History Main / RidingTheBomb

* In ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', [[http://www.gamespy.com/articles/771/771937p2.html Master Chief Rides the Bomb]]. Somewhat unusually for this trope, it wasn't actually a UNSC bomb.
* A mission in ''VideoGame/Jak3'' has Daxter ride a missile.
** He hijacks three much bigger ones in ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxterTheLostFrontier''. [[ShoutOut He'll even wisecrack about wanting a "missile hat an' spurs" at the end.]]

* Music/TheOffspring have a song called ''Slim Pickens Does The Right Thing And Rides The Bomb To Hell''. About greed, stupidity, end of the world and gasoline.

* The video of "Boom" from System of a Down shows Bush, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Tony Blair riding each one a bomb, dressed like the Riders of the Apocalypse.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' the [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orks]] have grot-guided bombs. A gretchin (small orkoid subspecie, similar to goblins in the fantasy setting) will steer to bomb to it's target, increasing it's accuracy. Of course the mekboys tend to forget to tell the pilot that it's a one-way flight (although anything more intelligent would work that out on their own). Plus their answer to other factions high mobility troops (such as those with jetpacks) are are called Storm Boyz. They're full-sized Orkz whose jump-packs are litterally just makeshift rockets strapped to their back. Calling them unsafe is an understatment, (whether the rocket explodes or just flys off in a random direction on a failure depends on the edition being played), but they do help the boyz get where they're going in a hurry.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' Fantasy has a similar concept, although in their case, the "catapult" (a giant slingshot) doesn't fire any actual amunition, the "bomb" is just a goblin in a wingsuit who (hopefully) guides themself into the target at high speed, killing both on impact. Not only that, but the goblins used this way ''volunteer'', for the chance to briefly fly and possibly kill something, plus becoming AbnormalAmmo is probably a better death than whatever [[BadBoss their own side would otherwise give them]].

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At the end of Stanley Kubrick's UsefulNotes/ColdWar [[BlackComedy dark comedy]] ''Film/DrStrangelove'', B-52 pilot Maj. "King" Kong -- a straight-shootin' Texan played by cowboy character actor Creator/SlimPickens -- goes to the bomb bay to [[PlotDemandedManualMode manually release the stuck bay doors]] on his damaged aircraft, thus enabling him to complete his [[NukeEm nuclear attack run]] on a Soviet target. He succeeds, but just as he celebrates his accomplishment with a bit of hootin' and hollerin', the bomb on which he was seated is dropped. He rides the device all the way in to the target, wildly whipping his Stetson hat around as he plummets to a thermonuclear death and a blaze of glory[[labelnote:*]]unaware this will set of a chain reaction that will cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt[[/labelnote]].

** ''Contra 3'''s fourth stage ends with you hopping from missile to missile, trying to destroy the shields of an alien mothership.
** In ''{{VideoGame/Contra}}: Shattered Soldier'''s second mission, you encounter {{mook}}s riding missiles.
** Played completely straight in ''Contra 4'', during the harbour stage you have to cling onto a warhead. While shooting missiles down, avoiding WeaponizedExhaust, and even fighting a MiniBoss on it!
** A similar sequence is also present in one of the endings to Contra: Hard Corps. The [[MacGuffin Alien Cell]] hijacked by the Big Bad, in this particular ending, ends up as a warhead for his doomsday missile. You have to chase said missile while jumping on smaller ones, climb up, and then destroy the cell which by now seems to have evolved into a full fledged final boss.

* Unintentionally so, during the Russian-Ukrainian War, a harvest mouse climbed on the nose of a rocket propelled grenade serving as the warhead attached to a Russian FPV kamikaze drone just before it took off to conduct a (successful) suicide attack on a Ukrainian bunker. The drone's camera showed the mouse clinging to the warhead until just before impact.

* ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'' has [[spoiler:[[IdiotSavant Scooter]] getting his hand stuck in a faulty booster rocket that will explode and destroy the ship that the protagonists are on if he can't detach it. He knows that he can't get his hand out in time, so he decides to FaceDeathWithDignity and make a HeroicSacrifice instead, detaching the damaged booster from the ship. His last moments with Fiona are a poignant, heartfelt exchange before he pushes himself and the booster away from the ship and rides it into Pandora's atmosphere before it explodes, bellowing his CatchPhrase all the while.]] He still thinks that it's an awesome way to go.

* ''{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' has Rattrap RidingTheBomb attached to former Decepticon Ravage's stealth ship after forcing it to crash. The twist: the bomb remained unexploded until after the crash, and Rattrap was blown clear into the arms of his comrades, nice and safe.

At the end of Stanley Kubrick's UsefulNotes/ColdWar [[BlackComedy dark comedy]] ''Film/DrStrangelove'', B-52 pilot Maj. "King" Kong -- a straight-shootin' Texan played by cowboy character actor Creator/SlimPickens -- goes to the bomb bay to [[PlotDemandedManualMode manually release the stuck bay doors]] on his damaged aircraft, thus enabling him to complete his [[NukeEm nuclear attack run]] on a Soviet target. He succeeds, but just as he celebrates his accomplishment with a bit of hootin' and hollerin', the bomb on which he was seated is dropped. He rides the device all the way in to the target, wildly whipping his Stetson hat around as he plummets to a thermonuclear death and a blaze of glory.

