History Main / MurphysBed

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoonyTunesShow'': One scene in “The Shell Game” shows Lola trying out a folding mattress at the department store. She ends up folding it to much and looses the remote, getting stuck in the mattress with her big rabbit feet sticking out. Eventually Daffy comes and gets her out.

[[folder:Audioplay]]

[-[[caption-width-right:350:Who maimed the detectives? Why, it's an open and shut case.]]-]

* In ''Film/TheGreatEscape'' all the prisoners sleep in wooden bunks with the mattresses supported on planks. As these also supply the only readily available source of wood a scene halfway through has Hilts removing all but the bare minimum to make pit props for the tunnel. Enter Cavendish, who bounds onto his third-tier bunk and proceeds to crash through all three levels to the floor.

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

For furnishings that are deliberately ''designed'' to entrap their occupants, see ShackleSeatTrap.

But woe to the ChewToy, the CosmicPlaything, TheWoobie, the well-deserving {{Villain}}, or the victim of a particularly cruel fate or KickTheDog moment. For them, no place in the universe is safe, especially where they [[MurphysLaw least expect it]]. At the worst possible moment, snap! Covers go flying at unlikely velocities, mattresses fold like origami, and furniture morphs like a Transformer as it consumes its victims.

* ''Film/{{Fantomas}} Against Scotland Yard'': In Lord Rashley's castle, Commissioner Juve's bed is rigged to move on wheels, pursuing
Inspector Bertrand throughout the bedroom before dragging both men into a secret passage and all the way down to Fantômas' lair, where the villain makes them [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse an offer they can't refuse]].

* Creator/RogerEbert's Movie Glossary claims that the "upper bunk guy sandwiching the lower bunk guy" thing happens in ''Film/BlackSheep1996'' and ''Film/StepBrothers''.

* In ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'', a RunningGag is that the putout bed in Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo's room at the Happiness Hotel would spring back into the wall, usually when someone was on it. The final appearance of the gag takes it UpToEleven when it sprung up with ''all the Muppets'' on it.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In the story "Terror of the Autons," the Master -- having taken over a plastics factory -- tests a prototype for an inflatable plastic armchair on a rather troublesome employee. The armchair traps him in its cold, clammy surface and suffocates him.

* In ''[[Film/PapyFaitDeLaResistance Papy fait de la résistance]]'', set in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the Bourdelles are hiding a wounded British pilot in their cellar, when the Gestapo led by [[LesCollaborateurs Adolfo Ramirez]] surprises them. They immediately hide the pilot by closing the folding bed he's in, pressing him upside-down against the wall for the whole raid.

* In ''[[Film/PapyFaitDeLaResistance Papy fait de la résistance]]'', set in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the Bourdels are hiding a wounded British pilot in their cellar, when the Gestapo led by [[LesCollaborateurs Adolfo Ramirez]] surprises them. They immediately hide the pilot by closing the folding bed he's in, pressing him upside-down against the wall for the whole raid.

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

* In ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'', a RunningGag is that the putout bed in Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo's room at the Happiness Hotel would spring back into the wall, usually when someone was on it. The final appearance of the gag takes it UpToEleven when it sprung up with ''all the Muppets'' on it.
* ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'': In the Creator/StanleyKubrick adaptation, Humbert and Lolita arrive at a hotel and find ThereIsOnlyOneBed. This [[PaedoHunt doesn't bother Humbert much]], but to keep up appearances he asks for a cot to be sent up. This leads to a short comic sequence where Humbert and a hotel porter have to unfold the cot without waking up Lolita. The cot does little to cooperate -- squeaking loudly, throwing Humbert onto the mattress and whacking the porter in the face. Finally they get it open without waking Lolita, only for her to wake up when Humbert tries to slip under the sheets with her. So Humbert has to use the cot, which promptly collapses on him.

* ''Film/MotherGooseRocknRhyme'': Gordon and Little Bo Beep go to Little Miss Muffet asking where Mother Goose (his mother in the film) vanished to, and before they leave, Little Miss Muffet screams as she encounters her spider, Itsy Bitsy Spider who appears out of nowhere and appears into her house. As he appears, he blows her a kiss, and she screams as her murphy bed (along with her lying on it) go back into the wall. Little Miss Muffet probably vanishes though after that, because folks in Rhymeland disappear one by one.

* In ''Film/TheGreatEscape'' all the prisoners sleep in wooden three-tier bunks with the mattresses supported on planks. As these also supply the only readily available source of wood a scene halfway through has Hilts removing all but the bare minimum to make pit props for the tunnel. Enter Cavendish, who bounds onto his top tier bunk and proceeds to crash through all three levels to the floor.

