Delivery Guy Infiltration

"You can get anywhere with a pizza box."

—Everybody Hates Chris

It seems that the default ruse for getting past guards or having the villain open his door, is to pretend one is a delivery guy. The most frequent item being delivered is pizza, but others are occasionally seen as well. Face Palm when only after the person is let in when someone observes "Hey, we didn't order pizza."

Not to be confused with Pizza Boy Special Delivery. Ever. Compare Janitor Impersonation Infiltration which uses a janitor or maid disguise similarly. May overlap with Mugged for Disguise if there really was a delivery boy arriving. Deadly Delivery is when this technique is used by a Career Killer or other such criminal.

Examples of Delivery Guy Infiltration include:

Advertising

Done for laughs in a DiGiorno frozen pizza commercial.

Anime and Manga

In the second season of Darker than Black, the Anti-Hero, Hei, kidnaps someone after disguising himself as a delivery guy. In fact, this is kind of a stock-in-trade, as he frequently does infiltrations by going undercover doing some kind of menial labor- Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs? has become a Running Gag among fans and in the series itself.
Akira: The underground activists infiltrate the military research compound by dressing up as delivery staff.
Nagisa tried this three times in the space of five minutes in Futari wa Pretty Cure. It didn't really work.

Comic Books

In Watchmen the guy who tries to kill Veidt infiltrates as a deliveryman. 'Course it helps that his dayjob is being a deliveryman for that same delivery company.
The Super Mario Adventures comic had Luigi (in disguise) 'order' pizza for the Koopalings to give Yoshi, Toad and Peach a chance to enter Bowser's Castle armed with a ton of bombs.
Variation used in Deadpool - Deadpool actually HAD ordered a pizza, but The Punisher, who was looking to kill him, was listening in, intercepted the actual delivery guy, and paid him a thousand bucks for his hat, coat, and pizza.
- Deadpool also inverts this in one story. A woman hires him to kill a man who ruined her life, and the target is a delivery guy. So he breaks into someone's house, and orders pizza, resulting in the mark coming to him. And given how despicable the mark is, the home-owner doesn't even mind.
Detective Walsh does this in Strangers in Paradise in order to make contact with Katchoo while she's working for Darcy. Of course, he's delivering pizza.

Fan Works

In the Puella Magi Madoka Magica Doujinshi Rebellion Cycles Conference, Madoka and Sayaka hear their doorbell ring. Sayaka comments that a normal person shouldn't even be able to get to where they are. Madoka points out that the girl/woman on the other side of the door just said she is the pizza place. After a very small discussion between Madoka and Sayaka, they decide Sayaka should opens the door anyways because who doesn't like pizza? Considering Sayaka got hit in the face with a pizza, apparently the 'delivery person' actually brought a pizza.
In chapter 4 of Drunkard's Walk S: Heart of Steel, Usagi uses this combined with Obfuscating Stupidity to pretend to be a Yamato Transport courier in order to investigate the Crystal Seminar.

Usagi: All I know is I gotta give this to a Fleetwood Elton at Cristo's Samovars.

Film

Parodied in the first film adaptation of Judge Dredd. When the title character and his Sidekick are trying to get back into Mega City:

Fergie: C'mon, Dredd, there is no way in, are you even listening to me? We can't just knock on the wall and say "Hello, Cursed Earth Pizza!"

Miami Vice (the movie): Rico gets the drug dealers to open their door by calling out "Milano's Pizza!"
In The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner gets past the guard (played by Lou Ferrigno) in the laboratory by showing up with pizzas and leaving him one for free.

Banner (dressed as a pizza delivery man): Tell you what, I have an extra medium. Take it on the house. (Guard takes the pizza and waves him through)

In Blue Streak, Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence) attempts to get into the police station with this trick.
Oliver and Company, combined with Totem Pole Trench.
On Toy Story 2, the gang consider this as a way to enter Al's apartment. Hamm suggests "a ham sandwich (himself) with fries (Mr. Potato Head) and a hot dog (Slinky Dog)", and Rex as the free toy.
In the movie The Last Dragon, Leroy gets the idea to infiltrate a fortune cookie factory using this device. He gets the idea after he sees a clip of Bruce Lee doing the same thing in another movie.
Tak's first onscreen kill in Fulltime Killers starts out like this, with him posing as a flower deliveryman. The twist being that the flowers are just a way to disguise his shotgun, and he just shoots his way to the target's cell before throwing dozens of hand grenades at him and riding off.
Done in the movie Detroit Rock City to rescue one of the four main characters out of sunday school. The pizza is laced with 'Shrooms.
In The Great Muppet Caper, Kermit and Fozzie pretend to be pizza delivery men to break into the National Gallery. Unfortunately, the guard hates pepperoni.
In the documentary Man on Wire, tightrope walker Phillipe Petit explains how he was posing as a delivery man to get inside the buildings he wanted to climb. He thought his ruse would be foiled when he happened to injure his foot. It was the opposite however, and by entering buildings as an injured person on crutches, he found he was able to slip inside even more easily (thanks to people's sympathy).
In the James Bond movie The Living Daylights, the kidnapping of General Koskov is initiated by a milk delivery man.
Dr. Kimball uses this ploy to gain access to a hospital in The Fugitive.
In the beginning of Airheads, Chazz sneaks into Palatine Records this way to try and show his band's demo tape to the executives. Judging by the reactions of the security guards and a secretary, this isn't the first time he's done this.
Machete: Except in this case, the title character uses Mexican gardener infiltration technique.
In Sneakers the delivery boy isn't the infiltrator, he's the distraction (trying to get the guard to sign for a huge shipment of drain cleaner) while the real infiltrator slips by his desk.
Ace Ventura, Pet Detective opens with Jim Carrey parodying a UPS delivery guy while rescuing a dog from an abusive owner.

