Smoking is hazardous to your health.
A Sub-Trope of Disney Villain Death in which a character not only falls to their death, but falls into a smokestack (or other large chimney). This has the advantage of indicating that a character is most definitely dead, especially if there is smoke belching out of the chimney at the time, without having to show any grisly details.
Of course, in some media, this could be a way of setting up a No One Could Survive That! situation.
Contrast Chimney Entry, where a chimney is used to deliberately gain entry to a building. Compare Death Flight. Sister Trope to Stuck in a Chimney.
Examples
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Comic Books
- The Batman Adventures: In the one-shot Mad Love graphic novel, a punch from Batman during their Traintop Battle sends the Joker tumbling from the roof of the train and down a smokestack. This story was later adapted into an episode of The New Batman Adventures (see below), and this image currently adorns the Joker Immunity page.
- Hawkeye: In the 1983 miniseries, Professional Killer the Silencer fights Hawkeye aboard his Skycycle, and the two wind up atop a smokestack. Hawkeye seems to fall into the smokestack to his death but climbs back out, catches the Silencer by surprise, and throws him down the smokestack.
Comic Strips
- Dick Tracy: Ugly Christine was the first member of Mr. Bribery's gang taken into custody. Despite the efforts of Lizz and Tracy, Ugly Christine committed suicide by throwing herself from a magnetic Air Car and was burned to death in a fiery chimney. The melted remnants of her handcuffs were all that was recovered of her.
Film — Animated
- Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders: In the film's climax, Catwoman is faced with the possibility of being sent back to prison. Instead, she opts to leap off a blimp and into a factory smokestack.
- The Big Bad of The Triplets of Belleville is run off a bridge by an orthopaedic shoe and falls straight in to the chimney stack of a passing cruise liner.
Film — Live Action
- In The Teaser to For Your Eyes Only, Bond uses a helicopter to drop the bald Evil Cripple (implied to be Blofeld) and his wheelchair down a smokestack.
- In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Nuclear Man is thrown down the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant.
Live-Action TV
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: In the episode "Stranger," a young woman impersonates a girl who went missing several years earlier. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the missing girl's sister knew the imposter was a fake all along because she had killed her sister the day she disappeared by shoving her down a large chimney stack. In the final scene, the sister forces the imposter to go to the roof with her and tries to force her to climb up to the top of the stack, claiming she wants to show her "proof" of what really happened, but the imposter clearly recognizes that the sister intends to kill her too. Fortunately, the detectives arrive in time to avert another murder.
Video Games
- Smile for Me: If the player chooses to punch Dr. Habit twice upon their confrontation with him, Dr. Habit will hang in the air for a few seconds, say "Good Night, Flower Hero.", and fall into Martha's chimney. A couple seconds later, a large cloud of black fumes will billow up.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series: In "Mad Love", Batman and the Joker are fighting on top of a moving train. As the Joker finally pulls out a knife, Batman delivers such a fierce uppercut that it sends Joker flying off the train and falling, screaming, down a smokestack. Batman stands silently on the roof of the train, knowing all too well the Joker will be back.
- In the The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "The Terrible Trolley Trap," Pockets produces a trampoline for the mob to hold over the ship's smokestack in the hopes of catching Penelope. They catch the streetcar instead and end up falling into the smokestack.
