Compact Infiltrator

Tammy: Okay, Marge, you're the only one of us skinny enough to squeeze through this vent.
Marge: That's my special skill?

— The Simpsons, "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas"

When it comes to breaking and entering (or escaping, for that matter), sometimes the most effective route isn't to just kick the door down, but to sneak in through the tiniest of gaps: under the door, through the keyhole, down the chimney, and of course, through the air ducts. And of course, only a handful of characters can manage such a feat.

Enter the Compact Infiltrator, a character with the uncanny ability to fit through these narrow spaces. Maybe they're a contortionist with a gift for narrowing their bodies until they can fit through air vents; maybe they're a Rubber Man that can squeeze themselves under doors; maybe they're sizeshifters who can shrink themselves small enough to climb through mouseholes; maybe they're a Blob Monster that can ooze through drains and up plugholes; maybe they're a Voluntary Shapeshifter with a gift for becoming rodents, insects, water, smoke, or sand, the better to escape restraints meant for bigger people. They might actually be a Ridiculously Cute Critter of some description. Or maybe they're just shorter, skinnier, or younger than anyone else trying to break in or out.

However they do it, these subtle operators specialize in the tiniest cracks and smallest spaces.

Often, this is a method of justifying the Air-Vent Passageway, which has fallen out of fashion now that audiences are more aware of the many logical reasons why it usually doesn't work for most adult human beings: smaller, slipperier figures that (normally) exist only in fiction — or would only be employed as such in fiction — are not so encumbered. Also a possible method of justifying the Dumbwaiter Ride, which is not recommended for anyone taller than the average Pint-Sized Kid.

Of course, as advantageous as this skillset may be, Compact Infiltrators should watch their step: after all, if you're small enough to slip through a crack in the wall, you run the risk of Literally Falling Through the Cracks...

Compare Crouch and Prone, where video games use this as a shorthand for concealment and/or a crouch-slouch-slide combo. May overlap with Children as Pawns when youngsters are forced into this type of work.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Gunslinger Girl. When terrorists take over a nuclear power plant, the Agency sends the first-generation cyborgs (who are pre-teen girls) to infiltrate via a sewer pipe. Unfortunately by now the terrorists are aware of the existence of the cyborg girls and are waiting to ambush them with anti-material rifles when they exit.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood: When Jonathan is fighting Tarkus, his allies Speedwagon and Zeppeli are unable to assist him due to a gate blocking the way. The Tagalong Kid Poco, who is also a Cowardly Lion, finally gets to show some courage by crawling through a small hole in order to reach the lever that'll open the gate.
• In Mission: Yozakura Family, Ban Yozakura is the former patriarch of the Yozakura family and a master Contortionist capable of infiltrating nearly any facility. He's so flexible that he can fold himself into people's handbags and drawers, introducing himself to Taiyo by sneaking inside his school bag. When Ban gets serious and activates his Blooming, he can even slip up Taiyo's shirt like a wisp and exit Taiyo's sleeve.

Comic Books

• In Secret Six, among Ragdoll's talents is forcing his absurdly thin, unnaturally flexible body through tight spaces.
• Secret Wars (1984): Ultron at first appears invincible thanks to its adamantium outer shell, with even the Hulk barely managing to leave a tiny dent in the robot's head. Then, without warning, Ultron begins spitting sparks and collapses in a heap; turns out Janet van Dyne AKA the Wasp was able to sneak into the robot's interior via the dent left in Ultron's skull and zap any non-adamantium components she could find.
• The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror: In "Sideshow Blob", Bob very quickly figures out that his new Blob Monster body is a lot more mobile than it looks when he accidentally oozes through the barred gates of the prison during his escape. Consequently, Bob is frequently able to sneak up on Bart and Lisa via similar methods, even managing to infiltrate the Kwik-E-Mart and begin absorbing Apu's legs without being noticed.

Fan Works

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Tserk was picked for "Convoluted Rescue Plan, Go!" because as a tentacle monster, he can fit through cell bars that would block a more solid infiltrator on their way to his target.
• The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Alex's silvery puddle form is excellent for squeezing through air vents and similar passageways, especially when she can use telekinesis to undo bolts and otherwise clear the way. It's endlessly useful for infiltration, such as sneaking into a bank to get the drop on robbers and rescue their hostages, plus she can get back into her own house without using the doors, to protect her Secret Identity from the neighbours.

