History Main / CoincidentalDodge

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E23InspirationManifestation Inspiration Manifestation]]", Spike is oblivious to the room crumbling as he walks away with an ancient tome.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTRmZGaWVX0 This Mountain Dew]] commercial has [[Creator/StevenSeagal Steven Seagal]] foil an armed robbery without paying attention.

* In ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', when May attempts to catch Munchlax, all of Combusken's attacks are dodged by Munchlax by... picking up pokeblocks, and lying down to take a nap.

Sometimes paired with the PlankGag for extra {{slapstick}} effect. Can lead to the target being MistakenForBadass, if the assassin thinks the dodge was intentional.

* Used to hilarious effect in ''Manga/SchoolRumble'' where [[TooDumbToLive Tenma]] is trying to deliver a love note ''[[AnnoyingArrows directly]]'' to [[ObliviousToLove Karasuma]] by arrow, and he spontaneously {{Flash Step}}s out of the way, and goes into more and more crazy positions as the {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s of arrows miss him by millimeters.
* This happens in ''Manga/SkipBeat'' when Kanae's rival tries to injure her and steal her spot in an ad, only to be foiled by Kyoko, who keeps pulling Kanae out of danger without knowing it. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity ensues]], with the rival and her mooks getting off worst.
* In ''Manga/SumomoMoMomoMo'', Sanae is walking with Kushi when Iroha throws a pencil at the back of her head at breakneck speed. Sanae sneezes and the pencil misses leading you to believe she dodged it on accident. Later at the end of that same chapter, Iroha tries the same method only for Sanae to sneeze again and give Iroha a glare, telling Iroha that she's actually dodging on purpose, however everyone else still takes it as a moment of luck dodge.
* In ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', when May attempts to catch Munchlax, all of Combusken's attacks are dodged by Munchlax by... picking up pokeblocks, and lying down to take a nap.
%%* A specialty of the protagonist of ''Manga/AngelDensetsu''.

** When drunk, Rock Lee blends fluid motion, economy of movement, and a number of minor accidents to dodge most any attack launched at him. How many of his accidents are real or faked is hard to tell.
** Episode 101 shows a group of filler ninja who are after Kakashi. While at a hotsprings, they decide to use a poisonous dart against him. Just as the blow dart is flying toward Kakashi, we see a slow motion shot of him bowing down to get into the water and avoiding it completely. The funny part comes when during the scene, he actually states that he's going in slow motion.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Ivankov [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this in his fight with [[PoisonousPerson Magellan]], when he bends down to tie his bootlaces, avoiding the opponent's poison spit attack. This is solely to taunt Magellan, since he notes that the boots are laceless.
* In ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'', as the 78th Class students are locking themselves inside Hope's Peak Academy, Junko Enoshima throws a large wrench at Makoto Naegi's head, but, being the [[BornLucky Ultimate Lucky Student]], he slips on a piece of paper and falls on his ass, not even noticing the wrench as it sails over his head and embeds itself into the wall.

* A running gag in ''ComicStrip/KrazyKat''. Krazy would bend down to talk to a smaller creature, such as a "woim", just as Ignatz was throwing his customary brick. If Ignatz was lucky, it would merely have to be retrieved and thrown again. On a bad day, it would hit Officer Pupp.

%%* Stanley Stupid of ''Film/TheStupids'' goes through this.
* ''Franchise/ThePinkPanther'' series:
** Inspector Clouseau is a target of this in ''Film/AShotInTheDark''.
** In ''Film/ThePinkPantherStrikesAgain'', Dreyfus puts a price on Clouseau's head. An insane number of hitmen try to kill him at the same time; Clouseau [[DeadlyDodging dodges them and they all kill each other]]. It's not certain how much of the assassins killing each other is unintentional, though, since they're all competing to kill Clouseau; killing each other is also removing the competition, and is probably a secondary goal for all of them.

