History Main / ChairReveal

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', "[[Recap/TheVentureBrosS3E10TheLepidopterists The Lepidopterists]]"

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': The Monarch invokes this trope in the episode "[[Recap/TheVentureBrosS3E10TheLepidopterists The Lepidopterists]]" when dealing with Jonas Venture Jr.

* [[spoiler:Reginald Griffin's dead clone]] in the sixth generation videogame ''VideoGame/AgentUnderFire'' is revealed this way.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' got one of these in "[[Recap/AngelS05E14SmileTime Smile Time]]" when the chair contains... still Angel. But now he's a puppet.

** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E4BeautyAndTheBeasts Beauty and the Beasts]]", Buffy finds the school councelor dead in his chair after swiveling it around.

* This is how Hatter is introduced in ''Series/{{Alice|2009}}''.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]], [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Morgus]] is introduced talking on the VideoPhone while facing away from the audience. After he signs off he turns to [[AsideComment address the audience]]. [[SurroundedByIdiots "The spineless cretins!"]]

* On ''Series/SesameStreet,'' in the "Alphabet Chat" sketches, Mr. Chatterley slowly turns his chair to face the audience during the theme music.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''
** The [[SamusIsAGirl initial reveal]] of the female Romulan commander in "The Enterprise Incident".
** Played for drama in "The Menagerie, Part I", to [[FaceRevealingTurn show the extent]] of Christopher Pike's horrific injuries, and the fact that he's completely disabled in the life support chair he uses for the ChairReveal.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', "The Lepidopterists"

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', specifically in the episode "The Saint", this is poked fun at when Gumball takes over Principal Brown's office to split up Alan and Carmen. When Gumball reveals himself sitting in Brown's chair, he turns too far, leading him to frantically grab the desk in order to correct himself.

** Better still as a ''Suit Reveal''. Batman snoops around Mr. Freeze's lair until he suddenly finds the suit. But Mr. Freeze isn't in it. Mr. Freeze is right behind him. As a disembodied head in a jar supported by big scary spider-legs.
** The end of the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' pilot has Terry not waiting for the reveal and kicking the chair the moment he gets on the ship. Unfortunately the villain was also pretty smart and was waiting for Terry to approach the chair.
* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' - in "The Kids Rob a Train", once they're sent to the caboose, a chair turns around to reveal Regular Sized Rudy (kind of an effort for him to do that in a bean-bag chair).

* ''WesternAnimation/DCSuperHeroGirls:'' Lex Luthor, who up until that point had been a VillainWithGoodPublicity, reveals himself to the Super Hero Girls with one of these. Supergirl even points out that it screams "bad guy".

** The episode "That Darn Katz!" plays this surprisingly straight; Nibbler and Amy find Professor Katz sitting in his office chair with his back to them, and when they turn the chair around he's apparently dead. [[spoiler:Then it turns out he was never alive in the first place; he's actually a puppet.]]

* Done by Gideon Gleeful in the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel", when he confronts Dipper at the factory.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** "Cootie Gras": Mojo Jojo does this twice: once to the Mayor and then to the girls after luring them to the Townhall, which he has taken over.
** "Bought and Scold": Princess Morbucks, who's bought out the mayorship, does this to the girls after they go to the Townhall to find out why the Mayor legalized crime.

** "Wiggum P.I.E.", one of the segments of "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase Spectacular", parodies this. While being pursued by Wiggum and Skinner, [[ArchEnemy Big Daddy]] races into his office, dives behind his desk... and when Wiggum and Skinner enter three seconds later, his chair swivels round to reveal him looking calm and composed as ever, complete with dramatic sting.
** When Homer has to visit the IRS for his faulty tax report, the same chair swivels around twice and reveals two different men. Who both spoke to him.
** Played straight in the episode "Black Widower", where Sideshow Bob blew up his hotel room in an attempt to kill his wife Selma. When he goes in and turns around the chair he thinks her corpse sits in, he finds Bart instead (alive, of course).
** In "Deep Space Homer", some NASA guys are discussing whether they should tell everyone that the monkeys they sent into space all came back super-intelligent. A chair at the end of the table swivels around, revealing a monkey wearing a suit and smoking a pipe, who says, "No, I don't think we'll be telling them that."
** Parodied in "King-Size Homer", where Lisa reveals herself to Homer while sitting on a large pillow on the living room floor, spooking him.
* Eric Cartman pulled one of these on Stan (while sitting in a Blofeld style egg-shaped chair) in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "My Future Self 'n' Me".

