"Oh, I see. The old geranium to the cranium."
Typically, the most ideal container for holding a small indoor plant is a simple ceramic (or glass, or porcelain) pot, filled with just enough soil and fertilizer to keep the plant rooted and healthy, only requiring an occasional watering and sunlight every now and then. Naturally, this means one may place a potted plant on a windowsill, where it can get plenty of sunlight and fresh air...and where a simple careless bump may send the poor greenery and its container airborne...and aimed at some unfortunate passerby's skull.
Oftentimes, the setup involves a character taking a nice stroll, when suddenly a flowerpot falls out of a high window or Hammerspace and crashes onto their head. Depending on how realistic the work is (as well as how heavy the pot/vase in question is), the character will either be knocked out and remain out for a certain amount of time, or they'll shake it off and possibly start looking for what caused the pot to fall.
Expect this to be Played for Laughs, with character walking away from it completely fine.
This is a Zany Cartoon trope used as a less extreme version of Anvil on Head. Compare Piano Drop, and Drop the Washtub, a Japanese cultural variant.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- In one episode of Detective School Q, this was done to commit murder. The killer was the wife of the victim, angry over their decaying relationship.
- Honoo no Alpen Rose: Played very seriously. Toulonchamp's spy Anna tries to kill Jeudi by dropping a pot on her head from a second floor window. Jeudi manages to move her head away, but the pot still hits her on her foot.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: In Part 4, Okuyasu Nijimura's debut has him demonstrating the power of his Stand, The Hand, being able to pull things towards him by erasing the space between them. While he grabs Josuke using The Hand's vacuum, he also pulls a flower pot off a nearby windowsill and slams himself in the head with it, knocking him out.
- Ouran High School Host Club: In a couple of bullies at Ouran Academy try to drop two flower pots on Kasanoda, but Mori knocks Kasanoda out of the way and hits the second pot to the side in mid-air.
- Zatch Bell!: In Chapter 60, Apollo senses this about to happen to Rops and tells him to stop walking. The pot misses Rops by an inch.
Asian Animation
- Happy Heroes: It happens to Big M. at the end of Season 2 episode 50 when he says whoever gave Happy S. the shark's weakness should be hit by a flower pot and attacked by a bunch of dogs.
Comic Books
- Monica's Gang: Monica once accidentally dropped one from an apartment window and hurried down. She couldn't use the stairs because they were being washed back then so she had to wait for an elevator. Despite this, she managed to arrive on time to be hit.
- In The Smurfs comic book story "The Reporter Smurf", a Smurf reading the village newspaper wonders if he's a Taurus when the horoscope of the day for Taurus reads "beware of falling objects", and soon enough he gets bonked in the head by a flower pot, with his fellow Smurf confirming that he's a Taurus.
- In Ratchet & Clank (2010) Ratchet gets hit by one of these in the first issue "Ears of War" after a robot blasted him through his garage.
- In one Archie Comics story, Archie and Jughead decide to plant some flowers at Riverdale High School and rather than carrying them down the stairs, decide to drop them out a classroom window. Of course, they're a floor up from Mr. Weatherbee's office, who hears something zipping past his window and pokes his head out for a look...
Films — Live-Action
- Parodied in Kung Fu Hustle, where the character doesn't get up after a pot is dropped on him from a top level apartment, and still played for laughs. When bad stuff starts happening, the recipient gathers the scattered dust around his head to hide.
- In Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, Sassy knocks a flower pot off of a shelf on top of one of the mean stray dogs.
- The Avengers (1998). At the beginning of the film. Steed is almost hit by a flowerpot that drops down from a window above him. Unruffled gentlemen spy that he is, he removes a flower from the smashed pot and sticks it in his lapel.
- In The Wrong Box, Masterman Finsbury tries, unsuccessfully, to kill his brother Joseph, and finally screams for him to leave. As Joseph leaves, Masterman hurls a couple of flowerpots at him - finding himself with an armful of flowers, Joseph calls out "It's no use apologizing!"
- In Revenge of the Pink Panther, Clouseau gets a flower pot dropped on his head as a result of a neighbor becoming annoyed with him blowing a horn to get Cato's attention. When a ninja who's trying to kill him passes under the same window later, he also gets a flower pot dropped on his head.
