman jumps off a skyscraper and deploys a wingsuit to glide to safety, breaking himself with a parachute. Unfortunately he's gliding under a bridge at the time and the parachute gets caught on it, causing Batman to have a nasty fall.

* In the remake of ''Narrow Margin'', Creator/GeneHackman's character and the witness he's protecting are confronted on the train roof by a ProfessionalKiller.

* There's an old railroad bridge in Durham, North Carolina, built before minimum clearance requirements, that is just 12 feet 4 inches (3.76 m)[[note]]11 feet 8 inches (3.56 m) before October 2019[[/note]] above the road that runs under it. There are many trucks approaching that height. HilarityEnsues. [[http://11foot8.com/ There]] is a website dedicated to the bridge which features videos of the collisions that occur an average of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkWTcDZFH0 once]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2QW9CiHpZA per month]]. The bridge has been augmented with several features to protect it and vehicles. A metal bar beam has been installed in front of the bridge to take the blows, multiple signs warn of the height and the alternate path, and there is a sensor connected to a flashing sign to warn that the approaching vehicle specifically is too tall, which also triggers traffic signals mounted next to the sign to turn red. But there seems to be a steady supply of inexperienced movers and impatient box truck drivers who fail to heed the multiple warnings and end up "feeding the [[FanNickname Can Opener]]".

* A ''[[WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines Wing Dings]]'' blackout has Dick Dastardly and Zilly on the roof of a moving train car. Dastardly says it's his private train and railroad.when Zilly asks about the upcoming bridge:

* ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009''. Sherlock barely prevents Watson from running into a pane of glass at throat-height. When asked how he could even see it, he replied that it was because he was looking for it.

* WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': A horizontal example in "Shanghaied", [=SpongeBob=] is told to watch the sides of the Flying Dutchman's ship as it passes close to some rocks. For the entire duration of the gag, [=SpongeBob=] keeps calling out "Keep going, you're good... keep going" as chunks of wood fly past him. Once the ship is out, we see that the entire side is gone.

* An actual clothesline is used in the WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry cartoon "The Flying Cat." While chasing Jerry Mouse outdoors, a canary pulls one clothesline of a set of four down to chin-high on the cat. Tom gets caught in this trap, and flips over to impact against the other three lines. At this point, the clotheslines behave like surgical wires, cutting Tom into four segments that fall to the ground.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', while he's chasing Quasimodo's mother through the streets of Paris on a [[VisualPun literal high horse]], [[BigBad Judge Frollo]] keeps having to dodge wooden shop signs.

[[/folder]]

->'''Bond''': By the way, how tall are you?\\
'''Henchman''': Six-two, why?\\

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

-->'''Po''': Why...(''bonk'')...are...(''bonk'')...so...(''bonk'')...many...(''bonk'')...(''bonk'')...signs?!
* In ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', as Hook and Smee begin to row away, Hook is standing on the boat, screaming, "Row for the ship! ROW FOR THE SHI-" and bonks into the wall, while Smee is earlier seen ducking down to avoid getting hit.

* ''Literature/GenerationKill'': During the book's ActionPrologue describing a vehicular assault through a hostile town, the Iraqi soldiers string cables between buildings, hoping to clothesline the roof gunners of the speeding humvees. Bravo 2-1's gunner takes a glancing blow from one of the cables, and quickly shouts to the driver that he's OK.

* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': After they first board the submarine in [[Recap/JAGS01E03Shadow "Shadow"]], [[TallDarkAndHandsome Harm]] manages to smack his head on low ceiling support twice within five minutes. He ruefully {{lampshades}} this.
* In one of Governor Gatling's stories on ''Series/{{Benson}}'', a logging truck from the family lumber mill once got stuck under a railroad trestle. Nobody could figure out how to get the truck unstuck until one lumber mill employee suggested letting the air out of the tires. It worked.

* ''Series/TheDoctorBlakeMysteries'': The VictimOfTheWeek in "Against the Odds" is killed when a cable is strung across the racetrack to knock him off his horse.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'', characters riding a dragon which is flying just above a river have to duck twice, once for "Low bridge" and once for "Even-lower bridge".
* ''WesternAnimation/WallaceAndGromit'':
** ''WesternAnimation/ACloseShave''. The sheep are stacked up high on top of Wallace in his sidecar, and have to duck together to avoid a low bridge.

