Losing a Shoe in the Struggle

There's a reason why it's called the left shoe.

"Where is my goddamn shoe?!"

— Hannibal Chau, Pacific Rim

Sometimes, as a result of the danger they are in, a character can take Clothing Damage. But Clothing Damage is often associated with Fanservice (even if that's not always the case) and often isn't family-friendly, so what can be done to show a visual reminder of the danger a character is in without resorting to showing Clothing Damage or blood? How about losing a shoe in the struggle?

It doesn't have to be a shoe. It could be a hat, a pair of glasses, a necklace or any kind of small article of clothing. Even getting hair mussed up for a character whose hair is normally well-kept is a visual reminder of danger. Anything that's G-rated, but noticeable. A missing shoe is certainly noticeable, and even a missing hat on a character who's known for always wearing one gets the point across visually.

Sometimes losing a shoe is done in comedic situations, such as having one fly out of a Big Ball of Violence. Bonus points if it clocks an innocent bystander.

This trope is often Truth in Television — in periods of high activity or drastic changes in motion, including when a person is thrown off their feet, light and loose articles of clothing (including shoes) are likely to fly off.

In more serious situations, the character's now-bare foot is shown to be a vulnerability which can become a Broken Heel (not literally — probably) if the writer needs to hamper his/her ability to run. This can lead to or be accompanied by Agony of the Feet (for instance, if a person steps into a bear trap or onto a sharp object with an unprotected foot after having earlier lost the protective steel-toed boot that would have prevented injury; in contrast, the person injures his/her foot with the shoe still on and is forced to remove and discard it due to the injury). If they are high up on a structure, it can be used to show how far the ground is.

Compare Hat Damage, which is when an unimportant article of clothing takes damage but remains with the person. Also compare Stripping Snag, which is when a piece of clothing gets removed by something holding it back, and Giving Them the Strip, where a character intentionally removes a piece of their clothing (usually something like a jacket) in order to escape. In some cases, may lead to The Girl Who Fits This Slipper, when a character uses the missing clothing article to try to identify whoever lost it. Also compare Close-Call Haircut for when the superficial injury happens to the person, rather than their clothes.

Often caused by Helpless Kicking. Related to Spit Out a Shoe where someone or something eats a character whole and spits out their footwear or other article of clothing.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• A Little Debbie commercial has a man on a camping trip receive a reminder from his inner child that he neglected to pack Oatmeal Creme Pies. The man endures various obstacles on his way from the campsite to the store, and loses his right shoe while scaling some rocks. After he purchases the pies, the child suggests he retrieve his missing shoe, but he decides to enjoy a pie instead.
• In the Segata Sanshiro commercial for Sonic R, one of the baseball players that Segata Sanshiro attacks for not playing Sega Saturn loses one of his cleats in the aftermath of his attack.
  • Several dancers in a nightclub also are seen losing their shoes after his attack in the commercial for Shining Force III.
• In this ad for Go Decals.net, a woman is seen falling over, after her high heel shoe gets stuck in a grate. (Funny enough, the shoe comes out of the grate and goes flying, after it comes off her foot. Yet, if you watch the video in slow motion, you can see that the woman is still wearing both shoes when she hits the ground.)
• A commercial for McDonald's has some alien "Fry-Sniffers" suck up some french fries into their spaceship, their bad aim accidentally sucking up Ronald McDonald's shoes as well. Ronald takes back the stolen fries, but the aliens keep the shoes to wear as "cool party hats".^note The Fry-Sniffers briefly re-appear in a Halloween-themed commercial, wearing the "hats" to a McDonald's costume party.
• An Accura RDX commercial inspired by Gulliver's Travels implies that this happened to Gulliver offscreen; he only has one sandal when the Lilliputians bind him to the beach, until a Lilliputian finds the missing sandal in The Stinger.
• A public safety information film from the 1980s warns people about the danger of keeping feet too close to the sides of escalators, with the words "don't let this happen", showing a child's Wellington boot (without a child) being caught in the side, and completely destroyed.
• A teaser trailer for ZombiU begins with an image of a man trying to save a woman, who has one of her high heel shoes missing. (Sadly, the loss of her shoe is likely to be the least of her concerns.)
• M&M's: In "The Chase", Red attempts to catch the Minis in a box. The Minis fly into the box and carry Red away, leaving his shoes behind, much to Yellow's bewilderment.