* The Monarch invokes this trope in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' when dealing with Jonas Venture Jr.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': Parodied in "Dentist"; Finn is escorted to the office of General Tarsal, queen of a nest of literal army ants, but finds no one there. Tarsal then comes in and asks Finn to pretend that she was there the whole time before sitting behind her desk and introducing herself with the "swivel chair entrance" shtick.
* In the penultimate episode of ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'': This is how Orel learns who the mayor is: [[spoiler:his father]].
* Done by EvilOverlord Ludo in the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil''. It also reveals [[TheNapoleon Ludo is comically short]] compared to his minions.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KppJcI7-wXA Parodied]] by Creator/ProZD.

* ''Anime/WeissKreuz'' uses the dead body version when Ken goes to assassinate Koga Kenji only to find him already dead.

* ''ComicBook/DangerGirl and the Comicbook/ArmyOfDarkness'' #4: Agent Zero shoots what he thinks is his target through the back of a chair. He then walks round to the front of the chair and instead finds a dummy rigged to a bomb with three seconds left on the timer.

** Played with in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}''. During the mid-credits sequence that reveals [[spoiler:Thanos]] as the GreaterScopeVillain, rather than turning around in a spinning chair, he gets up and looks over his shoulder. However, he plays this trope straight in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy''.

* In ''Series/{{The Big Bang Theory}}'''s "The Cooper Extraction" episode, the cast imagines how their lives would have been different had never met Sheldon. The Chair Reveal from ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' is referenced when Howard envisions that if he had not gotten married (he met Bernadette through Sheldon), his mother's body would have desiccated and he would have assumed her personality, much like Norman Bates.

* In the Film/JamesBond movie ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'''', Bond is dropped through a TrapDoor onto a slide that dumps him into a couch. There's a chair facing him with its back to the audience, from which a man is giving an EvilLaugh. Then the man stands up and introduces himself as [[KidnappedByAnAlly 'Tiger' Tanaka, head of the Japanese intelligence service]], and he's just having a chuckle over how easy it was to have the famous James Bond fall into his grasp. When Bond meets the real supervillain the trope is played straight, though instead of swiveling his chair round Blofeld just leans forward out of his [[CoolChair G Plan Model 62]] and turns to look at Bond.

* In the Film/JamesBond movie ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'''', Bond is dropped through a TrapDoor onto a slide that dumps him in a couch. There's a chair with its back to the audience, from which a man is giving an EvilLaugh. Fortunately he stands up and introduces himself as 'Tiger' Tanaka, head of the Japanese intelligence service, and he's just having a good laugh over how easy it was to have the famous James Bond be KidnappedByAnAlly. Though when Bond meets the real supervillain it's played straight--though instead of swiveling his chair round, Blofeld just leans out and turns to look at Bond.

* In his autobiography ''About Face'', Colonel Hackworth does this as a practical joke. Seated at the front of the briefing room in a huge sofa he'd appropriated, he starts ranting about how his soldiers weren't maintaining the regulation military crewcut, finishing by turning to face them to reveal he was wearing a long hippy wig.

* ''Film/DiamondsAreForever''
** After Film/JamesBond enters Willard Whyte's penthouse apartment, Blofeld reveals himself by spinning his chair around.
** The villain and the chair are, of course, parodied in ''Film/AustinPowers''.

* Played with in ''Series/Titans2018''. At the start of Season 3, Dick Greyson returns to Gotham and goes to see Commissioner Gordon, who is at the scene of crime for Jason Todd's death. Several police officers standing around their boss step away and [[SamusIsAGirl she]] rolls her wheelchair around to face Dick, because the Commissioner is ''Barbara'' Gordon.

-->'''SpongeBob as the Hermit''': I should really get that chair fixed.

** Parodied in an episode where a criminal called Big Daddy did this to Wiggum and Skinner, despite the fact that he had just sat down in the chair three seconds before.

* In the low-budget science-fiction film ''The Bamboo Saucer'', which starred B-list movie actor Dan Duryea (in his last role) at the top of a cast list of obscure actors, Duryea makes his entrance when another character enters an office and sees the chair behind the desk turned away from him. The chair revolves slowly to reveal Duryea.

* ''Film/TheBlackHole'' has a nicely underplayed version. The protagonists enter a huge bridge manned by silent black-robed figures. Maximillian, a large red menacing KillerRobot, floats down from an upper deck and deploys whirling cutting blades. Just when things are getting tense, a nearby chair swivels round from its console to introduce Dr. Hans Reinhardt.

* Parodied on ''Series/ThirtyRock'', where Kenneth's [[SitcomArchNemesis nemesis]] Donnie tries this but turns too hard and has to clumsily correct his spin. * This is how Hatter is introduced in ''Series/{{Alice|2009}}''.

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* On ''Series/SesameStreet,'' in the "Alphabet Chat" sketches, Mr. Chatterley slowly turns his chair to face the audience during the theme music.
[[/folder]]

* ''Anime/YesPrettyCure5'' did it with a member of the QuirkyMinibossSquad instead of the school headmaster. Justified (not that this trope is as much in need of justification as some others) in that the girls had never actually met the headmaster before, so they didn't realize she wasn't the real thing until they realized who she ''was''.