-->'''Jade:''' Look out! ''(jetpacks to safety)''\\
'''Finn:''' Yeah, like I'm gonna fall for...''(crash)''...{{Immortality hurts}}.

* There's an old railroad bridge in Durham, North Carolina, built before minimum clearance requirements, that is just 11 feet 8 inches (3.56 m) above the road that runs under it. There are many trucks that are more than 12 feet (3.7 m) tall. HilarityEnsues. [[http://11foot8.com/ There]] is a website dedicated to the bridge which features videos of the collisions that occur an average of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkWTcDZFH0 once]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2QW9CiHpZA per month]]. The bridge has been augmented with several features to protect it and vehicles. A metal bar beam has been installed in front of the bridge to take the blows, multiple signs warn of the height and the alternate path, and there is a sensor connected to a flashing sign to warn that the approaching vehicle specifically is too tall, which also triggers traffic signals mounted next to the sign to turn red. But there seems to be a steady supply of inexperienced movers and impatient box truck drivers who fail to heed the multiple warnings and end up "feeding the [[FanNickname Can Opener]]".
** In October 2019, the railway was raised 8 inches[[note]]Supposedly to align the track with the crossing so trains didn't have to slow down; giving the truck drivers more room was just a bonus.[[/note]], gaining a new signed clearance of 12' 4" (3.76 m). '''And people still keep crashing into it.'''

Alternatively, characters will duck or move to an awkward position to avoid getting hit. Bonus points if somebody says, "Low bridge!" during such.

* There's an old railroad bridge in Durham, North Carolina, built before minimum clearance requirements, that is just 11 feet 8 inches (3.56 m) above the road that runs under it. There are many trucks that are more than 12 feet (3.7 m) tall. HilarityEnsues. [[http://11foot8.com/ There]] is a website dedicated to the bridge which features videos of the collisions that occur an average of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkWTcDZFH0 once]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2QW9CiHpZA per month]]. The bridge has been augmented with several features to protect it and vehicles. A metal bar beam been installed separate of the bridge to take the blows, multiple signs warn of the height and the alternate path, and there is a sensor connected to a flashing sign to warn that the approaching vehicle specifically is too tall, which also triggers traffic signals mounted next to the sign to turn red. But there seems to be a steady supply of inexperienced movers and impatient box truck drivers who fail to heed the multiple warnings and end up "feeding the [[FanNickname Can Opener]]".

* In the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E9RealtyBites "Realty Bites"]] of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Homer has bought Snake's convertible car during a police auction. Snake escapes from jail to get his "baby" back, and at one point strings wire across the road to cut Homer's head off as he drives by. Homer happens to serendipitously duck as he goes by the wire, but Kirk Van Hauten isn't so lucky: as he complains that his sandwich wasn't sliced by holding it in the air, the wire slices his arm off.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie'', Dennis is about to get [=SpongeBob=] while atop Creator/DavidHasselhoff when they go under a buoy and Dennis is knocked off.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCurseOfTheWereRabbit''. Gromit is operating a lady were-rabbit puppet on top of Wallace's van when they go through a tunnel and the puppet is knocked off the roof, pulling poor Gromit along with it.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad'': As he is chased by the HeadlessHorseman, Ichabod hits a low hanging branch that swings him up in the air, landing alongside the Horseman. He continues on until he realizes whose horse he's riding, at which time the same branch knocks him back onto his own horse.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', while he's chasing Quasimodo's mother through the streets of Paris on a [[VisualPun literal high horse]], [[BigBad Judge Frollo]] keeps having to dodge wooden shop signs.

** In October 2019, the right people had finally had enough and the bridge was raised eight inches, gaining a new signed clearance of 12' 4" (3.76 m). '''And people still keep crashing into it.'''

** This was inverted in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1998) Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998]], where an American EA-6B Prowler three very stupid Naval personnel were joyriding in accidentally flew into a cable car's suspension cable. The multiple-inch-thick steel cable was severed, dropping the car and killing all passengers, whereas the plane, while damaged, made it home. Not unsurprisingly, the USN shortly thereafter removed three sailors from its ranks via dishonorable discharge.