History Main / BiggerOnTheInside

* The bedrooms of Casita in ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}''.

* In ''[[Film/BillAndTed Bill and Ted's]] Most Triumphant Return'' a teenager in the future mentions that a lot of aliens copied Rufus's idea to convert old phonebooths into time machines and that some with [[Franchise/DoctorWho British accents]] had worked how to make them bigger on the inside.

* The recurring ExpandedUniverse character Iris Wildthyme is an in-universe parody of the Doctor, and as such, her TARDIS, which always takes the form of a double-decker bus, is "smaller on the inside".

* Played for horror in ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'', in which the Navidsons' [[color:blue:house]] is precisely 5/16 of an inch larger on the inside. Shortly after coming to this realization, the Navidsons also discover that the house's closet suddenly leads to a vast labyrinth of unknown purpose and origin. In many editions, the pages stick out about a quarter-inch past the edge of the cover, making the book "bigger on the inside".

* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'': In the episode "Jeannie Fixes the House", Jeannie (a gennie) decides on her own accord that her master Major Tony Nelson needs a better house and decides to help him sell his current modest one without asking his permission. Jennie poses as real estate broker when a couple comes to look at Tony's house to possibly buy it. To make the house more desirable to the couple, she use her powers and blinks a mainson-sized kitchen and dinning room and a giant backyard with pool and tennis courts, among other rooms, in place of the small kitchen, dinning room, and backyard of the house. The problem is that the exterior of the house however still looks like a normal modest house thus confuounding the persective buyers as to how such a modest looking house rooms like a mansion on the inside. As usual for a show the relies heavilly on the ResetButton, by the end of the episode everything is set back to normal after she blink the hous back to it's orginal form.

* ''Manga/AhMyGoddess''' Skuld created one of these to provide extra storage space for some of the motorcycle club's gear. Unfortunately, the control got accidentally reset — stranding Keiichi and Belldandy in the center of an ''infinitely'' large room. And Bell was temporarily without her powers... [[spoiler:Keiichi finally realized the crawlspace under the building wasn't within the field, so they pulled up a portion of the floor and crawled out.]] Of particular interest is ''how'' it's expanded: it connects "borrowed" time-slices of the room from the ''future'' to the present room. How much time does a slice amount to is not explained, but Skuld does say that it will run out of batteries in less than a week's time; if the time slices were able to almost quadruple the room's size in less than a day's use, a week's time would round on the logarithmic.

** The time travel pod from the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Future Tense". Originally, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the plan was for this episode to be an actual crossover with Doctor Who]], but copyright issues and thematic questions kept that from going past the "Hey, I've got an idea" stage.

* In ''Film/JurassicPark'', when Grant and Sattler enter their trailer, from the outside it's simply a camper that looks like it barely has enough headroom. Once inside, it's as big as a double-wide, and the ceiling extends a good 2-3 feet above their heads.

* Played with in the Harold Llyod short ''Get Out And Get Under'', in-which he crawls into the motor-compartment of his stalled car.

