History Main / HairpinLockpick

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingMaurice'', Malicia carries a set of hairpins in her adventure bag, because [[GenreSavvy that is what the heroines in stories also use to pick locks]]. Despite just shoving the pin in the lock and jiggling it around randomly, [[AchievementsInIgnorance she is able to unlock the door of the Rat Catchers Guild]].

* In the ''Franchise/DocSavage'' novel ''The Lost Oasis'', a woman tries to pick the lock on her slave collar with a hairpin after seeing Doc perform a similar feat. She doesn't have the necessary training.

* In the two-part episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' "Target"/"Hunt," when [[spoiler: Alexis is kidnapped]], she uses her friend's bobby pins to pick the lock. Castle had learned how as book research and taught her. She does describe using the torsion and pick and actually breaks a few before succeeding.

* Subverted in ''Series/FatherBrown'' when Father Brown faces a locked door and asks for a hatpin: as an antique model, the key was left in the keyhole on the far side of the door, and he's able to [[PaperKeyRetrievalTrick poke it out and pull it under the door on a sheet of paper]]. Mrs. [=McCarthy=] looks slightly disappointed that he doesn't actually pick the lock with the pin.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Chandler and Joey are trying to open a locked closet door. Joey asks Chandler whether he has a bobby pin; Chandler runs his hand through his hair, then says, "Oh, that's right, I'm not a 9-year-old girl". Ultimately the trope is [[SubevertedTrope subverted]] as they can't get the door open this way and Joey eventually admits he has no idea what he's doing.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Chandler and Joey are trying to open a locked closet door. Joey asks Chandler whether he has a bobby pin; Chandler runs his hand through his hair, then says, "Oh, that's right, I'm not a 9-year-old girl."

** In "Adventures in Babysitting", Dean has to work with the 14-year old daughter of another Hunter. He refuses to take her into a demon nest to rescue her father, so handcuffs her to the steering wheel. [[NotSoDifferent Well aware that she had the same training he did]], Dean then insists she hand over her lockpick. However she gets free anyway using a bobby pin.

* In ''Videogame/BioshockInfinite'' Elizabeth is downright surprised Booker doesn't pick locks, and on being asked why she '''does,''' she explains, "I spent my life surrounded by nothing but books and time. You'd be amazed what I can do." By the time he shows up, the people maintaining her Tower prison/apartment have it sealed with a bank vault door and use Songbird as a guard, so it's no shock they actually let her keep studying how to pick ''simpler'' locks..

* Twice in ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'', Kyle uses part of a coat hanger to pick the lock on his suitcase and a hotel door.
* In ''[[VideoGame/TheBlackwellSeries Blackwell Convergence]]'', Rosangela picks a door lock twice with a paper clip.
* In ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac: Rebirth'', the Paper Clip trinket allows you to unlock chests without having to use a key (you'll still need keys for locked doors and key blocks, though).
* In ''VideoGame/KathyRain'', Kathy uses a bent paperclip to open her jail cell.

* Possible in ''VideoGame/SixteenWaysToKillAVampireAtMcdonalds.'' [[spoiler:The main character has to take them out of her hair, which covers her neck and prevents her from luring the vampire, but gives her access to a plunger to turn into a stake and some duct tape]].
* Unlike the first ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' where Jill uses an actual lockpick given to her by Barry, she in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' and Claire in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' use what looks like a safety pin that was bent into a makeshift picking tool. [[FridgeBrilliance Likely this is why it works on far less locks than the pick in the first game did]]. Ethan in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7'' uses what looks like an ice pick to jimmy open locks, which breaks them after one use.
* ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry7LoveForSail'': Larry manages to use the needle after bending it with vice grips, both of which he found in the La Costa Lotta complimentary Lil' Hair Weave Kit, to open his handcuffs at the beginning of the game.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* The hairpin from ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' is in the same category of items as keys: All their weapon counterparts are guns (pistol for key, Tommy gun for ring of keys, [[MoreDakka heavy machine gun]] for hairpin). It's also actually used as a lockpick during [[MarathonBoss the final battle]].

* In one ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'', Jim asks if his character Padme has a bobby pin in her hair. Since Padme happens to be chained up at the time, the GM assumes that Jim intends this trope and congratulates him on the idea. Since Jim's actual idea is [[CloudCuckoolander much more foolish]], Jim decides to use this trope instead.

