To the Batpole: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Naturally, this is an opportunity for [[Stock Footage]], especially in animated productions. A close cousin to the [[Super Multi-Purpose Room]].

 

Not to be confused with [[To the Bat Noun]].

 

* Go Nagai loves this trope. ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' emerges from a hangar beneath a nearby swimming pool, ''[[Great Mazinger]]'' rises from the ocean in a waterspout, and ''[[Grendizer]]'' has its hangar hidden behind a dam.

** ''Grendizer'' also features the pilot's chair transferring from flying saucer to the [[Humongous Mecha]] it transports, with its weirdly arbitrary double half-spin.

* The dub of ''[[Mon Colle Knights]]'' used its suit-up chute sequence as a short voiceovered skit.

** Oddly, only the children got the clothes changing chutes and the trapeze they used to flip into the cockpit. The man who built the thing enters the ship by running into the bathroom, slamming into a wall at high speed, and then falling several feet into his chair. He never fixes this.

* ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' ritualizes almost to the point of fetish the [[Stock Footage]] of Utena entering the Secret Forest and making her way up to the dueling platform, with her school uniform (usually) transforming along the way.

* ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' has a colorful [[Transformation Sequence|transformation-ish sequence]] as our heroes go from the human world to the Digital World. The characters introduced that season change clothes on the way, but members of the elder team left over from the previous year stay as they are.

* The [[Five-Man Band]] of ''[[GoLion]]'' had to slide down ziplines and then be ferried around ''the entire planet'' via a series of underground tubes to get in their cat-shaped super space cars. You'd think Prince Sincline and his Deathblack Beastmen would do a lot more damage, just accounting for travel time.

* Played for laughs in ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]''. A powerful motor rumbles and Renge rises up out of the ground on a slowly rotating platform, affecting a [[Noblewoman's Laugh]]. It was weird enough when it happened in Music Room 3, but she apparently has similar rigs set up all over Japan.

 

 

* Averted in ''[[Watchmen]]''. The Nite Owl's nest is through an ordinary locked door in his kitchen and down a short flight of stairs.

* The ''Batman'' comics usually go with the staircase, although there have been variants. The clock is also fairly consistent, with the combination needed to unlock usually being the exact time that Bruce's parents were shot.

 

 

* [[Wallace and Gromit]] has some direct references to Gerry Anderson and ''[[Thunderbirds]]''.

** In ''A Close Shave'', Wallace has a ludicrously complicated set of slides and machines to transport himself from his armchair to his motorbike and get dressed for work. After that, Gromit then simply walks into the garage through a door from the kitchen, rolling his eyes. It doesn't end there - Wallace even uses a mechanical foot to kick-start the motorbike.

** This was then used as a running gag in [[The Emperor's New School|the series]]. "Pull the lever, Kronk!"

* [[Despicable Me]]. To go into his underground base, Gru gets shifted across the room in a chair, eaten by a cannon which flips around on struts (and apparently dresses him in a suit as well). Then half the floor lifts and the cannon is put on a platform which descends into the ground.

** And then the trope is subverted when the same mechanical arms are used to try to take the suit off. Turns out it doesn't work very well with a squishy human being pinched and pulled in lots of different directions by all the equipment as they try to detach all the parts of the armor.

*** The problem with the unsuiting actually was that the armer had been battle-scarred so much that the bolts had bent, the metal was dented et cetera, making the suit almost impossible to deconstruct.

* ''[[The Dark Knight]]'''s (presumably temporary) Batcave was accessed by... unlocking a storage container on a condemned piece of Wayne Enterprises property. To put it mildly, this is the least dramatic thing in the movie.

** Bruce has a hidden door in his penthouse that presumably leads to a sort of mini-Batcave where he keeps a spare costume. A pair of guests see him opening it and assume it's a secret [[Safe Room]] (and that he is a massive prick for locking the door right behind himself, leaving them in danger)

* The ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' have a fireman's pole in their headquarters that takes them straight to the lockers where they keep their outfits and equipment. It's not a secret, but it's dramatic and one of the main reasons they wanted to buy the place.

 

** Do you want to know how? [http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20051016.html Here's how!]

* Similarly to the [[Puppet Shows]] examples below, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's live-action 1970 British series ''[[UFO]]'' used chutes for pilots launching from both the moon base and the SkyDiver submarine. SHADO's headquarters (hidden under a film studio) is accessed by Straker's entire office which serves as an elevator. Hopefully no-one peeks into the boss' window and wonders why it's sinking into the ground.

* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has [[Long Runners|been around long enough]] to have tried every superhero trope on for size, this one included:

* Sort-of averted and used in the 60s TV adaptation of ''[[The Green Hornet]]''. Apparently The Green Hornet and Kato changed into their [[Coat, Hat, Mask|"costumes"]] in Britt Reid's townhouse, but after putting on their costumes they'd go into Reid's garage. There, Kato would actuate a mechanism, and extensions would come out of the bumpers of Reid's day-to-day car while clamps rose from the floor and attached to the extensions. Once Reid's day-to-day car was securely clamped to the floor, the ''entire floor'' under the car would flip over longitudinally, and we would see the Hornet's [[Cool Car|sleek and powerful Black Beauty]] firmly clamped to the other side of the floor. Kato would activate another mechanism, the clamps would release from the Black Beauty and the doors of the car would open. The Hornet and Kato could then get in the car, perform their "pre-flight checks", and then drive off.

** See the entire sequence [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2RDh0EqRH8 here].

 

 

== Puppet Shows ==

* The television shows of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's production company, which at first were [[Puppet Shows]] but later included live-action ones, were the main source concerning entrance into a vehicle. The same [[Stock Footage]] was used episode after episode. This meant that the characters always had to start in the same clothes. It also prevented any puppet characters from having to walk on-camera, which was never very convincing.

** The same trope was reused in reverse for ''[[Captain Scarlet]]'', whose fighter pilots' chairs rose through the deck of a flying aircraft carrier to enter their planes.

** The Andersons' top example was the famous "rotating walls and furniture" that took the Tracys from the house to the hangars in ''[[Thunderbirds]]''. It was this show from which the [[Stock Footage]] in Japanese [[Super Robot]] anime was derived. This was retained for the live-action ''Thunderbirds'' film, which also featured them changing into uniform as they flew down the chutes.

== [[Radio]] ==

* The Batpoles are parodied in ''[[The Burkiss Way]]'':

'''Robin''': Uh, Batman, wouldn't it be quicker to just ''walk'' upstairs? }}

 

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Elite Beat Agents]]''. [[Cool Ship]]. Star-shaped whirlpool in the effing ''ocean''.

* In most of the ''[[Sakura Wars]] games'', the pilots reach their secret base under the theatre by sliding down individual chutes. In earlier games these chutes also somehow, magically, change them into their battle uniforms, although ''Sakura Wars: So Long My Love'' eschews this in favor of showing [[Fan Service|shots of the girls changing]] (albeit tasteful ones).

 

== Web Comics ==

 

 

* ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' parodies this trope when a maid accidentally activates the secret trap door in Bruce Wayne's office. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* ''[[Danger Mouse]]'''s couch doubled as an express elevator down to his car. Despite taking the ride nearly every episode, Penfold never got used to it.

* [[Phineas and Ferb]]'s Perry the Platypus has a different entrance to his lair every time. Some of them are really silly.

 

== Real Life ==

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]