Beach Bury

Nothing could go wrong… other than big waves… or children… or a weird tan line.

"No, I'm the biggest loser on the beach. They buried me in the sand and forgot me."

— Frank the Whale, SpongeBob SquarePants, "Ripped Pants"

It's the Beach Episode! What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Well, for one, Genre Blind characters will let themselves be buried in the sand. Hilarity ensues when the people who buried them forget they're supposed to dig him out as well, or they forget where he is, or angry crabs pass by, or something prevents them from finding him again, or… well, you get the idea.

A common variation involves the diggers using the sand to make a sand body for the exposed head, usually involving a shape that would be embarrassing to the buried person.

If you're doing this to kill the buried person by having the tide drown him, it's a Sand Necktie.

An important note is that doing this in Real Life risks the chance of you being infected by parasites that live in the sand, such as hookworm. So please, Don't Try This at Home.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In an Alltell commercial, the nerdy personifications of Alltell's competitors get stuck in the sand, buried by frustrated customers. "Chad" (Alltell's personification) offers to help get them out but they refuse his help. Then the actual product offer gets shown. Cut to a 2 second stinger of sorts of the four, still buried, at night, surrounded by crabs, and screaming.
• A Bud Light commercial features a girl burying a guy in the sand, then stealing his six-pack of Bud Light and walking off with it.
• In one Butterfinger commercial, Bart Simpson buries Homer in the sand at the beach so firmly that Homer can't move. Bart takes this opportunity to steal Homer's candy bar, while in the background Homer is being menaced by crabs... and then the tide starts coming in...
• A late-70s McDonalds commercial featured this type of scene. Complete with Tickle Torture.
• Some kids do this to Geoffrey the Giraffe in a commercial for Toys R Us advertising their sale on children's pools.

Anime & Manga

• Cyber Team in Akihabara: During the Beach Episode, Tsubame traps Petit Ange in a sand pyramid, then lies down on the sand and falls asleep. Hibari, Tsugumi and Suzume come across her and decide to bury her making a sphinx, and she's left trapped there even late into the night.
• In the ED credits of the Despair Arc in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, one of the class' photos show Chiaki and Sonia covering Kazuichi in a sand body.
• In FLCL Progressive, Haruko exploits this trope in the Beach Episode to incapacitate Jinyu by mixing the sand she's burying her in with concrete, leaving Jinyu stuck in a concrete cocoon while Haruko kidnaps Hidomi.
• In the Beach Chapter of Free Collars Kingdom, this is done to Amesho, complete with a sand body...of a woman. But seeing who it is, he doesn't seem to mind.
• In a Fullmetal Alchemist Omake, Ed has apparently buried Al in the sand, makes a female body with huge boobs out of the sand and starts laughing at him. Then Al's body drop-kicks Ed, since it was just his detached head lying on top of the sand.
• In the Galaxy Angel Beta manga, Chitose buries Forte in the sand making a giant octopus.
• Great Teacher Onizuka:
  • Happens in an episode... to the title character, in revenge for taking his students on a treasure hunt they wanted no part of. This was inland from the beach, though.
  • In Chapter 110 of GTO: The Early Years, Shinomi completely buries Eikichi in sand after he gropes Nagisa.
• Gundam Build Fighters has Mr. Ral getting buried in sand. Naturally, the sand covering him is sculpted into a Gouf.
• In the manga of Lucky Star, Minami has the "sand body" version done to her. The sand on her chest makes her look busty, but a wave comes along and reveals the truth.
• In the Beach Episode of Martian Successor Nadesico, the admiral of the ship is left buried up to his neck and is utterly left behind after the crew dealt with an abandoned Jovian weapon. When the girl who had it found him, she attempted to keep him around to complete a demented love suicide pact she attempted with Akito earlier.
• In the beach episode of Neo Ranga, Minami gets in a covered in sand with seashells and sea urchins.
• In Non Non Biyori, Natsume managed to convince her brother Suguru to have his head buried in the sand and forgot about him until they all went home.
• The Story Between a Dumb Prefect and a High School Girl with an Inappropriate Skirt Length: Tsukishima is subjected to one in the Beach Episode. Of course, at the end of the chapter they forget he's still there...
• Strawberry Marshmallow: As retribution for undoing Nobue's bikini top, she buries Miu up to her neck in sand. In the manga, she decides to drool on her as further punishment; in the anime, she has apparently blindfolded Ana, given her a stick, and was guiding her to where Miu was as if Miu's head was a watermelon.
• In the Beach Episode of Zoids: New Century, the Blitz Team leaves Jamie buried vertically, then a crab wanders by...

