History Main / SleepingDummy

* In ''Series/TheGoodies'' Graeme uses one so Tim and Bill won't realise he's made off with their [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext cream mine]] claim until it's too late.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. The crew of ''Scorpio'' discover a ProfessionalKiller is after them, so they teleport on board his spaceship to kill him first. The killer leaves a dummy in the pilot's seat and hides behind the door. Instead of blasting the dummy InTheBack from the safety of the doorway, [[IdiotBall for some inexplicable reason]] our anti-heroes have to run inside the flight deck to confront him face-to-face, whereupon the killer steps out from behind the door to ambush them.

* ''Literature/TheBible'': [[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2019:11-16&version=31 1 Samuel 19:11-16]], making this OlderThanFeudalism.

* Mary Ann from ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' tries this at camp, using a cantaloupe as the head. It doesn't fool the counselors whatsoever, though she does impress the other counselors-in-training, which was was what she was trying to do in the first place.

* Prison escapees have been known to do this for a long time. The three convicts who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962 went whole hog and made the papier-mache head. Ted Bundy did this in his second escape, and it worked so well that the guards didn't check until noon, by which time he'd already made it to the Denver airport and flown to Chicago. This was also the tactic of the two escapees from Clinton Correctional Facility in Upstate New York in June 2015. Like the above examples, it gave them a considerable headstart, as their absence wasn't noticed until 530AM the next day.

* Episode 2 of ''VisualNovel/MajiDeWatashiNiKoiShinasai'' begins with Miyako sneaking into Yamato's futon in the middle of the night hoping to have her way with him, but instead she finds this, much to her chagrin.

* Played with ''Videogame/AssassinsCreedIII'' by the bad guys. Connor is in a prison with [[spoiler: Hickey]], and plans to murder him in his cell. When he tries strangling, but it's neither Hickey nor a dummy, [[spoiler: but the already-dead prison warden, and both Hickey and Charles are behind him, ready to pin the death on him, plus an assassination attempt against George Washington.]]

* Prisoners in ''Videogame/PrisonArchitect'' use fake heads when they work on their escape tunnels.

* The cast of ''WebComic/EightBitTheater'' does this to escape an assassination attempt... only instead of pillows they sneak over to a camping site, kill several campers and stick their corpses in the beds. On the other hand, pillows don't bleed when cut.

* ''Literature/TheBible'' Features an instance of this when David tries yet another time to escape a murder attempt at the hands of Saul, making this trope OlderThanDirt. 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.

* ''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.

See also BedsheetLadder and NinjaLog. Sometimes, it is used to avoid SlainInTheirSleep.

* In the anime of ''Anime/{{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.

* Surprisingly, played utterly straight in the ultra-gritty ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story "Troika: Dark Rider": Two Ukrainian gangsters open fire on what they believe to be the body of the Dark Rider (who has defected from his underworld allies to become a [[DirtyCommies Dirty Commie]]). They instead discover that they have just machine-gunned a stack of pillows covered by a bedspread, and are still standing in shock when the ''real'' Dark Rider appears from around a corner and shoots them both in the head.

* Franchise/{{Superman}} does this in ''Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #11: Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent's Pal!'' to keep ComicBook/JimmyOlsen, who is temporarily rooming with his alter ego, from discovering his SecretIdentity. He took it a step further by using super-ventriloquism to make it talk.
* From ''Comicbook/SuperSons,'' when [[ServileSnarker Alfred]] finds [[Comicbook/{{Robin}} Damian]]'s bed empty:
-->"''Hmm.'' At least when [[Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} Master Richard]] snuck out, he had the decency to construct a pillow dummy."

[[folder:FanWorks]]

* ''Manga/HanaukyoMaidTeam La Verite'' episode 9. Taro does this to trick his personal care maids into thinking he's still in his bed.

* ''Anime/HanaukyoMaidTai La Verite'' episode 9. Taro does this to trick his personal care maids into thinking he's still in his bed.