* The titular character of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' uses the pin holding up his topknot to pick locks in a couple episodes.
* Producing a hairpin to pick locks was one of the only things Daphne ever did of use in ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo''. Velma, of all people, did this on ''WesternAnimation/TheNewScoobyDooMovies'' when Don Adams was locked in a trunk.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePerilsOfPenelopePitstop'' episode "Carnival Calamity," Penelope used one of her hairpins to open the padlock on the loop-the-loop ride.
** Penelope also uses a hairpin to do a repair on her car the Compact Pussycat in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces.'' That is, after she's pulled out half the engine to see what the problem was to start with.

-->'''Heffer/Hansel:''' Hey Debbie, don't you have a hairpin or something?
-->'''Rocko/Debbie:''' No, but I have a key. ''(pulls key out of hair)''
* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': Subverted in the last episode of Season 4. When the J-Team is trapped in a cell, Viper tries using a hairpin to pick the lock, but it doesn't work because the lock is magically sealed.

* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'': In "The Mask", Courage locks Eustace and Muriel in their bedroom while he goes out to find Bunny. Muriel eventually unlocks the door with a bobby pin, to Eustace's amazement.
* ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'': In the short "Locksmiths", Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are locksmiths whose office door is locked and they can't find their key. In one attempt to get out, Mickey uses a hairpin to unlock the door, which opens up to reveal many other doors behind it (including one with the Doorknob from ''WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland'') before Mickey opens up on Clarabelle Cow taking a ShowerOfAwkward.
-->'''Mickey:''' Heh-heh, wrong pick.
* ''WesternAnimation/SallyBollywood'': In "Call My Lawyer", Sally uses a hairpin to the pick the lock on Bob's locker in search of incriminating information.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'':
** Leni uses this in "It's A Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House". Given that she's the DumbBlonde of her family, her sisters are understandably shocked.
--->'''Leni:''' What? There's more to my head than just air, you know.
** In "Kernel of Truth", this is how Stella opens the door behind which the popcorn culprit is hiding.
* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' episode "Bonfire of the Panties", Duckman attempts to break in to his neighbor's house using a hairpin... then barges the door in and tosses the hairpin away.

* In ''ComicBook/Agent327'', a safety pin is standard issue for every Dutch secret agent for exactly this reason.
* ''Franchise/{{Tintin}} in the Lake of Sharks'' plays this straight, after he and a pair of young siblings are locked up by Rastapopolous.
* In ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'' #7, Marian gains access to Marcus' study by picking the lock with a bobby pin.

* ''Fanfic/FatesCollide'': Yang Xiao Long can do this, saying she taught herself how to do it to sneak into her father's liquor cabinet.

* Abu uses one to free WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} from his shackles in the dungeon.

* There's a subversion in ''[[Film/ShanghaiNoon Shanghai Knights]]'' where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is attempting to do this but Chon Wang gets impatient and shatters the door window with a lock, reaches in, and unlocks the door.
* Michelle Pfeiffer uses a hairpin to pick Jack Nicholson's handcuffs in ''Film/{{Wolf}}''.

* ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'': Hannibal unlocks his handcuffs with a pen clip.
* ''Film/{{Colombiana}}''. The hitwoman protagonist uses one to get out of her cell after a GetIntoJailFree ploy. The hairpin appears to be a [[HiddenInPlainSight professional lockpicking tool however]].
* In ''Film/{{Coherence}}'', Mike manages to open the mysterious box with a pin from his pocket. Lampshaded by his line: "Holy shit, it worked."
* In ''Film/ConAir'', Cyrus and Nathan use needles to unlock their handcuffs as part of their GreatEscape plan.

* A variation in ''Film/{{Madeline}},'' Pepito uses a paper clip, and later on, Madeline's hairpin, to start a few motorcycles.
* Another variation in the climax of ''Film/{{Pompeii}}'': when [[spoiler:[[DamselInDistress Cassia]] is chained to the chariot of the BigBad and an epic ChariotRace is taking place, she tears a splinter from the wooden platform of the chariot and manages to unlock her chain with it]].
* ''Film/TheGoldenChild''. When Kee Nang needs to get through a locked door into the house headquarters of a biker gang, she pulls a hairpin out of her hair and jimmies the lock.
* In ''Film/FinalJustice'', Maria uses a hairpin to pick the lock to the door on Don Lamanna's mansion, then says she has been doing this since childhood.
* In ''Film/{{Rags}}'', Kadee's friend gets Charlie out of a closet by picking the lock with her hairpin.
* In ''Film/{{Superdome}}'', the killer breaks into [[spoiler:Rita]]'s hotel room this way before killing her with a VorpalPillow in her sleep.
* In ''Film/TheProwler1951'', Webb pulls a bobby pin out of Susan's hair and uses it to pick the lock on John's desk to help himself to a packet of cigarettes.

