History Main / DunkingTheBomb

* ''Film/TheSilence2019'': The cultists, in order to draw the monsters to the house where the protagonists live, send in a child with mobile phones strapped to her body which all start ringing at once, so everyone starts frantically ripping the phones off her and dunking them in a bucket of water.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDickTracyShow'': In "Bomb's Away", Stooge Viller and Mumbles have stolen the extremely volatile Kapow Bomb. Hemlock Holmes arrives with a bucket of water and orders them to put the bomb in the bucket. Stooges takes the bucket and puts it over Hemlock's head ("I'll do better than that... I'll put this bucket on the bum!")

* Played with in the ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' the episode "Chuck Versus the A-Team", in which Chuck discovers that dropping a nuke from a submarine into the sea would disarm it, however the trope gets averted by the fact that the nearest body of sea water is miles away and the bomb will explode in just under a minute. What Chuck does instead is [[MundaneMadeAwesome spray the bomb with apple juice from a juice box]], the logic being that since the juice contains sodium, exposure to it would disarm the bomb, [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and it works]].

* PlayedWith in the TV series ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' which has the episode "Chuck Versus The A Team" in which Chuck discovers that dropping a nuke from a submarine into the sea would disarm it, however the trope gets averted by the fact that the nearest body of sea water is miles away and the bomb will explode in just under a minute. What Chuck does instead is [[MundaneMadeAwesome spray the bomb with apple juice from a juice box]], the logic being that since the juice contains sodium, exposure to it would disarm the bomb, [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and it works]].

* Done quite [[ShownTheirWork realistically]] (in terms of effects) in the Season 1 finale of ''Series/DesignatedSurvivor'', [[Recap/DesignatedSurvivorS1E21BraceForImpact Brace for Impact]]: ArtisticLicenseGeography for Agent Wells' RaceAgainstTheClock notwithstanding, when she resorts to driving the van full of explosives into the Potomac River to get rid of the TimeBomb before it goes off, it's clearly shown that she, just a few metres away from shore, is still somewhat affected by the pressure wave, just not quite as badly as she would have been if the van had been in the open air.

* In episode 11 of ''Anime/LupinIIITheWomanCalledFujikoMine'', [[spoiler: Lt. Oscar]] removes the bomb from underneath the bridge and jumps into the river below. The explosion is muffled and the parade is safe.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/AskAPoliceman'', the police--who are now paranoid about bombs--find a mysterious ticking package down PC Harbottle's trousers. After briefly panicking, Sgt. Dudfoot thrust the package into a fire bucket. When it stops ticking, they pull it out and unwarp, only to discover it is full of Swiss watches.

* ''Film/TheKillerElite''. The protagonists are pulled over by a policeman just as they find a bomb hidden under their car. They hand the bomb to the suddenly nervous officer and [[BlatantLies say they'll wait there]] while he throws it in San Francisco Bay. Of course they drive off the moment the policeman leaves, and there's a loud off-screen explosion implying that [[TooDumbToLive he never made it to the water.]]
* ''Film/MedusasChild'': The protagonists end up extracting the pacemaker used by the titular atomic bomb to detect the presence of its maker's ex-wife[[note]]it's set to explode immediately if she tries to get away from it, in addition to its ticking countdown[[/note]], tape it to the bomb and throw the latter out of the cargo plane, into the ocean, with seconds to spare.

* ''[[Film/TheSilence2019 The Silence]]'' (2019). The cultists, in order to draw the monsters to the house where the protagonists live, send in a child with mobile phones strapped to her body which all start ringing at once, so everyone starts frantically ripping the phones off her and dunking them in a bucket of water.

* In ''Film/{{xXx}}'', we are told that the villain's bioweapon breaks down in deep water. So, in the climatic scene, with the first rocket about to launch and wipe out Prague, Xander takes the rocket, flips it upside down, shouts out a catchprase, and bails out. The upside down rocket pushes the entire sub deep into the river where everything explodes.

