History Main / SeniorSleepCycle

...zzz...what the? The Trope's over already?? Aw nuts.

Huh? Wha? Oh, right. There are some elders who can escape this inconvenience. EvilOldFolks tend to be exempt from this rule. Maybe they just [[MustHaveCaffeine drink a lot of coffee]]. Needless to say, this is an [[{{Elders}} Elderly Trope]]. It is also more likely to appear in a {{comedy|Trope}}.

If you see a senior citizen in a TV show, most likely, he's either already napping or going to be in a few minutes. And, due to FinaglesLaw, it will always be right when he's supposed to be keeping an eye, on something, or about [[Main/SelfDemonstratingArticle to ...]]

Huh? Wha? Oh, right. There are some elders who can escape this inconvenience. EvilOldFolks tend to be exempt from this rule, as are women in general. Maybe they just [[MustHaveCaffeine drink a lot of coffee]]. Needless to say, this is an [[{{Elders}} Elderly Trope]]. It is also more likely to appear in a {{comedy|Trope}}.

%% * Happens in ''{{WesternAnimation/SpongeBob SquarePants}}'' with Mermaid Man.

* In the ''Animation/SimpleSamosa'' episode "Moong Fu Samosa", Samosa trains under an elderly, wheelchair-bound master in a martial art called moong fu. Said elder cycles between being awake for six hours and then sleeping for another six hours. The master tries twice to tell Samosa the fifth and most important rule of moong fu, but both times he goes to sleep before he can.

If you see a senior citizen in a TV show, most likely, he's either already napping or going to be in a few minutes. And, due to FinaglesLaw, it will always be right when he's supposed to be keeping an eye, on something, or about to ...
tell

...

...

you

...

zzz

...

** When he leaves in "[[Recap/RugratsS3E4GrandpaMovesOutTheLegendOfSatchmo Grandpa Moves Out]]", the family visits him at the retirement home. Tommy and Angelica are watched over by the surrogate grandmother. She shows pictures of her grandchildren while listing the names of the seven dwarfs. When she can't remember the name of the last one, and Angelica suggests "Sleepy", she says she could use a nap and instantly falls asleep. Angelica also believes that the seniors went to a "Tired Center" because they're all too tired to play with their grandchildren, and she and Tommy get the idea to wake up all the seniors.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Averted with [[OldMaster Ser Barristan Selmy]] who recalls how as a young squire he'd stumble still yawning onto the training ground every morning, whereas now he hardly need much sleep, though he doesn't regard this as a good thing.

* Crux from ''Manga/FairyTail''. However he can also use "sleep" to gather up information about other Celestial Spirits.

* The wise old man in ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', much to the chagrin of his hat.

* Ellen from ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon64'' has this generally, and it's also notably subverted once, [[spoiler:[[TearJerker when she dies]]]].

* Professor Binns from the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' series is portrayed to have this in the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor adaptation of ''LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4''.

* Old Joe of ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' is prone to nodding off in his chair when he's not giving you mission briefings; on top of being quite elderly, he's also in the middle of an island-wide ZombieApocalypse, and he's taking as many opportunities to sleep as possible.

* On ''{{WesternAnimation/Arthur}}'', Grandma Thora averts this, but Grandpa Dave plays it straight.
* Happens in ''{{WesternAnimation/SpongeBob SquarePants}}'' with Mermaid Man.
* Professor Farnsworth in ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' once fell asleep while skiing and woke up at the lodge with a bronze medal around his neck.

* Cohort of the Ministry of Pain in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' in the midst of a bank heist.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' has Elderly!Numbuh 2 in the final episode, Operation INTERVIEWS. In the Live-Action segments, despite not looking like a year over his 50's, he's almost always falling asleep, and is shown to have become somewhat senile with age.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' has Steve [[ItMakesSenseInContext age up to an eighty year old due to an experimental CIA serum]]. Despite this, he still tries - and fails - to go on a date with the AlphaBitch of the school, who had given his teenage self a chance. At the diner, she leaves him in disgust as said old man, and, in the midst of protesting, he falls asleep mid-sentence. Shortly thereafter, another elder walks by and gleefully declares, "They brought back the old napping booth!" She proceeds to sit down and fall asleep as well.

* Professor Binns from the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' series is portrayed to have this in the GameBoy color adaptation of ''LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4''.

* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Rugrats}}'', whenever Grandpa Lou is put in charge of the babies, he is always asleep within a matter of seconds, a fact that the babies always use to their advantage. TheMovie hints that age has nothing to do with this however and that he's been this way his whole life (likely alluding to narcolepsy). Didi mentions that he slept through [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Pearl Harbor]].
** When he leaves in "Grandpa Moves Out", the family visits him at the retirement home. Tommy and Angelica are watched over by the surrogate grandmother. She shows pictures of her grandchildren while listing the name of the seven dwarfs. When she can't remember the name of the last one, Angelica suggests "Sleepy"; she says she could use a nap and instantly falls asleep.

* According to the DVD commentary for Film/NationalLampoonsChristmasVacation, the grandparents had a side bet going during filming as to who could appear asleep on screen most often.

In real life, several studies have suggested that people actually need ''less'' sleep as they grow older; and the portrayal of this trope in media matches the symptoms of narcolepsy, a neurological disorder unrelated to age. [[TruthInTelevision However, older people often tend to go to sleep earlier than younger adults]], and since the elderly are usually retired, they generally have nothing in their schedule to prevent them from napping whenever they feel like it. Furthermore, some sleep disorders can cause daytime dozing, such as sleep apnea and insomnia, are more likely to gradually develop over the course of a lifetime.

* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Rugrats}}'', whenever Grandpa Lou is put in charge of the babies, he is always asleep within a matter of seconds, a fact that the babies always use to their advantage. TheMovie hints that age has nothing to do with this however and that he's been this way his whole life. Didi mentions that he slept through [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Pearl Harbor]].

* There are sleeping old men in some of the apartments in the first ''MaxPayne'' sequel. They're heavy sleepers, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO9ZZhCxtic this]] video demonstrates.

* The Old Man at the End of Time in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' ([[spoiler:aka Gaspar, the Guru of Time]]), has almost always fallen asleep against a streetlamp when the heroes visit him, and has to be woken up to start a conversation. Then again, being at [[PhantomZone the End of Time]] doesn't usually give him very much to do.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', [[BadassGrandpa Gehrman]] took it UpToEleven and slept for... a week? A year? A decade? '''''[[FridgeHorror God knows how long he's been dreaming?]]''''' [[spoiler: It was justified however, he's been stuck in his own dream unwillingly after all.]]

* Granny Smith of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' seems to doze off easily. In "Luna Eclipsed," when she takes some fillies out Trick-or-Treating, she states that she should have been asleep five hours ago.

* In ''AreYouBeingServed'', here is [[RunningGag the only way]] to wake up a sleeping Mr. Grainger: