Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

{{quote|'''Iwata:''' Wow, I never knew sewer tunnels were so wide and spacious.<br />

 

In real life, most modern sanitary sewers consist of pipes too small for an adult to enter. They typically range from 10 centimeters in diameter coming from individual properties, to maybe 60 to 70 centimeters (roughly two feet) in the street. Even these largest ones can at best only be crawled through, and then only if they are currently empty. Older sewer systems frequently consist of underground canals with relatively narrow walkways on the side.

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** Considering that the digital world includes such gems of architecture as an upside-down, physics-defying pyramid, an improbably large sewer is the least of their engineering problems.

* The sewers of Mid-Childa in ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]'' were large enough for the Forwards to have an all-out battle against a swarm of [[Mecha-Mooks]], a [[Summon Magic|summoner]], and her allies.

* ''[[Heat Guy J]]'' featured an underground sewer city that leached off of the technologically advanced city above. It was freer, pleasant and considerably more crowded than other examples listed in this trope. (Which is strange, as one would think illness and death would be rampant in a crowded, airless city situated next to a river of raw sewage.)

** Although they were also supply routes, which makes a bit more sense.

*** And keep in mind that the non-Shinigami members of Soul Society do not need to eat. Which, while not quite at [[Nobody Poops]] level, it's more like 5% percent poops.

** While a cat ''did'' it get stuck in there, it was [[Mega Neko|really big]], due to being a {{spoiler|crystal carrier.}}

** Once Luna has pushed the large cat into the pipe, Zoicite has no problems following them, which is lampshaded in the abridged series:

* Used plausibly in ''[[Berserk]]'', as they're under a rather large castle/fortified town in around the time large sewer tunnels would have been built. Also avoids the "hero doesn't actually have to walk in the sewage" thing, because it's weird to imagine someone fighting for their lives while caked with poop from the knees down. Realistic, though.

* The sewer system under Mahora in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is huge. Huge enough for people to have battles against groups of [[Mecha-Mooks]] and [[Spider Tank|Spider Tanks]]. There's even a massive, cavernous room there that contained an entire invading army of those plus a few [[Humongous Mecha]].

* The sewer network under the imperial capital in ''[[Pumpkin Scissors]]'' is big enough that it contains as many people as the city above. Also, you can drive and drift in it.

* ''[[Spice and Wolf]]'' features a sewer system big enough to fit a massive wolf in, with enough room left over for said wolf to fight a group of soldiers. This is somewhat justified as they were originally built the [[Corrupt Church|the church]] to use as escape routes.

* In one episode of ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'', Kimba accidentally gets himself lost in the sewer system in Paris and then has to fight an elderly leopard that has been thought as a monster living in the sewers.

 

 

== Card Games ==

** In the later expansion Shards of Alara, the plane of Esper has a sewer system known as the Tidehollow, where the plane's more unsavory elements salvage Etherium scrap. Predictably, most of the shard's black mana comes from this region.

 

* As mentioned above, the New York (and London, and Chicago) sewers are home to the Morlocks in ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]''.

** The original Morlock Tunnels in New York were not sewers or storm drains at all, but a long-abandoned Army construction project originally intended to serve as a mass fallout shelter and then abandoned partway through construction due to cancellation of funding.

** There's also a subfaction of Morlocks who tunnel through the earth nomadically, presenting the flipside to the drain dwellers' coin.

** [[Ultimate Marvel]]'s Morlocks have intentionally expanded their tunnels into an [[Elaborate Underground Base]], complete with hydroponic gardens powered by a mutant's electrical abilities.

* In the ''[[Batman]]'' comics, Gotham City has a spacious and labyrinthine sewer system that often serves as a base of operation to villains such as Killer Croc and the Rat-Catcher.

** Also, in ''[[The Long Halloween]]'', Solomon Grundy and Two-Face.

** Although the sewers in almost every section of the TMNT franchise resemble the real-life New York storm drain system more than ''any'' sewer, and it wouldn't be the first time people have gotten the two terms confused.

