Yes, I know I look ridiculous. Stop laughing!
A person gets his head stuck in a painting, billboard, poster, or another sort of image, in such a way that his head perfectly fits into, or otherwise seems to be part of, the image on this painting, often with humorous results (usually, it will be a character's head coming out of a horse's ass or a male character being put on a portrait of a nude or scantily-clad woman).
Not to be confused with a Phantom-Zone Picture. Compare Portrait Painting Peephole (a person looks through eyeholes in a picture) and Stand-In Portrait (the entire image is actually a person).
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- In a gag in the French comic series Billy & Buddy, dog Bill crashes head-first through a fence during a game of soccer. On the other side of the fence, there turns out to be a giant advertising poster with a dog on it, and Bill’s head has crashed through it in such a way that it replaced the head of the dog on the poster. People that walk by even comment on how original this poster looks because of it.
- Tintin: In "The Secret of the Unicorn" Captain Haddock becomes so Lost in Character describing the legendary battle between Sir Francis Haddock and pirate chief Red Rackham he demolishes his own room, ending up with the painting of his Identical Ancestor landing on his head with his face poking through it.
Films — Animation
- In the climactic scene of Chicken Run, Mrs. Tweedy gets rammed into a billboard advertising her chicken pies, and has the smiling version of her face from the billboard stuck over her real one. When she rips the paper off, her actual expression is completely Ax-Crazy.
- Pocahontas: Ratcliffe does this with a painting of King James during the song “Mine, Mine, Mine”. The result is Ratcliffe's face replacing that of King James on the painting. Unlike most other examples, he does it on purpose.
- In the Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave, Preston frames Gromit for the sheep kidnappings by tricking him into sticking his head through a picture of a butcher in front of Shawn the sheep, and then taking a very incriminating photograph.
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman: Happens to Mr. Peabody while he and Sherman are visiting Leonardo Da Vinci.
Films — Live-Action
- By The Sea: The gang play with boards where people can put their head through a hole, to appear to be part of a beach scene. First, they observe somebody else doing this, and it is revealed that the woman is wearing the same outfit as the woman on the board. When the Girlfriend bends down to put her face in the child-height hole, the General takes photos of her bottom, which becomes Deliberately Monochrome to emphasise taking the picture.
- Osmosis Jones: A car crashes on a billboard for "the Land Down Under" (Frank's butt), the car wedged right in the crack.
- The Pterodactyl ghost in Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed crashes into a billboard advertising diapers.
- Moonraker has a mook flying onto a billboard and looking like it is being eaten by the model.
Live-Action TV
- In the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who, the door to the "under-gallery" is actually a large painting of Queen Elizabeth the First and the 10th Doctor. At one point a monster bursts through the painting, its face perfectly replacing the Queen's face. Later in the episode, a secondary character sneaks back into the under-gallery, and this trope again comes into play when she peers through the painting to check if the coast is clear.
- This was the concept behind the failed game show You're in the Picture. The celebrity guests stuck their heads through a picture and, using clues from Jackie Gleason, tried to guess what it was. The show did so badly that, instead of a second episode, viewers were treated to a half-hour of Jackie Gleason apologizing for how bad the first episode was, and a one-on-one informal talk show with Gleason as the host took its place for the rest of its network commitment.
- In House of Fools, Vic sticks his face through the painting of an African pygmy tribesman.
Video Games
- Lost Judgment: During one side-case, Yagami and Kaito tail someone and hide behind a promotional cardboard for a movie. Only to find they cannot get their heads out of it, continuing their investigation while wearing the cardboard in public.
- In Shadows of the Damned, a Nonstandard Game Over has Garcia getting knocked into a billboard by a giant demon, with his face sticking through the other side in an embarrassing position (like from between the buttocks of a demoness call-girl).
Western Animation
- In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Gi" during Nicole's flashback, Richard puts his head through a door and it comes out in the place of the head on a poster of a chimpanzee.
- In an episode of Family Guy, the Griffins have a knock-down drag-out fight, trashing the entire house. Peter hits the wall and gets a picture of a horse stuck on his head, with his face poking out of the horse's butt. Lois starts to laugh. Chris and Meg stop hitting each other and come to see what is so funny. Brian and even Peter join in. Everything looks like it's going to work out—until Stewie clocks his mother from behind with a wooden chair, and the brawl begins anew.
- Spider-Man: In episode 45 of the 1967 series, Spider-Man gets his head stuck in an image of a donkey, resulting in his head now appearing to be the donkey’s head (see page picture above).
- Star Wars: Droids: At the start of "The Great Heep", one of C-3PO's many pratfalls cause his head to replace that of Mungo in a picture.
- Also happened to all three members of the Marvel family in the episode "Family Affair."
- Popeye: "My Artistical Temperature" when Bluto throws several paintings at Popeye.
- Futurama: In the episode "Meanwhile", Zoidberg gets his head stuck in the painting The Scream.
- Totally Spies!: In "Zero To Hero", this happens to a villain; his head smashes through a ballerina billboard.
Clover: (giggles) Pink is definitely his color!
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode "Slave the Day," this happens to the Salami Swami three times in a row when Big Billy bludgeons him with some paintings, putting his head on a horse, a snake, and a fat lady.
- In the Betty Boop short "Taking the Blame", Betty is chasing a troublemaking cat when she hits a wall and a picture of an ocean view falls on her. Her head then bobs up and down from the "water" like she's really drowning.
- Classic Disney Shorts: In "The Lone Chipmunks", a "Wanted!" Poster for Black Pete is nailed over a hole in Chip and Dale's tree, and Chip's head goes through the poster as he is walking out. Dale sees this and is convinced his own friend is a wanted criminal.
- DuckTales (2017): In the episode "Timephoon!", this happens to Bubba when, while skateboarding, he collides with a wall, and a painting falls on top of him.
- Lavender Castle: During Dr. Agon's attack in "A Stitch in Time", Sproggle is thrown from his navigation console and gets his head stuck in the portrait that Lyca was painting.
- In the Thomas & Friends episode "James the 2nd Best", James becomes very jealous of Edward being chosen to be on a railway poster. So he tries to prove himself better than Edward (treating his trucks nicely, delivering dirty coal cars, etc.). When James uses the express track to get ahead of Edward, the signal turns red and Edward collides right behind him—ironically sending James' face ripping right through Edward's poster, much to James' humiliation.
Thomas: Ha! You're finally on a poster! Maybe you are good enough after all!
