Trap Door - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Trap Door is an easily activated door in the floor of the Supervillain Lair, activated by a convenient switch or lever. Though a favorite of the Diabolical Mastermind, it might also be installed in the office of a Corrupt Corporate Executive. Somehow the hero (or minion who has disappointed the Big Bad) will always be sitting or standing exactly where the trap door opens, where it will usually lead to the Death Trap. If generous, the trap door will include a slide, otherwise it's just a drop.

And somehow, the seams around the trap are always invisible before it opens and after it closes. This is easier to do in animation, of course, unless it's given away by a Conspicuously Light Patch.

Mostly spoofed these days, often with a pun so old it creaks; "Nice of you to drop in!"

Examples

Anime & Manga

Used straight/spoofed in The Castle of Cagliostro, where the count just happens to have a trap door right underneath where Lupin stands in Clarisse's chamber.
- Note the care with which the Count's ninjas herd Lupin onto the spot where we can presume they know the trap door is. Besides this one, the Count's castle is rife with secret passages and trap doors, including one that's an actual trap in the main entrance hall: It's even hooked up to a fake bust that spits out pictures, Polaroid style, of whomever it drops into the dungeon. Later, when Lupin sets fire to some stuff in the castle's basement, we can see smoke pouring out of all kinds of danged places, some of which seem to indicate the presence of even more chutes and trap doors.
Spoofed by Excel Saga where it is in fact the Running Gag. Excel is "trapdoor'ed" almost constantly by her employer, Lord Il Palazzo, as punishment for being, well, herself. In one episode, the trap door is implemented as a form of transcontinental transportation.
YesPreCure5 uses this whenever the Nightmare Group wants to get rid of someone. They come back, though.
- A possible exepton may have been the Cures themselves, had it not been for Coco.
Used straight by Desler/Dessklok in Uchuu Senkan Yamato.
In Yu-Gi-Oh, when Bandit Keith confronts Pegasus at gunpoint (in the dub, he merely points at Pegasus) in a last-ditch effort to get revenge, Pegasus nonchalantly opens a Trap Door that dumps Keith into the ocean. In the manga, he uses his MacGuffin to WELD THE GUN to Keith's hand, and have Keith shoot himself. (Keith in the anime, even in the original Japanese, survives the fall.)
- "I learned this trick from watching Excel Saga!"

Comic Books

In Tintin in America, gangster Bobby Smiles presses a button with his foot to make Tintin fall through the floor and into a room with some noxious gas.
- Later, when Tintin is being given a tour of a meatpacking plant, Smiles arranges for him to lean against a trick guardrail, in the hopes of turning him into Human Resources.
Scrooge Mc Duck, of Disney ducks fame, has one of these in his office. He uses it quite often, be it to get rid of inconvenient salesmen or even of his own relatives.
- In one of the stories of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion, Scrooge uses a stage trapdoor to drop Donald out of his dream so he can have some private dream time with Glittering Goldie.

Film

Played with in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: During his introduction, Doctor Evil sends numerous minions into fiery pits with the push of a button, but when he reoccupies the Evil Lair thirty years later, the mechanisms are a bit rusty and the goon he incinerates is Not Quite Dead.
Mook: I'm still alive, but I'm very badly burned.
The vampire superhero film Blade (1998) had a character named Dr. Karen Jensen fall down into a trap chute near the end of the film, where she found and killed her former research partner (who had been turned into a vampire slave), but climbed back out of the chute using an old bone for leverage.
Ringo Starr falls through at least two trapdoors in Help! One of them is in a pub and uses a beer glass (glued to its coaster) as a switch; fortunately for those trying to rescue Ringo, its seams are just visible. Another one is inside the area covered by an electrified cage somewhere in the Bahamas...
Used straight in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me where the villain had it set up in his elevator to drop into a Shark Pool. Bond defeated it by straddling the walls. In an earlier film, Diamonds Are Forever, Bond suspects the same trick, only to be felled by gas instead. Subverted in You Only Live Twice, when Japanese Secret Service chief — and Bond ally — Tiger Tanaka uses a Trap Door with slide to bring Bond to their first face to face meeting.
Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi: Jabba the Hutt.
Kim Jong-Il had one in Team America World Police.
In Sinbad Of The Seven Seas, the titular Sinbad is dropped into a pit with snakes in it by Jaffar, the wizard of all that is evil. You know him, don't you?

