History Main / LowClearance

''(Henchman is clipped from behind by a bar reading '''CLEARANCE 6'''')''

* Captain Gloval often hit his head while entering the bridge of the ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross''.

* A horizontal variant occurs in ''Anime/LoveLive'', alongside a BustContrastDuo gag. Nico is running through the streets, from the rest of the group, who are chasing her. Nozomi is close, but flat chested Nico gets away sideways between two parked cars. The well-endowed Nozomi tries, but doesn't fit. When the other girls come and ask what happened, Nozomi looks toward one of them and sends her through.
* This tends to happen a lot with Tionishia and other ogres in ''Manga/MonsterMusume''. Being so tall, having a horn, and tremendous strength, she accidentally plows through the top of door frames.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

* One of the standard death-defying [[ImprobablePilotingSkills feats of flying]] in the ''Literature/XWingSeries'' is weaving through obstacles that are just ''barely'' wide enough for the fighter to pass. It's mentioned that X-Wings, and to a lesser extent TIE Interceptors, have a big advantage over TIE Fighters thanks to their more slender profile. Some of the obstacles featured have included: Coruscant's pedestrian walkways (in ''Iron Fist''), a forest full of trees (also ''Iron Fist''), and the capital city of Cartaan's [[{{Bizarchitecture}} love affair with inter-building telecom wires]] (''Starfighters of Adumar'').

* ''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.
** In the series, it was a downed power line in the second episode that snagged the gunner, nearly strangling him. Person realizes just in time and reverses the Humvee enough for the marine to free himself.
* In the second ''Literature/QueensThief'' book, ''The Queen of Attolia'', Gen is fleeing the Attolian palace along a route he knows well until he encounters a solid plank of wood at forehead-height, which drops him like a stone. Things quickly go FromBadToWorse.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' had Dexter artificially stretch himself taller so he would be tall enough to ride a roller coaster. Unfortunately, he keeps growing, and the cartoon ends with rather chilling abruptness when his face collides with a tunnel on the ride.

* 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.
* On the ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries'' crossover with ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'', Al invokes this on Herc by taking the chase through "the alley of a thousand sheets." Unlike Phil however, Herc just powers through in spite of Phil telling him to NOT muscle through and use his [[RunningGag "noodle"]].
* ''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.
* Mace Windu takes advantage of this in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'': He flies at a gap in the skyscrapers of Coruscant and closes his fighter's S-foils to let him fit through. The Vulture Droids following him can't fit, and wreck themselves on the side of the building trying.
* 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.

* ''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.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'': In "Next Stop: Armageddon", the perp of the week pulls a TrainEscape by uncoupling the engine of a miniature train from the carriages, leaving Fillmore behind him. However, he stands up to gloat and takes himself out as the engine enters a tunnel.
* On the WesternAnimation/RogerRabbitShort "Roller Coaster Rabbit", Roger narrowly avoids a sign on the coaster warning people "Don't Stand Up", but he doesn't miss the next one, which reads "We Warned You!"
* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'': There's an episode where Dexter worries so much about his short height after [[YouMustBeThisTallToRide he wasn't allowed into a rollercoaster ride]] that he creates some AppliedPhlebotinum to make himself taller. His height continues to increase until he's way taller than the average adult. When he's finally on the ride, [[BlackScreenOfDeath the screen cuts to black]] right before his head hits the first clearance.
* 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 immortality talisman, [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp but comes to regret swapping the healing one]].
-->'''Jade:''' Look out! ''[jetpacks to safety]''\\
'''Finn:''' Yeah, like I'm gonna fall for... ''[crash]'' ...{{Immortality hurts}}.

* 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:
-->'''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]''

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** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'': in a pursuit between a Nazi pilot in his plane and Indy and his father in a car, they reach a narrow tunnel which breaks the plane's wings off as it grinds on the road humorously by the car it was pursuing before exploding at the end.

* ''Film/MissionImpossible1996'': During the climactic TraintopBattle the tunnel ends up nearly destroying the villains' helicopter after Ethan hooks it to the train with a cable. Ethan himself also has to struggle to get back atop the train to avoid being killed by being scraped off the side.

--> '''Hancock:''' What's happened to her head?
--> '''Porter:''' 'Ead? I don't know nothing about no 'ead. "One piece of concrete" it says 'ere, and one piece of concrete you've got.
--> '''Hancock:''' A piece of concrete, that's all it is to you!

* ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'': When the Mercs are riding the tunnel tram into Crematoria's prison complex to deliver Riddick, one of them is sitting on his legs telling Riddick how he's going to take his CoolShades once they arrive. Riddick notices the light fixtures on the low ceiling and lifts his legs so that the guy gets his head smashed in. [[WithFriendsLikeThese The other Mercs find this hilarious.]]
* ''Film/{{Sherlock Holmes|2009}}''. Sherlock barely prevents Watson from running into a pane of glass, or another kind of glass object, at throat-height. When asked how he could even see it, he replied that it was because he was looking for it.
* Played for dark humor in ''Film/TheHangoverPartIII'', where a giraffe traveling in a trailer gets decapitated at a highway bridge.
* ''Film/{{Casper}}'': Amber is riding piggyback on Vic as they flee the house. Vic runs under a set of lights strung across the ballroom, and [[HumiliationConga continues to drag Amber]] across the floor as he runs away.
* In ''Film/TheKidBrother'', Harold has the bad guy trussed up in the back of a cart and is racing back into town. The bad guy manages to get to his feet in the cart, and, unseen by Harold, is working himself free of the ropes, when a low-hanging tree branch clubs him back down to the bottom of the cart.
* ''[[Film/It2017 IT]]'': 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.]]