Literature

In the Alex Rider novel Scorpia, Alex uses this trick to infiltrate a safehouse.
In A Storm of Swords, the Hound pretends to be delivering some kind of vegetable to get into the Twins. As in the fortress made up of two towers, not what you were thinking.
Variant: In the final story of a Shadowrun anthology, attacks by street gangs leave Wolf and a woman he's escorting without transportation. They enter an all-night pizza shop to catch their breath, and Wolf has a quick word with the employees. Next scene, they're arriving safely at their destination, where Wolf hands over both the woman and some pizzas from the delivery van he'd bribed the shop's staff into lending them.
In the Discworld novels, Moist von Lipwig uses this one frequently, and it's cropped up in a number of Terry Pratchett's books.
In The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden once got into a dead guy's apartment by dressing up as a flower delivery guy. He almost got away with it...
Happens in David Eddings Tamuli series with wine and beer.

Live-Action TV

In How I Met Your Mother, Ted needs to get a sulky Lily to talk to him so that he can apologize. He knocks on her apartment door:

Lily: Who is it?
Ted: Pizza delivery.
Lily opens the door.
Ted: Did you really think it was the pizza guy?
Lily: Nah, I was just hoping you at least had a pizza.

Gwen attempts this to enter Torchwood in the Torchwood episode "Everything Changes". Subverted in that the only reason she was let in was because they wanted her to get in. Anyone else delivering a pizza (for real or not) would not have gotten in past the first room.
In an episode of The Thin Blue Line, to get into a bank robbery that has turned into a hostage situation.
Saturday Night Live: One of the Land Shark's many gambits.
In an episode of Everybody Hates Chris, Chris uses this (with a pizza box) to sneak into the hotel Wayne Gretzky is staying at so his brother can meet him. "You can get anywhere with a pizza box", he says; Narrator-Chris then comments that's how George Bush got into the White House.
Used by a female assassin in an episode of VIP She gets close to her target by disguising herself as a pizza delivery girl (with the real delivery girl supposedly disposed of offscreen).
In True Jackson, True, Lulu, and Ryan disguise themselves as pizza delivery men to get into the recording booth with Justin Bieber.
In Spaced, Tim uses an actual delivery man to distract the security guard so that he can sneak into the offices of a Dark Star Comics to retrieve an insulting image he drew of the man about to view his portfolio.
In Burn Notice, Jesse pretends to be a delivery guy in order to gain access to the security room of a bank. At the same time, Madeline, who's just opened a new account, goes into the vault to access a safety deposit box and lights up a cigarette, setting off the alarm. The whole point of the ploy was for Jesse to be in the security room to see how the security team reacted to situation, since he was planning to rob the bank later and needed to know how quick they would react to a break-in.
Happens in series 4 of Torchwood. Oswald Danes infiltrates Gwen's house by posing as a delivery man from a local grocery store. The real delivery man is briefly shown tied up and gagged in the back of his van, divested of his uniform and hat.
On Leverage this occurs during "The Top Hat Job" as Eliot attempts to recon their target company by posing as a pizza man. While he is chatting with the receptionist, the security guards xray his pizza and he is forced to fight his way out.
Used in an episode of Wonder Woman. The villainess Formicida has her mook deliver a box of killer ants to an intended victim by posing as a delivery boy. The real delivery boy is left bound and gagged in a crate, stripped down to his undies.

Music

The Coup's "Pizza Man Skit" from Steal This Album features a repo man who gets in an old lady's house this way, and then takes her TV away. Followed by the song "The Repo Man Sings for You"

Video Games

Toward the end of XIII, you slip into the evil conspiracy's mansion from a fake catering van.
Dragon Age: Origins has this in the "Captured!" scenario, assuming the player takes the "Wait For Rescue" option. Depending on which party members are chosen for the infiltration, they might pretend to be priests or circus performers, but the default is to be delivering rather odd things such as "items of a personal nature" or "several hundred lovely knitted... scarves."
In Persona 4, Namatame uses his job as a delivery man to get close to people shown on the Midnight Channel without arousing suspicion. and throw them into a TV he hides in the back of his delivery-truck.
A possible tactic in many levels of the Hitman series.
Utilized in Yakuza: Like A Dragon at one point to sneak into the Omi HQ by the good guys. Hilariously, it's done without even a token attempt at a Paper-Thin Disguise, instead the heroes just wear their usual and carry the delivery items while trying to avoid drawing notice.