** In ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', the time travel pod from "Future Tense". Originally, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the plan was for this episode to be an actual crossover with Doctor Who]], but copyright issues and thematic questions kept that from going past the "Hey, I've got an idea" stage.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': The Shuttlecraft used a different model for the exterior than the interior. The interior set was big enough that the actors could walk around standing upright while in the exterior they could only stand hunched over, hence the reason they are always hunched over when they step out of the Shuttlecraft.
** The holodeck from ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' is specifically engineered to create the illusion of this. [[AllThereInTheManual The manual]] states that it uses force fields on the floor to create a treadmill-like effect, then adjusts the view around you to make you think you're actually moving. It also lenses the air in such a way as to make two people look distant if they "walk" away from one another, even though they're really close to each other.
* ''The Three Stooges'' short "A Plumbing We Will Go" ends with the trio, one judge, and a dozen cops rushing out of a magician's prop booth.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "The Library", as soon as she sees all of the books in the titular building, Ellie Pendleton suspects that it must be some kind of trick as the building that she saw from the outside was nowhere near big enough. It soon becomes clear to her that the library is bigger on the inside and that it needs to be in order to house a book corresponding to every living person on Earth.
* The Warehouse in ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' is huge on the outside, but once you're inside it becomes the Warehouse that never ends. It's built into the side of a mountain '''and''' designed by Creator/MCEscher.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'', "Sunshine Days": The MonsterOfTheWeek's house appears very small from the outside. From the inside, however, it's ''the'' house where they shot ''Series/TheBradyBunch''. The guy has a super strong psychokinetic power.
* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'': In the epsiode "Jeannie Fixes the House", Jeannie (a gennie) decides on her own accord that her master Major Tony Nelson needs a better house and decides to help him sell his current modest one without asking his permission. Jennie poses as real estate broker when a couple comes to look at Tony's house to possibly buy it. To make the house more desirable to the couple, she use her powers and blinks a mainson-sized kitchen and dinning room and a giant backyard with pool and tennis courts, among other rooms, in place of the small kitchen, dinning room, and backyard of the house. The problem is that the exterior of the house however still looks like a normal modest house thus confuounding the persective buyers as to how such a modest looking house rooms like a mansion on the inside. As usual for a show the relies heavilly on the ResetButton, by the end of the episode everything is set back to normal after she blink the hous back to it's orginal form.

* The interior of the TARDIS is a great deal bigger than a mall — in the NA ''Blood Heat'', she actually materialises around an entire ''planet''! On TV, it has never been indicated how big she is; at times it's implied she is finite in size, but really immense, while other times it's been implied that her interior is infinite in size. The closest example we've seen was in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]], in which the Doctor reveals that the massive TARDIS-shaped monument [[spoiler:serving as his tomb is actually the corpse of the TARDIS. It turns out that dimensional leaking is common when [=TARDISes=] die, the outer shell expanding to reflect some of the enormous dimensions held within]].

* Also used to dramatic effect in the episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Doomsday]]": The Daleks mention that the [[BlackBox Genesis Ark]] will establish their supremacy because of "Time Lord science". The Doctor wonders what that means, and near the climax, [[spoiler:it's revealed that the Daleks meant this aspect of Time Lord science — the ark, though tiny, contains millions of Daleks.]]

* Eleven's TARDIS, according to Creator/MattSmith, is apparently "bigger on the inside more than bigger on the inside previously". Furthermore, when he jettisons off rooms for fuel, he says goodbye to the swimming pool, the scullery, and ''Squash Court 7''. The fact that there are seven squash courts — combined with the fact that it is supposed to be able to comfortably contain the egos of six Time Lord pilots simultaneously — implies that the TARDIS ranks in size somewhere between university campus and small neighborhood. Later, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E10TheGirlWhoWaited The Girl Who Waited]]", he mentioned that he might have to jettison the karaoke bar. That's right, the Doctor has a karaoke bar!
* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife The Doctor's Wife]]" lets us see more of the TARDIS for the first time in the new series, but that's not why its so notable for this particular trope. [[spoiler:The TARDIS, upon taking a human body, feels that ''humans'' — and the Doctor — are bigger on the inside, and she's able to overcome the force which has taken control of her Police Box self because he's so much ''smaller'' on the inside.]] It's a wonderful twist which shows this trope might not just be about space.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E4TheVisitation The Visitation]]": the Terileptil ship proves bigger than it looks from the outside — because the crash impact caused it to partially bury itself in the ground.
* In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E3MawdrynUndead Mawdryn Undead]]", the teleport capsule is bigger on the inside — a first clue that Mawdryn's people have knowledge of Time Lord technology.

