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"My Other Car Is A Broom"
Brooms are the traditional flying mount of wizards and witches. Some even use them as weapons.
According to The Other Wiki the idea of witches riding on brooms goes back to at least 1453, making this Older Than Print.
Upright vacuum cleaners are a modern subversion of the broom idea. This page (warning: NSFW) not only mentions an example from 1923, but calls it a trope.
- Though Fridge Logic is triggered by that picture, begging to ask why air intake is tail end and exhaust is forward and not vice versa, which would look much like hobbyhorse. While hair streams as if she moved backwards and upwards (i.e. perpendicular to cleaner).
Not to be confused with the Magic Carpet, which is also an Identifiable Flying Object but has totally unrelated origins and applications.
For the Speculative Fiction version see Rocket Ride. Compare Sky Surfing, in which various flying objects are ridden on while standing.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- In Kiki's Delivery Service, Kiki normally uses a traditionally made broom. At the end of the film, however, she is forced to improvise, using a mass-produced deck brush. The deck brush works, but is extremely difficult to control.
- Ojamajo Doremi had a button on the girls' taps in the first two seasons that summoned their brooms, but the cutscene is skipped in Motto and Dokkan. Humorously, Majorika flew by using a dustpan.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, several minor magical characters have brooms, and Negi uses a staff that's functionally the same.
- The opening credits of the Ah My Goddess OVAs from the 1990s briefly show Belldandy on a broomstick, followed by Skuld riding a vaguely broom-shaped flying machine, and finally (in a subversion of a subversion) Urd riding a cannister vacuum with the hose draped around her like a feather boa.
- In the manga, Urd's broomstick is so jazzed up with magic, it is sentient. When Belldandy borrows it, love blooms. Weid, twisted, 'sweep with me!' love. Yes, sweep.
- In Soul Eater, we first see Medusa riding a broom....that has an arrow/snakehead. Justified Trope in that Medusa can affect the gravity of anything with her arrows. So her broom has a gravity in the direction of the arrow.
- In Mahou Shoujo Tai Alice the witches ride brooms and the title character, Alice, combines this with Sky Surfing.
- Somehow subverted in Narutaru with Jun Ezumi, a girl who rides a flying broom that really is a "dragon", one of the Mons equivalent of the series. The protagonist Shiina even mistakes her for a witch, but Jun, if this troper can remember well, says she choose that specific form for her dragon (aptly if not creatively named "Broom") just for fun.
- Dorothy of MAR rides a broom, preferring it even over the carpet the other characters ride. It doubles as her standard weapon. The broom is about her only trait that most would consider telling for her classification of 'witch'. In MAR Heaven, it's just the name of a person from a restrictive country. None of the other characters from the same place are seen with brooms.
Comic Books
- In Hellboy: Darkness Calls, witches are shown flying unaided, on giant animals (like cats), in cups, and with all types of animals/items... even brooms.
- Often seen (along with occasionally the vacuum cleaner variant) in the Sabrina The Teenage Witch comic.
- Wendy The Good Little Witch (Casper The Friendly Ghost's friend) rides a flying vacuum cleaner.
- Leni "Sky Witch" Muller from Top Ten rides a mechanical flying machine that resembles a broomstick.
- In The DCU, Starman foe the Prairie Witch rode on a flying broomstick. Starman was convinced that it was some kind of technological trick until he yanked it away from her (causing her to plummet to the ground) and discovered it was a perfectly ordinary broom.
Film
- The fourth installment of Fantaghiro played with this one hard: When Xellesia and the Black Queen realize that the latter can't transform into anything that flies, they seek an alternate means (including carpets, rejected because they only work well in Arabian Nights Land) and eventually settle on the brooms, despite the Black Queen complaining that they will look ridiculous.
- In Hocus Pocus, Winifred was the only one who got a (modern) broom. Sarah had a mop and Mary had the vacuum cleaner.
- An interesting subversion for this trope comes from the movie version of Practical Magic, where witches having the brooms serves a purpose, to sweep away the ashes of the soul removed from possessing Gillian Owens.
- The Wicked Witch of the west rides one in the film version of The Wizard Of Oz. (In the original novel she carries an umbrella instead of the traditional broomstick, because her secret weakness is... well... water.)
Literature
- In the Harry Potter universe, flying broomsticks come in a variety of makes and models. Then there's the spells that go with them and a popular sport, Quidditch that employs them.
- In Quidditch Through The Ages, it is said that brooms come with a cushioning charm on them, so Harry Potter has A Wizard Did It Handwave.
- Quidditch Through the Ages also lampshades how these are probably the magical community's worst-kept secret, stating that "no Muggle drawing of a wizard or witch is complete without one".
- The Lancre witches of Discworld. And in Equal Rites, Granny Weatherwax once had to make do with her protegée's wizard staff. (Earlier in the book, Esk had disguised the staff by sticking bristles on it, which is one theory as to the origins of flying brooms in the first place.)
