Basic Trope: A land-based vehicle has the ability to drive on water.
- Straight: Alice can flip a switch in the Alicemobile and it will turn into a motorboat.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice can flip a switch in the Alicemobile and will become capable of floating and protecting its occupants on any liquid...even sulphuric acid, toxic waste, and lava.
- The Alicemobile has a submarine mode that can dive (or roll) to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
- Downplayed:
- The Alicemobile is able to float in water, but doesn't have propulsion or navigation systems.
- The Alicemobile is perfectly water-tight, allowing it to keep its occupants from drowning if it falls in a river. Maybe it can even be rolled out under its own power if the water is shallow enough.
- Justified: The Alicemobile was amphibious before Alice got it. (Amphicar, Gibbs Aquada, TRECOL)
- Inverted: The Aliceboat can sprout wheels at the flick of a switch for driving on land.
- Subverted: Alice drives the Alicemobile into a lake and it sinks like a stone...
- Double Subverted: ...because it turns into a submarine.
- Parodied: When Alice converts the Alicemobile into amphibious mode, goggles slide over the windshield, nose plugs close off the hood scoop, a snorkel attaches to the grill, the rear wheels don flippers...
- Zig-Zagged: As we follow the development of the Alicemobile, we start with a simple design. Alice tests it and it sinks like a stone. Her second prototype manages to float, but its performance both on the road and the water is severely lacking, so she scraps it. Her third prototype toys with starting with a boat and making it into a car, but the legal hurdles are too big to clear so she abandons that as well. Then she has a brilliant idea, implements it on her fourth prototype, and finally succeeds in making an Amphibious Automobile.
- Averted: The Alicemobile is a normal car that can't transform into a boat.
- Enforced: The producer has an interest in amphibious vehicles and wants the vehicles properly featured.
- Lampshaded: The license plate of the Alicemobile reads "CARSWIMS".
- Invoked: Bob talks about amphibious vehicles with Alice and claims that she couldn't possibly be able to build one. She sets out to prove him wrong.
- Exploited: Bob builds a shack on a small island in Lake Lampshade with plans to ask Alice for rides to it.
- Defied: Alice announces that she's planning to build an amphibious car, but Bob talks about all of the technical and legal hurdles she'd need to clear to get the vehicle going. She changes her mind.
- Discussed: "Bob has a shack on that island in Lake Lampshade, but the ferry service is so unreliable. What if there were a way to get to the island without using the ferry?"
- Conversed: "Oh no, Alice is about to drive into the...oh, it floats."
- Implied: Alice pulls up in front of Bob's island shack in the Alicemobile. The lower half is dripping wet even though it's been sunny all day.
- Deconstructed: After converting the Alicemobile into an amphibious car, Alice is informed by the Department of Motor Vehicles that most of the modifications she made rendered the car illegal to drive on the street. Furthermore, the extra weight of the conversion has seriously hampered the vehicle's fuel economy and handling. Alice is now left with a vehicle that's little more than a technological achievement.
- Reconstructed: After learning of the regulations surrounding amphibious vehicles, Alice reengineers the Alicemobile to comply with said regulations and also reduces the weight to improve the car's handling and fuel economy. After an Obstructive Bureaucrat is satisfied, the Alicemobile is street legal again.
- Played For Laughs:
- The Alicemobile was given to Alice because she Drives Like Crazy and has sent five cars into the drink already because she did not see she was going towards a lake or forgot to apply the brakes. Now she is a terror on land and sea.
- One of the most obvious jokes is that the passenger does not know the Alicemobile is amphibious until Alice pranks them by apparently having an accident that will put them in the lake.
- The Alicemobile is revealed to be Awesome, but Impractical as both a car and definitely as a water vehicle, probably to the level of being classified as The Alleged Car (a fact that is Truth in Television with some real life amphibious car designs).
- Played for Drama: Alice's home town is hit with a flood while her house and the Alicemobile are above the waterline. She realizes that she's in a position to help her neighbors and sets out to rescue as many people as she can.
Back to Amphibious Automobile
