History UsefulNotes / RollerDerby

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' has the episode "[=LGBSteve=]". After watching a roller derby match, Hayley wants to join the team, but is a terrible skater. Steve is a great skater, and when standing next to some other [[ButchLesbian boyish-looking girls]], looks like one of them (it helps he's [[WhoWearsShortShorts wearing short denim cutoffs]]). He gets to join under the name "Stevie Wonderbra" and is made the Jammer, and Hayley is given [[TheUnfavorite a bunch of leftover symbols and numbers]] and primarily serves to trip members of the opposing team. And yes, all the skaters [[LesbianJock start making out with each-other the moment there's a crash]]. The other team members quickly realize "Stevie" is a boy ("You've [[RagingStiffie had a boner for the last two weeks]]") but let him continue, thinking he's [[{{Transgender}} a lesbian girl trapped in a boy's body]]. Hayley gets [[ButtMonkey kicked off the team]] for pantsing Steve in front of the rest of the team.

* Three ''InCryptid'' short stories by Creator/SeananMcGuire feature Antimony, the younger sister of Verity and Alex Price, aka "Final Girl": "Blocked" (2013), "Bad Dream Girl" (2014), and "Jammed" (2015). The first story, rather significantly, blends the rules of flat and banked track derby but happen on a flat track; later ones are written more like flat track derby (Antimony's league, the Silver Screams, plays in the former Northwestern Division of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association as of "Bad Dream Girl," which was presumably written before the regional division structure was replaced by the current ranked division structure; while it seems to stand in for the Rose City Rollers, its theme is very different).

* In ''ComicBook/RobynHood'', Robyn's partner in [[OccultDetective Nottingham Investigations]] was Marian: a sorceress from a fantasy dimension. Marian becomes fascinated with roller derby as a socially acceptable means of letting out her violent impulses, and as something she would never have been able to do in her homeworld. She joins a local team, where she and the team captain fall in love and eventually marry.

* In ''VideoGame/AgentsOfMayhem'', Daisy was a derby girl before joining the titular organization. In gameplay, she skates to get around and can perform body checks as an attack as well.

* RollerGirl by Victoria Jamiesen ("Winnie the Pow")

* ''Chop Sockey Chooks'' had "Now You Coliseum, Now You Don't", an obvious [[WholePlotReference parody]] of ''Film/{{Rollerball}}''.

There were a handful of attempted revivals during the 1980s (RollerGames) and 1990s (RollerJam), all the while a handful of the original roller derby teams, including the Los Angeles T-Birds and San Francisco Bay Bombers, kept the sport alive on the West Coast.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' has the episode "[=LGBSteve=]". After watching a roller derby match, Hailey wants to join the team, but is a terrible skater. Steve is a great skater, and when standing next to some other [[ButchLesbian boyish-looking girls]], looks like one of them (it helps he's [[WhoWearsShortShorts wearing short denim cutoffs]]). He gets to join under the name "Stevie Wonderbra" and is made the Jammer, and Hailey is given [[TheUnfavorite a bunch of leftover symbols and numbers]] and primarily serves to trip members of the opposing team. And yes, all the skaters [[LesbianJock start making out with each-other the moment there's a crash]]. The other team members quickly realize "Stevie" is a boy ("You've [[RagingStiffie had a boner for the last two weeks]]") but let him continue, thinking he's [[{{Transgender}} a lesbian girl trapped in a boy's body]]. Hailey gets [[ButtMonkey kicked off the team]] for pantsing Steve in front of the rest of the team.

* ''Film/WhipIt'', starring Creator/EllenPage, is the forerunner of the "modern" roller derby movie. It functioned, effectively, as a multi-million-dollar ad campaign for a sport that many people were unaware still existed, and helped fuel a significant expansion of roller derby.

* "Roller Derby Queen" by Music/JimCroce is the ur-example of a song celebrating rollergirls, written just before the collapse of the original roller derby league.

* "Roller Derby Queen" by Creator/JimCroce is the ur-example of a song celebrating rollergirls, written just before the collapse of the original roller derby league.

* Harley Quinn practices roller derby after breaking up with the Joker in ''Film/{{Birds of Prey|2020}}''. Cassandra Cain recognises her as "that psycho from roller derby" rather than a costumed villain.

