The shenanigans that sitcom characters get up to in their living space almost always inevitably result in damage to their suite at some point — usually to the walls. To avoid the expensive costs of repair, or to hide the damage from their parents or Cranky Landlord, the characters will try to cover the damage with a poster, painting, or other decor one might typically hang on a wall.
In most cases, the damage is in an unusual spot where decorations would generally not be mounted or is severe enough that it couldn't have been hidden in the first place.
A Sub-Trope of Hide the Evidence.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In one story arc of Crayon Shin-chan, the Nohara family is forced to stay in a cramped studio apartment. Shin-Chan's antics with their next-door neighbour Yonroh leads to Shin-Chan unintentionally breaking a hole in their apartment's dividing wall (one large enough for Hiroshi Nohara to crawl through). When the landlady comes over for a monthly checkup on her tenants, the Nohara family covers up the hole with stacked boxes. Yonroh, on the other hand, uses a poster.
- Played for Horror in The Kindaichi Case Files, where a poster is used to hide a crack in the wall where the body of a murdered student is hidden. During The Denouement, Kindaichi rips out the poster and reveals the dead girl's skull while daring the culprit to persist in his claims of innocence before his victim. The culprit breaks down and confesses everything.
Comic Strips
- Zits
- In one comic, Jeremy and Pierce accidentally knock a hole in the wall playing football indoors and move a framed picture to cover it. Of course, two inches above the floor is an unusual place for a picture to be, and they're quickly found out.
- In another, Jeremy and Connie are preparing to repaint Jeremy's bedroom and, declaring they need to prepare the room, Connie takes down a poster, only to find a large hole hidden behind it. While Connie decides the mother needs to be prepared first, Jeremy sheepishly offers spackle.
Films — Live-Action
- In City Hunter: The Cupid's Perfume, Ryo hangs a painting titled "Le Chevalier du Zodiac"* in their bathroom to hide to Kaori the fact that he pierced a hole in the wall to peep on a next-door woman showering.
- In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy covers up the tunnel he's been digging in the wall of his jail cell with a poster of, initially, Rita Hayworth. By the time he's ready to escape, the poster has been updated to one of Raquel Welch.
Literature
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever: After Greg uses a steel wool pad to scrub off a sticker that Manny has put on Frank's new car, the paint is scratched clean off. Greg tries to cover this up by putting a letter he wrote himself (pretending that Susan wrote it) over that spot. Frank quickly takes it off and is furious that the paint job is ruined, but Susan convinces him not to punish Greg.
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Castle, Beckett finds a hole hidden behind a poster in a victim's apartment, where he was storing drugs. It's unknown if he made the hole himself, though.
- On an episode of Corner Gas, Lacey uses one of Karen's "sleeping Davis" drawings to cover up a hole that Wanda had punched into the wall at the Ruby. She even tells Wanda "don't worry, I'll just cover it up with a crappy picture or something." Later, when Oscar buys the drawing and Karen takes it off the wall, Lacey tries to pretend she didn't know the hole was there.
- Friends: After switching apartments with the boys, Monica becomes obsessed with finding out what that extra switch on the wall does. One time, Rachel comes home to find that every bit of wall around the switch is covered with child-like drawings that Monica insists she just made and put up to spruce up the place, but it's obvious that they're just there to cover up all the holes Monica smashed into the walls to trace the wiring. Although one of the pictures isn't hiding anything, Monica admits she just liked that one and wanted it on the wall.
- Lucifer (2016): When Maze throws a knife at the wall of the apartment she shares with Chloe, the latter complains that they will have to pay to repair the damage. Maze states that Chloe's young child Trixie is already working on "another alien drawing." A wall full of drawings is revealed, all of which turn out to be covering various damages caused by Maze.
- Three's Company: The trio accidentally causes a crack in the wall while hanging a painting. When Mr. Furley happens to walk in, Chrissy holds the painting over the crack so he won't see it. Chrissy lowers the painting when Mr. Furley walks away, but he sees it after unexpectedly turning around. The group assures him they will repair the damage, but the incident turns out to be an aggravating factor in Mr. Furley's later decision to evict them for making too much noise. Naturally, they are saved by the Reset Button.
Music
- Discussed in the "Weird Al" Yankovic song, "Velvet Elvis", as he sings about the velvet painting of The King he found a nearby swap-meet, noting that at the very least, it covers up the hole in the wall in his den.
Video Games
- Discussed in Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime. When Investi-Gator and Red Herring are in prison, Red Herring suggests escaping by digging a tunnel through the wall and hiding it with a poster, as a Shout-Out to The Shawshank Redemption. However, he never actually gets to execute this plan, as Investi-Gator finds another way out.
- In The Escapists, you can chip blocks of walls off and replace them with posters made of magazines and duct tape. Said poster can be put on and picked back up at will and no one will notice a thing as long as you don't do it while someone is watching — the guards won't question the poster even if it's on, say, the prison's outer wall. And as if posters weren't enough of a Game-Breaker, they don't count as contraband.
- In Control, Jesse's opening monologue uses this as part of an analogy, explicitly referencing The Shawshank Redemption. Comparing the world as we know it as a room or a cell, with a poster on the wall. But the poster, she reasons, is there to distract us from the truth: "There's a hole hidden behind that poster that leads to the real world... But sometimes, sometimes, something crawls out from behind the poster."
Webcomics
- When Selkie accidentally causes burn damage to her bedroom wall, she tries and fails to cover it up with a picture.
Luckily her dad isn't mad.
Western Animation
- BoJack Horseman: Copernicus hides the entrance to his secret, luxurious living quarters behind a poster of Wayne Brady.
- Carl²: After a falling tree punches a hole in the wall of his bedroom, Carl tells his parents he can just throw a poster over it to avoid having to sleep in the living room with his sister while repairs are completed.
- The Loud House: When Lincoln is trying to catapult himself back into his room through the window in "Cover Girls", he falls short and hits the wall, causing wall plaster to fall off of his room's wall in his body's outline. Luan hides it by moving one of Lincoln's posters over it.
- Milo Murphy's Law: In "Disaster of my Dreams", Elliot, in his zeal to become the school's safety inspector, follows Milo around all day, even spying on him from the air vents. After falling out of the vents and leaving a hole in the science class ceiling, Elliot covers up the hole with a nearby poster.
- Gravity Falls: Gideon hides a sketch of Bill Cipher’s zodiac behind a large cat poster.
- Regular Show: "The Power" starts with Mordecai and Rigby accidentally busting a hole in the wall of their room during their roughhousing. They try to get money to repair it but get incredibly sidetracked in the process, and by the end of the episode, all the events that have transpired result in the entire room no longer having any drywall... except the spot with the hole, which they decide to cover up with a poster.
- In the The Simpsons episode, "Hurricane Neddy," the Flanders' house is destroyed by Hurricane Barbara, and the citizens of Springfield work together to rebuild it, but do a very poor job. Bart tells Rod and Todd that he and Lisa built their room, and among the things in it is a poster of Krusty the Clown. Rod complains that he doesn't like Krusty and takes the poster down, but Bart tells him that he shouldn't have done that as it was a load-bearing poster. The wall behind the poster and the ceiling above it begin to crumble.
- A variant in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Wet Painters." SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally paint over Mr. Krabs' prized first dollar and try to cover it up by hanging several different paintings on the wall. When Mr. Krabs moves all the paintings away, SpongeBob hangs himself up on the wall.
Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob, what are you doing?
SpongeBob: (nervously) Oh, you know, just "hanging" around.
Patrick: (gives a thumbs-down) Boo!
