Few rides are as prone to breakage in superhero movies and shows as the Ferris Wheel. When the hero shows up, the wheel typically begins to shudder and collapse, dropping children and sometimes falling completely over. A common variant is to have the Ferris Wheel rip loose from its hub and roll away.

A Ferris Wheel is the most useful ride for TV and movies because it is both big and tall (a hero saving people from a spinning teacup ride gone amok isn't impressive) and slow (If a rollercoaster doing a hundred miles an hour leaves the tracks it boggles the mind that any hero but a {{Super Speed}}ster could find a convenient phone booth, change, and return in time to do anything but help gather up the dead). Ferris Wheels are also large open structures with a lot of rods and beams that let athletic types show their stuff. [[WalkingDisasterArea Having a hero in the area]] thus generally causes any Ferris Wheel to suffer a sudden massive breakdown.

It should be noted that if a ferris wheel ''did'' break off and roll away, it wouldn't get very far. The wheel itself isn't very structurally sound, and would collapse under its own weight.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* In the ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}'' manga, Mad Bomber rigs Ferris Wheel cars to explode.
*''CardCaptorSakura'' had a fight on a ferris wheel... one also popped up in the recent Satoshi Kon movie ''{{Paprika}}''.
*In the ''SakuraTaisen'' TV series, Iris freaks out while on a Ferris wheel and I think ends up breaking the thing accidentally with her telekinetic powers.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* In ''UltimateXMen'', at the beginning of the Fenris arc, the team's hanging out at Coney Island. Naturally, bad guys sabotage the Ferris wheel and the X-Men have to save the day.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* In ''Catwoman'', a ferris wheel mysteriously breaks down while the leads are on it, allowing Tom to shut down the motor and stop it, and Patience to save a little boy who falls out of a seat that somehow suffers a structural failure at the same time.
* In ''[[Film/FantasticFour Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer]]'', the London Eye breaks down and has to be rescued, although it had more to do with the Silver Surfer destroying the surrounding area than just a random failure. While the London Eye is not quite a Ferris Wheel but an observation wheel (its gondolas are motorized), it's similar enough to count.
* In the film ''1941'', a Ferris wheel in a California seaside amusement park is shot loose by a japanese sub and rolls into the ocean.
* Avoided in the ''Film/IronMan'' movie; there's a Ferris Wheel which fails to break or roll away at all.
* Happens at the end of ''MightyJoeYoung'', causing the titular Gorilla to save a small child from it. The resulting good publicity sets up the HappyEnding.
* ''BeverlyHillsCop 3'': It's not a Ferris wheel exactly, but close enough. Our hero, Axel Foley, gets onto the ride to escape the bad guys, and is hoisted in the air. The bad guys try to get him down by overriding the controls of the ride, and end up breaking it. The ride is damaged, and one of the gondolas is about to fall. Foley then spends the next few minutes jumping from gondola to gondola, and climbing along the supporting beams, to reach the broken gondola before it falls. He, of course, succeeds. And, he's not even a super hero.
* In the Russian film [[{{Nightwatch}} Day Watch]], tremors caused by TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt cause a Ferris Wheel to break free and roll down the street. Since the heroes are too busy trying to stop the world from ending, plenty of people get crushed. [[spoiler: Except they don't, thanks to the hero RewritingReality]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* There's a dark version in ''{{Carnivale}}''. A boy is killed in a Ferris wheel accident, and his injured mother prays for death to take her instead of her son. Ben resurrects him, and the mother dies as an EquivalentExchange.
** Not to mention its prominent role in the finale, where [[spoiler: Samson BriarPatches Justin and Iris into riding it, Jonesy traps them at the top, then cuts the brakes and lets the thing go speeding around, and Ben uses Justin's life force to heal everyone at the show. CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Justin as he yells "BE STILL!" ''and the Ferris Wheel listens''.]]
* ''{{Bottom}}'': "Hole", in which Richie and Eddie find themselves stuck at the top of a rickety, illegal, death trap ferris wheel just after the owners have closed it down pending its demolition? How will they ever escape? Well, they pray for salvation and God answers. Unfortunately, they then realise that they don't believe in God, so they fall anyway. They get better in time for the next episode.
*''DoctorWho'': In 'Rose', the London Eye is actually a giant satellite dish used by the Big Bad to control its minions, the Autons.
* ''{{Scrubs}}'': J.D., Cox, Jordan and Jordan's sister Dani get stuck at the top of a Ferris Wheel for an hour.
* In "Mr. {{Monk}} Goes to the Carnival", Sharona goes up on a Ferris wheel (which also happens to have been the scene of the murder) to keep an eye out for the murderer, who is somewhere at the carnival. The murderer suddenly appears and begins to climb towards Sharona. After accidentally breaking the controls on the Ferris wheel, Monk has to climb up after the murderer. For a while, part of this scene appeared during the ThemeSong.
** It's better than it sounds. Remember that Monk has clinical phobias about heights, grime, etc. He has to climb a ferris wheel whose structure is covered in dirt and grease.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* TruthInTelevision: Ferris wheel accidents do happen, although more often a single seat failing when the rider abuses it (they aren't typically fast enough to drop somebody who's just sitting) than the entire thing going haywire.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Happened in a Cut Scene in ''[=~Hitman: Blood Money~=]''.
*On one of the levels in ''TwistedMetal Black'', you can send a ferris wheel rolling. If I remember correctly, it either uncovers a secret or does damage to anyone who gets hit by it. Or both...
* In ''ProfessorLayton and the Curious Village'', Layton and Luke are being chased by a ''remote-controlled'' version of this.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* A ''HappyTreeFriends'' episode involved The Mole and a Ferris wheel. The wheel ended up slicing Lumpy in two (and grinding the left half)
* In one of the "Chicken vs. Peter" fight scenes in ''FamilyGuy'', the thing with the ferris wheel tearing free happens and they fight on it while it's rolling away.
* There was a mechanically failing Ferris wheel in the first episode of the ''Series/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' cartoon, "Man of Tomorrow." It made things pretty easy for the Legion when they needed to figure out who Superman was.
** Superman in his own [[SupermanTheAnimatedSeries animated series]] had to play tug-of-war using a ferris wheel in "Monkey Fun" while fighting a [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever giant monkey]].
* An episode of ''MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' has a ferris wheel that does the break-loose-and-roll thing.
* ''TeenTitans'' had a subversion in the second season. Beast Boy and Terra were on a date, riding on the Ferris Wheel when Slade ambushed them. The ride never broke down, or suffered from structural failure during the entire fight... until earth-controlling Terra destroyed it on her own at the end, to escape from Slade.
* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode "Bart's Inner Child", Otto's inattentiveness causes the Ferris wheel to break loose and run amok through Springfield's "Do What You Feel" festival.

----
<<|ActionAdventureTropes|>>
<<|ComicBookTropes|>>