History Main / ChairReveal

* Voldemort did this in ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', shortly before killing Frank Bryce.

* ''DangerGirl and the ArmyOfDarkness'' #4: Agent Zero shoots what he thinks is his target through the back of a chair. He then walks round to the front of the chair and instead finds a dummy rigged to a bomb with three seconds left on the timer.

* ''Film/DiamondsAreForever''.

* The first time we see Blofeld's face in the JamesBond movies is via a chair swivel.
** Except that he doesn't swivel. He just pushes his [[TheDragon Dragon]] out of the way.

* In ''TheEyesOfTheDragon'' Prince Peter, serving-boy Dennis and his friend Naomi corner Flagg in the late King Roland's study (the scene of his fatal poisoning). Flagg is surprised when the chair by the fire scootches around to reveal a surprise eyewitness to his crime; the younger Prince Thomas [[spoiler: who proceeds to [[ChekhovsSkill shoot Flagg through the eye]] with his father's great bow.]]

* Barney Stintson gets one of these in the TV show ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', he brings his own chair for it.
** "Don't touch that its a rental!"

* The Monarch invokes this trope in an episode of ''TheVentureBros'' when dealing with Jonas Venture Jr.

* Done by [[spoiler:The Soda Poppers]] in the second season finale of Telltale's ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'' games. On the DVD are loads and loads of fake alternate endings with different characters revealed to be in the chair, including [[spoiler:Future Sam, a bottle of Banang (which gets a round of applause and an "encore"), WebAnimation/HomestarRunner, Sybil and Abe (on an old black-and-white film backed with NightmareFuel), the C.O.P.S, a "Will Return" clock, Mr. Featherly and Hugh Bliss]].

** Better still as a ''Suit Reveal''. Batman snoops around Mr. Freeze's lair until he suddenly finds the suit. But Mr. Freeze isn't in it. Mr. Freeze is right behind him. [[NightmareFuel As a disembodied head in a jar spported by big scary spider-legs.]]

* In HotlineMiami in between chapters eleven and twelve, [[spoiler: Jacket finds his apartment broken into and his dead girlfriend on the floor. When the player walks upwards from the body, he sees the killer sitting on the couch]].

* ''SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow'' (2004). Totenkopf is revealed [[spoiler:to be dead]] in this manner.

* Rachel's ex(?) at the end of ''TheRing''.

* The BigBad in ''ExitWounds'' is revealed this way.

** Also used in TheMovie, ''BatmanMaskOfThePhantasm'', when [[spoiler:Phantasm invades the home of Sal Valestra... and finds that Joker got there first]].

* Not an actual example of the trope but, in ''UseOfWeapons'', there is a rather important reveal OF a chair (which also serves as the lead up to a larger reveal about the Chair-maker)
** Namely that [[spoiler: he killed his foster-sister/lover and made a chair out of her remains just to serve as a distraction to her brother, the opposing general in a civil war, just as the final battle of the war began. While the reveal of the chair DOES drive the enemy general to suicide in his HQ, the battle is still lost. He then goes on to take his step-brother's name and pretend to be him, convincing the reader (and eventually himself) that he is him. Made even more disturbing by the fact that the other main characters probably knew this about him anyway, and still decided to work with him.]]

* The ''Film/HouseOnHauntedHill'' remake had the dead body version.

* The end of ''TheAdventuresOfPlutoNash'' reveals that the villain has in fact been [[spoiler: clone of the hero]] in this fashion.

* Death does it in ''[[Discworld Mort]]'',

* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}''. Having kidnapped [[HotScoop Roxanne Ritchi]], Megamind has [[NonHumanSidekick Minion]] position her in the death trap while he leaps into his [[SwivelChairAntics villainous swivel chair]] and primps for this week's round of evil gloating - smoothing his eyebrows, coaxing a brainbot into his lap so he can [[RightHandCat stoke it when he turns around]], and adopting the SlouchOfVillainy. Of course, they apparently do this every week, so it's hardly a shocking reveal to Roxanne.

* [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] indulges in a Bond-villain-esque Chair Reveal in ''CodeGeass''. It's every bit as fabulous as you might expect.

* A reveal of a "new Number Two" in ''ThePrisoner''.

* In an episode of the 1980s {{NBC}} show ''ItsYourMove'', a kid is told that a famous rock producer wants to meet him. When the chair is turned around, it's one of the skeletons the kid used to fake a rock band.

* ''{{CSI}}'' did this for the result of Greg's evaluation - the spinning chair revealed not Grissom, but a gelatinous dummy used earlier in the episode for electrics testing, with a "You Passed!" note pinned to it.
* ''{{Chuck}}'' attempts to use this on Captain Awesome. He does not fare well.

* Janitor does it in the middle of a crowded corridor, petting an "invisible" half-kitten, half-monkey in ''{{Scrubs}}'', while revealing his plan to [[MundaneMadeAwesome spoil the outcome of a basketball match]] to Dr. Cox.

* ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' had a great instance of this. An unseen character paying the Baddie of the Week to get Batman's cape and cowl turns out to be... [[spoiler:Batman]].

* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''{{Megamind}}''. Having kidnapped [[HotScoop Roxanne Ritchi]], Megamind has [[NonHumanSidekick Minion]] position her in the death trap while he leaps into his [[SwivelChairAntics villainous swivel chair]] and primps for this week's round of evil gloating - smoothing his eyebrows, coaxing a brainbot into his lap so he can [[RightHandCat stoke it when he turns around]], and adopting the SlouchOfVillainy. Of course, they apparently do this every week, so it's hardly a shocking reveal to Roxanne.
* The ''{{Futurama}}'' episode "That Darn Katz!" plays this surprisingly straight; Nibbler and Amy find Professor Katz sitting in his office chair with his back to them, and when they turn the chair around he's apparently dead. [[spoiler:Then it turns out he was never alive in the first place; he's actually a puppet.]]

* Captain Sheridan's first appearance in ''BabylonFive'' has him seated in his command chair on the ''Agamemnon'', at first facing away from, and then swivelling toward, the camera.

* Also done in ''DarkwingDuck'', where Negaduck reveals himself like that to the main character.

* Lampshaded in ''BlackDynamite'' as the BigBad, [[spoiler:Richard Nixon,]] reveals himself this way... in less of a dramatic fashion than intended, as it takes a few pushes of his chair in order to finish it.

* ''[[YesPrecure5 Yes! Precure 5]]'' did it with a member of the QuirkyMinibossSquad instead of the school headmaster. Justified (not that this trope is as much in need of justification as some others) in that the girls had never actually met the headmaster before, so they didn't realize she wasn't the real thing until they realized who she ''was''.

* In the ''StarWars'' [[StarWarsExpandedUniverse EU]] book ''[[XWingSeries Solo Command]]'', the pilots are sitting in their lounge on the flagship discussing the failings of their higher-ups and the moves they would make if they were in charge. A heretofore-ignored chair spins away from a computer terminal to reveal General Han Solo, leader of the entire task force. Being Han, though, after an initial OhCrap moment, he congratulates their insight and takes their suggestions to heart.

* In ''[[TheEyesOfTheDragon The Eyes of the Dragon]]'' Prince Peter, serving-boy Dennis and his friend Naomi corner Flagg in the late King Roland's study (the scene of his fatal poisoning). Flagg is surprised when the chair by the fire scootches around to reveal a surprise eyewitness to his crime; the younger Prince Thomas [[spoiler: who proceeds to [[ChekhovsSkill shoot Flagg through the eye]] with his father's great bow.]]

* Barney Stintson gets one of these in the TV show ''HowIMetYourMother'', he brings his own chair for it.