* The climax of ''Film/TheDayOfTheJackal'': [[spoiler:General De Gaulle escape the first shot by leaning to give an accolade, a French tradition the foreign killer isn't familiar with]]. The entire rest of the film focuses on the assassin's build-up to the attempt. Same goes for the Book on which the Film is based on.

* In French comedy ''Film/TheReturnOfTheTallBlondMan'', a sniper tries to shoot François in his apartment in Rio but the attempt fails because the latter bows down to spit out his drink.
* In ''Film/FortyGuns'', Brockie attempts to murder Griff at Wes's wedding. However, at the moment Brockie fires, Griff bends forward to kiss the bride. Brockie's shot goes over and [[MurderByMistake kills Wes]].

* In ''Film/ThePitAndThePendulum1991'', Torquemada is lying atop Maria on his bed, strangling her. In his fury, he sits upright, yanking her with him. As he does so the thread holding the sword dangling above the bed (ItMakesSenseInContext) snaps and the sword plunges down on to the bed, stabbing through where they were lying a second ago. Torquemada takes this as a sign from God.
* In ''Film/TuckerAndDaleVersusEvil'', one of the titular pair is on the receiving end of a flying tackle meant to push him into a running woodchipper. Instead, he pulls this trope and his [[IncrediblyLamePun wood-be]] killer ends up suffering that fate instead.

* In ''Literature/BigTrouble'', when Matt, aiming to "kill" Jenny, barges into the Herk residence, LeeroyJenkins style, Arthur Herk ducks instinctively at the sight of Matt's [=SquirtMaster=] Model 9000, thereby dodging a very real bullet fired at him by a hitman lurking outside.
* Grandpa Smedry in the Literature/AlcatrazSeries does this consistently; he has the [[CursedWithAwesome power to always be late]] which effectively makes him invincible as he always arrives late to his own death, such as bullets always missing him because he was too late to enter their path.

* In an early episode of ''Series/SledgeHammer'', Sledge is unaware a price of $1M has been put on his head. As he's waiting at a red light, two assassins, each hoping to claim the bounty for their own, pull up on either side of Sledge's car and take aim. Sledge invokes this trope and the hapless would-be assassins shoot each other.
* In one ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode, Monk avoids being shot by a drive-by shooter just because he was bending down to pick something up.
* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'': Happens to Earl when he's listening to a "stop smoking" [[TwoDecadesBehind cassette]]. His ex-wife Joy wants to get her hands on the lotto money [[DivorceAssetsConflict (that he claimed just after she divorced him for Darnell)]], and to do that, she tries to murder him (because she's the beneficiary in his (illegitimate) will). She tried to buy a gun, but since there was a three-day waiting period, she bought herself a crossbow to shoot Earl with. She misses him three times while he moves around without even realizing he's being shot at or who's doing it.
* During a fight in ''Series/CutieHoneyTheLive'', at one point Honey Kisaragi politely bows when one of the bad guys calls out her name, making one of the mooks trying to do a flying kick goes past above her head.
* ''Series/GetSmart'': In "Someone Down Here Hates Me", a KAOS agent posing as a surveyor asks Max for a cigarette in order to get him in position for his partner to take a shot at him. However, Max fumbles the pack as he extends to the agent, spilling the cigarettes on the ground. As he bends down to pick them up, the other KAOS agent fires, missing Max and wounding his partner.
* ''Series/GenerationKill'' shows that in the chaos of a firefight, this can happen even to competent people. Ray Person puts his head down a fraction of a second before a bullet zips through his windshield where his head would have been. He doesn't realize it at the time, but sees the bullet hole the next day and does a sort of [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E16BartVsAustralia Australia/America]]: "Now I'm dead...now I'm alive..."
* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': In "The Impostor", Leo's deputy Floyd leads him into an ambush at the corral. Floyd drops his hat as a signal for his partner on the roof opposite to shoot. Leo's sees this and bends over to pick up the hat just as the rifleman fires. The shot kills Floyd and, in his panic to get away, the assassin falls off the roof and dies.

