There Was a Door

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
There's a door right there! A glass door!

"That's just like Clark. Perfectly serviceable door, and he makes a hole in the wall."

—Batman, Justice League Abridged

Some people just don't feel the need to follow certain rules. Like, using a door to enter a room. Instead, they prefer to simply burst through a wall or window in a truly dramatic fashion, even if it makes no sense or it would have been easier to go the conventional way. This is especially common when someone shoots through a door despite the considerable time and ammo this would take in Real Life. Use of this Trope may be an indicator that the buster is really a Small Name, Big Ego and/or not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

Also often happens in the form of a fake out, where the audience is led to believe someone will enter through the door when the camera focuses on it, only to have them burst through the wall somewhere on either side instead.

Frequently lampshaded by someone shouting out the trope name, especially the Deadpan Snarker or the disgruntled owner of the building. Also, keep in mind the old joke about the stupid burglar: he breaks two windows, one to get in, and one to get out. The gag can run loose if the person goes through a different place every time, or does it just as the hole is being repaired, much to the frustration of the owner.

Oftentimes this is committed because they forgot that We Have the Keys. See also Efficient Displacement (Man Shaped Hole), Bullethole Door, Dungeon Bypass, Super Window Jump, Enter Stage Window and The Exit Is That Way. Compare Barrier-Busting Blow.

These examples don't know how to knock:

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  • The Kool-Aid Man. OH YEAAAAHHHH!!!
    • Referenced in the first episode of Family Guy, and then parodied in several later episodes. In "Peterotica," a car crashes through the wall of Kool-Aid Man's house, and he remarks "Wow! You know, from the other side, that's kind of annoying." When Peter crashes through the wall again, after Kool-Aid has just finished repairing it, he shouts "Oh, come on!!" Also in the courtroom, where the courtroom audience goes "Oh, NO!" and the Kool-Aid Man comes crashing through the wall, "OH YEAH!" When the Koolaid Man realizes where he is, he backs out in embarrassment. The Judge tells everybody to stop doing that so that the damn Kool-Aid Man doesn't keep busting through the wall.
    • Also done in Robot Chicken multiple times in one episode. Interestingly, the protagonists of the scenes (who are the same two guys) are intentionally invoking Kool-Aid man even after witnessing his reign of terror.
    • Dane Cook had a field day with this.

Dane: BEEP drinking out of him; if that was me, I'd be like, "You fix that BEEPing wall before my dad gets home from work! He's gonna beat me with a belt; he's not gonna believe a talking bowl of fruit punch came in here."

  • As The Critic's awful student film proved, the Kool-Aid Man breaking through a wall is highly symbolic of... um, something. We're not sure what. Just make sure you play O Fortuna in the background.
  • Yo mama is so fat, when people yell Kool-Aid, the bitch comes crashing through the wall.
  • One of the commercials lampshades this; it features his mother, who at first comments how proud she is of him for now having less sugar; the commercial ends with the house shaking and a loud "MOM! I'M HOME!" and her saying she only wishes he'd learn to use the door.

Anime and Manga

  • One Piece
    • Garp bursts through a wall to beat Luffy's head. When his men ask him why he didn't use the door, Garp claims that his way was cooler.
    • Both Gadetsu and Admiral Garp are prone to this, though Garp is at least polite enough to repair the hole later.
    • The end of chapter 346. Zoro cuts through a door while Luffy kicks through a wall.
  • In the Fruits Basket anime it become a Running Gag that people keep destroying Harem Nanny Shigure's house, and he says this line at least once when someone bursts through the screen. In Shigure's case, he's probably good-naturedly remarking on that very fact. Kagura is later shown spending most of the night trying (and failing) to fix the screen after she wrecks it even more than usual.
  • Ranma ½
    • Shampoo tends to burst through walls in her appearances. When asked why she doesn't use the door, she replies "Door take too long!" From observation, it appears that whenever she's chasing someone (usually Ranma), she focuses on the chase to the exclusion of the building's floorplan. If there happens to be a door in her way, she'll open it, but she won't take an alternate route just because there's a wall in her way. On at least one occasion, she is seen to exit the room by smashing a new hole in the wall, right next to the one she made coming in. Takahashi must love this trope.
    • Ryû Kumon, from the late manga, also walks through walls (he's just that strong) in order to intimidate people. Worse, he broke through an entire wing of walls at Fûrinkan High School, from the ground floor and up to the third floor, completely ignoring the stairs and the doors. Ranma's classmates even felt the tremors and thought it was an earthquake.
    • From the first movie, after Kunō thrusts his way into the living room with his wooden sword:

Nabiki: (sarcastic) Hey, Kunō-baby, the door...
Kunō: Be silent, woman!

    • Pantyhose Tarō also does this a lot in monster form—but then again, he doesn't fit the door.
  • Edo Phoenix of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has a taste for dramatic entrances, i.e. skyboarding into school, jumping from a helicopter through a closed skylight. Would it have been such a tragedy to wait for the chopper to land?
  • Shuichi Shindo of Gravitation seems to lose his ability to use doors whenever he is excited. This does not please Yuki. Nor is Tohma happy at the damages to his property when an exuberant Shuichi breaks down a wall to deliver his complete album. Yuki lampshades this.

Yuki: Learn how to open a door, you damn brat, I've just moved in here and you're already wrecking the place!

  • After Vanilla Ice is introduced in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, he uses the power of his Stand to phase a hole into the wall when he goes to attack Jotaro's party. Dio's response: "At least open the door when you leave..."
  • In Baccano!, Nice blows up the wall of a warehouse when coming to Jacuzzi's rescue. "But Nice, the entrance was right there, why did you blow up the wall?" "Why did she blow up the wall? What kind of stupid question is that? Boss likes blowing things up, so she blew up the wall!"
  • Princess Tutu contains a scene where Fakir dramatically crashes through a window to gain entrance to a building... even though both Mytho and Tutu were able to easily enter using the door.
  • Hunter X Hunter. The two main heroes evade an enemy in a subversion. They kick through wall after wall...then double back one room and simply leave by the front door. It works.
  • Bleach
    • The enemy bases tend to have maze-like layouts, so most travel is done by either smashing through walls or jumping over them. This trend reaches its climax during the second Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra battle, where four characters separately bust into the same room through the floor, the inside wall, the outside wall, and from another dimension. (That last one might technically count as a door, since it can be opened and closed without inflicting structural damage).
    • The design of one Hueco Mundo tower was openly mocked in an omake. The character explaining it claimed that the building was designed without stairs and multiple heavy pillars to allow people to smash through the floors without completely destroying the building.
    • Grimmjow's epic save of Orihime. To stress just how epically unnecessary this was, Grimmjow blew a hole in the wall when the door, which was destroyed by Loly and Menoly when they entered, was literally three feet away. He even acknowledges the door was open, but says he came through the wall because the door was "busted".

Loly: How'd you get in here!?
Grimmjow: How? Through the wall, of course.