* ''Film/DrStrangelove'' is the TropeMaker. In it, Major Kong orders the bomb dropped, and then wonders why it didn't release. He goes down to the bomb bay and starts hotwiring the drop system to get the bomb to drop, while sitting on it. He then rides the bomb to a thermonuclear death.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': When Homer becomes leader of a group of vigilantes, he goes to the local army surplus store to stock up on implements of destruction. One of the things the proprietor shows him is a miniature nuke that was designed to be used against {{Beatnik}}s in TheSixties. Cut to an ImagineSpot of Homer, with cowboy hat, trying to drop the bomb, and ending up riding it in. Cut back, he's straddling the device, and the shopkeeper points out a nearby sign reading "[[CantYouReadTheSign Do not ride the bomb]]". The imagery was also used as a CouchGag in [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SimpsonStrangelove.jpg another episode.]]
(Inexplicably enough, however, the cityscape he's dropping into is clearly [[CaliforniaDoubling San Diego, CA]].)

!!As this is often a [[DeathTropes Death Trope]] (seeing as how NoOneCouldSurviveThat), unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

[[caption-width-right:330:[[DyingMomentOfAwesome What a way to go!]]]]

* In the movie version of ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' when the pixies are destroying the classroom, one of the pixies steals a wand and makes a huge dinosaur skeleton drop to the floor. A few pixies are then seen riding it to the ground like the bomb in Film/DrStrangelove complete with cries of yee-hah.

** His DistaffCounterpart Bayonetta rides a missile, fights on it using hand-to-hand, and shoots other missiles and flying enemies in her own [[VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}} self-titled video game]].

* Music/{{Rush}}'s video for "Distant Early Warning" features a kid riding a missile.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Kizaru rides one of the cannonballs that signals his arrival on Sabaody Archipelago.
* ''Anime/ProjectAKo'': A slight variant, but A-Ko uses missiles as {{stepping stones|InTheSky}} to fight alien invaders.

* In the ''ComicBook/DarkAvengers Ares'' miniseries, Ares rides a missile into ground zero, for no other reason then RuleOfCool.
* In the TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} ''ComicBook/DeffSkwadron'' comic ''Da Sekret Weapon'', [[{{Cyborg}} Killboy]] has to open the bomb bay manually:

** The 'secret weapon' in this case wasn't a bomb to ride on so much as a carpet-bombing of specially bred flesh-eating [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily squigs]]. Killboy, not having much meat left on him, was mostly ignored and only had to contend with the ground.
* ''ComicBook/GIZombie'': [[TheProtagonist Jared]] manages to get up on a missile just as [[WesternTerrorists Duke]] launches it. He proceeds to damage the missile guidance system and shoot out one of the fins so it doesn't land in its intended target, Washington D.C.
* A fantasy sequence in ''ComicBook/HarleyQuinn'' #0 with Harley riffing off the title of her other comic ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'', includes a panel of her riding a bomb. (Notably, this replaced an initially-scripted image of her naked in a bathtub and about to [[ElectrifiedBathtub drop a huge number of radios into it]], which when the script was publicly-released for an art competition was denounced as tasteless sexualisation of suicide.)
* In a ''ComicBook/StrontiumDog'' story guest starring UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, Reagan had a dream where he rode a giant bomb into Moscow dressed as a {{cowboy}} and killed everyone.
* A variant cover for ''Comicbook/UncannyXMen'' #522 (the issue where Magneto rescued Kitty Pryde from the giant bullet she was stuck on at the end of Creator/JossWhedon's ''Comicbook/AstonishingXMen'' run) features [[https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/32467/uncanny_x-men_1963_522_variant/variant Kitty riding a missile]].
* In the [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman Return of Superman]] arc, Superman, Steel and Superboy find a massive missile preparing to launch at Metropolis. As it launches, Steel and the still-powerless Superman escape the exhaust by leaping into the nearest room, but Superboy leaps onto the rocket itself, riding it all the way to Metropolis while trying to disable it.

** [[http://cptofthefriendship.deviantart.com/art/Rainbow-Dash-Ride-the-Bomb-266828693 This one]] is a more straight rendition.
** Then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wz2liKhg6c it got combined]] with an appropriate song.
** And [[http://abydos91.deviantart.com/art/Applejack-Fearless-352856104 this.]]

* Mushu, but with a skyrocket in ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}''. Due to his small size, the rocket is the same size as nuclear bomb would be to a human, and will have approximately the same effect if it detonates while he's on it.

* In the movie ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'', when they're trying to lower the bomb into the core of the asteroid, Steve "Rockhound" Buscemi duplicates this scene, and everyone yells at him. Although he claims that he was actually getting the idea from ''Radio/TheLoneRanger''.

The image is much more famous than the film, at this point. It symbolically associates zealotry, jingoism, nuclear war, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and cowboy diplomacy]], not to mention the [[PhallicWeapon phallic imagery]]. Mostly, it just gets used whenever air-dropped weapons appear in comedy, which is surprisingly frequent. Especially common in [[NewspaperComics Editorial Comics]].

* Played literally and subverted in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger''. Johann Schmidt's ultimate HYDRA weapon, a massive Tesseract bomber known as "Valkyrie", contained various plane bombs that were presumably going to use to attack the targets specified on their hulls and are pilotable, making it the [[SuicideAttack most literal use of the trope]]. The subversion comes in where Captain America manages to dispose a mook by opening up the cargo doors and releasing the latch before the HYDRA mook could get himself secured into the plane bomb.