History Main / TrapDoor

* On the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", Daffy (as detective Duck Twacy) finds the Gangster's Hideout and spots a welcome mat on the front door conveniently labeled "Trap Door". Daff catches on immediately, steps to one side of the door and rings the bell, when a trap door opens up ''underneath him'' and sends him to the basement.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'' when the Joker is supervising the construction of his SupervillainLair and RealityEnsues.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheManCalledFlintstone'', the Green Goose uses one on Barney Rubble.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Tigra Tropica places an incapacitated ComicBook/SteveTrevor on a trap door above a cage full of tigers and sets things up so that if Wonder Woman attacks her Steve will be dropped as tiger food. Diana manages to lasso her and save Steve from the tiger pit, though as the fall woke him he was unsettled by the experience.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones The Man Called Flintstone]]'', the Green Goose uses one on Barney Rubble.

* ''Manga/HanaukyoMaidTeam La Verite''. In episode 5 Ikyo Suzuki uses one to send Ryuuka down the garbage chute.

* ''Anime/HanaukyoMaidTai La Verite''. In episode 5 Ikyo Suzuki uses one to send Ryuuka down the garbage chute.

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', when Bandit Keith confronts Pegasus at gunpoint (in the dub, he [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment merely points at Pegasus]]) in a last-ditch effort to get revenge. Pegasus nonchalantly opens a TrapDoor that dumps Keith into the ocean. In the manga, he uses his MacGuffin to WELD THE GUN to Keith's hand, and have Keith [[PsychicAssistedSuicide shoot himself]]. (Keith in the anime, even in the original Japanese, survives the fall.)

** Subverted in ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', when Japanese Secret Service chief -- and Bond ally -- Tiger Tanaka uses a TrapDoor with slide to bring Bond to their first face to face meeting.

* ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent stand in the Vogon airlock while klaxons sound, facing the standard giant, ominous-looking space door, waiting for it to open and [[ThrownOutTheAirlock send them to their doom]]. Nothing happens. Then a tiny and inconspicuous TrapDoor opens under them instead.

* Used as the gimmick for the game show ''Series/RussianRoulette'', where contestants are eliminated by dropping through the door they're required to stand on (although, as the show's name suggests, whether or not a contestant is eliminated is a random process). To make the gimmick's usage even more {{Anvilicious}}, there's a lever to activate the TrapDoor in front of each player, essentially forcing them to eliminate themselves in this manner. Another {{Anvilicious}} aspect was the fact that the platform was designed to look like the chamber of a revolver, with the six contestants as the "bullets".

* In ''VideoGame/LesManley in: Search for the King'', the boss will drop you down a TrapDoor if you try to steal the keys while he's watching, and you can HaveANiceDeath.

* There's a TrapDoor in Castle Oztroja that you'll find when playing ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''. It's right in front of a locked door that has a two switches in front of it. One opens the door, the other springs the trap. It changes randomly each game day. It's possible to hit the switch and run away before you fall down, but if you don't know that, this can be annoying(Or deadly, if you're low enough in level).

* Several of these send Lan and the other net-battlers from the Netopia Castle meeting room into the dungeon in ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork2''--And then another one on the roof for [[spoiler:Princess Pride]] after [[spoiler:KnightMan]] is beaten.

(''Ratchet presses a button on a remote; the chairman falls into a hole that appears below him'')

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* At the end of ''Film/{{Charade}}'', the bad guy is killed off with one, on a theater stage with sections of floor designed to open with a switch.

* ''[[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi]]'': Jabba the Hutt uses one to have Luke Skywalker drop in on his pet rancor. Unique in that you DO see that he's standing on some kind of grill, and earlier Jabba's minions made sure Luke was standing on the middle of it. C-3PO desperately tries to warn Luke about it, to no avail.

* There are two of them in ''Disney/TheEmperorsNewGroove'', both used to comedic effect. One apparently leads to a crocodile pit. The other leads to a random hole on the side of the palace.