    • Kenpachi loves this too, having busted through several walls and even a ceiling to get to where he needs to be. If he didn't, he might never get to where he's going.
    • Yammy does this so often there's a listing on his character page calling him Kool-Aid Man.
  • In the My-HiME manga, Mai and Mikoto smash into Natsuki's apartment through the window to rescue Tate. Natsuki's response? "You guys are going to owe me for that window. Why didn't you use the door?" Apparently window-smashing is Mikoto's stock in trade.
  • In the second episode of Arcade Gamer Fubuki, Mr. Mystery jumps through Fubuki's window to give her a card. He then jumps out another window to make his exit. Umm...
  • Mr. Yotsuya of Maison Ikkoku frequently uses a log to break through the wall between his apartment and Godai's.
  • The Raikage in Naruto takes "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" to a new and completely awesome extreme, starting with his own office window. Judging from his assistant's response, he apparently does this a lot. Whether it be a wall, a person, a table, Amaterasu fire and the Susanoo absolute defense, and even the ground, god help whatever happens to be between the Raikage and his goal, because by the time he gets there, it no longer exists. At one point he does it to a wall in a room that was being used for a diplomatic meeting. Granted, he was in a hurry. It has now become a Running Gag for the Raikage to break a wall and exit, after which Darui apologizes for it and remarks to C that he will just use the door.
  • Sōsuke from Full Metal Panic! tends to do this. In one instance, he ends up blasting a hole in the wall to get to the classroom next door... Instead of, you know, using the door. When asked why he responds that it's more efficient this way, which from his point of view is entirely true: On an actual battlefield, using the door is generally a very poor idea since they're natural chokepoints.
  • Fairy Tail
    • Natsu does this often, though to be fair it's usually when he's looking for an enemy. Kageyama lampshaded Natsu's searching method during the Lullaby arc.

Kageyama: Has this guy never heard of a door?

    • Gildarts would also apply. He's so accident prone that he had to divide the whole city into two going straight to the Fairy Tail Guild so that he would not accidentally destroy some private houses!!!
  • Fullmetal Alchemist
    • The Crimson Alchemist prefers blowing walls up as opposed to opening doors.
    • Ed and his teacher Izumi might count as an inversion; on several occasions they transmute doors on walls that didn't already have them, so they can enter through said doors rather than smashing the wall.
    • Sloth plays it straight during his grand entrance in the final arc.
  • Code Geass R2 has a magnificent example: when the UFN council is unwilling to admit Britannia among themselves since Britannia would get absolute majority due to its population and essentially hand the world over to the Britannian Emperor, Lelouch responds by pointing skyward. Seconds later, Suzaku crashes through the ceiling with the Lancelot, Dual-Wielding VARIS rifles and announcing that he "will not tolerate any insolence towards His Majesty!"
  • Parodied in Axis Powers Hetalia. America (as Santa Claus) smashes through a window to get into a little boy's room. Apparently he just got back from Hollywood.
  • Piedmon from Digimon Adventure tears through several walls when hunting down the Digidestined through his palace. Likely at least some of them is likely because it's a quicker path. But in the end, when chasing TK and Kari, the only two he hasn't captured, he comes across the door to the outside were they'd be trapped. Instead of opening the door, he decides to blow it up to make a dramatic entrance. Large Ham that he is, he lampshades this:

Piedmon: I must stop this, it costs me a fortune in new doors!

Comic Books

  • X-Men
    • In one of the X-Babies appearances (perhaps Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem),[please verify] there's a sequence where—of course—the door is not used.

Kitty Pryde: (exasperated) Classic X-Men style, guys: Never use a door when you can make one of your own!

    • Note that the above remark is from someone whose power allows her to walk through walls. On that note, while Kitty does phase through walls, she at least has the courtesy to phase through the door.
    • From Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run, Danger has teamed up with Sufficiently Advanced Alien Ord of the Breakworld to invade the X-Mansion (again). The super strong and mildly berserk Ord is bashing through everything in his path, ripping doors off their hinges and generally making a mess. To be fair, what do you expect from a place called Breakworld?

Danger: I'm assuming that Breakworld technology never evolved doorknobs?

    • In an issue, the X-Men are imprisoned in Murderworld. Cyclops faces three doors, and Arcade tells him one of them leads to life, the two others lead to death. Actually the three of them lead to death, and the only possible issue was blasting the side wall. Of course Cyclops does it.
    • Heck, the X-Men were doing this as far back as the fifth issue. Professor Xavier has been depowered, so the X-Men have to break him into his own house to get him some rest. Cyclops blasts the front door despite the fact that they key was right there.
  • Rorschach in the Watchmen comic does use doors. They're just usually locked. The sequence of events goes something like this: Rorschach breaks into his old partner Dan Dreiberg's apartment by smashing the lock. Dan has the lock replaced. Rorschach breaks the new one effortlessly. Dan has the lock replaced a second time. Then the police try to break in, and the lock holds, but the door itself smashes to pieces. But really the lock makers were asking for this. After all their company is called Gordian Locks.
  • The Juggernaut is fond of this means of travel, particularly in X3. Well, he was chasing Shadowcat, and HE'S THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH, so... Then again, what good are doors for a person larger than the door frame?
  • In an issue of Young Justice, former heroine Cissie King-Jones has been captured at her school. As Red Tornado breaks down the wall, and Wonder Girl smashes through the window, she says "We have doors here, you know! Only superheroes could turn entering a room into a 'who is muy macho?' competition!"
  • Hulk SMASH!
    • During Peter David's run on the Hulk, when he had the brains of Banner in the Hulk's body, he decides to sneak out the back way by creating a back way. Subverted in a later punch up with Captain America (comics), where despite being inside a fragile house, nothing is damaged. He's thrown cleanly out the front door thanks to Cap's judo skills.
    • Broken subversion in Earth X: Bruce Banner (currently separated from the Hulk) appears to be telling Hulk to be careful with Dr. Strange's walls. But he tells Hulk "We don't need to use a door here", apparently a typo for "We need to use a door" or "We don't need to make a door". Hulk use door anyway.
  • Asterix
    • Obélix does use the door. Of course, by "use the door", we mean "punch the door out of its frame, then trample whoever was behind it."
    • In the animated version of Asterix meets Cleopatra, a soldier tries to prevent this by rolling a large stone in front of the door—only to have Obelix crash through the wall right next to it.
    • He also resizes the door every now and then. And sometimes he doesn't bother punching the door—just walking through it as if it weren't there. He once ripped open a cell door just with a belly push.
    • He often tries to knock, but even a gentle tap with his superhuman strength is enough to shatter stone, so it doesn't do much good.
  • Played with in Mortadelo Y Filemon: The two protagonists find themselves in a cell with a steel door. Filemon starts making a hole in the wall, all the while brushing off Mortadelo who's trying to tell him something. When, after considerable time, he finally breaks through the wall, he finds Mortadelo there waiting for him—it turns out that the bad guys forgot to lock the door...
  • Lampshaded in an issue of The Avengers, where the team helps Jean Grey get back into her old life after being replaced by the Phoenix for so long. They take her to parents' house but they weren't home, so Hercules breaks down the door and is chewed out by Jean, who points out that there was a key beneath a paving stone meant for her and her sister. Captain America (comics) assures her they'll write her parents a check.
  • Batman never uses a door if a window will suffice. Why? Because he's the goddamn Batman.
  • Superman: Super strong, super fast, can fly, is invincible, has X-ray vision, heat vision, can time travel, can't work a doorknob.
    • He does it so often, in fact, that Jimmy once caught him with the "bucket over the door" gag by putting the bucket over a random spot in the wall, which Supes of course broke right through.
    • Of course, this is nothing out of the ordinary, considering that Superman is a dick.
    • For example, this page from Action Comics #266.
    • And let's not forget our friend, Doomsday. He pretty much won't go anywhere, unless there's something in his way to smash to pieces. Granted he's basically violence incarnate, so he may just smash stuff because he likes to.
  • Fantastic Four
    • This is a common problem for Ben Grimm in most universes, due to being a giant rock-man. One comic showed him involuntarily smashing through a wall and muttering, "Why must they build doorways so narrow?"
    • In an Ultimate Fantastic Four/Marvel Zombies crossover, Ultimate Reed Richards finds himself trapped in the Marvel Zombie universe with Magneto and a handful of human survivors. They are found by the rest of the Ultimate Fantastic Four and hurry to escape the building. Ben heroically breaks down a wall so they can get out and Reed points out that the door was right there.