** Some incarnations (like movies past the first) place the Turtles' palace in an abandoned subway station, with the Van being stored in nearby abandoned warehouses. However, those locations are always connected to the sewer system, and said sewers are inevitably big enough for the Turtles (especially Michelangelo) to be able to skate and do half-pipes in the sewer pipes.

* The Eel would make his lair in one of these (seriously, the ceiling has got to be like fifteen feet high) in early [[Marvel Comics]], laying low after his defeat by the Human Torch in his first appearance.

* ''[[Nodwick]]'' once [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2002-11-27 found] enough of space in one to [[Lampshade Hanging|hang a lampshade]]:

* In ''[[Flushed Away]]'' we see the sewers only from the rats' perspective, but for their purposes, at least, the sewer is large enough for an entire sprawling city.

* ''[[Shrek]] the Third''. This is justified because it was a secret escape route connected to the palace in case of attack.

* The secret hideout of the cat gang in ''[[An American Tail]]''. Justified for being in New York City in 1885 (they were that big back then) and that from the viewpoints of cats and mice everything is bigger.

 

 

* In ''[[Aliens vs. Predator]]: Requiem'', the town of Gunnison's sewer system is big enough for two grown men to walk through easily, has ducts big enough for chestbursters to hide in, is easy to access by both humans and xenomorphs, and is the setting of a major fight scene between a Predator and two xenomorphs.

** ''"Is that a couch?...Its better than ours!"''

* In ''[[The Third Man]]'', the spacious sewers of Vienna play a vital role. The ending of the film was largely shot in the city's real sewers, and features the villain being chased by a [[Real Life]] squad of policemen that existed for the sole purpose of patrolling its sewers!

** In the original Sweeney Todd story, "The String of Pearls", the tunnels below Fleet Street were how Sweeney got the bodies of his victims to Mrs. Lovett for baking into pies, since her pie shop was right across the street from his barbershop. Previously, he'd had a good number of dead dudes down there, since he dispatched his victims by using a trick barber's chair to dump them into his basement, taking his razor to any who survived the fall. And unlike the musical, this eventually got the two of them caught when the Bow Street Runners investigated.

** [[Justified Trope]]: [[Reality Is Unrealistic|it ''is'' set in Korea,]] which gets at least half a dozen typhoons a year. (Not to mention it is raining a lot in the film.)

** Yes, pretty justified in Korea, [[wikipedia:Fan death|home]] of the [[Blatant Lies|Fan Death]].

* The excellent [[Film Noir]] ''[http://www.tvguide.com/movies/walked-night/review/125652He Walked by Night]'' was the first movie to film in Los Angeles enormous storm drains.

* The pipe systems in ''[[The Matrix]]'' series are described as sewers which are big enough for ''whole hovercrafts'' to comfortably navigate through them, and an ''entire city'' inhabited by thousands of people in its lower depths. The sewers were the only remains of the human cities destroyed in the war with the machines.

** And that's just in "The Desert Of The Real". The Matrix itself has a sewer system beneath the Mega-City that rivals [[Lord of the Rings|the Mines of Moria]] -- chambers hundreds of feet wide and ''deep'' connected by twisty catacomb-like tunnels.

** This film is parodied in a sidequest in ''[[Fallout 3]]'' called ''Those!'', where the player has to kill radioactive, fire-breathing ants in a similarly abandoned sewer system (which the game is rife with.)

*** Actually, the underground structures you explore are Metro tunnels, which would kind of explain all of the broken down subway cars.

** This is justified, as several [[Real Life]] documentaries state that the catacombs in Venice have access through manhole covers to pipes running through them at points form the sewer system...

* In ''[[Demolition Man]]'', the "Wasteland" is the underground sewer system that is home to San Angeles' undesirables. Justified as most of Wasteland is the ruins of Los Angles after a great earthquake.

* In ''[[Ladyhawke]]'', Phillipe Gaston (a.k.a. "the Mouse") escapes from a dungeon via its sewer. Played straight in that the sewer is only just big enough for a child, and even then the guard who finds him gone expresses disbelief. However, a real medieval dungeon would not have a sewer of any size at all.

* ''[[Film/SWAT|SWAT]]'' has a ridiculously roomy sewer in the last chase scene.