* Little John hoists a rope across the road to knock one of the outriders on the tax wagon off his horse in ''Film/BeyondSherwoodForest''.
* In ''Film/RolliAmazingTales'', the [[DumbMuscle Big Rölli]] sneaks into the speeding jeep of Seesteinen and Lerkkanen. As he stands and enjoys the ride, he's knocked onto the road by a branch.
* ''Film/SpaceJam'': During the hospital scene when the doctor and the four NBA players walk through the hallway. The tall players Larry Johnson, Shawn Bradley, and Patrick Ewing smack their heads on top of the door frame and topple over while the doctor and Muggsy Bogues walk through just fine.
* ''Film/{{Darkman}}'': [[spoiler: Westlake manages to kill Durant while Durant has higher ground in a helicopter by attaching a hook to a truck and causing the occupied helicopter to crash into a bridge.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Every year in Boston, the days around September 1 see intense moving activity, as a disproportionately large share of residential leases start on that date (no doubt connected to the freakin' huge number of students in the area). Every year, the city and local universities warn movers not to take their moving trucks along Storrow Drive, a major thoroughfare in the area that often shows up on GPS as the quickest route from Point A to Point B... but also features an ungodly number of low overpasses that result in this very trope. Every year, several movers don't listen. And [[https://www.boston.com/news/commute/2018/08/29/how-not-to-get-storrowed-a-quick-guide they get Storrowed]].

* [[http://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/ Montague Street Bridge]] in Melbourne, Australia is famous for this, and has wrecked enough vehicles to qualify for MemeticBadass status despite being an inanimate structure.
* [[https://www.ntv.ru/video/1584607/ Stupidity bridge]] in Saint Petersburg, Russia, can claim at least 150 destroyed cars, despite the big banner above it that literally says "Danger! Low bridge! [=GAZelle=] won't pass!" And yes, a lot of those 150 are [=GAZelles=]. One actually managed to pass, with a [[InstantConvertible completely destroyed cargo area]].

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratoy'' had Dexter artificially stretch himself taller so he would be tall enough to ride a roller coaster. Unfortunately, he keeps growing, and the cartoon ends with rather chilling abruptness when his face collides with a tunnel on the ride.

* In [[Anime/PokemonKyuremVSTheSwordOfJustice the thirteenth]] ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' movie, Kyurem is about to experience this trope before wisely jumping off before plowing into the mountainside.

* ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'': in a pursuit between a Nazi pilot in his plane and Indy and his father in a car, they reach a narrow tunnel which breaks the plane's wings off as it grinds on the road humorously by the car it was pursuing before exploding at the end.

* A Pepsi commercial showed the (exaggerated)trials and tribulations suffered by Creator/ShaquilleONeal due to his size. One scene had him breaking door frames on his head as he walked under them.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': Bender and Hermes find themselves on top of a train while fleeing from Mom's killbots. When the inevitable tunnel is reached, they limbo their way into it, while the killbots aren't so lucky. The tunnel ended up being long enough for them to have to endure eight straight hours of limbo, which breaks Bender's legs (he has spares) and reminds Hermes of his honeymoon.

* ''Film/{{Sherlock Holmes|2009}}''. 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/BatmanMysteryOfTheBatwoman''. Bane is fighting Batman on top of a burning ocean liner in Gotham harbour, not realising the liner is about to run into a bridge. Batman uses his grappling hook to hoist him onto the bridge, which then smashes into the superstructure, toppling Bane into the fire. This raises the question of how the ocean liner would have gotten under the bridge normally, but as it grounds shortly after the liner had presumably drifted off the deep-water channel after the crew abandoned ship.

* ''VideoGame/Squadron51'' has the Industrial Zone stage; you're flying your plane less than a hundred meters off the ground, and occasionally need to descend to avoid hitting arches and bridges or lose a life.

* A horizontal variant occurs in ''Anime/LoveLive'', alongside a BustContrastDuo gag. Nico is running through the streets, from the rest of the group, who are chasing her. Nozomi is close, but flat chested Nico gets away sideways between two parked cars. The well-endowed Nozomi tries, but doesn't fit. When the other girls come and ask what happened, [[DCupDistress Nozomi just looks down...]]

* ''Anime/SSSSGridman'': A horizontal example; because Samurai Calibur carries multiple swords on his back horizontally, he has difficultly passing through doors.

* A horizontal variant occurs in ''Anime/LoveLive''. Nico is running through the streets, from the rest of the group, who are chasing her. Nozomi is close, but [[ACupAngst Nico]] gets away sideways between two parked cars. [[BuxomIsBetter Nozomi]] tries, but doesn't fit. When the other girls come and ask what happened, Nozomi just looks down...

** In UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}, passengers on tour boats on the Chicago River are warned not to stand up when going under bridges. The boats are constructed so hey will just fit under some of the drawbridges.

* During a TraintopBattle in ''Series/ResshaSentaiToqger'' the MonsterOfTheWeek gets his swords broken from lifting them right as the train is passing under a bridge.