Reed: Ever heard of a door, jackass?
Ben: Okay, now I feel stupid.

Dr. Doom: The DOOR? Like a PEASANT?

  • Sin City: In his first appearance, Marv invokes this trope and subverts it... by running straight through a door instead of the wall.
  • In Normalman, residents of Levram (where everyone except the title character has super-powers) rarely bother with doors. Captain Everything is a particular repeat offender.
  • Spider-Man tends to use windows to enter skyscrapers, but this Trope is lampshaded and Inverted in one story where Silver Sable has The Daily Bugle contact Spidey to ask to meet with him. Spidey decides to be direct, and goes to the office waiting room of the Symkarian Embassy as anyone else would; eventually, Silver comes out, upset because he's scaring away her appointments, and asks, "Don't you usually come in through the window?"

Fan Works

Bando: Thanks for the new arm and leg, but I gotta run! (jumps out a third story window)
Scientist inside building: You could have used the door, asshole.

  • In Renegade, "Spectre" Garrus Vakarian demonstrates his disdain for the traditional methods of entry by repeatedly knocking down walls with a cargo hauler to surprise groups of mercenaries. In his own words:

Garrus Vakarian: I've yet to encounter a potentially dangerous situation that can't be defused by smashing through a wall.

    • This backfires a bit when He revisits the first warehouse (Going through another wall of course) and finds the guy he needs to talk to has gone through the first hole and stole a car. Garrus's response to this? Borrow a tank from C-Sec

Film

  • In Megamind, Megamind busts through Hal/Titan's apartment wall with his giant robot after waiting several hours for Hal to show up for an epic battle:

Megamind: (after smashing through the wall and stomping inside) Would Metro Man have kept me waiting? Of course not! He was a PRO!
Hal: Megamind! You're just the man I wanna see! Also, there's a door here.

  • Subverted in Over the Hedge. The main characters escape through the door even though that's the only part of the wall left.
  • In Freaknik: The Musical, this is how The Perminator tends to enter a room. CRASH, bitch!
  • James Bond in Casino Royale. -- Bond smash!!
  • Superman movies:
    • The villains in Superman II do this a lot, especially when they take over the Daily Planet office, with Lex Luthor delivering the line.
    • This is a Call Back to the first movie when Superman tracks Luthor down to his hidden lair, and dramatically smashes through the wall rather than use the door, causing Lex to quip "It's open! Come in!". In the second movie, then, he's muttering to himself that not knowing how doors work seems to be a problem for Kryptonians in general.
    • In the fourth movie, Nuclear Man is no better, although he seems to enjoy bursting through floors and ceilings suspended by incredibly obvious wires.
  • Iorek Byrnison in The Golden Compass film does this after getting back his armor, though in this case it's probably symbolic of him no longer being subservient to humanity (or its etiquette) since he is a giant Ice Bear. Or he opted not to use the door because he knew there'd be guards pointing rifles at it.
  • In Superhero Movie, Hourglass blows a hole in a wall to exit, 10 feet from the hole he blew in the wall to enter.
  • Lampshaded in The Mummy Returns, while fleeing Imhotep's mummified soldiers, Evie tries blocking the entrance with a nearby chair. Rick, however, having learned a thing or two in the previous film pulls his wife along reminding her that "these guys don't use doors." Sure enough, a few seconds later, the mummies are busting through the wall above the door.
  • The movie version of Alone in The Dark sports large swaths interspersed with accidental lulz. In the fight scene near the beginning, the snarling Implacable Man insists on leaping headlong through every plate glass window that crosses his path.
  • Reversed in Balls of Fury: In a brief scene, a team of soldiers attempts to break through an armored door with a battering ram. Another soldier off to the side simply takes his gun and smashes through the window right next to the door.
  • Top Secret
    • Done in a way where during a gun fight, one of the defenders breaks a small window in a 5x4 window frame. The next defender breaks a new window and so forth. In the end a very small man shows up and he jumps in front of the window while under heavy fire for about 15 seconds before he manages to break and fire out of the last window, which was on the top row.
    • Then done again with a 3x3 window, only this time with only two defenders who smash "X" and "O" shaped holes in the windows, when one of the defenders manages to get three "O"-es in a row, the window gets blasted out.
    • Then again with the black defender "Chocolate Mousse" who grabs a cannon, lights the fuse and rams the muzzle through the window to shoot.
  • In S.W.A.T., the team uses a huge grappling hook attached to a truck to smash through a house's outer wall and pull out a large chunk. This allows the team to get the drop on the crazy armed man inside. Somehow, the crazy man failed to notice the big truck engine roaring outside, the noise of the winch, etc. (the original TV series was also noted for such lapses in story logic).
  • Interestingly, in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dr. Scott enters the lab through the wall, but not because it was in the script. It was because the set builders had forgotten to build an extra door!
  • David in Shaun of the Dead smashes the window of The Winchester to get in (causing security problems later) before Shaun has a chance to tell him there's another, unlocked door round the back.
  • And in Hot Fuzz, by the same creative team, Nicholas Angel breaks a glass storefront and jumps through it to pursue a killer. Keep an eye on the writing on the glass panes. He throws his baton through the window, then jumps through the door.
  • Reversed in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, by the same director: After throwing Scott through several walls, Todd looks as though he's about to fly through the holes he's made...but then he teleports to the last wall and calmly opens the door next to the hole in it.
  • The movie Merlin had this memorable exchange:

Mab: We thought we'd enter the traditional way, through the door.
Merlin: It's traditional that you open it first.

  • Men with Brooms: Cutter is laying on his bed in his motel room while next door, his former curling team mate Lennox is trying to avoid being beaten into a new reincarnation by a very large, very angry loan shark. At one point, Lennox abruptly gets sent head-first through the wall over Cutter's bed, before being sent through the wall entierly, followed by the giant loan shark. Cutter ends up having to knock the loan shark out by smashing his head in with a curling stone.[1]
  • Parodied in the final scene of Malibu's Most Wanted when the epic battle between B-Rad's crew and the bad guys happens in the head Bad Guy's house. Two different cars smash through the wall of his house, causing him to shriek: "Can't ONE of y'all use the door?!" To add to the hilarity, Bad Guy is later seen yelling at the cops to fix the house before his mother gets back.
  • Inverted in Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. While Joe is trying to devise a way to get into the professor's lab through an upper-story window, Polly picks up a rock, breaks the glass on the front door, reaches in and opens it.
  • Averted in Once Bitten

Countess: Wait! I have to replace every door you people smash. Can't you at least try the knob first?
Sebastian: (vampire in front tries the knob and it opens easily) Jocks.