Films — Animated

• FernGully: The Last Rainforest:
  • When first released from the tree, Hexxus initially takes the form of a tiny blob of brown slime, allowing him to sneak around the Leveller by pouring himself down pipes, climbing out of smokestacks, and oozing through gratings — eventually giving him the opportunity to trick the Leveller's operators into doing his bidding.
  • In the finale, Zak's shrunken status gives him an advantage when the Leveller needs to be shut down before Hexxus uses it to destroy Fern Gully: not only is he the only ally of the fairies who knows how to switch off the machine, but he's small enough to be pushed through the closing window of the cab.
• Finding Nemo: Out of all the fish in the dentist's tank, Nemo is the only one small enough to fit into the filter, so he's the one assigned to block it up.
• Pinocchio: Attempted. Jiminy tries to free Pinocchio from his cage by climbing into the padlock and opening the mechanism, but this fails, and he ends up being sprung across the room.
• The Rescuers: The Devil's Eye diamond resides in a cave that is too narrow for Madame Medusa and Snoops to get through themselves, so they kidnap the much smaller Penny and have her get it instead.

Films — Live Action

• Ant-Man: Scott Lang is already a highly skilled cat burglar, but when he gets hold of the Ant-Man suit, he quickly becomes a master of sneaking into restricted areas through vents, drains, and even cracks in the floor. As such, his biggest challenge is to break into Darren Cross's building through layers of seemingly impenetrable security and steal the Yellowjacket tech. In the finale, Scott uses a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to shrink himself down to subatomic size so he can sneak into Darren Cross's Yellowjacket suit and sabotage it from the inside.
• The Beastmaster: The titular character has at his disposal two ferrets, Kodo and Podo, who often come in handy for slipping into pipes or other small spaces to steal objects like keys.
• The Blob (1988): Rather than simply oozing over everything in its path, the Blob is capable of using its liquid mass in surprisingly cunning ways. In one case, it infiltrates the diner by oozing up the plughole of the kitchen sink — and then grabbing the unlucky bastard trying to unblock it, dragging his entire body down the drain. Later, it also sneaks into the movie theatre via its ventilation system, not only ambushing the unlucky employee investigating the blockage in the A/C but also taking the entire audience by surprise.
• Fantastic Four (2005): Reed Richards at one point uses his Rubber Man powers to escape from a locked room by flattening his hand and arm to pass through the tiny gap under the door, then stretching further to undo the lock.
• Ghostbusters II: Vigo the Carpathian's Mood Slime proves more sentient than initially suspected, using its shapeless mass to infiltrate Dana's apartment via the plumbing and pour itself into the bath she was running for Oscar — presumably with the intention of capturing him. Thankfully, Dana notices and is able to escape with the baby before the slime can make a grab for them.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:
  • Yondu claims that the reason why he kept young Peter Quill instead of bringing him to Ego as per their agreement was because Quill was smaller than anyone else in his gang, making him useful for sneaking through tight spots — or, as he puts it, "good for thievin'." He's lying: it's because Yondu figured out that he'd been hired to track down Ego's various children so that the Living Planet could use one of them as a battery for the Expansion. Plus, Ego was murdering the kids who didn't measure up, a fact that prompted Yondu to grow a conscience.
  • In the finale, Baby Groot is found to be the only member of the team small enough to sneak through the tunnels and plant the bomb on Ego's brain. The only downside is that Baby Groot isn't terribly bright: even after repeated explanations, he can't remember the difference between the button that activates the timer and the button that triggers instant detonation. Worse still, he sets off before Rocket can finish the mission briefing.
• Masterminds (1997): One of the villains is Ferret, a small, skinny guy that they brought along in case someone had to crawl through the air ducts or whatever. He doesn't have a pleasant time given that the hero booby-traps the vents and eventually traps him at the bottom of an abandoned chimney.
• The Mummy (1999): Imhotep has the ability to transform into sand, which he normally uses to travel as a dust storm. However, while still regaining his strength, he uses the same power to sneak into Evelyn's bedroom without raising the alarm — namely, by literally pouring himself through the keyhole.
• Ocean's 11: Yen, the Chinese acrobat and Contortionist, whose job in The Caper is to get smuggled into the Casino vault by hiding inside a small cart.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Martia is eventually revealed to be a shapeshifter, and though her power seems restricted to mimicking humanoids, it proves immensely valuable for helping Kirk and Bones escape from Rura Penthe — and not just via fooling the guards: In one case, she shapeshifts into the form of a child in order to shrink out of her restraints.
• Sky High (2005): Magenta is a shapeshifter, but she can only turn into a guinea pig. Though this power gets her relegated to sidekick status, it ends up working in her favour during the climax, in which she uses her power to crawl through a tiny duct to fix the school's sabotaged anti-gravity device.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: As it's essentially a shapeshifting Blob Monster made of liquid metal, the T-1000 responds to barred gates in its path by simply oozing right through the bars and solidifying on the other side.

