History Main / Undertaker

[[caption-width-right:350:"Gawsh, did ya say you think really I'm really six feet tall?"\\

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TwoGunGoofy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/twogungoofyut_v.png]]]]

[[quoteright:342:[[WesternAnimation/GoWestALuckyLukeAdventure https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Undertaker_458.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:342:[[Wrestling/TheUndertaker *gong*]]]]

* ''Film/VanHelsing'' has an undertaker character who tries to convince Van Helsing that killing vampires is a bad thing (vampires only need to kill one or two humans a month to survive, but when humans fight back they start killing for revenge), casually measures him for a coffin during conversation, and is found digging graves in the middle of the night because "you never know when you'll need a fresh one."

* Undertakers in the ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' comics usually sport yellow or pale-greenish skin and are very cheerful at work, only sometimes miffed when some of their prospective clients are lacking professionality and shoo them away when they break out their tape measure. Some of them even keep pet vultures. ''Lucky Luke'''s creator and longtime illustrator, Creator/{{Morris}}, also had the habit of using drawings of people he didn't like (especially teachers) for those roles. The most used one is named Mathias Bones (appearing in all the 1971-1992 adaptations including ''[[WesternAnimation/LuckyLukeDaisyTown Daisy Town]]'', ''[[WesternAnimation/LuckyLukeBalladOfTheDaltons Ballad of the Daltons]]'' and the [[WesternAnimation/LuckyLuke1983 first animated series]] and voiced in French by Creator/RogerCarel), has very pale-greenish skin and is said to be a caricature of Boris Karloff. Though often neutral he is not above giving instructions to the desperados and other villains about whom to kill, as he put straight a workaholic.

* Undertakers in the ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' comics usually sport yellow or pale-greenish skin and are very cheerful at work, only sometimes miffed when some of their prospective clients are lacking professionality and shoo them away when they break out their tape measure. Some of them even keep pet vultures. ''Lucky Luke'''s first illustrator, Morris, also had the habit of using drawings of people he didn't like (especially teachers) for those roles. The most used one is named Mathias Bones (appearing in all the 1971-1992 adaptations including ''[[WesternAnimation/LuckyLukeDaisyTown Daisy Town]]'', ''[[WesternAnimation/LuckyLukeBalladOfTheDaltons Ballad of the Daltons]]'' and the [[WesternAnimation/LuckyLuke1983 first animated series]] and voiced in French by Creator/RogerCarel), has very pale-greenish skin and is said to be a caricature of Boris Karloff. Though often neutral he is not above giving instructions to the desperados and other villains about whom to kill, as he put straight a workaholic.

[[quoteright:342:[[ComicBook/LuckyLuke https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Undertaker_458.jpg]]]]

* Undertakers in the ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' comics usually sport yellow or pale-greenish skin and are very cheerful at work, only sometimes miffed when some of their prospective clients are lacking professionality and shoo them away when they break out their tape measure. Some of them even keep pet vultures. ''Lucky Luke'''s first illustrator, Morris, also had the habit of using drawings of people he didn't like (especially teachers) for those roles. The most used one is named Matthias Bones, has very pale-greenish skin and is said to be a caricature of Boris Karloff. Though often neutral he is not above giving instructions to the desperados and other villains about whom to kill, as he put straight a workaholic.

A stock character in TheWestern. This is the guy who will take a tape measure to you in the street, right before your big gunfight. He'd be fairly nondescript, if it weren't for that morbid cheerfulness with which he goes about his business.

Usually he's got a somber air befitting a man of his line of work. That doesn't stop him from occasionally showing a grim smile and sharing a bit of dark humor with those he considers the Soon-To-Be-Deceased. In the West, death is a part of life and the Undertaker may have a variety of coffins and "last suit you'll ever wear"s in stock. The scary "keep off the grass" Undertaker is used mainly in children's dramas where sneaking into the graveyard at night is required. Often a part of his creepiness is that he is overdressed, meticulously formal and [[CreepyCleanliness too clean]]. Unless of course he does more with the bodies than just take them to be buried, in which case he may overlap with the MadScientist and have a similarly unkempt appearance.