** When the Doctor finds a way out of the room the Monk has imprisoned him in in "The Time Meddler", he makes one of these to delay the Monk noticing he's gone.
** In "The Ark", Venussa and Dassuk pull this trick to allow Dassuk to escape from the Security Kitchen and free the slaves.
** The Doctor and Jo pull this off to help them escape from imprisonment by The Master in ''Frontier in Space''. [[spoiler: The Master is only fooled for a little while, but long enough for The Doctor to royally muck up his plot]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Lisa puts a miniature Statue of Liberty head in her bed to fool Marge.
** Homer has also done this on multiple occasions. In an odd form, he does this at work, but at the same time he's normally asleep at work anyway.
** Also, the dummies are normally blatantly obvious (A mop with a painted bucket with a recorded message), yet seem to actually work.
*** This latter characteristic was subverted in an episode when we see a perfect duplicate of Bart sitting still reading in class despite also being talking to Lisa in the hallway. "It's a shop class project. It's made of [[LatexPerfection latex]]"
* Played straight and subverted in a ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode: Bobby sneaks out of the house, leaving behind a sleeping dummy that Hank finds. Hank runs into Luanne's room, assumes the lump in her bed to be another dummy, and pulls the covers back to reveal... Luanne and her boyfriend.
* [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius Jimmy Neutron]] does it on occasion, but being a boy genius with seemingly unlimited resources, he has a full holographic representation of himself in bed. And it ''[[CantGetAwayWithNuthin doesn't work.]]''
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' has Peter doing this to sneak out from under the nose of his wife, Lois. When she goes to check on him, the dummy speaks to her, courtesy of a tape recording Peter made of himself responding to the comments he predicts Lois will make. The ruse works surprisingly well at first, but after a few exchanges, his "answers" no longer sync up, prompting Lois to pull back the bedsheet and reveal the dummy. Of course, at that moment Peter's stupidity ruins the charade anyway: "Lois, if you still haven't discovered I'm gone, please flip the tape over to side B."
** In another episode, Lois pulls the sheet off the bed thinking that it's Peter and finds that it's a pile of skulls. Apparently, Peter always does it when he's depressed.

* Jenny does this in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot''. And as a robot, naturally she stuffs the sheets with a toaster.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'' short "Christmas Caper", Private uses a bowling pin as a dummy. When Skipper discovers it, he slaps and interrogates it.
* In the WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck WartimeCartoon "The Old Army Game", Donald and a few of his fellow soldiers use dummies to fool Sergeant Pete while they go AWOL.
-->'''Pete:''' Private Duck, you can't make a dummy out of me!
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Detentionaire}}'', Lee uses one in the episode “Friday Night Bites” so he can sneak out and go to a party to gather clues. Unfortunately, his mother hears about him attending anyway when the fact is broadcasted over the news.

* Subverted in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'', when Raj gets two dummies to place in his and Lazlo's beds. He thus hires [[TheDitz Chip and Skip]] to sleep in said beds.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad''
** The episode "Max Jets" 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 episode "Stan & Francine & Connie & Ted", Stan and Francine, during a [[SwappedRoles parent-child reversal with Steve]], pull off a needlessly elaborate version where they 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 the ''WesternAnimation/StaticShock'' episode "Static in Africa", Ananzi helps Virgil sneak out to fight crime by creating an illusion of Virgil sleeping in his bed.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' episode "Squeaky", Smurfette does this with a bunch of pillows under the covers of her bed to disguise the fact that she has run away from the village.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': Marinette constructs one so she can sneak out of the house to become Ladybug while grounded in "Simon Says".
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' episode "The Big Problem", Vicky constructs one of Timmy when she sees he's gone missing and she doesn't want his parents finding out or she'll be held accountable. Timmy's Dad buys it, even close-up where it's obvious that its head is a basketball wearing Timmy's hat.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fangbone}}'': Bill leaves one in his bed when he sneaks out of the house to collect his mother's presents in "The Present of Feathers".

* 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'.