Literature

• Animorphs: Once they start acquiring smaller animals like mice and cockroaches, the team becomes quite adept at sneaking into restricted areas via air shafts, holes in the wall, and even pipes. However, given the two-hour limit, the Animorphs have to be careful about where they are when they have to demorph, as returning to normal in a space smaller than a human body can result in the subject accidentally crushing themselves to death.
• The Famous Five: In Five Fall into Adventure, a tiny window in Kirrin Cottage is impossible to close properly; and they decide that nobody could possibly squeeze through. However, the gypsy child Jo manages it and lets robbers into the house.
• In Fergus Crane by Paul Stewart, to get enrolled at the Betty Jean, a school located on a ship, students must be able to get through narrow spaces, and one of the most frequent exercises at the gym classes is crawling through tunnels. That's because the school is run by pirates who plan to send the children into the narrow caves of an active volcano on Magnet Island to look for priceless fire diamonds. Four students are assigned a tunnel each, but Fergus has to help anyone who gets stuck, so he has to know all four tunnels, which gives him a huge advantage later, since the tunnels are the exact models of the volcano's caves, so Fergus is able to rescue his classmates from the real thing when the pirates leave them for dead beneath the volcano.
• Flat Stanley: Given that he's completely flat, Stanley can not only slide under doors but even fit inside envelopes, allowing him to be mailed.
• Harry Potter:
  • In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Peter Pettigrew, as a rat animagus, was the only member of the Marauders able to weave between the Whomping Willow's attacking branches to open the passage to the Shrieking Shack when the Marauders were still at Hogwarts. It was also how Pettigrew was able to fake his death years later, since he cut off a finger and transformed, slipping down a sewer to let Sirius take the blame for the murders Pettigrew committed.
  • In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Rita Skeeter is revealed to be a beetle animagus, explaining how she was able to sneak around Hogwarts and report on such intrusive stories all year. On the flip side, once Hermione figured it out, she managed to trap Rita in a jar and blackmail her into stopping.
• The Gallivespians of His Dark Materials are an entire race of Little People small enough to sneak through pipes and ducts, allowing them to serve as a Sneaky Spy Species for Lord Asriel's rebellion.
• Little Fuzzy: In Fuzzy Sapiens, the bad guys send Fuzzies through the CZC's ventilation system to steal sunstones. The air ducts are too small for humans, but the Fuzzies are small enough to fit.
  Now, we gotta make everything in the building Fuzzy-proof.
• In the children's book Moon Man, when the Man in the Moon comes down to Earth, he is persecuted as an invader, and thrown into prison. However, as the full moon becomes a much thinner crescent moon, he himself becomes much thinner and is able to escape by squeezing through the bars of his window. He later uses this again, by becoming small enough to squeeze into a spacecraft capsule to return to the moon.
• Mr. Men: In one book, Mr Forgetful forgets his door key, and Mr Skinny climbs through the letter box to open the door from the other side.
• Oliver Twist: Bill Sikes sends Oliver into a house through a window that only the orphan boy is small enough to slip through so that Oliver can open the front door for him.
• Star Wars Legends: The ratlike Jenet are known for specializing as spies and other infiltrators, mainly because of their Photographic Memory but also because they are impressively flexible for average-sized bipeds: they can squeeze themselves into spaces as small as twelve centimetres wide, not only by dislocating their arms but also via separating their cranial plates.
• Tales of Dunk and Egg: In "The Mystery Knight", it's heavily implied that The Spymaster had a dwarf circus performer crawl through a narrow space in order to steal a valuable dragon egg.
• The Wheel of Time: The Gholam is an Immortal Assassin with no apparent internal structure. It normally looks human, but in its Establishing Character Moment, it seeps under a locked door to reach its target.