Web Comics

Virus and Rogue tried this one in Exterminatus Now. It almost works until Eastwood blows it by refusing to take part in such an obvious ploy.
Done as part of Roast Beef's hack of Yahoo! Personals in Achewood.
In one Nukees strip, Gav claims he can break into a military base using a piece of cardboard. The piece of cardboard is placed on the roof of his car with the words "Gav's Pizza" written on it. It works.
From League Of Super Redundant Heroes; in this strip, a vampire tries to get to Eva and Alex this way, but Eva is onto him, and orders the pizza with extra garlic.

Web Original

Played for laughs in the Transformers Alternate Reality Game, where a pizza delivery man breached the facility due to a door being left open and nearly getting to where Megatron was stored.

Western Animation

In Futurama, the prank delivery that gets Fry frozen was planned out by Nibbler.
Darkwing Duck once tried to infiltrate the Fearsome Five's headquarters by pretending to be a flower delivery guy. Of course Negaduck hates flowers, so DW had to backpedal and change it to delivering skulls.
Given the heroes' love of pizza, this naturally happened a few times in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
- In fact, this was the basis of an episode. In a rare case of Genre Savvy, Shredder opens a pizza joint that specializes in weird pizzas, planning to stay in business until he gets an order for a pizza that only a mutant turtle could love. Then, he would follow the pizza to the Turtles' lair through a tracking device. The plan falls apart when he a) hires a disguised Michelangelo, and b) the Rat King steals the tracking pizza.
- The Turtles themselves do it in another episode to infiltrate the warehouse where Shredder is holding April hostage. Shredder knows he didn't order pizza, but Rocksteady and Bebop are more gullible.
Does Michael the Terrible Boyfriend count? :p
In The Simpsons episode "Trash of the Titans", Homer gets backstage at a U2 gig by pretending to have a potato delivery.
In Batman Beyond, Terry pretends to be a pizza delivery boy in order to infiltrate Shreeve's laboratory. Shreeve is suspicious, but he lets him in.
- To be fair, Shreeve's initial suspicion is the classic "I didn't order any Pizza." Terry manages to get around this by claiming it must have been a prank and his boss would have a fit when he brings it back. The letting him in is sympathy on Shreeve's part (Shreeve isn't a bad guy, just desperate for money for his funding.). The suspicion came when Terry asked too many questions about the tech.
In King of the Hill, Dale enters Bill's army base as an exterminator, then dresses as an officer, then back to an exterminator in order to check on Bill's medical records.
- Stood on its head in another episode: in order to rescue his friends from a Right-Wing Militia Fanatic named "Mad Dog", Dale orders a large number of flower bouquets to be delivered to Mad Dog's address. Mad Dog sees the delivery people carrying long, rectangular boxes just the right size to hide machine guns, assumes the FBI has finally caught up with him and is trying to pull this trick, and runs away.
In The Secret Show, the alternate dimension protagonists use this to get into the villain's base.
In the reboot of The Powerpuff Girls, Mojo Jojo tries to get into the Girls' slumber party this way; unfortunately for him, his disguise is pretty bad, and not only do the Girls catch him, they and their guests submit him to being dressed in make-up and girly clothes.
In an episode of Duck Tales, when Launchpad finds out the entrance to the villain's lair is trough a deli, he tries to get in by disguising himself as a bread delivery man; but the clerk isn't expecting bread. Launchpad finds out he is expecting a delivery of pickles, but when he comes back to try that, he's interrupted by the real pickle delivery man. Not willing to give up, he manages to get in by hiding in one of the guy's pickle barrels which works for a while, until the smell of pickles gives him away.
In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Make Em Laugh", The Joker kidnaps Lisa Lorraine this way. Lisa knows she didn't order pizza, but offers to buy it anyway, which is when the Joker opens the box, which contains knock-out gas.
The Joker uses a variation of the strategy in The Batman episode "Strange Minds" to kidnap Yin. He first slips a flyer for a pizza place under the door to her apartment (with a coupon); when she comes home from work, she's too tired to cook and decides to use it. She's suspicious when the operator says there's a "fifteen-seconds or it's free" offer, especially when it seems he actually gets there on time. Unfortunately, by then he has the jump on her.
In an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, Courage uses this trick to get in a villain's lair, convincing Eustace to act as the delivery man while he hides in the pizza box. The villain is smart enough to know he didn't order pizza, but his dimwitted assistant who answers the door does not. Eustace doesn't know what's going on, but he doesn't complain; as he says, it'd the easiest twenty bucks he's ever made.

Real Life

Mike Meyers (no, not him) claims to have pulled something like this off in his A+ Certification textbook's chapter on computer security; a friend of his in another firm asked him to help test his fancy new firewall, so our intrepid author dug out an old jumpsuit and ID badge, bluffed his way past the receptionist and walked out the door with their server on a parcel trolley.