Anime & Manga

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Battle Tendency: After Lisa Lisa is stabbed in the back and rendered nearly dead by Kars, he stabs two holes in her feet and binds them with rope, knocking off her shoes in the process.
  • Golden Wind:
    • Narancia loses his shoe during his fight with Formaggio as Formaggio's Stand, Little Feet, starts to take effect and shrink him after Naracia kicks it off in anger while kicking a car. It's the first sign he notices something wrong when he tries to put it back on and it suddenly doesn't fit anymore.
    • Trish loses one of her boots while fighting the Notorious B.I.G. stand, forced to slip out of it when the Stand grabs it when trying to locate her.
  • Stone Ocean:
    • Jolyne briefly loses a shoe after it floats away under the gravity-nullifying effects of Jumpin' Jack Flash, but she recovers it fairly soon afterward.
  • JoJolion: During Josuke's battle against Dolomite's Blue Hawaii, he had to discard his shoes to avoid falling under the Stand's control and had to flee from it barefoot before picking up new ones at a nearby shop.
• In Garzey's Wing, the ferario (fairy) is grabbed by two soldiers who attempt to rip her legs off and kill her, but they only succeed in ripping her boots off, as she escapes by Giving Them the Strip.
• Mega Man NT Warrior
  • Yai Ayano loses one of her shoes when she and Chaud have to escape a stalled elevator during the N1 Grand Prix. She's still missing it in the following episode as Ms. Mari points it out.
  • In the Beach Episode during the Stream season entitled "Summer: The Seal Training Camp," as Lan, Mayl, and Jasmine explore the haunted house, they discover everybody else's shoes on the ceiling. It turns to be a rotating room controlled by Dr. Hikai and slips off their shoes before dumping them in the island's hot spring.
• Rebecca's Ether Gear in EDENS ZERO is linked to her feet and too powerful to contain, destroying her footwear whenever she uses it.
• Happens too many times in Fairy Tail to count, especially to Lucy. In both the Edolas and Grand Magic Games arcs she loses her shoes twice, going barefoot for the rest of the battle each time.
  • Yukino loses her boots, alongside Lucy, in the Grand Magic Games arc, when the two of them find themselves dangling over a lava pit (Chapter 309). Arcadios rescues the girls, but not before their boots are incinerated in the immense heat. (As is most of Arcadios' armor, before he's saved by Horologium.) Afterwards, Lucy discards her half-melted and heat-tattered stockings. In the manga, she also loses her left decorative arm warmer. Then it gets just plain ridiculous and Fanservicey when the Jade Dragon Zirconis uses his anti-clothing magic on Lucy, destroying the rest of her clothes. At this point, Lucy finally decides to call on Virgo for a whole new outfit. Meanwhile, Yukino changes out of her royal guard uniform and back into her feathery standard outfit to replace her burnt footwear and return to being herself as a confident mage.
  • Natsu, Gray, and Erza all lose their shoes in the Sun Village arc when Doriarte's magic reverts them back to children (Chapter 345). Natsu chooses to kick his off once they're too big to wear and seems to remain barefoot even as he leaves the village because he threw them away, Gray's fall off his feet when Doriarte hefts him up, and Erza slips in her oversized boots and goes tumbling down a hill, causing not just her boots to fly off, but her adult-size armor. Erza pauses and amusingly complains how her feet are cold on the frozen ice covering the village later on as she mentions bigger problems.
  • Lucy loses her shoes and her top in the Tartaros Arc (the former is off-screen, the latter is battle damage during the fight with Franmalth in Chapter 379 that is toned down in the anime to another off-screen accumulated clothing damage incident), but then gains the power of the Star Dress, giving her new clothes and sandals.
  • During the final story arc, Natsu, Lucy, Erza, Wendy, Yukino, Jenny, Brandish, Dimaria, and Kagura all end up barefoot at some point or another because their shoes were taken when they got capture, blown off/apart in battle, or outright removed in the case of Erza, who prefers to fight while barefoot in case she needs to use swords with her toes, and not all of them have the luxury re-shoe their feet afterwards. Dimaria actually loses 2 and a half pairs, the first confiscated in captivity, then one of her boots gets burned away by Natsu. And then there's Jacob, who has his entire outfit burnt off by Natsu. Not only that, Mavis and Acnologia step onto the battlefield barefoot from the get-go.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy tends to lose his sandals in a lot of fights, whether from them slipping off due to using Gear Third, or from them getting destroyed.
  • Usopp employed this during his fight with Miss Merry Christmas when he needed to escape her clutches by leaving her holding only his shoes. He got them back soon afterward.
  • As Vivi is frantically running through the city of Alubarna, trying to find the bomb set to destroy the plaza, her sandals snap, leaving her barefoot.
  • In the Arlong arc, Nami's adoptive mother Bellemere loses one of her sandals when she's shot and killed by Arlong. Some revisions of this moment have her lose both, or keep both.
• In To Love Ru, Run is turned into a little kid after being sprayed by the Skunk of Youth. As she attempts to catch the skunk, she slips off the school roof, losing her shoes in the fall (though thankfully Lala catches her). Likewise, Golden Darkness is unable to keep her footwear on because it is now too big for her small feet, and she's forced to hold onto them while maneuvering around.
• My Hero Academia: Two Heroes: When Melissa suggests she and the UA students take the stairs up I-Island's central tower, she does so in restrictive dress heels. It isn't long before she starts falling behind the pack, and tears them off her feet without a second thought. Ochako offers to relieve the effects of gravity, too, but Melissa declines.
• In Tokyo Revengers, Haruki Hayashida, aka Pah, takes a severe beating from enemy gang Moebius, and he gets knocked around and pummeled so much that his sandals fall off, but Pah refuses to go down until he inflicts punishment on leader Nobutaka Osanai for the beating of his friend and the rape and beating of his friend's girlfriend.
• The anime Houkago Teibou in Episode 5, both main characters lose their boots in a shallow sand bar.
• Digimon:
  • The comedic variant appears in Digimon Adventure when the Digidestined return to the digital world, with Mimi tripping and losing her boot on the beach.
  • This phenomenon is subverted and lampshaded in an episode of the dub of Digimon Fusion by Shoutmon: "Wow, Mikey, you almost lost your sweet sneakers! ...And your feet."
• Pictured At Top: In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, a crook is lamenting his fate while using a urinal, only for Batou to unexpectedly open a window right in front of him. After a pause, Batou flashes a huge Cheshire Cat Grin and drags the guy kicking and screaming outside where he's knocked out, dropping a shoe in the process.
• In Grave of the Fireflies, Setsuko loses a sandal while her big brother Seita is carrying her on his back, trying to find shelter during the air raid that destroys their home and kills their mother, their cousin buys Setsuko a pair of blue-strapped getas which she wears for the remainder of her life.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • In the Gold and Silver arc of Pokémon Adventures, Lt. Surge fishes one of Gold's shoes and Silver's boots from the Lake of Rage; along with Gold's hat and bag. This makes him realize the two were kidnapped by the Masked Man. It also hinders Gold's ability to run when he and Silver are forced to fight some Sandslash without them. Once Surge finds them, he gives their shoes and belongings back.
  • The comedic variant appears in the XYZ arc Pokémon the Series: XY; when Jessie (in the guise of Jessalie) flips out of her shoes after discovering she practiced the wrong appeal for the Pokémon Showcase.
  • One Poké Problem in Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon shows Olivia tripping and losing one of her heeled sandals, causing her to drop a plate of curry all over Hala.
• In one episode of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Jun the Swan loses a shoe to a monster attack and she has to go into the latest Galactor base to get it back — that shoe's part of her costume and she can't transform without it. Worse, it's found by Galactor soldiers, and when it proves to be oddly indestructible (they tried to incinerate it), Berg Katse starts experimenting on it— making it transform into the boot that's part of her costume. And now that they know how the G-Force costumes transform, they can design a weapon to force them to transform back.
• In Naruto, Sasuke loses one of his sandals when fighting Deidara. He steps on a bomb by accident. Nagato's shoes are also blown up in a similar manner in the battle that crippled him when camouflaged paper bombs emerge from the ground, snake up his legs, and detonate. Hanabi also technically counts in The Last because she kicks off her geta early on in the film when entering her house and is kidnapped indoors, without them.
• Tokyo Ghoul uses a variant of this trope, off-panel.
  • In the main series, one of the only clues the CCG has to the identity of the Gourmet is a shoe he lost during a kill. It's very expensive Italian leather, and a size 7.
  • In the Prequel Jack, Arima discovers a shoe at the site of one of Lantern's kills. It belongs to Lantern, and allows him to narrow down his suspects because only one female Transfer Student wears that size. Minami is shocked that he would figure it out from such a seemingly-minor detail.
• Patlabor: The TV Series: In the first episode, one of the updated Ingrams for the police force gets stolen and Noa, a new recruit coming in for her first day, chases after it. After nearly getting run down by the thief driving the truck, she grabs the bumper of the vehicle and runs behind it as it picks up speed before ultimately jumping on board. Losing one of her heels in the process.
• The comedic variant appears in the first episode of Kill la Kill, where Mako Mankanshou's entry has her lose one of her school shoes after crashing into debris trying to greet Ryuko.
• Durarara!! examples:
  • In the second episode of the anime, Kamichika tries to jump off a building; but is caught by Celty, losing one of her boots in the process.
  • The comedic variant appears when a gangster tries to attack Shizuo, and Shizuo knocks off most of his clothes with a single punch, save for his underwear; socks and one of his shoes.
• Lupin III: The Italian Adventure:
  • The comedic variant appears in the episode "The Lovesick Pig," where Lupin's escape from a bunch of partygoers drunk off the titular wine results in the loss of one of his shoes as well as his pants, with the rest of his outfit being subject to more standard Clothing Damage.
  • The serious version appears in the later episode "Dragons Sleep Soundly", where Lupin detonates a pair of bombs hidden in his shoes to escape an MI6 raid with Nix.
• Atra loses her boot when she is kidnapped under the mistaken assumption she is Kudelia in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. Mikazuki discovers the boot and recognizes the scent is Atra's with his keen sense of smell, allowing him to find her and implement her rescue.
• In Star Driver, absentminded Mizuno kicks off her shoes while resting atop a bus, then hops onto a tree and the bus drives off, leaving her stuck in socks until she can piggyback her way into school to replace her shoes. She later makes a point to grab her shoes as she leaps straight from her bedroom window while barefoot indoors.
• The humorous version happens in a famous scene from Azumanga Daioh. Osaka attempts a old superstition of Japanese folklore where if you kick your shoe off into the air, the manner in which it lands will allow one to predict the weather. Osaka flings her shoe off into the air... and it lands in a passing dump truck. She is not amused. The scene has also been subjected to Memetic Mutation, where Osaka's shoe causes destruction whenever it lands.
• Karakuri Circus: Shirogane has occasionally thrown off her shoes and/or socks in battle, left them behind, and gone into action barefoot because she needs to use her toes to operate her puppet.
• Takes place in Zatch Bell! when Kiyo must free Gash from a daunting glue trap, and after a lot of struggle, he is yanked right out of his shoes.
• Used for dramatic effect in Kaleido Star when Mai needs to be rid of her unsuitable sandals and go barefoot to perform acrobatic stunts. She makes the act of shedding them part of her flashy entry as she leaps into the arena to upstage Sora, unbuttoning them with an audible click and leaping out of them so fast they flutter away.
• Kaga throws off her heels in the second opening of Golden Time because she trips and falls down and is chasing after the spark of love.
• Nichijou examples:
  • The first episode sees Nano lose one of her sandals as she crashes into a passerby while chasing after a cat that stole the fish she was cooking; resulting in a large explosion that sends her on a neighbor's roof. In the manga, she loses her school shoes the same way.
  • Yuuko tries to predict the weather in a similar manner to Osaka, and ends up losing her shoe on a passing car; then loses the other shoe as she trips trying to get it back.
• In Seigi no Mikata, Makiko once told Youko that you can tell if a boy would make a good boyfriend by the thickness of his neck, causing Youko to spy on the boys changing room. Caught, she was forced to flee before anyone recognised her, leaving behind one of her shoes. She was so ashamed of herself that she never spoke up to claim it.
• Hunter × Hunter: During the Greed Island arc, Gon, Killua and a few other hunters get involved in a dodgeball game to get the rare cards needed to finish the Greed Island game. However their opponent, Razor, can use his Nen to launch the ball like a cannonball and severely injure whomever it connects to. Gon, wanting to put his Nen training that Bisky has put him through to the test, takes the ball head-on while guarding with his aura. He manages to deflect the ball but the impact launches him out of his boots and into a wall.
• The comedic variant appears in Yotsuba&! "Playtime," where Yotsuba and her father Koiwai play a game on a swing that involves kicking off one of their shoes as far as they can; in a similar manner to Osaka's weather prediction.
• Captain Tsubasa: Happens to Tsubasa twice during the World Youth arc. The first time, while applying pressure from below to help Hyuga perform a Raijuu Shot from the air (using the foot as a platform) results in Tsubasa's shoe getting ripped off his foot and the sole cut in half. Later in the quarterfinals, he tries to stop one of Stefan Levin's shots, with the ball's rotation ripping the shoe out of his foot, and after Akai ends up severely injured by taking three of Levin's shots in a row, Tsubasa starts the counterattack without bothering to put it back on.
• Brynhildr in the Darkness: In the manga version only, Saori's battle with Neko destroys her boots and stockings.
• Vermeil in Gold: When a child Vermeil was trying to escape town to avoid an angry mob, she trips and loses her shoe. She discards the other one and keeps running.
• Fate/Prototype Tribute Phantasm: In the first chapter of this anthology manga, Manaka Sajyou loses both of her sandals when she falls down the stairs. After the people she is with catch her, she doesn't bother retrieving them as the chapter ends.
• One chapter of Squid Girl has the titular protagonist lose one of her sandals after accidentally throwing it at a stray dog. It gets beat up when Sanae's pet dog Alex gets into a Big Ball of Violence to get it back, but fortunately, Sanae trades Squid Girl her own sandals as replacement.