** 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.

* ''Film/MotherGooseRock'n'Rhyme'': Gordon and Little Bo Beep go to Little Miss Muffet asking where Mother Goose (his mother in the film) vanished to, and before they leave, Little Miss Muffet screams as she encounters her spider, Itsy Bitsy Spider who appears out of nowhere and appears into her house. As he appears, he blows her a kiss, and she screams as her murphy bed (along with her lying on it) go back into the wall. Little Miss Muffet probably vanishes though after that, because folks in Rhymeland disappear one by one.

* Greek myth gives us the seemingly hospitable Procustes, who would offer weary travellers bed and board for the night. Only.. if the traveller was too ''tall'' for the bed, Procustes would cut his feet or legs off till he fitted. if the traveller was too ''short'' for the bed, Procustes would stretch him on a rack till he fitted... And of course, he kept a different-sized bed just in case there happened to be a traveller just the right size.

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/{{Tintin}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/murphys_bed.png]]]]
[-[[caption-width-right:350:Who maimed the detectives? Why, it's an open and shut case.]]-]

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Not to be confused with a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_bed Murphy bed]] (no possessive), although they provide a popular version of this trope (slapstick routines involving Murphy Beds started appearing in silent movies less than a year after they came out on the market), slamming the victim into the wall to be discovered later on (quite possibly SquashedFlat).

* ''Comicbook/GastonLagaffe'': One of Gaston's invention is a switch-operated folding relaxing chair ([[CapsLockNumLockMissilesLock conveniently next to many other switches that do something else]]). Before he tested it, he went home, but curiosity got the better of Fantasio and of course, he pressed the wrong switch...

* A variation occurs in ''WesternAnimation/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 ''Film/TheGreatEscape'', where half the slats in the upper bunk had been removed to shore up the escape tunnel.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyRainbowRoadtrip'': At Hope Hollow's only hotel, Petunia Petals shows to the Mane Six that the sole bedroom has a folding bed, although she has to buck the wall a couple time before it goes down. Quite naturally, the moment Applejack jumps on the bed, it folds back and pins her against the wall.

* This was a regular occurrence for ''Film/TheThreeStooges''. They ''always'' put Curly (the heaviest of the stooges) on the top bunk for [[RuleOfFunny some reason]]. He'd also accidentally step on Moe and Larry's heads on his way up.
* Nordberg in ''Film/TheNakedGun'' movies, with his hospital bed.
* In another Leslie Nielsen movie, ''Film/SpyHard'', Dick Steele (Agent [=WD40=]) traps a would-be assassin in his fold-out bed. Then he goes to play some golf. Whether he did it deliberately is hard to tell, considering the character is either ObfuscatingStupidity, CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass, or a BunnyEarsLawyer.

* Eddie Valiant, of course, uses his Murphy Bed against the Weasels in ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''.

* In the finale of ''Film/ThePinkPantherStrikesAgain'', Clouseau's attempt to sleep with a beautiful FemmeFatale is interrupted by Cato attacking them, causing the Murphy Bed to flip up, [[RuleOfFunny smashing through the wall and dumping them into the River Seine]].
* There's a whole comedy routine based on this in Creator/MelBrooks' ''Film/SilentMovie'' as as Mel's alcoholic movie director character tries unsuccessfully to operate one in a fleabag motel. At the end, he gets spun around, grabs the lighting fixture on the opposite wall by accident and tears the motel wall down.