Literature

L. Frank Baum used this trope a few times in his Oz books. For instance, Tik-Tok in Oz features a trapdoor used by the Big Bad over a hole so deep it goes to the other side of the world. Rinkitink in Oz contains a subversion, where the villain opens a trap door under one of the heroes, but, unknown to the villain, the hero has an artifact that protects him from harm, so he floats over the gap instead of falling through.
- Ruth Plumly Thompson used trapdoors frequently in her continuation of the Oz series. One notable example is in The Silver Princess in Oz.
- The Muppet Wizard of Oz has the Wizard use a trapdoor to send the heroes out of his throneroom. The Muppet characters all fall through, but Dorothy is standing in the wrong place, and has to be asked to jump.
- Also used in the stage version of Wicked; saying more would spoil.

Live Action TV

Spoofed in Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, when the Master accidentally falls down the same trap door three times.
Get Smart: Affectionately parodied in a scene where Maxwell Smart and 99 are breaking into the villain's lair.
Smart (picking the lock): "We'll be alright as long as this door isn't connected to a...to a..."
99: "To a what, Max?"
They fall through a trapdoor, which drops them into two chairs directly in front of the villain.
Smart: "Trapdoor."
Villain: "Mr Smart, nice of you to..."
Smart & Villain (simultaneously): "Drop in, yes..."
The Merchant Banker in Monty Python gets rid of a charity collector this way (but keeps his collecting tin).
Used as the gimmick for the game show Russian Roulette, where contestants are eliminated by dropping through the door they're required to stand on (although, as the show's name suggests, whether or not a contestant is eliminated is a random process). To make the gimmick's usage even more Anvilicious, there's a lever to activate the Trap Door in front of each player, essentially forcing them to eliminate themselves in this manner.
- And here I thought what made it Anvilicious was the fact that the platform was designed to look like the chamber of a revolver, with the six contestants as the "bullets".
One Saturday Night Live parody commercial was for a trap-door company. It began with scenes of malfunctioning trap-doors, complete with the voiceover, "Don't you hate it when this happens to you?"
Played straight in the second season The Man From UNCLE episode "The Bat Cave Affair".
The Grand Master in MI High has one in his office for disposing of annoying underlings. It's not clear exactly what happens to those who fall through it, but the offscreen voice of one victim was heard complaining that it was uncomfortably warm in the cellar.
The "Sock It To Me" bits on Rowan And Martins Laugh In frequently showed a character (usually Judy Carne) falling through a trap door.

Newspaper Comics

Dogbert has used a desk-activated Trap Door to dispose of at least one disgruntled employee.

Real Life

Sort-of-real life, this picture.

