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Typically the Shooting Gallery is a training run for "shoot/don't shoot" scenarios where dummies will pop out and shoot at anyone running through it. Often a trainee will be expected to shoot all the "bad guys" while not shooting obvious civilians like paraplegics, women with babies or Randall Munroe. In an action adventure plot expect it to be taken over by the bad guys (or perhaps specially constructed by them) and the dummies to be firing live ammunition.

Often a new trainee will be shown using these, perhaps learning a lesson about being more cautious. If it is used for training, it's entirely possible that a near identical scene will happen later.

If the characters are using one, but the audience isn't told beforehand, it can be a case of Danger Room Cold Open.

In the United States the FBI calls their shooting gallery Hogan's Alley. The generic term for a military or law enforcement shooting gallery is kill house.

Sometimes part of a training Montage.

Examples of Shooting Gallery include:


Anime and Manga[]

  • Subaru and Teana goes through one of these on the first episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS for their B-Rank qualifying mage exam.
  • In Hellsing when Integra is reviewing another Redshirt Army for recruitment, they're running through one of these.
  • Gunslinger Girl. A 'Killing House' is shown on several occasions as the girls are trained for their roles as assassins.

Comic Books[]

  • In the Jon Sable Freelance comic, Jon had one of these in his basement and ended up having a real running gun battle through it.
  • In Hex #8, Jonah Hex runs through a shooting gallery where the dummies are firing back with live ammunition in a story entitled, appropriately enough, "The Shooting Gallery".

Film[]

  • Scaramanga's funhouse in The Man with the Golden Gun.
  • The Men in Black movie has a trick example: the MIBs put potential recruits through a shooting gallery full of scary-looking monsters, but the only thing Will Smith's character shoots is a little girl. When questioned by Rip Torn, he points out his logic (the "snarling" monster just has a cold, the one on the streetlight is just exercising, but the little white girl in the projects at the dead of night with quantum physics textbooks must be up to something). Turns out that was the right answer.
  • Used in the Dirty Harry movie Magnum Force. Harry loses the police shooting contest because he "accidentally" shoots a "good guy" target...a police officer.
    • Which is an important plot point, because he has figured out by then that the serial killers murdering criminals around town are actually cops. Cops he knows. Also, after the contest he used one of the suspected cops' weapons, missing one shot that he sneaks back for later to gather as evidence.
    • And before that he goes to the training range, where he meets the group of vigilante officers while they are training.
  • Police Academy has a subversion of this. The cadets are all taken to the academy shooting range, and walk though the course one by one... until Tacklebury, who is gun-crazy, goes off on his own and starts shooting every target. I can't convey the scene, but it's funny.
  • Used in Starship Troopers - where the aftermath of a mistake while using live rounds on the hazard course leaves one soldier dead and his commanding officer stripped of rank and given ten strikes with a whip.
  • In the first Lethal Weapon movie recently-teamed partners Riggs and Murtaugh are trying to one-up each other on the range. Murtaugh, annoyed at Rigg's tight bullethole group, sends a target further down the range and puts a single bullet through its 'head'. Riggs then sends his target all the way downrange, and shoots a smiley face in the head zone.
  • Dear Wendy features a secret underground shooting gallery.
  • RoboCop had a scene where about half the precinct were practicing on the range and all stopping to witness Robocop's Improbable Aiming Skills as he shredded the targets with his Auto 9.

Literature[]

  • In Rivers of London the Folly has one for trainee wizards to practice their fireball skills in. As a mark of just how long it has been since it was put use, all the target silhouettes are still shaped like WW 2 Nazis.
  • In the STALKER - verse book Lead Sunset, a flashback of Major Kupriyanov is him and his military academy mates being taken for an exam that involved this. He got the lowest points, because he shot every target he saw with unerring accuracy. Including the kids. When the instructor asked him why, he said something on the lines of "The order was to shoot every target, not every enemy target. I see no difference between a cardboard hostile and a cardboard civilian". Then he was asked if he would still shoot if those were real people. He replied with a hearty "yes", because the command probably had a reason for him to kill these people. He was accepted.

Live Action TV[]