* In ''[[Plunkett and Macleane]]'' the title characters use large sewer tunnels to escape the law on several occassions.

* One of the locations of the floating crap game in ''[[Guys and Dolls]]'', and remarkably clean, too.

** A lot of it was filmed in real, albeit decommissioned, sections of the [[London Underground]], standing in for various bits of underground weirdness. Some sections of the network have been disused for the better part of a century now, and are beginning to look as run down and grotty as a viewer would expect the sewers to look.

* Averted in the film ''El Norte''. Two siblings from Guatemala want to get to the US. They're in Mexico, and the only safest, fastest route was through an old sewer pipe. Not only is it small and smelly and they have to crawl on their hands and knees most of the way, but it's full of rats. Disease-ridden rats.

** Call them whatever you like, they're also apparently big enough to {{spoiler|have a friendly gang bang in.}}

* By contrast, there's [[Stephen King]]'s ''Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption'', later filmed as ''[[You Should Know This Already|The Shawshank Redemption.]]'' Andy Dufresne does get out via a sewer ... but it's a much smaller one than those in ''It''.

* In Eric Nylund's ''A Game of Universe'', some action happens in a sewer, but since there are no walkways they have to do a lot of wading/swimming.

{{quote| '''Detritus:''' In Ankh-Morpork even the shit have a street to itself. Truly, this a land of opportunity.}}

** The entirety of Ankh-Morpork is built on the slowly sinking ruins of its past, making it extremely easy for the native/non-native dwarves to tunnel under the city. Morpork doesn't build out from urban sprawl, it builds UP, and then sinks farther and farther.

* ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets|Harry Potter]]''. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] somewhat because the Chamber's creator was one of Founders of Hogwarts, who meant it to be accessible both by a person and by a giant monster. That, and [[A Wizard Did It|it's magic]].

* [[Neal Shusterman]]'s young adult novel ''Downsiders'' is about a secret community of people who live underneath New York City and are forbidden to go "topside."

* In ''The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids'', a spacious sewer inhabited by the Bookworms (smart kids and teacher's pets) is the last refuge of the [[Kid Hero]].

* The most realistic examples would include the book 'Felidae on the Road', where protagonist Francis encounters a tribe that lives in the sewers. Justified in that they are cats (and dogs) and so are small enough, they are described as being filthy and the smell down there being noxious, they eat sewer rats, and they have gone blind from the constant darkness of the sewers.

** This is mentioned in ''[[World War Z]]''. Apparently it made cleaning up the zombies a real bitch.

* The entire plot of the book ''[[Montmorency]]'' revolved around an escaped criminal robbing some of London's richest citizens, then escaping through the sewers. The spacious nature of London's sewers, of course, has been referenced repeatedly above.

* In the book ''Reliquary'', the sequel to ''The Relic'', much of the action takes place in massive underground sewers, storm drains, maintenance tunnels, abandoned pneumatic train systems (!) beneath New York City. As noted in the [[Real Life]] section below, justified as [[Truth in Television]]: New York City is said to stand on seven storeys of underground tunnels, and the authors add a postscript backing the veracity of much of their claims about the extensive tunnelwork below the city.

* In the [[Tortall Universe|Tortall book]] ''Bloodhound'' the climactic battle {{spoiler|takes place in the sewage system. Though the tides causing the waters to rise is addressed, so that the final battle is actually in the dirty water.}}

* In ''The Magician'', the second book of ''[[The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel]]'' series, Machiavelli and Dee take Josh into the spacious sewers and then the catacombs in Paris to be {{spoiler|Awakened by Mars Ultor}}. This is [[Justified Trope|justified]] because Paris does have an incredibly large sewer system that connects to the catacombs. There is even a special branch of the police force that patrols the sewers.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' has the most cheerful and attractive looking sewers I've ever seen. At least one character lives in them.

* There are Cybermen lurking in London's sewers in two ''[[Doctor Who]]'' stories ("The Invasion" and "Attack of the Cybermen").

** "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" has [[Special Effects Failure|highly-unconvincing]] giant rats guarding the sewer entrance to the villain's lair.