Japan disappeared into a bathroom for a short amount of time before reappearing, now clad in a sharp black suit and tie with a white dress shirt and black pants, taking hexagonal glasses from his pocket—or wherever anime characters store all their stuff—before putting them on.\\

Both reached into the magical space all anime characters have, extracting black notebooks—Japan's having unidentifiable symbols on its cover as Italy's had 'Death Note' clearly printed on it in gothic letters—before taking out pens and colored pencils as well, opening the pages before scrawling in them.\\

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

** "[[Literature/AndHeBuiltACrookedHouse —And He Built a Crooked House—]]" features an eight-room house occupying the space of a single-room house. This is because the house was conceived and built as an unfolded tesseract projected onto 3D space, but an earthquake caused it to fold into a real tesseract.
** The foldboxes in Heinlein's ''Literature/GloryRoad''. Not very large or heavy when closed, they can be opened out (by unfolding several times, hence the name) to reveal a cavernous internal space and all the items that have been stored there. Handwaved in the story as being because when closed, the internal space (and its contents, and their mass) [[{{Hammerspace}} go off to another dimension]].
*** The Gay Deceiver in ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast'' has more space inside, obtained as a gift in Oz.

* The "stable" in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia: Literature/TheLastBattle'' is tiny on the outside, yet when the characters enter, it contains the whole of "Aslan's Country". As they travel further through the land, the arrive at a walled garden on a hill, but again, once they enter they find a whole country spread out before them; an even better version of the land they came through. It is implied that there might be an infinite number of such layers. The stable was unusual in this respect. Not everyone who entered found Aslan's Country -- a party of dwarfs who entered it found only the very ordinary dark and grimy interior of a stable. Both alternatives coexist simultaneously, as the protagonists interact directly with the dwarfs despite perceiving a completely different world. This is perhaps more a case of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve.

* In Greg Bear's ''Literature/{{Eon}}'', the fact that the seventh chamber aboard the ''Thistledown'' is this is proof that someone has finally understood the work of the female physicist protagonist.

* In the Manly Wade Wellman short story, ''Literature/TheGoldenGoblins'', the spirit bundle contains at least fifteen figurines, and yet it's only large enough for one.
* In Creator/TeresaEdgerton's ''Literature/TheGrailAndTheRing'', Dame Ceinwen's cottage appears to be an ordinary one-room cottage from the outside, and even from the inside -- except that you can never quite see the entire room from inside. When you explore the perimeter of the room, you find doors opening into other rooms, cupboards, and so on.
* In ''Literature/HaloGhostsOfOnyx'' we see an enormous DysonSphere hidden within a tiny slipspace bubble located in the core of an Earth-sized planet.

** The ability to make a location "unplottable" (i.e. impossible to be included on a map) is an interesting case. The implication is that from a map-maker's point of view the world around the building contracts to fill the empty space and the building itself then resides on a plot of land with zero area. This is related to Grimmauld Place appearing out of nowhere in the films.

* In the Creator/StephenKing novel ''Literature/{{It}}'', one of It's hiding places is a deserted house out by the trainyards. When the kids enter it, they find themselves getting separated as the rooms grow larger as they explore the house. Also, earlier in the novel, they follow a Native American ritual and subject themselves to smoke inhalation in their clubhouse so they can have a vision. Before the vision begins, the small clubhouse seems to have grown impossibly huge.
* In the Australian sci-fi story ''JAM Jars'' by Robert Hood, the protagonist is sold one of the eponymous jars, and the nanovirus inside tries to convert him into a brainwashed cyborg bent on world conquest. The transformation is only partially successful, so he returns to the shop and destroys it with a RayGun, but just when he's congratulating himself on having saved Earth from AlienInvasion he looks out the back of the tiny shop (which is just a street stall on a footpath) and finds the tiny space between the shop and the wall behind somehow contains a huge AbandonedWarehouse full of [[TheEndOrIsIt opened empty crates of the jars...]]

* In Creator/GarthNix's ''Literature/KeysToTheKingdom'', this applies to pretty much everything in the House. (Not to be confused with the [[color:blue:house]].) For example, suitcases and Matryoshka dolls.
* John Crowley's ''Literature/LittleBigOrTheFairiesParliament'': this trope (and the title of the book) refer to both the Edgewood house and Faerie being 'bigger in the inside' (a kind of topography one of the characters of the novel refer to as an ''infundibulum'').

* In Bulgakov's ''Literature/TheMasterAndMargarita'', Woland's immense ballroom appeared behind the door of an ordinary Soviet apartment (which was previously shown to be perfectly normal); one of the characters says that this is easy to achieve when you are "familiar with the fifth dimension."