* Played with in ''Literature/TheFourthProtocol'' when a cat burglar fills a bag with water which he tapes on top of a shaped explosive charge he's using to crack a safe. The idea being not to stop the bomb but to absorb the blast.

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]
* Discussed but averted in ''Series/TwentyFour'' season 2. A nuclear bomb with an impossible-to-stop countdown timer is loaded aboard a small aircraft, and they have to decide between disposing of it in the Pacific Ocean or in the Mojave Desert. However the ''massive'' problems they will still have to deal with from dunking it in the ocean (a tidal wave, radioactive fallout, etc.) make it a terrible choice. Ultimately they decide on the desert.
* ''Series/TheATeam'', "[[Recap/TheATeamS2E20HarderThanItLooks Harder Than It Looks]]". After one of the GLA's members tells them the bomb is already armed and ticking, Hannibal and B.A. run to the water and throw the bomb into it. They just barely get the bomb into the water before it goes off.

* Played more realistically in the ''Series/{{Haven}}'' episode "The Hand You're Dealt," in which a hot-headed teenager with a hair-trigger temperature makes things around him blow up when he's angry. He gets rebuffed at a backyard barbecue by a group of peers, and Duke and Nathan dunk the propane grill into the swimming pool hoping to avert disaster. They breathe a sigh of relief when nothing happens, only for the explosion to hit and spray water and flames everywhere.
* ''Series/GetSmart''

* In the ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'' episode "Murder at Sea," the guys dispose of three bombs hidden throughout a cruise ship by tossing them overboard.
* ''Series/TalesOfTheGoldMonkey''. In "Black Pearl", the Nazis have developed a prototype atomic bomb ([[StupidJetpackHitler in 1938]]). Our heroes tow the bomb into a [[BottomlessPit bottomless lagoon]] and sink it. It detonates to no apparent effect to the Nazi officials watching from a distant vessel, who deride the experiment as a failure.

* ''Music/TwistedSister''. In the music video for "I Wanna Rock", TheNeidermeyer teacher tries to stop the band by throwing a grenade at them, but he ends up [[ThrowThePin throwing the pin]], and the grenade gets stuck on his hand, so he jumps into the school swimming pool to try defusing it, but ends up getting blasted upward, [[HumiliationConga hitting his head on the diving board]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' supplement ''Lone Star''. Since magic works in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', Lone Star officers will sometimes order a water elemental to engulf a suspicious package. If it's actually a bomb, the water will render it harmless.

* WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts: The ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' SuperstitionEpisode "Donald's Lucky Day" ends with Donald (acting as a courier who is unknowingly delivering a TimeBomb by two criminals) realizing what his package really was while trying to avoid a black cat. The bomb accidentally sparks on the cat's face, causing the feline to attack the bomb, and tossing it down into the water of a pier in its frenzy. The bomb explodes within the water and saves Donald (and whoever the bomb was supposed to be delivered to) from being blown up.

* From ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'':

* In the ''Creator/WalterLantz'' short "Pig in a Pickle", Maw and Paw attempt to rescue their pig Milford from the Boomer Brothers by having Maw hide in a box pretending to be a ticking bomb. The plan works and the Boomers scatter, but Milford grabs the box and dumps it down the well.
* Subverted in one ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short, "WesternAnimation/DoughRayMeOw", when a parrot dunks a lit dynamite stick in water. He pulls it back out, all limp and soggy, but then the stick quickly straightens itself and the fuse relights.
* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/AMatterOfLoafAndDeath'' (which is a ShoutOut to the ''Film/BatmanTheMovie'' example). Gromit tries to throw a bomb into the water, only to see a group of cute little ducks. He ends up smothering it in bread dough instead.

-->'''Goofy:''' Hmm, funny place to put a hedge-clipper.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': In "Be a Clown", the Joker has a fancy looking DynamiteCandle on a cake for the Mayor's son's birthday party. While most of the guests don't suspect anything, Bruce realizes the danger and pushes the tray holding the cake into the swimming pool, where it harmlessly detonates in there.