Live-Action TV

• CSI: NY: The skinny college-girl jewelry thieves in "Not What It Looks Like" escape via a high-end store's ductwork. Since Lindsay is the smallest member of the team, she gets tasked with crawling through it to search for any evidence they may have left behind.
• Doctor Who: In "The Ark in Space", Sarah Jane volunteers to run a cable from the cryogenic chamber to the ship via a narrow conduit, since, as a petite, narrow-hipped woman in a room full of grown men, she's the only one just small enough to squeeze through it. Downplayed, since Sarah struggles quite a bit to get through due to getting stuck multiple times — it takes the Doctor using reverse psychology on her to get her out, if only to spite him.
• Doom Patrol (2019): Rita's habit of losing control of her Rubber Man powers and melting into a Blob Monster, while incredibly humiliating, actually comes in handy when the team need her to sneak into areas that solid people can't access. Among other things, in "Donkey Patrol", she's able to pour herself into the mouth of a donkey to reach an interdimensional portal, while in "Cyborg Patrol", Cliff is able to smuggle her into the Bureau of Normalcy via his hollow robot body, allowing her to infiltrate the complex without tripping any alarms.
• Farscape: Rygel is only twenty-six inches tall, and frequently exploits his diminutive stature to sneak through Moya's ventilation system, hence how he managed to break D'Argo and Zhaan out of their cells in the first place. Other episodes feature him being press-ganged into helping the larger members of the crew with infiltration: in "I, ET", he's the only member of Moya's crew who can fit through an extremely small hatch to disable the Peacekeeper beacon; in "Exodus From Genesis", D'Argo literally throws him into a vent so he can covertly investigate the Drak infestation of Moya; and in "Liars, Guns, And Money Part 1", Rygel is smuggled into the Shadow Depository vault while disguised as a statuette, allowing him to sneak through the hatchways in the containers and swap the dud deposit with a more valuable account.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi: Young Leia volunteers to crawl through the vents to find the source of the spaceport control malfunction since she's the only one small enough to fit and willing enough to try. Obi-Wan, who has seen how resilient she is in their travels, agrees that she deserves a shot to try. Leia finds her robot toy Lola, corrupted by an Imperial restraining bolt, at the source, removes the bolt, and fixes the issue.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Because he's not very good at shapeshifting into other sentient beings, Odo prefers to use animal or object forms for infiltration. In the event that he doesn't just smuggle himself into a restricted area as an object, he'll become something small enough to creep through narrow spaces... or simply revert to his gelatinous natural form and pour himself through a vent cover.
  • In "The Alternate", Odo begins uncontrollably transforming into a deranged Blob Monster while under the influence of an alien gas. Thanks to its liquid body, the creature sneaks about Deep Space 9 via the ventilation shafts, allowing it to launch surprise attacks and disappear just as quickly.
• Star Trek: Enterprise. In "Shockwave" the crew are locked in their cabins by the Suliban, but Hoshi Sato is small enough to crawl through the Air-Vent Passageway. Unfortunately the size of the vents (to fit the cameras inside) makes this an Informed Attribute. Or it might have just been an excuse to have Hoshi lose her shirt.
• Stranger Things: In season three, Erica is recruited by Dustin, Steve, and Robin to infiltrate a building, because as Lucas' ten-year-old sister she's the only person they know who's small enough to fit through the vent and unlock the door from inside. She uses their endangering her as leverage to negotiate payment in the form of free ice cream for life.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: A favored method of travel for the title characters was crawling through the air vents. Lampshaded in one episode, where Zach complains about the vents getting harder to crawl through, as he is getting older and too big to fit.
• The X-Files: Eugene Victor Tooms from "Squeeze" and "Tooms" has the ability to contort and distend his body at will, allowing him to enter his victims' homes through vents and other narrow passageways. His debut episode ends with him being imprisoned... only for him to eye the food slot at the base of his cell door with escape in mind.

Mythology and Folklore

• In Irish folklore, the bodach is a boogeyman figure and a sort of Spear Counterpart to hags with the power to transform himself into a Living Shadow that can slip through cracks too narrow even for mice to get through, the better to sneak into houses and terrorize the occupants. On a similar note, the Scottish version of the bodach is reportedly in the habit of creeping down chimneys in order to kidnap naughty children.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: Plasmoids, being amoeba-like beings with no skeletons and no set shape, can pour themselves through spaces as narrow as one inch wide; as such, certain articles suggest applications in escape artistry or breaking and entering. The only downside is that most Plasmoids can't mimic clothing, so any Plasmoid PCs will need to strip off all armor and weapons before getting sneaky.

