"Cortex takes a dive and Crash jumps onto his back, transforming him into a makeshift sled. Did Cortex trip, or was he pushed?"
— Description for the HumiliSkate, Crash Twinsanity
Skateboards, Sleds, Surfboards, and other types of sliding modes of transport are designed with a streamlined, vaguely fish-like shape and smooth surface to allow movement on the surfaces they are made for. The human body is not fit for such purpose.
Try telling that to people of fiction, however.
In this trope people use other people (or themselves) as makeshift surfboards. Depending on the tone of the work, they may be completely unharmed by this, or they're in for a Death of a Thousand Cuts if the surface they're surfed on is rough.
The very act itself can Played for Laughs that it often crops up as a form of humiliation because it's literally wiping the floor with someone, except this time you're actually riding them instead of using them as a rug. Other times, it's an offensive move due to the aforementioned Death of a Thousand Cuts.
This is not limited to human bodies (dead or alive). Animals (especially Penguins and Fishes that look suspiciously like surfboards) work too. Robots (like say, a Ridiculously Human Robot or Tin-Can Robot) only count if they're shaped as anything but an actual surfboard shape. Basically any "living" thing.
The key to the trope is the person/animal/robot is used as a vehicle that slides. So a person being used as a surfboard on water counts. However, if they are used as a diving and "surfing" mount (as in straddled, not balanced on with feet) on water, then that would be Horse of a Different Color instead, due to being used as a living jetski and not a surfboard.
Self-sledding only counts if used outside slides. Because "using yourself as a sled in a slide" is stretching the trope a bit too much.
Sister Trope to Wipe the Floor with You via the "floor wiping" side effect of the execution of this one. Sister Trope to Shield Surf via act of surfing a non-surfboard itself. A Sub-Trope of Implausible Boarding Skills, which covers any other "Improvised Skateboard". May be a form of Sprint Shoes if it essentially functions as a dash, and can qualify as a Slide Attack if used offensively.
Despite the name, examples of using living being as Hover Board (and thus evading the friction issue) count here as well.
Has nothing to do with Body Surf.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- In Gintama, Gintoki and Hijikata end up using the Shogun and Kondo as makeshift snowboards after a mishap at a ski resort. They soon realize their boards have makeshift "brakes" that can be utilized by pulling on their underwear, but they end up breaking them before long. Later in the same arc, in a rare instance of Shinpachi not being the Only Sane Man, he willfully lets Otae use him as a snowboard, as well.
- In episode 19 of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, Mika uses the body of a defeated Graze Ritter as a sled/heat shield to enter Earth's atmosphere.
Collectible Card Game
- Magic: The Gathering: The Onslaught expansion had this card
, one of many, many goblin cards that let you sacrifice creatures for a fun effect.
"Let's play 'sled'. Here's how it works: you're the sled."
Comic Books
- One Deadpool arc ended with the villain's corpse being used as a surfboard by Deadpool.
- Whenever he goes to the mountains in winter, it's almost a given that Nick Knatterton will get to use captured criminals as a sled.
- Despite the fact that Superboy's TTK means he could hold his friends up for flying if even a centimeter of any of them or their clothing was in contact with him and his complaints about flying Robin around by holding his hand he still acts affronted at the suggestion that he let any of them stand on him while he's flying instead.
- Wonder Woman Vol 1: Queen Atomia rides on the back of one of her flying Nutron mooks, and Steve Trevor and Diana stand atop one each while the Nutrons are returning to their master in order to confront her.
Fan Works
- The Gunslinger Hero: Flintlock: Katsuki does this during the USJ Attack after ambushing someone trying to attack Kyouka and riding him partway down the Mountain Zone of the building. Murder was avoided thanks to the villain’s quirk.
- In Sword Art Online Abridged, Schmitt is a game reviewer terrified that his "fans" will take advantage of the death game they're trapped in to make good on their threats to inflict this fate upon him.
Schmitt: I used to laugh at their comments! You hear me? LAUGH! But now, what if they actually do chop off my limbs, rip out my intestines, and ride me like some sort of meat-toboggan?!