* In ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'', a tactical nuclear bomb is disposed of by throwing it into a tar pit. Granted, an otherworldly and definitely not normal tar, but said nuclear bomb only makes a small bubble from underneath the tar when it explodes.

* ''Series/ChicagoFire'': The squad planned on doing this with a tank of liquid hydrogen whose cooling system was damaged when the truck carrying it was involved in a car accident, the plan being to dump it in a nearby river. They don't make it that far, but do get as far as a patch of wasteground where nothing important will get damaged when the pressure build-up ruptures the tank.

* ''ComicStrip/TheWizardOfId''. The King is sent an ominously-ticking parcel from the Lone Haranguer, so Sir Rodney dunks it in the moat for a lengthy period. When they open the parcel, it turns out to be a cuckoo clock, with a bird that squirts water in the King's face while chirping, "THE KING [GLUG] IS A FINK [GLUG]!"

* Played With in the TV series ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' which has the episode ''Chuck Versus The A Team'' in which Chuck discovers that dropping a nuke from a submarine into the sea would disarm it, however the trope gets averted by the fact that the nearest body of sea water is miles away and the bomb will explode in just under a minute. What Chuck does instead is [[MundaneMadeAwesome spray the bomb with apple juice from a juice box]], the logic being that since the juice contains sodium, exposure to it would disarm the bomb, [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and it works]].

Yet a third reason, [[TruthInTelevision which has some basis in fact]], is that water is dense and heavy enough to considerably reduce the force and lethal radius of an explosion. This isn't 100% reliable; the bigger the bomb the more water you'd need to absorb the pressure-wave, so a backyard swimming pool could probably contain a single stick of TNT but a two-kilo block of Semtex would need to be dropped in the middle of a decent-sized lake. ''Shrapnel'' is another matter, however; you'd need surprisingly little water to prevent that flying fast enough to be lethal.

* Justified example in an issue of ''ComicBook/GlobalFrequency'', where the bomb is going to disperse a deadly airborne virus. When it goes off underwater, the pressure is enough to contain the virus.

* In ''Film/TheLastWillOfDrMabuse'', the bad guy, in a shining example of BondVillainStupidity, locks the good guy and his girlfriend in a room with a bomb set to go off in three hours. The good guy opens up the pipes and deliberately floods the room in an effort to muffle the explosion. They almost drown, but in the end it works.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' SuperstitionEpisode "Donald's Lucky Day" ends with Donald (acting as a courier who is unknowingly delivering a TimeBomb by two criminals) realizing what his package really was while trying to avoid a black cat. The bomb accidentally sparks on the cat's face, causing the feline to attack the bomb, and tossing it down into the water of a pier in its frenzy. The bomb explodes within the water and saves Donald (and whoever the bomb was supposed to be delivered to) from being blown up.

Contrast SeaMine. DiveUnderTheExplosion could be considered an opposite trope of sorts, given that it involves dunking ''yourself'' into the water to avoid the bomb's effects ([[WhatAnIdiot just don't do both at the same time]]). Similar to NoWaterproofingInTheFuture where any device suffers from exposure to water.

Contrast SeaMine. DiveUnderTheExplosion could be considered an opposite trope of sorts, given that it involves dunking ''yourself'' into the water to avoid the bomb's effects (just don't do both at the same time). Similar to NoWaterproofingInTheFuture where any device suffers from exposure to water.

BombDisposal is never easy, even with the right tools and knowledge. However, why not get rid of a bomb by throwing it into water, like a swimming pool or an ocean? Some may figure that bombs make explosions, explosions involve fire, and water puts out fire. Therefore, throwing a bomb into water is the perfect way to extinguish it. This works well enough for gunpowder (which is literally ''impossible to ignite'' when wet) or really cheap sticks of dynamite, but modern chemical explosives are made -literally- of sterner stuff.

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop'' episode "The Ungoofables", where the titular pair drop a time bomb into an aquarium, only for it to still keep going. Fortunately, Goofy's ancestor came up with the idea to take the aquarium into a freezer, turning the water into ice, which stops the bomb.