Scooby Stack - Television Tropes & Idioms

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Scooby Stack

The trope namers showing us how it's done.

When your characters need to see what's going on in that room over there, but they don't quite wanna risk coming all the way out into the open...

...when your characters all want to see rather than just sending one person to check so s/he can come back and tell the others, what do you do?

The Scooby Stack! We've all Seen It A Million Times in cartoons and comedies: one head pops out from behind a corner or doorframe. Another head pops out above the first. And one more above that.

Because Cartoon Physics works differently, you can even get a Scooby Stack of people popping out from behind a tree or other item too thin for the thinnest person to hide behind.

Though Scooby Doo's Meddling Kids gets credit for Trope Namer, this trope may be Older Than You Think.

Occasionally thwarted by someone surprising them by opening the door so they all fall on top of each other.

Examples:

Anime

This scene◊ from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
When investigating Mugen Academy in Sailor Moon, the "Inner Senshi" get a Sailor Stack◊, but they get discovered by a security guard and their resulting panic causes them to fall over (except Makoto).
- It makes sense she didn't fall. She was standing up in the back without leaning on another one of the girls, so nobody would have made her topple over.
Here in Mahou Sensei Negima. With the inevitable conclusion here.

Comic Books

Used in DC's Legionnaires #44 with Sensor, Umbra, and Magno.

Film

The Three Stooges did this all the time.
The Little Rascals may also have done it a few times.
Charlies Angels
Seen in the movie version of On The Town.
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the French taunters do this.
Happens in The Spanish Inn when the tenants want to find out how the negociation between Xavier and the landlord is going, but don't dare get involved themselves.

Live Action TV

A Thanksgiving episode of Friends had half the cast looking around a bolted door like this for most of the episode. It was lampshaded by Chandler, who referred to them as "the floating heads".
The kids in El Chavo Del Ocho did it when spying on Doña Clotilde's house.
Pushing Daisies episode "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
Heroes S3 episode "Our Father".
Done a lot on Welcome Back Kotter.
Thats So Raven has the three main characters look around the corner like this in one episode.
Done in an episode of Hannah Montana where Oliver, Lilly and Miley are stacked up like this watching Jackson fail to convince Robbie Ray to up his curfew.

Web Comics

Lampshaded in Questionable Content once, here.
This Shortpacked! strip.

Western Animation

Scooby Doo, as the Trope Namer naturally.
You can also spot the Scooby Stack on every one of the Hanna-Barbera teenage sleuth cartoons:
- Speed Buggy
- The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan
- Jabberjaw
- Clue Club
- Captain Caveman And The Teen Angels
- Josie And The Pussycats displays the version in which the door is opened and the whole gang falls down.
Happens in the title sequence and in-show on Jakers!.
Jimmy, Sheen and Carl do it in a mystery-solving episode of Jimmy Neutron.
Used many, many times in Looney Tunes shorts.
My Life As A Teenage Robot in "Mama Drama" has the "hiding behind something extremely thin" example.

Video Games

While the main couple in Tales Of Hearts is having their penultimate Sweet Moment, the rest of the party spies on them this way from behind a nearby pillar. They fall over on their own.

Web Original