History Main / CeilingBanger

* In ''Film/{{Antonia}}'', a character known only as the Protestant, bangs on the ceiling with a broom whenever the lady above him, Mad Madonna, howls at the moon.

* In ''Film/AntoniasLine'', an annoyed neighbor uses his broom to bang on the ceiling whenever the woman living above him starts to howl at the full moon.

* In ''Film/AntoniasLine'', an annoyed neighbor uses his broom to bang on the ceiling whenever the woman living above him starts to howl as the full moon.

* Parodied in a cutaway gag on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. A guy sneezed, and that set off the woman in the apartment below. The guy sighed at this ComicalOverreaction, and [[DisproportionateRetribution she threatened to call the police]].

* Parodied in a cutaway gag on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. A guy sneezed, and that set off the woman in the apartment below. The guy sighed at this overreaction, and she threatened to call the police.

* In the "Dial M for Monkey" segment of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', Magmanamus, a giant magma monster that lives in the center of earth, pounds ceiling of its room with a broom to shout the noise of the city that woke him up. When it doesn't work he gets outside.

->''The noisy neighbors\\

They make enough racket to wake up the dead''
-->--'''Creator/AnnaRussell''', "The Noisy Neighbors"

* In ''Disney/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', this is Nanny's standard method of gaining her employer's attention when he's working on his music in his attic workshop. Thus, it is a welcome signal to take a break instead of being one of irritation.

Compare BigShutUp,

[[IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] [[DarthWiki/WallBanger that one page]] on the DarthWiki.

* In an episode of ''Anime/ShinChan'' (the GagDub), Shin gets into a stomp competition with the landlady on the floor below. At least to him it was a competition. She was just ornery about the stomping.

* An episode of ''[[LightNovel/OreNoImoutoGaKonnaNiKawaiiWakeGaNai My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute]]'' has Kirino {{Squee}}ing about an H-scene in the {{Eroge}} she's playing... so her brother had to slam the wall to quiet her down. Kirino is not amused.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

->''The noisy neighbors''\\
''The noisy neighbors''\\
''The noisy neighbors''\\
''They won't go to bed''\\
''The noisy neighbors''\\
''The noisy neighbors''\\
''The noisy neighbors''\\
''They make enough racket to wake up the dead''

[[AC:{{Advertising}}]]

* Played with in a French condom commercial, where a woman is inspecting the soundproofing of an apartment she might rent. She begins panting and moaning, getting louder and more dramatic until she hears the angry banging of the neighbors that indicates the place is not for her. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5K3UdIiMpM&feature=related here]]

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* The first few episodes of "Anime/WelcomeToTheNHK" have the main protagonist, Satou, being driven half mad by his next door neighbor (next door but sharing the same wall), who keeps playing the same J-Pop song, nonstop, 24 hours a day. A number of times he angrily kicks the wall and yells for his neighbor to turn the music down.
* In an episode of ''ShinChan'' (the GagDub), Shin gets into a stomp competition with the landlady on the floor below. At least to him it was a competition. She was just ornery about the stomping.
* An episode of ''[[LightNovel/OreNoImoutoGaKonnaNiKawaiiWakeGaNai My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute]]'' had Kirino {{Squee}}ing about an h-scene in the {{Eroge}} she's playing... so her brother had to slam the wall to quiet her down. Kirino is not amused.

[[AC:FanFic]]
* The WizardsOfWaverlyPlace [[IncestSubtext 'Jalex'-fic]] 'Justin Left Stanford' is ''made of this trope''. Central to the story is how [[LaserGuidedKarma Alex gets back at Justin]] for going to college in California ([[CannotStandThemCannotLiveWithoutThem and leaving her]]) by learning how to use the 'spell locks' to ensure that during his vacation time at home, [[SarcasmMode he can hear and enjoy every moment]] of [[TheImmodestOrgasm her nightly fantasies about him]].
* In [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1024863/1/ Life Left Behind]], [[Literature/HarryPotter Draco]] has left the wizarding world and lives as a {{Muggle}} in [[BigApplesauce New York]]. One day, he comes home to find a chair on his coffee table and his best friend Joel on top of that, banging the ceiling with a broomstick and screaming obscene words while the upstairs neighbor can be heard deliberately stomping around above.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* In the movie ''OfficeSpace'', Peter's neighbor Lawrence is constantly banging on the walls and listening in on his life. He even joins in on a supposedly top-secret conversation from the other side of the wall.
-->'''Peter:''' "Oh, it's okay... Lawrence is cool."
* In ''{{Antonia}}'', a character known only as the Protestant, bangs on the ceiling with a broom whenever the lady above him, Mad Madonna, howls at the moon.