* In ''VideoGame/ThreadsOfFate'' Rue leans down to tie his shoelaces just as Mint tries to high-jump kick him into a lake. Naturally, she falls in instead.
* In an episode of ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'', the heroes use Max's newfound psychic powers to see that Flint Paper will receive a hatchet to the head in the near future. When Sam gives him a helmet without explaining why, the helmet's light illuminates Flint's lunch, causing him to notice the peanuts he didn't see before... and as he bends over to examine, the hatchet flies over Flint's head.
* Happens to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neRUS67xluM#t=00m15s this player]] of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''. Given that he was moving from cover, he was probably intentionally trying to make himself hard to hit. But the timing of his crouch is just too perfect to not be the result of either luck or clairvoyance.

* In one ''Webcomic/TheMansionOfE'' strip, Mortimer [[http://mansionofe.comicgenesis.com/d/20060223.html dodges two attackers]] in this fashion.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Grampa Simpson and Homer have both done this a few times. The most famous (and tragic, and permanent) example being when Homer bending over for a bobby pin gets Maude Flanders killed.
** Snake attempts to kill Homer for driving his sports car. He ties a piano wire between two trees to off Homer's head. As Homer drives standing up, he ducks down to pick up a gumball thus, missing the wire, but Kirk lost his arm while holding a sandwich in the air (he gets better).

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': During "The Duh-Vinci Code" Animatronio blows a dart towards Farnsworth, who bends down noticing something. Perhaps a [[{{Subverted Trope}} subversion]] because the dart hits Bender in the eye, but due to his being a robot and all, doesn't faze him.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckDodgers'': Can happen to Dodgers when he's in full TheFool mode. In "The Wrath of Canasta", he avoids a laser shot by leaning to pick an apple, and said laser ricochets until it cuts a rope, leading to Nasty Canasta being crushed by a ton of bricks.

* In ''VideoGame/HypnospaceOutlaw'', it is possible to get [[JerkAss zane_rocks_15]] peram-banned from Hypnospace. [[spoiler:This will spare him from death when [[WhamEpisode the Mindcrash incident]] occurs.]]

[[caption-width-right:146:Ooh, penny!

* Used to [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments hilarious effect]] in ''Manga/SchoolRumble'' where [[TooDumbToLive Tenma]] is trying to deliver a love note ''[[AnnoyingArrows directly]]'' to [[ObliviousToLove Karasuma]] by arrow, and he spontaneously {{Flash Step}}s out of the way, and goes into more and more crazy positions as the {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s of arrows miss him by millimeters.

* ''Film/HotShotsPartDeux'': A guard that Rambo... er, Topper is shooting arrows at does this a dozen times, only realizing it after Topper ran out of ammunition when he turns around and sees the door behind him filled with arrows. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Then Topper improvises.]]

Sometimes paired with the PlankGag for extra {{slapstick}} effect. Can lead to the target being MistakenForBadass.

A very, very common variation is for the intended attack to miss the target and [[MurderByMistake instead kill another person]], thus forcing the murderer to cover up his tracks for a murder he didn't want to commit. Very well known for throwing off even the greatest detectives (at least until the end of the episode). Another twist is for the attacker to think the dodge was on purpose and the dodger [[MistakenForBadass some kind of formidable master opponent]].

Sometimes paired with the PlankGag for extra {{slapstick}} effect.

A very, very common variation is for the intended attack to miss the target and [[MurderByMistake instead kill another person]], thus forcing the murderer to cover up his tracks for a murder he didn't want to commit. Very well known for throwing off even the greatest detectives (at least until the end of the episode).

* In ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'', as the 78th Class students are locking themselves inside Hope's Peak Academy, Junko Enoshima throws a wrench at Makoto Naegi's head, but, being the [[BornLucky Ultimate Lucky Student]], he dodges it by tripping on a napkin.