- In Home Alone 3, this is one of the booby traps that Alex sets up for the spies. Specifically, Alice trips two wires releasing flowerpots from the rooftop of a neighbor's house. The first lands on her head and the second lands on her face.
Jokes
- Three men live in an apartment building: Mr. Crazy lives on the first floor, Mr. Nobody lives on the second floor, and Mr. No-one lives on the third floor. One day, they're all looking out of their windows. Then, Mr. Nobody throws a flowerpot on Mr. Crazy's head. Mr. No-one has seen it. So Mr. Crazy calls 911:
Mr. Crazy: Nobody has thrown a flowerpot on my head! And No-one is my witness!
Policeman: Sir, are you crazy?
Mr. Crazy: Yes, exactly!
Literature
- Dandelion in The Witcher saga was flower-bombed by his current mistress breaking with him, after she threw all his possessions out of the window.
- Deliberately done in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Neville Longbottom throws pots filled with mandrakes at Death Eaters during the Battle of Hogwarts.
- La Reine Margot: During the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Coconnas had a flower-pot thrown at him by an old Huguenot woman. It hit him above the knee.
Live-Action TV
- In The Adventures of Superboy, when Superboy confronts Mxyzptlk for the first time, Mxy points out a woman on the other side of town and makes a flowerpot fall towards her. Superboy is fast enough to save her, but then Mxy threatens him by implying he can cause similar incidents everywhere if he wants to.
- In Dream High, Baekhee drops a flower pot from the top of the school building, hoping to hurt Hyemi. She hits Samdong instead and he is rushed to the hospital for a serious head injury.
- My World… and Welcome to It: Played with in "The War between Men and Women." Just as John and his friends are about to try and sneak Phil Jensen into his house (over the objections of his wife), an older woman neighbor starts throwing flower pots at them from the top floor window of her house to try and shut them up. She doesn't actually hit them, but it's not for lack of trying. In the closing credits, she's listed as "The Sniper."
- In the Shoestring episode "Nine Tenths of the Law," a girl Eddie is looking for climbs a tree and drops a flowerpot on his head, knocking him out long enough for her father to steal his car keys.
- Upload: In "Five Stars", Nora pours a glass of water from her window onto her Nitely partner on the street after he rated her 4 out of 5.
Manhua
- Happens regularly in Old Master Q as a Running Gag, and parodied in one strip where the titular character tries to serenade a girl in a Balcony Wooing Scene, only for the girl to respond by dropping a flower pot on Master Q's head. Master Q decides to press charges, leading to the girl being imprisoned... and Master Q continues trying to woo her even as she's behind bars
.
Music
- In "Pray For You" by Jaron & The Long Road To Love, the narrator goes to church and takes away the lesson that instead of hating, you should pray for people. In addition to other misfortunes he wishes on the person he's mad at, he prays a flowerpot will fall from a windowsill and hit them in the head.
- Older Than Television: "Mein kleiner grüner Kaktus" by the German 1930s barbershop-style A Cappella group Comedian Harmonists is about someone's little green cactus. Before the third verse, however, said cactus falls off the balcony and onto a neighbor's face, spiky end first.
Tabletop Games
- The homebrew Falling Anvil discipline fo'''Dungeons & Dragons (versions 3.X) includes this in varying degrees, starting with flowerpots, and ranging upwards through anvils, safes, and finally Viking longboats. Of course, it also includes a wide variety of other toon-like attacks and defenses.
Video Games
- A non-comedic version of this trope is used in an official artwork◊ for ARMS, which shows Ninjara catching the flower pot to save his fan.
- In Blue Print, the player has to avoid flowerpots knocked off the top ledge as the game's Big Bad chases the Damsel in Distress.
- Breath of Fire IV: The "Mind Flay" ability drops a flowerpot on an enemy's head, causing damage and lowering the target's Wisdom by 20%.
- In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Takedown mission, flower pots are dropped from the upper favela levels at a few points.
- In Activision's Atari 2600 game Crackpots, your goal is to drop flower pots to hit the climbing invertebrate.