  • Played with in The Kentucky Fried Movie, when Big Jim Slade comes through the door. Not through the doorway, through the door.

Literature

  • Sorcerers in The Belgariad and The Malloreon tend to disregard niceties such as doors when irritated or in a hurry, frequently using their powers to blast through doors, walls, or in Garion's case in the second series, entire buildings, making this a crossover with Dungeon Bypass.
    • Garion makes a point of threatening the pre Heel Face Turn Zakath with a broken city when he finally decides he's been delayed long enough... and smashes through a few walls while going to make this threat.

Garion: Take me to the library, now!
(Garion points his sword at the wall and it blasts outwards; he re-aims while the emperor looks on in terror)
Garion: Now... the library is about that direction, isn't it?'

Which is promptly lampshaded by Deadpan Snarker Liselle:

"Belgarion," Velvet chided him gently, "now really, that's no way to behave. Kal Zakath has been a very courteous host. I'm sure that now that he understands the situation, he'll be more than happy to cooperate, won't you, your Imperial Majesty?" She smiled winsomely at the Emperor. "We wouldn't want the Rivan King to get really angry, now would we? There are so many breakable things about -- windows, walls, houses, the city of Rak Hagga -- that sort of thing."

  • Skulduggery Pleasant. Derek Landy tends to use windows, even when it's unecessary. "Doors are for people with no imagination."
  • Animorphs
    • At one point in the series, Jake morphs into a rhinoceros to charge through a compound. He finds that it's easier to rhino through doors than walls, but his vision is so bad in that shape that he has a little trouble seeing which is which in time.
    • Averted later in the same book when Jake (now a tiger) tells Marco (a gorilla) to open a door. Marco prepares to knock the door off its hinges, for Jake to tell him to try the knob first. He does.
  • Occurs at one point in Shards of a Broken Crown, when Tomas breaks into the temple of the Big Bad. His companions comment:

Nakor: He seems a bit angry.
Pug: Just determined. If he'd been angry, he'd have gone through the wall.

  • Vorkosigan Saga: Used as a threat by Miles Vorkosigan when conducting hostage negotiations with Komarran terrorists on a space station.

Miles: My word is all that's keeping ImpSec's aspiring heroes from coming through your walls. They don't need doors, you know.

  • The Dresden Files
    • Harry does this by pulling a door outward (to avoid deadly shrapnel hitting those inside the building) in order to make a dramatic wizard entrance.
    • Marcone, being Genre Savvy, starts using cheap doors because of the regularity with which Harry does this.
  • In And Another Thing, the sixth book of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Thor leaves through the ceiling, causing Hillman to complain to Zaphod that ceiling tiles are so expensive, and why Thor "just couldn't use the door". Zaphod replies: "He's a God. He doesn't do doors". (Or something very similar).
  • In one of the stories in If I Were an Evil Overlord (a collection of short stories inspired by the Evil Overlord List) the royal family is barricaded behind a magical door. The invading empress orders her men to tear down the wall instead.
  • The agents of the US government have a perchance for breaking through random walls in Of Snail Slime, regardless of other means of entry. As they so aptly put it, "Doors are for dorks."

Live-Action TV

  • This happened at the end of the KYTV episode that spoofed the opening of the Channel Tunnel. A Running Gag through the episode was a reporter standing next to the tunnel, waiting for the first train to arrive. Which it eventually did, bursting out of the wall ten feet to the left of the tunnel.
  • There is a Gilligans Island episode where the title millstone dreams of being a swashbuckling hero. He breaks through the door to meet the Distressed Damsels, then closes a second door in the same frame and breaks through it.
  • The Young Ones
    • Vyvyan's first entrance:

Mike: How about a bit of consistancy? Some days you come through the door... some days you actually open it...

    • Subversion, all thanks to Vyvyan again, when a messenger wanted to come through the door normally...

Rick: Oh, no! The front door's exploded. VYVYAN!
Mike: VYVYAN!
Vyvyan: Vyvyan! Vyvyan! Vyvan! Honestly, whenever anything explodes in this house, it's always blame Vyvyan!
Mike: Well who do you suggest we blame?
Rick: Thatcher!
Vyvyan: No, blame whoever rang the front doorbell, 'cause they obviously triggered the bomb I'd set up.
Mike: What bomb?
Vyvyan: Well, I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to hear the front doorbell, so I thought I'd pep it up a bit!

  • Scrubs
    • One episode has an obnoxiously intelligent patient lock the door on Dr. Kelso. He enters the room anyway by stealing Janitor's electric screwdriver and removing the hinges and kicking the door down. He does this again on the same patient, despite the door being unlocked, because he likes the dramatic entrance (watch the scene).
    • Laverne once punched through the window of Turk's car before Carla could tell her We Have the Keys.
  • Chuck
    • First episode has Bryce jumping through the window above an open door.

Ellie: How did you get in here?
Morgan: Chuck's window, or as I like to call it, the "Morgan Door".
Ellie: I'm gonna go close the window.

    • In yet another episode, Casey crashes his car through the wall of a restaurant to rescue Sarah. Complete with Bond One-Liner: "Anyone order drive-thru?"
  • Angel
    • Frequently in the first season, instead of merely opening a door, Angel would kick it open dramatically (often breaking it). The recapper on Television Without Pity speculated that Angel just really hated doors. Sometimes doesn't quite work the way a normal person would use it. Being a vampire, he can't enter a home where he hasn't been invited. That's why he brings a human partner, who can enter an apartment uninvited.
    • In one early episode, he bursts through a window... and later gets a bill for it.
    • In another episode, Wesley and Gunn break into a house to steal a MacGuffin. Wesley makes a big deal of cutting a perfect hole in a window. Gunn simply opens the unlocked door.
  • Glory, a big bad in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, decided to make an entrance by ripping out the entire wall. Relatedly, bad guys liked to smash through the windows all the time. Thank goodness Xander develops carpentry skills. Oddly, despite repeated instances, the windows are never armored. To his credit, Xander does eventually realize the futility of repairing windows that were smashed through on a weekly basis and just gives up. What makes it funnier? Once he gives up on fixing the picture window (which at that point was getting smashed in seemingly every other Tuesday, he just boarded it up with cheap particle board. From that point on, nobody ever tried to break into the house again.
  • Blackadder: The sound of wood splintering, followed by Baldrick dragging the front door in to Lord Blackadder's Breakfast Room.

Edmund: Baldrick, I advise you to make the excuse you are about to give, phenomenally good!
Baldrick: You said "Get the door."
Edmund: Not good enough, you're fired!
Baldrick: But my lord! I've been in your family since 1532!
Edmund: So's syphillis, now get out!

Sarah: Can you get through the door?
Cameron: Yes.
(beat)
Cameron: But the wall will be much faster.

  • A similar thing happens in Burn Notice, leading to one of the best voiceovers of the series:

Westen: Any two-bit thug has a bulletproof door, but they rarely realize that a wall is rarely more than drywall and plaster.
A little later, along the same vein...
Westen: I don't like guns, guns make you stupid. Better to fight your battles with Duct Tape, Duct Tape makes you smart.