* In one adventure of ''Literature/TheFamousFive'', they discover their host's butler set up a dummy in his bed while he went on criminal activities.
* ''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/TheLordOfTheRings'' 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.

* In Creator/AAMilne's ''The Red House Mystery'', [[AmateurSleuth Anthony]] and [[TheWatson Bill]] do this before going off to tail a suspect at night, so that the suspect (who is staying in the same house as they are) won't realize they're onto him. Bill is pretty proud of his sleeping dummy, but Anthony's is so convincing that it even fools Bill.
* In one of Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Doubled Edge'' novels, Rhoslyn needs to go Underhill while seeming to stay in the mortal world. She arranges a couple pillows under her blanket ... and then casts an illusion of her sleeping mortal disguise on the pillows.
* In Scott Westerfeld's ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'', Tally puts a portable heater under her covers to convince the heat-sensitive room that she's still in bed.

* In the original book version of ''Literature/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'', Literature/JamesBond does this to fool the mob hitmen hired to burn the motel down.
* In ''[[Literature/GarrettPI Old Tin Sorrows]]'', Garrett leaves a blanket-covered suit of armor in his bed while he sneaks around the Stantnor mansion at night. When he returns, there's an ax buried in its chest.
* According to ''Literature/OrkneyingaSaga'', Magnus Erlendsson, later better known as St. Magnus of Orkney, employed this trick to escape from being a hostage of King Magnus of Norway. When the king's ship lies off Scotland, Magnus "prepared his bunk so that it looked as if someone were sleeping in it, then slipped overboard and swam ashore." By the time the Norwegians realize Magnus is not actually in his bunk, he has already a good head start.

* In the ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' episode "Company Man", Claire uses this to escape from Ted.
* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'': one episode had Malcolm and Reese sneaking out to a party and using decoys in their bed to trick their parents: Reese used a balloon and Malcolm a stuffed monster mask. This ends up backfiring when Hal comes inside, feeling nostalgic since there is a possibility that he and Lois have a grave disease. As he goes give "Reese" a kiss, the balloon bursts, causing him to start screaming, which in turn woke up Dewey (who shares the bed with Malcolm) and finds himself face-to-face with the monster mask. Cue more screaming.

* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'': Parodied when Philip's elderly mother and Will were sneaking out. Philip's mother suggested stuffing the bed, but Will explained that these days we do things electronically, and played a recording of snoring.
** Played straight, since Will ''does'' use sneakers, pillows and a bust of King Tut to stuff his bed. The snoring tape was just the icing on the cake.

* Subverted in a prime time spy show that aired on FOX around ten years ago. (name, anyone?) The spy and his girl-of-the-week were in a hotel room that the bad guys were closing in on. The baddies break in, and see two big lumps on the bed. The leader scoffs at the use of such an old ploy, and shoots up the closet. The baddies leave...and the protagonists throw off the blankets and get up from the bed. They were ''counting'' on the enemy to assume they were just pillows.
* ''Series/MrBean'' did this once so he was at the front of the line for the big New Year's sale. It consisted of a sleeping bag filled with balloons (which he pops in front of the stunned queue upon revealing his deception) and a head of lettuce (which he throws in a nearby rubbish bin).
* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment''. Buster, not wanting to disturb his mother with his snoring, puts a bunch of pillows in his bed and covers them with his sheets. He also puts a very loud recording of his snoring in with them. His mother, agitated with the loud snoring, starts beating the fake-Buster with a broomstick, eventually realizing that it's a fake. Riding on her luckiness, she decides to go out to try to find any family member in the car. Halfway to her destination, Buster starts snoring from the back seat.
** George Sr. claims that making papier mache copies of his own head is just a hobby to avoid boredom during house arrest. Nobody falls for it.
* Mary Ann from ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' tries this at camp, using a cantaloupe as the head. It doesn't fool the counselors whatsoever, though she does impress the other counselors-in-training, which was was what she was trying to do in the first place.
* Used in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' by Sam and Dean. With blow up dolls.
** Played straight in "Swap Meat". Dean thinks Sam is NotHimself. Sure enough 'Sam' sneaks into his room at night and tries to shoot the sheet-covered figure on the bed. Dean then appears out of the darkness and punches him.
* In ''Series/TheRockfordFiles'', Jim Rockford used a variation of this to escape from jail. First he repeatedly told the officer guarding the jail that he would escape and do it easily. [[spoiler:Next he invoked this trope. After the officer realized that it was only a dummy in the bed, he ran off to look for Jim. At that point, Jim got out from under the bed and walked away.]]
** Hannibal did the same thing on ''Series/TheATeam'' in the episode where BA got shot.
* Used in one of the prime-time soaps (''Series/{{Falconcrest}}''?) a decade or two ago. A man tried to murder his boss, firing several shots into the lump on the bed. Then the "victim" walked into the room, accompanied by guards, and before the guards dragged the would-be killer away, the boss mocked him by "praising" his shooting: "That cushion's a goner."
* Done in the second season premiere of ''Series/{{Covert Affairs}}'' when Ben and Annie narrowly escape some assassins in a hospital.