* GretzkyHasTheBall: Almost inevitably, in works about the sport not written by skaters. In order of greatest frequency: Fighting is an expulsion, repeated fighting will result in your being asked to leave the league. Elbows are illegal. No, it's not scripted. In flat track roller derby, the track is the floor - that's the whole ''point'' of flat track derby. The maximum number of points on a legal scoring pass is 4. And no, there's no ball.

* The main-continuity ''ComicBook/HarleyQuinn'' tries out for a roller derby team in her New-52 series, but quickly gets banned for gratuitous violence. She then gets recruited for a "skate club" that is basically an illegal no-rules FightClub on roller skates.

* Harley Quinn practices roller derby after breaking up with the Joker in ''Film/{{Birds of Prey|2020}}''.

One of the features that distinguishes the modern roller derby revival from previous versions of the sport, scripted or unscripted, is the presence of fanciful, self-chosen names for skaters. The tradition of derby names started because one of the skaters of the original Lonestar Rollergirls was an abuse survivor who wanted to adopt a tough nom de guerre for herself, and the other members of her team also chose names as a gesture of solidarity. Though sometimes criticized, the tradition of derby names has stuck around and shows no sign of disappearing, though greater numbers of skaters are using their legal names for interleague play.

Roller derby got its start in 1935 when Leo Seltzer got the idea of putting a [[TheGreatDepression Depression-era]] "walkathon" (i.e. prolonged dance marathons, if you've seen the opening of [[Film/EbirahHorrorOfTheDeep Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster]] you've seen what they were like) on roller skates. From these humble beginnings he quickly noticed that fans became particularly interested when skaters physically collided. Reducing the distance to be skated increased the skating speed and made collisions more likely, and soon a contact sport was invented. The Seltzer family (first Leo and then his son Jerry) promoted roller derby through thirty-eight years, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the [=McCarthy=] Hearings, and numerous other events before the original roller derby league folded in 1973, victim of the 1970s oil crisis.

* GretzkyHasTheBall: Almost inevitably, in works about the sport not written by skaters. In order of greatest frequency: Fighting is an expulsion, repeated fighting will result in your being asked to leave the league. Elbows are illegal. No, it's not scripted. In flat track roller derby, the track is the floor - that's the whole ''point'' of flat track derby. The maximum number of points on a legal scoring pass is 5 (and most of the time it's 4). And no, there's no ball.

* '''Jammer''': Jammers wear a panty with a star on it. The jammer is the skater who scores by lapping other skaters. A complete successful scoring pass by a jammer normally scores four points, unless the opposing jammer is either also lapped or in the penalty box - a five-point scoring pass is known as a ''Grand Slam.'' If the jammer passes the star panty to the pivot, the jammer becomes a blocker, rather than a replacement pivot. Popular and prominent jammers include Bonnie Thunders of Gotham Girls Roller Derby, Second Hand Smoke of the Minnesota [=RollerGirls=], Jackie Daniels of the Texas Rollergirls (formerly of Windy City) and Scald Eagle of Rose City Rollers.

* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'' has Motorball, which is the above-mentioned Rollerball ''[[UpToEleven on steroids]]'' -- with cyborgs of various shapes and formes and countless ways to tear each other apart when chasing the ball.

* ''Film/{{Rollerball}}'' is this trope [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on speed]].
* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'' has Motorball, which is the above-mentioned Rollerball ''[[UpToEleven on steroids]]'' -- with cyborgs and countless ways to tear each other apart when chasing the ball.

* ''Film/{{Rollerball}}'' is this trope [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on speed.]]

* The main-continuity ''ComicBook/HarleyQuinn'' had a roller derby story, although with '''severe''' ArtisticLicenseSports (roller derby was presented as basically one-on-one UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts fights on skates).

* AwesomeMusic: Many leagues' skate-out themes are chosen for this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uv693avM60 "Turn Down for What"]] (Gotham Girls Roller Derby) and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImeZYiPsL68 "Roller Girls"]] (Minnesota [=RollerGirls=]) are exceptionally good examples.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Ironically, their five-year winning streak began to make people in other areas see the Gotham Girls All-Stars as [[BoringInvincibleHero Boring Invincible Heroes]] at best, outright villains at worst. Losing with grace to the Rose City Wheels of Justice made them look and feel much more approachable.

* GretzkyHasTheBall: Almost inevitably, in works about the sport not written by skaters. In order of greatest frequency: Fighting is an expulsion, repeated fighting will result in your being asked to leave the league. Elbows are illegal. No, it's not scripted. In flat track roller derby, the track is the floor - that's the whole ''point'' of flat track derby. And no, there's no ball.