This said as he marks areas on aforementioned thug's wall with duct tape as targeting for where he'll a) shoot the thug in the leg with a homemade firearm, and b) crash through the wall.
  • Doctor Who
    • Children are in trouble, but the doors are locked, and Mickey is desperately trying to think of a way to get in. K-9 just says "We are in a car."
    • In the 2010 Christmas Special, upon being asked why he entered through the window, the Doctor answers "Because if I was going out the window, I'd be going the wrong way. Pay attention."
  • One of the episodes of It Takes a Thief features a store with a massive steel door, multiple locks and one smug store-owner who was sure they wouldn't be able to get in through it. He was right, they just smashed through the brick wall.
  • Clarissa Explains It All Sam always enters the Darling household through Clarissa's upstairs bedroom window via a ladder. Even on the rare occasions he comes through the first floor, generally after finding that Clarissa isn't in her room, he comes in through the window beside the door. There's a specific reason why he chooses to go to Clarissa's window: he hates her younger brother Ferguson so much he uses the ladder to avoid him. Lampshaded in one episode where, after Sam leaves, Clarissa's father asks "Why doesn't that kid ever use the door?"
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus. "ANESTHETIC! I've come to anesthetize you!"
  • Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
    • The show features an escape from Charlie's apartment:

(Charlie screams and throws a chair through the window)
Mac: Why would you do that?
Charlie: Huh? I don't know, it's all happening so fast, man!
Mac: You could have just opened it!
Charlie: That's true.

    • As well as in the fifth season, where Frank throws a heavy object through a gate wall screaming "ABORT":

Dee: THERE'S A GOD DAMN GATE!

Det. Vecchio: Do they not have doors in Canada?

  • Boy Meets World
    • Windows were usually Shawn Hunter's choice of entry in earlier seasons.
    • Eric did it once or twice as well, most notably in the graduation episode when he was trying to persuade Mr. Feeny not to retire.
  • When the Monkeemen burst in in The Monkees' episode, "Monkee Chow Mein," the Yellow Peril villain Dragonman (Joey Forman) protests: "The door was open!"
  • One Pit Stop on Season 5 of The Amazing Race was located on a small island, which Kami & Karli swam to. Upon arriving, they were told by Phil, "That was quite an entrance. Everyone else just walked through the shallow water over there."
  • The 3rd Rock from the Sun episode "Dick is from Mars, Sally is from Venus" has Sally going out with a student at the college, only to be unceremoniously dumped. After waiting by the phone overnight, thinking he's going to call, she ends up paying a visit to his apartment....

(Brad sitting on a couch in his apartment; suddenly, the door is kicked inward, revealing Sally)
Sally: Hello, Brad.
Brad: Sally!
Sally: I've come to check your phone.

  • The intro to RoboCop the TV series shows various scenes from the show occasionally interrupted by someone trying to punch through a giant reinforced door from the other side. Finally, as the music reaches the climax, the last punch sends the door flying, revealing everybody's favorite cyborg lawman.
  • M*A*S*H: It's Colonel Flagg's trademark that nobody ever sees him leave: "I am like the wind." So he demands that everyone cover their eyes. A few seconds, then:

(tinkling sounds)
Hawkeye: (peering out the newly-broken window) "The Wind" just broke his leg.

  • A variation of the trope occurs on an episode of Eureka when Carter retrieves a Nobel Prize by smashing the glass pane of a display case.

Stark: It was open.

Newspaper Comics

  • Garfield
    • There's one strip in which Jon calls Garfield to dinner. Garfield comes bounding up to Jon from off panel. Jon says, "I appreciate your promptness, Garfield...." and finishes in the last panel, "... but next time, OPEN THE DOOR!", revealing that Garfield broke through the (closed) door. Could be justified in that Garfield is a cat and can't work a doorknob, but....
    • There's also one where he comes through the pet door, but gets stuck inside because he's too fat and thus rips the normal door from its hinges anyway. Also, he repeatedly kicked Nermal out the front door without opening it first.
    • And there's another wherein he smashes the front door down and says, "When I want in, I want in NOW!" This joke was also used in the first animated special, where in a later scene, Jon in fixing the door, only for Garfield and Odie to crash through it.
    • Happens in yet another strip when Jon yells "FIRE!" to test his pets' fire drill knowledge. Both run straight through the wall—or, rather, we assume they did, thanks to the hole.

Professional Wrestling

  • Parodied by the WWE tag-team The Acolyte Protection Agency, whose "office" consisted of a door, a card table, a cooler full of beer—and no walls. Anybody who walked around the door to try and talk to them was admonished in this manner.
  • Attempted with the Shockmaster to hilarious results.

Puppet Shows

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

  • Musician Wendy Bagnell's "Here Come the Rattlesnakes" features a hypothetical example. Once, when performing at what turned out to be a church of snake-handlers, he relates his and his backup singer's reactions when the eponymous reptiles are produced:

I said, "Just take it easy! Don't panic. Just look around, and figure out where the back door is." She said, "I already looked, and there ain't none!" I said, "Reckon where do they want one?"