* VideoGame/WeirdWest has Undertakers as a kind of generic quest giver in towns. They will ask you to rob a specific grave in an abandoned town for a valuable heirloom.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/TheBackwaterGospel'' focuses on a mysterious, silent undertaker who travels from town to town, and is said to never leave until he claims a body. Despite how ominous he is, the undertaker never actually ''does'' anything -- every death that happens in story occurs either because of accidents, or from the townsfolks' own paranoia.

* WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons: In "WesternAnimation/DumbHounded", the Wolf jumps off a building in an attempt to escape WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}}. An undertaker jumps after the Wolf, measures him, and then goes back up to his office.

Keep in mind that most of these interactions will be with TheHero alone as most of the townfolk have learned to avoid him.

* ''Undertaker'' is a comic book series starring Jonas Crow, a wandering, misanthropic undertaker who also happens to be a [[RetiredBadass former Union Army Sharpshooter]]. The series plays with and pays hommage to many of the classic Lucky Luke undertaker tropes, such as the grim humour and pet vulture, while still playing them more realistically and in a darker atmosphere.

* ''WebAnimation/TheBackwaterGospel'' focuses on a mysterious, silent undertaker who travels from town to town, and is said to never leave until he claims a body. Despite how ominous he is, the undertaker never actually ''does'' anything -- every death that happens in story occurs either because of accidents, or from the townfolks' own paranoia.

* WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons: In "Dumb Hounded", the Wolf jumps off a building in an attempt to escape WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}}. An undertaker jumps after the Wolf, measures him, and then goes back up to his office.

* Also the cooper in ''Film/{{Yojimbo}}'', the film ''Dollars'' was based on.
* One briefly appears in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'' when Marty is headed for a gunfight with Buford Tannen, measuring Marty for his coffin while the latter is still upright and breathing.
* ''Film/TheQuickAndTheDead'' has an undertaker who can tell the height of newcomers just by looking at them. While they're on horseback.
* Marshall (that's his name) in ''Film/CarryOnCowboy'' is mistaken for dead early on and measured up by the undertaker. Later, when he is off to heroically save the town, the undertaker gives him a reassuring grin and tells him not to worry, he kept the measurements just in case.

* ''Film/KnifeForTheLadies'': Orville is the town's undertaker (and barber). He has a very morbid (and mercenary) attitude on life.
* The Tall Man in ''Film/{{Phantasm}}'' started out as a mortician during the American Civil War.

* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': "Buryin' Sam" centers around a pair of undertakers who rob the dead who come into the possession of the cursed gun when widow asks for it to be buried with her deceased husband.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/DripAlongDaffy", the undertakers have the tallest building in town.
* On a ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' episode where Fred is made sheriff of a western town, he initially mistakes the undertaker as a tailor measuring him for a suit.

* In "Dumb Hounded", the Wolf jumps off a building in an attempt to escape WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}}. An undertaker jumps after the Wolf, measures him, and then goes back up to his office.

The origin of this trope is murky, but some have suggested that it originated during the ''UsefulNotes/BubonicPlague'' of the Middle Ages. The undertaker became someone to be feared, because if he had been called it usually meant there was plague in your neighborhood and everyone you knew was likely to die. Some people even thought the undertakers caused the plague, so it wasn't uncommon for them to be killed by their fearful neighbors. The prevalence of corrupt undertakers who would sell dead bodies to physicians (highly illegal in most of Europe and the Middle East at the time) certainly didn't help.

Usually he's got a somber air befitting a man of his line of work. That doesn't stop him from occasionally showing a grim smile and sharing a bit of dark humor with those he considers the Soon-To-Be-Deceased. In the West, death is a part of life and the Undertaker may have a variety of coffins and "last suit you'll ever wear"s in stock. The scary "keep off the grass" Undertaker is used mainly in children's dramas where sneaking into the graveyard at night is required.