Comic Books

• Actually plays a plot-critical role in one flashback story in Tom Strong. Tom is investigating a slum where his current love-interest, Intrepid Reporter and perennial Damsel in Distress Greta Gabriel has gone missing. He finds her discarded high heels, evidently lost in some off-panel confrontation. This pays off as, being a Gadgeteer Genius, Tom has an ultraviolet flashlight which is able to track the heat signatures left by Greta's bare feet as the Mooks dragged her off. Pummeling ensues.
• In the penultimate book of Bone, Thorn's shoes fly off as she is captured by Tarsil's soldiers.
• Asterix the Gaul: Roman soldiers thumped by Asterix or Obelix often fly up into the stratosphere, while their shoes remain in their original position.
• In the X-Men story arc that led to her being bound to the Phoenix. Jean Grey after being attacked while attending a formal party. Has both of her high heels fall off her feet after being knocked out, and captured by a Sentinel. She remains barefoot not only for the rest of the arc, but thanks to a Retcon all the way until the mid-80s due to being stuck in a cocoon unbeknownst to everyone.
• In an early issue of Excalibur Shadowcat and Phoenix (temporarily de-powered) are bound upside-down in a smokehouse, by their legs. Shadowcat uses her ninja skills to slip out of her boots to free herself and unties Phoenix, before the cook arrives. After Phoenix tries to fight him and is slapped away, (having forgotten that she doesn't have her powers) Shadowcat- still barefoot- uses her ninja skills once again to fight off the cook.
• Peculia didn't so much lose her shoes in a struggle, merely because of one. In the second story, she spends the night at an inn, and takes her shoes off to go to bed. While still barefoot, she sneaks downstairs for a midnight snack, where she discovers that the inn is under attack by Death, who has killed everyone inside but herself and the innkeeper. She is later "rescued" from the danger — after already taking care of it herself, mind you — and carried away, resulting in her shoes being left behind. Rather than going back for them or buying a new pair, she simply opts to remain barefoot from then on, for reasons known only to her. Of course, this is hardly surprising behaviour from a female character in a Richard Sala work, especially a protagonist. It's far more surprising that she even had shoes to lose in the first place.
• It happens in Bizarrogirl when Supergirl punches her counterpart so hard she flies away, but her boot remains behind.
• In Issue #33 of Futurama "Attack of the 50-ft Amy" as giant Amy loses her shoes when she dine-and-dashes with Kif. It's mostly due to her outgrowing her shoes instead of any scuffle.
• In an issue of Danger Girl, Abbey has one of her high heels fall off when she's fighting an armed assailant in a helicopter. She takes her other shoe off, after dealing with him and reuniting with Sydney.
• In one Batman story, Batman gets a boot wedged in a train track, and wisely pulls his foot free and jumps clear when the train approaches.
• Edge of Spider-Verse (2022): Spinstress loses one of her shoes in the fight with the Mysterious Empress. Given Spinstress is a send-up of Disney movies (and Cinderella specifically), it probably would have led to a "The Girl Who Fits This Slipper" situation had she not got called up by the Spiders.
• Ultimate Spider-Man (2000): In issue 24, Mary Jane's sandals fly off when the Green Goblin kidnaps her.

Comic Strips

• One Big Happy has the occasional fight where someone's shoe flies off.
• Peanuts
  • Sometimes happens comedically to Charlie Brown when he's hit by a baseball or misses trying to kick the football.
  • It also happened to Royanne, the girl who claimed to be Roy Hobbs' great-granddaughter, when her baseball team played against Charlie Brown's team. When Charlie Brown slid toward home plate, he knocked her shoes off. In the next strip, Snoopy found only one of her shoes.
• On Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin often loses his shoes when Hobbes pounces him. Sometimes it's even all his clothes down to his underwear, which makes his mother very confused at why she found him half-dressed at the front door.
• Dennis the Menace (UK): In the 2001 book, while ice-skating, Dennis crashes into his dad, which rips the soles off his wellington boots. Surprisingly, he appears (unless their soles were also ripped off by the crash) to have been sockless, which is unusual for someone in winter.

Fan Works

• This trope was a frequent topic of debate/discussion in the Jurassic World fandom the year the film premiered — Claire's climactic run from the T. rex includes a close-up, slow-motion shot of her high-heeled shoes, which many fans complained of as unrealistic, finding it far more likely that someone running from a T. rex would either kick off or (at the very least) accidentally lose their high heels.
• In Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness: In the midst of violently chucking Reimu at Megas, Patchouli's cap goes flying off. The story leaves it unclear as to whether she recovers it.
• In the DuckTales (2017) fanfic In Your Corner, Lena loses one of her sneakers in addition to the other injuries she receives from the Beagle Boys.
• In this self-titled Zombies Ate My Neighbors fanfic, Julie loses her shoes several times, but always manages to get them back - sometimes retrieved for her by Zeke. The author even based a certain story scene on this fan art of Julie.
• In this parody comic of Pokémon, the trainers battle place of the Pokémon; and Ash loses one of his sneakers and his hat after being knocked out by Chuck plowing him headfirst into the ground.
• In How the Light Gets In, when Laurel is digging herself out of her own grave, one of her shoes she was buried in is left behind in the process.
• Zero Context: Taking Out the Trash has Ellen slicing through Circe's shoes in order to keep her off balance and prevent her from switching on her lightsaber. Circe spends the rest of the battle without them, then spawns new ones when re-applying her sorceress attire afterward.
• At the end of this Sonic Heroes parody video, Charmy attempts to carry Espio and Vector over to the goal ring, only for them both to end up falling. Vector falls when he unwittingly pulls off Espio's shoe, that he was holding onto. (Which is weird, since we see Charmy losing his grip on Espio before this happens.)
• In he sees your dreams, Stefanie trips and loses a shoe while running away from monsters in her dream.
• Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K: While dueling a Space Marine Librarian in Episode 21, Obi-Wan tries to throw a kick into his opponent's face, only for the Librarian to block it with his hand. With the heel of Obi-Wan's foot caught in his palm, the Librarian clenches that hand into a fist using his Super-Strength. Obi-Wan narrowly avoids getting his foot crushed by pulling it out of his boot at the last moment, leaving him missing one boot for the remainder of the fight.

Films — Animation

• In the film adaptation of AKIRA, a would-be revolutionary loses one of his shoes when he tries to set off a grenade in the police station. When the grenade is a dud; he's dogpiled by cops and loses the other shoe as he's pummeled offscreen.
• In An American Tail, Fievel loses his hat while helping release the Mouse of Minsk. Finding it is how the Mousekewitzes learn he's still alive.
• The Aristocats: While fighting with Napoleon and Lafayette, Edgar ends up having his shoes (and presumably socks) pulled off by Lafayette.
• Boogie: The first fight between Boogie and Blackburn in a hotel, with Damsel in Distress Marcia sandwiched in between, where Marcia gets hurled aside while dropping one of her heels in the process. In the ensuing fight, Boogie picks up that heel and uses its tip to rip open Blackburn's face.
• Cinderella: Cinderella sometimes loses a shoe when climbing either up or down stairs. Most notably, one of her glass slippers falls off while she runs back to her coach. She tries to go back for it, but the Grand Duke startles her, then picks up the slipper himself.
• In The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, while she is late for school, Makoto rides the brakeless bicycle. While riding down the hill, she notices the the railroad crossing signs go on and tries to stop the bike, but to no avail. The first time she tries it, she uses her feet to stop the bike but her left shoe comes straight of before she approaches the railroad crossing, leading to her apparent death.
• The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: When Lucy fires a bomb at the Space Temple's Entertainment Center, General Mayhem deflects it away, triggering an explosion that blasts the general into a chasm, and blows her helmet off of her head.
• In Disney's The Little Mermaid, Eric's boots come off in the ocean while Ariel is trying to save him from drowning. They also come off after Eric defeats Ursula, and before he makes it to shore.
• Peter Pan: Captain Hook has an encounter with the crocodile, wherein he loses a shoe, a sock, his coat, and has his shirt and pants badly torn.
• The Rescuers: Bernard and Bianca both have their hats blown off their heads by the powerful vacuum of the pipe organ played by Medusa's crocodiles Brutus and Nero, and Bernard puts himself in terrible danger attempting to retrieve them (He even briefly ends up wearing Bianca's purple hat, which is then snagged on one of the crocodiles' claws).
• The Rugrats Movie:
  • Angelica loses one of her skates when Spike roughly pulls her along while trying to sniff out where the babies rode off to. She loses the other skate in the film's finale.
  • When Chuckie, Phil, and Lil try to take shelter in the forest during a thunderstorm, a tree falls, and all that can be seen near the fallen tree are Phil's shoes. Chuckie and Lil immediately assume that the tree fell on Phil, but then Phil walks up to them and asks them if they've seen his shoes.
• Tangled:
  • Flynn loses a boot when attacked by a very persistent horse, though fortunately Rapunzel, being a Friend to All Living Things, is able to convince him to give it back.
  • In the trailer, he slips out of his boot in an attempt to escape from Rapunzel's seemingly sentient hair, only to then get struck with that boot — a scene not in the final movie.
• Tarzan: The titular character rescues Jane from a family of enraged baboons and as he swings Jane along on a vine, one baboon manages to cling hold of her left boot and begins to bite it, prompting Jane to whack the baboon off with her parasol, but this results in losing her boot (and her stocking) as it falls with the baboon into the undergrowth. It would later lead to Jane ditching her footwear altogether. Funnily enough, the lost boot shows up with the baby baboon wearing it as a helmet whilst the baboons come to Tarzan's aid to fend off Clayton's henchmen in the climactic fight scene.
• Toy Story:
  • Toy Story 2: When the toys cross a busy street, Mr. Potato Head's shoe pops off after getting stuck on some bubblegum, but he retrieves it right before it gets run over.
  • Toy Story 3: Woody loses his hat as he escapes Sunnyside, and doesn't get it back till he returns to break his friends out. Also, Mrs. Potato Head spends most of the movie without her right eye, having left it in Andy's room.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
  • Miles Morales loses his Nikes more than once, as a result of leaving them untied.
  • When Peter B. Parker crash-lands in Miles' universe, his Spider-Man shoes tear off as he bounces around Times Square. He replaces them with a mismatched pair of footwear.
• In Tom Sawyer, Tom loses one of his shoes during a storm on the water. He discards the other shoe before continuing his adventure with Huck.

