Maintenance worker: Are you going to dive into the pool?
Diver: No, I'm going to dive into my martini glass over there.
Maintenance worker: (putting up "Pool Closed for Repairs" sign while diver dives) Good. At least that's not empty.
— MAD: Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions
You know the gag. A person makes a masterful dive into a swimming pool, discovering too late that the pool doesn't have water in it. Amusing Injury ensues. It's fairly popular in comedy, and typically Played for Laughs, although more dramatic examples do exist.
A common subtrope of High-Dive Hijinks.
Examples
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Comic Books
- Archie Comics:
- One strip has Archie hanging out at the Lodge's residence just as Mr. Lodge is about to take a dive... before realizing Archie had drained the pool to find a dime. Since this is a comedy, the pool isn't too deep and Mr. Lodge survives via Unexplained Recovery.
- In another story, Archie arrives at the Lodge's and makes a beeline for the pool...unaware that Mr. Lodge emptied it to be cleaned. Archie is able to avoid serious injury by grabbing the diving board, and throughout the story continues to have more near-misses. Mr. Lodge resorts to having Archie tied to a chair for the rest of his visit.
- A more serious example in the Franco Belgian Comic Les 4 As: In one book, a mafia gang used that as a method of execution. By the end of the book, they're using "empty the pool" as a Deadly Euphemism.
- Hefty in The Smurfs comic book story "The Smurf Menace" makes a masterful dive into an empty river bed. A few Smurfs also make empty swimming pool dives in "The Smurf Garden" when Gargamel designs it to drain all the water from the pool and trap the Smurfs in it.
- In a Not Brand Echh splash page featuring Marvel's self-parody characters working at a carnival, the Sub-Moron is diving into a teacup, when someone tells him it's empty. "Never mind that, who left in the spoon?"
Comic Strips
- The Far Side had a comic where a man is performing a stunt where he dives into a bucket of water, but a passing janitor moves the bucket, causing the man to go Oh, Crap! as he is about to hit the ground face first.
Film
- In the backstory of the Hulk Hogan film Mr. Nanny, this happened to the Big Bad. While fighting Hulk's character, the villain accidentally ran off the roof of a building and landed head-first in the empty pool of the nextdoor hotel. It would have killed him, but his afro cushioned the fall. Nonetheless, he needed to have a metal plate put on afterwards.
- In Scanners III: The Takeover, this is faciliated by the villainess through Psychic-Assisted Suicide, as she eliminates one of her rivals by forcing him to dive headfirst into an empty pool at his mansion.
- The main character of Massacre at Central High tricks one of the bullies to do this by turning off the lights at the school swimming pool. The guy doesn't even bother to check if there's any water, he just goes for it.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child: When Yvonne does her swimming pool dives at night, Freddy attacks her by turning the swimming platform into a giant hand to crush her. She jumps off the platform to escape, but the pool morphs into an empty one in mid-jump.
Literature
- This trope was the punchline of one Shel Silverstein poem.
- This
fatal conclusion from a CYOA book.
- Clue: Discussed in book #11 (Death By Candlelight), chapter 9 ("In the Swim").
Professor Plum: "Water is such a nuisance sometimes. I think someone should invent a waterless swimming pool."Mrs. White: "Given the way that his mind works at times, I think Plum once dived into a waterless pool!"
- Dial-a-Ghost: Basil Snodde-Brittle (who is described as not very bright) died from diving into a swimming pool without making sure it was full of water.
Live-Action TV
- Featured in a hilariously done safety message skit in one episode of The Electric Company (1971). Jim Boyd (who portrays a swimmer) is about to head in to a swimming pool watched over by Luis Avalos (playing a lifeguard) who tries to run through the pool's safety rules on Jim, who brushes off the former as he already "complied" with most of the rules. Before Luis talks about the last one, Jim dives in, and the typical "crash" sound is heard (the camera stays focused on Luis' location so what happens to Jim is off camera). Then Jim clamors back up, feeling dazed, before Luis points out the final rule meant to prevent the trope from happening.
- In the Angel episode, "The Trial", the entrance into a mystical gauntlet involves jumping off a diving board into an empty swimming pool and take a literal Leap of Faith.
Angel: Well, [The Host] said I had to take the plunge.Darla: Into an empty pool?Angel:' Sure. 'cause if you had water, you'd get all wet and miss out on all that skull crushing.(...)Angel: I'm either coming back with a cure - or you're about to see something kinda funny.
