Misused: Bear Trap Bed

Bear Trap Bed is a subtrope of Murphy's Bed that only concerns freestanding folding beds and perhaps camp cots. Murphy's Bed is supposed to cover all other beds and chairs that malfunction and injure their occupants, whether true Murphy Beds (one that folds up or into a wall), hammocks, lawn chairs, futons, sofa beds, etc. And yet despite the fact that both BTB and MB have their distinctions definitions on both pages as well as links to each other, we're still getting misplaced examples. I suggest a merge.

Current list of examples on the pages, along with their categories:

Murphy's Bed (Comedic):

• True Murphy/Wall Beds: Tintin, Wallace and Gromit, Great Muppet Caper, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Silent Movie, The Night They Raided Minskys (I think), The Fifth Element, Are You Being Served, My Name is Earl, Allo Allo (I think), Cheers, Home Improvement, Suite Life of Zack and Cody (example needs to be rewritten, generally "pull-out bed" means a sofa/hide-a-bed), 2 Broke Girls (I think), The Sims 2, The Curse of Monkey Island, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, Classic Disney Shorts (1st), The Venture Bros.
• Hammocks: Calvin and Hobbes, Three's Company, Mama's Family, The Simpsons (2nd), Classic Disney Shorts (2nd), Tom and Jerry
• Bunk Beds: Anastasia, Chicken Run, The Three Stooges, Black Sheep/Step Brothers, The Great Escape, Lilo and Stitch,
• Sofa/Hide-a-bed: The Beverly Hillbillies, The Simpsons (1st)
• Lawnchairs: Classic Disney Shorts (3rd), Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Ed Edd n Eddy, Cow and Chicken
• Examples that don't seem to fit and must be reevaluated or else don't have enough details: Bag Enders, Matt Helm, The Muppet Show, Brawl in the Family, Robot Chicken
• Folding Beds and Cots: Lolita, Goblin Hollow
• Misc.: Love, American Style (needs expansion), Modest Medusa (needs to be removed)

Murphy's Bed (Serious):

• True Murphy/Wall Beds: James Bond (X2), Ellery Queen, 1000 Ways to Die
• Bunk Beds: Willie Collins
• Sofa Beds: Russian Woman
• Bear Trap Beds (folding beds): Freddy vs. Jason (I think)
• Examples that don't seem to fit and must be reevaluated or else don't have enough details: Friday the 13th, Adventures of Pete and Pete, Nobilis
• Misc.: Procustes (This isn't an example, the problem isn't with the bed)

Bear Trap Bed:

• Correct usages of Bear Trap Bed: The Naked Gun, Spy Hard, The Wrong Guys, Lolita, Tintin, Classic Cartoons, The Jetsons (albeit an exaggeration), Fairly Oddparents, Freddy vs. Jason, My Name is Earl, St. Elsewhere
• Incorrect (at least as written, unknown specific type): Mr. Hulot's Holiday
• Incorrect (really wall beds): James Bond
• Incorrect (really a cot): Discworld, Donald Duck
• Incorrect (really a lawnchair): Bloody Good Time
• Incorrect (really a sofabed): Russian man
• Incorrect (etc.): Gaston Lagaffe, I Love Lucy (he's just an idiot), The Middle (if the bed isn't opened it can't malfunction), Doctor Who
• Needs expansion and clarification: Crank Yankers, The Beverly Hillbillies, That Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Rugrats, The Wuzzles, The Simpsons, Phineas and Ferb

edited 14th Aug '17 1:00:30 PM by NateTheGreat

Fixed the tag.

I support a merge, seeing that even Murphy's Bed has a soft split between serious and non-serious examples.

While we're at it, do we need a rename for Murphy's Bed? I'm proud of the pun, but wall beds are technically only part of the examples. Would a more inclusive name for all beds and chairs that involve hinges or multiple components be better?

What would you suggest?

Do we need to expand past beds and chairs all the way to furniture? Combine and resplit the purposeful/malicious examples and the comedy examples into Fatal Furniture and Funny Flawed Furniture (or possibly Funny Furniture Failure)?

edited 31st Aug '17 6:38:26 PM by NateTheGreat

I would not expand the trope beyond beds. As it says on the page, it's the place where people feel most secure. Something like The Alleged Bed or Bed Trouble?

More input?

How about Combative Bed?

I would support merging Bear Trap Bed with Murphy's Bed. None of the suggested renames or expansions sound convincing to me, though.

Merge and keep the Murphy's Bed name or stay close... (Murphy's Law of Murphy Beds?)

Merge and keep Murphy's Bed, I think.

edited 15th Jun '18 1:44:22 PM by Redmess

Merge to Murphy's Bed.

I count 6 votes for merging into Murphy's Bed (including mine).

Make it 7.

Make it 8.

Edited by Piterpicher on Aug 24th 2018 at 4:11:16 PM

Also throwing in my support for a merge.

Is that enough votes to merge?

Help. I cannot delete the Bear Trap Bed entries on protected pages:

• Ad of Win: Archive (2010)
• Lolita

Make a request in the Locked pages thread and a mod will do it for you.

I got the Lolita page; archive pages don't get edited.

Migration of examples and cutting of Bear Trap Bed complete.