Line #44 Main/RearWindowHomage


1	%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
5	%%
6	%%
7	%% Image selected per Image PIckin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17143457080.89250400
8	%% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.
9	%%
10	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1000009590.jpg]]
11	[[caption-width-right:350:I spy, with my suspicious eye, a parody of me.\
12	[[labelnote:Clockwise from top left]]''Film/RearWindow'', ''Series/{{Castle}}'', ''WesternAnimation/ThePigWhoCriedWerewolf'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''[[/labelnote]]]]
13	%%
14	%%
15	%% Caption selected per most recent IP thread. Please don't change or remove without approval from here:
16	%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900
17	%%
18
19	->'''Mr. Golovkin:''' Are you guys bored and doing a ''Rear Window''?\
20	'''Moon:''' A what?\
21	'''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.
22	-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatNorth'', "[[Recap/TheGreatNorthS3E11ArrangerousMindsAdventure Arranger-ous Minds Adventure]]"
23
24	A commonly recurring {{Homage}}.
25
26	In this homage, the setup is clearly derived from Creator/AlfredHitchcock's film ''Film/RearWindow'' to varying degrees. Expect an injured or otherwise hobbled protagonist stuck in their own room conducting a criminal investigation from a fixed vantage point. The injured protagonist — like Creator/JimmyStewart's Jeff Jeffries — is probably male, while the eager assistant — like Creator/GraceKelly's Lisa Fremont — is far less physically imposing, inexperienced with confrontation, and probably female.
27
28	The climax of a Rear Window Homage will almost certainly involve the inexperienced partner getting caught by the suspected criminal in the middle of an attempted RearWindowInvestigation. When the canon in question is pure comedy, the suspected crime is often vastly more serious than the real explanation; when the canon is more dramatic than comedic, however, expect to see the injured RearWindowWitness having to engage in a physical altercation despite their injury.
29
30	Tropes shared by the Rear Window Homage and ''Film/RearWindow'' itself include WindowWatcher, TheStakeout, ExploringTheEvilLair, and, of course, RearWindowWitness and RearWindowInvestigation. At some point, the protagonist will probably find themselves spouting CassandraTruth or promising the authorities ItWasHereISwear If the investigator ''isn't'' an AmateurSleuth, it's a case of BusmansHoliday. Can be used to provide the plot for a BottleEpisode. Occasionally a show will go [[ParodyEpisode out of its way]] to do an AffectionateParody.
31
32	----
33
34	!!Examples
35
36	[[foldercontrol]]
37
38	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
39	* Done in a Film/SyFyChannelOriginalMovie of all places, namely ''Film/{{Abominable}}'' where a wheelchair bound man watches and tries to warn a group of women under attack next door… though here the attacker happens to be Sasquatch.
40	* ''Film/{{Disturbia}}'' substitutes Stewart's broken leg for Kale's ankle monitor.
41	* The LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek is notorious for wholesale borrowing of plot elements from Hitchcock, so naturally Creator/{{Lifetime}} has done its own WholePlotReference to ''Rear Window'', called ''Film/StalkedByMyNeighbor'', about a teen girl who moves with her mother to the suburbs after suffering a home invasion assault in the city, and the girl keeps tabs on her new neighbors from her bedroom window with a digital camera. Eventually a neighbor is murdered and she suspects another neighbor of being the culprit. Bonus points for the ''victim'' being named Lisa.
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Literature]]
45	* ''Literature/PointHorror'' novel ''Literature/TheWindow'': A young woman accompanies her friends on a ski trip and ends up spraining her ankle. Stranded in her room and bored, she begins spying on the other cabins with a pair of binoculars. Sure enough, she witnesses a murder and the killer him/herself, though she can't tell who it is — it quickly doubles as a LockedRoomMystery when she realizes it has to be one of the friends she's traveling with — and ends up playing a nail-biting cat-and-mouse game trying to figure out exactly who it is without tipping them off.
46	* ''Literature/TheWomanInTheWindow2018'' by A.J. Finn is pretty much ''Film/RearWindow'' meets ''Film/{{The Girl on the Train}}.'' The story is about an agoraphobic alcoholic woman who thinks she sees a murder across the street.
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
50	* The ''Series/TwoPointFourChildren'' episode "Curiosity Killed the Cat" had Bill in bed with flu, watching Rhoda through a telescope and becoming convinced she'd killed her boyfriend. (She hadn't.) It even included a brief shot of a Hitchcock lookalike walking past Rhoda's door.