* In the ''Franchise/DocSavage'' novel "The Lost Oasis," a woman tries to pick the lock on her slave collar with a hairpin after seeing Doc perform a similar feat. She doesn't have the necessary training.

* If Literature/NancyDrew didn't have those Industrial-Strength bobby pins, she would still be locked in many a closet.
* Subverted in ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'', where the fallacy in this trope is pointed out, and Violet uses an electrical plug as a lock pick.
* Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Misery}}'' has a segment where the author-hero {{lampshade|Hanging}}s that he fortunately learnt how to do this as research for one of his books. King gets to [[ShownTheirWork Show His Work]] by having the character show his work; it's a somewhat recursive book.

* Subverted in the ''Literature/TowersTrilogy''. Xhea spends an entire hour unsuccessfully attempting to pick a lock this way using a filched surgical tool; finally, the tool breaks, and Xhea concludes that the door must be sealed by the strongest lock in the known universe.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' novel [[Recap/NewSeriesAdventuresEnginesofWar "Engines of War"]], the Time Lords created an intricate, sonic proof lock that someone might unlock via a different, cruder method. Cinder breaks out using her bracelet.

* In "Literature/TheEndOfThePierShow", Richard borrows a hairpin from Vanessa and uses it to unlock the door of the room they've been imprisoned in, pretty much without breaking stride.