Films — Live-Action

• Aliens: The Queen Alien tries to pull Ripley into the space with her by grabbing onto her leg after the airlock is opened. Ripley shakes it free by slipping loose from her boot.
• In Animal House in a blink or you'll miss it deal. When the fraternity do their rampage at the parade and ram into the stand holding the dean, the mayor and their wives. The women clearly aren't wearing any shoes as the group is sent flying ^note  Course in real life it was because they were jumping on a trampoline to simulate the effect. Naturally it's not wise to wear high heels when you do so.
• As Above, So Below: The lead character gets dragged into a corpse-infested pool of blood and has her boots pulled off as she escapes.
• Partly deliberate in Atomic Blonde when Lorraine Broughton finds out the two men sent to welcome her in Berlin are KGB agents and fights them inside their car while it is in motion. She takes one of her shoes off to use the heel as a weapon against the agent sitting next to her, and the shoe gets thrown out of the car when she causes an accident to get rid of the driver. David Percival arrives just at this moment, takes the shoe and brings it to Lorraine while she's still in the upturned car... and almost gets his head blown off.
  Percival: Don't... shoot! I've got your shoe! [shows her the shoe through the window]
• Implied in Babe: Pig in the City, as Esme's shoes suddenly disappear in-between shots during the ballroom scene. However, a Missing Trailer Scene suggests they were pulled off by a chef and a waiter trying to catch her. A pink rag in her back pants pocket also gets taken out offscreen, but it can be seen lying on the floor in the form of a long hankie chain.
• Happens in Batman to Damsel in Distress Vicki Vale. While being forced to climb the the bell tower of Gotham Cathedral by her captor the Joker, Vicki falls and loses one of her high heels. The Joker then throws away the offending shoe, seemingly to taunt the pursuing Batman and/or make Vicki move faster. Her other shoe is later seen discarded further up the stairs.
• In Children of Men, Theo's right flip-flop becomes loosened during a fight. Theo then kicks the sandal off while heading for the exit, and later cuts his foot on some scrap metal.
• In Clockwise: Brian kicks the car and falls flat on his face in mud, and then loses both his shoes.
• In Cloud Atlas, Luisa Rey, played by Halle Berry, winds up getting her car pushed off a bridge by her arc's villain. When she escapes from the car after its windshield caves in, she's shown to be barefoot, having lost her heels from the onrush of water.
• Conan the Barbarian: Thulsa Doom's guards capture Conan and beat the crap out of him. When they drag him before Doom, Conan is missing his right shoe.
• In The Evil Dead, Cheryl loses her slippers in the run back from the forest, arriving back at the cabin barefoot.
• Executioners from Shaolin: Defied in the final battle, when hero Hung battles Master Pai Mei. Hung managed to pull off Pai Mei's left shoe after he missed a kick. Pai Mei responds by kicking with the same foot, and retrieves his shoe expertly.
• Fall: Hunter takes off her left shoe and sock (as well as her bra) to try to use them as padding protection for a cell phone she intends to drop to the ground out of range from the communications dish. Becky also throws both of her shoes to the ground to try and get a man's attention.
• In The Fearless Vampire Killers, When Alfred is attacked by the vampiric Sarah in the sleigh, he loses a shoe that falls off the sleigh into the snow.
• In the 2014 film: Free Fall, (not to be confused with the 2013 German film of the same name) Jane runs from an assassin and has one of her high heels slip off when she approaches the elevator. She leaves it behind and discards her other shoe offscreen, before slipping into the elevator. She then spends a great deal of the movie barefoot, while stuck inside the elevator and attempting to fight off the assassin.
• In Furious 7, Ramsey loses one of her shoes after the car chase on the mountainside in Azerbaijan; which Dom and his crew apologize for after she's rescued. She then gets a replacement pair before they go to retrieve the cargo in Abu Dhabi.
• In Ghostbusters II, during the trial after the group are arrested for illegally continuing their paranormal investigation. The courtroom is attacked by the ghosts of two murderers sentenced to death row. They wind up targeting the prosecutor who loses a shoe as she being hauled away upside down.
• In Hidden Figures, a test of the model Mercury orbiter's heat shield starts when Mary is still inside the test tunnel. When one of her high heels is caught in a vent, Mary struggles to get it free before the test starts, but can't get it loose and ends up ditching her shoes.
• Invoked on purpose in High Risk. Helen, barely escaping from the hotel takeover when the Doctor's terrorist army attacks, deliberately kicks off her heels. She then spends the rest of the night (and also the film) barefoot.
• In High School High, Tia Carrere's character Victoria loses one of her shoes off screen when she is attacked at the school. Jon Lovitz's character Richard discovers the lost shoe and a number of her other lost items before realizing she is in danger. She spends the next few scenes with only a single shoe
• In Hobbs & Shaw, Hattie loses her shoes the first time Hobbs and Shaw rescue her, and remains barefoot until the trio leave London.
• Home Alone:
  • Marv first loses a shoe, while foolishly trying to step through a doggy door, but quickly grabs it back before Kevin scares him off with movie footage and firecrackers. He later loses his shoes, then his socks, when they become stuck on a tar-covered staircase. Afterwards, Kevin tricks the barefoot Marv into painfully stepping on a nail and some Christmas ornaments.
  Harry: *looking at Marv's bare feet* Why the hell'd you take your shoes off?!
  Marv: *looking at the feathers all over Harry* Why the hell're you dressed like a chicken?!
  • In the Distant Sequel Home Sweet Home Alone, Pam gets her boots burned right off of her feet when Max ignites the lighter fluid-drenched driveway she's standing on. Not long after, she's forced to wade barefoot through a sea of LEGOs.
• Home Sweet Home: When May's son gets kidnapped, her response is to dash after his abductor while running through the rain, ditching her heels in the process as she keeps running through the asphalt barefoot.
• Indiana Jones: In Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Marion is dumped into the tomb, she manages to hold on to a statue, but one of her shoes falls off and lands amidst a heap of poisonous snakes. She later discards her other shoe, as she and Indy finally escape from the tomb.
• In Inglourious Basterds, German actress-turned-Allied-spy Bridget von Hammersmark loses her shoe during a sudden shootout in the cafe she met with other spies at. Colonel Hans Landa investigates the scene, and finds her lost shoe, allowing him to discover she was there.
• James Bond, The Living Daylights: James Bond vs. Necros, final round, where both of them ends up clinging on the back of an airplane flying over an Afghan valley. Necros managed to grab hold of Bond's shoe, but Bond cuts his shoelaces, resulting in Necros being thrown out of the plane, shoe and all, and falling to his death. Bond as usual follows up with a Bond One-Liner:
  Bond Girl: Where's Necros?
  James Bond: He got the boot.
• Jurassic World: When the dinosaurs escape captivity and attack the pavilion: Claire's assistant loses her shoes when she's volleyed back and forth between a flock of dimorphodons, right before she's eaten along with a dimorphodon by the mosasaurus.
• At the ending duel of the kung fu film Kid from Kwangtung, the main villain gets his boot pulled off by the protagonist. Being a Combat Pragmatist, the protagonist then counters the villain by scattering burning joss stick and hot ashes on the floor of the temple where their duel is taking place.
• Happens in the Fake Action Prologue to Killer Party. As the woman is dragged kicking and screaming into the coffin, one of her shoes comes off just before she is dragged fully in and the lid slams shut.
• King Kong: Ann Darrow is kidnapped from the SS Venture by the natives as she is getting ready for bed. Her shoes get left behind, forcing her to spend the entirety of her stay on Skull Island in bare feet.
• In Lantana (based on Speaking in Tongues), Valerie panicked and fled from Nik's car, leaving a shoe behind. When Nik returned home, he throws the shoe in the bush across the road from his house, not realising he's been seen by Jane, who reports it to the police.
• Used more seriously in The Little Dragons, where the kidnap victim loses a sandal in the struggle.
• In The Lone Ranger, one of Rebecca's high heel shoes falls off, while she's climbing along the train. The camera follows the falling shoe until just before it lands in the river below.
• Mad Max: Fury Road has its title character lose a boot while kicking Slit off of Nux's car. Slit grips said boot with his teeth before he falls, pulling it off of Max's foot. After a sandstorm, Max steals a boot from the unconscious Nux for a replacement.
• In the film Malice, teacher Andy goes to his student's home when she misses an appointment with him. The first hint of troubles is when he finds one of her shoes in the backyard. Sure enough, she's become the latest victim of the serial rapist terrorizing the campus.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, an unconscious female bystander is dragged away without one of her shoes during the Winter Soldier's attack on the DC Parkway; having lost it when the bus she was on collided with another bus following a grenade chain reaction. Cap also lampshades the phenomenon when he and Black Widow are incognito and on the run: "If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off."
• In Mission: Impossible III, Owen Davian apparently loses a shoe after getting run over by a truck.
• In Monty Python's Life of Brian, Brian accidentally leaves behind his left shoe while running from his religious followers, sparking a debate over its significance.
• In Night of the Living Dead, Barbra loses her shoes when running away from the first zombie. She still wearing her stockings, but she spends most of the movie not wearing shoes.
• In North By Northwest, Eve Kendall ditches her shoes during the Mount Rushmore chase and goes barefoot, in order to scale the chiselled rock better.
• This happens twice in Pacific Rim:
  • In Mako's flashback to her childhood, she remembers being a little girl alone in the ruins of Tokyo. One of her shoes isn't being worn; young Mako is carrying it instead. Either it's too crushed to be worn or Mako had hurt her foot too badly to wear it.
  • In the present, Hannibal Chau leaves only a shoe behind when he's eaten by a newborn Kaiju. In the mid-credits scene, he cuts his way out of its dead body. His first words when out are "Where is my goddamn shoe?!"
• In Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Tim Goodman briefly loses his shoes, dress shirt and his pants while being attacked by some Aipom poisoned by the sample of R while investigating his father Harry's apartment. Nobody in the adjacent alley seems to notice, though Detective Pikachu is quick to lampshade this: "I figured you'd be more of a briefs guy, I don't really wear underwear, I'm not modest."
• In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Maid Marion's shoes fall off, when the Sheriff of Nottingham grabs her, after his plan to marry her is thwarted by Robin's men. This is another blink and you'll miss it deal, though her bare feet are visible later on.
• In Smokey and the Bandit, runaway bride Carrie, in annoyance, tears off her wedges and throws them out Bo's Firebird as Bo is driving, and is barefoot for a sizable stretch of the movie.
• In Some Like It Hot, Daphne's shoe falls off, as he carries some musical instruments into the hotel. Osgood Fielding III puts the shoe back on Daphne's foot, while introducing himself. Daphne introduces "herself" with a sarcastic, "I'm Cinderella the Second."
• Speed has several hostages trapped in an elevator that is rigged to plummet to the very bottom of the building by a terrorist. SWAT quickly works on getting each hostage out one by one through the doors as the elevator constantly jerks downward. The last hostage to be rescued has one of her shoes slip off right before the elevator takes the plunge and she can be heard yelling "My shoe!" as she hobbles away with everyone else on one high heel.
• In Spider-Man, Mary-Jane's slippers fall off, while the Green Goblin is dangling her over the bridge.
• In Star Trek Beyond: Captain Kirk is seen carrying one of his boots after he's transported back aboard the Enterprise, having lost it in a struggle that resulted from a failed negotiation with an alien race that ended in a fight with their people.
• Star Wars:
  • In Attack of the Clones, Padmé Amidala's handmaiden Cordé is blown out of her shoes when the Naboo Star Cruiser carrying her is bombed by Zam Wessell in an assassination attempt.
  • In The Force Awakens, one of the members of the Kanjiklub gang is eaten by a Rathtar; only leaving behind one of his boots.
• In Superman: The Movie, when the helicopter carrying Lois to the see the President gets caught on the edge of the Daily Planet's roof, her hat falls off as the chopper tilts downwards. Clark finds it shortly before he realizes Lois needs Superman's help.
• In Super Mario Bros. (1993), Mario and Luigi lose their caps due to the strong beams from their devo guns.
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
  • The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): When Pam attempts to escape the house, she is caught right behind the exit by Leatherface, who catches her by hugging her body. During the struggle she flails with her legs and her flip-flops are flung away next to the entrance door.
  • Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation: A variation happens in this movie with Jenny taking off her shoes in the house of the Slaughter Family before the killing act starts. Once it does start, she ends up running barefoot for the rest of the movie.
• Tremors:
  • Earl and Valentine are attacked by the Graboids while they're crossing the desert on horseback. After they lose the horses, Earl's hat flies off his head and is left behind as he flees on foot.
  • Rhonda is attacked by the Graboids and gets her legs wrapped up in barbed wire. Combined with Giving Them the Strip, as Valentine helps her escape by removing her shoes and trousers (for a little Fanservice), and they run to "safety" inside the general store.
  • Tremors 3: Back to Perfection has Burt getting intentionally swallowed whole by a rare albino Graboid in order to plant a homing device inside it. When his assistant hauls him out via the tether he's attached to, he's naked from the waist down except for his underwear and one of his boots.
• The Whisperer in Darkness: After being plucked out of a biplanes cockpit by the films flying monsters the Mi-Go, little girl Hannah's legs dangle helplessly as she struggles, kicking off one of her shoes. The camera shows it spinning out of sight. It's followed by the flailing girl herself, who spirals into the abyss.
• In Without a Clue, Sherlock Holmes has a fight with some of Moriarty's Mooks. One of said Mooks loses a shoe when Holmes grabs him by the ankle and refuses to let go. The bad guy gets away and Holmes is left holding the empty shoe. Fortunately, it ends up providing a clue to Moriarty's whereabouts.
• In Zathura, Walter loses a sneaker when a defective robot tries to grab him by the foot, then retrieves it after the robot gets damaged in the basement. He loses the shoe again during "automatic ejection", but Danny returns it after the Astronaut jets Walter back into the house.

