History Main / MessageinaBottle

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/ClerksTheAnimatedSeries''. Randall makes one of these while trapped in the Pyramid, desperately hoping that Dante will somehow get his message. Through a series of ContrivedCoincidence after Contrived Coincidence, the message actually does get to Dante in the form of a pop bottle that a member of his Little League team gives him to celebrate a victory -- but upon seeing that there's something in the bottle Dante just throws it away and makes the kid get him another one.

* ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' cartoon

* ''Franchise''/ScoobyDoo cartoon

* This is the impetus for all of the action in ''Disney/TheRescuers''. Penny sends the message which causes the mouse rescue society to come and try to save her.

* Played with in one ScoobyDoo cartoon. While searching for a ghost ship, the gang finds a note in a bottle:

* Finding messages in floating bottles while exploring in her kayak allows Nancy to find a hidden location in ''[[NancyDrew Danger on Deception Island]]''.

* In ''IllusionOfGaia'', Will and Kara find one of these, ironically while shipwrecked at sea, so their discovery of the message doesn't do a heck of a lot of good to whoever tossed it out there.

** * This trope serves the basis of [[http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/lgb.aspx the very first story he wrote]], at the tender age of eight. [[spoiler:It's ultimately subverted, the whole thing being an elaborate practical joke, though the prankster was at least kind enough to leave $25 to pay off the expenses of the rather unhappy treasure hunters' trip.]]

* This trope serves the basis of the very first story {{Creator/HP Lovecraft}} wrote, when he was only eight years old: [[http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/lgb.aspx The Little Glass Bottle]]. [[spoiler:It's ultimately subverted when it turns out the whole thing was a practical joke, though the prankster was kind enough to leave $25 to pay off the expenses of the treasure hunters' trip.]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', Link gains access to Jabu Jabu by presenting a MessageInABottle written by Princess Ruto to the King, asking for rescue as she is trapped inside Jabu Jabu's belly. Interestingly, the message turns out to be several months old and Ruto has long since figured out how to leave Jabu Jabu -- it turns out that her recent absence was for a completely different reason.

* In the adventure game ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIV'', Rosella gets swallowed by a whale and inside its throat finds a bottle with a message in it containing advertisements for some of {{Sierra}}'s earlier games.

* In ''PhantomBrave'', Marona receives some of her missions from messages in a bottle. Justified (sorta) in that these bottles are living constructs, and actively ''swim'' to their destinations. You can even recruit them to fight by your side.

* The StarTrekExpandedUniverse novel ''Ship of the Line'' used a version of this, except the "bottle" in question was a message probe with a delay. As the USS ''Bozeman'' is being chased by a Klingon cruiser, TheCaptain wishes to notify the ''Enterprise'' (as Bateson calls it "a true [[TitleDrop ship-of-the-line]]") of the presence of the cruiser, but the Klingons are jamming all frequencies. The probe is launched with a recorded message set to broadcast as soon as it leaves the range of the jamming field. Unfortunately, by the time Kirk arrives to chase off the cruiser, the ''Bozeman'' has already entered the temporal anomaly that would send it on a collision course with the ''Enterprise''-D. It did, however, save thousands of lives on the defenseless outpost in the sector, which the Klingons planned to destroy.

* The short story "A Saucer of Loneliness" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon, which was adapted into an episode of the new ''TheTwilightZone''.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Haven}}'' included a clever adaptation of this trope; the main character was trapped on a boat heading out to sea and had already gone out of range of the cell towers. Instead she sent a text message, and her phone naturally began repeatedly trying to send it. She then dropped it into a bottle and shoved it out the porthole where it drifted with the tide back to shore until getting back into coverage range, when the message was sent.
* In the 1980's ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' episode "A Saucer of Loneliness," Shelley Duvall's character is scanned by a small flying saucer in view of several people. Afterwards, she keeps getting bombarded by government agents and false friends trying to find out what information she was given. She later reveals that the saucer was no more than a high tech ''MessageInABottle'' and its message was private and only for her.

* Creator/HPLovecraft's story ''Literature/TheTemple'' is a message in a bottle sent by a German WorldWarI submarine captain.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://web.archive.org/web/20140209175417/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3093 Slick tries it.]] [[http://web.archive.org/web/20130208233629/http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3099 Monique mocks the desperation.]]

* Several of these wash up [[ApocalypticLog after the events of the first and the second arc]] of ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'', supposedly written by Maria. However, they tend to be contradictory and generally confuse the hell out of everyone trying to investigate what happened. [[spoiler: In reality they were written by Yasu before the massacre.]]

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* In the 1954 Disney film version of ''Film/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', Ned Land uses multiple messages in bottles to notify the authorities of the location of Captain Nemo's island so they can attack it.
* ''[[Film/TheThing1982 The Thing]]'' (1982). [=MacReady=] is shown dictating an ApocalypticLog into a tape recorder, which he states he intends to hide in the faint hope that it would be found by a search party if they're all killed. [[YouWillBeAssimilated Or worse]].
* In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'', Will leaves messages in bottles for Cutler Beckett, with directions to Shipwreck Cove. Unlike most examples, he doesn't trust chance to deliver them, but attaches them to barrel-lashed corpses so that scavenging seabirds will gather in conspicuous flocks, easily visible from the ''Endeavour''.
* A variation in ''Film/CastawayOnTheMoon''. Seong-Geun is marooned on an island--under a bridge, in the middle of Seoul (ItMakesSenseInContext). He writes "HELP" on the sand, which is observed by Jung-yeon when she spots him from her apartment on the far side of the river. But she's agoraphobic and far too shy to actually come to his island and talk to him, so she drops him notes from the bridge, inside bottles.

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* In 1777, Henry Whiteside found himself trapped in his own lighthouse on the Smalls Rock by gales during what was supposed to be a brief visit. Supplies were low, and he deperately put a distress message in a bottle and cast it into the sea. It had a note for the finder about who to send it to, and, incredibly, the intended recipient got the message just two days later. Whiteside and his companions were rescued soon after.

* ''{{Survivorman}}'' is a Canadian reality show in which the star, Les Stroud, is dropped into various environments to survive for 7 days with no equipment. One episode was based around him being in a life raft in the middle of the ocean, followed by being beached on an island. Les then invokes the trope and actually throws a message in a bottle into the sea, with him even highlighting the last ditch, utter desperation of such an act. Possibly subverted though, because at the end of the episode, a message states that while he put his cell phone number on the message, nobody has ever phoned in.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3093 Slick tries it.]] [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3099 Monique mocks the desperation.]]

* A recent "Fred's Bed" strip in ''TheBeano'' involved Fred going back in time to answer a message he found in a bottle.