Dramatic Curtain Toss
There is something hidden under a large, white sheet. You don't know what it is, the characters don't know what it is, but sooner or later, you will. It is inevitable.
Officer: General, in all my years of covering top secret discoveries with sheets, I've never dramatically revealed anything as shocking as this. |DUN-DUN-DUUUNNNN!
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Equally inevitable is that when whatever it is behind the curtain is revealed, there will be a great deal of pomp behind removing it. It will be shot in slow motion from four different angles. There will be a collective gasp. This is an important moment. This is the Dramatic Curtain Toss.
A relative to the Dramatic Unmask and subtrope of The Reveal. This can come at any time in a story. Curtain Camouflage is especially prone to it. Any number of reactions may follow.
Comic Books
- There is at least one Archie Comics story where Archie accidentally knocks off the head on a statue of a local businessman; he has it repaired in time for the official unveiling of the statue, but when the curtain comes off, we find out the repairman screwed up and put the head of a pig on instead. Oops.
Film
- Shrek the Third: Shrek and Fiona are being introduced at the royal court in confining finery, and Shrek can't reach the itch on his butt. He gets a servant to scratch it for him, and that's when the curtains open...
- Played with in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, where the mayor manages to get an entire theme park underneath a tarp, which is unveiled at a televised ceremony.
- Megamind has at least two—one during the unveiling of a giant statue (which makes you wonder who makes the giant cloth to cover it up), and one on a picture in Megamind's lair.
- Lucy's discovery of the wardrobe between worlds in (the film of) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardobe, pictured.
- Partially justified, as furniture that is in storage is generally covered with a sheet or tarp of some sort
- Done exactly four times in the film of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Draco removes the dustsheet on the Vanishing Cabinet as he attempts to fix it.
- The Wizard of Oz: "PAY NO ATTENTION TO The Man Behind the Curtain!"
- City Lights opens with the unveiling of a large statue. When the cover is removed, the Little Tramp is sleeping on it.
- It's unclear if it happens in the original The Picture of Dorian Gray, but it did happen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...
- Occured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when Judge Doom pulled aside the curtains concealing his giant Dip spraying machine.
- Dramatic Dust Cover Removal: The 69 Charger in the Dukes of Hazzard movie gets one.
- The movie adaptation of Ella Enchanted has a statue of Prince Charmant unveiled at a medieval mall.
Music
- Dream Theater opened many of their 2009 shows with "A Nightmare to Remember," often starting with a black curtain and pulling it down when the guitar enters. It's quite dramatic.
- Japanese band Plastic Tree did something like the above for a filmed live, only dropping the curtain once the song reached its climax. It's really something to see.
Literature
- An old high-school English class favourite, Robert Browning's My Last Duchess:
But to myself they turned (since none puts by |
- Hamlet does this...but only after he stabs what's behind it (he thinks it's the king; it's actually Polonius).
- Also used in The Winters Tale, when in the very last act, Pauline reveals the statue of Hermione that she has prepared.
Live Action TV
- Happened in an episode of Robin Hood: Vaizey does a dramatic speech while pacing around the room. He finally drops the large curtain in the middle of the room, revealing Robin, dangling from the ceiling.
- Happened again when a large cage intended to hold all the tax money is placed in the middle of the keep.
- Happens to Isaac Mendez's paintings in Heroes (multiple times I believe).
- Another Dramatic Dust Cover Removal on a car, a Charger in Burn Notice.
- Parodied in How I Met Your Mother, when Robin goes on a bender and wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room. Barney reveals how badly she got out of control by whipping open the curtains, dramatically revealing an entirely un-amazing view of the building next door.
Barney: "That was supposed to be a dramatic view of the Toronto skyli -- you're in Toronto." |
Video Games
- A Pink Panther game had this, on a pair of gigantic teeth.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- The Simpsons: Marge's painting of a nude Mr. Burns.
- Parodied (what isn't?) on Clone High, where Joan is hidden under a tarp in anticipation for the reveal of her makeover.
- Equally parodied in the Futurama episode "Roswell that Ends Well," as the page quote implies.