- In Wyrd Sisters it's said you need magic to keep a broomstick up, but other books suggest the magic is intristic to the broom, and even Rincewind can fly one. (In Lords & Ladies Nanny Ogg complains her grandkids keep joy-riding on hers.) (And in Going Postal, Moist Von Lipwig just paints an ordinary broomstick blue with stars, in order to fool the antagonist into thinking it was a real one.)
- Which is of course, pretty clever for Moist, as belief is awfully powerful on Discworld.
- Granny's broomstick is described as the magical equivalent of a split window Morris Minor, and the dwarf craftsman who looks at it is amazed it flew at all. In later books it's been fixed up, but still needs a running start.
- Or, as in one case of escaping danger, just outright jumping off a cliff qualifies as a 'running start'.
- It is also made clear that they are not exactly wonderful for long range travel, lacking a real seat and being so high in the air that extra layers of underwear are required.
- And in Thud, the wizards speed up a carriage in part by nailing broomsticks to the bottom to make it hover.
- Keith Roberts' Anita stories had the title character, among other things, learning to fly a broomstick, and IIRC discussing its technicalities with other trainee witches in the same way other kids would discuss motorbikes.
- There's a book about an apprentice witch titled Wise Child. There's a scene where the main character must go on some kind of spirit quest or something and she actually used the broomstick in, uh, the way described by Meiriona; the whole "flying" effect was due to the hallucinogenics being absorbed through a, shall we say, tender area.
- In the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, this is the standard transport method for witches. However, we learn that broomsticks are made to fly by the application of a balm, which can be used on anything wooden to achieve the same effect. This is used to make a much more seatable flying basket, although it has stability issues.
Live Action TV
- While not seen in the show itself, the opening credits of Bewitched features an animated Samantha flying around on her broom.
- At least one episode of Sabrina The Teenage Witch had her on a flying vacuum cleaner.
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger had a spin on this, hoverbikes that transformed from brooms. There was also a flying carpet for the Sixth Ranger.
- In HR Pufnstuf, Witchiepoo drove a broomstick like vehicle called the Vroom Broom that included a sidecar.
- A Halloween episode of Charmed reveals Phoebe's dislike for the "cackling hags on broomsticks cliche", until time travelling shenanigens reveal that she created the cliche, much to her amusement.
Tabletop Games
- One magic item in most editions of Dungeons And Dragons is some kind of flying broom, along with a magic carpet and a winglike cape. Notably, near any object could be enchanted for this purpose... Autonomous ass-kicking animated broom is also available.
Video Games
- Maple the Witch from The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle games has first a broom, then a vacuum cleaner, then a flying saucer.
- Arche from Tales Of Phantasia flies around on a broom.
- In battle too, refreshingly. She also uses them for her weapons.
- In the Kirby games, this is used by one of the enemies which gives you the Clean power. In Kirby's Dream Land 3, pairing up with Chuchu with the Clean power lets Kirby fly a broom himself.
- Kammy Koopa from Paper Mario has one. Some of the Magikoopas do, as well.
- And before her, Kamek from Yoshi's Island and Partners in Time fame.
- In Worldof Warcraft during the Hallow's End event, the summoned Headless Horseman can sometimes drop flying brooms that can be used as mounts as part of his loot. Unfortunately for players, they only last 14 days.
- Marisa Kirisame of the Touhou Project. It's been speculated that she doesn't really need a broom to fly, but uses it anyway because she consciously goes for a Western witch look, and that obviously includes the broom.
- Gruntilda in Banjo-Kazooie.
- Suikoden III's Rody wants to become a witch just so he can ride a broom. He even uses one as a weapon in the meantime, so he'll always have one handy. ...Yes, I said he.
- Fly FF has them, although they're not limited to only the magical character classes. Whether a player chooses to ride a broom or a board is largely a matter of taste.
- Later "silly" depictions of Kohaku in Melty Blood gives her this ability, her broom also has a sword hidden in the handle. The only explaination has been the Tatari's Influence.
- The Witch enemy in Castlevania rides on a broomstick and strafes you with magic. The Student Witch tries... but can't keep it in the air more than three seconds.
- In Magician's Quest/Enchanted Folk, being a game based around attending a magical school a la Harry Potter, it's no surprise that there is a wide selection of flying brooms (well, hovering brooms) to be ridden. There's also a broom-shaped taxi.
- In Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Roll rides on her broomstick whenever she dashes forward.
Western Animation
- Hanna-Barbera's Winsome Witch.
- The Looney Tunes character Witch Hazel uses a flying broom. One cartoon featuring her has a gag about Hazel taking her sweeping broom by mistake.
- In Bewitched Bunny, Hansel And Gretel - having been warned off by Bugs Bunny - jeer at Witch Hazel as they're departing her cottage: "Ahhh, your mother rides a vacuum cleaner!"
- In Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers, there is a cleaning woman-gone-witch named Winifred who flies around on a magic hoover.
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