History Main / TimeBomb

* ''Series/{{Phoenix}}'' involves the investigation into a car bomb that killed two police officers. When forensic scientist Ian "The Goose" Cochrane is able to reconstruct the bomb, the timer turns out to be a simple alarm clock nailed to a block of wood, with the bomb going off when the wind-up key turns until it hits the nail connected to the battery wire. The Goose is surprised they didn't blow themselves up driving to their target, as the only safety device is a piece of cloth shoved between the contacts.

* ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter: Under the Knife'' has you disarming one as one of the missions. Fortunately, surgical skills carry over into delicate mechanical work (That, and your assistant for the "operation" knows a few things about defusing bombs, being an ex-cop).

* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' featured ridiculously large numbers of time bombs, especially in earlier episodes. Pretty much the first MacGyvering we see is done to keep a time-delayed missile from exploding. There was even a time bomb in the ''opening credits'', and an entire early episode focused on defusing some bombs on a cruise liner. Handily, Mac [[ExpansionPackPast happens to have served in Vietnam as an expert in bomb defusing]].

** "Resurrection": the bomb is ImportedAlienPhlebotinum.
** "Avatar", where the SGC's built-in SelfDestructMechanism is used in this way by invaders in the virtual reality game.
** Honorable mention to the fireworks O'Neill threatens his SGC recruits with during a training exercise in "Proving Ground". The recruits can't figure out how to disarm the "bomb" before the timer goes off, so the team leader aborts the exercise.
** Then, there's "Fail Safe". In an attempt to destroy/divert an asteroid headed towards Earth, SG-1 places a bomb on it. Unfortunately, Carter then discovers that the asteroid itself is MadeOfExplodium, and their bomb will trigger an explosion large enough to destroy Earth. With only a few minutes to go before the timer reaches zero, the team climbs back out to their bomb, only to discover that the control mechanism has been damaged by a falling rock. To make matters worse, instead of the classic red-wire, blue-wire, it turns out that all of the control wires are the same color; as O'Neill puts it, [[LampshadeHanging "This is a very poorly designed bomb!"]]
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episodes "Obsession", "The Immunity Syndrome" and "The Doomsday Machine", the bomb was used by the ''Enterprise'' crew to destroy a MonsterOfTheWeek. In each case crew members or the ''Enterprise'' had to get out of the blast radius before the bomb detonated.
* The {{Creator/Nickelodeon}} GameShow ''Series/ThinkFast'' featured one in the first version of its "Locker Room" BonusRound. While being given 30 seconds to match items or characters behind lockers, the first contestant had to open the locker containing the Time Bomb in 20 seconds; otherwise, the second contestant would only be given 20 seconds (instead of 30) to find the remaining matches.
* ''Series/Titans2018''. In Season 3, Hawk is implanted with a bomb in his chest. Unusually for this trope, it doesn't go down by the minute, but rather by the amount of heartbeats he gives off. The Titans attempt to buy more time by giving him beta blockers to slow his heartrate. [[spoiler:Connor builds a defuzing device JustInTime, only for Red Hood to trick Dove into detonating it early, killing Hank.]]

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': "Countdown" has a dirty bomb with a timer set to go off in New York. Castle and Beckett find the bomb with less than 2 minutes. They send a picture of the bomb to an expert, but he can't see any way to disarm it in time. Castle and Beckett brace for the explosion, only for Castle to yank all the wires with the timer reaching 0. No boom, averting the WireDilemma trope.

* Subverted in ''Film/LethalWeapon3'': a foolhardy attempt by Riggs to defuse the bomb speeds up the counter. The only thing left to do is run, and let the building be destroyed. On a related note: why do the heroes never, ever just pull the detonators out of the plastic explosives?

* In ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest4OpenSeason'', an otherwise normal flight to a neighboring city is hijacked by MiddleEasternTerrorists. After you gun them down, one of them activates a time bomb, which you then have to find and disarm. The sequence is made particularly nerve-wracking because you can hear the ticking of the bomb as soon as it's armed, and you have to search the bodies of the terrorists to find both the wire cutters and the bomb-making instructions: because you're on a timer, you have to specify what part of which terrorist you want to search (jacket, pants, turban, shoes), and each search takes several seconds. You then have to ''find'' the bomb and figure out how to disarm it. [[spoiler:Cutting the wires in the opposite order of the bomb-building instructions, which includes ''connecting'' a wire before cutting another one, is the correct solution.]] As the game is otherwise a straightforward search for a rampaging escaped convict, this entire sequence ends up being a BigLippedAlligatorMoment.