Video Games

  • Inverted in Max Payne, where in one in-game scene you overhear two enemies arguing over a bomb they are about to place on a door so you set it off when you open that door. During their argument, they accidentally set off the bomb, killing themselves and blowing out the wall surrounding the door. The door is untouched, and remains resolutely locked, forcing you to go through the hole surrounding it.
  • Due to Insurmountable Waist High Fence, a number of games may allow you to break through doors, but never allow you to just open them. Some, such as Call of Duty, have doors that can be opened by NPCs, but not you, or only unlock after a certain Scripted Event. May be used as a Dynamic Loading barrier.
  • Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a funny inversion. You can only open doors without excessive amounts of force, even when that would be faster.
  • In the Half-Life Modification "Afraid of Monsters", the enemies migt attack by running into the rooms via doors. However, they stop when the player reaches the City Level. From now on, they "simply" tear down the nearby wall when the player happen to pass by them. It effectively makes them Jump Scares in the process.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II, Mandalore and his soldiers board an enemy ship. The Sith set up at the airlock ready to shoot anything that comes through, in a direct Shout-Out to the opening scene from Star Wars. The Mandalorians blow a hole through the wall on their flank, and massacre them.
  • Lampshaded by Toad in Super Mario RPG when Mario enters his house through the pipe that serves as a chimney. Justified in that Mario was thrown about 1,000 feet into the air and landed in his fireplace.
  • In both the original The Legend of Zelda and Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Links is occasionally forced to pay for bombing or burning down the door to some Grumpy Old Man's home.
  • In Sonic '06, Shadow breaks into Eggman's lair. The doctor simply retorts with "Wouldn't the door have been easier?"
  • Red Faction
    • Red Faction: Guerrilla provides the player with a sledgehammer of unlikely power. You have the option of bashing your way through walls and windows rather than use the door. This can be a lifesaver when rescuing hostages, running from a horde of drones, and so forth.
    • In the original: "Don't have a key? Create your own door." Generally only works where the plot requires it.
    • Yet why exactly walls can get shredded by grenades and yet doors remain unscratched in the face of multiple rockets remains a complete mystery.
  • Bad Company
    • The same thing is possible in this game, which allows you to blow holes in almost everything. It's often the best way to get to snipers or MG nests.
    • Invoked a LOT in Bad Company 2. The walls and doors are all destroyable by rockets and grenades and the like (and doors and fences can be shot and knifed). There's one level in single player where you're trying to spend very little time outside for risk of freezing to death, and you need to run from house to house to get warm. Typically the fastest way to do this was to take a rocket launcher and blow a hole in the next building. How the buildings don't lose their heat after this you'll never know. If you're playing multiplayer, and moving at all, odds are you'll end up doing this a few times in just one match!
  • Easily done to any door in Nethack. Bash it down, kick it down, whatever. Not to mention you can do the reverse: you can create a door where there wasn't one before.
  • In Cave Story, Balrog is first introduced doing this. Amusingly, he did enter exactly where the door was, but since he's way too wide to use it, he just busts through the door and the door-sized bits of wall on either side of it. That scene is probably why his Catch Phrase of "Huzzah!" was changed to a Kool-Aid-Man-style "OH YEAH!" in the Wii Ware release. Later in the game, he tends to make his entrances by crashing through ceilings.
  • In Deus Ex Human Revolution, there's an augmentation which lets the player punch through walls. If a guard is positioned behind it, Adam (the protagonist) will snap the guard's neck in the process.
  • At one point in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, you come to a wall with windows that you can't climb through, and you can't blow it up with your Panzerschreck either. You have to lure a Tiger Tank into destroying the wall. In a later level, there's a gate that can only be opened with a bazooka.
  • Resident Evil
    • After solving the carriage wheel puzzle in Resident Evil 2's second scenario, Mr. X comes crashing through the wall. Then when you're back in the hallway, he smashes back through the same wall.
    • If there is both a door and window into a building in Resident Evil 4, you can always dive through the window instead of taking the door. However, this isn't usually a good idea, since an intact window will slow down Ganados for a second and give you an advantage.
    • Nemesis does this a lot in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, crashing through the wall to attack Jill and likely scare the player half to death.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has a Ludicolo and his team of Bellossom crash through the wall of Spinda's cafe whenever you win a jackpot at the lottery. Then comes the most hilarious Non Sequitur Scene Ever.
  • In Metroid: Other M, after getting his ass handed to him by Samus yet again, Ridley ends up so freaking scared of her that he crashes through a wall in a frantic attempt to get away.
  • You can technically open doors in God Hand, but it's usually easier to kick them in. That's just the way Gene is.
  • This is simple expedience in X-COM, especially on terror missions, where civilians are apt to be standing behind doors blocking your way. As one online guide says, "That farmhouse was probably insured anyway."
  • Collette from Tales of Symphonia has a nasty habit of going through walls instead of using the door, though this is more a testament to her clumsiness than anything else. Lampshaded when interacting with a human-shaped hole in Raine's classroom earns Collette a title.
  • In Crusader, if you don't have the keycard or lock combination, you can blow open just about any door in the game with explosives instead. This will set the alarm off, however.
  • In Prototype, it is possible to break the walls surrounding the courtyard of a military base, but there are doors on both sides and they are always open.
  • While never seen occuring onscreen, there are a few mission maps in City of Heroes that suggest this method was used by the villain groups to invade the map. In some of these maps, you'll encounter walls with gaping holes blasted through them and a doorway left untouched. One notable example has you following the very obvious trail of, and eventually catching up with, a huge fire demon.
  • The Godfather 2 has various options for this. Do you:
    • Let an Arsonist burn down something?
    • Make a Bruiser knock down a side entrance?
    • Order a Demolitions guy to blow up a weak wall?
    • Get an Engineer to cut through a fence?
  • River City Girls (from the he Kunio-kun series); Misuzu (the first boss) makes her debut in a cutscene where she crashes through a brick wall; Misako goads her by telling her to "Go punch through another wall until you figure out how doors work!"

Web Animation

  • Dad's at Work is this trope.
  • In the Helluva Boss episode "Loo Loo Land", Millie is so excited when Blitzo announces they're going to the eponymous amusement park that she smashes through his office door's window, even though Moxxie has already opened it.

Web Comics

  • In the Accidental Centaurs/The Wotch Crossover, Robin announces his desire to smash through the wall [dead link] instead of using the window. Of course, the hole he made wasn't big enough.
  • Used, word-for-word, in Antihero for Hire.
  • Bard: One time we see Roby the Biker crash into the front door of the Leafy Bar, just narrowly avoiding slamming into Vas. The rest of that day, the bar had a gaping hole that needed repairs.
  • Parodied in Bear Versus Zombies when Bear scares Jack the rabbit's children, prompting the entire survival group to crash through each and every window in the house one at a time to attack Bear, much to Jack's dismay, and ending in Bear leaving by crashing through the wall in disgust. Despite the fact the front door was open.
  • In Beyond the Canopy, there is a window in the room, but it's too low for Chief Redwood. So he enlarges it. With his fists.
  • Dominic Deegan

Siegfried: DOMINIC DEEGAN! I REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE!... You, however, require a new door.

    • In the same comic, Dominic's older brother Jacob is fond of coming up through the floor to make his entrances. When he tries this on Dominic's house (which was made to prevent such magic entrances), a loud thud is heard, then Jacob is seen knocking on the door and rubbing his head.
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court, the robot resurrected by Kat crashes through a wall looking for Jeanne's "tomb." As usual, this is lampshaded by Tom in The Rant:

"Free door!"

"Suddenly the whole vault room is shaking... It sounds suspiciously like Cans is about to plow through the wall Kool-Aid Man style. You pray to God that it is not Cans about to plow through the wall Kool-Aid Man style."

  • Used twice in the same scene in Twokinds. Lampshaded in that someone else enters through the door, pointing out that it was unlocked.

Trace: Um... could I get a new room? Mine seems to have a few holes...

  • Freefall has Sawtooth Rivergrinder, a VTOL bulldozer and as such one of the toughest robots around. Who tend to "plot the most efficient route" when humans aren't nearby. When others in the team were stopped by an automated and shut down door...

Bennie: Now, if I were a ten tonne terraforming robot, the answer would be obvious. (cut to Sawtooth already inside the building)
Sawtooth: Doors are for the weak.

Although at least he cleans up after himself.

He's only halfway through the wall.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • In Season 4 of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Star broke into a place through a wall, and the person running it asked why she didn't go through the other holes she made during previous incursions.
  • Rainbow Dash of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic likes to do this every so often, bursting in from windows or dropping through the roof.
  • G.I. Joe, during the "Arise Serpentor, Arise" arc. In his attempt to arrest every one of his treacherous underlings, Cobra Commander blows up a perfectly functional door in order to make a flashy entrance.
  • The Simpsons
    • Referencing One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, there's a scene where an elderly Native American man dramatically throws a water fountain through the window and jumps out, prompting the Old Jewish man to yell after him. Later in the scene, the man throws the fountain back through another window and jumps up again because he forgot his hat.

"You know, the door was open, Chief Break-Everything!"

  • Barney actually pulled off the parody in an earlier season—after Homer refused beer after being hospitalized from an exploding Duff can, Barney (unsuccessfully) smothers him with a pillow and does the fountain-through-the-window gag.

Moe: He really needs a girlfriend.

  • When the family travels to Japan, Homer does this repeatedly by walking through shoji doors, apparently not getting the concept that they slide. He even does this when he and Bart go to prison! (But only after the bail is paid, and the door is actually opened.)
  • Subverted for laughs in the episode where Marge becomes a cop. One obstacle was a brick wall that she thought she had to climb. Chief Wiggum remarks "Huh, women. Always having trouble with the wall. They can't seem to use the door." The shot then goes to the rest of the recruits (all male) walking nonchalantly through a door.
  • In an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the now-addleminded Baxter walks through the wall five feet to the left of the door to April's office. April manages to trick him into leaving. When he realizes this and comes back, he walks past the hole he made earlier, past the door, and breaks through the wall on the other side.
  • In the Imaginationland trilogy of South Park, this becomes a Running Gag, with Cartman always breaking through the window in the room, in a different spot if necessary.