Kirito: Ya hear that, Asuna? "Meat-Toboggan." Try gettin' that image outta your head. Grippin' his entrails like the reins of Santa's sleigh, streaking through the fresh morning snow on a trail of bile and gore, as his eyes beg the same question as horrified children in his wake: "Why?"
Schmitt: OH GOD!
Film — Animated
- In Pixar's The Incredibles, Elasti-Girl is able to shape her body into a boat to contain her children, and let her son use his super speed to propel them, to make landfall on Nomanisan Island.
- In a special short of How to Train Your Dragon Hiccup and Astrid go bobsledding, using a guy named Bob. This is the correct procedure for bobsledding in the village.
- In Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, Lumiere rides Cogsworth like a snowboard through the forest.
Lumiere: I think we've finally found a use for you, clock boarding! No, snow clocking! Whatever, allez!
Film — Live-Action
- Gabe and then Ryan in Cliffhanger. The former manages to save himself with an ice axe.
- In The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Legolas surfs the body of a dead orc during an orc raid against the wood elves' halls.
- In The Mummy Returns, Rick tries to convince Izzy the aviator to join his group and help him rescue his son, but he refuses. Then Rick notices he won't stop staring at a golden staff he's been carrying around. Izzy then gives this response:
Izzy: O'Connell, if you give me that gold stick there, you can shave my head, wax my legs, and use me for a surfboard.
Rick: Didn't we do that in Tripoli? - Occurs in the movie Super Mario Bros. (1993), as the brothers escape Koopa's Tower with the kidnapped girls on a mattress. A gang of Goombas set on after them and end up using one of their own as a sled.
- In Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed, after Scooby and Shaggy slides down a hill with manhole covers, one of the two living skeletons that followed them turns the other into a makeshift sled to follow the former two.
Literature
- in one of the Tacky the Penguin books, the group winds up accidentally using Tacky as a sled during a competition. They're disqualified for not using a proper sled.
- In Moon Over Soho, Peter fights a tigerman on the upper floor of a building. When he kicks it hard, the creature topples into the stairwell, and Peter seizes the opportunity to plant his Doc Martens on its chest and "surfs" down the staircase on top of it.
- In Ryan North's To Be or Not to Be, one ending has Hamlet firing himself out of a cannon, knocking Claudius off the parapets of his castle, and riding him to the ground like a skateboard. Complete with hilarious illustration by Anthony Clark.
- In Day of the Dissonance, Jon-Tom ends up using Roseroar as a surfboard at her request when they're relaxing on the beach. As she's a tiger and 500 lbs of pure muscle, and they're doing this in the water instead of on land, she's completely unharmed and has a lot of fun.
Video Games
- Castle Crashers: In the Rapids Ride/Catfish level, one object the player can use to drift through the river is the body of a dead Thief.
- Crash Twinsanity's HumiliSkate. It consists of Crash using Cortex as a snowboard to skate down a slope. It's actually a Mini-Game section on the Slippy-Slidey Ice World levels. Later on, Evil Crash uses Cortex's niece Nina in the same fashion. Note that this game supplies both the page quote and image.
- Dynasty Warriors has this as Sima Zhao's EX attack, which is a Grapple Move. where he kicks someone, and if it connects, has him surfing on them which damages anyone in the way while the grabbed person receives damage over time via Death of a Thousand Cuts (well, he is skating them on dry land).
- Devil May Cry:
- Shows up in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening during Dante's Establishing Character Moment from an early cutscene, then as a Grapple Move in the game proper. It is done by jumping on a downed enemy then pressing forward (as in where Dante is facing). You can also shoot while surfing just like in the cutscene.
- Devil May Cry 4 has Nero doing it to a Scarecrow, in the second mission's first cutscene by using his Rocket Powered sword as a booster.
- The entire premise of Gensou Skydrift revolves around the cast of Touhou Project using each other as these, while being able to switch places at will, though in this case it's flying above the ground rather than sliding on it. It apparently saves energy (Gensokyo's magic is being drained).
