Rocket Ride



"Riding on a rocket, I wanna go to Pluto..."

- Shonen Knife, "Riding on a Rocket"

Speculative Fiction's answer to the Flying Broomstick, in which a character rides on a rocket.

Not to be confused with Riding the Bomb, as this trope involves flying and being able to navigate the projectile rather than just having it fall.

Like Roxy shows us to the right, there are many Freudian implications to using this... "Crotch Rocket"...

Also comes in the form of a Rocket Bike, without wheels.

Anime and Manga

 * The opening credits of Paprika
 * The Rocket Bikes in the sewer in Akira.
 * One of the last episodes of Grenadier has Touka riding a missile.
 * In Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen, Juzo Kabuto rides a Rocket Punch to snap Kouji out of a Heroic BSOD.
 * One episode of the upcoming Halo anime miniseries Halo Legends features Spartans riding Booster Frames.

Comic Books

 * The Green Goblin's initial introduction in Spider-Man has him riding a rocket powered broomstick before upgrading to his famed Goblin Glider
 * The Penguin has ridden on a number of rocket powered Umbrellas in the Batman comics. They are referred to as "Umbrella Jet Packs" in Batman: The Movie.
 * Leni "Sky Witch" Muller from Top Ten rode a rocket powered broomstick.
 * Not to mention Stefan "Saddles" Graczik, who rode a rocket powered saddle.
 * A cretin rides a rocket to Russia on the back cover of the Ramones album, err, "Rocket to Russia"

Film

 * The Speeder Bikes of Star Wars fame, as seen in Return of the Jedi and Attack of the Clones.

Literature

 * Rocket-powered rideable craft much like broomsticks are used in asteroid mining in The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein.
 * At least one Star Wars book took a speeder bike and turned it Up to Eleven, welding the controls of a bike to a PODRACER engine. Han commented it must shake considerably when it breaks the sound barrier. The owner answered that it did. He later experienced it first hand.

Live-Action TV

 * Power Rangers Mystic Force had Mystic Racers. Like other examples mentioned here, they're high-tech versions of the Flying Broomstick (well, they're wizard Rangers - what else would they ride?).
 * The Adventures of Brisco County Jr: In order to catch up with some bad guys on a speedingtrain, Brisco rides a prototype rocket which he has mounted on the train tracks and uses his saddle to stay on.

Music

 * Edguy has album Rocket Ride. Three guesses as to the cover art.

Tabletop Games

 * The Eldar and Dark Eldar have some pretty cool jetbikes in Warhammer 40k

Video Games

 * Vultures in StarCraft are of the "Rocket Bike" variety. They're apparently a lot smaller then their unit appearance suggests.
 * Dante from Devil May Cry 3 plays this for laughs, sort of, by jumping on Lady's rocket and riding it like a surfboard.
 * The jetbikes from Warhammer 40,000
 * Hikaru and Akane from the Parodius series.
 * Wizpig does this in Diddy Kong Racing, in the second race against him.
 * Jet Moto
 * If you're very, very, very lucky, you can get one in World of Warcraft. They're rewards from the TCG.
 * You can also get one from getting someone else to join the game, and there are several in-game rides to be had. There's the Rocketway in Azshara, The Uncrashable that carries one from Light's Hope Chapel to Fuselight Landing, and the taxi mount departing from Cliffwalker Post in the Stonetalon Mountains.
 * Earthworm Jim did this in a few games
 * The (Bonne family) train boss, the Gemeinschaft, in Mega Man Legends 2 launches Servbots riding Missiles. To defeat the boss, you must throw these missiles back at it.. It comes across as cute and hilarious, especially thanks to the facial expressions of the servbots.
 * Contra III's 4th boss involves riding a Macross Missile Massacre while disabling the boss's anti aircraft weaponry and shields. This fight is a Rule of Cool and takes Refuge in Audacity.
 * Shattered Soldier had Mooks riding missiles in the second stage. And in the fourth stage, you ride one again.
 * All vehicles in Jak II are jet bikes, and can be jacked in midair. Doing this to the Krimzon Guard brings down the wrath of the Demonic Spiders and is best avoided.
 * At the end of Just Cause 2,
 * This comes up a few times in Rayman 2. The first few rockets you get to ride have legs, but in the final level you get to actually fly one. It is very difficult.
 * In Action 52, main character and some enemies in Rocket Jockey ride on a rocket.
 * It happens in both NES and Wii versions of A Boy and His Blob to reach Blob's home planet and to navigate the levels.
 * The last non-boss level of Donkey Kong Country 3. Also a frequent form of Auto-Scrolling Level on Donkey Kong Country Returns.
 * In Donkey Kong 64, there are two missions involving Diddy Kong using his rocketbarrel to pass through a series of rings. They're quite hard, but at least the rocket's magical fuel (Crystal Coconuts) is unlimited in these cases.

Web Comics

 * Schlock Mercenary had two DoytHabans doing this here. Of course, the missile isn't there to fly around, it just carries a drive that can 'port everyone back to its ship.

Western Animation

 * Roxy Rocket (pictured above) from Batman the Animated Series
 * Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner once put handlebars on a jet engine to catch the Roadrunner. It all turned out as well as you might expect.
 * Baloo from Tale Spin flies a jet engine in "Mach One for the Gipper". (Literally just the jet engine.)

Other Media

 * Huntsville is awesome. http://torsoboyprints.deviantart.com/art/PRINT-von-Braun-102883305

Real Life

 * The Me 163 Komet and Ba 349 Natter probably count.
 * The Ohka is either this or Riding the Bomb.