Detachable Doorknob

Dang it!

Need to cause or raise tension? Need a joke about shoddy workmanship? Need a problem to be solved? Try this.

If you got someplace you need to get out of, that's what a door is for. However, to keep the plot interesting, something needs to go awry. Oh, look at that. The Protagonist tried to open the door, and the knob came out. It should be noted that should this happen, the knob can't go back in as easily as it came out. This can be especially problematic if the other side comes out, leaving the little nub that holds the door shut stuck inside, unable to be taken out. In this situation, you may need a Barrier-Busting Blow to get that door open again... and then you're going to need another door.

This can be accidentally caused by a character who Does Not Know His Own Strength. If this happens, expect a gag where they casually try to put the doorknob back in the door and pretend nothing is wrong, probably with a Not-So-Innocent Whistle.

Can be considered a Sub-Trope of No OSHA Compliance, as it could cause problems should people need to escape from a serious hazard. Also a Sister Trope to Broken Lever of Doom and Removable Steering Wheel.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • In Episode 8, Nano breaks the doorknob off the door to the closet Rentarou is hiding in, peering through the resulting hole as Rentarou screams in fear before going inside.
  • In Chapter 54, after Chiyo is accidentally given a kissing zombie drug by Kusuri, she rips the doorknob off the rooftop's only door to ensure Rentarou can't escape from her. Rentarou has to break down the door so Kusuri can get to her lab to make the Magic Antidote.
• Dragon Ball Z: After Goku recovers from the heart virus, he announces that he plans to train until he goes a level beyond Super Saiyan, causing Master Roshi to break off a doorknob in surprise.

Comic Books

• One Archie Comics story has Archie learn that Hiram Lodge has a distaste for tarnished brass. Seeking to get on his good side, Archie removes a doorknob from the Lodge mansion and takes it home to polish it. When he returns, Archie tries to reattach it, but only succeeds in pushing the shaft out through the other side. He leaves the knob in its collar, intending to remedy it later. When Hiram Lodge returns home, it's during a rainstorm, and he tries to rush through his front door before he gets soaked. The knob comes off in his hand to his great chagrin. He quickly deduces that Archie is behind his predicament, and asks himself if Archie would like to have that brass doorknob for lunch.
• Played with in the first incarnation of The Atom from the 1940s. There, he was just a small man who underwent an intensive training routine that boosted his strength to Peak Human. Not knowing how strong he'd become, he tried opening a stuck door and ripped the knob right out when it wouldn't open.

Film — Animated

• A scene of The Emperor's New Groove has Yzma and Kronk trapped in a closet in Pacha's house when Chicha, Tipo, and Chaca remove the closet door's handle.
• The original story treatment of Monsters, Inc. concerns Johnson as he tries to scare one more kid to save his job. However, as he enters Mary's bedroom, he accidentally breaks the doorknob and tries to fix it. After Mary ambushes him (thinking it's one of her brothers trying to prank her) and accidentally gets whisked away to the Monster World, Johnson tries to open the door to return her to her world. Unfortunately, the doorknob on the other side breaks as well and the door has to be sent to the repair department.

Film — Live-Action

• In 1408, once Enslin realizes that the titular hotel room he's staying in is, in fact, evil, he tries to escape, but not only does the door eat the inside key, the knob suddenly breaks off. This comes after the window slams itself completely shut, solidifying the fact that he's now trapped for good.
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Defied. When Peter Parker first gets his powers and becomes Spider-Man, he has difficulty controlling his newfound strength and makes a mess of the bathroom. As a result, when he leaves the room, he very carefully turns the doorknob to prevent himself from damaging it.
• Home Alone:
  • Home Alone 2: Lost in New York: Marv encounters a variant of this trope at the front door of the house he’s trying to break into in the climax. The doorknob has been attached by rope to a staple gun, and Marv’s attempts to get it open cause the staple gun to go off, first shooting him in the behind, then the groin, and finally the nose.
  • Home Alone: The Holiday Heist: A burglar opens the kitchen door when the knob came off in his hand. Not only that, the kitchen door falls into a catapult that launched white goo on the burglar's face.
• M3GAN: While M3gan is chasing Gemma through her house, Cady tries to look outside her room, only for M3gan to shut it, and pull out the doorknob so she can't get out to see her trying to kill Gemma.
• In Spider-Man 3, Peter's already crummy studio apartment becomes even worse when his inside doorknob completely dislodges itself. Unlike most superhero examples, it wasn't even due to his powers; it just came loose with a simple turn. Naturally, this causes Pete and others headaches trying to enter and exit his apartment, and he eventually snipes at his landlord for not fixing it; though he was under the influence of the Venom symbiote by that point.
• The Social Network: As the Winklevoss twins are waiting to see Larry Summers, the secretary tells them "This building's 100 years older than the country it's in, so do be careful". After they emerge from their meeting with Summers, which didn't go as they'd hoped, Tyler rips the doorknob out as he slams the door shut in anger. He callously says "Whoops. Broke a 335-year-old doorknob" and slams it down on the secretary's desk, leaving it to rotate like a spinning top as the secretary looks on in Stunned Silence.