Literature

• A Light in the Attic: In the illustration for "Anteater" a pair of ladies shoes is shown next to the eponymous creature.
  "A genuine anteater,"
  The pet man told my dad.
  Turned out, it was an aunt eater,
  And now my Uncle's mad!
• A classic, well-known example that kicks off part of the plot, in Cinderella. Cinderella has to leave the royal ball before the spell wears off and her fancy clothes change back to normal, but accidentally leaves a glass slipper behind while running. This then changes the plot to The Girl Who Fits This Slipper.
• The Cinderella Murder, which references the shoe loss in the titular fairytale:
  • Susan was wearing silver high heels when she was killed, which she'd chosen to glam up her appearance for her audition; when her body was found she was only wearing one shoe. The other shoe was found near the entrance of the park, she having lost it as she was fleeing from her murderer; the press fixated on the shoe and the fact Susan had been on her way to an audition with an acclaimed director, dubbing the crime the Cinderella Murder.
  • When Hathaway is holding Laurie at gunpoint and he's distracted by an approaching police car, Laurie kicks the hand holding the gun away from her, hard enough that her shoe slips off. It makes her think of Susan's silver shoe, though this time things work out very differently.
• In Mostly Harmless (the fifth The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Ford Prefect has to sacrifice one of his shoes to throw off the guided missile that's been fired at him. He spends most of the rest of the book with only one shoe, only getting a replacement pair near the very end.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events: The first thing the Baudelaires see of Kit Snicket in the 13th book is her bare foot sticking out of the raft she built. According to her, it's because a heavy machine was dropped on her foot and she took her shoe off to ease the pain.
• Shivers (M. D. Spenser): The last book of the series, "Madness at the Mall", where the brothers Frank and Tom are trapped in a haunted mall filled with poltergeist activity and killer animal spirits, and at one point an escalator that sped itself on its own nearly killed the two, only managing in snatching Tom's shoelace forcing Tom to discard his left sneaker. Luckily they then pass a sportswear shop, and Tom quickly procures replacement sports shoes.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has two instances in which Dorothy loses at least one of the Silver Shoes. The first, after the Wicked Witch of the West trips her with an invisible iron bar, as an attempt to steal one of the Shoes. Dorothy gets it back after melting the Witch with a bucket of water. The second, after Dorothy commands the Silver Shoes to take her back to her Aunt Em's farm. The Shoes take her there so quickly, they fall off on the way.
• Peter Rabbit accidentally leaves his shoes and coat in Mr. McGregor's garden while trying to run away from him. Though his cousin, Benjamin Bunny, later helps Peter get them back.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy ends up kicking her shoes off when unexpectedly teleported to Narnia's ocean. Not that she cares, and she gets a new pair from Caspian when rescued later.
• At one point in The Cleric Quintet, one of the dwarf brothers Bouldershoulder grabs a human would-be assassin by the heels and starts spinning around and around, smacking the hapless Night Mask's fellow assassins with their own comrade's flailing arms. The tactic actually works pretty well until the man's bootlaces give way, sending the now-barefoot assassin flying out a window and the dwarf, falling on his rump, too dizzy to stand up.
• In the Goosebumps story "A Shocker on Shock Street," Erin and her friend Marty run into a cemetery, where undead attempt to pull them into the ground by their legs. Erin is able to free herself by slipping out of her shoes, and she takes off her socks so it's easier to run. She's able to free Marty by getting him to do the same, and the two spend the rest of the book barefoot.
• In Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins' embroidered scarf flies off as she rushes Jane out of the Royal Doulton Bowl's Portal Picture, and back into the nursery. After Jane tells Michael about her adventure inside the bowl, he believes she only imagined it, until he sees the scarf added to the design.
• In Nemesis Games, Naomi loses one shoe as she struggles with one of her captors and another as she uses it as reaction mass to get inside a spaceship without a spacesuit.
• In the Where's Wally? book: The Great Waldo Search, Waldo finds himself in The Land of Waldos; which is full of duplicates of himself - some of whom are missing their glasses, hats, or walking sticks. Waldo himself also (somehow) loses one of his shoes upon arrival in this place. Thus, the way to find the real Waldo at this section of the book is to look for the one who's only wearing one shoe. (His missing shoe can also be found somewhere among the crowd.)
• The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold: In Barrayar, when the boy-Emperor Gregor is brought by loyalist forces to the house of the protagonist, Cordelia, in the wake of a coup attempt he is missing one of his shoes. A couple of chapters later the boy explains that he lost his shoe in the struggle between his mother and the soldiers who were trying to take him—his mother, Princess Kareen, grabbed for her son, and wound up with only a shoe. Later, in the climax of the book, it turns out to be quite important that Cordelia is able to produce the mate to the lost shoe (because of course Kareen kept her son's other shoe).