Toys

• G.I. Joe: Tunnel Rat is perhaps the smallest Joe, but his short stature means that he's perfect for working as a Tunnel King, able to get through small cracks to insert bombs where they are needed.

Video Games

• Alice: Madness Returns: After being exposed to the bottle of Drink Me in the Vale of Tears, Alice can shrink at will, a talent she most commonly uses to sneak through holes in the walls. For good measure, Alice can also see hidden graffiti and concealed entrances while shrunken.
• Baldur's Gate III: Some openings, like the Secret Underground Passage to the lair of a gang of thief children, are too narrow for a Medium-sized player character like a human. You need to send a naturally Small character like a halfling, shrink someone with magic, or deploy a Tiny-sized animal Familiar.
• BioShock:
  • BioShock 2: As with the previous game, the Little Sisters are all children, and therefore small and skinny enough to hide in Rapture's vents when they're not out Gathering. In the finale, this is exploited when Eleanor briefly transfers Subject Delta's mind into the body of a Little Sister, allowing the player to sneak around Persephone via the ventilation system and steal the pieces of a Big Sister suit that Eleanor needs without Sofia being any the wiser.
  • BioShock Infinite: Elizabeth is so skinny that she's easily able to slip through barred gates, allowing her to break into the Hall of Heroes courtyard without even bothering with her usual lockpicking skills. Booker, being much bigger and brawnier, has to wait until Elizabeth can open a Tear that allows him to bypass the gate entirely via a docking hook.
• Day of the Tentacle: During the finale, the main characters are pitted against the Diminuator-wielding Future Purple Tentacle and his army; defeating the Tentacles requires the bowling ball from Green's room, but Purple's patrol is blocking the route to the door. Fortunately, Dwayne's room has a mousehole in the wall that leads directly into Green's room, so players just have to take a blast from the Diminuator...
• Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive: One of the floppy disks needed to get the game's Golden Ending is in a room that is only accessible through the air vent, and the only member of the protagonists who can do so is Cody, a child, as the others are adults and too big to fit through.
• Dragon Age: Origins: In the "Lost In Dreams" quest, players learn to shapeshift in the Fade in order to navigate the Sloth Demon's dominion; the first form learned is that of a mouse, allowing you to sneak through holes and bypass locked doors.
• Duke Nukem 3D: One weapon in Duke's arsenal is a Shrink Ray, which reduces enemies to inches tall. Duke can then stomp them to death to conserve ammo. At one point, Duke cannot proceed further, unless he shrinks himself by firing his shrink ray at a bathroom mirror. Now only inches tall, Duke can scuttle through the floor vents to another room. However, if Duke takes too long in the vent system, the effect wears off, and Duke ends up crushed to death when he grows to full size.
• LEGO Adaptation Game:
  • Across the series, there are special characters known as "Shorties" who are able to crawl through small ducts or paths to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, such as an Ewok sneaking through a vent to pull a switch on the opposite side of a forcefield barrier, or using Short Round to reach a high ledge to pull on a rope that raises a platform for you.
  • All of the "superhero" games starting from LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, including the LEGO DC games starting from LEGO Batman 3, feature a "Vent Travel" mechanic where there are vents with grate gaps too small for most characters to pass through, necessitating characters with Sizeshifting powers like Ant-Man or The Atom, Rubber Man powers like Mr Fantastic or Plastic Man, Elemental Shapeshifter powers like Sandman, or Energy Beings like Livewire, in order to pass through them for solving puzzles or finding hidden collectibles.
  • The "superhero" games with Sizeshifter supers, in addition to Vent Travel access, also have a special interaction where they can shrink down super-tiny for entering and traveling through paths that are too small for normal-sized characters.
  • While LEGO The Incredibles is a "superhero" LEGO game with a Rubber Man super in Elastigirl, there is no dedicated Vent Travel mechanic like Marvel and DC, instead being limited to part of Elastgirl's stretching mechanic where she sometimes needs to pass her extending body through a series of small vents to reach her intended target.
• Luigi's Mansion 3 introduces Gooigi, a Blob Monster duplicate of Luigi himself. Although he is weak to water, Gooigi is able to slip through cages and reach areas that normal Luigi cannot. This includes certain vents on the ground, which Gooigi can slide through in order to solve certain puzzles.
• MediEvil 2: Sir Dan eventually realizes that he can detach his skull and use it to control the disembodied hands roaming the levels, allowing his new Dan Hand form into hidden areas accessible only through vents and holes in the wall. In the levels following this discovery, breaking into Wulfram Hall requires Sir Dan to send Dan Hand into the building through a tiny basement window and access the door controls on the ground floor via the dumbwaiter.
• In Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, each player character in the party has a special talent or ability that can be used while exploring the various stages. For the tiny Fragile Speedster Jubei, it's that she can squeeze into small cracks and walk along narrow ledges that none of the other characters can, allowing her to reach treasures or find routes that are inaccessible to the other characters.
• Pokémon: According to the Pokédex, Furret are able to dig very small tunnels that no other Pokémon is able to enter. It can also use its slender body to squeeze through small spaces when in a pinch.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: Farah is small and skinny enough to fit through cracks in the wall, allowing her to sneak into areas that the Prince can't reach and access switches controlling various traps.
• In Psychonauts 2, Raz's Projection is literally paper-thin, allowing it to slip through prison bars and into mail slits with ease. This is essential for certain puzzle sections involving locked doors and grates that can only be opened from the inside.
• In The Simpsons Game, this is Maggie's role in gameplay. Marge can't fit through air vents, but Maggie can, so Marge can deploy her to reach areas that would otherwise be inaccessible.
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus:
  • One of the Contraptions BJ can obtain is the Constrictor Harness, which compresses the user's torso so they can fit into tighter spaces, but at the cost of losing health and dying from oxygen depletion if they stay that way for too long. Naturally, it favors stealth-based gameplay.
  • Jessica "Silent Death" Valiant, a playable character in The Freedom Chronicles, is a spy and OSS Agent whose special training allows her to contort herself into tight spaces without the need for a Constrictor Harness.

