History Main / MurphysBed

* {{Nobilis}} provides a NightmareFuel-ish example character:

* One was used as a hideaway in an episode of ''[[AlloAllo 'Allo, 'Allo!]]''. It got stuck. With Mme Fanny and M Leclerc inside...

* In ''TheSims''2, the Murphy Bed has a small chance of killing a weak Sim that tries to open it while in a very poor mood.

** One is also used to get [[GirlOfTheWeek Solitaire]] out of the way during his final confrontation with the film's GiantMook in ''LiveAndLetDie''.

* Death of KevinBacon's character in ''FridayThe13th''.

* The ''FifthElement'' had the protagonist hiding the priest Cornelius in the bed in his apartment. When it slid back into the wall, it auto-cleaned it. So he was covered in plastic when the bed came back out.

* In ''AreYouBeingServed?'', the episode "Friends and Neighbours" had hilarity ensue involving a Murphy-type bed that flipped up into the wall and launched the occupant into the next room when they yanked a cord, or lowered down when someone pressed a specified book on the shelf. Various jealous wives discovered various combinations of characters concealed in the bed when they unsuspectingly tapped said book.

->- SilentMovie

If it's a {{Comedy}}, HilarityEnsues, and the lasting consequences will likely be limited to minor humiliation, a day spent peeling potatoes in Boot Camp, or a day shopping for a new bed. In a setting on the more realistic side, serious injury may be ''best'' the victim can hope for.

* The Wilkie Collins short story "A Terribly Strange Bed" plays with this version in a gruesome way: drunken gamblers sleeping off their night's debauchery in a room above the casino, the bed is a four-poster whose top part hides a second mattress which is lowered by a mechanism to suffocate them.

* In ''TheSims''2, the Murphy Bed has a small chance of killing a weak Sim that tries to close it.

* Does the way Jason's mother kills Kevin Bacon's character in ''FridayThe13th'' count?

* ''{{Anastasia}}'': Vladimir, TheBigGuy, gets the top bunk on a boat, which sags so low Dmitri can hardly move.

* Tom, of ''TomAndJerry'', often falls prey to these as well.

Not to be confused with a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_bed Murphy bed]] (no possessive), although depending on the mechanism it might very well become this trope.

!!Examples

!!! [[AC:Wall Bed]]: Also known as a "Murphy bed", a bed that folds into a wall or cabinet.

* ''TheThreeStooges''

* Granny from ''TheBeverlyHillbillies'' gets folded up into the hide-a-bed. By a monkey.
* In ''AreYouBeingServed?'', the episode "Friends and Neighbours" had hilarity ensue involving a Murphy-type bed that flipped up into the wall and launched the occupant into the next room when they yanked a cord, or lowered down when someone pressed a specified book on the shelf. Various jealous wives discovered various combinations of characters concealed in the bed when they unsuspectingly tapped said book.
** And in "Camping In", there was a faulty Murphy bed where the cabinetry flopped down on top of the mattress rather than the mattress rising up into the cabinet.

* Josh on ''MyNameIsEarl'' dies in a Murphy Bed accident. Months before the episode aired, a poster on TelevisionWithoutPity commented on a fear of Murphy Beds, and during the episode, Josh was seen posting on the website using that screen name.

* One was used as a hideaway in an episode of ''[[AlloAllo 'Allo, 'Allo!]]''. It got stuck. With Mme Fanny and M Leclerc inside...
* On ''{{Cheers}}'', Sam unwittingly insults Carla's mother and is punished by being stuffed into the wall on the Murphy bed. Says Carla, "You cross Mama, you sleep in the wall."

* In ''TheSims''2, the Murphy Bed has a small chance of killing a weak Sim that tries to close it.
* In the ''{{Tintin}}'' story "The Secret of the Unicorn", Professor Calculus builds a wallbed that opens and closes upon Thompson and Thomson repeatedly.
* In the ''LoveAmericanStyle'' episode "Love and the Vertical Bed", a wife tries to cure her husband of his phobic fear of beds.
* JamesBond uses a Murphy bed as part of a ploy to fake his death in ''YouOnlyLiveTwice''.
* There was a grim (but funny) example of this in ''Curse of MonkeyIsland'', where a Murphy bed was pulled down to reveal... [[PeekABooCorpse a skeleton.]]
** The ''Monkey Island'' example also had a boarded-up hole in the wall behind the bed, implying that somebody had been sent through the wall by being stuck in a Murphy bed.
*** The hotel owner was never entirely certain what happened to the last guy who stayed in that room. For several nights after he checked in, there were bloodcurdling screams all night long. He was glad when they stopped, but he never saw that guest again.
* Does the way Jason's mother kills Kevin Bacon's character in FridayThe13th count?
* Not the murder method, but in Ellery Queen's ''The French Powder Mystery'' the body is hidden in a Murphy Bed that was part of a department store window display. When the demonstrator got to "see how easy this is to open?", the corpse popped out.