- In Street Fighter IV, one of C. Viper's Ultra Combo, Burning Dance, is her doing a Diving Kick and landing on her enemy, then rides on them till they crash onto the wall.
- Likewise, Yun (who actually is a skateboarder) does this with his Sorai Rengeki Ultra Combo: It starts with a rush combo, then Yun launches the opponent into the air, jumps up on their back and styles a bit before kicking them to the ground.
- In The King of Fighters XIII, Robert's Neo MAX "Hien Shippu Ryuujin Kyaku" works similarly to C. Viper's Burning Dance above.
- [PROTOTYPE]: the Body-Surf attack. Kick over (or up) an enemy (i.e. any living being) and use your momentum to ride their body down the street (or through the air, or other people). You know, just in case you didn't have enough sadistic ways to kill people already.
- Bloody Roar: Primal Fury has Cronos Orma, The Penguin / The Phoenix (seriously, he turns to either), His Finishing Move has him do a Grapple Move kick, if it connects, he surfs his enemy on the floor, then on the walls, then finally jumping off the wall and then slamming them on the ground face first.
- In one of the levels in Bayonetta, she surfs across a wave of lava using an unfortunate angel as a surfboard.
- Mega Man X: Chill Penguin, being a penguin, has an attack where he belly-slides towards you. After you acquire his weapon, Shotgun Ice, charging the weapon will produce an ice copy of his body for you to slide on.
- Mega Man (Classic): Rush, Mega Man's Robot Dog companion, can sometimes turn into a flying surfboard (called the Rush Jet) for Mega Man to fly with. Sometimes Rush Jet is a limited, optional item to pass level segments that are hard to pass normally, sometimes it is a mandatory part of the level (and turns it into Unexpected Shmup Level).
- Asura's Wrath has a scene in "The Best Laid Plans" where Asura uses a Taison to sled down a slanted elevator shaft.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The female yeti sleds down a mountainside on her own belly in the snowboarding minigame.
- In The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, you get to ride down a slope filled with spikes and all sorts of obstacles using the corpse of an evil Santa Claus you just killed.
- In Saints Row: The Third, this is one of the possible augmented melee moves you can perform.
- River City Ransom: Underground features Mike, a Big Fun Combat Pragmatist who has a special throw which involves body slamming people onto the ground and literally riding them around like a sled with a idyllic grin.
- Pizza Tower: In the Wasteyard level, there are corpses sticking out of the ground that Peppino can ride on like surfboards.
Web Animation
- Happens a couple of times with Boat from Brawl of the Objects. The first instance was in Episode 6, where Popsicley and Chocolatey saw a huge mountain they did not want to have to climb up, so Boat offered to carry the two girls, and then eventually, Boat herself gets tired of this, asking Popsicley and Chocolatey to walk down the mountain once they reach the top. Then, Chocolatey has an idea to quickly get down the mountain, and she and her entire team decide to slide down the mountain, all seated on Boat. Boat later regrets this idea, and Popsicley asks "What could go wrong?", Boat ends up catching on fire, with Popsicley saying "That's not good!". Later on, Boat lands in the water and feels much better. The next instance was in Episode 9, when the challenge was a sledding challenge. There was only 1 sled left, and Slurpy asks Boat "Why can't you slide down without a sled, you're a boat, I don't see why you couldn't just do that.", and Boat later slides down with no sled, using her own body for this.
Web Video
- PESfilm is a YouTube user creating various Stop Motion shorts. One of them, called Human Skateboard, is about a human being used as a skateboard.
- Kung Fury does this with one of the Nazi Mooks he's fighting.
Western Animation
- In the American Dad! episode "Dungeons and Wagons", Haley's MMO character uses the dead body of Steve's character as a sled.
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Southern Water Tribe uses penguins for downhill sledding rather than, you know, sleds. On one hand, real-life penguins can and do slide around on their belly. On the other hand, actually trying to carry the weight of a human would crush the unfortunate penguin. Then again, the penguins in the Avatar world are much larger than real penguins, so they presumably can handle more weight.
