Did the Earth Move For You, Too?

Inevitable Stock Phrase when somebody is kissing/having sex during an explosion, earthquake, or similar event. The phrase comes from Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, when the hero and his lover are describing the intensity of the sexual pleasure they had (no literal earth-moving is involved). Naturally, the phrase lent itself to much spoofing.

Advertising

 * A German advertisement for a health fund had a randy couple in the middle of a golden wheat field as all the various things around them that could injure them were pointed out. At the end of the ad, the women remarks, "Even the Earth moves," as the last thing is pointed out... a combine harvester approaching from offscreen!

Comic Books

 * German comic Rudi used this with a couple in a background gag who have sex when a real earthquake strikes.
 * X-Factor: Played straight in the Nation X oneshot. Longshot and and his ex-wife, Dazzler, have just finished having sex when he asks if she felt the ground shaking earlier. She states that was probably just her. They've just missed the entire island full of mutants taking on a giant.
 * A one-panel gag in The Cartoon History of the Universe has two large dinosaurs say this (while the main narrative discussed continental drift).
 * In The Dark Knight Strikes Again, after Wonder Woman snaps Superman out of his Heroic BSOD... the two most powerful beings go at it full-bore. There are literal earthquakes and tidal waves. When they're done, Diana actually says "Clark. The earth moved."
 * In JMS' Spider-Man run, Peter and MJ reconcile and whilst they're holding each other Doctor Doom (who was being attacked at the airport they were in) moves from underneath the rubble, prompting MJ to ask 'Did the ground just move?' and Peter to respond 'It always does'.

Film -- Animation

 * In Aladdin and the King of Thieves when the 40 Thieves crash Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding with a stampeding elephant. When the ground begins to shake, the Genie says "I thought the earth wasn't supposed to move until the honeymoon."

Film -- Live-Action

 * In True Lies, when Arnold's character and his wife embrace and kiss while a nuclear bomb goes off behind them.
 * Parodied in Chicken Run, when the lead couple embrace and kiss while a gravy explosion goes off behind them.
 * Actually, that explosion interrupted their kiss, although after seeing the resolution of it, they then proceed to do so.
 * During the underground grotto dance scene in The Addams Family Values as Morticia and Gomez finish the dance, all the champagne bottles blow their corks.
 * Oceans Thirteen. In the middle of a seduction con, no less.
 * Happened at the end of The Man Who Knew Too Little: Wallace kisses Lori while the bad guys' helicopter explodes in the background. "That felt like an explosion!"
 * Subverted in Making the Grade when "Palmer Woodrow" has a three pumps and a giggle session with "Muffy", who has been asking lots of questions which will spoil his plans. He grunts on top of her twice, rolls off and says "I hope that was good for you. Wow, there's a Red Sox game on" He gets up, puts his pants on, and tells her "By the way, I never want to see you again" as he's walking out the door. She never even changes her bored expression.
 * The Israeli movie Saint Clara: At the end, Clara (a teenage girl, a recent Russian-Jewish immigrant, with psychic abilities).
 * In the gangster spoof Johnny Dangerously, this is parodied (along with Sexy Discretion Shot): the title character and his love interest start kissing passionately, the camera pans up to some fireworks... and it cuts to another character, who looks up at the fireworks and remarks "Looks like Johnny's getting laid!"
 * When the title aliens' ship crashes in Critters, teenager April is making out with her boyfriend in a nearby barn. April feels the ground shake from the impact and remarks that "The earth moved", to which her beau (who's barely gotten to second base yet) asks: "Already...?"
 * In DOA: Dead or Alive, Christie and Max are in bed shortly after doing the deed. Suddenly, she says that the earth moved. Max, of course, takes credit, until Kasumi and Leon crash through the wall from Kasumi's room, as it is their turn to fight. Also, all fights are televised throughout the island.

