History Main / RearWindowInvestigation

%% Image selected via crowner in the Image Suggestion thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rear_window_investigation.png]]]]

'''Mr. Golovkin:''' You see that poster? ''(pointing to a Rear Window movie poster)'' You're doing that movie. That's what you're doing. You saw me do, like, one suspicious thing and then decided I was a murderer.
-->-- '''WesternAnimation/TheGreatNorth''', Season 3 "[[Recap/TheGreatNorthS3E11ArrangerousMindsAdventure Arranger-ous Minds Adventure]]"

* The episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'', "The Lives of Others". Castle is so bored while recovering from an accident, that he starts watching his neighbors through binoculars, and sees what is clearly a man murdering his girlfriend with a knife. When Beckett doesn't believe him (she even calls it a "rear window scenario"), he posts Alexis to be his watch while he breaks into the neighbor's house to retrieve some evidence - except he's still on crutches, falls over when he tries to leave, and has to hide under the bed. [[spoiler:Turns out Beckett staged the whole thing as a birthday present to Castle, and everyone, including the "murderer" and "victim", were role-playing.]]

%%* Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''Film/RearWindow'', of course. Indeed, many of the following examples are in fact {{Shout Out}}s and can also be found on the RearWindowHomage page. %%"Of course" is not context.

-->--'''WesternAnimation/TheGreatNorth''', Season 3 "[[Recap/TheGreatNorthS3E11ArrangerousMindsAdventure Arranger-ous Minds Adventure]]"

->'''Mr. Golovkin:''' Are you guys bored and doing a ''Rear Window''?\\

A character, usually female (ironic as the Trope Namer is male), suspects a male character, often a neighbor, of committing a crime. Perhaps she is even a [[RearWindowWitness witness of the crime.]] Nobody believes her, or she isn't sure herself, so she decides to wait until he leaves his house, and then sneak in to look for clues or to obtain incriminating evidence. Of course, the potential suspect will invariably [[HomeEarlySurprise come home early]], and the investigating character will have to find a way out of the house without being discovered. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

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* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': parodied in the episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS16E8CrimesAndMegsDemeanor Crimes and Meg's Demeanor]]", where Brian (who has a broken leg) watches the neighbors through his binoculars and saw Principal Shepherd drags a trash bag leaking out red liquid and he thinks that he killed his wife. Turns out his wife moved out and the red liquid was from the canned food he stole from the high school to make ends meet.

** Daaaark.

* In Creator/BruceCoville's ''Literature/MyTeacherIsAnAlien'', the narrator breaks into her new teacher's house to look for evidence that he truly is otherworldly. Unfortunately, her lookout had a short attention span. HilarityEnsues.

* In Creator/JaneAusten's ''Literature/NorthangerAbbey'', after reading too many Gothic novels, the heroine begins to mistrust her host General Tilney and suspect him of murdering his wife years before. This novel actually predates ''Film/RearWindow'' by almost two centuries.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': parodied in the episode "Crimes and Meg's Demeanor", where Brian(who has a broken leg) watches the neighbors through his binoculars and saw Principal Shepherd drags a trash bag leaking out red liquid and he thinks that he killed his wife. Turns out his wife moved out and the red liquid was from the canned food he stole from the high school to make ends meet.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Bart of Darkness". Bart, injured from an accident diving into their swimming pool, overhears a scream from the Flanders house, and witnesses him burying something in the backyard. Believing Ned had [[MistakenForMurderer murdered his wife Maude]], Bart orders Lisa to go investigate. When Ned returns home early, Lisa gets trapped in the attic with Flanders, who is attempting to put away an axe (though from Bart's view it appeared Ned was threatening Lisa with the axe). It later turns out that Maude is alive, and was away at Bible camp the whole time. The scream that Bart heard earlier? [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl It was Flanders.]]

* Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''Film/RearWindow'', of course. Indeed, many of the following examples are in fact {{Shout Out}}s and can also be found on the RearWindowHomage page.
* Creator/BrianDePalma's ''Film/{{Sisters|1973}}'' is in part an [[RearWindowHomage homage]] to ''Film/RearWindow''. The variation is that the suspect is female rather than male, and the character snooping in her apartment is male. Interestingly, each character has an opposite-gender accomplice.
* Another gender-inverted example is ''Film/BlueVelvet'', where a (male) college student snoops around the apartment of a local woman who he believes is connected to a string of murders.

* OlderThanRadio: Occurs in Creator/JaneAusten's ''Literature/NorthangerAbbey'' where after reading too many Gothic novels, the heroine begins to mistrust her host General Tilney and suspect him of murdering his wife years before. This novel actually predates ''Film/RearWindow'' by almost two centuries.

* The ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk, Private Eye" contains a unique version of this trope, in which Monk sneaks on to Jay Bennett's yacht and is promptly stowed away.
* Done ''ad nauseum'' in ''Series/{{Psych}}'', wherein Shawn has ended up stowed on a boat, caught sneaking around various facilities (including a Seaworld-like park after-hours), and too many others to count. The sheer number of times he has snuck into someone's property means that, statistically, he should still be paying fines/jailtime for breaking and entering in 2099.

[[folder:Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': parodied in the episode "Crimes and Meg's Demeanor", where Brian(who has a broken leg) watches the neighbors through his binoculars and saw Principal Shepherd drags a trash bag leaking out red liquid thinks that he killed his wife. Turns out his wife moved out and the red liquid was from the canned food he stole from the high school to make ends meet.

* ''WesternAnimation/Family Guy'': parodied in the episode "Crimes and Meg's Demeanor", where Brian
(who has a broken leg) watches the neighbors through his binoculars and saw Principal Shepherd drags a trash bag leaking out red liquid thinks that he killed his wife. Turns out his wife moved out and the red liquid was from the canned food he stole from the high school to make ends meet.