Comic Books

• Prior to her joining The Avengers, Patsy Walker had to deal with this predicament◊.
• In a Tharg's Future Shocks story by Alan Moore, a man visiting Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with his family awakens from a nap to find that his son has buried him up to his neck. Worse yet, his wife and son have left the island without him. When he says he can't believe his own family has forgotten about him, a couple of the island's giant head statues tell him that's exactly what they said.

Comic Strips

• Australian comic Da'n'Dill once had them bury the resident Butt-Monkey up to his neck in the sand, then wander off. Before long a cooler is placed over his head, which at least manages to go through the bottom, with his cries drowned out by loud music; shortly after he's scared them off by accident and been immersed by the melting ice, Da and Dill come back, use the abandoned cooler as a wicket for beach cricket, and let the water out again.
• In Dykes to Watch Out For, Mo's friends stage a political "intervention" for her — they bury her in sand, then force her to listen to Lois live from the RNC protests, telling her not to vote for Nader again.
• One The Far Side cartoon has a kid burying his father with the following (paraphrased) caption: "Billy, the tide's coming in... Billy, unbury Daddy now... You don't want Daddy to get angry..."
• Garfield once buried Odie up to his knees. He didn't specify which end of Odie he was starting with.
• The 14 September 2011 The Argyle Sweater strip has the Peanuts gang at the beach, with Charlie Brown having just been for a free face painting and having his head painted like a soccer ball before being buried up to his neck in the sand, the back of his head facing fellow beachgoer David Beckham. The caption lampshades the Contrived Coincidence: "A perfect storm of events led to a tragic end for Charlie Brown."
• In Zits, Jeremy and Sara bury Pierce on the beach, giving him a sand suit and tie and just about driving him into shock.

Fan Works

• A non-comedic example is shown in The 61st Annual Hunger Games. Barley Mayes digs herself into the sand on the beach up to her head in order to preserve warmth while sleeping. It doesn't work out well for her when she wakes up with a mouthful of water due to the rising tide.

Films — Animated

• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Forgotten Friendship, Pinkie Pie manages to bury herself on the beach (off-screen), under a mermaid-shaped mound of sand with a pair of seashells over her chest.

Films — Live-Action

• The Adventurer by Charlie Chaplin provides an interesting variation: Charlie, who is an escaped convict, buries himself to hide from the cops chasing him. He's introduced when his head pops out of the sand.
• In Beach Party, Ken buries Deadhead under a sand body that's meant to look like Ava, with huge breasts and seaweed hair. When the real Ava shows up, Deadhead jumps up in embarrassment.
• In Bedtime Story, one of Lawrence's phony therapies is the warm sand treatment, which involves leaving Freddy buried up to his neck for several hours while seagulls harass him.
• In Coney Island, Fatty Arbuckle does this to himself to escape his nagging wife.
• In The Return of the Tall Blond Man, the two professional killers sent after François Perrin (Pierre Richard) in Brazil shoot with their suppressed guns at what they believe is him buried in sand in lying-down position (his charentaises shoes stick out the other end and a straw hat covers his face) on a beach, then they run away. When his girlfriend Christine comes out of the sea, she removes the charentaises thinking it was his feet, and it turns out he made her a prank and was buried vertically, with only his head sticking out (also unwittingly saving his own life from an Assassination Attempt) under the straw hat. He was lucky the killers didn't shoot at his head.
• The last the viewer sees of the eponymous corpse in Weekend at Bernie's, he's just "agreed" to let a little kid bury him in this fashion.

Literature

• Doctor Who New Adventures: In The Also People, there's an epilogue in which the Doctor and his companions manage to grab an uninterrupted day at the beach. The Doctor dozes off, and wakes to find himself buried up to the neck. He remains trapped for four pages; the first passerby is an alien who doesn't recognise his predicament, the next pair claim to believe that he got himself buried deliberately as part of some Cunning Plan, and finally his companion Benny makes it clear that she knows he wants to be dug out and that she's not going to until he gives her a proper explanation of the kind that he always claims there's no time for.
• In one of the Letterland books, at the seaside, Naughty Nick buries Golden Girl in the sand.
• In a Nancy Drew Files novel, Nancy's boyfriend Ned allows another girl to do this to him in order to make Nancy jealous. It backfires, as she gets even angrier with him.