[[AC:Jokes]]

* A drunk was proudly showing off his new apartment to a couple of his friends late one night. He led the way to his bedroom where there was a big brass gong and a mallet. "What's that big brass gong?" one of the guests asked. "It's not a gong. It's a talking clock," the drunk replied. "A talking clock? Seriously?" asked his astonished friend. "Yup," replied the drunk. "How's it work?" the friend asked, squinting at it. "Watch," the drunk replied. He picked up the mallet, gave the gong an ear-shattering pound, and stepped back.\\
\\
The three stood looking at one another for a moment. Suddenly, someone on the other side of the wall screamed, "You asshole! It's three fifteen in the morning!"

\\

\\

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

-->We might love the people upstairs wonderous
-->If, instead of above us, they lived just underus.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

* In ''MorkAndMindy'', this trope is used for a classic gag. Mindy is complaining about a ceiling banger below her apartment and Mork suggests she make the best of it making by making a game of it. When Mindy asks how, Mork stomps on the floor and uses the ceiling banger's subsequent banging to sweep Mindy into a square dance with himself as the caller.

* Bernard does it in an episode of ''BlackBooks'', despite the fact the couple making the noise are not actually upstairs, and causes a huge chunk of plaster to fall on a slumbering Fran in the process.

* During ''Series/{{LipstickonyourCollar}}'', Francis Francis's aunt and uncle exchange pounding through the ceiling with the upstairs neighbours (Corporal Pete berry and wife Sylvia) in response to Sylvia playing content loudly, or energetic sex. Seen mostly in episode 2.

* The ''Series/{{I Love Lucy}}'' episode "Breaking the Lease" is a prime example of this. After a night of window slamming at the Ricardo's apartment, the Mertzes downstairs complain enough where Rickey and Lucy threaten to move out - only stymied by a 50 year lease. They determine to break the lease by making as much noise as possible - stomping around with heavy shoes, and so on; finally climaxing by bringing Ricky's band into the apartment for a jam session. Fred almost subverts this by charging admission,, but after he goes to bed, they ratchet it up by playing the Mexican Hat Dance over an over until the Mertzes give up. All, of course ends happily, as all concerned start crying when the Ricardos are actually packing,

[[AC:{{Music}}]]
* "Knock Three Times" is a popular song recorded by Tony Orlando and Dawn. In the song, the narrator tells his beautiful downstairs neighbor, whom he's never met, but nonetheless is in love with, that she should knock on the ceiling three times, if she wants to meet him, twice on the radiator pipe, if she is not interested.
** DaveBarry comments (in ''Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs'') that if Tony keeps that up (knocking on the ceiling), the neighbors are going to come over and start knocking on ''him''.
* BarenakedLadies' rather nostalgic song, ''The Old Apartment,'' has the following line:
-->How is the neighbor downstairs? How is her temper this year?
-->I turned up your TV and stomped on the floor just for fun!
** The music video ups the reference, by having an old lady below the apartment taking a broom and banging on the ceiling when this section of song is sung.

-->Disco dancing with the lights down low
-->Beats are pumping on the stereo
-->Neighbour's banging on the bathroom wall
-->He's sayin' crank the bass, I gotta get some more
* Voltaire's ''The Man Upstairs''
-->As far as I can tell, he juggles bowling balls
-->but he's not good at it.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* Used a lot in recent years in ''ForBetterOrForWorse'' because of the crabby downstairs neighbours Mike and Deanna have...and Deanna's mom provoking them for being so crabby. The neighbours damage the ceiling while doing this and the landlady had all the proof she needed finding the broken plaster in the trash to hit them with the bill for the repairs.
* ''TheFamilyUpstairs'' was all about Mr. Dingbat's [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption failed]] attempts to get the neighbors upstairs to stop making such a racket.

[[AC:{{Radio}}]]
* ''TheGoonShow'': In "The International Christmas Pudding", Minnie and Henry are trying to sleep in a tent when they are disturbed by banging from ''the tent upstairs''.
* The thin bedroom walls (and the requisite banging) were one of the reasons Commander Murray was so keen to move out of his parents-in-law house in ''TheNavyLark''.