Webcomics

• Schlock Mercenary: Sergeant Schlock is a (variably) human-sized Blob Monster who can fit through extremely narrow spaces, like when he kills a particularly hated enemy in the shower by crawling out of the pipe and straight into the man's throat.

Western Animation

• Ben 10: This is essentially the only reason Ben will voluntarily transform into Grey Matter, his 6-inch-tall gecko-like alien form. Grey Matter gets used to infiltrate everything from vending machines and cereal boxes, up to and including the Forever Knights' secret headquarters.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers: The Rangers are composed of two chipmunks (Chip, Dale), two mice (Monterrey, Gadget) and one housefly (Zipper), all of whom fight crime and solve mysteries by exploiting their diminutive size to gather intelligence and operate covertly. In "Risky Beesness", for example, after Irweena has trapped the rock group Iron Goose inside a closet, the Rangers sneak in through a foot-wide Air-Vent Passageway to release them.
• Hey Arnold!: In "Cool Jerk", Arnold is making friends with a bunch of rough band members, only to discover that they befriended him specifically because they needed someone small enough to break into a music shop through the window.
• Inch High, Private Eye is exactly that: a private detective with the Finkerton Agency who is only one inch tall. He exploits his tiny size to spy on suspects as they plot their crimes, or while they're actually committing them. Despite this huge advantage, Inch High solves his cases mostly through happenstance or Bond Villain Stupidity.
• Kim Possible: Rufus, a naked mole rat, is often sent through vents or other similarly small openings in order to open or unlock doors for Kim and Ron. He also comes in handy for filching keys or gnawing through ropes when the heroes of the show are left on a Conveyor Belt of Doom or thrown in a cell.
• The Simpsons: In "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas", this is Marge's role in the robbery.
  Tammy: Okay, Marge, you're the only one of us skinny enough to squeeze through this vent.
  Marge: That's my special skill?
  Tammy: Well, what'd you think, you were a master of disguise? Not with that 'do.
  Marge: I thought you liked my hair...
  Tammy: It's alright.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Pre-Hibernation Week", after Sandy has forced the whole town to search for SpongeBob nonstop for days, one citizen urges her to Think of the Children! Her response:
  "That's a good idea! Use the children to crawl into small spaces you couldn't normally reach!"
• Strawberry Shortcake: During the fourth special, Strawberry Shortcake: Housewarming Surprise, the Peculiar Purple Pieman squeezes his whole body through a hose in an attempt to spy on the titular character as she invites her international friends to her house.

Real Life

• The octopus can compress its body in many ways, to the point that the only cracks and passages it can't travel through are ones smaller than its already-small beak. As a result, captive octopi are natural escape artists: one broke out of a New Zealand aquarium by squeezing through a drainpipe, while another got into the habit of sneaking under the lid of its tank and breaking into neighbouring exhibits so it could make a meal of the resident fish.

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