"I've always wanted to do this!" [slides across the hood of the car] "Nailed it!"
— Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
A motor vehicle trope. When traversing the front of a car from one side to the other the character can either simply run around the front of the car or instead opt to jump at speed and slide across the hood of the car. The bad guy has just escaped in a car, or some characters are being pursued themselves and need to enter a car, or a car might be blocking the way in a chase on foot. Whatever the situation, time is precious and every millisecond counts. Performing a hood slide saves time but perhaps more importantly, it looks badass!
Considered a staple of The '70s cop show, any work that parodies the genre is bound to feature a hood slide somewhere. However many consider the Trope Codifier to be The Dukes of Hazzard which wasn't actually a cop show although it did indeed feature a lot of car chases allowing for a lot of hood slides to be featured.
This trope often leads to or is part of a Car Chase. Often involves cool cars.
It should go without saying, but unless you can afford to buff out the scratches, Don't Try This at Home!
Examples:
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Comic Strips
- In one FoxTrot strip, Peter tries to make the fact he is driving a station wagon cooler by doing a The Dukes of Hazzard style slide across the hood. He winds up snagging his underwear on the windshield wiper.
Films — Animation
- In Turning Red, Ming does this in order to get past a car and a fallen street sign quickly.
Films — Live-Action
- The Art of the Steal: The thief who originally stole the Gospel from the Amsterdam gallery slides across the bonnet on a parked car as he escapes from the pursuing policeman: surreptitiously tossing the book into the car as he does so.
- Bad Words. In the opening credits, Guy is being chased by an angry mob of parents after winning the regional spelling bee and performs a hood slide on the car waiting for him to get in the passenger seat in order to get away.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Peter Quill performs the a hood slide into the cockpit of his starship, the Milano, so he can make a quick escape from Morag. Rocket later does the same trick to board a different Ravager ship just before the battle above Xandar.
- Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation: Parodied when Ethan Hunt, usually a very athletic secret agent, tries to vault a car hood to get in for a high-speed chase right after being rescusitated from a near-drowning. His theme music cuts off as he topples off the other side.
Benji: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, are you okay to drive?! A minute ago you were dead!
- Ransom. When chasing down Shaker on foot, Mullen performs a hood slide on a taxi that is passing by.
- Lampshaded in Showtime; Robert DeNiro's character tells Eddie Murphy's character that real police officers never do hood slides because their holsters always make a scratch on the hood; cue an Oh, Crap! reaction from Eddie Murphy when he sees a huge scratch across his new corvette's hood.
- In one scene in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic performs a hood slide in slow motion while exclaiming "I've always wanted to do this!".
Sonic: [lands the slide] Nailed it~!
- Thunderheart: Walter slides across the hood of Roy's car when he and Roy are running to the car to escape from Yellow Hawk's house.
Literature
- In the climax of The Howling (1977), Chris jumps over the hood of his car to reach the driver's side quickly, as the werewolves are right behind him.
Live-Action TV
- Blue Bloods. Danny does this in the episode "Down The Rabbit Hole" upon realizing that his niece Nicky has been kidnapped by the Serial Killer who's been tormenting him all season.
- Averted in Brooklyn Nine-Nine when Amy seems all set up to do this, but instead jumps on top of the hood to tackle a perp. Since she's wearing a wedding dress, she might not have wanted to get it dirty by doing a more traditional hood slide.
- Many consider Luke Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard to be the Trope Codifier, as he or his cousin Bo tended to perform hood slides on the General Lee whenever there was going to be a car chase. It helped that it was enshrined in the opening titles (as pictured above), so you saw it every week regardless.
- When Bo and Luke were briefly replaced by Coy and Vance, they did it too, and that was also in the credits. Fans were not impressed.
- Forever (2014): After his briefcase is stolen and he gives chase, the victim of the week in "Fountain Of Youth" gets soot on his hand and pants leg doing this over a taxi that almost hit them. Henry, reconstructing events from forensic evidence, figures out exactly where the soot was from.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In one episode, the gang has made a homemade Lethal Weapon sequel that contains a scene where Frank and Dennis' characters perform a hood slide on a car in succession.
- Life on Mars (2006): Sam and Gene are chasing a suspect on foot down the back streets of 1973 Manchester. A car comes out of a side street just after the suspect goes past, and screeches to a halt. Sam slides over the bonnet and continues the pursuit. Gene lands on his face on the windscreen.
Music
- A shot of one of the characters performing a hood slide is featured in the music video to Beastie Boys' "Sabotage", as expected since the whole video is a 70s cop show parody.
- Dierks Bentley's "What Was I Thinkin'" mentions doing this, referencing The Dukes of Hazzard: "We ran outside hood-slidin' like Bo Duke"
- Bobby Shmurda on the Rowdy Rebel song "Computers"
I'm sliding over cars while I shoot
They think that I'm Tom Cruise (Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise)
But bitch I'm Bobby with that tool
Video Games
- Battlefield Hardline. Nick performs a hood slide to get into the driver's seat of his police car to pursue a suspect in the opening cutscene.
- Grand Theft Auto V. The player character can perform hood slides on cars.