!!![[AC:Sofa Bed]]: (also called a Hide-a-bed in the US, at least)

A bed folds up back into a couch, or vice versa, before its occupants are ready.
* A CouchGag in ''TheSimpsons'' had Grandpa being folded up in the couch bed so that the family could sit down.
* TruthInTelevision: A Russian woman kicked the bed, triggering its spring-loaded change back into a sofa, killing her husband who was lying on it.

!!![[AC:The Upper Bunk Rule AKA Bunk Bed Sandwich]]:

The upper bunk collapses onto the lower bunk, imprisoning its occupant. Alternately, the top bunk sags almost all the way down to the bottom bunk, very nearly imprisoning its occupant.

* Happened in a ''RobotChicken'' episode featuring a family of WWF fans.
* ''{{Anastasia}}'': Vladimir, TheBigGuy, gets the top bunk on a boat, which sags so low Dmitri can hardly move.
* Subverted in ''LiloAndStitchTheSeries'': Pleakley appears to weigh almost nothing, whereas Jumba is at least as big as two grown men. [[FinaglesLaw Guess who gets the top bunk.]] Yet all that ever happens is that Jumba's bunk sags a little, not even enough to annoy Pleakley.
* A variation occurs in ''ChickenRun'': as the chickens dismantle the coop to build an airplane, one chicken removes the nails off her nest, and it falls on top of her lower bunk mate.
** This is a ShoutOut to a similar scene in ''TheGreatEscape'', where half the slats in the upper bunk had been removed to shore up the escape tunnel.
* This was a regular occurence for the previously mentioned ''TheThreeStooges'' shorts as well. They ''always'' put Curly (the heaviest of the stooges) on the top bunk for [[RuleOfFunny some reason]]. He'd also accidently step on Moe and Larry's heads on his way up.
* The Wilkie Collins short story ''A Terribly Strange Bed'' plays with this version in a gruesome way: drunken gamblers sleeping off their night's debauchery in a room above the casino, the bed is a four-poster whose top part hides a second mattress which is lowered by a mechanism to suffocate them.
* PlayedWith in a BrawlInTheFamily comic.

!!![[AC:Smart Bed]]:

It turns itself into a couch! It helps you have breakfast in bed! It even brushes your teeth! It throws you out the window in case of fire! Too bad the AI is programmed to hate you.
* ''TheJetsons'', of course.
* There's a classic [[ClassicDisneyShorts Mickey/Donald/Goofy]] cartoon that involves our heroes traveling in a remarkably automated mobile home. Donald's peacefully sleeping in bed, but Mickey hits a control, and the bed (it's on a sort of shelf) folds into the wall. Donald gets folded too, then pops out another hole fully dressed.

* ''WallaceAndGromit'': Wallace's bed tilts upward and runs him through a Rube Goldberg device to get him dressed. The malfunction part comes halfway through ''The Wrong Trousers'', when Gromit hides in it to spy on [[spoiler:Feathers [=McGraw=]]], and it ends up activating by itself.

!!![[AC:Hammock Flapjack]]:

The character gets into a hammock, and suddenly it folds around them and traps him inside like a cocoon, or it continually dumps them while they try to get in.
* There's a DonaldDuck cartoon where just putting up a hammock is proving impossible.
* In ''CalvinAndHobbes'', this happens to Calvin and he imagines he is a fly trapped in a spider web.

!!![[AC:Lawnchair Jackknife]]:

The character ends up wearing a lawnchair folded around him into an unlikely shape.

!!![[AC:Miscellaneous Mishaps]]:

-->"[The Power of Blankets] turns his banal Estate into a ubiquitous source of strangling cords and suffocating gags. He is a driven man-if he can still be called a man at all- and there was a time when he slew a cradled child to bring down the police [...] and force his enemy's hand."

* BearTrapBed: a bed that folds in half like a taco shell, trapping the occupant between the raised head and foot.