Video Games

Ryu Hayabusa is constantly punked by such pitfalls in the Ninja Gaiden games for the NES.
Reversed in Chrono Trigger, where Crono and team are the ones who force a villain down a trapdoor (in his own lair, no less). This becomes a running gag, as the protagonists use this against the same villain again, and can use this against mooks at several points in the game.
In Les Manley in: Search for the King, the boss will drop you down a Trap Door if you try to steal the keys while he's watching, and you can Have A Nice Death.
The Mill levels in Donkey Kong Country 3 feature trapdoors which buckle open when jumped upon. Sometimes these are locked and the monkeys have to unlock them first before proceeding trough them.
Subverted by Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4 where the villain pulls this on him; if the player successfully Presses X To Not Die, he flings a Grappling Hook into the shaft wall to break his fall, stating that he "Won't fall for this old trick!" ...Leon, are you telling us that since Resident Evil 2 you've seriously fallen victim to this so many times that you've taken preventative measures?
The Sceptre of Lord British is being guarded by all three of the Shadowlords and a demon in their earthly fortress of Shadowkeep in Ultima V. Getting around that in bad enough. However, in addition, there are trap doors in the floor all around the sceptre itself; which leads to a lava pit and an instant Total Party Kill. If you're paying attention, you might notice the small dot in the floor that is usually only present for secret doors in the walls.
There's a Trap Door in Castle Oztroja that you'll find when playing Final Fantasy XI. It's right in front of a locked door that has a two switches in front of it. One opens the door, the other springs the trap. It changes randomly each game day. It's possible to hit the switch and run away before you fall down, but if you don't know that, this can be annoying(Or deadly, if you're low enough in level).
A variation of this is present in Overlord II, in which the Villain Protagonist proceeds to magically activate a hole underneath the Too Dumb To Live civilians who add unreasonable demands to their notifications of rebellions in his village (borrowing the Minions, becoming Mayor of a town of his, borrowing his mistress, taking his Evil Chancellor in as a pet) and dumps them into the sea of Lava at the bottom of his Netherworld.
In the SNES adaptation of Prince Of Persia, Jaffar drops you down a trap door after the Boss Rush in the penultimate level.
In Paper Mario, this happens a couple of times.
- The first time is in the Koopa Bros. Fortress. When you enter one room, you (the player, not Mario) see the trap door being installed under a question block. Yes, you have to hit it. It drops you into a dungeon where you meet your next party member...
- That same party member comes in handy later, as a Bowser-face shaped door in Bowser's castle drops you into a dungeon the first time you try to go through.

Webcomics

Minions At Work: One way for your annual review to end
The Last Days Of FOXHOUND mocks the trapdoors found in the armory section of Metal Gear Solid by having Sniper Wolf fall into one - and barely hanging on, and the Mooks remarked that the only way they knew where the trapdoors were was because... "There used to be a lot more of us". It also mocks the other, stupidly impractical designs of the base.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Why are there trap doors under our desks?

Western Animation

Used twice in American Dad when George W. Bush comes to their house for dinner. When Haley tries to confront him about his policies, Stan causes her to fall through a trapdoor. The second time, she puts her feet on the sides of the trapdoor, but then he widens the trapdoor with another button, causing her to fall in again.
There are two of them in The Emperors New Groove, both used to comedic effect. One apparently leads to a crocodile pit. The other leads to a random hole on the side of the palace.
- Why do we even have that lever?
Spoofed in an episode of Family Guy, when Mayor Adam West tries to drop a protesting Peter through a trap door, except he's wider than the door and gets stuck. (The mayor apologises, "My malcontents are usually a lot skinnier.")
Common in Kim Possible; the first thing Shego does "in person" (after having appeared only in security footage) is walk into Drakken's lair, drop through a trapdoor into a waiting chair, and ask Drakken, "Ever considered a normal door?"
- In another episode of Kim Possible features a gag where the bad guy used said devices on mooks that failed him. As the mooks begin to wise up and not sit in the rigged chair, he opens another door that the mooks were standing on. One instance even has said bad guy directing his mooks to the point before pressing the button.
On the Looney Tunes short "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", Daffy (as detective Duck Twacy) finds the Gangster's Hideout and spots a welcome mat on the front door conveniently labeled "Trap Door". Daff catches on immediately, steps to one side of the door and rings the bell, when a trap door opens up underneath him and sends him to the basement.
In Filmation's New Adventures of Batman, Batman and Robin are in a house owned by the Joker that has many trapdoors. They enter one room so equipped and Batman realizes that, although unaware of the exact danger, they have to exit the room now. As they race for a door, Joker starts opening trapdoors throughout the floor, but the Dynamic Duo manages to dodge them all. Unfortunately, the Joker is ready for that too, and suddenly the entire floor surface reveals itself to be a massive trapdoor itself and the Duo are captured.
Spoofed by Mr. Burns of The Simpsons often. Homer has, however, stood in the wrong position, or was too fat to fall into the hole, or it had been removed for safety violations, or it happened to be malfunctioning and making the victims fall back into the scene through the ceiling. (Although Lenny hasn't been as fortunate)
Mr. Burns: Oh, it's doing that thing again.