Illogical Safe

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Don't try this at home.

If someone is crushed by a large safe, you only need to open the safe, and he will be inside of it.

In most cases the open safe reveals a torn and bent "floor"—indicating that the person under the safe punched his way into it as though it had been made of paper.

Mostly only used in comedy or old cartoons, although Super Heroes with invulnerability powers may use it straight.

Compare with By Wall That Is Holey and Efficient Displacement.

Has nothing to do with keeping The McCoy out of harm's way.

Examples of Illogical Safe include:

Comic Books

  • Garfield does this to Odie in one Sunday strip.

Film

Webcomics

Western Animation

  • Done numerous times in Looney Tunes, especially by Bugs Bunny to the hapless maroon of the episode, particularly the likes of Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd. Also happened a good deal to Sylvester.
  • Also popular in Tom and Jerry shorts, including "The Better Mouse Trap" which features a classic variation, where Tom comes out of the safe now smushed into a perfect cube.
  • On Garfield and Friends, when a safe (27-ton, in compliance with a promise not to drop a 16-ton safe on him) is dropped on Roy for squeezing toothpaste from the top of the tube. Not only was he inside, but he was able to open the safe door from there. (The previous two lessons, incidentally, were punctuated by a falling upright piano and a 1988 convertible. Like the safe, he popped through the bottoms of both.)
    • When Roy buys a robot that's supposed to make it rain on command, it ends up making anything they say fall from the sky onto Roy, except actual rain. One thing it does this with? A safe. (When Roy used the word for its other definition.) Not only is he inside, but he's able to manipulate the combination lock. (Later, a house falls on him. He's pretty much dead center, yet Orson knows to open the mailbox out front. Indeed, he's inside.)
    • When Garfield hears that it's Monday, his mind plays different scenarios as a horror movie trailer. In one scenario, he's smashed, bashed, and yes, even splutted; the bashing is done with an Illogical Safe.
  • In Darkwing Duck, Darkwing's breakfast Death Course causes his fridge to launch into the air and land on top of him if he forgets the milk. He ends up inside the fridge; amusingly injured, dazed, and holding a jug of milk.
  • A Timon and Pumbaa short in which Pumbaa suffers a run of bad luck has this happening to Pumbaa—and then, as soon as he's out of the safe, it happens again with a space capsule.
  • In Toy Story 3, just right before they end up inside the dump, Buzz Lightyear winds up inside a television set after it falls on him. Fortunately the screen was already cracked, and the impact switched him from Spanish back to his normal self.
  • One episode of Danger Mouse did this with The Statue of Liberty.
  • This happens to Popeye in "What, No Spinach?" He is unharmed, of course - Wimpy instigated cafe owner Bluto to use the safe as a weapon specifically so it would get opened and he could get to the stash of food inside.