I Fell for Hours: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Luigi''': [[Trope Namer|I fell for hours!]]

'''Yoshi''': Oh, hours long time!

 

Namely, it's when [[Not the Fall That Kills You]] meets [[Overly Long Gag]]; a character takes a fall (perhaps from an [[Absurd Altitude]]), and falls for a really, really long time, long enough for either the character or the audience to start wondering when the fall will end. Generally unrealistic (unless someone is sky diving), especially since the character will almost always survive the fall. It's rather hard for it not to be [[Played for Laughs]]. It might involve a [[Bottomless Pit]], or at least a near-bottomless one. [[Bonus Points]] if the character becomes bored and starts to look for things to do to pass the time, though it can be equally hilarious to just have them [[Overly Long Scream|scream their lungs out the entire time]] (perhaps even stopping to take a breath mid-scream, which is a sure indicator that this trope is in effect).

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* The trap-door pit in Ilpalazzo's headquarters in ''[[Excel Saga (manga)|Excel Saga]]'' is subject to this gag at one point. There's plenty of amusing background scenery during the fall.

* In the finale of ''[[Sailor Moon]] SuperS'' Chibi-Moon is thrown from an asteroid that is rising up to the moon and falls down to earth, down to Tokyo, with Sailor Moon after her, in a sequence that takes about four minutes within the show.

* ''[[Kite]]'', otherwise a rather serious OVA, has one of these that doubles as an [[Overly Long Gag]]. Sawa fights a man in a bathroom; the two end up falling out of a large hole in the wall. Sawa grabs onto a sign which snaps off the hinges. Sawa and the man spend about two minutes falling, during which they see a random couple having sex in an office. They hit a tunnel and go through the roof; they hit a car and go through the floor of the tunnel. Another two minutes of falling. The car, the mook and Sawa hit the ground and go through to the subway system, upon which they hit a subway train. The sign then falls the rest of the way and blasts Sawa into a nearby building.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In a ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' comic, Spongebob and Patrick drop down a seemingly bottomless pit. They fall for so long that they grow beards and then shave them off before hitting the ground.

* In ''[[Elf Quest]]'''s "Shards arc there's a scene in which Strongbow falls into a pit-trap of Two-Edge's. He falls long enough for Shuna to figure out a way to save him {{spoiler|by getting Strongbow to shoot an arrow attached to a rope ''through her hand'' so it won’t fall back and the others can grab onto it and pull him up.}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* Even in the book Gandalf later on claims to have been falling forever, but in the movie version of ''[[Lord of the Rings]]: The Two Towers'' we actually see Gandalf and the Balrog falling down the pit under the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm, taking several minutes to reach the bottom, and [[Free-Fall Fight|fighting each other all the way down]].

* In ''[[Twice Upon a Time (1983 film)|Twice Upon a Time]]'', Flora falls for so long after stepping out of Rod Rescueman's flying bachelor pad, Rod has enough time to wash and iron one of his dirty capes before flying to her rescue... sorta.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In ''[[Land of Oz|Tik-Tok of Oz]]'', the party falls down the [[Department of Redundancy Department|Hollow Tube]] all the way to the other side of the world. The trip down takes over an hour; the return trip takes longer, but they are riding a dragon (who is in no hurry).

 

* One German comedy show had the reoccurring skid ''"The man who was falling down a very tall cliff"''. Which was about a man who was falling down a very tall cliff and each week met new interesting people or experienced suprising events.

 

== [[Music]] ==

* The [[Lemon Demon]] song "[http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/falling I've Got Some Falling To Do]" deals with a man who falls off an airplane and finds himself with enough time to get a phone call from Death, get bored, think of an interesting way for himself to die and ponder the nature of perpetual motion. In the end, he's caught and rescued by a giant squid... even though he would have rather just kept on falling.

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* One of the multi-strip story arcs in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' had Calvin holding onto a balloon only to have it float away with him, high into the sky. When it pops, he falls for incredibly long time. At one point he looks down and expects to wake up from a dream at any moment, but it doesn't happen. Luckily he finds his transmogrification gun and saves himself with it by turning himself into a light particle.

 

 

* Also, a Demetri Martin joke:

{{quote|One time I was riding the escalator and I tripped. I fell down them for an hour and a half.}}

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Storm Eagle's second phase in the 2017 hack. X can move around to avoid Storm Eagle's projectiles.

** Rush's Rush jet form in the 2018 hack. Rush can summon enemies on his back to fire projectiles at Mega Man. Luckily, Mega Man can move in free-fall.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* The German internet phenomena ''[[Coldmirror]]'' has one scetch called "The NEW EIGHTH Harry Potter Book" in which she, dressed up as JKR, presents "Harry Potter and the bottomless black hole". She even reads an excerpt: "Harry looked at Ron and Hermione and fell and fell and fell and fell and fell and fell and fell and fell[[Overly Long Gag|andfellandfellandfellandfellandfellandfellandfelland]]."

 

* The old ''[[The Legend of Zelda (animation)|The Legend of Zelda]]'' cartoon had an episode where Ganon was thrown down a [[Bottomless Pit]] by his rebelling minion, after he was trapped in an invulnerable sphere that could only be broken by the Tri-Force. He falls for quite a while, until the story eventually comes back to him when he realizes that his magic still works inside the sphere, and he magics up a balloon to slowly float his way back out. Actual times or distances are never mentioned, though they are implied to be fairly ridiculous.

* ''[[Bugs Bunny]]'':

'''Plucky''': I hope so, this is so boring. Getting splattered would be a nice change! }}

* In ''[[The Flight of Dragons]]'': "It seems like we've been falling for hours!" "Actually, it's been more like ten centuries!"

** Ozzie Smith falls into a seemingly-bottomless pit tourist attraction in the softball episode. It doesn't stop him from snapping pictures on the way down.

** Also happens when Bart and Sideshow Bob fall off the Springfield Dam in "Brother from Another Series". The fall takes long enough for them to scream, take a long inhale, then keep screaming.

* In the French stop-motion film ''A Town Called Panic'', the main characters ride a falling rock for so long that they eventually lapse into a card game on top of it.

* In the ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'' episode "Wallaby on Wheels", Heffer falls down the O-Town Bottomless Pit at the end, taking a breath mid-scream before the [[Iris Out]].

** The episode 'Shanghaied' has the Flying Dutchman throw Squidward in [[Acid Trip Dimension|the Fly Of Despair]] because of his endless ranting. Squidward doesn't reach his house until near the end of the episode.

* In the ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]'' episode "The Boy Who Cried Robot", a mountain climber slips and falls after having climbed the largest mountain in all of Asia. The fall takes him so long that he coughs in mid-scream and begins screaming again and eventually takes out his watch. {{spoiler|Don't worry, Jenny conveniently [[Not the Fall That Kills You|catches him right before he has the chance to hit the ground]].}}

* In the "Bottomless Pit" episode of ''[[Gravity Falls]]'', Stan, Soos, Dipper and Mabel fall into the eponymous pit and spend the next twenty minutes or so telling stories to pass the time. Eventually {{spoiler|since there's no bottom, they're thrown out of the top, right back where (and apparently when) they started.}}

 

** Although the Russians did it first.

** Planets, moons, and satellites in orbit around stars. Stars flying through space. Anything flying through space.

* In 1960, [[wikipedia:Joseph Kittinger|Joseph Kittinger]], during testing on the feasibility of putting a man in space, rode a balloon to an altitude of 102,800 feet—over 19 miles up—and then jumped out. The resulting skydive lasted four and a half minutes and still holds several relevant records, although the height record has since been broken twice.