Literature

• Stick Cat: In Book 4, "Two Cats and a Baby", Goose and Tiffany decide not to tell Tiffany's mother about their bathroom doorknob before they head out while she babysits their daughter. In the middle of the book, Grandma Cobb decides she needs to use the bathroom. After going, she tries to open the door, and there's a loud "CLUNK", followed by the bathroom doorknob falling out.

Live-Action TV

• Babes in the Wood: One episode had Leigh and Caralyn dealing with a contractor who has a very Stay in the Kitchen attitude. When he successfully fixes the toilet for them and attempts to leave, the doorknob comes off on both ends of the bathroom door, leaving him trapped. The girls proceed to mock him over his attitude and refuse to fix the door for him until he gives them a discount for fixing the toilets.
• Bananas in Pyjamas has an episode where the Teddies get stuck in their bedroom due to the doorknob coming off (as well as from the other side when the Bananas come to rescue them). The Bananas not only have to deal with the broken door but also with getting food to the trapped Teddies since it was so close to dinnertime.
• The Brittas Empire: A car door variant comes in "Back from the Dead", when whilst driving home, Brittas is attacked by Carole in an excavator, believing him to be trying her son Ben out for eternal youth. Colin tries to free him, but the car door handle breaks off, leaving Brittas at the mercy of a Construction Vehicle Rampage.
• In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 4 Episode 19, the Cold Open sees Jake, Terry, and Charles questioning a robbery suspect named Marcos. When Jake goes in to interrogate him, the door handle falls off after it slams shut, locking them both inside the room. The door can't be opened from the outside and requires the precinct's facility services to unlock it. Jake then proceeds to Freak Out and hyperventilate, which unnerves Marcos enough to confess to his robbery, where Jake tries to brush it off as All According to Plan.
  Jake: Boom! And that's how it's done! I was faking the whole time! I could have stayed in here forever.
  Terry: Good, cause facilities gonna be a couple hours.
  Jake: WE'RE GONNA DIE IN HERE!
• Full House: In the episode of the grand opening of the Smash Club, where things keep going wrong, Jessie and Kimmy end up trapped in the storage room together because the doorknob came off.
  Kimmy: What we got here is shoddy craftsmanship.
• The Goes Wrong Show: Early in "The Lodge," Max attempts to open the door to the eponymous Haunted House's kitchen, only for the doorknob to snap off in his hand. After trying and failing to get it open, Max is forced to improvise by pretending that he's entered the kitchen, and everyone on set follows suit — to the point Trevor provides the intended refreshments by punching a hole in the door and pouring scalding-hot tea into Max's outstretched hands.
• Green Acres: A common Running Gag on the show involves the doorknobs on the front door of the Douglases' house often coming off whenever someone uses them. This can create quite a shock for guests, especially those who are unaware of exactly where Oliver and Lisa are living.
• Hold The Sunset: In "Birthday", Phil goes into the garden shed to convince Roger to give up his newfound Basement-Dweller ways and go back to his wife and children so that he can sell the house. When he tries to leave, however, the doorknob detaches, leaving him trapped and forcing him to attempt to fix it whilst Roger tries to talk him out of selling the house.
• How I Met Your Mother: In "Definitions", Lily traps Barney and Robin in Robin's bedroom by disconnecting the doorknob, in an effort to force them to define their relationship.
• Mr. Bean: Bean often removes the doorknob from his apartment door, which causes a hitch in his strategy to repaint his living room by detonating a firecracker in the paint can. He's also shown to often remove the steering wheel from his car, which once foils a car thief.