* [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] indulges in a Bond-villain-esque Chair Reveal in ''Anime/CodeGeass''. It's every bit as fabulous as you might expect.
* One baddie in ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' pulls this when Section 9 breaks into his office to arrest him, and turning his chair around reveals a blow-up doll.

* In ''Anime/{{Canaan}}'' Hakko [[spoiler:who can hurt and kill just by speaking]] talks all way to chair, thinking she is talking to [[PsychoLesbian Liang]] [[{{Yandere}} Qi]], only to see a completely different person tied to it...
* In ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'', Customer Service of Holy Nightmare Corporation does this when he and Dedede first meet face to face [[spoiler: showing that he's just as small as any other character on the show. No legs, just feet where his upper torso ends.]]

* ''My Favorite Brunette'', a Bob Hope film, has one of these. Since Bing Crosby turns up somewhere in just about every Bob Hope film, the audience is carefully set up to expect him to be the Cool Tough Guy Detective across the hall. The chair swivels, and... it's '''not.''' [[spoiler: It is, in fact, the Cool Tough Guy actor whose name Hope has just mentioned -- Creator/AlanLadd.]]

* ''Film/ScreamersTheHunting''. The two survivors of the DwindlingParty return to their spaceship only to find one of their 'dead' colleagues in the form of a Screamer cyborg waiting in the pilot seat for them.

* In ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'' in between chapters eleven and twelve, [[spoiler: Jacket finds his apartment broken into and his dead girlfriend on the floor. When the player walks upwards from the body, he sees the killer, a man named Richter, sitting on the couch. Richter opens fire upon Jacket, where it’s revealed he’s in a coma due to his shooting]].

* Done by [[spoiler:The Soda Poppers]] in the second season finale of Telltale's ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'' games. On the DVD are loads and loads of fake alternate endings with different characters revealed to be in the chair, including [[spoiler:Future Sam, a bottle of Banang (which gets a round of applause and an "encore"), WebAnimation/HomestarRunner, Sybil and Abe (on an old black-and-white film backed with terror), the C.O.P.S, a "Will Return" clock, Mr. Featherly and Hugh Bliss]].
** Also done in episode 304, where [[spoiler: Monsieur Papierwaite]] has his chair faced away from Sam and Max and is begging them not to look at him. Max swivels the chair around, and reveals [[spoiler: the Elder God Yog-Soggoth embedded in Papierwaite's chest]]. They stare in confusion for about two seconds, then shrug.

* Near the start of ''VideoGame/{{Hydrophobia}}'' Kate comes across a security guard sat in a chair. When going up and reaching out to him he falls back revealing that's he's dead.

* In the opening cinematic of ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', upon finding that they've been led into a trap by [[BigBad Handsome Jack]], the Vault Hunters get to the cockpit of the train they're on and find the driver's seat is occupied by a decoy of Jack primed with explosives.
* Used in the climax of ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''. After going through hell to reach the penthouse headquarters of the rogue Colonel Konrad, Captain Walker finds a chair on a balcony overlooking the sand-choked ruins of Dubai... then moves a little closer and sees [[spoiler:[[DeadAllAlong Konrad's desiccated corpse sitting in it.]] The real colonel had been DrivenToSuicide well before Walker even arrived in Dubai, meaning that the "Konrad" who Walker had been arguing with over the radio for half the game was nothing but a symptom of his SanitySlippage.]] When confronted with this revelation, all Walker can do is [[ThousandYardStare slump onto his knees and stare.]]

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'': In one of the cinematics halfway through the Soviet campaign, Yuri is revealed to be sitting in Premier Romanov's desk chair when he turns around to face the player, having already [[TheStarscream usurped his boss]].
* In the ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' DLC "Citadel," the team breaks into an arms dealer's saferoom only to discover this way that he has already been killed by TheMole.

* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', Agatha hears a voice calling to her and thinks it came from [[https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20160226 behind a chair.]] It didn't.
--> '''Agatha:''' Who's there? If you're trying to scare us- ''*turns the chair, revealing a skeleton*'' Then well done! Ahh!

* Completely parodied and downplayed in ''WebVideo/CodeMENT'', wherein Jeremiah Gottwald greets Diethard Ried with a chair swivel and a [[WeMeetAgain "We meet again"]] speech. He then marvels at how dramatic his own entrance was and how the chair [[BeyondTheImpossible wasn't even a swivel chair]], [[AchievementsInIgnorance it was deadbolted to the floor]], all the while Kewell Soresi thinks to himself how ridiculous all this is and that Jeremiah just caused $30,000 worth of damage. Between the two of them, as well as Diethard, who doesn't seem all that surprised to see him, having to interrupt these chair-based shenanigans, it loses any and all dramatic tension in favor of pure comedy.