History Main / SleepingDummy

* Aragorn [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings helps the Hobbits with this in Bree]], which saves their lives when the Nazgul come calling.

-->'''Papa Smurf''': [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Oh, that's not even convincing!]]

** In the episode "Stan & Francine & Connie & Ted", Stan and Francine, during a [[SwappedRoles parent-child reversal with Steve]], sneak out of their room with a BedsheetLadder, play a tape recording of Stan, and replace themselves in bed with two orangutans stolen from the zoo wearing their clothes with wigs. As it turns out, they actually stole three orangutans; the third suddenly breaks in through the ceiling and repeatedly slams Steve's face into the floor.

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[[folder:Religion]]
* ''Literature/TheBible'' Features an instance of this when David tries yet another time to escape a murder attempt at the hands of Saul.His wife Michal warns him about Saul's plan. After David escapes through the window, she takes the house idol and dresses it up in clothes. She covers its head with goat hair and lies it in the bed. When Saul's messengers come, she tells them that he is sick. This doesn't deter Saul. He asks the messengers to bring David to him bed and all so he can kill him in it at which point the ruse is discovered.
--> '''1 Samuel 19:11-15'''
--> 11 Then Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch for him, so that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, told him, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” 12 So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled and escaped. 13 And Michal took the household idol and laid it on the bed, put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head, and covered it with clothes. 14 And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.” 15 Then Saul sent the messengers [again] to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me on his bed [if necessary], so that I may kill him.” 16 When the messengers came in, there was the household idol on the bed with a quilt of goats’ hair at its head.
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* ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'':
-->"A fluffed pillow? Impossible!"\\
"It's [=f***-ing=] foolproof!"

* In ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', when Alex's parents discover the SleepingDummy he set up, his mom's first response is to ask, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint "What is our son doing with a male mannequin head in his room?"]] In retrospect, [[spoiler: this may have been a hint he'd been planning this for a lot longer than the others...]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' episode "The Belchies", Louis, Gene and Tina each leave one of these when they sneak out of the house. Each dummy says something of its' respective maker: Louise leaves a convincingly-shaped pile of clothes, Gene leaves a full bag of trash, and Tina leaves a note simply reading 'Tina'.

* ''ComicBook/SensationComicsFeaturingWonderWoman'': In "Wonder World" Diana shoved her doll into her bed before locking the door and sneaking off. It is not remotely convincing from any angle that the doll would be mistaken for her, but Di has a long history of being bad at lying.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11357426/6/Fortune-Favors-the-Bold Fortune Favors the Bold]]'' Harry stuffs his bed in the hospital wing with pillows and blankets so he can sneak out to participate in the underground Hogwarts broom races.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' had one of Roger's personas being released from prison so he escaped back into prison to take on the persona again. He had a dummy in his bed for ''six years''.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Stan & Francine & Connie & Ted", Stan and Francine, during a [[SwappedRoles parent-child reversal with Steve]], sneak out of their room with a BedsheetLadder, play a tape recording of Stan, and replace themselves in bed with two orangutans stolen from the zoo wearing their clothes with wigs. As it turns out, they actually stole three orangutans; the third suddenly breaks in through the ceiling and repeatedly slams Steve's face into the floor.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'' episode "Ghost In The Attic", Bother and Blister does this to fool their parents before sneaking to their bedroom and the attic. Ma thinks her TricksterTwins are sleeping this time.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' (TheOneWith the attempt to frame Prue at the auction house).

* In ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'' ComicBook/{{Tintin}} helps the Maharaja of Gaipajama put a dummy in his bed to take a poisoned dart for him.

* Superman does this in UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} comic "Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent's Pal" to keep Jimmy Olsen, who is temporarily rooming with his alter ego, from discovering his SecretIdentity. He took it a step further by using [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands super-ventriloquism]] to make it talk.

* Literature/TheBible: [[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2019:11-16&version=31 1 Samuel 19:11-16]], making this OlderThanFeudalism.
* Used in ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' by the Hobbits. In ''Literature/TheFellowshipOfTheRing'', while the hobbits are staying in The Prancing Pony inn the servant Nob puts a bolster in each of the hobbits' beds so it looks like someone is sleeping in them. During the night some operatives of the Enemy break into the room and slash the bolsters.

* ''Film/EscapeFromAlcatraz'' is both a major film example and TruthInTelevision. TheGuardsMustBeCrazy! Also subverted in the same film, when a guard reaches through the bars to rouse the figure in the bed and it turns out to be the ''real'' prisoner, not his plaster dummy-head.

* In ''Requiem for an Assassin'' by Barry Eisler, the BigBad actually murders an innocent bystander for this trick. Knowing that Literature/JohnRain is stalking him through a park at night, he kills someone and leaves their body in a position where he's apparently waiting in ambush. As Rain sneaks up on the corpse, he gets captured.

* ''Series/OneHunderedThingsToDoBeforeHighSchool'': In "Stay Up All Night Thing!", CJ, Crispo and Fenwick stuff their sleeping bags when they sneak out of the school sleepover to see the sunrise.

* ''Series/OneHunderedThingsToDoBeforeHighSchool'': In "Stay Up All Night!", CJ, Crispo and Fenwick stuff their sleeping bags when they sneak out of the school sleepover to see the sunrise.

* Suspected CIA agents in the Soviet Union would find themselves under [[IncrediblyObviousTail intensive overt surveillance]] by the KGB. To enable an agent to slip away and empty a DeadDrop or meet an [[TheInformer asset]], two agents would be in a car and as it turned a corner, one agent would jump out and a [[ShoePhone dummy on a spring contraption]] would pop up in the car seat. The trick relied on split-second timing and a KGB follow team made complacent by months of following the agents who'd make a point of never doing anything to shake them. Ironically the same trick was later used by a CIA agent who defected to the Soviet Union; he improvised a rig involving a blow-up sex doll.
* During WW2 prisoners of war would be called on parade and counted by the guards every day, so in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlag_und_Milag_Nord Marlag-Milag]] prison camp several naval officers constructed a dummy they called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_R.N.#Historical_background Albert, R.N.]] that could be held in line to fool the guards.

* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle''.

* In the anime of ''Series/{{Golgo 13}}'', Duke Togo does this in bedroom which is under video surveillance at the time, pulling the pillows under the sheet with him, then slipping off the bed on the opposite side from the CCTV camera.

See also BedsheetLadder and NinjaLog.