History Main / OutOfTheFryingPan

* In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', the adventure party escapes from the goblins of the Misty Mountains, only to find themselves surrounded by wolves as night falls.

* In the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "The Fall of Night", Sheridan has to jump out of the station's core tram to escape a bomb. Doing so takes Sheridan out of the blast radius of the bomb, but it's only a temporary reprieve, as he's now floating toward the station's outer wall, which is moving around 60 MPH. So, he moves from one lethal situation straight into another.

Can overlap with VillainousRescue or NiceJobBreakingItHero.

* [[FreemansMind Freeman's Mind]] did it once, with Gordon saying "Out of the frying pan, into ''another'' frying pan" while advancing under machine gun fire. Amusing because, indeed, the 'new' situation was exactly the same as the old one.

* In ''VideoGame/StarFox64'' Solar has the trope name as a tagline, [[StealthPun since the planet is question is too hot for the arwing to withstand]].

* The (new) ''Series/TwilightZone'' episode "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich". A loser sells his soul to a demon in exchange for winning at the horse races, only to get cheated, of course. He goes to the mobster he borrowed his betting money from, begging for protection [[spoiler:and the mobster does--because he's an arch-demon in human form, and now the loser owes his soul to a ''worse'' demon.]]

* {{Film/DeepRising}} does this enough to justify giving the hero a CatchPhrase.

* The film adaptation of ''Film/TheHobbit'' has a similar scene to the original novel: the party escapes from the caverns of the Misty Mountains, only to be cornered by a worse band of warg-riding orcs. Thorin even says "Out of the frying pan", while Gandalf finishes with "and into the fire."

* It is {{lampshaded}} in the ''AlcatrazSeries''
-->It seems that no matter what I did, I ended up in even more danger than I was before. One might even say I was "out of the frying pan and into the fire"... Personally I say "Out of the frying pan and into the the [[PitTrap deadly pit]] filled with [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks sharks]] who are wielding [[ChainsawGood chainsaws]] with [[CatsAreMean killer kittens]] stapled to them." However that one's having a rough time catching on.

* The (new) ''Series/TwilightZone'' episode "Crazy as a Soup Sandwhich". A loser sells his soul to a demon in exchange for winning at the horse races, only to get cheated, of course. He goes to the mobster he borrowed his betting money from, begging for protection [[spoiler:and the mobster does--because he's an arch-demon in human form, and now the loser owes his soul to a ''worse'' demon.]]

* The film adaptation of ''Film/TheHobbit'' has a similar scene to the original novel: the party escapes from the caverns of the Misty Mountains, only to be cornered by a worse band of warg-riding orcs. One of the characters even says "Out of the frying pan", and Gandalf finishes "into the fire."

* At the end of ''VideoGame/HalfLife'', Gordon finally defeats the Nihilanth, thus closing the portal and stopping the alien invasion; and in ''Opposing Force'' Adrian witnesses the whole facility get nuked, putting an end to the horrific Black Mesa Incident once and for all. One can imagine the survivors' collective sigh of relief that it was ''finally over''. Then in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', you out that it was for naught — all the activity of the incident attracted the attention of the Combine Empire, who invaded, took over the world within 7 hours, and have been ruling Earth with an iron fist in the twenty years since then. [[SarcasmMode Yayyyyy.]]

* ''StarWars'':
** ''ANewHope''. First, the heroes escape from a shootout with stormtroopers by diving into a chute, realizing too late that it leads to the interior of a garbage compactor. Later, Luke shoots a control panel to lock a door between him and some stormtroopers, then realizes immediately afterwards that this same panel controlled the extendable bridge. Thus, he's traded death by stormtrooper for death by bottomless chasm.
** In ''TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Han Solo is pursued by the Imperial fleet, and flies into an AsteroidThicket to lose them. He then realizes that the odds in the asteroid field aren't much better than his odds against the Imperials, so he hides in a cave on a larger asteroid--and ends up flying down the mouth of a giant space slug.

* As their producers were all too happy to point out, during ''TopGear'''s Middle East Special, the hosts escaped from a country where there is no war (Iraq) to a country where there is one (Turkey).
* The (new) ''TwilightZone'' episode "Crazy as a Soup Sandwhich". A loser sells his soul to a demon in exchange for winning at the horse races, only to get cheated, of course. He goes to the mobster he borrowed his betting money from, begging for protection [[spoiler:and the mobster does--because he's an arch-demon in human form, and now the loser owes his soul to a ''worse'' demon.]]

* ''Videogame/CaveStory'': You and Curly Brace get attacked by the Core. Since the Core is a LoadBearingBoss, its defeat alerts [[BigBad The Doctor]] and [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Misery]] to your presence in that chamber. They teleport in, take the Core so it can be repaired, and then flood the chamber as they leave--leaving you to drown in a locked room.

* Inverted (sort of) in ''Series/TheYoungOnes'' where, as they are being chased by an axe-wielding homicidal maniac ([[ItMakesAsMuchSenseInContext who is also their landlord]]) Neil exclaims:
--> '''Neil''': Oh well, out of the frying pan and into another frying pan...

[[folder:Videogames]]

* The film adaptation of ''Film/TheHobbit'' has a similar scene to the original novel: the party escapes from the caverns of the Misty Mountains, only to be cornered by a worse band of warg-riding orcs. One of the characters even says "Out of the frying pan, into the fire."

-> '''Yahtzee:''' ...then the "f**kup remedy" has instead resulted in what we experts call "[[BoomerangComeback boomerang f**kup]]".

-->-- ''TheHobbit''

* In ''TheHobbit'', the adventure party escapes from the goblins of the Misty Mountains, only to find themselves surrounded by wolves as night falls.

* Near the end in ''ToyStory 3'', the toys wind up in a landfill and onto a conveyor leading towards a shredder. They escape by grabbing onto metal objects as an overhead magnetic strip separates them, only to discover that this conveyor leads to an ''incinerator''.