Video Games

• Mother 3: When the Pigmask Army sets the Sunshine Forest on fire in Chapter 1, Thomas, Tazmily Village's fireman, runs over to Flint's house for help. Since it's the middle of the night, Flint isn't awake, resulting in a desperate Thomas pounding at his front door and tugging at the doorknob, prying it off in the process. This sets up a Running Gag throughout the game where the broken-off doorknob ends up traveling all over the Nowhere Islands through various mishaps.
• Octodad: The doorknob will fall off when Octodad tries to go through a door that he's not supposed to.
• In Pajama Sam in No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside, Sam can enter the hall of doors in Darkness' House once he completes the Brain Tickler challenge hosted by Wink and Blink. One of the doors in the hall has a loose doorknob, which comes off if you click on it. The loose doorknob then becomes an item in Sam's inventory, and he can use it to open the door of the riverside shack, where he can find his flashlight in the path where it's there or a hammer in the paths where the flashlight is in the mines or his mask is in Darkness' living room.
• In the Resident Evil (Remake), there's a door near the second save room which serves as a convenient shortcut to the main hall. However, after a certain amount of uses, it will suffer this trope, leading to a sort of inverted Door to Before scenario where the player has to take a longer way around later in the game.
• Soma: Variant combining Broken Lever of Doom; during a visit to Upsilon's comm centre, Simon carefully shuts the door behind him so his radio conference with Catherine won't be interrupted by the monsters infesting the area — though given that this story predominantly takes place in an Underwater Base, the door is a giant hatchway operated by a lever next to the stairs. Unfortunately, the conversion ends with the roof of the comm centre beginning to give way. Players who react quickly enough will naturally try to reopen the hatch, only for the lever to snap off in Simon's hand. Seconds later, the roof caves in and Simon has just enough time to mutter a Precision F-Strike before the Atlantic Ocean crashes down on top of him. However, he survives — a sudden Robotic Reveal demonstrating that he no longer needs to worry about drowning.

Western Animation

• Angela Anaconda: In "Bathroom Blues", Angela and Gordy find themselves in the boy's washroom at school. When they try to get out through the door, they end up pulling the knob out. Angela tries putting it back in, but it won't fit.
• Caillou: In the Season 2 episode "Lost And Found", when Caillou is looking for his missing sock, he goes down into the basement to look for it. When the basement door shuts, Caillou goes to open it but ends up pulling the doorknob out of the socket. He gets scared and starts banging on the door for help. When his dad deduces what happened, he tells Caillou he has to turn the knob on his side slowly. When both Caillou and his dad are stuck in the basement, mom tries to come to their aid, only for the doorknob to come out on her side as well. Caillou's dad instructs her on how to put it back in, and once they're out, Caillou and his dad finish up the episode fixing the knob.
• Chowder: In the episode "The Vacation", Chowder gets stuck in the bathroom because the door wouldn't open. When Schnitzel comes to check on him, he also gets stuck, made worse by Schnitzel breaking the doorknob with his raw strength when he tries to open the door. And then Mung gets stuck inside after the doorknob has already been detached.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In the episode "Honor Thy Ed", Eddy flicks a spider off the front door's doorknob, causing it to fall loose and roll into a hole in the floor. He tries to jimmy the latch open with his finger, but this only causes the knob on the other side to fall out, and his finger gets stuck.
• The Loud House:
  • In "Homespun", when listing all the problems the titular house has, we get three instances of a doorknob coming out when someone turns it, followed by "Dang it!".
  • In a Deleted Scene from "April Fool's Rules", Lincoln finds many cups full of water blocking his path in the hallway, leaving him with no choice but to drink them all. By the time he reaches the last cup, he clearly has to pee quite badly, but when he tries to turn the bathroom doorknob, it snaps right off. Cue the Big "NO!".
• Martha Speaks: In "Martha Treads the Boards", Daniel and Mariella, who are supposed to be acting in a play, get stuck in their dressing room when the doorknob falls off.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the "Treehouse Of Horror VI" story "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace", after Groundskeeper Willie gets set on fire, he immediately rushes for the door out of the boiler room. At that moment, Principal Skinner brings up a budget meeting at a parent-teacher meeting, $12.00 for doorknob repairs. Everyone unanimously says "nay", and the doorknob to the boiler room comes out, followed by more screaming from Willie.
  • In "Pranks and Greens", Bart and Milhouse go to the house of a former Springfield Elementary School prankster named Andy. Bart grabs the doorknob only to realize that it was super glued and came off the door.

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