51	* Was also done in ''Series/{{Alf}}'', of course with Mr. Ochmonek as being the neighbor whom ALF suspects to have murdered his wife.
52	* ''Series/Castle2009'' did a Rear Window Homage called "The Lives of Others" for their 100th episode. This is especially notable, as [[spoiler: the situation was set up in-universe as a birthday present to give an injured Castle a fun mystery to work through while he recovered.]]
53	* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'s'' season 6 episode "Point of View" finds Det. Mac Taylor cooped up at home with his leg propped up due to being injured while pursuing a suspect. He passes the time watching his neighbors in the apartment building across the way and notices suspicious activity, which turns out to be connected to a murder case his team is working on back at the lab.
54	* Fraser from ''Series/DueSouth'' discovers a hospital conspiracy while recuperating from getting shot in the back. He's assisted by his attractive physical therapist, a Grace Kelly look-alike.
55	* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "[[Recap/FatherBrownS2E6 The Daughters of Jerusalem]]", Father Brown is laid up with a broken leg and solves the murders from his bedroom, with Mrs. [=McCarthy=], Lady Felicia and Sid doing his legwork for him.
56	* ''Series/GetSmart'': In the episode "Greer Window" Max is recovering from an injury at home when he spies some spies in the building next door stealing secret papers. 99 is sent to investigate.
57	* ''Series/{{Leverage}}''. A season 5 episode titled "The Broken Wing Job" finds Parker laid up with a torn ACL, watching the patrons of the brew pub on the security cameras, when she finds that two of them are planning what appears to be a heist. She recruits one of the pub's waitresses to help her stop it.
58	* A version of this trope occurs in ''Series/MikeAndMolly'', where Molly and her mother spy on their neighbor after believing that he had killed his wife who they had not seen in some time.[[spoiler: He didn't. She had been dead of natural causes for over a year. Molly and her mother just never noticed.]]
59	* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever" has this where Monk, Natalie and Stottlemeyer are in a witness protection cabin after Monk witnessed a gang murder. On their first night, Monk hears screaming and sees the lights flickering in the cabin across the lake, which belongs to a local fisherman and his wife. Monk is convinced that the wife killed her husband, and the three of them are seen spending the next day spying on her with binoculars as she carries bag after bag of ice into the house. Monk is also made suspicious because she's listening to country music, even though her husband wouldn't let her play it in the house. To test his theory, Stottlemeyer calls up the cabin and claims to be asking for the victim, the wife claims he's on the lake fishing...while his boat is clearly still docked, which more or less seals the deal.
60	* The ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Mrs Crabtree's Neighbourhood" has Effie Crabtree break her leg hanging windchimes, and begin noticing strange activity by her neighbour, including that he buried something in the back yard. Murdoch and Julia are sympathetic, but the fact she's a bit loopy from the morphine doesn't exactly help her case.
61	* ''Series/NotGoingOut'': In "Front Window", Lee has had a knee operation and is confined to the house, so he spies on his neighbors. HilarityEnsues when he believes that one of the neighbors has killed a local cat who has gone missing.
62	* When Reese from ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' gets shot in the leg and abdomen, he doesn't get time off: he gets installed in a Manhattan apartment complex and tasked with monitoring his neighbors. He's assisted by Finch, who, while decidedly less attractive than Grace Kelly, fills the inexperienced-and-nonthreatening role perfectly. The final confrontation even features a [[spoiler: crutch duel]]. Also, no murder takes place, as Finch and Reese are only there because a violent crime has been ''predicted'' to occur around one of the neighbors.
63	* ''Series/RaisingHope'' has "Murder, She Hoped," which came complete with faithful reproductions of some of Grace Kelly's more memorable outfits.
64	* ''Series/SquareOneTV'': ''Mathnet'', already a spoof of ''{{Franchise/Dragnet}}'', has an episode called "The View From the Rear Terrace" in which Kate Monday injures her knee and becomes convinced her neighbor is building a bomb. Her partner George is busy with a case involving an anti-bank prankster, but still finds time to disprove her allegations, leading to an unintentional case of CryingWolf when the neighbor finally ''does'' build a bomb. In the end it turns out the two of them were WorkingTheSameCase.
65	* ''Series/That70sShow'' had a Halloween episode with various subplots drawn from ''Rear Window'', ''Film/{{Vertigo}}'', ''Film/NorthByNorthwest'', ''Film/{{Psycho}}'', and ''Film/TheBirds'', all Hitchcock films. In the Rear Window subplot, Fez falls off a roof and ends up in a wheelchair, spying on the Pinciottis. Hyde performs the inevitable RearWindowInvestigation.