Live-Action TV

• In 999 (the Transatlantic Equivalent of Rescue 911) a young boy who'd been rescued from neck-deep mud by the fire brigade recalled being afraid his mother would be upset, because one of his new shoes was lost.
• The Adventures of Superman: In "The Human Bomb", Lois loses a shoe when Butler drags her further out on the ledge.
• In the Bones episode "The Beginning in the End", Hodgins leaves behind a shoe in the maw of one of the two Angry Guard Dogs chasing him.
• In an episode of El Chavo del ocho, the title character accidentally sends one of his shoes flying from one courtyard to the other while trying to kick Quico's ball. It landed on Don Ramón's head. He lost the other in a similar manner, landing it in Doña Cleotilde's shopping basket.
• Doctor Who: In "Smith and Jones", the Doctor, after being attacked by the Slab, and killing it with radiation, dismisses Martha's worries about his life by saying he's used to it. He then expels the radiation into his left shoe, which makes his foot itch, and he throws the shoe and sock into the bin. She remarks "You're completely mad", which he agrees with, saying he'd "look daft with one shoe". So he throws away his other shoe and sock, proclaiming himself "Barefoot on the Moon!", with a fanservice close-up of his feet.
• One episode of Flashpoint opened with the SRU responding to an active shooter at a black-tie gala event. They enter the venue to find the floor littered with empty pairs of fancy women's (high-heeled) shoes strewn about. One of the team members explains that the women probably kicked them off because they would make it harder to get away.
• Fort Boyard: This happens to the actress Trisha Penrose, when she takes on the challenge of being in a rotating web.
• Fresh Off the Boat: The Cold Open of "Showdown at the Golden Corral" shows Louis and Jessica running from the police, causing one of Jessica's shoes to fall off. Louis tells her to leave it behind, but she starts ranting about how rarely Nordstrom has that brand of shoe on sale. Louis proceeds to declare that Jessica doesn't have time to deliver her whole rant, then carries her off to safety.
• I Love Lucy:
  • One episode deals with Lucy trying to peddle a vacuum cleaner she was conned into buying by using the same sales pitch. Her endeavor is less then successful and she loses a shoe when trying to stop a door from closing on her.
  • In "The Tour", Lucy and Ethel abandon a bus tour to see Richard Widmark's backyard. Lucy climbs the wall to get one of the tangerines growing from a tree and falls over where she's promptly attacked by Richard's dog and loses a shoe in the process.
  • One of the country episodes had this happen to Ricky when Lucy closes the door him and he tries to stop it with his foot. Turns out it's a trick though, he slipped out his shoe and came around the backdoor as Lucy was trying explain she accidentally brought expensive furniture.
• Jonathan Creek: In "The Seer of the Sands" a Depraved Dwarf gets devoured by an escaped python. His shoes are left behind.
• In the opening credits of the first series of the British sitcom, Man About the House, Chrissy loses one of her shoes while trying to make the bus to get to work. She only notices once the bus starts moving and she sees it lying there, but can't get off again to retrieve it.
• MythBusters once tested the idiom "knock your socks off", but found even a very fatal impact would barely cause socks to slip a few inches in the most ideal circumstances.
• In the Power Rangers Samurai episode "The Bull Zord", a boy loses his shoe inside the rampaging Bull Zord and is seen without it till near the end of the episode.
• In the Our Flag Means Death first season finale, Lucius loses a shoe when Blackbeard unexpectedly pushes him off of the ship. In a later episode, Lucius gets his revenge by pushing his attacker so hard, that the latter loses both of his sandals.
• Psych: As Shawn, Gus, and Henry recount their escapades recovering Bouchard's pirate treasure, Gus loses a shoe in the mud running from former partners of Shawn's uncle Jack. Later after they dig up the gold and run from the fake government agents (also Jack's partners), the mud wins again and claims his other shoe.
• Raven: On day 3 of the first week in series 10, one warrior, Lendil, loses one of her boots while completing the challenge Deep Loch but gets it back offscreen.
• In the pilot episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, after Jennifer and Bruce get in a car accident, Jennifer's shoes slip off as she crawls out of the overturned car. She's soon given a replacement pair, but presumably has them wrecked when she transforms. She then spends a great deal of the episode barefoot, while learning how to keep her strength under control, until she eventually goes back to work as a lawyer. When a villainess interrupts the case, Jennifer takes off her shoes, before transforming and subduing her. Jennifer's friend then puts her shoes down on the floor and Jennifer steps back into them.
• On Sisters, as Cat, the daughter of second sister Teddy jogs around a track, she stops to tie her sneaker laces. Suddenly, she's viciously attacked and dragged off into the shadows. Minutes later, her mother arrives. Initially confused to not find her daughter, she quickly becomes alarmed when she finds her discarded sneaker and realizes she must have met with foul play.
• The Sopranos: In "Remember When", when Junior Soprano attacks another patient in the psychiatric unit, his slipper flies off as he kicks him.
• Star Trek: Picard: In "The Impossible Box", Soji takes her boots off and walks barefoot as instructed when she follows a path in the Zhal Makh meditation chamber to find the missing memory inside her. She is forced to flee and teleport out of the Artifact while still barefooted.
• In the Supernatural episode "Bad Day at Black Rock", after stepping in gum, Sam loses his shoe in a storm drain, uttering the famous line, "I lost my shoe."
• In Episode 9 of Season 4 of The Walking Dead Carl Grimes loses a shoe to a zombie before fighting it off and shutting it into a bedroom. As a warning he leaves a note saying "WALKER INSIDE. GOT MY SHOE. DIDN'T GET ME".

Music Videos

• Lit's "Miserable" music video has Jeremy lose one of his shoes when he gets eaten by Pamela Anderson, who then spits said shoe onto the floor. The shoes were actually iconic items for him and he had even married his wife in them, so it's understandable why they received so much focus.
• Radiohead's "There There" video entangles Thom Yorke's stolen Sprint Boots in vines during his attempted escape from the forest, slipping them off of his feet. His bare feet take root when he tries to continue running, as he suffers a gradual Transflormation into an immobile tree.
• In the Koishii & Hush music video "Freefall", Amber Marie Bollinger's character fights with a number of armed assailants; one of whom pulls off one of her shoes during their fight and taunts her with it before tossing it away. She simply laughs this off though and proceeds to beat him up, even kicking him with her bare foot several times. Aside from her foot getting dirty in the process, her lost shoe does little to hamper her ability to defeat all of her opponents.

Myths & Religion

• Classical Mythology: Jason helped a little old woman cross the Anavros River, but loses one of his sandals in the process. The woman turns out to be the goddess Hera in disguise doing the Old Beggar Test, and she gives him her blessing and help. Jason doesn't get the sandal replaced and comes to the kingdom of Thessaly, where he is the rightful heir. Its usurper, his Evil Uncle Pelias, had received a prophecy that he would eventually be overthrown by a man wearing only one sandal. Paranoid, he assigned Jason the Impossible Task of taking the Golden Fleece in exchange for his kingdom. With the help the Argonauts and Medea, Jason succeeded and indeed overthrew Pelias when he refused to keep his word.

Theatre

• Sonic: Live in Sydney has Sally's Ugg boots get worn out from walking everywhere to find Robotnik, leading him to use "Egg boots" to lure her out and kidnap her.
• In Speaking in Tongues, Valerie ran from Nick's car after she thinks she's being kidnapped or worse, leaving a shoe behind. When Nik returns home, he tried to dispose of it in the vacant lot across from his house, but is witnessed by Jane, who reports it to the police.
• In the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, the main character gets mugged right after coming to New York City, and loses her hat, scarf, and shoe.

Video Games

• In Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles at the end of Ada's chapter. Ada escapes Raccoon City by launching her grappling hook on a passing helicopter. A hunter tries to jump and grab her but only winds up catching one of her heels in its claw.
• The comedic variant appears as one of Sakura's win animations in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3; with Sakura bouncing her shoe off her head.
• In Laura Bow in the Dagger of Amon Ra, you find a shoe surrounded by signs of a struggle. It's Steve's, and you have to give it back to him when you find him, or he'll hurt his foot and the killer will catch up to you.
• In episode 2 of Tales from the Borderlands, Rhys loses one of his shoes in a chase scene near the beginning. Depending on the player's choices, either he gets it back from Fiona at Old Haven, or he has to wait until episode 3 to get it back.
• In Yandere Simulator, when Yandere-chan pushes someone off the roof, she'll yank their shoes off as they fall, trying to make it look like a Barefoot Suicide.
• The comedic variant appears in Pokémon Sun and Moon, with a photograph in the end credits showing Lana losing one of her sandals as she tries to reel in a Wishiwashi while fishing.
• In King's Quest IV, there are living trees in the woods; who will grab Rosella if she gets too close, resulting in death. If a certain tree grabs her (specifically, the shortest one), the animation shows one of Rosella's shoes falling off as she struggles in vain.
• In Conquests of the Longbow, when a cobbler sends for Robin Hood, he requests that Robin bring a lady's slipper to prove his identity. Later, he finds Marion being attacked by a monk. If Robin doesn't act fast enough, the monk will kill her, and one of her slippers will fall off as the monk carries her away. (Learning of this will anger the cobbler; who will then kill Robin for his failure to save her.) If he does save her, however, Marion will retreat - after tossing one of her slippers to Robin.
• In Die Young, Daphne starts the game barefoot, after her shoes and other possessions are taken from her. Later on, Jennifer is found mauled to death with only one shoe on. Her other shoe is nearby, along with the dog who mauled her.
• In Chibi-Robo!, Princess Pitts loses her shoe when Sunshine the teddy bear attacks her castle. Chibi-Robo has to climb to the top of the tower to return it to her.

Visual Novels

• Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir: When Azusa Kasuga struggled with Kanda strangling her to death and failed, one of her slippers came off before her dead body was tossed into the ocean.
• Sunkissed: During the ceremony to spread Bill's ashes in the bay, the family recalls a time when he took them canoeing and the canoe overturned; Alexis laments that the incident cost her her favorite pair of flip-flops.

Web Animation

• The Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse short "Catty On the Catwalk" has Raquelle's shoes pop off as she struts nervously down the Fashion Show runway, as the start of a Humiliation Conga, and a nod to the large variety of loose-fitting shoes available for real Barbie dolls.

Web Comics

• In Archipelago, Credenza loses both her shoes during the cliffhanger that ends book 2 and remains barefoot for the entire book 3. Later, while fighting scraptors, she does a high kick that results in her shoe falling off. It's later seen being used by magical underworld mice as a boat.
• In Modern Day Treasure Seekers, Sam loses a sandal when falling down a rockslide as the result of a booby trap, and can't get it back. Its disappearance is permanent. That, along with unkempt hair and dirt on their clothes, serves as a reminder of the danger the kids remain in. Once Sam realizes it is futile to look for it, she takes off the other sandal and throws it away because she has no use for an incomplete pair. With both of them lost, she has to go barefoot on uninviting terrain.
• In Homestuck, Dad Egbert loses a single shoe and his hat while fighting monsters on the Land of Wind and Shade. He uses a nearby Parcel Pyxis to request spares.
• Red's Planet, Red loses one of her shoes when she's first abducted and the other one to a Jerkass alien after she temporarily knocked out. Leaving her stuck in her socks.
• Rusty and Co.: In Level 6, Ezra loses her flip-flops during the fight against Cube and Madeline, and remains barefoot afterward. She's an immortal vampiress, so it's not like it can hurt her.