* ''Series/DoctorWho''
** Used by Victoria in the serial ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E6FuryFromTheDeep Fury from the Deep]]''.
** In "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe", Madge Arwell offers to pick the lock of the TARDIS with her hairpin when the Doctor can't find his key. He points out that it's a multi-dimensional, triple-encoded temporal interface, then is bemused when she succeeds. "Suddenly the last nine hundred years of time travel seem that bit less secure." Turns out she's brought him to a real police telephone box.
* [[Series/TheWildWildWest Artemus Gordon]] utilizes this technique in "The Night of Sudden Death" when he's left locked in a cage by his partner.
* Spoofed as always in ''Series/GetSmart''. Max asks 99 for a hairpin so he can pick a lock, but she doesn't have one. Then Max remembers he has one himself. When an amused 99 asks why a man wears a hairpin, Max indignantly replies that it's for picking locks.
* In ''Series/BreakingBad'', when Jesse is [[spoiler: being held captive by the Neo-Nazis, he picks the lock on his handcuffs with a paper clip.]] It only takes him a few seconds.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Hope And Fear", Captain Janeway uses a microfilament from her commbadge to adjust some nodes in Seven of Nine's Borg circuitry so that she could walk through the force field of the prison they were held in and gain control of the ship that was bringing them into Borg-controlled territory. Despite all the {{technobabble}}, it's basically this trope RecycledInSpace
* In ''Series/{{Continuum}}'', Jasmine Garza picks the lock on her handcuffs using her nipple piercing.
* ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger''. When Sydney and (of course) Alex are kidnapped, the former uses a hairpin to undo their handcuffs. Unfortunately, the bad guys walk in just as they've gotten free and not only smack her and restrain them both again, but order the maid to "make sure she doesn't have any more".
* In the two-part episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' "Target"/"Hunt," when [[spoiler: Alexis is kidnapped]], she uses her friend's bobby pins to pick the lock. Castle had learned how as book research and taught her. She does describe using the torsion and pick and actually breaks a few before succeeding.
** In an earlier episode, Castle offers to pick the cuffs when he and Beckett are chained together, but she isn't wearing hairpins.
* In ''Series/{{Haven}}'', as a former criminal, Duke Crocker knows how to pick locks with pins, ballpoint pens, etc.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''.
** In the episode where John Reese meets his future LoveInterest Zoe Morgan, she lampshades that he must be one of those guys who can get out of anything with a paperclip. Later when they're captured, Zoe cuts a deal for her life, but secretly leaves a paperclip in Reese's hand. Sure enough, he unpicks his handcuffs and escapes.
** In "YHWH", Harper uses a hairpin to pick the lock on Fusco's handcuffs, shaping it with her teeth first. Fusco finds this kinda hot.
* In the pilot of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', Dean uses a paperclip to free himself from handcuffs in the police station. Like most depictions of this trope, he merely bends it to make it work.
** In "Adventures in Babysitting", Dean has to work with the 14-year old daughter of another Hunter. He refuses to take her into a demon nest to rescue her father, so handcuffs her to the steering wheel. [[NotSoDifferent Well aware that she had the same training he did]], Dean then insists she hand over her lockpick. However she gets free anyway using a bobby pin.
* In "Chapter Six: The Monster" from ''Series/StrangerThings'', Nancy's mother uses her hairpin to open Nancy's room after her knocking remains unanswered.
* Subverted in ''Series/FatherBrown'' when Father Brown faces a locked door and asks for a hatpin: as an antique model, the key was left in the keyhole on the far side of the door, and he's able to [[PaperKeyRetrievalTrick poke it out and pull it under the door on a sheet of paper]]. Mrs. [=McCarthy=] looks slightly disappointed that he doesn't actually pick the lock with the pin.
* In ''Series/{{Bizaardvark}}'', Belissa escapes from military school by picking the lock on the gate with a hairpin she stole from Paige.
* In a two-part episode of ''Series/{{Hazel}}'', Hazel has to retrieve some tranquilizers from a mobster's desk so she can dope the food of a roomful of crooks with them and, hopefully, escape while they're incapacitated. She sneaks into the mobster's office and discovers that the desk drawer is locked, so she immediately pulls out a hairpin and opens the lock. However, before she can get the pills, she hears someone coming, so she shoves the drawer back in and hides. One of the crooks comes in to get a couple of tranquilizers for his boss. He's surprised that the desk is open, and locks it when he leaves. Thus, Hazel has to hairpin it open ''twice.''
* ''Series/MacGyver1985'': In "Lost Love, Part 2", Mac frees himself from handcuff captivity with a bobby pin that he got from Lisa, a soviet double-agent and one of his many girlfriends. When he was free from the handcuffs, he can't use the pin to open the door of the room he is trapped in, so he uses the handcuffs to pick the lock the same way he did to free himself from the handcuffs.
* At the start of one episode of ''SAeries/ScarecrowAndMrsKing'', Lee is teaching Amanda [[ChekhovsSkill how to open handcuffs when your hands are cuffed behind your back]]. At the end of the episode, she has to do exactly that, using Lee's stickpin as a picklock.
* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'' used this a few times.
** In the first season, Nina was locked in the attic by Patricia. With no key, she was still able to escape by using a hairpin.
** In the second season, Eddie taught Fabian how to do it properly when he was trying to break into the cellar, and Fabian later used Amber's hairpin when they were rescuing a kidnapped Trudy.

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'', [[LongHairedPrettyBoy Duo]] does this from time to time.

[[folder:Comics]]
* Night Nurse in ''Comicbook/DoctorStrange: The Oath'' opens a door this way. The impressed Strange can only comment "You should wear your hair like that more often."

* In ''{{ComicBook/Agent 327}}'', a safety pin is standard issue for every Dutch secret agent for exactly this reason.
* ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}} in the Lake of Sharks'' plays this straight, after he and a pair of young siblings are locked up by Rastapopolous.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Other]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuT_63Ioig This Youtube video]] shows how it is done.
[[/folder]]

* Leni of ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' uses this in "It's A Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House". Given that she's the DumbBlonde of her family, her sisters are understandably shocked.
-->'''Leni:''' What? There's more to my head than just air, you know.

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', Bobby Pins are your standard lockpicking resource. They're damaged and eventually break when you screw up the LockpickingMinigame, but fortunately, loads of them have survived The Great War intact.

* Prince Zander from ''Webcomic/LatchkeyKingdom'', who by this point has gotten a bit used to being captured, is seen [[http://latchkeykingdom.smackjeeves.com/comics/2394015/castlemania-26/ trying to open a cage door]] with a bobby pin. He fails and breaks the pin, but pulls another out of his hair rather than let that stop him.

* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'' used this a lot in the second season; Eddie taught Fabian how to do it properly when he was trying to break into the cellar, and Fabian later used Amber's hairpin when they were rescuing a kidnapped Trudy.