66	[[/folder]]
67
68	[[folder:Music Video]]
69	* The video for the Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}}' song, "Neighbours" is this, including an apparent murder taking place in one of the windows.
70	[[/folder]]
71
72	[[folder:Video Games]]
73	* ''VideoGame/ZombiesRun'': In the spin-off audio play "Zombies, Run! The Way of All Flesh," Chris Mcshell plays the injured (blinded) investigator and Jody Marsh plays the eager assistant.
74	[[/folder]]
75
76	[[folder:Western Animation]]
77	* ''WesternAnimation/TheDayMyButtWentPsycho'': The episode "Cheer Window" is this, with Elanor as L. B. Jeffries, cheerleader Chelsea as Lars Thorwald, and Zack and Deuce as Lisa Carol Fremont and Stella, respectively. [[spoiler: However, instead of Chelsea being wrongfully accused by Elanor of murdering someone, she's wrongfully accused of helping the Great White Butt take over Mabletown. [[VillainsOutShopping He just wants to learn cheerleading.]]]]
78	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In one episode, Brian (who moved out of the Griffin household in a previous episode) looks out his window and thinks he sees Principal Shepherd disposing of his wife's body; things follow along the traditional RearWindowHomage path from there.
79	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'': "Alvin Brickrock Presents" is all about Fred and Barney spying on their new neighbor, [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Alvin Brickrock]], whose wife they believe has been stuffed in a trunk. [[spoiler:She's not in the trunk — after explaining to the Flintstones how everything they considered evidence for a murder was just a comedy of coincidental errors, Brickrock [[BreakingTheFourthWall turns to the audience]] and heavily implies that he fed his wife to his man-eating bird.]]
80	* ''WesternAnimation/HeathcliffAndTheCatillacCats'' has "Rear Cat Window," in which Heathcliff breaks his leg and witnesses what he believes is the dognapping of neighbor dog Spike.
81	* ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies'': In the episode "Definite Possible Murder," Brendon is laid up with a leg injury. He spies on his new neighbor, Raymond Burley, a man who might possibly be involved in some questionably suspicious behavior.
82	* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': "Ed's Dead" features Rocko spying on the Bigheads from his window and becoming convinced that Beverly killed her husband. Just in case anyone is confused about what it's based on, the opening has Heffer doing an impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock.
83	* ''WesternAnimation/RubyGloom'' gives us "Poe-Ranoia", where Poe the Raven sprains his leg and is placed in a wheelchair. However, his incessant demands force the characters to place him in Skull Boy's room with only a window to the house next door, a telescope, and a simple communication system. From there, Poe sees a new neighbor moving in and believes that he has numerous instruments of torture and murder. [[spoiler:It turns out that the new neighbor's devices are actually amusement park rides!]]
84	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E1BartOfDarkness "Bart of Darkness,"]] Bart breaks his leg, holes up in his room, and, after spying on his neighbors with a telescope, becomes convinced that Ned Flanders has murdered his wife. One of the things Bart sees through his rear window is Jimmy Stewart with a broken leg, looking out of ''his'' rear window, paranoid that the boy is coming after ''him''.
85	* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'':
86	** In the short, "Rear Window Pain" (part of "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E33PsychicFunOmenonDay Psychic Fun-Omenon Day]]"), Plucky breaks his leg, and Babs gives him a pair of binoculars as a present. Plucky uses the binoculars to spy on unsuspecting citizens. When he sees Elmer Fudd growing eggplants and talking to them as if they were his children, he thinks Elmer is making clones of himself. It later turned out that he was making eggplants for an eggplant-parmesan recipe, and he was planning to give some to his neighbors. [[spoiler:At the end of the short, Elmer complains about Plucky accusing him of cloning, believing it to be impossible. When he isn't looking, his eggplants turn into purple-colored Elmer clones, who say, "He don't know us vewy well, do he?".]]
87	** In the episode, "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS3E13GrandmasDead Grandma's Dead]]," Duncan Duff, Elmyra's younger brother, is sick and has to stay home from school. To pass the time, he watches a parody of "Rear Window" on his TV, which gives him the idea to snoop on his neighbors. Thanks to some shenanigans with Elmyra's hamster, Duncan comes to believe that his grandmother has been offed by Mr. Bump. [[spoiler:Grandma isn't even dead in the first place.]]
88	[[/folder]]
89

Context Main / RearWindowHomage