** {{Downplayed}}; Siwa's apartment above a carpet store looks bigger on the inside the first time that Fatma and Haida visit -- it has a luxurious courtyard with a fountain, tasteful library to house his books, and even a tea room decorated with tapestries and teapots bearing camels. The ministry agents realize they're under the effects of an illusion when the details of the room start changing before their very eyes. [[spoiler: When they pay Siwa a second visit, they convince him to drop the illusion and they see the apartment for what it really is -- crowded with books that spill out of their shelves, littered with receipts for Siwa's gambling debts, and decorated with cheap posters of camel races.]]

* Dr. Morgenes' home/lab/pub in Tad Williams's ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'' trilogy looks like a barracks from the outside, but inside seems just a '''little''' too big.

%%* ''Literature/TheNeverEndingStory'' name-checks this trope in describing the House of Change.

* In ''Nightwings'' by Creator/RobertSilverberg one character has a device called an overpocket implanted in his leg, which contains a nearly unlimited amount of useful items.

* ''Literature/{{Once}}:'' A grimy glass jar, left for protagonist Thom Kindred by [[WickedWitch sinister witchcraft practitioner]] Nell Quick, when [[ThisIsGonnaSuck opened]], unleashes a seemingly infinite horde of [[spoiler: spiders]]. The jar, somewhat [[Series/DoctorWho TARDIS]]-like, seem to bridge dimensions beyond its glass exterior.

* ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'': The Änderhaus (Changing House) is, for all intents and purposes, a TARDIS. The trope is name-checked word for word. And for added points, the woman who lives there undergoes a sort of regeneration upon death, becoming a new person, and having a succession of lives.
* ''Literature/TheMarvellousLandOfSnergs'': On the outside, [[WickedWitch Meldrum]]'s cottage looks like a weather-beaten, thatch-topped single-story, one-room shack. On the inside, narrow staircases and twisted hallways connect many rooms. Before entering, the main characters have the feeling it is larger than it looks.
* ''Literature/ThereIsNoEpicLootHereOnlyPuns'': Dungeon space is malleable. The first time Delta creates a boss room, she's taken aback to realise that the internal space of the room has tripled, but its size on a map is unchanged.
--> '''Delta''': I... broke space.

* In ''Webcomic/BlueYonder'', [[http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1190170/blue-yonder-chapter-1-page-11/ Jared thinks the building might be this — he has some trouble accepting that it's just an apartment building.]]

* In ''Webcomic/FindersKeepers2008'', we have [[http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/6143/20090331.jpg Morlock's store.]] Among other things, it has a sign that reads: "Morlock: [[LampshadeHanging It's bigger on the inside.]]"
* ''Hello With Cheese'' has a timeline for such objects — [[http://www.dernwerks.com/HWC/?p=1623 here]] and [[http://www.dernwerks.com/HWC/?p=1673 here.]]

* Any regular theatregoer will tell you that most theatres play this very straight — only a few doors for entry before being revealed to host a massive auditorium, orchestra pit, stage, and unseen backstage area.
* Creator/MeowWolf's House of Eternal Return, is an interactive art/entertainment installation housed inside a former bowling alley. But the complecated and disorenting internal layout, and creative use of lighting, mirrors, and odd angles, makes it feel much, much larger. And means that someone could easily spend hours inside, and still not find entier rooms.
* Any interior space can be turned into an illusion of this trope by using objects to break up the space, in a way that limits vision. If you can't see what's on the other side of the shelf, you can't see how big the space is — so the room feels potentially bigger, even if you know the dimensions of the building. Thick forests work the same way. Covering a wall with mirrors can also create an illusion of space, especially for a large room with repetitive contents (clothing racks, restaurant tables, gym machines, etc.).

* ''Franchise/RoboCop'' sees this happen with its title character twice. The make-up for the helmetless Murphy actually bigger than the helmet. Additionally, the suit is too big to actually fit in a Ford Taurus, so shots of Murphy driving are usually done without the bottom section of the suit.