* The true size of some sewers can be seen in an episode of ''[[Dirty Jobs]]''. The sewer the host explored was so small and cramped that nobody could actually stand up straight, and had to spend all of their time inside bent over.

** Of course, this is somewhat lampshaded in Sunnydale when we find out that the Mayor built the entire town with demons in mind. The sewer system is made to have easy access to the whole town, and it makes sense that they would be large, so demons could use this to their advantage.

** After watching the entirety of ''Buffy'' and ''Angel'', one wonders how those two don't constantly get remarks about their iffy sewage smell. Angel in particular practically lives down there.

* One episode of ''[[Eureka]]'' plays with this, though that wasn't so much a sewer as a sewer and the environmental and recycling center of a town of super geniuses.

** Averted in the later episode "No Exit" in which the sewers are extremely small and dark with the Winchesters barely able to make it through

* An episode of ''Popular Mechanics for Kids'' is devoted to this, when they go into a sewer to look for a ping-pong ball. Being a show about science and facts, they remark that you always need the proper equipment and that it can be dangerous to go into a sewer. It was actually pretty spacious in there; almost hallway like, IIRC.

* Played pretty straight in the various ''[[CSI Verse|CSIs]]''.

* ''[[Dark Angel]]'' Like every. damn. episode.

* Played straight with size, but averted with toxicity in an episode of ''[[Casualty]]''. It involves [[Too Dumb to Live|two guys]] who want to win a bet (the details of which I forget) which involved walking to the pub by using the sewers as a shortcut. The guys have oxygen supply, but then they start to run out... That's when the paramedics are called.

* The G-Cans System (see Real Life) pops up on occasion in [[Toku]] programs. A recent stand-out example is in ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'', where Decade has a high-speed battle with [[Kamen Rider Kabuto|Kamen Rider TheBee]].

 

 

** Justified in case of Hive Cities since it's stated many times that these mega-cities grow by new generations building on the ruins of the old ones. So those deep levels are actually remains of streets and buildings that have become enclosed on all sides, and therefore seem like tunnel systems.

*** Correction: According to ''[[Necromunda]]'', it's the next-to-last levels of the Underhive that are like that. The very lowest level, a.k.a. "The Sump", is a literal ''sea'' of various human and chemical wastes, patrolled by diamond-eyed spiders [[Giant Spider|the size of battle tanks]].

** Given that said vampires have covertly directed human affairs for thousands of years, one might think this trope [[Justified Trope|justified]] there since one of the vampire clans prefers living in them.

* As touched on a couple of times above, this trope can occasionally be justified in fantasy games by making the sewer system a series of sunken streets.

 

 

* The sewers in ''[[Urinetown]]'' are large enough to hold the rebel "base". And one song with a full dance section.

** As Urinetown is essentially a [[Troperiffic]] pastiche of musical theater, this is hardly surprising.

 

 

== Video Games ==

* A ''lot'' of videogames have this kind of level. For a more comprehensive list, look [http://www.giantbomb.com/sewer/95-348/ here].

** Sure explains why Arkham is such a [[Cardboard Prison]].

* Many levels in the SNES and [[Mega Drive]] platform game ''Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure''.

** Or at least the bonus areas, which are accessed by flushing yourself down a toilet.

* The tutorial level of ''[[Gaia Online|zOMG]]'' features this with a lampshade hanging in the in-game manual.

* The Sewers of Draj.

** The Rogue Isles, in ''[[City of Villains]]'', have their fair share as well.

** Averted in the Praetorian Underground from the ''Going Rogue'' expansion -- this insanely spacious tunnel system (complete with ''faction bases'' and offering an alternate way of getting from zone to zone fast) is ''not'' a sewer, but an abandoned subway network.

* One of levels in a Flash game, Dangerous Dungeons, is called explicitly "Absurdly Spacious Sewer".

* Though perhaps cramped by video game standards, ''[[Diablo]] 2'' has several underground areas that are far roomier than might be reasonably expected. Act 2 under the town and Act 3 beneath the jungle cities are two prominent sewer examples. And although not technically a sewer, the chapel basement of the original ''[[Diablo]]'' is absurdly larger than the building itself. . . even discounting the encroaching levels of Hell.

