Exploding Closet: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A character opens a surreptitiously bulging door to a storage area, and is buried in an avalanche of junk, followed by a skier or something if the authors are feeling particularly silly.

If the closet is continuously left in complete and utter chaos as a [[Running Gag]], no one will bother to organize this closet, and instead opt to quickly open it, retrieve what they need, and hastily shut it in one smooth movement.

 

 

Apparently, all household junk is rubbery and spongy enough that you can squeeze a roomful of the stuff into a single foot-deep closet, as long as you're strong enough to force the door shut afterward. Given the fact that many of these knickknacks can be comfortably squeezed into (and pulled out of) [[Hammerspace|thin air]], this may not be that inexplicable.

 

Sometimes [[Truth in Television]].

{{examples}}

 

 

* In ''[[Stellvia of the Universe]]'', Shima cleans up before a study session by cramming all of her [[Girls Love Stuffed Animals|stuffed toys]] into the closet. Jojo notices one sticking out and opens the door.

* Happens in the very first episode of ''[[Mahoromatic]]'', where Mahoro opens a bulging closet in Suguru's house only to promptly have an avalanche of matching shorts spill out all over her.

 

== Comic Books ==

* A minor [[Running Gag]] in Belgian comic ''[[Gaston Lagaffe]]''. We are once shown Gaston's technique for filling the dreaded cabinet so that things don't fall out: he lays it down and quite literally shovels everything in.

* In the comic ''[[Suske en Wiske]]'', the girl Wiske is [[Genre Savvy]] (or perhaps just knows the habits of the people she lives with): before opening a medicine cabinet, she places a basin before it and stands back, as the contents falls out of it.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* Happen with the Wardrobe in ''[[Seltzer and Friedberg|Epic Movie]]''. Or so it shows in the commercial.

* The "broom closet" Hoggle opens accidentally in the oubliette in ''[[Labyrinth]]'' is packed full of stuff. However, since opening the door from the other side revealed a passage, that closet obviously wasn't following the laws of physics.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** The fact that tribbles are still falling on Kirk's head after the trap is open is [[Retcon|explained somewhat]] in the ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Trial and Tribble-ations", when it is revealed that the tribbles are being thrown out onto him by people trying to identify which one is a bomb.

* ''[[Zoboomafoo]]'': Whenever the Kratt Brothers want to go on an adventure, they open the closet and just shield themselves from the falling safari gear. Then they pick up what they need from whatever fell on the ground and leave. Also subverted, as a female guest-host who occasionally visited was able to open the closet, take out what she wanted, and close it again, without any problem. Of course, the next time the guys opened the closet, they again had all their stuff raining down on them.

* In an episode of ''[[Friends]]'', Ross and Monica are cleaning out their dead grandmother's apartment. Earlier on they had had a discussion about how their grandmother was always collecting packets of sugar. Ross pulls down a box from a high shelf, and out spill piles of sugar packets.

* Happens to [[House (TV series)|House]] in "Clueless".

** In an episode, Spencer is going on a camping trip and needs to get his sleeping bag out of the Shays' storage locker in the basement. Guess what happens next.

** In another, Sam rigs Lewbert's cupboards to bury him with golf balls.

* An episode of ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show]]'' has Rob imagining the world has been taken over by aliens through the use of walnuts (it's a long story). The episode climaxes with Rob opening open a hall closet and a ton of walnuts cascading out...followed by his wife Laura.

 

 

== Puppet Shows ==

 

== Radio ==

 

 

* ''[[Girl Genius]]''

** Used early, when Agatha cleans up a lab by stuffing a nearby closet with all the junk, and then the overlord's son Gilgamesh [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021220 decides to open it to get something]. ("That's the ''worst'' filing system I've ''ever seen''.") The bump on the head actually ''helps'' him clear up his thoughts.

* In ''[[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Sequential Art]]'', the Exploding Closet is simply called "[http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=142 junk room]".

* ''[[Homestuck]]'': [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002495 Dave's house...] [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002508 and a few pages later...]

* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Supercalifragilisticexpeali(Annoyed Grunt)cious", after Sharry and Bart and Lisa clean up the room by shoving everything in the closet, under the bed and under the rug, as soon as they close the door, everything spills back out, making the room messier than it started out.

* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' has the entire plot of an episode revolving around this. It takes the [[Bigger on the Inside]] variant to extremes with the avalanche being from a literal Himalayan-themed mountain of junk inside the closet.

* Happens in the opening of ''[[Johnny Test]]''.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]