  • The MacGyver episode "Halloween Knights" featured a shooting gallery called "Death Row" used by Murder, Inc. organisation H.I.T. to test new recruits.
  • The New Avengers episode "Target!" features the agency's shooting gallery being used to assassinate agents.
  • When Sledge Hammer goes through one of these, he just shoots everyone, with no negative effects other than annoying Da Chief. This is in the same scene that introduces the "loudener" on his gun.
  • Used for dramatic effect in the "Kill Straker!" episode of UFO. Colonel Foster has been given a subliminal command to kill Commander Straker. Straker needs to be absolutely sure the command has been erased, so he orders the guards to lock them in the target range, then proceeds to take pot shots at Foster in order to provoke him. Afterwards when Foster protests that Straker was trying to kill him, Straker shoots out a row of tiny targets from the hip and says "I could have killed you at any time."
  • Dark Angel
  • Battlestar Galactica Reimagined. Apollo, Starbuck and Hotdog are seen doing pistol practice, shooting at a target with Sharon's face on it.
  • The X-Files ("Pusher"). Mulder, annoyed that a killer has been released merely because a judge doesn't believe his latest loony theory, is shown on the range blasting away at a target. Needless to say Mulder shoots the villain at the end of the episode.
  • The Kenny Everett Video Cassette. In a spoof of the TV series SWAT, Kenny Everett shoots a pop-up target on a Hogan's Alley range and is congratulated by his fellow officers on his great shooting. After they leave we see a man holding a target stagger out from behind the wall and fall down dead.
  • Hunter. An episode where Hunter and Dee Dee were investigating a mad sniper shooting women had them going to an army range, where they naturally encounter both the standard Red Herring suspect, who shoots all targets innocent or guilty with great enthusiasm, and his older sergeant who's the real killer. At the end Hunter chases the killer onto the range and activates the targets. The killer reacts to the first couple of targets, so when Hunter appears his reactions are lax enough that he gets shot.
  • One of the Top Gear American specials has the guys at one. Amusingly all the targets are shaped like the Stig.

Video Games[]

  • Video Games can have these for practice, like Jak and Daxter 2.
  • The entire gameplay of some Arcade Games:
    • Hogan's Alley
    • Police Trainer
    • Point Blank
    • Quick & Crash
    • Carnival (Sega, 1980) is a fixed vertical shooter a la Space Invaders, but the principal is the same: the gameplay is based on the traditional shooting galleries seen at carnivals and midways.[1]
  • An unexpected Genre Shift in Shadow Hearts: Covenant sees you controlling the Mutant Ape Ouka as she runs through one of these. In this case the "civilians" are cutouts of Sergeant Kato, and he's less than thrilled if you shoot one.
  • Winback uses real people for the hero to train upon. Odd. I guess the Death Penalty is much harsher.
  • Perfect Dark has one in the Carrington Institute. You can also use the railgun, which fires through walls, allowing you to shoot out lights and stuff in the building's offices upstairs. You can also use a floating block to wedge the door open and take the weapons out to play around the rest of the base.
  • Halo 3's multiplayer map "The Pit" takes place on one of these.
  • Somewhat jarringly used in Dead Space.
  • Used as the opening levels in some Call of Duty games:
    • Call Of Duty 2 - takes place from the perspective of a newly drafted Russian infantryman who's never fired a rifle before. He and others in his unit shoot bottles and plates for target practice, then throw potatoes into windows for grenade training. "Grenades are more valuable than you'll ever be!" Immediately after that, a German armored car enters the area and the player must take it out.
    • Call Of Duty 4 - starts with a new S.A.S. members first day in Captain Price's unit. He starts off by shooting some targets at a shooting range, then manuevers through a killhouse based on the opening of the first level. The game recommends a difficulty level based on how well you do in the killhouse.
  • Fittingly, there's two of these at the carnival in Bully. One is a Wild West setting: targets include bottles (shoot), bandits (shoot), women with their hands up (don't shoot), and a star (shoot for bonus). The other is a baseball throw, with catchers (hit), batters (don't hit), umpires (instant game over), and a big glove (bonus).
  • There's one in Parasite Eve 2.
  • Some Zelda games have one, like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks.
  • Half Life Blue Shift had one at the beginning of the game when you are issued your weapon.
  • Police Quest 2 has one where you need hearing protection and use it to adjust your gun's sights.
  • A Humongous Mecha-scale version of this trope appears in a mission in Mechwarrior 3. An enemy training course is left on in one of the mission areas, and it's very possible to walk your lance into it without realizing it, then start shooting when you realize you're surrounded by 'enemy contacts.'
  • In Sin, there are four shooting galleries. However, the skeet range uses an inaccurate shotgun, and the Hogan's Alley style shooting range used a slow-firing weapon when you needed to hit three targets quickly.
  • In Left 4 Dead 2's Dark Carnival campaign, you can stop to participate in a shooting gallery whose prize is a lawn gnome; carring the gnome through the end of the campaign nets you an achievement.

Western Animation[]

  • The Simpsons episode "The Springfield Connection" has Marge doing one of these perfectly (she hits all the villains and none of the civilians). Wiggum's disappointed response: "You missed the baby, you missed the blind man...".
  • An episode of Justice League had Green Lantern pitting the League against one of these as a team-building exercise, using both cardboard cut-outs of supervillains and training robots that fought back, with mixed results.
  • One episode of Danny Phantom has Danny practicing with his ectoblasts. The gallery has cut-outs of ghosts and one cut-out of his sister, Jazz. He only hits the ghosts... but hits his sister afterward. Don't worry, it's played for laughs.
  • Brock from The Venture Brothers had to complete one of these as part of a test to renew his license to kill. However, since he doesn't use guns, he destroyed them in more creative ways.
  • In the Looney Tunes short Satan's Waitin' in which Sylvester can't stop dying and using up the remainder of his lives trying to kill Tweety at point he wanders onto one of these while trying to catch him, he ends up getting shot multiple times and losing four of his lives.
  1. Just be sure you shoot the ducks as soon as possible. They'll eat your bullets, and you get a Game Over if you run out.
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