- One of the hazards faced in the Crazy Climber arcade game.
- In Kid Klown In Crazy Chase, an obstacle in the city level has Kid Klown go through barrages of flower pots being dropped from buildings above.
- The Mental Series has a plant pot in one of the rooms. Walter must drop it on a nurse's head to move on.
- In The Neverhood, Willie Trombone drops one on Klaymen's head.
- In Super Smash Bros. U/3DS, the Villager's dash attack has them trip over and drop a flower pot forwards, which breaks upon contact with the ground or an opponent.
- It's the first drop gag that you get in Toontown Online, the toon pulls out a trigger box and when pressed, a flower pot lands on the targeted cog's head, it deals high damage but has low accuracy
- In the NES game Urban Champion, people will drop flower pots from the upstairs windows occasionally. Getting hit with one will stun the victim, allowing his opponent to get in a free hit.
- A common danger in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit game, oddly capable of a One-Hit Kill when Eddie comes close.
- One of the many deaths of Ike in Shadow of Destiny involves someone dropping a flowerpot on his head.
Web Animation
- Gossip City: Mina's mother-in-law attempts to murder her by dropping a plant pot on her head for not being able to get pregnant. However, Tatsuya hits it away before it could hurt Mina.
Web Comics
- A rare non-comedic version of this trope appears in chapter 122 of Black Haze where, as a child, Kielnode Chrishi was almost murdered this way by his half-siblings, who hated him for being the bastard child of their father's mistress. The attack left him unconscious and bleeding heavily from the head, and if not for the intervention of a magician from the Tower, he very likely would have bled out and died.
Western Animation
- On the Tex Avery short "Bad Luck Blackie", a flowerpot is the first thing that falls on the bulldog's head. Larger and more unlikely objects soon follow.
- The Beatles: A bumper for announcing scenes from the next show has Ringo serenading a lady on a balcony who plucks a flower from a flower pot and drops the pot over Ringo's head.
- In the first episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, Dante and Randal are shown climbing up the side of Leonardo Leonardo's building via a climbing rope when all of a sudden a flower pot drops between them. The camera changes angles and zooms out to reveal that they are pulling themselves along a rope on the flat roof of another section of the building.
Dante: Why are we walking like this?
- In the Donald Duck cartoon Donald's Dilemma, a flowerpot falling on Don's head gives him Identity Amnesia and a handsome voice, making him think he's a great singer. Daisy brings him back to normal by dropping another pot on his head.
- Josie and the Pussycats: In "A Greenthumb Is Not A Goldfinger", while everyone is running away from the bad guys, Melody gets to the top of a staircase and drops some flower pots. The first one misses and hits Alexander, knocking him silly, but the next two hit two mooks.
- Every My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode involving the "Pinkie Sense" has used this:
- In "Feeling Pinkie Keen", Twilight Sparkle (already in a wheelchair due to previous injuries) assures Spike that nothing is going to fall. Right on cue, a flowerpot then crashes on her head...followed by an anvil...and a hay wagon...and finally an upright piano. They all turned out to have fallen out from an airborne delivery truck that Derpy Hooves was working at. This being Twilight Sparkle, she's fine a few scenes later.
- In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", during The Reveal that Mare Do Well is some of the Mane Six teaching Rainbow Dash a lesson, Pinkie Pie says she rescued the construction workers with her Pinkie Sense. She then detects a falling flowerpot with it, and dashes away to avoid it.
- In "It's About Time", when Twilight Sparkle asks the gypsy Pinkie Pie if she can use her Pinkie Sense to detect what will happen in the future, Pinkie explains that it's only for immediate emergencies. Cue flowerpot to Twilight Sparkle's head.
Pinkie: Like that. [pause] Where did that even come from?
- In the Popeye short The Spinach Roadster, Olive accidentally drops a whole mess of flower pots onto Popeye's car, including one on his head.
Popeye: Somebody don't know the difference between a good car and a garbage can.
Real Life
- During the November 2020 terrorist attack on Vienna, a citizen allegedly threw a vase out of a window at the gunman, distracting him long enough for the police to get in a kill shot.