* ''WebOriginal/CodexInversus'': [[EnchantedForest The Infinite Woods]] are so named because of a bizarre spatial property that causes them to be functionally infinite in internal area, despite having a finite perimeter. The wood of the oaks that grow within the forest can be used to fashion furniture that is also larger interiorly than it is exteriorly.

* The internal space of [[ADungeonIsYou Living Dungeons]] tends to be malleable, and ''Literature/NoNeedForACore'' is not exception, with the ability to warp their internal spae increasing as the dungeon grows.

* The internal space of [[adungeonisyou Living Dungeon]] tends to be malleable, and ''Literature/NoNeedForACore'' is not exception, with the ability to warp their internal spae increasing as the dungeon grows.

* Oscar the Grouch's trashcan on ''Series/SesameStreet'' is apparently big enough on the inside to fit several elephants. He once held an elephant dance in there. According to the movie ''Film/TheAdventuresOfElmoInGrouchland'', there’s access to an entire world down there!

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%% This trope is represented in the Pantheon/TropePantheons by the TARDIS of ''Series/DoctorWho'', in the Hall of Pantheon/SpaceManipulation.
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* According to "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E10JourneyToTheCentreOfTheTardis Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS]]", [[Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1 the inside of a TARDIS is big, really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to the TARDIS.]] Whether or not the Doctor was exaggerating at the time is up for debate. We also see much more of the interior than the usual few hallways, and you really get the idea of just what it's like in there. You could spend days and never see the same thing twice, each room more wondrous than the last. But you wouldn't, 'cause it's an EldritchLocation that can be as scary as all hell, especially if you make the mistake of [[DoNotTauntCthulhu pissing off the TARDIS]], as the salvagers very quickly realise. Perhaps the most-accurate thing one can say about the TARDIS is that the main thing that limits her interior dimensions is the Doctor. Regardless of whether its size is truly infinite, at the very least it can safely encapsulate ''an entire star'', which it uses as a power source. The star that exists inside the TARDIS is frozen in time at the instant it becomes a black hole. This means it must be a MASSIVE star, far larger than our sun. The absolute minimum size a star must be to form a black hole is 3 times the size of our sun (but they are typically much larger than that). This also has the side effect of making the TARDIS a Dyson Sphere. That little police box is actually a Dyson Sphere on the inside. Puts a little bit of perspective into how powerful a TARDIS is doesn't it?

** ''Literature/{{Polyhedron))'' magazine #126 artuicle ''Wayward Wizards: Tulrun of the Tent". The wizard Tulrun can cast the spell Tulrun's Tremendous Tent, which creates a small silken tent. Inside the tent, a person can wander for hours through its multiple rooms (bedrooms, armories, kitchens, laboratories, dining halls, etc.) without returning to a familiar location.

** ''Literature/{{Polyhedron'' magazine #126 artuicle ''Wayward Wizards: Tulrun of the Tent". The wizard Tulrun can cast the spell Tulrun's Tremendous Tent, which creates a small silken tent. Inside the tent, a person can wander for hours through its multiple rooms (bedrooms, armories, kitchens, laboratories, dining halls, etc.) without returning to a familiar location.

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'': A [[https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/464d177a003f8 Finity Box]] uses incredibly advanced spacial folding techniques to create a PocketDimension inside of itself, allowing it to be up to five times larger on the inside, and not get heavier when stuff is placed inside. Only [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 2048]] have been discovered, and it's unknown who or what created them.

%%* The Pylons from ''Series/LandOfTheLost''.

** Franchise/TheHauntedMansion
** Ride/SplashMountain
** Ride/IndianaJonesAdventure
** Ride/PiratesOfTheCaribbean

* Many Disneyland rides, especially Franchise/TheHauntedMansion. The parks get around this issue by use of back lots hidden from public view, or making the rides partially underground. It's actually a [[OpenSecret little-known fact]] that Walt Disney World's parks, at least, are built well ''above'' ground level, with quite a bit of theatrics going into disguising this. This elevation provides space for the dark rides like the Haunted Mansion, as well as the Utilidors that allow cast members to travel around the park without being seen by the guests. (In practice, though, it really is underground; they just made it that way by raising the ground level rather than digging down.)