** In the expansion for Morrowind "Tribunal" the sewer is even more spacious.

*** Justified because they "sewers" are actually the ruins of the original city retooled as a sewer/dungeon

* While ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' is notable for having a sewer [[You Fail Biology Forever|in which there is thriving plant-life.]]

** The plant life actually made sense in context since the sewers were also absurdly well-lit for no apparent reason.

{{quote| '''Jack''': ''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|Gross, it's in my shoes!]]''}}

* Sewer areas in ''[[Glider]] PRO'' are just as tall as other kinds of rooms.

* ''[[Hell Gate]]: London''.

* ''[[Jet Set Radio]] Future'' features a positively ''palatial'' sewer system including vertical shafts several stories tall. (The player's choice of Rudie can, of course, skate right on up using his/her rocket-propelled inline skates.)

* ''[[Might and Magic]] VI'' has the Free Haven Sewers, VII has the Erathian Sewers. Both need to be explored for plot advancement and/or character promotion.

* ''[[Postal]] 2'' has a hidden one. {{spoiler|It leads to a hidden Taliban base containing nukes.}}

* ''[[Shadows of the Empire]]'' has a level where you have to infiltrate the [[Big Bad]]'s palace through the sewers. There are some sections that are easily bigger than a football field.

* In ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', Leon falls through a trap door to a massive sewer system beneath Salazar's castle, complete with giant Plaga-cockroaches. Salazar compounds matters by sending his right hand to dispose of the protagonist.

** ''[[Resident Evil]] \2'' also had some absurdly spacious sewers, with features such as an elevating bridge and offices for sewer workers.

** And infested with [[Goddamned Bats]].

** And in ''[[A Link to The Past]]'', Zelda escapes from Hyrule castle trough the sewers.

* In ''[[Lego Batman]]'' the Gotham sewers aren't just big enough to walk through; they're so big that you need a flight suit or a high jump just to reach certain parts of it. However, this network is not very well secured. Penguin and Killer Croc {{spoiler|use the sewer system to break out Catwoman by coming up through the toilets in the police station.}} And yes, there are alligators.

* Both ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' games with New York City sewers and a sewage passageway between the shelter and the motel.

** These are based on the real Tokyo Underground Drainage System... http://www.akademifantasia.org/?p=572

* The video game of ''[[Robots]]'' has a mazelike sewer that is inexplicably set up like a huge pinball machine. You actually have to use a ''transport pod'' to traverse this level.

* ''[[SaGa 2]]'' has one in Venus' world. With [[Plot Coupon|MAGI]] and perfectly usable items, no less!

* In ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'', the Great Underpass of Ginza.

** In ''[[Persona 2|Persona 2: Eternal Punishment]]'', the.....uhm, Sewer.

* Sorcerer University of ''[[The Spellcasting Series]]'' has a large and complex sewer system beneath it, which Ernie must use for rapid and/or secretive transit. The tunnels are large enough for an elevephant to walk through without issue. Unlike a lot of video game examples of this trope, though, Ernie doesn't get the luxury of walking on nice clean ledges and pipes. The smell in some areas is said to be more than Ernie can bear, and occasionally, even more than a bear could bear.

* ''[[Suikoden II]]'' has a traversable sewer area under Two River City, where a recruitable (and less-than-hygienic) character lives.

* In ''[[Summoner]]'', the sewers of Lenele are ''huge''. Even great big Golems have plenty of room.

** And despite the trash compactors implying the area is normally used by workers, it can't be travelled without using a magic honey-we-shrunk-ourselves ring, walking on spider webs and patching up gaps in the walkways with blocks of garbage.

** [[Justified Trope|I'm assuming those workers have keys or codes that would allow them to open those locked doors.]]

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the city of Dalaran has a sewer area with spacious tunnels and halls that are big enough to contain several buildings and a small lake. There's even an inn down there! Other than said lake there's not much running water, and no waste other that some junk lying around in piles of rubble.

** The Undercity is built out of the sewers and catacombs of the city of Lordaeron.

*** Both are justified: Undercity was in the process of being converted into Arthas' new throne when he had to leave and Dalaran's sewers intersected with their prison complex.