Live-Action TV

• On Cougar Town, this is Bobby's favorite thing, since it lets him imagine that he's just a head on a beach. Jules and Grayson use this to their advantage, since a buried Bobby won't run away when they tell him that they are now a couple, leaving Bobby as the only single in the group.
• On Friends, Joey falls asleep at a beach house which got flooded and to which sand was dragged, and gets buried in an elaborately-sculpted mermaid-shaped mound, including sand boobs. Of which he definitely approves. The following episode, he digs up a hole he dug at the beach, right where the waves collapse. When water enters the hole, he gets trapped in there, and Monica and Chandler have to help him get out, which sets their B-plot.
• One of the Have I Got News for You "in the news this week" jokes had a close-up photograph of a boy buried up to his neck, with a line about unexpectedly sharp frisbees.
• Murr falls for this trick on the special episode of Impractical Jokers in Hawaii. Not only do the other guys humiliate him in between their turns, since he's buried in sand, he can't take his own turn and gets an automatic loss. On top of that, this gives him the deciding point and makes him the big loser for the episode, which forces him to swim in a cage near sharks... as his friends detach the cage from their boat and sail away.
• Bertie gets one in an episode of Jeeves and Wooster. One can only assume that he asked Jeeves to bury him.
• A non-malicious example, in The Monkees pilot "Here Come the Monkees'', the guys (except Davy) are buried side by side up to their necks at the beach. Each has a bucket over his head, and Davy lifts the bucket off so each can sing a tune (to help the Girl of the Week study for her history test).
• In an episode of The Munsters, the family goes to the beach (yea, Grandpa is a vampire but, remember, Our Vampires Are Different) and Lily forgets where she buried Grandpa. When they start to pack up, she gives Eddie a long barbecue fork and tells him to poke around in the sand until he finds Grandpa.
• One episode of Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue depicts Dana doing this to her previously-long-lost older brother Ryan while the Rangers are having much-needed down time.
  Tumblr user kabutoraiger: I like that this is what Dana and Ryan choose to do with their day at the beach. "Bro, there's like 15 years of dumb sibling shit we gotta make up for A.S.A.P."
• On Saved by the Bell, the gang goes to the beach. Lisa has buried Screech entirely in the sand to the point where he's breathing through a straw.
• On an episode of the short-lived FOX sitcom Titus, there is an Imagine Spot showing Titus and his dad Ken enjoying a day at the beach, which ends with Ken playfully burying Titus in the sand and putting a pirate hat on his head (it was a fantasy Titus had when, after Ken congratulates him on designing his truck, Titus realized that maybe his dad does love him underneath all the deadpan snarking and hilarious abuse during his childhood). When Ken gets in trouble with the police over his car, Titus then has another Imagine Spot, showing Ken trying to drown Titus in the ocean (in the first fantasy, they were splashing each other playfully), Ken shoving ice cream cones in Titus's eyes (in the first fantasy, they were doing that intertwined arm share so they can lick each other's ice cream cones), and —in a perverse mirror of the first fantasy—Ken is shown burying Titus in the sand, only this time, Titus's is buried headfirst with his feet sticking out. Ken then puts the pirate hat on Titus's feet, sneers, and leaves Titus in the sand.

Music Videos

• In the video for Bow Wow Wow 's" I Want Candy", a number of shots have the guys in the band buried in the sand, their heads bopping to the music, while the girl singer sings around them.
• In the music video for "If This Is It" by Huey Lewis and the News, the second chorus features the News all buried in the sand while Huey lies behind them singing.
• In the music video for The Muppets' cover of The Beach Boys' "Kokomo", there is a line of people buried in the sand up to their necks — and one who has been buried upside down, visible only as a pair of flailing legs.
• Appears in the music video for Katy Perry's song "California Gurls".

Puppet Shows

• This was the basis for a Sesame Street sketch with Ernie, Bert, and Sherlock Hemlock.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: Brass dragons are loquacious, extraverted, and as they'll assure you, great conversationalists. They're so keen on engaging passersby in conversation, in fact, that some brasses will use their sleep gas Breath Weapon to knock out anyone who tries to leave before they're done talking, then bury them up to their necks in sand and, as soon as the gas wears off, continue talking as if they hadn't been interrupted. Their audience will be freed when the dragon decides they're done talking their ears off.

Video Games

• Crush Crush: Sleepyhead Elle has this happen to her when you take her on a date to the beach and when she's seen, she's asleep.
• In Persona 5 Strikers, the team humorously does this Zenkichi while having some fun at the beach, he quickly threatens to arrest them for messing with him.
• In Tales of Symphonia, you can do this with Regal if he comes along with you to the beach event. Speaking to him afterward has the heart emoticon appear over his head.

