"Mission Impossible" Cable Drop

The commonly spoofed scene for which everyone remembers The Film of the Series of Mission Impossible is when Tom Cruise hacks a CIA computer while dangling horizontally from two cables in a room full of lasers. It was an homage to a similar scene in the 1964 film Topkapi. Now a must whenever there's a spy episode in a show.

Advertising

The scene has been parodied countless times, and even continues to be, by advertisers, particularly for dandruff shampoo, deodorant or muscle relaxant.
- As of early 2014, Progressive Insurance is dropping their spokesperson "Flo" into offices via cables to deliver product to customers.

Anime and Manga

In Pokémon Special, in order to test the museum's security, Janine uses her Weezing's smoke to reveal the lasers then lowers herself with her Ariados's thread to steal the museum display.

Film

Parodied in Shrek 2, when Pinocchio does this with his puppet strings, complete with Mission: Impossible music.
Wrongfully Accused spoofed this.
A variation in the first Charlie's Angels movie, where she had to do cartwheels across a pressure-sensitive floor and then handstand on a computer box.
- And later parodied in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
The Inspector Gadget movie did it, too, with a sound-sensitive alarm.
This trope predates Mission Impossible, the original Pink Panther movie uses a variant.
Topkapi, as stated above.
Inverted in 9 To 5, where rather than anyone hanging from wires to avoid triggering a trap, the rebellious secretaries rig up a remote-control cable harness for their kidnapped boss, which will reel him up to the ceiling as a trap if he tries to escape.
There's a variation of this in the Boondock Saints, with the protagonists falling though the ceiling accidentally, getting tangled in their rope... and killing everyone in the room as they spin about upside down.
Toy Story 3 gives a Shout-Out to this early in the film.
In Tangled, this is how Flynn steals the crown at the start of the film.
In Spice World, Mel C is introduced doing a drop to a Subbuteo table and making a half-field shot.
Done by super-agent Finn McMissile in Cars 2.
Done without the cables in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Harry and company infiltrate the Ministry of Magic's prophecy holding room towards the climax of the movie. Rather than being lowered, they're falling down a chasm and using their magic to stop themselves harmlessly above the floor in this fashion.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol re-enacts the scene, but with magnets taking the place of the cable, and with a spinning fan blade in place of the lasers.
- For that matter, it's been paid homage in every Mission Impossible sequel to date.

Literature

Darktan in The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents hangs suspended in a harness to inspect and disarm a deadly trap. As Darktan is an intelligent rat and weighs very little, this is done with bits of string rather than fancy high-tech cables.

Live-Action TV

Half-parody in the first promos for the TV show Chuck, in which Sarah would drop down successfully while Chuck would start spinning in place and get told to "Tense your abs!"
- Also played (relatively) straight in "Chuck vs. The Mask"
It goes catastrophically wrong for one of The Lone Gunmen in the first episode.
- However it's possible that they could actually have pulled it off, if left to their own. The only reason they didn't manage it was because Yves was after the same thing they were, and she had the technological know-how to royally mess it up for them.
Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide had Ned attempt one of these out of the ceiling. Notable in that it was a principal's office and there were still lasers aplenty; also in that instead of dropping stealthily, Ned plummeted like a rock and then swung back and forth helplessly for the rest of the episode.
Used in The Latest Buzz, of all places, with one of the teen reporters trying to retrieve a column from the editor's desk.
Doctor Who did it in the Easter special, "Planet Of The Dead" - with the bionic woman. It also did the Charlie's Angels version in "The Doctor's Daughter".
Parodied on the TV show The Soup in the segment "Clip of the Week".
Parodied in The Basil Brush Show, when the group finds a pool of Anil's chilli sauce between them and a safe containing the answers for the Quiz Night.
Used in episode six of the third season of Primeval when Danny Quinn is testing the security systems at the Anomaly Research Center.
Parodied in season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Andrew drops down to steal a diamond, only to have Warren and Jonathan stroll into the museum without issue. Played straight when the Scoobies break into the Mayor's office in season three; Buffy is the one lowered down on the harness to steal the MacGuffin. When the alarms go off however, the pulley jams and Angel has to jump in and save her.
In an episode of iCarly, Freddy drops into a room on cables and is mistaken for a spider.
Parker's trademark maneuver on Leverage is to jump off the side of buildings and lower down on a cable, instead of doing this on the inside. She then goes in through the window. No one but Parker is crazy enough to do it willingly, though they are often forced to anyway.
In the Father Ted Christmas Special, Father Todd Unctious uses one of these to attempt to steal Father Ted's Golden Cleric Award. It breaks partway through, leaving him hanging helplessly in full view of Father Dougal, who fails to notice him anyway...
Parodied in the opening credits of The Chaser's War on Everything.

Music

During the video for Lindsey Stirling's performance of the Mission: Impossible theme with The Piano Guys, Stirling is dropped by a cable to change the sheet music being played by a pianist.

Video Games

Parodied in, of all places, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition. Duke is breaking into the CIA and has to drop into a room modeled on this scene. Since Duke is very unsubtle, you just drop right in and shoot the ~~guards~~ mutant aliens who respond.
- Or use the jetpack to slowly lower yourself down. The room is worth taking a safe look at too, using this method, as they went to an impressive amount of detail for the reference - not only is there a knife stuck in the table, but there's a garbage can full of puke on the floor!
The second Thief had a medieval-tech version, with ropes that could be attached to the ceiling beams and shimmied down. In the penultimate mission, it's the easiest^[1] way to retrieve the masks, which are guarded by a pressure-sensitive floor with Deadly Gas.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Soap and Price do this down a cliff face to stealthily kill two mooks.
- They actually do a varient of rappelling called "Australian Rappelling."

Web Comics

Cinema Bums features a strip where Mindy does this to break into David Yates's bedroom to discuss a potential Doctor Who movie.
In CRFH, Roger does this (through the floor of one of the upstairs apartments) to get to a videotape in the girls' apartment. When Margaret catches him, she points out that loudly humming the Mission Impossible theme isn't especially stealthy.
Torg tests this out as one of their plans to infiltrate Ayleeorgnet in Sluggy Freelance. Owing to miscalculating the length of the cables, he knocks himself out. Note that it was to be called "Operation Look I'm Tom Cruise!"
- Given that the competition included "Operation Run Around Willy-Nilly"....
In one flashback scene of Girl Genius, Gil uses this to secretly modify the blueprints of Castle Wulfenbach.

Western Animation

This also happened in an episode of Jimmy Neutron, where the kids were breaking into a museum and trying to steal an artifact.
Happened in Teen Titans where Gizmo is hacking into a museum's security system.
Naturally, Kim Possible gets to pull off this trope with the accompanying lampshade.
Played for laughs in South Park when the boys use the Mission Impossible: Breaking and Entering Spy Kit to steal baby cows from a cattle ranch before they're turned into veal.
Entrèe does it in an episode of Spliced to steal Joe's hat, apparently attaching himself to the ceiling with bubblegum.
The Wallace and Gromit short The Wrong Trousers has a variant that predates the movie involving a robotic pair of trousers fitted with suction cups walking across a ceiling of a museum to steal a heavily protected diamond.

Real Life

Truth in Television; a 2010 theft from a Best Buy store seems to have involved this trope.

↑ if you don't count turning off the security, but that's no fun

[1] you don't count turning off the security, but that's no fun

[1]