* Rex does this to convince the others his mother is in the console in the ''Series/{{Pixelface}}'' episode "Mrs Dynamo's Son".
* Becky does this to sneak out of the house when she is supposed to be down with the flu the SickEpisode of ''[[Film/BadlyDrawnRoy ROY]]''.

* Done by Mozzie in ''Series/WhiteCollar'' so that he could sneak out of the safe house to great success.
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'':
** Murdoch does this to fool a killer after he realises his substitute landlady is trying to kill him in "Convalescence".
** In "Buffalo Shuffle", Murdoch and Julia trick the murderer into attacking a stack of pillows under a sheet instead of the intended victim.
* In the pilot of ''Series/AmericanGothic1995'', Caleb builds one at the hospital to fool the Sheriff.

* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Ralph uses one of these to break out of {{prison}}. He would have made one for Earl, but ended up eating the watermelon that would have comprised the Earl-dummy's head.
* In ''Series/TheGoodies'' Graeme uses one so Tim and Bill won't realise he's made off with their [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext cream mine]] claim until it's too late.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. The crew of ''Scorpio'' discover a ProfessionalKiller is after them, so they teleport on board his spaceship to kill him first. The killer leaves a dummy in the pilot's seat and hides behind the door. Instead of blasting the dummy InTheBack from the safety of the doorway, [[IdiotBall for some inexplicable reason]] our anti-heroes have to run inside the flight deck to confront him face-to-face, whereupon the killer steps out from behind the door to ambush them.
* The same scene is played for RuleOfFunny in ''Series/RedDwarf'' when the crew try to dress up a mannequin as Lister, who's waiting behind the door to clobber Legion. Unfortunately the mannequin is [[PaperThinDisguise extremely unconvincing]] (plus Legion has [[TheOldestTricksInTheBook seen the movie it's from]]).
* ''Series/OneHundredThingsToDoBeforeHighSchool'': 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/MacGyver1985'': In "Jack in the Box", [=MacGyver=] and Jack hide chickens and pillows in their beds so it looks like they were still there when people were looking for them.

* Sherlock Holmes uses this gimmick to sneak around the asylum in ''The Awakened'', leaving [[spoiler: his hat and coat, a rolled-up blanket, and a water jug]] arranged like a sleeping figure in his cell.

* Bed dummies are made out of blankets and pillows in ''VideoGame/TheEscapists''. Vital for sneaking around at night when you're supposed to be in bed, as if the guards see that your bed is unoccupied, they call in a lockdown of the prison.

* They do this all the time in ''Webcomic/AModestDestiny'', and it isn't even to stand in for sleeping people! [[http://www.squidi.net/comic/amd/view.php?ep=2&id=154]]

* ''Anime/HanaukyoMaidTai La Verite'' episode 9. Taro does this to trick his personal care maids into thinking he's still in his bed.