Web Animation

• Pop buries his son Cub in the Happy Tree Friends episode "Water Way to Go" during their trip to the beach. This causes Cub to get stuck underwater during high tide, and Pop ends up killing him trying to find him.
• Strong Sad straddles the line between this and Buried Alive in the Homestar Runner cartoon "Somber Vacation". In typical fashion, Strong Sad has a really depressing version of an average beach trip, which involves burying himself in the sand—entirely, including his head, and sculpting a gravestone on top.

Webcomics

• One Chopping Block comic has Butch come across a dad buried by his kids and decide to finish the job...
• Happens to a shirtless Walky in Dumbing of Age when part of the gang goes to the beach.
• In Guardian, Yuna does this to a sleeping Kimahri as a child. When he rushes in to rescue her from a fiend in a cave a few pages later, he is still sandy.
• In Kevin & Kell, Kevin's family try to do this to him. They forgot, however, that he's a rabbit.
  Kevin: [three feet away] Never try to pull that with a burrowing species.

Western Animation

• Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh Four prefers being buried in sand to swimming. He even sings a song about it and has the water in his pool replaced with sand.
  Numbuh Four: NUH NUH NUH NAH UH. BURIED IN. THE. SAND. NUH NUH NUH NAH UH. I'M BURIED IN THE, BURIED IN THE...
• The Critic: When Jay Sherman attends the Cannes film festival, he marvels at the view from atop a sand dune. It turns out to be a buried Marlon Brando.
• The Flintstones: In The Teaser to "Royal Rubble", Pebbles buries Fred in the sand at the beach, with his feet sticking out. Fred eventually calls on Wilma for help, to which she answers, but not before tickling his feet.
• Futurama: During a visit to the beach, Hermes and Bender do this. When Hermes runs off to bury himself, Bender promptly tosses the shovel and walks off, muttering, "So long, pal."
• In a scene in Garfield in Paradise, Garfield buries Odie in the sand, up to his ankles... and upside down (in a scene reminiscent of an August 1980 strip).
• In a beach vacation episode of Hey Arnold!, Ernie spends most of it buried from the neck down, hidden by a pail and later a fat beach goer.
• Kiff: In “Beach Day”, Martin finally gets to live his dream of being the guy buried on the beach, but things take a turn for the worse when another beachgoer parks her chair above him, the rest of the family gets too caught up in their own personal drama to dig him out, and the tide starts to come in. He finally manages to burrow his way out.
• The 1940 Looney Tunes cartoon "Malibu Beach Party" has a scene where Ned Sparks resignedly lets Baby Snooks bury him in sand. She unloads a dump truck full of sand on him.
• Muppet Babies: "Gonzo's Video Show" begins with the babies pretending they are enjoying a day out at the beach. Fozzie is shown buried in the sand, looking as if he is twice as tall as before, until it is revealed that the feet sticking out from the bottom belong to Rowlf, who was buried beneath him. Rowlf is disgusted by Fozzie's foot odor, and asks him why he doesn't wear shoes. Fozzie tells him that even if he did, he'd still have bear feet.
• In an episode of The Oblongs, Hilda had herself intentionally subjected to this, as her sand body was far more appealing than her regular self. She then asks for seaweed to simulate going through puberty.
• At the start of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "The Boardwalk Booby Trap", the Ant Hill Mob are burying Penelope in the sand. They soon become aware that the Bully Brothers are about to run over her with a steamroller.
• Ready Jet Go!: A photo on Sunspot's tablet from "Endless Summer" shows Jet being buried in the sand, and in the comic-book montage in "The Tide is High", Mindy is shown with a sand mermaid tail.

• Rugrats: In "Beach Blanket Babies", Chaz is covered up to his neck in sand by Angelica while he's taking a nap. When Chuckie sees him in his and Tommy's attempt to liberate their sea monkeys, Chuckie freaks out and proclaims that he's been "decaffeinated."
• In The Simpsons, Ned is buried like this and Homer parks his car on Ned's head.
  Ned: Homer, is that my muffler?
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In the episode "Ripped Pants", a whale claims to be "the biggest loser on the beach" because his friends buried him in the sand and forgot about him.
  • SpongeBob buries a beachgoer, Scooter, and then asks Bubble Buddy, his inanimate friend, to unbury him before the tide rises. We later see him as an angel. Later, Bubble Buddy was shown to be both sentient and fully capable of movement, which implies he willingly let Scooter drown.
• Stōked: Reef buries Lo in the sand up to her neck. Then a pacific storm happens.

• Young Justice's Beach Cold Open has the heroes burying Superboy this way.

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