* In ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest II'', an otherwise normal flight to a neighboring city is hijacked by Middle Eastern Terrorists. After you gun them down, one of them activates a time bomb, which you then have to find and disarm. The sequence is made particularly nerve-wracking because you can hear the ticking of the bomb as soon as it's armed, and you have to search the bodies of the terrorists to find both the wire cutters and the bomb-making instructions: because you're on a timer, you have to specify what part of which terrorist you want to search (jacket, pants, turban, shoes), and each search takes several seconds. You then have to ''find'' the bomb and figure out how to disarm it. [[spoiler:Cutting the wires in the opposite order of the bomb-building instructions, which includes ''connecting'' a wire before cutting another one, is the correct solution.]] As the game is otherwise a straightforward search for a rampaging escaped convict, this entire sequence ends up being a BigLippedAlligatorMoment.

* The nuclear SelfDestructMechanism in ''Film/TheAndromedaStrain'' (1971), which is disarmed with 8 seconds to spare.
** In the novel, it was 34 seconds, to which Dr Hall says "Plenty of time. Hardly even exciting." But not to the people still stuck on Level V; [[spoiler:"... to improve the subterranean detonation characteristics of the atomic device, all air is evacuated from Level V, beginning 30 seconds before detonation." Hall's response: "Oh."]]

* ''Film/BeverlyHillsNinja'', ''Film/CloakAndDagger1984'', and ''Film/{{Speed}}'' are all movies where the bomb goes off without hurting anyone, although the last wasn't a ''time'' bomb per se.
** ''Film/{{Speed}}'' has fun with the fact it's not a time bomb, but a speed bomb, so the speedometer acts as a readout meter. When the bus encounters a problem, director Creator/JanDeBont likes to show the speedometer getting ''ohsoclose'' to the 50-mph point.

* ''Film/TheFifthElement'' has one in the hotel room. Somewhat subverted, in that the heroes take a moment to decide whether or not they can disarm it, then decide to just run away from the thing. The villain who set it up does disarm it with five seconds on the timer. Then one of the aliens he pissed off earlier arms his own -- ''starting'' with a five second timer. Presumably just so that anyone who saw it when it was activated would have time to soil themselves before they died.

* The bundle of explosives in ''Film/TheMask'', which The Mask disposes of by swallowing it.

** In ''Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation'', [[BigBad Lane]] kidnapps [[spoiler:Benji]], and puts him on a public place with a time bomb strapped to him, leaving Ethan time until midnight to hand him the unlocked disk. [[spoiler:It gets stopped 0,19 ''seconds'' before exploding]].

* In ''ComicBook/{{Excalibur}}'', team enemy Gatecrasher devises an...unusual example: as Excalibur is making breakfast, one of the eggs jumps off the counter, breaks open, and reveals a cartoony bird who starts shouting at the team. As they stare at it in complete bogglement, it starts counting down...
* ComicBook/TheJoker likes bombs with flashy displays of the time left counting down, however with him it's a toss up as to whether the timer has anything to do with the actual detonator, or if the time displayed is accurate.
* ''Franchise/SpiderMan''
** During ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'', Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider is trying to defuse a bomb that the Jackal left behind and is in no shape to deactivate it, seeing as he fell off a very tall building. Spidey is able to detach the Carrion Virus container that would have been unleashed with the explosion, but they can’t deactivate the bomb, so the Scarlet Spider swings it out over to the ocean with the idea of that if he doesn’t make it, Peter can keep going on with his life, clone or not.
** At the start of ''ComicBook/DanSlottSpiderMan'' era, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four are trying to deactivate Dr. Octopus’ time bombs and they’re running out of time. Thanks to the Human Torch giving Spidey an EurekaMoment, he buys them the time to get the bombs out safely.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanRebirth'': Diana finds a bomb at Etta's brother's wedding with only seconds left on the timer. The only thing she has time to do in hold it to her own chest and curl around it to try to limit the damage it does and protect the other guests.

* The ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[Recap/TheAdventuresOfBatmanAndRobinE8TimeOutOfJoint Time Out of Joint]]" involves the Clock King using a portable device to slow down time so that he can sneak in and plant a bomb. Batman winds up grabbing the bomb, slowing time down and driving it out of town. There's a nice shot of Batman holding the bomb as it detonates in super-slow motion.

This is one of the tropes popular in all forms of film and TV writing, as it adds a sense of urgency to the story — whatever the characters must do, they must do it [[RaceAgainstTheClock within the time limit]] or the [[IncrediblyObviousBomb bomb]] will go off (the hostage will be killed, the poison will be released...).

* In the Creator/MaxFleischer "Animated Antics" short "Twinkletoes in: Where He Goes - Nobody Knows" the titular carrier pigeon from WesternAnimation/GulliversTravels is assigned by a MadBomber to unknowingly deliver an alarm clock time bomb to a specific address. The problem is, Twinkletoes isn't the most reliable courier in the world and thinks he lost the address (forgetting it was in his hat the whole time). So he goes back to the bomber's house with the package in tow to explain what happened… right as the bomb is about to explode.