History Main / ToTheBatpole

* TimBurton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'' movie has a staircase (the entrance to which is not seen). ''Batman Returns'' has a chute disguised inside an iron maiden (although Alfred still takes the stairs). In ''Batman Forever'', there's an electromagnetic capsule that travels at hundreds of miles per hour down a tube leading to the Batcave from Bruce's office at Wayne Enterprises. The entrance to the staircase is also finally revealed - [[spoiler:a rotating shelf inside the locked silver closet.]]

* DespicableMe. To go into his underground base, Gru gets shifted across the room in a chair, eaten by a cannon which flips around on struts (and apparently dresses him in a suit as well). Then half the floor lifts and the cannon is put on a platform which descends into the ground.

* ''{{Dangermouse}}'''s couch doubled as an express elevator down to his car. Despite taking the ride nearly every episode, Penfold never got used to it.

** ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'' didn't do this with the rangers themselves; however, all of their humanoid Zords that season (the Super Zeo Zord, Red Battlezord, and Warrior Wheel,) all entered the battle by being [[AbnormalAmmo shot out of a cannon.]]

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** The same trope was reused in reverse for ''CaptainScarlet'', whose fighter pilots' chairs rose through the deck of a flying aircraft carrier to enter their planes.

* The Batpoles are parodied in ''TheBurkissWay'':
-->'''Batman''': Quick, [[IncrediblyLamePun Bay Window]] - to the Batpoles!
-->'''Robin''': Uh, Batman, wouldn't it be quicker to just ''walk'' upstairs?

* As for Alfred, he uses a service elevator instead.

* Franchise/WallaceAndGromit has some direct references to Gerry Anderson and ''{{Thunderbirds}}''.

** The Andersons' top example was the famous "rotating walls and furniture" that took the Tracys from the house to the hangars in ''{{Thunderbirds}}''. It was this show from which the StockFootage in Japanese SuperRobot anime was derived. This was retained for the live-action ''Thunderbirds'' film, which also featured them changing into uniform as they flew down the chutes.

* This is parodied in ''CyanideAndHappiness'' when a superhero hears a woman being mugged cry for help, he runs to a phone booth, which drops him into a cave, he then gets into his car, drives three feet, then jumps out in order to fly to the crime. In the time it took him to do this the woman was raped and murdered.

* There is inexplicably a fire pole in the Harmonia Gardens restaurant in ''Theater/HelloDolly''.

* There is inexplicably a fire pole in the Harmonia Gardens restaurant in ''Film/HelloDolly''.

* Usually averted in ''{{Emergency}}'' with LACFD Station 51 being a one storey building, but occasionally the paramedics pull duty in older multi-floor stations which have firepoles.

* In ''CodeLyoko'', reaching the HackerCave where the [[strike:real]] virtual action start involves skateboarding through a [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer sewer]], rappelling down ropes in an abandoned factory, taking an elevator locked by impressive blast doors... and finally being dematerialized in [[AppliedPhlebotinum high-tech scanners]] with the obligatory {{Invocation}}. It certainly fits.

* Ralph Wolf had an Acme-engineered device that propelled him out of bed, through a shower, feeding him breakfast, and out the door, to clock into work just ahead of Sam Sheepdog.
* The ''TotallySpies'' are warped to WOOHP by a trapdoor magically appearing wherever they are.

* The FiveManBand of ''GoLion'' had to slide down ziplines and then be ferried around ''the entire planet'' via a series of underground tubes to get in their cat-shaped super space cars. You'd think Prince Sincline and his Deathblack Beastmen would do a lot more damage, just accounting for travel time.

** TK and Kari's shoes do change, however -- from their indoor "school shoes" to their "outside" shoes.

* The ''SamuraiPizzaCats'' had a bank of ovens that slid up to reveal three chutes, down which Speedy, Polly, and Guido would slide down, changing into their battle armor along the way before being shipped up to the (hilariously badly-concealed) giant cannon in the building that would launch them into battle.
** It's far more hilarious in the original version, ''Kyatto Ninden Teyandee'', in which the Pizza Cats were ''[[HighlyVisibleNinja ninja]]'' [[HighlyVisibleNinja being fired out of a badly-concealed giant cannon.]] The FacelessMasses were [[TooDumbToLive none the wiser]].
* The dub of ''MonColleKnights'' used its suit-up chute sequence as a short voiceovered skit.
** Oddly, only the children got the clothes changing chutes and the trapeze they used to flip into the cockpit. The man who built the thing enters the ship by running into the bathroom, slamming into a wall at high speed, and then falling several feet into his chair. He never fixes this.

** However, some jurisdictions have made a point of phasing firepoles as unsafe such as removing them from stations and/or building one storey stations such as how ''{{Emergency}}'''s Station 51 is designed.

* ''StarCraftII'' shows Tychus Findlay's [[SpaceMarine marine]] armor being built onto him, complete with welding the seams, in the opening cinematic. How the other characters, who are not sealed in, get into their suits is not shown. One might imagine it's similar.

* In the 2008 movie adaptation of ''IronMan'', Tony Stark had him suit up in his CoolGarage with the assistance of mechanized arms reminiscent of a car factory to put on each piece.

* TimBurton's ''Batman'' movie has a staircase (the entrance to which is not seen). ''Batman Returns'' has a chute disguised inside an iron maiden (although Alfred still takes the stairs). In ''Batman Forever'', there's an electromagnetic capsule that travels at hundreds of miles per hour down a tube leading to the Batcave from Bruce's office at Wayne Enterprises. The entrance to the staircase is also finally revealed - [[spoiler:a rotating shelf inside the locked silver closet.]]

* The ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' (see note at ''TheRealGhostbusters'') would run into the "Skelevator", which would take them into another dimension full of conveyor belts and other gadgetry (skeleton- and bone-themed, naturally) that would change them into their uniforms and deposit them into the Ghostbuggy. And it did all this with a ''really'' trippy background.