A staple of
slapstick and other forms of physical comedy, a Face Plant refers to any instance where someone ends up having their face be the first part of their body to impact the ground after falling. The results to the victim can vary from simple embarrassment to serious injury or even death (though
Rule of Funny -usually- precludes it from going this far), depending on how hard the person hits the ground, what the surface they're falling on is, and how high they're falling from.
Not to be confused with the Anime & Manga trope of Face Fault, where someone winds up face-first on the ground after witnessing or being told something absurd.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- In The Blue Lotus, Thompson and Thomson try to catch a train that has Tintin on it and fall on their faces. They are next seen in a hospital with their noses in casts.
Fanfiction
- In New Kid On The Block, Wally West takes a tumble when he tries to remove Pied Piper from a fight. It isn't a prime example of a slapstick moment, but Captain Cold is pretty amused when the Kid hits the concrete.
Film
- Happens in Twister when Jo Harding slams on the brakes on Bill's truck while he's in the back readying the probe, causing him to smack the back window face-first.
Western Animation
- Happens to most of the mane characters at one time or another on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
- Apple Bloom has this as a running joke in "Hearts and Hooves Day".
- Happens to Spike in Inspiration Manifestation, when he tries walking in the bulky crystal armour Rarity puts him in.
- In Equestria Games, when Spike is brought before Cadance upon arriving in the Crystal Empire, he falls face-first on the ground when the guards transporting him come to a halt.
- Mabel Pines pulls one off in the Gravity Falls episode "Double Dipper", when she attempts to do a flip while singing karaoke.
- In Barbie And The Secret Door, Nori has trouble walking since she's used to having a mermaid tail, and falls flat on her face when trying to take a step.
Video Games
- Some of the games in the Battlefield series will automatically put the player into a head-down skydiving pose if they fall from a certain height. If the player doesn't have a parachute handy or doesn't deploy it in time, this can result in an invariably fatal faceplant.
- The majority of games that employ Ragdoll Physics will sometimes show characters faceplanting after being killed.
- In Space Quest III, the Have a Nice Death screen for falling deaths ("Deceleration Trauma") shows Roger Wilco upside down with his head mashed into the ground. Space Quest II has similar.
- Notably employed in Sonic the Hedgehog as a Running Gag.
- In Brain Dead 13, Lance does this on the chopping block table in a dead faint after his hand gets chopped off by Vivi.
- Happens almost constantly to Derpy whenever she's present in in My Little Pony.
- The Kid from Bastion enters any area by falling from the sky and landing face-down. Becomes significantly less funny at the end of the game when, after taking a vicious beating from the Ura, the Kid returns to the Bastion, lands in his usual manner...and stays down.
- Bridget's Shoot The Moon Instant Kill in Guilty Gear XX launches the character to the moon, where they smash upside-down into the ground so hard most of their upper body's imbedded in it.
Truth in Television
- Most blooper shows will usually have at least one clip per episode of someone falling victim to this.
- YouTube is similarly jam-packed with home videos showing people meeting Terra firma face-first.
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