Western Animation

• Steven Universe: In "Bismuth", one of Steven's sandals drops into molten lava after he briefly dodged an attack.
• Played comedically in The Simpsons.
  • When Sideshow Bob threatens to blow up an air show the family is attending, everyone (including them) quickly exits the scene.
    Marge: [panicking] Kids! Everything's gonna be OK! Don't panic! Just don't panic!
    Lisa: Mom. Mom! You're stepping on my heels and knocking my shoes off!
    Marge: We can always get more shoes! Move! Move! Move!
  • When the family is walking across a rickety bridge, Marge slips and her shoe comes off. As Marge dangles, Homer shouts, "Oh no, your shoe!"
  • When Bart is unwillingly skateboarding down a dangerous slope, he seems fortunate enough to make it down okay, until a startled ant drops the sunflower seed he was carrying and runs off. One of Bart's wheels hits the seed, causing him to be thrown off his skateboard and tumble down the rest of the slope. In addition to being badly hurt and having a shipment of glue suddenly come down onto him, he also loses one of his shoes on the way down.
  • While Homer is climbing across a cable wire, to elude a "rampaging" bear in the front yard, one end of the cable snaps and causes Homer to swing over to the window. Bart grabs Homer's pant legs to save him, but Homer's relief is short-lived, as his pants and shoes slip off and he falls to the ground. Homer's pants are then dropped onto his head, as he looks up at the bear.
• Xiaolin Showdown: In "Tangled Web", the monks are required to dress in kimonos and geta sandals to enter the temple containing the Golden Tiger Claws. Since the showdown is a race, Kimiko is having trouble and kicks her sandals into the abyss, not that it helps much.
• This is a clue in the Geronimo Stilton episode "Barry the Moustache" when the title gangster kidnaps reporter Sally Rasmaussen. Since the show takes place in a world of Barefoot Cartoon Animals, it's lucky for Geronimo and company that Sally is The One Who Wears Shoes.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Hooky", Patrick mentions that there was a kid playing around in the "carnival", which is actually a bunch of fishing hooks. As he says it, he and SpongeBob pass a pair of sneakers left on the ground.
• In the Bob's Burgers episode "Fort Night", the kids narrowly escape their fort before it gets crushed under a truck, and Andy loses one of his shoes. He throws the other one back to keep it company. This comes in handy when Tina, Gene, and Louise get back at Millie Frock by convincing her they were crushed to death and scaring her into dropping her Halloween candy.
• An episode of Beavis and Butt-Head has Todd pummeling Beavis offscreen after one of their antics made him spill a drop of beer on his pants. As Butt-Head laughs at the situation, one of Beavis' shoes bounces into frame.
• Kim Possible: In the episode "Rufus vs. Commodore Puddles", Kim loses her left shoe during the battle, leaving her foot bare.
• In Regular Show Terror Tales from The Park IV third story. Mordecai, CJ, Eileen and Rigby wind up trapped in haunted VHS horror movie. They reach the credits but are suddenly attacked by a lighting ball whose first strike hits CJ's boots and knocks her out of them. She's forced to leave them behind as the group run for it.
• In one episode of Samurai Jack, Jack enters a dragon's digestive tract. While in the stomach, he encounters some strange birds that split into more of themselves when cut. After he's created a huge swarm of them, one of them pulls off his sandal just before another pops the bubble he's on, and he spends most of the rest of the episode with one bare foot. He finds the sandal drifting through a pool of bodily fluid he's swimming through and recovers it. Another episode sees his footwear outright destroyed and Jack struggling in vain to supplement himself with different shoes throughout the story until finally discovering a Japanese craftsman who can perfectly duplicate the original geta.
• In the Code Lyoko episode "End of Take" (parodying the Aliens example in live-action film above), Ulrich loses his sneaker when he's grabbed by the XANA-controlled alien costume and is seen without it for most of the rest of the episode.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • In the episode "No Place Like Home", Gaia loses her powers and is stranded in a ghetto mistaken for a homeless person. While taking shelter from the rain, one of her sandals breaks and she leaves it behind. The Planeteers later find it while searching for her.
  • In the episode "Domes of Doom", Wheeler gets his foot stuck between two rocks as Plunder's lackeys prepare to drop a dome on the area and cuts through his shoelaces with his ring's powers to free himself. Thankfully, the villagers have a replacement pair of shoes for him not long afterwards.
• In the Total Drama All-Stars episode "Zeek and Ye Shall Find", Alejandro gets his foot stuck between two rocks while trying to get to the mine Chris is imprisoned in. He leaves one of his shoes behind to get unstuck.
• In one Scooby-Doo episode, Shaggy foolishly steps in a bucket of fritter batter and finds his feet stuck. The only way to get them out ends up being to slip them out of his shoes and go barefoot the rest of the episode.
  • In another episode, there are two times when Scooby finds himself holding on to Daphne's legs to try and avoid falling. He ends up falling both times anyway though, after unwittingly pulling Daphne's boots off each time. The second time this happens, Daphne says, "Not again!" Oddly enough, not only do both pairs of boots seem to vanish from existence as soon as they leave her feet, but Daphne's bare legs are mistakenly colored blue the first time. This mistake is corrected, only after the camera pans down to reveal that Scooby took a much smaller fall than expected.
• Despite both wearing boots instead of Combat Stilettos, both Raven and Starfire from Teen Titans are the only female superheroes in a DC show to lose a boot. Starfire has her boot stolen by an alien dog in the episode "Every Dog Has His Day" and Raven loses her boot when she is vomited out of Beast Boy's whale form in "Wavelength".
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • In the premiere episode, Marco loses one of his shoes in the family cactus garden when Star accidentally forces him out the window. He spends the rest of the episode without it, despite having the opportunity to retrieve it before he and Star fight off some monsters.
  • In "Crystal Clear", Star manages to slip out of her Crystal Prison once Rhombulus melts the top of it; however she has to leave both socks inside in order to free her feet.
  • In the season four premiere, a white monkey steals Marco's shoes and wallet while searching for Queen Moon. They are then returned in a later scene, when it's revealed that it was a trick from the monkey's owner Foolduke, and the theft had to look convincing.
• In the Gravity Falls episode "The Time Traveler's Pig", Dipper loses one of his shoes when he chases Mabel through the events of past episodes; and leaves it behind in a past timeline. When Lolph and Dundgren make Blendin Blandin go back and correct all the time paradoxes; he's seen collecting Dipper's shoe as evidence.
• Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?:
  • When Ivy and Zack fight with a Carmen imposter, causing her hovercraft to crash, one of the imposter's high heels is seen flying off. The real Carmen arrives soon afterwards, along with some of her henchmen; who are temporarily confused as to who the real Carmen is. This isn't helped by the fact that both Carmens are only wearing one shoe. (Carmen was imprisoned with Ivy and Zack earlier, and gave Ivy one of her shoes; which aided in their escape.)
  • Carmen also loses a shoe in another episode, while she's being kidnapped. At first, Ivy and Zack are unaware of her abduction and think that Carmen left without stealing the artifact she was after - until they notice Carmen's shoe hitting the ground and then look up, to see her being taken away.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • Nearly every time Eddy gets severely injured, he would lose a shoe and be left semi-barefoot.
  • In Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, Ed takes off his shoe and sock off so he can use the latter as a traveling bag to escape the kids. For the rest of the movie, he only has one shoe on.
• Classic Disney Shorts:
  • In the Donald Duck cartoon "Sky Trooper", after Donald refuses to jump out of a plane that paratroopers are jumping out of, Sergeant Pete tries kicking him out. But Donald persistently grabs onto Pete's right foot, pulling off his boot and sock, and temporarily pulling his pants down, before Pete eventually goes down with Donald. Strangely, when Pete starts falling, it's his left foot that's bare instead of his right.
  • Donald does almost the same exact thing to Mickey Mouse in "Alpine Climbers" as well, trying to save Mickey from an eagle that he unwittingly tied himself to. Instead of simply pulling Mickey's sock off though, he pulls on it so hard that it tears apart. And because Mickey is wearing suspenders, when Donald grabs onto his shorts, the buttons pop right off before the shorts are pulled down.
• Arthur:
  • The season eight episode "Fern-Fern and the Secret of Moose Mountain" has Fern lose one of her sneakers to a swamp.
  • The season seven episode "Muffy Goes Metropolitan" has Muffy's disappointments with her trip to Crown City end with one of her shoes getting stuck in a subway grate. She decides to leave it behind before one of her hosts gets it for her.
• In the Sabrina: The Animated Series episode "Boogie Shoes", Harvey has a pair of dancing shoes magicked to him. While originally, he enjoys it as they have given him a magic ability to be an amazing dancer, he later finds it tiring. They are later magicked off him, leaving him barefoot, although he seems to be a decent dancer anyway.
• In an episode of Family Guy, Stewie is hanging onto the underside of a bridge, when he remarks, "I hope my shoe doesn't fall off to remind me how long the drop is." Immediately afterwards, exactly that happens.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, "Prank Call of Cthulhu", anyone who crank-calls Cthulhu gets sucked into his world through the holes of their telephone speaker by his tentacles, but because the holes are so small, shoes don't fit through the phone-they get caught and fall off. Amusingly, anything else will go through, as though shoes are exempt from squash-and-stretch logic. Because of this, Irwin and Billy's shoes are left behind and it reveals they used Cthulhu's phone when Grim told them specifically not to. Mandy is also forced to leave hers behind when she goes in after them with Grim (who usually wears only his cloak and nothing else), spending the rest of the episode barefoot. Ironically, Mandy later confronts Cthulhu on a golf course and tells him to tie his shoes good and tight (which he does with snakes) and then he ends up the victim of his own whisking away through the phone, leaving behind his pair of golf cleats. His caddy is revealed to be human, who not only lacks shoes, but pants, too, pulled through the lines in his underwear.
• In a Robot Chicken crossover between The Jetsons and the I, Robot movie, Detective Spooner falls out of the Jetsons' apartment window, and leaves behind one of his Converse sneakers. As a spoof to some obtrusive Product Placement the movie had for the shoes, the camera closes up on it, and the words, "'Antique' Converse Sneaker! On sale now, viewers!" flash onscreen.
• In the Aladdin: The Series episode, "Elemental, My Dear Jasmine", Princess Jasmine is pursued underwater by an octopus and gets one of her shoes stuck to a suction cup on his tentacle. As Jasmine attempts to pull herself free, she winds up pulling her foot out of her shoe. Somehow though, she appears to get it back not long afterwards, even though she's never seen retrieving it.
• A Running Gag in Courage the Cowardly Dog: If someone kidnaps Muriel, she almost instantly loses her right boot.
• Rocko's Modern Life
  • In season 2, episode 1 (I Have No Son), Rocko loses one of his shoes when he is flung around at the Bigheads 30th Anniversary party.
• Happens in an episode of Darkwing Duck, when Gosalyn is transported to a dystopian future and witnesses a young couple being arrested for breaking curfew. The man and woman are both pulled right out of their shoes, as flying robots carry them away.
• In Season 2 of Freedom Fighters: The Ray, a woman falls off a building during the attack of a giant robot. The Flash zooms in to catch her, and she ends up losing one of her heels.
• In Episode 24 of Season 2 of Wakfu, after Yugo summons a pair of Wakfu-weapons, his clothes get torn up from the raw power. These include his shoes, though they are not seen being destroyed, and he goes barefoot for the remaining two episodes.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • When Batman and Two-face are attacked by Rupert Thorne's men, his assistant, Candice tries to attack Two-Face with a vase full of roses. However, she is thwarted by Grace, who grabs her by the hair and kicks her towards the wall. Candice lands upside down, with her legs sticking up and one of her high heels missing.
  • In another episode, when a captive Robin escapes from his underwater restraints and dares her to take him on, Candice takes off her shoes before jumping into the water to fight with him.
• Batman Beyond:
  • In "Spellbound", Spellbinder causes Lorraine Tate to hallucinate that she is surrounded by giant insects. In her panic, she jumps off a ledge and loses one of her shoes when she lands. She discards the other one before continuing to run.
  • In "Rats", Dana gets kidnapped by a stalker and imprisoned in an Absurdly Spacious Sewer. When she tries to escape, she ends up losing both of her shoes when she falls into the water.
• Victor and Valentino
  • The intro shows Victor losing one of his shoes when he's chased through some ancient ruins after accidentally breaking apart a relic during a struggle with Valentino.
  • The comedic variant is played with at the end of the episode "Cleaning Day," where Victor kicks off his shoes after a long day of cleaning; but a roar from a spirit has him put them away properly in the closet instead.
• Big Hero 6: The Series
  • In "Mr. Sparkles Loses His Sparkle," Gogo Tamago loses one of her shoes to a giant food processor while trying to rescue Mochi before Aunt Cass finds out where the cat is.
  • The comedic variant appears in "Murihara Woods," where Fred is knocked out of one of his shoes while trying to set a trap for a crazed mountain man at least three times.
  • Though not a struggle per se; in "The Impatient Patient," Hiro is seen without one of his shoes when he's bedridden before a doctor's visit; presumably having lost it in his room or being too delirious from fever to notice it's missing.
• Amphibia:
  • Anne Boonchuy, the main character, loses a shoe offscreen shortly after getting Trapped in Another World. The world's sapient residents are knee-height Frog Men who rarely wear shoes and the ones they do wear are far too small for her, so she's left perpetually walking around with one foot only covered by a sock. Her other shoe is found by Captain Grime of Toad Tower, though it's unknown what became of it when Toad Tower is destroyed.
    Anne: [rolling dice] Come on, Mama needs a new pair of shoes! Seriously, though, I do need new shoes.
  • Also spoofed in the episode "Breakout Star", when she uses her shoe as a distraction while trying to slip away from the townspeople who are obsessed with her acne. She gets it back in a later scene.
  • Several episodes show her buying new clothes, including shoes, and one episode shows that she (for some reason) brought a swimsuit and flip flops with her (even though she had no idea she'd wind up in Amphibia). However, Limited Wardrobe dictates that these changes never stick, and she is back in her default clothes with one shoe and one sock by the next episode, and sometimes even before the end of the current one.
  • In the first half of Season 3, Anne returns to Earth, where she wastes no time changing into an entirely new outfit complete with two shoes once she gets back home. In the second half, Anne changes back into her original outfit before returning to Amphibia willingly, though she still has two shoes... and then she manages to lose the same shoe she lost the first time during her first day back, and doesn't even realize it until it gets pointed out to her.
• In the Testament: The Bible in Animation retelling of the story of Jonah, Jonah loses one of his sandals when he is thrown into the water.
• Monster Allergy examples:
  • A Running Gag is that Bombo often eats Zick's shoes, much to Zick's dismay. One instance in "Shoes for Bombo" has him accidentally eat one of the special "Tele-skates", and Hilarity Ensues as Zick tries to find him.
  • In "Terror in the Deep," Zick loses a shoe during a struggle while fighting phantoms at the aquarium. One of the phantoms then eats said shoe, which Zick recovers after defeating said phantom.
• In The Owl House episode "The Intruder", when Luz and King are separated while being pursued by a monster, King finds Luz's fallen shoe on the floor. Fearing the worst, he scoops it up. But Luz later saves King and reveals that she tripped and lost her shoe. Just before she puts it back on, King notices a note stuck to her foot; which reveals that the monster is actually a cursed Eda, and that there's an Elixir that helps her control the curse.
• Totally Spies!:
  • A frequent occurrence in many episodes, since they're both fashion-conscious and in various perilous death traps. In the episode "Creepy Crawly Much" the spies are stuck to the floor what appears to be sticky trap. When Sam and Clover pry a way out they grapple to the ceiling, Clover's "limited edition" footwear are lost.
  • In the episode "Truth or Scare", when Clover and Sam are tied together with shrink wrap on a printing press conveyor, Clover lifts up a tied stack of magazines with her foot and throws it towards the blade, with so much force that her boot goes flying off. After the blade hits the stack and breaks, the girls are thrown onto another conveyor, on which the blade just barely misses the girls, but cuts their restraints. Clover looks at her hand, wiggling her fingers, then looks at her bare foot, wiggling her toes, and complains that she needs a pedicure.
  • The spinoff, The Amazing Spiez! features Tami lose one of her shoes while dangling from a building in "Sunrise Tan."
• In the finale of Infinity Train Book Three, Simon ends up losing one of his boots right before he's thrown from the train and given a Family-Unfriendly Death.
• In the Hilda episode "The Deerfox," Hilda briefly loses one of her boots to an attacking beast near her old home while searching for Twig.
• In an episode of The Tick, while the other heroes are taking cover and licking their wounds from an attack by a clown monster attacking the city, American Maid volunteers to hold him off. Die Fledermaus offers to assist, chastising her for her inability to do anything but throw her shoes at him. Later, an unconscious Die Fledermaus is carried into the superheroes' hiding place, by a barefoot American Maid; who reveals that she tried throwing both her shoes at the clown, but was unable to stop him.
• This happens regularly to Chicken Boo, on Animaniacs. Every time he tries fitting in as a human, his entire disguise (footwear included, if and when they are included in his disguise) ends up getting knocked away at some point; which always results in people around him discovering that he's really a chicken, and getting rid of him in disapproval.
• In an episode of Popeye, Brutus and Popeye enter a parachuting contest, wherein Brutus cheats by sabotaging Popeye's parachute. This leads to a midair scuffle, with the two of them fighting over Brutus' parachute until Popeye ends up holding onto Brutus' feet. He isn't able to hold on long, before Brutus' shoes and socks slip off, causing Popeye to fall. Luckily, he manages to find a way to land safely... inside the trophy, winning the contest. A barefoot Brutus then lands in a chimney and scoffs, saying he didn't want the trophy anyway.
• In the Southern Wolf cartoon, Billy Boy, the wolf tries to take care of a baby goat named Billy, with a really big appetite. When Billy quickly proves to be more than a handful, the wolf tries tying him up in the garden, only for Billy to eat the rope and then eat through the wolf's shoe when he tries to stop Billy. The wolf then checks his foot, counting his ten toes - two at a time, to make sure he still has them all.