"Why is it so easy for children to break into the Pentagon?!?"

  • Futurama
    • Destructor, in the episode "Raging Bender", does this when first introduced. Though it's not like he could have actually fit through the door.
    • Calculon also did this in his haste to propose to a gender-bent Bender in "Bend Her" (It's a long story).
    • Roberto once broke himself and Bender out a robot asylum using this technique. He has Bender on a table, and the two have a conversation while Roberto is smashing through walls. When asked when they plan to escape, Roberto responds, "About five seconds ago." Zoom out to them on the lawn, and a hole punched in the building.
  • One The Fairly OddParents episode had "parental battering rams", which are used by parents to break into their kids' rooms. They always say "(child's name), I'm respecting your privacy by knocking, but asserting my authority as a parent by coming in anyway" before doing it, and it's transparently obvious they just want to break something because they never give a kid the chance to open the door. Timmy's Dad also did the "never go through the same hole" joke, and mentioned he needs to remember to hire a contractor to repair the wall.
  • The Powerpuff Girls
    • It is a Running Gag that the Powerpuff Girls always leave the building they are in by smashing through the ceiling.
    • In their origin story, it was revealed that the Professor's house did not originally have the three large circular windows on the top floor. The Powerpuff Girls cut them out with their laser vision so they could leave easily and quickly without (relatively) damaging the house.
    • Mojo Jojo complains a few times that the Girls smashing through the walls of his evil lair has cost him a lot of money in repairs.
    • A commercial for The Powerpuff Girls showed them smashing through the ceiling, only for the hole to be patched with wood, then bricks only to get destroyed each time. The last shot finally shows the hole turned into an opening with an "Exit" sign... only for the girls to break through the wall.
    • Lampshaded in one episode where a Hollywood producer making a movie starring the girls has a breakaway wall ready for them to smash through.
  • In the Freakazoid!! episode "Dexter's Date", Freakazoid crashes through a wall full of TV monitors while trying to stop the Lobe. The Lobe immediately scolds him for causing damage and not using the door instead.
  • In the Legion of Super Heroes episode "The Man from the Edge of Tomorrow; Part 2", Kell-El flies up through the roof, leaving Superman to look through the resultant hole and remark, "I'm guessing they don't have doors in the future." (Kell-El is from the 41st Century.)
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
    • There is one episode where Billy repeatedly exits his home by breaking through the doors and windows. He doesn't stop until he realizes, in dismay, that he's broken through them all. At which point he's trapped, as apparently leaving through the holes was completely out of the question. Then again, this IS Billy we're talking about...
    • And after that, he does leave through the door, so that he can go to his friend's house and jump through his window!!
    • Not to mention the fact that, after jumping through a window, he kept returning into the house where Mandy and Grim were still dressed as clowns (in an attempt to scare out Billy's fear of them), apparently having forgotten why he ran away in the first place. He'd then see them again and repeat the process.
  • Secret Squirrel (at least in the original series) would always dismay his boss by never leaving through the door.
    • In Super Secret Secret Squirrel, it's his method of entrance. Usually non-destructive, though. Morocco Mole's attempt at the same—well, that varies.
    • Subverted in one episode where secret actually enter the office through the front door. The same episode that showed the only time the chief was worried where secret would pop up from today
  • In the dream sequence Rugrats episode "Visitors from Outer Space", Angelica, after being abducted, steals a high-tech alien device and uses it to blast through several doors to escape from the ship. Finally, a prisoner who's escaping with her says, "You know, these doors do open automatically."
  • In the Hey Arnold! episode "Field Trip," Arnold and Grandma go to break into an aquarium to free an unhappy turtle named Lockjaw. At one point, Grandma uses a rope and grappling hook to climb over a barrier maybe five feet high, while Arnold simply walks around it.
  • In one episode of The Wild Thornberrys, Eliza, Darwin, and Donnie, are trying to cross an island as quickly as possible to catch a boat on the other side. On the way there, they have to climb a mountain. Eliza does it the hard and dirty way, while Darwin and Donnie simply take the visitor's trail that Eliza never sees.
  • Nanny from Count Duckula, in a lethal combination of absent-mindedness and not knowing her own strength.
  • Kim Possible
    • In an episode, Ron uses a pair of oversized dogs to bust down the door of Dr. Dementor's secret lab. Counts as a Crowning Moment of Funny for Dementor, the one Straight Man in the show's rogues gallery. The exact words went along the line of (with a despairing look): "Vha-vhy did you kick down ze door? It vasn't even locked. I JUST HAD IT PAINTED!"
    • In "Mad Dogs and Aliens", Drakken instructs Warmonga to get rid of Shego, first saying "Show her the door" and then (after she simply tells Shego where to find the door) "Make her leave through the door". The latter instruction is also applied a bit too literally.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy
    • Hilariously used in an episode of in which Ed knocks both the door AND the wall to Edd's room down causing Eddy to reply in annoyance, "There's a KNOB, Ed!"
    • He also keeps ripping through Edd's screen door. "Not the screen door AGAIN, Ed! Father hasn't recovered from the last time!"
  • Lampshaded on Darkwing Duck.

Launchpad: Uh, D.W., why couldn't we go through the gate like everyone else?
Darkwing: Because I am not like everyone else.

  • The Critic: Jay enters his apartment to find Duke waiting for him and asks how he got in, to which he responds, "I have my ways." Jay then notices a huge hole in the wall. Duke later leaves the same way.
  • The Incredible Hulk animated series has the Hulk leaping towards Doctor Doom's lair, and after smashing up his enforced cage, he makes for the door to do the same thing, until it opens by itself, to which the Hulk simply says: "Oh." Doctor Doom then says "There was a door, you destructive brute."
  • Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
    • Captain Caveman introduces himself in this way. After talking to Birdman, he vaults through the wall a workman had just finished patching.
    • Birdman himself did it when he was a superhero, in the Flashback Episode. He melts Reducto's door with his powers:

Reducto: That was an automatic door. All you had to do was step in front of it and it would have slid open.
X the Eliminator: Here he comes! I'll open the door for him. (Birdman blasts his way through the roof) Or he can use the ceiling.

  • Phineas and Ferb
    • Perry the Platypus breaks down the door to Dr. Doofenshmirtz's apartment a few too many times. Given the openness of their relationship, Doc doesn't even bother locking it. He even gave Perry his key. So whenever Perry bursts through the wall/door/ceiling/etc., Doofenshmirtz is justifiably annoyed.
    • At least once, Perry bursts in and Doofenshmirtz declares, "Perry the Platypus! You will PAY!" Perry takes out his wallet and pays for the broken door. "That's right, fork it over."
    • Taken to a ridiculous extreme when Doofenshmirtz builds a trap consisting of a door with a Perry-shaped hole in it, claiming to have been inspired by Perry breaking through the door... and the wall... and the ceiling... and the fridge door (apparently Perry was extremely hungry on that occasion).
    • Made even funnier in the episode where they were all cavemen when Doofensmirtz angrily grunted about Perry breaking a whole in his stone wall when there was a giant opening.
    • In 'Chez Platypus' Doofenshmirtz tightens the hinges of his door, so when Perry goes to kick it down, he gets his foot stuck in the hole he made.
  • Superman the Animated Series
    • Bizarro isn't the smartest tool in the shed. He smashes through a wall to yoink Lois Lane.