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* Eulice does this in one of the early strips of ''Webcomic/MenageA3'' - with a twist: she does indeed interrupt a conversation, but not due to being bothered by the noise. Rather, it is solely to reaffirm a statement in the conversation that she will have Gary's hide in the event the rent is not paid promptly.
* [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page472.html This]] ''Webcomic/{{Subnormality}}'' comic.
* As usual, ''Webcomic/{{Xkcd}}'' puts an [[http://xkcd.com/316/ impressive twist on the trope]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

* In the "Dial M For Monkey" segment of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', Magmanamus, a giant magma monster that lives in the center of earth, pounds ceiling of its room with a broom to shout the noise of the city that woke him up. When it doesn't work he gets outside.
* In ''Disney/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', this is Nanny's standard method of gaining her employer's attention when he's working on his music in his attic workshop. Thus, it is a welcome signal to take a break instead of being one of irritation.
* Done in the ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode "A Glass Of Warm Ed", with Sarah banging a lawnmower-toy thing on the floor.

** There was also one episode where the guy who lived ''above'' Monica and Rachel was making too much noise, but whenever they went up to complain he was so nice they forgot about it. Pheobe goes up to complain for them, and they end up getting on so well that [[TheImmodestOrgasm the noise gets a lot worse]].

** There was also one episode where the guy who lived ''above'' Monica and Rachel was making too much noise, but whenever they went up to complain he was

* Mr. Heckles on ''Series/{{Friends}}'' would routinely bang on the floor of Monica and Rachel's apartment and complain about the noise. When he passed away, Chandler noticed that due to the building's weird acoustics, the noise from other apartments actually ''was'' heavily amplified and started to bang on the ceiling himself until he realised in horror what he was doing. The running gag throughout that episode was that Chandler had found Mr. Heckles old school year-book and was freaking out at their similarities.

* In the DS game ''TouchDetective'', your first case has you visiting the main character's [[CloudCuckoolander extremely ditzy friend]] in her apartment. While you're talking, she hears her upstairs neighbor comes in, excuses herself for a moment, then starts ''banging on the ceiling with a stick of some sort'', receiving some stomps in reply. When your shocked main character asks what she's doing, she explains that she's just greeting her neighbor in morse code. The problem? As you find out when you visit the neighbor, your friend ''never explained this system at all'', and the neighbor is just trying to get her to shut up with their "replies". You, of course, explain the mistake. It's implied that the neighbor goes along with it from then on, but it's not really brought up again, so who knows?

* ''VideoGame/TheSims 2 Apartment Life'' lets you be on either side of the equation: Your sim may have a noisy neighbor, and decide to bang on the wall, or your sim may ''be'' a noisy neighbor, and have his/her wall banged upon.
** However, dorm walls in VideoGame/TheSims 2 University never have the same problem; a Sim can sleep in his/her dorm room even if a wild party is going on in common space.

* In ''SuperMarioRPG'', one citizen of Monstro Town complains that he keeps hearing strange noises and incoherent muttering next door. Mario tries to investigate, but the door is always locked. Later in the game, Mario can open the door, and it turns out his neighbor is [[spoiler:Culex, a powerful sorceror drawn in [[NonstandardCharacterDesign the normal ''Final Fantasy'' art style]], and the house is actually a portal to his personal dimension, an AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield. Culex was about to invade Mario's dimension when Mario arrived.]]

* In an Italian movie about the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, said politician hears a kid playing with a ball in the room upstairs and starts banging to let someone know he's been held prisoner. But the child's mother just thinks this trope is in play and tells the terrorists she'll keep the kid quiet.

-->--'''AnnaRussell''', "The Noisy Neighbors"

* Eulice does this in one of the early strips of ''MenageA3'' - with a twist: she does indeed interrupt a conversation, but not due to being bothered by the noise. Rather, it is solely to reaffirm a statement in the conversation that she will have Gary's hide in the event the rent is not paid promptly.

* Inverted in a commercial for [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain something]], where a student is studying and can hear Prozzak's 'Omabolasire' coming from upstairs. The student then bangs on the ceiling with a broom and yells "Turn it up! I can't hear the words!"