* As shown in a flashback in the 95th episode of ''Anime/YuGiOh'', Rishid makes one of Marik out of a pillow while he and Ishizu spend an hour outside, which they were not allowed to do since they belong to a family of tombkeepers. [[spoiler:Marik and Ishizu's father wasn't fooled and beats Rishid within an inch of his life, until Marik's imaginary friend[=/=]dark side intervenes.]]
* Episode 2 of ''VisualNovel/MajiDeWatashiNiKoiShinasai'' begins with Miyako sneaking into Yamato's futon in the middle of the night hoping to have her way with him, but instead she finds this, much to her chargin.
* ''Anime/IrresponsibleCaptainTylor''. While supposedly a prisoner on the Soyokaze, Empress Azalyn leaves a stuffed kid's toy in her bunk so she can sneak off to Captain Tylor's room.
-->'''Yuriko:''' The Empress turned into a...tanuki?

* In ''Anime/LupinIIIDeadOrAlive'', Fujiko sets up a dummy of Emerah, along with a voice recorder, to fool General Headhunter and allow Emerah to escape.

* In ''Manga/ABridesStory'', the twins Laila and Leili are bored to death sitting under a cloth at their wedding, unable to eat or dance or talk to the guests. Eventually, they place pillows under the cloth and sneak out to play with the grooms. Their mother is naturally very angry when she discovers the subterfuge.
* A convoluted version in an episode of ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' - the employees at a restaurant are searching for the owner. He usually naps on the couch in the back room, but they look, and see that he's not there. Later, they go back and see him sleeping there, but of course, it's not him, it's this - he's the BodyOfTheWeek, and this was used to confuse the time of the murder. The twist is [[spoiler: how the cushion got there - the murderer put some puffy jackets in a vacuum bag, vacuumed it flat, then, when they all went to check the first time, poked a hole in the bag through the blanket with a corkscrew, which wouldn't be odd for a restaurant employee to carry. The bag inflated and became this.]]
* ''Anime/DragonBallGTAHerosLegacy'': While staying in Mamba's house, Goku Jr. becomes suspicious and has himself and Puck arrange their pillows so that it looks like they are sleeping in their beds and then hide near the window. Later that night, Mamba sneaks into their room and stabs the pillows.
* In ''Manga/CodeBreaker'', when visiting Rei's apartment, everything is designed as protection from intruders, and Rei explains he sleeps in a sleeping bag under the bed, putting a dummy in the bed. Sounds paranoid, until Sakura realises the numbers in dummies name imply some of them were actually "slain". And Yuuki does a mini-funeral for the dummies.

* In [[Recap/TintinCigarsOfThePharaoh "Cigars of the Pharaoh"]], Franchise/{{Tintin}} helps the Maharaja of Gaipajama put a dummy in his bed to take a poisoned dart for him.
* The Invisible Man does this in volume two of ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' in order to [[spoiler: covertly meet with Martian invaders and betray humanity.]]

* ''ComicBook/SensationComicsFeaturingWonderWoman'': In "Wonder World" Diana shoves 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.
* From ''Comicbook/SuperSons,'' when [[ServileSnarker Alfred]] finds [[Comicbook/{{Robin}} Damian]]'s bed empty:
-->"''Hmm.'' At least when [[Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} Master Richard]] snuck out, he had the decency to construct a pillow dummy."
* ''ComicBook/CodeNameGravedigger'': In ''Men of War'' #5, Major Birch leaves a dummy made of pillows in his bed and sneaks out of his military hospital to attend a secret rendezvous with Winston Churchill. Not bad for [[HandicappedBadass a man confined to a wheelchair]].

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4736622/4/Patchwork-Wishes Patchwork Wishes]]'' Sirius puts a pile of pillows and a black-haired baby doll in Harry's bed before they sneak out to Gringotts.

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'' is possibly the TropeCodifier. After Joan's abduction, Francis searches the box Cesare sleeps in. He finds a dummy that looks vaguely like Cesare.
* In ''{{Film/Waxworks}}'', Harun al-Rashid leaves a wax figure of himself in his bed when he sneaks out at night.
* ''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 ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'', this is elaborate to the point of being kinda silly; it includes a soundtrack of him snoring and a pulley system to make the dummy appear to react when the bedroom door is opened.