* ''[[Lost Souls MUD]]'' has a couple of these, in the major cities of Losthaven and Liathyr.

* The sewers under St Petersburg in ''[[Hitman]] 2''.

* ''[[No One Lives Forever]]'' not only has this, but it even contains a [[Lampshade Hanging|sign]] reading "Obligatory FPS Sewer Section".

* As befitting its tabletop source material, the sewers in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines|Vampire Bloodlines]]'' are very roomy and connect to almost everywhere - luckily for those Nosferatu players who need to move around without being seeing by mortals.

* [[Comix Zone]]'s sewers have enough room for our hero, [[Punny Name|Sketch Turner]], to suspend himself from pipes to avoid low attacks.

* The last section in ''[[Police Quest]] II''. Which is sort of odd, considering that the games' main selling point is being so scrupulously realistic.

* In ''[[Ever Quest]] 2'' the sewers of Qeynos have vaulted ceilings so high and well lit that it practically looks like you're in a ''cathedral''.

* ''[[Blood Rayne]] 2'' has sewers big enough to do ''acrobatics'' in.

* The sewers Drake and Flynn use to enter the museum at the beginning of ''[[Uncharted]] 2''.

* In one stage in ''[[Nanostray]] 2'' you are flying a spaceship trouth a sewer system and when you look at the background one can see how ridiculously huge the sewers are.

* ''[[Pokémon Ranger]]'': Fall City's sewer system. It's big enough to have a few Pokémon living inside it.

* ''[[Yoshis Story]]'' features two levels set inside giant sewer pipes. The first level, Jelly Pipe, is loaded up with mysterious gunk that clings to the sides. The second, Torrential Maze, is full of rushing water to sweep you away.

* [[Global Agenda]] gets in on the action with a mission in the subterranean waterways in North Sonara (Recursive Colony Update). It's the sort of spacious that some of the shorter-range turrets can't cover its width.

 

* Subverted in ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'', where Shadehawk escapes capture through the [http://www.antiheroforhire.com/d/20090427.html Underground Non-Sewer Pathway System].

* In the ''[[Narbonic]]'' Director's Commentary, Shaennon Garrity openly admits that the design of Helen's sewer-based underground lab comes entirely from the old ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' cartoon.

** It's worth keeping in mind, though, that Sturmhalten is home to at least two Sparks, with it being implied that they're just the most recent crop. Once this is realized, the ecosystem -- not to mention the sewer system itself -- starts to make sense. {{spoiler|And besides that, the latest ruler of Sturmhalten had an alliance of convenience with the Geisterdamen -- he was hiding them in a level ''under'' the main sewers. If there wasn't enough room for them to trek through and haul their Lady's equipment around with them, he would've redesigned things so that there ''would'' be. Although the comments from the two guides rather implies that the sewers have always been that way.}} Also, Sturmhalten is an old European town, and nothing in the series to date suggests that any of the European towns have modernized their sewer systems, although considering that said modernization would probably come at the hands of a Spark...

** [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080616 That's not unique]. But deys not all as ''extensive'' as under Mechanicsburg. Or else Europa would collapse after a hard rain.

* The sewers beneath Brassmoon City in ''[[Goblins]]'' have [http://goblinscomic.com/d/20070127.html sculptures]....

** The sewer outlets are absurdly small compared the size of the tunnels inside, but the goblins do in fact complain about the smell and pass on eating the foodstuffs that were in their bags when they trudged through the sewage.

* Aversion: The Council team must navigate a proper ''storm drain'' that nominally catches rainwater from a nullah in the first story arc of [[Elf Blood]].

{{quote| '''Jose Carlos''': I had no idea sewers were so large!!<br />

'''Vinicius''': You'd be surprised at how much they hide from us. }}

 

== Web Original ==

* A sanitary sewer like this appears on the island used for version two of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', spanning the entire island ''underground'', but from the vague descriptions it's implied that people can only just barely move across the walkways on the sides, and that otherwise it's fairly cramped.