* The ''MattHelm'' movies starring Dean Martin featured a bed that would wake Helm up by dumping him into a swimming pool.
* ''Film/TheFifthElement'' has the protagonist hiding the priest Cornelius in the bed in his apartment. When it slides back into the wall, it auto-cleans it. So he is covered in plastic when the bed comes back out; Bruce Willis' character quickly rips open the plastic to stop him from suffocating.
* In ''Film/TheGreatEscape'' all the prisoners sleep in wooden three-tier bunks with the mattresses supported on planks. As these also supply the only readily available source of wood a scene halfway through has Hilts removing all but the bare minimum to make pit props for the tunnel. Enter Cavendish, who bounds onto his top tier bunk and proceeds to crash through all three levels to the floor.
* In the Creator/StanleyKubrick adaptation of ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'', Humbert and Lolita arrive at a hotel and find ThereIsOnlyOneBed. This [[PaedoHunt doesn't bother Humbert much]], but to keep up appearances he asks for a cot to be sent up. This leads to a short comic sequence where Humbert and a hotel porter have to unfold the cot without waking up Lolita. The cot does little to cooperate -- squeaking loudly, throwing Humbert onto the mattress and whacking the porter in the face. Finally they get it open without waking Lolita, only for her to wake up when Humbert tries to slip under the sheets with her. So Humbert has to use the cot, which promptly collapses on him.
* ''Film/DownWithLove'': Vikki gets flattened by a fold-out bed when Peter activates the one in Catcher's apartment while trying to open the hidden bar.
* In Creator/JacquesTati's classic ''Film/MrHulotsHoliday'', this is done with a rowboat. Hulot's attempts to extricate himself lead to terrified beachgoers [[CoincidentalAccidentalDisguise mistaking said craft for a man-eating shark]].
* In the film ''Film/TheWrongGuys'', Richard Lewis attempts to set up a cot in a tent which keeps doing this to him. Eventually he ties this "cot from hell" in place, and is finally able to lie down on it. However, then another character actually causes the entire tent to collapse, and we can see the shape of the cot folding up again underneath it, while Richard screams in agony.
* ''Film/CityHunterTheCupidsPerfume'': When Mr. Skippy's mother-in-law gets all amorous toward him because of the perfume, he finally pushes the grabby woman away and she falls on the fold-down bed, which immediately retracts in the wall, her feet still sticking out.

[[folder:Literature]]
* Mightily Oates's camp bed in the Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Carpe Jugulum''.
[[/folder]]

* Granny from ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'' gets folded up into the hide-a-bed. By a monkey.
* So did Marlo Thomas in ''Series/ThatGirl''.

* Josh on ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' dies in a Murphy Bed accident. Months before the episode aired, a poster on Website/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 ''[[Series/AlloAllo 'Allo, 'Allo!]]''. It got stuck. With Mme Fanny and M Leclerc inside...
* On ''Series/{{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 the ''Series/LoveAmericanStyle'' episode "Love and the Vertical Romance", a wife tries to cure her husband of his phobic fear of beds.
* In one episode of ''Series/HomeImprovement'', Tim remodels Al's apartment to maximize usable space. One of his improvements is a motorized hide-a-bed operated by a remote control. Al gets this remote confused with the one for the TV, and ends up getting sent through the wall into the neighbor's bedroom. [[RunningGag "Hey! I don't go in for that sort of thing!"]]
* A famous scene in ''Series/ThreesCompany'' involved Jack Tripper trying-- and repeatedly failing-- to get comfortable in a ''very'' tippy hammock.
* In ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'' London is staying over at Maddie's and is shocked to discover that she sleeps in a pull-out bed. She later ends up trapped between the wall and the bed.

* Caroline sleeps in an actual Murphy bed on ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'' and has experienced this trope a few times because of it. Getting her hair caught in the springs at the top of season 4 was the occasion for an ImportantHaircut.
* In an episode of ''Series/BabylonFive'', Sheridan is sleeping on a White Star for the first time and discovers that the beds are Minbari ones, which are slanted at a variable angle (supposedly because Minbari culture equates lying horizontally with being dead). He finally gets his bed balanced horizontally and lies down in it... at which point it slowly tips and leaves him with his head down and feet up.
* [[TropesAreTools Surprisingly]], this trope is PlayedForDrama in ''Series/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency''; a malfunctioning Murphy bed in an abandoned house turns out to be [[spoiler:a portal to another dimension. The child who used to live there created the other world by make-believe to escape his parents' miserable relationship.]]
* In an episode of ''Series/ILoveLucy'', Cousin Ernie is given a fold-up rollaway bed to sleep on and doesn't realize that he was supposed to un-fold it first. Lucy finds him sleeping ''through'' the bed, sideways.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' has a gag during the episode when Kermit is laid up with an injury. Specifically, it is a Muppet News Flash about the brand of hospital bed he is using being recalled because it was using parts originally made from pop-up toasters. Sure enough, there is a loud BOING! and Kermit goes flying out of the bed.

* There was a grim (but funny) example of this in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'', 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.
* There is one of these in the first mansion of ''VideoGame/LuigisMansionDarkMoon''. When Luigi sits on the rather large bed in one of the rooms, it swings up against the wall that the headboard is adjacent to, tossing the poor guy into the next room. This is needed to progress in a couple of missions.

%%* PlayedWith in a ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' comic.

* In ''Webcomic/GoblinHollow'', Ben gets a cot for then-girlfriend Lilly, so she doesn't have to share the bed with him. Unfortunately, he sits on it, and it can't support his weight.

