History Main / PaintedTunnelRealTrain

* In one ''WesternAnimation/PinkPanther'' short, Pink sees a picture of a sailboat hanging crooked, but when he straightens it, the water on the picture spills out of the frame.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicRoboBlast2'', Arid Canyon Zone features, among many other tropes inspired by Looney Tunes, paintings of tunnels to deceive the player.

* The film ''Film/TheVillain'' has this trope. While trying to trap Handsome Stranger and Charmin, the titular villain paints a rock formation with black paint. The heroes' carriage goes right into it, prompting the villain to try it himself, with predictable results.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'', Merv Pumpkinhead is charged with making alterations to Dream's palace. He does so by pasting up ''posters of corridors on a blank wall''. Dream then walks out of the posters, which are now apparently as real as anything else in The Dreaming. FridgeBrilliance when you realise that ''any'' corridor in a comic is just a picture.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' involving WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck and [[WesternAnimation/TheThreeCaballeros the Aracuan Bird]] featured a scene where the Aracuan can be seen drawing a door on the wall, then opening it to reveal [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing a stampede of wildebeest]] who then trample Donald.

So the villain takes his brush and creates a realistic looking tunnel in [[PolkaDotPaint three]] [[CartoonlandTime seconds]]! The prey comes along and the villain hides behind a rock to see the creature stupidly run into the solid wall. The prey runs towards the tunnel and disappears into it. The villain may be baffled, but decides that he needs to go after his prey. He begins to run into the tunnel, and either crashes directly into the solid wall, or ''gets run over by a train or bus that has somehow come through the tunnel''.

* ''Advertising/MAndMs'': In "The Chase", Red and Yellow chase after the Minis in a rocket car. The Minis then form a landscape, but fly away when the rocket car catches up to them, revealing a cliff that Red and Yellow fall off of.

* Taken to a truly ''maniac'' extent in ''Series/TheGoodies'' episode "Movies": Characters jump in and out of the cinema screen, then in and out of the cinema screen which is on ''another cinema screen'', then running off screen, appearing in the cinema screen inside the cinema screen, then jumping through all the cinema screens. The amazing thing is that they avoid SpecialEffectFailure despite the episode being from 1975, and ''live action television''.
** Done earlier in "Invasion Of The Moon Creatures", when Bill, dressed as a rabbit (ItMakesSenseInContext, promise) runs next to a hole and jumps down the rabbit hole to get rid of Graeme, who is chasing him. Graeme attempts to jump in also, but hits the ground. Confused, he touches the hole, and manages to ''pick it up'' -- it's just a piece of round, black paper. Frustrated, he throws the hole away as he stomps off-screen. When the hole lands, Bill crawls out of it again.

** A tunnel painted on the side of a cliff face may act as a real tunnel when the Road Runner escapes into it, but for Wile E. Coyote it remains solid rock (as in their first cartoon, "Fast and Furry-ous"). Or it may injure the Coyote when a very real truck or train exits it and runs him over as he stands in front of it. Wile E. may also paint a fake bridge over a real canyon. That one is reversed in "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z", where Wile E. puts a painting of a broken bridge in the middle of the road to get the Road Runner to stop. When the Road Runner just rips through the canvas, Wile E. goes after him, ''enters'' the painting and falls off the cliff therein.

* ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' used quite a number of the original ''Road Runner'' gags, thanks to Mike Maltese, Road Runner's primary writer, having wrote a few ''Wacky Races'' episodes, and this gag was one of them.

** One episode set in a desert had a variation of the gag, where Dick Dastardly finds a JackassGenie, and tries to enlist his help. The first wish Dick uses is to make a mirage river to stop the other racers. Unfortunately, Peter Perfect sees through it, and encourages the other racers to just imagine that there’s a bridge, which they use to cross. When Dastardly attempts to cross, fully knowing that it’s just a mirage, he falls into the river instead.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' takes it a step further: In "Back to the Norm", Crocker paints a cliff so it appears to be Trixie Tang holding two ice cream cones and standing in front of a tunnel. As a cherry on top, on top of the cliff is a rock which would fall when someone hits the cliff. Timmy rides into it, but instead of crashing, "Trixie" hands him an ice cream cone and jumps on his bike as they ride through the tunnel. Crocker starts to chase after them like one would expect, but he stops just before he is about to hit the cliff the tunnel is painted on, [[GenreSavvy because he realizes that the cliff will be solid again when he tries to run through the tunnel]]. But he then spazzes out and hits the cliff and the rock falls on him.