* The sewers of ''[[The Town]]'' are also infamously large, spacious and full of random monsters including rat shaped robots and [[Alien|Xenomorphs]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''. In all incarnations, their sewer lair is larger than any house you've been in ([[Big Fancy House|possibly]]) and the tunnels are wide enough to accommodate vehicles like the tank-sized Battle Shell. It is ''very'' seldom that the Turtles must come into contact with anything you've flushed. In the 1990s cartoon, their original lair was invaded and they later got ''another, even more palatial'' one.

** Kind of justified; Their second lair was actually {{spoiler|an ancient, abandoned [[Atlantis|Elyntian]] outpost}}. They later moved out of the sewers and into a warehouse.

* Mainframe in ''[[Re Boot]]'' was shown to have sewers in one episode. Why digital lifeforms require them is a mystery.

** They're for when someone calls flush();

* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' has done the sewer gig more than once, even twenty years into a dystopian future. In their defense, they actually had to walk through some of the sewer fluid.

* ''[[Freakazoid]]!'' used this until it became a running gag, with more than one character complaining about "poo gas".

** <s>One character</s> [[Name McAdjective|Roddy McStew]] notes they're called "crud vapors" in his native Scotland.

* In ''[[The Tick]]'', Sewer Urchin lives in an enormous apartment in The City's sewers, and on some occasions provides the other heroes with goods that are otherwise difficult or impossible to acquire, claiming "You'd be surprised what people throw away, yeah, definitely."

* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'', Flint Marko and Alex O'Hirn flee the scene of a robbery by busting through the store's basement wall, and escaping into marvellously ''cavernous'' sewers, only to be promptly caught by Spider-Man. Later, Spider-Man traps the Rhino in a steam-tunnel created from ruptured sewer pipes. Quarters are tighter, but the [[The Brute|hulking]] Rhino can ''still'' maneuver relatively freely. Half the Sinister Six persue a fleeing Spidey through these sewers as well.

* In an episode of ''[[Hey Arnold]]'', Arnold drops his grandfather's watch down a hole to the sewer (which somehow didn't break even though it fell for three seconds before hitting the ground: a 140 foot drop). He descends into the sewer to retrieve it only to find it has been taken by the "Sewer King," a man who lives in the sewer and claims sovereignty over it.

** Since the water is flowing directly into the river, it is more of a storm drain tunnel than a sewer.

* The ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Breaking Out is Hard to Do" ends in a sewer that is wide enough to fit two [[Star Wars|TIE fighters]].

** Notably averted in the [[The Shawshank Redemption]] parody, where Peter barely squeezes through a half mile of dirty sewage escaping.

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' had one episode where the sewer system was big enough to support one ghost boy, his currently possessed love interest, and thousands and thousands of big ass vines gunning towards him. Has some incredibly clean water, too.

* The sewers in the ''[[Batman]]: Gotham Knight'' are just effin' enormous, one area seems to be several stories tall.

* The small town of ''[[South Park]]'' even has spacious sewers big enough for the boys (and Mr. Garrison) to walk in when searching for Mr. Hankey in "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls." Obviously, the presence of a magical talking piece of crap means the "no poop" rule is averted.

** Even ignoring Mr. Hankey, the show is one of very few works to acknowledge the disgusting nature of sewers in general. In one gag, Cartman sneezes on Kyle, who complains that sneezing on others is gross and unsanitary. Cartman responds, "oh, sorry, you wouldn't want to get exposed to germs while you're knee-deep in human feces."

* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'': The sewers of [[Crapsack World|Miseryville]] are apparently big enough to house a secret lab for the resident [[Mad Scientist]].

** ''It's like a maze down here. A maze of crap.''

* Arlen sewers in ''[[King of the Hill]]'' episode "Serpunt" is big enough to walk on when Dale and Hank hunt down the escaped snake.

* ''[[Total Drama World Tour]]'' has one of these in the episode "Broadway Baby". The cast rides ''speed boats'' through it.

* This seems to be the deal with the sewers of Mellowbrook on ''[[Kick Buttowski]]'' as Kick manages to operate them quite well, even with Kendall riding with him on his skateboard. They also appear to host crocodiles or aligators.