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For Sale or Rent: 4 bedroom brick house, 3.5 bathrooms, central heating and air conditioning, two car garage. Great location, unbeatable view of the night sky thanks to a Captain Collateral shaped hole in the ceiling. |
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It's pretty, it's homey, and it has a great view... thanks to the huge, gaping hole in the wall and/or ceiling.
A comedy trope, whether because of a natural disaster, super heroics, or stranger shenanigans a family has had their home partially carved out and exposed, and is forced to live that way for at least a scene or two.
Examples of Roofless Renovation include:
Anime and Manga[]
- This happens all the time to the Tendo home in Ranma ½, usually caused by one of Ranma's martial artist rivals. The worst incident was caused when Rouge, a Chinese woman cursed to transform into an Asura, blew away half the roof with a fireball attack.
- Mayuko's room in NieA 7 has a large hole in the roof for a while because of Niea's failed UFO construction experiments.
Film[]
- The last scene in Stephen Spielberg's 1941 is all about this trope.
- Hancock had this after the "lovers' spat".
- And some holes in his own roof after "Climbing the Mountain"
- In The King of the Golden River, Gluck is nice to the odd man who visits them but his brothers are rude to him, so the odd man returns that night in his true form (the North Wind or something) and destroys the roof to the brothers' room (in a rainstorm no less), forcing them to bunk in Gluck's bed. (I wonder whether this was really such a great favor to Gluck.)
- A running gag in the Lethal Weapon movies, as Murtaugh's house got partly blown up by an exploding toilet in the first, and in the second, several scenes showcase the resulting renovation.
- In the end of Mars Attacks (Film)!, the boxer's family had their apartment building partially destroyed, but otherwise still standing.
- Happens to the lead character, Harold, in Stranger Than Fiction.
- G-Girl crashes through her ex's penthouse roof on a couple of occasions in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
- Cyclops accidentally destroys the roof of the train station in X Men with his optical blasts. When he later chides Wolverine for something else, Wolverine counters "I'm not the one who gave the train station a new sunroof!"
Live Action TV[]
- One episode of Gilmore Girls has Lorelai's house being renovated by Luke's brother in law, who's so comedically incompetent that he makes a hole in the second story trying to fix something completely unrelated. Lorelai wanders in a state of shock to Luke's Diner to ask him for help and coherence. He fixes it in a jiffy, though.
- The Douglas' home in Green Acres is in a semi-permanent state of disrepair, thanks to the general incompetence of their contractors, the Monroe brothers. (In their defense, they had only done chicken coops previous to this.) They have to make do with a bedroom closet that doubles as a back door.
- The Muppet Show Gladys Knight episode has the theatre's roof being serviced, only to have to the repair crew insist on taking the whole roof to the shop. Thus the gang has to deal with all sorts of bad weather climaxing with snow during the closing number.
- Lampshaded in the House episode "Que Sera Sera" by the patient. Because of his extraordinary obesity, emergency personnel removed much of his exterior bedroom wall so they could get him out of his apartment. At one point he jokes that at least he won't be alone for the week while this is repaired. It's not so funny anymore when he's later diagnosed with lung cancer.
- This lasts for practically a whole season on Malcolm in the Middle, after Hal and an old friend of his tear a wall off the house.
- During an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sabrina is scoping out places to stay while she goes to college. Her aunts, desperate to have her stay home, use magic to cause all sorts of deformities to the places she visits, including removing the roof from one.
- Another time has a roof removed due to an "as long as you live under our roof" line.
Web Comics[]
- In Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire this happens to the bar Asteroid Al's at the conclusion of the PSmith arc, and despite bemoaning this fact Al, the owner of the newly open roof, has his girlfriend suggest that they put in a skylight.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob has a running gag of spaceships and other large objects continually crashing into Bob's roof.
Web Original[]
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Couldn't you have thrown him somewhere else but my living room? |
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- Strong Bad has fallen through his own roof at least twice, though we never see the hole itself.
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Strong Bad: I should really just stop patching that hole. |
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Western Animation[]
- The Powerpuff Girls hardly ever leave a building besides their own house by a door or even a window. Lampshaded in the first regular series episode.
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PPG: Teacher, may we please be excused to save the world? |
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