* Website/TheOnion once ran an article [[https://entertainment.theonion.com/1930s-comedian-pretty-sure-hes-outsmarted-murphy-bed-1819574455 "1930s Comedian Pretty Sure He's Outsmarted Murphy Bed."]]

* Often happens in cartoony hospitals, where someone in a full body cast will have the misfortune of having a bed that will painfully sandwich them. Showed up in ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/QuackPack'', among others.
* Tom of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' has terrible things like this happen to him whenever he's trying to mind his own business and just relax outside in a hammock, usually courtesy of Jerry or Spike.

** Whenever Goofy is planning a semi-relaxing activity outdoors, he takes a lawnchair, and invariably somehow ends up tangled in it.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** A CouchGag has Grandpa being folded up in the couch bed so that the family could sit down.
** Also, Homer has had his fair share of mishaps involving the hammock in the backyard. In particular, a ''Treehouse of Horror'' vignette involving a hammock that would produce clones of whoever got tangled up in it... which Homer uses to his advantage. (Until said clones cause trouble.)
* Happened in a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' episode featuring a family of WWF fans.
* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/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.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'': Hank apparently installed a number of Murphy beds throughout the Venture compound during a caffeine binge (some of which have yet to be discovered) When Dean later went to the attic to clean up the place, he opened a door he didn't recognize, and was subsequently clobbered by a falling bed.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'': Snoopy battles an unruly lawnchair, as well as other furniture, in ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownThanksgiving''.
* In ''WesternAnimation/EdEddnEddy'' Eddy attempts to hide a diary in a lawn chair. It kept snapping open.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'':
** In the episode, "Stu-Maker's Elves", ButtMonkey Chuckie gets trapped in one of these when he and Tommy descend into the Pickles' basement in search of a lost toy.
** At the end of "The Mattress", Phil presses a button on the control panel to Lou's new Sleepmaster 2000 mattress, making it fold up between him, Tommy, Chuckie, and Lil. The latter three all glare angrily at him for doing so.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheWuzzles'', Croc, seeking shelter from a tropical fruit storm (yes, as in a storm where it rains bizarre hybrids of tropical fruits, like coconut/bananas) by pretending to be injured on a "broken" step (which he himself broke) at Butterbear's, is tossed into bed by a Bumblelion who secretly witnessed his plan. The bed promptly folded up on him (Croc, not Bumblelion).
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''. "Flop Starz" Doofenshmirtz falls from the top of a giant robot, only to land into the safety of a nearby bed, which then folds up on him. Talk about insult to injury.
* An early episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'' showed George's bed folding up lengthwise to turn into a toaster, which then pops him out with all the vigor you expect of a six-foot-long toaster.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' episode "X-Treme Torture", DJ has to skydive from a helicopter while his team maneuvers a fold-out bed/sofa on the ground to cushion his fall. When he lands on it, the entire thing folds up and traps him inside, and his team members [[WithFriendsLikeThese just walk away while whistling to themselves.]]

* Death of Creator/KevinBacon's character in ''Film/FridayThe13th1980''.
* In ''Film/FreddyVsJason'', Jason knifes up a kid in a rollaway bed, then folds it up -- with the kid inside being folded backward.

* Not the murder method, but in Creator/ElleryQueen'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.
* The Creator/WilkieCollins 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 the ''Series/TheAdventuresOfPeteAndPete'' episode "Pinned!", this is how one of the wrestlers ahead of Big Pete on the ladder is taken out.
* One episode of ''Series/PicketFences'', "Squatter's Rights," guest stars Darline Cates as a morbidly obese woman who accidentally kills her husband by rolling over onto him in her sleep.
* In the ''Series/FridayThe13thTheSeries'' episode "A Cup of Time", the brother of the villain is found inside one of these in his old, abandoned apartment. [[PeekABooCorpse He's been there for quite some time]]. This is a plot point, as it was accidentally [[LiquidAssets absorbing his age via the cursed tea cup]] that allowed her to first become young and thereby learn what the artifact did.
* In the TV series ''Series/StElsewhere'', Mrs. Hufnagel [a recurring character as a patient] dies as a result of a folding hospital bed folding up on her. While it's overall treated seriously, there's some degree of comedy shown as well: the first person to discover her doesn't take it seriously until she doesn't respond to him, and when he tells some other doctors about the incident afterwards, two of them can't help but chuckle. [[spoiler:It's also played with in that, while it certainly didn't help, that wasn't ''actually'' what killed her.]]
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "Terror of the Autons," the Master--having taken over a plastics factory--tests a prototype for an inflatable plastic armchair on a rather troublesome employee. The armchair traps him in its cold, clammy surface and suffocates him.