  Wolf: "Two... four... six... eight... ten. Yep, they're all there!" [wiggles toes]

• In an episode of Extreme Dinosaurs, Chedra is pursued by a tentacled alien, who wraps a tentacle around her ankle. She escapes by pulling her foot out of her boot, and remains half barefoot for quite a while after that.

Real Life

• Happens more often than not during fights and other violent assaults (including sexual), abductions, or homicides.
• This happened to at least one of Ted Bundy's victims, Georgeann Hawkins, whom he abducted as she walked down the alleyway between her boyfriend's dormitory and her own. When he went back to the site to collect any evidence that might have been left, he found one of her shoes that had come off as he dragged her to his car.
• Also happened to Evelyn Hartley, a 16-year old girl abducted while babysitting and never found. Her father became concerned when she didn't answer his phone calls and went to the house to check on her. Upon finding her left shoe and broken glasses in the living room and her right shoe discarded in the basement, he immediately realized something terrible had happened.
• On the Case with Paula Zahn and other true crime shows often feature abduction cases where a victim is taken so suddenly and/or violently that all that's left at the scene is whatever footwear they had on at the time. Such is the tragic case involving a young Oregon woman, who literally struggled, or was snatched, right out of her flip-flops before being bound and transported to her eventual doom.
• Not a violent struggle at all, but in Justin Bieber's stage strip at Fashion Rocks, he appeared, rather than deliberately taking the first sock that came off, to have lost it while he was taking his trousers off. Although, at the end of his strip, he did take the other sock off, that could be seen as (like the Doctor Who example listed above), merely to not look silly.
• Many survivors of the 9/11 Attacks recounted kicking off their shoes as they fled, knowing that they'd hamper their speed. As things settled slightly after both towers collapse, many people walking the streets noted the large amount of discarded footwear.
  • This also happened in Washington DC after the attack on the Pentagon where security actually told women to leave their heels behind as they evacuated the Capitol.
• This nature show host lost her shoe, upon slipping and falling into a lake. In her vain attempt to retrieve it, she wound up getting even wetter.

---