Face Plant

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A staple of Slapstick and other forms of physical comedy, a Face Plant refers to any instance where someone ends up having their face be the first part of their body to impact the ground after falling. The results to the victim can vary from simple embarrassment to serious injury or even death (though Rule of Funny -usually- precludes it from going this far), depending on how hard the person hits the ground, what the surface they're falling on is, and how high they're falling from.

Not to be confused with the Anime and Manga trope of Face Fault, where someone winds up face-first on the ground after witnessing or being told something absurd.

Compare Pratfall.

Examples of Face Plant include:

Anime and Manga

• In one episode of Kekkaishi, Yoshimori Sumimura ends up face planting after Tokine Yukimura uses a small kekkai to trip him.
• Smile Pretty Cure: the Dojikko Yayoi (Cure Peace) does these from time to time even in her version of the ending she even gets a red nose in her next appearance.

Comic Books

• In The Blue Lotus, Thompson and Thomson try to catch a train that has Tintin on it and fall on their faces. They are next seen in a hospital with their noses in casts.

Western Animation

• Most of the main characters in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic have had this happen to them during the course of the first season alone.

Video Games

• Some of the games in the Battlefield series will automatically put the player into a head-down skydiving pose if they fall from a certain height. If the player doesn't have a parachute handy or doesn't deploy it in time, this can result in an invariably fatal faceplant.
• The majority of games that employ Ragdoll Physics will sometimes show characters faceplanting after being killed.
• In Space Quest III, the Have a Nice Death screen for falling deaths ("Deceleration Trauma") shows Roger Wilco upside down with his head mashed into the ground.
• Notably employed in Sonic the Hedgehog as a Running Gag.

Truth in Television

• Most blooper shows will usually have at least one clip per episode of someone falling victim to this.
• YouTube is similarly jam-packed with home videos showing people meeting Terra firma face-first.