Lois: Can you please use the door?
Bizarro: Okay.
(smashes door to pieces)

  • The evil Kryptonians Jax-Ur and Mala just fly through any building they meet in a straight line. This is used to emphasize how they don't care about the humans at all. In the same fight, Superman flies around the buildings.
  • An early Justice League episode "Injustice For All" ruins a Big Damn Heroes moment when five of the heroes bust into the villains' lair. Hawkgirl breaks down the door, Superman breaks the wall next to the door, and Green Lantern goes through the window next to the hole Superman made.
  • An episode in Danny Phantom has Jack and Maddie bursting through a wall in order to ask Sam and Tucker if they had seen their son. They leave by busting open another part of the same wall. Knowing this to be a common occurrence, Maddie disappointingly tells Sam to send the bill their way.
  • Played with in Lilo & Stitch: The Series. The roof is on hinges due to Captain Gantu lifting it off regularly.
  • Ignignokt and Err of Aqua Teen Hunger Force regularly crash through the windows of the main trio's house whenever they arrive.
  • The Incredible Crash Dummies takes this to silly levels with the the bad guy leaving a person-shaped hole though a door.
  • The Venture Brothers
    • A classic example, where Orpheus opens a portal on the ceiling of the room Doc is stuck in (don't ask) and falls onto the floor covered in ectoplasm, causing Doc to yell "WE HAVE A DOOR, Orpheus!"
    • In the fourth season finale, Brock does a variation on this trope. He used a grappling gun to get into the ceiling of a building, despite there being a ladder five feet away from him.

Shore Leave: You know there is a ladder right there?
Brock: Where's the fun in that?

  • When the first trailer of Wolverine and the X-Men came out, fans quickly began to joke about Wolverine's obvious problem with opening doors normally, since the trailer contains at least 3 scenes of him kicking a door in, with a few more by MRD soldiers. While the first episode does then indeed contain several scenes of Wolverine kicking doors, the second one actually shows him opening a door in Magneto's Citadel. However the same episode also contains a scene of Cyclops blasting dozens of doors open, apparently too lazy to open them by hand. During the rest of show, there seems to be a competition between Wolverine and Cyclops on how many doors to crush in or how many new entrances they can create.
  • In the The Superhero Squad Show, the Hulk is... about as bad with doors as the other versions. At one point, he's told to use the door, so he rips the doors off of their hinges, and smashes them to pieces. Afterwards, he decided he preferred his way.
  • Invader Zim once features a floating screen... thing bursting through a wall to deliver a message to Dib. When it was done, it turned around, moved aside, and proceeded to blast another hole to exit.
  • In Star Wars the Clone Wars, instead of waiting for his rather incompetent replacement astromech droid to open a door, Anakin cuts through it. Most Jedi seem to prefer cutting holes in walls, even when a door is in plain sight.
  • In an accidently hilarious way in Mister T. In one episode a door spontaneously explodes to reveal Mr. T behind it. Supposedly he kicked it down like he always does, but the animation didn't suggest any kicking at all.
  • Inverted in a classic episode of Fantastic Four:

Diablo: (runs into a panic room) He'll never get me now! This door is made of titanium! And with this timelock-- (the Thing bursts through the wall) No!

  • Virtually no-one in Teen Titans can be bothered to use doors. They just break through windows, walls, and even the doors themselves! It's made even funnier by the fact that most of the doors open automatically.
  • In Superjail, Jailbot only appears by crashing through walls, ceilings and even doors themselves. He'll inevitably destroy anything and everyone in his way, flying in a straight line with a wicked grin on his LED face. He will create far more chaos catching Jacknife than the small-time crook created in getting Jailbot's attention.
  • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
    • The Forever Knights blast a hole in a building where Ben is signing autographs despite a double door being not three feet from one side of the hole. They apparently felt that they needed to enter in formation.
    • Reference in a later episode when bad guy Agregor crashes through the ceiling...twice. The second leading a rather annoyed Kevin to tell him there's a door.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender plays with this in one episode where Toph breaks down a wall for no damn reason other than she wanted to "Break some rules!"—and then the Gaang leaves through the door. A later episode shows the wall still being repaired.
  • Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends went through this in the "Swarm" episode. Iceman blasts a wall, and Spidey opens the door beside the just-formed hole, adding, "The door WAS open."
  • Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes uses it when Hulk smashes down a door into the Avengers briefing room while Thor and Tony are talking. He tosses down some thugs and says, "They were calling themselves the Super Apes. Didn't seem so super to me." Tony, obviously annoyed, asks, "Why would you even do that? The doors open automatically?"
  • Beavis and Butthead actually subvert this trope: the title characters watch a RoboCop-like series and Butt-Head gets the idea to imitate that. Beavis runs into their house head first... and proceeds to knock himself out, upsetting Butt-Head that he screwed it up.
  • Done in a parody of Transformers in the Mad TV series:

(notices all the Transbormers partying in his house)
Sam: How did they get in my house?
Optimus: Maybe they found the spare key?
Sam: I don't have a spare key.
Optimus: Then maybe from that huge hole in the wall.
(screen pans out to show a giant hole in the wall)

  • In one episode of Stroker and Hoop, Coroner Rick thought Hoop's mom killed herself in prison, so he tried to climb the fence with barbed wire at the top to get into the yard. he's standing about two feet from a guard on his left and a door on his right.

Guard: What the hell are you doing? You can use the door, you work here!
Coroner Rick (hands covered in his blood): I know, I know! Dumb idea.\\'

  • Lampshaded by The Joker in this clip of Batman: The Animated Series.
  • In the Regular Show episode "Jinx": after Rigby locks the door to escape Ybgir, Mordecai says that won't do any good- there's a big hole in the wall from when Ygbir escaped.
  • The Looney Tunes short "An Itch of His Own" starts with the Mighty Angelo the Flea breaking down the door to his dressing room of a flea circus; inside he leaves a note to his manager that he's going on vacation, with a P.S. noting, "I'll fix the door when I get back."

Real Life

  • Played straight by several business owners in the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot, when rioters broke windows to enter stores to loot them.
  • Police and military units will often avoid using the front door of a target building, to gain the element of surprise and to avoid the chance that whoever's on the inside is aiming right at the door with a finger on the trigger.
    • Case in point: Operation NIMROD, the SAS assault during the Iranian Embassy Siege, London 1980. Some of the most famous [dead link] images of the SAS are of officers breaking into the embassy through windows and balconies.
    • Standard practice in urban warfare is called mouse-holing: cutting (or blasting) a hole to move from room to room and building to building. As often as not, this is done because the needs of the military are different than the needs of the previous occupant, and so there actually wasn't a door.
      • Also, in a fortified building there is a good chance that the occupants have boobytrapped any obvious entrances. Making your own entrance is not only the quickest, but also the safest, option.

Crash!!! ... Oops, my bad.

  1. ↑ Not to worry, the loan shark is Made of Iron and survives one or two more such curling stones to the head with no apparent long term effects. Because it's funny.
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