History Main / SharkPool

* One sketch in the BBC series ''TheWrongDoor'' has an evil genius discussing this with a workman fixing his TrapDoor. The workman points out that piranhas aren't that deadly, being omnivores, and pointing out that his last victim is still alive. He then recommend polar bears to be the optimum creatures for a killing pool.

** [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Evil!Ron]] had a piranha pool prepared in order to scare [[TheDragon Shego]] into complete obedience. It worked.

* In ''Film/AustinPowers'', Dr. Evil ''wanted'' a pool full of sharks (with laser beams attached to their heads), but had to settle for ill-tempered mutated seabass. In the third movie, Dr. Evil ''did'' get sharks with frikkin' laser beams attached to their heads. as a gift from his newly evil son Scott.

* In one ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' storyarc, the hero ends up in an old mansion [[DeathTrap converted into a gigantic house of DEATH]]. At one point, he gets thrown into a tube and ends up in a pool... which, due to lack of maintenance, featured a half empty base, and a suffocating shark. Subversion!

* One episode of {{The Simpsons}}, "Bart The Daredevil", had daredevil Lance Murdock intentionally invoke this by agreeing to jump over a tank filled with man eating great white sharks, ravenous piranha, bone-crushing alligators, and the most frightening of all, a ferocious lion (the lion is actually added into the pool with the other aquatic predators). Lance fails the jump, but luckily manages to survive.

* In one ''{{Daredevil}}'' storyarc, the hero ends up in an old mansion [[DeathTrap converted into a gigantic house of DEATH]]. At one point, he gets thrown into a tube and ends up in a pool... which, due to lack of maintenance, featured a half empty base, and a suffocating shark. Subversion!

[[caption-width-right:333:Is it an acid-breathing shark?]]

See also FedToTheBeast.

* Pools filled with [[GoddamnBats leeches]] are very common in ''[[{{Blood}} Blood 2]]''. And 90% of the times, the game REQUIRES you to swim through it.

* ''Literature/{{Swellhead}}''. Seeing how the ElaborateUndergroundBase looks like a classic SupervillainLair, Gilly asks where the alligator pit is. Someone presses a button on the CoolChair and the hero and his sidekick nearly fall into a trapdoor from which there's a bad smell and the sound of something thrashing about. [[spoiler:Two people fall in there for real later on, but not our hero thanks to his LevitatingLotusPosition.]]

* ''Literature/{{Swellhead}}''. Seeing how the ElaborateUndergroundBase looks like a classic SupervillainLair, Gilly asks where the alligator pit is. Someone presses a button on the CoolChair and Jeperson nearly falls into the trapdoor that opens in front of him, in which there's a bad smell and something thrashing about. [[spoiler:Two people fall in their for real later on, but not our hero thanks to his LevitatingLotusPosition.]]

** In ''Discworld/TheLastHero'', EvilOverlord wannabe Evil Harry Dread is cheated and gets dolphins instead of sharks for his pool.

* ''Film/{{Colombiana}}''. A {{ponzi}} embezzler has a covered pool in his BigFancyHouse, which he delights in telling his PaidHarem is full of sharks that will attack at a single drop of blood. Cue the hitwoman protagonist infiltrating by swimming through the pool, unmolested by the sharks as she's not bleeding. She then kills his bodyguards, lures the mark out onto the pool covers, then kneecaps him so he falls through an open hatch cover. Now there's blood in the water, the sharks attack him in a frenzy. Cue headlines SHARKS EAT SHARK.

* ''Film/Colombiana''. A {{ponzi}} embezzler keeps a covered shark pool in his BigFancyHouse, which he delights in telling his PaidHarem is full of sharks that will attack at a single drop of blood. Cue the hitwoman protagonist infiltrating by swimming through the pool, unmolested by the sharks as she's not bleeding. She then kills his bodyguards, lures the mark out onto the pool covers, then kneecaps him so he falls through an open hatch cover. Now there's blood in the water, the sharks attack him in a frenzy. Cue headlines SHARKS EAT SHARK.

* One episode of {{The Simpsons}}, "Bart The Daredevil", had a daredevil Lance Murdock intentionally invoke this by agreeing to jump over a tank filled with man eating great white sharks, ravenous piranha, bone-crushing alligators, and the most frightening of all, a ferocious lion (the lion is actually added into the pool with the other aquatic predators). Lance fails the jump, but luckily manages to survive.

* One episode of {{The Simpsons}} had a daredevil Lance Murdock intentionally invoke this by jumping over a tank filled with man eating great white sharks, ravenous piranha, bone-crushing alligators, and the most frightening of all, a ferocious lion (the lion is actually added into the pool with the other aquatic predators). Lance fails the jump, but luckily manages to survive.

* Played with in {{Sillage}} by Ehmte-Ciss-Ronn. His race is naturally aquatic and his shark-equivalents smart enough to recognise him as their master. So instead of activating a trap door, the panic button under his desk instantly floods the whole office.

* In ''Film/{{Kick-Ass 2}}'', the main villain has a shark tank as part of his personal supervillain lair. However, the shark does nothing but lay at the bottom of the pool, causing people to think it's dead. [[spoiler:As it turns out, it's just hungry.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', the villain Control Freak sics a ''mechanical'' shark on Aqualad. Trust us, there's a reason he couldn't have used a real shark.

* MatthewReilly loves this trope. It all started when the BigBad noticed killer whales hanging around in the dive pool, and got re-used with caimans, komono dragons and sharks [[OncePerEpisode in his next books]].

* The aforementioned ''Film/AustinPowers'' example. In the third movie, Dr. Evil ''did'' get sharks with frikkin' laser beams attached to their heads.