- In the DuckTales (1987) episode "Time is Money", the party winds up in an underground cavern with a lot of water. They wind up using Launchpad as an impromptu raft, because his jacket is watertight (when he zips it up).
- In Futurama. In "The Bird Bot Of Ice Catraz", when being chased by murderous penguins, Leela and Bender come across a large slope. Leela, seemingly inspired, claims they'll need a sled, glancing at Bender. Cut to Bender using Leela as a sled to ride down the slope.
- In The Penguins of Madagascar, the penguins, naturally, slides on their own tummies. Somehow they can easily do this on dry lands as well, without hurting themselves even.
- The Simpsons:
- In "King Of The Hill," Homer uses a corpse as a makeshift sled to get down the tallest mountain in Springfield, aptly named the Murderhorn.
- In "Crook and Ladder", when Homer is doped up on Sleepacin and goes sleepwalking, Bart takes advantage of this by having Homer sleep-drive him and Milhouse around town, and eventually they use Homer's body to go sleep-sledding down a grassy hill.
- In the 1969 Rankin-Bass version of Frosty the Snowman and its sequels, the eponymous snowman is often used as a sled by his friends.
Narrator: You see, Frosty, since he was made of snow himself, was the fastest belly whopper in the world.
- Adventure Time: "Prisoners of Love" starts with Finn and Jake sledding in the snow on an office chair. After the chair ends up getting broken, Finn resorts to riding on Jake's belly. When Finn takes his turn as the sled, he almost freezes.
Jake: Sleds are for suckers. Just ride on my gut.
- In the The Fairly OddParents! episode "Snow Bound", Vicky uses Timmy as a human snowboard to ride down a mountain side.
- Family Guy: In "The Fat Guy Strangler", after Lois comments that both of her parents are so doped up on sleeping pills that an earthquake wouldn't wake them, Brian and Stewie decide to use them to sled down the stairs.
- An Amusing Injuries variation appears in Tom and Jerry: "Surf Bored Cat". Tom swallows a surfboard, so Jerry uses him as a surfboard. Tom shrugs it off and enjoys shooting the curl anyway.
- Total Drama:
- The teams have to prepare a giant meat sausage to glide down the mountain on in "Slap Slap Revolution". The food-addicted Owen eats most of the meat when left unsupervised and becomes stuffed like a sausage. Alejandro makes the argument that under the circumstances, Owen qualifies as a sausage sled. Chris agrees and Owen doesn't object. While this is a solution, Alejandro remains angry and takes charge of steering the sled just so that he can get Owen smacked in the face with various obstacles along the road.
- After being a burden on his team for the entire challenge in "Three Zones and a Baby", Dave repays them in the final area. It is a snowy mountain top and Dave allows his three teammates to sit on his back and use him as a sled to ride down to the finish line.
- In the 105th episode of Kaeloo, Kaeloo uses Quack Quack as a sled when it starts snowing.
- In T.U.F.F. Puppy in "Cold Fish" Dudley uses Kitty as a sled as they're chasing the Caped Cod to stop him from melting the ice sculpture.
- While running from a walrus near the start of TaleSpin episode "For Whom the Bell Klangs Part 1", Baloo becomes one for Louie after falling over on a downward slope.
- In the Screen Songs short "Wait Til the Sunshines, Nellie!", Betty Boop and Bimbo ride down a snow covered hill on a goat; the goat doesn't like it so he re-positions himself so his curved horns are sliding on the ground rather then his stomach. They lose him after crashing into a rock and switch to riding a pair of snakes as if they were skis.
- The Unstoppable Yellow Yeti: Gustav often lets Rita and Osmo ride him this way. According to him, this is a pretty standard mode ofgetting around for yetis.
Real Life
- Penguins use their own body as sleds to travel on ice. Since As You Know, they can't run. Justified because their bodies' layer of fat (plus the fact that they do it on ice, which is not rough like the ground) makes it painless for them.