* In the 1930s, there was a whole slew of ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' shorts in which the pictures on book and magazine covers, food labels or billboards came to life.

** Another episode inverts it, where Sonic finds the perfect place to paint a tunnel, only the tunnel's already there, so he simply paints over the tunnel, leaving Scratch and Grounder confused when they hear a train coming, but don't see where it could be coming from, until they're hit by it.

* ''WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons'': In one WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}} cartoon, Spike paints a tennis court blue and installs a diving platform so that when Droopy tries to dive in, he would drop to his death instead. Droopy dives, but instead of splattering on solid concrete he splashes into what is now real water. Spike then tries it himself... and [[LiterallyShatteredLives shatters into a million pieces]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Bonkers}}'' episode "Basic Straining", passing through a painted tunnel is the only thing that saves Bonkers and Lucky from a villain's bulldozer. Lucky had difficulty passing thorough since he's not a toon. After they pass through, a train takes care of the villain.

* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansTheSeries'': "The Making of..." has several shout-outs to other shows, movies, and cartoons. One of them is a scene parodying the ''WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner'' cartoons, with Cruella in the role of Wile E. and Spot in the role of Road Runner. Cruella paints a tunnel on a wall and chases Spot towards it. Spot goes through the tunnel, but when Cruella tries to follow her, she slams her car into the wall. Then a train comes out of the tunnel and knocks her off a cliff.

* In a sixth-season cast sketch on ''Series/SesameStreet'', Bob and Luis assemble a billboard picture of a railroad tunnel. No sooner do they assemble the picture properly than a train comes out.

->'''Batman''': I would paint a tunnel on the side of the cliff, because you'd run at the tunnel thinking it was a tunnel when it was actually a cliff and you hit a rock and it'd hurt really bad and you'd fall down unconscious.\\
'''Flash''': But what if I ran into the tunnel and it was an actual tunnel but when you tried to follow me it turned back into a cliff?\\
'''Batman''': ... The simulations did warn me about that.

* At one point in ''[[WebVideo/TheCartoonMan Return of the Cartoon Man's]]'' climactic chase scene (an extended homage to RoadrunnerVsCoyote cartoons), Roy paints a picture of a tunnel that Simon can somehow run right into, but he himself cannot.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': A tunnel painted on the side of a cliff face may act as a real tunnel when the Road Runner escapes into it, but for Wile E. Coyote it remains solid rock (as in their first cartoon, "Fast and Furry-ous"). Or it may injure the Coyote when a very real truck or train exits it and runs him over as he stands in front of it. Wile E. may also paint a fake bridge over a real canyon. That one is reversed in "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z", where Wile E. puts a painting of a broken bridge in the middle of the road to get the Road Runner to stop. When the Road Runner just rips through the canvas, Wile E. goes after him, ''enters'' the painting and falls off the cliff therein.
** [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunesCartoons The 2020 short Tunnel Vision]] provided a new twist on the gag -- this time, Wile E. actually enters the tunnel, and is even surprised by this. However, when he tries to get back out, he finds that he can't. Then the Road Runner uses a hose to wash the painting and Wile E. away.

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': Spoofed in “Chipwrecked” as the last entry in a montage of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Chip Whistler’s]] schemes to destroy the Green family shows him running into a wall after Tilly successfully went through the painted-on tunnel. Chip admits he might have hallucinated that particular one due to sleep deprivation.

* ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' used quite a number of the original ''Road Runner'' gags, thanks to Mike Maltese, Road Runner’s primary writer, having wrote a few Wacky Races episodes, and this gag was one of them.

** [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunesCartoons The 2020 short Tunnel Vision]] provided a new twist on the gag-- this time, Wile E. actually enters the tunnel, and is even surprised by this. However, when he tries to get back out, he finds that he can't. Then the Road Runner uses a hose to wash the painting and Wile E. away.

* Similarly, in ''VideoGame/LegoStarWars'', you come across a solid wall. So you build a door into it, and then blow up the door to reveal a passageway.