Literature

 * Maximum Ride: While Max is kissing her love interest and the world begins exploding around them, she excitedly assumes "Lighs! World shifting! The magazines were right!"
 * Good Omens: during the Time of Troubles directly before the Apocalypse. Sure, the seas hadn't started boiling and the moon hadn't turned red a blood at that point, but things had definitely started. Besides, she actually said something along the lines of "Yes, the earth moved for everyone."
 * In the Discworld novel Wyrd Sisters, Magrat and Verence the Fool are kissing whilst Lancre is moved forwards 15 years in time, technically making it the longest kiss in history.
 * As a joke, referred to in Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, when the lost nuke was being dug up. Talking about the danger of the bomb (thought to be conventional, at the time) prematurely detonating: "I guess when she comes [sic], the earth really moves."
 * H. Beam Piper's Uller Uprising has Carlos von Schlichten and Paula Quinton kissing passionately while the flyer they're on is rocked by three Hiroshima-type atomic bombs going off virtually simultaneously behind it.
 * The back-cover blurb for Mercedes Lackey's The Fire Rose ends with the statement that the female lead comes to love the male lead, "And -- the earth moves..." Of course, this is 1906 in California, so along with any pleasure the two may take in one another, the earth is moving because of the big San Francisco quake.

Live-Action TV

 * In Knight Rider with a couple making out in a parked car, and KITT had to push it out of the way in order to drive off.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After Spike and Buffy have Destructo-Nookie, Buffy wakes up the next morning in the wreckage and asks, "When did the house fall down?"
 * After Their First Time turns him evil, Angelus taunts Buffy by asking if she expected "Fireworks, bells ringing, a dulcet choir of pretty little birdies?"
 * Similarly, in Angel, Connor and Cordelia had sex while it was raining fire and he asks "Did the world end?"
 * Smallville
 * Inverted in an episode wherein Clark and Lana's lovemaking is the cause of an earthquake.
 * Played straighter later when Jimmy reflects on the day he and Chloe meet again, which just happened to be the day General Zod tried to reshape Earth's crust in Krypton's likeness.
 * In the Dads Army episode "The Day the Balloon Went Up", Captain Mainwaring flies through a haystack on the end of a rope. A man and woman, of course, climb out of the collapsed haystack...
 * Used in Married... with Children when Marcy and Jefferson are having sex, and Al is jacking up their house in an Escalating War with the D'Arcys over a Property Line.
 * Referenced but not actually said in Blakes Seven episode "Ultraworld": Tarrant and Dayna (an explosives and weaponry expert) are captured by the Ultras, who want them to demonstrate the "human mating ritual" so they can catalogue the information on their computer. They decide to humour the Ultras, while using the "ritual" as cover for Dayna to extract an explosive device she has hidden in her tooth (?!). She blows a hole in the wall, they escape, the nonplussed aliens are left wondering what happened (one says something along the lines of "Have they finished the ritual?")
 * Parodied in Two and A Half Men. Charlie is oblivious about a recent earthquake that occurred while in the middle of making love, thinking he was just that good.
 * Leonard in The Big Bang Theory "We tried kissing, but the earth didn't move. I mean, any more than the 383 miles it was gonna move anyway."
 * ... that's a bit long for a non-Earth-moving kiss.

Web Comics

 * This strip from Schlock Mercenary. For those of you who don't feel like reading the next strip too, what happens in the third panel is that the Pa'nui blasts off a third of the Battleplate Tunguska, which was, at the time, holding them down with gravitics.
 * This strip from Errant Story, using the I Always Wanted to Say That version.
 * Used as a observation in Eight Bit Theater: "So that's where earthquakes come from."
 * Three Panel Soul: Philosopher pickup lines.

Western Animation
"Dexter's Dad: Mmm. Honey, you make the earth shake."
 * Futurama
 * When Kiff and Amy are kissing during a Buggalo stampede. It's revealed in another episode that members of Kif's species exchange DNA and get pregnant through skin contact, so a kiss may really be the equivalent of sex for Kif.
 * Not to mention the Titanic episode in which Bender and "Robot Rose" kiss. Bender: "When we kiss, I feel like we're standing knee-deep in cold, freezing water." Which, of course, they are, being on a sinking ship and all.
 * In Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter works on experiment that causes the whole house to tremble while his parents are making out on the couch:

""Hmm, you just rocked my world.""
 * Episode 4 of Sym-Bionic Titan, "Phantom Ninja" has the Monster of the Week crash land near a couple making out in a car:

"Debbie: "Now I won't say the earth moved...but it definitely jiggled!""
 * In one episode of Sealab 2021, Debbie Love takes a vacation. After demanding a "Happy Ending" Massage from the masseurs, we next see all of them smoking (with the masseurs sporting some new bruises).