* ''Film/JamesBond'':
** In the movie version of ''Film/DrNo'', Bond uses this to trick an assassin into emptying his gun into the bed, leaving him defenseless.
** Discussed in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun''. When Mary Goodnight is hiding under the covers, Film/JamesBond tells Andrea Anders that he was using the Sleeping Dummy trick.
** ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'' uses a ''standing'' dummy--Bond Girl Kara enters a phone booth, a streetcar passes by, and as it pulls away, so does a car. Only when the KGB operative following notices that she's been in the booth an awfully long time and gets confused and suspicious do we see what happened--Kara and Bond used the few seconds that the streetcar was blocking the booth from his view to drape her coat and a wig around her cello case and for her to quickly get into his car and duck down, thus allowing her to defect.
* Truman Burbank improbably pulls this off in ''Film/TheTrumanShow'', even though he doesn't know exactly where the hidden camera is which he's trying to fool.
* In ''Film/{{Chocolat}}'', Luc pads his bed (with crumpled drawing paper) so he can sneak out to his grandmother's birthday party.
* Aragorn in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing'' helps the Hobbits with this in Bree, which saves their lives when the Nazgul come calling.

* Used for comedy in ''Film/TheNakedGun 33 1/3: The Final Insult'', where the dummies of Rocko and Slasher are so obviously fake that only a bunch of idiots would fall for the trick (which, of course, they do).
** To be more precise, they aren't ''sleeping'' dummies. They're dressed and posed like department store mannequins.
* In ''Film/SupermanII'' Lex Luthor goes one better and creates holograms of himself and his henchman to fool the guard.
* In ''Film/RawDeal'', the hero does the 'fake snoring' version while Monique is talking to Max Keller on the phone about the (fake) ID she's found in his wallet.
* In ''Film/LawAbidingCitizen'', the protagonist uses a simple pillows under the sheet trick to hide the fact that he's not in his cell. Justified as the cell is dark and in solitary, so no-one goes in to check.
* Used by the hero in ''Film/SteamboatBillJr'' to escape from his father and meet his girlfriend.
* Used in ''Film/TheScarletPimpernel1982'' in one of the Pimpernel's aristocrat rescues to delay discovery of the escape.

* In silent film ''Film/SkyHigh1922'', this is how Tom Mix sneaks out of the bad guy camp he's infiltrated, so he can alert the authorities.
* In ''Film/{{Mustang}}'', Lale and Nur make one.
* Brainy, Hefty, and Clumsy use these to trick Papa Smurf in ''WesternAnimation/SmurfsTheLostVillage'', with Clumsy's dummy being [[MythologyGag three apples]], with the top one only consisting of the core.
-->'''Papa Smurf:''' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Oh, that's not even convincing!]]
* ''Albert R.N.'' (1953). The eponymous Albert is a dummy built by British prisoners of war to fool the head count done by their German guards, based on the RealLife case mentioned below.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Calvin of ''Comicstrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' does this, with a broom to mimic Calvin's hair.
* Appears in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'', where gecko assassins trying to kill another gecko in his sleep, only to find that it was just his tail in the bed. ''"Idiots! You fell for the oldest trick in the book!"''
* One Creator/GahanWilson cartoon has a prisoner in his bunk whispering to his cellmate "C'mon! Tell me when you guys are gonna make the break-out!".. and lying in the other bunk is a stuffed dummy.
* The Dodos in ''ComicStrip/SafeHavens'' were able to sneak into the rocket to Mars by leaving behind fake dummies of themselves back on Earth.
[[/folder]]

* Franchise/{{Superman}} does this in ''Superman's Pal ComicBook/Jimmy Olsen #11: 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 super-ventriloquism to make it talk.

* Jenny does this in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot''. And as a robot, naturally she stuffs the sheets with [[spoiler:a toaster]].