- Bill Nye the Science Guy: The episode about fluids has a skit depicting what life would be like without any fluids at all. The lack of water, presented as this trope, turns out to be just one of the many, many downsides of living in what's essentially a Death World.
- In one episode of The Munsters, it was mentioned that the family's pet dragon Spot drunk all the water in a neighbor's pool, leaving it empty when he went to take his morning dip.
Gamebooks
- One of the many bad endings in Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel have you taking a dive in the titular Hell Hotel's pool. Unfortunately, the ghosts casts an illusion to make you think it's filled with water, when it isn't. CRACK
Music Videos
- The video for Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like A Knife" takes place in an empty swimming pool — Adams and his band are performing at the bottom of it, to be specific. The performance is intercut with shots of the requisite video babe changing into a bathing suit in a stall. At the end she mounts the diving board and jumps ... and reappears at the other end of the pool, wet.
Urban Legend
- There's a story of a boy who practiced diving into a public pool at nighttime. One time as he was about to dive, he noticed he was casting a shadow in the shape of a cross. Feeling a pang of religious conviction, he stopped and began to pray. Moments later, the lights came on... revealing that he'd just barely avoided this trope. Snopes has an article about it here.
Video Games
- Cartoon Cartoon Summer Resort: In Episode 1: "Pool Problems", Mojo Jojo will tell you that he injured his head as a result of trying to dive in the hotel's swimming pool when it had no water in it, and now he needs a first aid kit.
- Used as the murder motive in the fourth case of Criminal Case: The Conspiracy. The Asshole Victim tricked the killer into jumping into an empty pool during a party, and ends up severely injuring them. The resulting injuries ruined the killer's dreams, and they eventually murdered the guy when they happen to run into him later.
- You can do this deliberately in one stage of Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. In fact, you have to in order to get a certain achievement.
Western Animation
- In the animated version of The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat, one of the lines from the Cat's song speculating about why the Grinch is so grinchy is "Did you dive in an empty swimming pool?"
- The 3rd episode of The Flintstones (actually the first one produced) was titled "The Swimming Pool", where Fred and Barney build a pool in their adjoining backyards. This gag appears at least once.
- Turns up in many a Tom and Jerry cartoon, e.g. "Salt Water Tabby".
- Happens in the Classic Disney Short "How To Swim", when Goofy is demonstrating the high dive. He leaves a Goofy-shaped hole in the floor.
- In another cartoon, "African Diary", Goofy goes swimming in a watering hole, just as a hippo is getting out, displacing all the water. Goofy dives into a now dry waterbed, but fails to notice and ends up bathing in dirt.
- There was a Pink Panther cartoon short that consisted of a series of unrelated gag clips. In one, the Pink Panther climbs a diving board ladder and dives into a pool (with irrelevant results). Then he ascends the ladder again but continues on past the first board to a (much) higher dive platform. Between the time he jumps off the board and reaches ground level, the filled pool suddenly and inexplicably drains completely. Elapsed time: about 2 seconds.
- Whenever a Looney Tunes or Tex Avery short features a pool with a diving board, you can bet this trope will appear in one form or another:
- In the short "High Diving Hare", Bugs Bunny tricks Yosemite Sam into jumping off a high dive into a tank of water, except there's no water in the tank. Bugs dumps a bucket of water after Sam, and Sam tries to get the water to fall faster than he so it'll be there for him to land in. The water lands in the tank in time... just before Sam misses the tank entirely.
- At the very end of 'Terrier Stricken', Claude cat is thrown into an empty swimming pool after being dragged through various obsticles in a house.
- In "Bear Feat", Pa Bear performs a high diving act for the Mingling Bros. Circus. As he prepares to dive into a pail of water, his son Junyer eats from a box of salted crackers and drinks all the water from the pail. Cue Pa landing in the empty pail and Junyer telling Ma to call for a doctor.
- In "Tweety's Circus", Sylvester dives into a tank of water as part of his plan to catch Tweety. Tweety leads an elephant to the tank for a drink. The elephant drinks the tank dry, and Sylvester crashes into the empty tank.
- Candace Flynn of Phineas and Ferb almost accidentally attempts this because Doof's -inator-of-the-week got rid of the water in the pool. Luckily the others around her end up making the empty pool into a skateboard bowl.
- Tiny Toon Adventures:
- In the short, "Home Wrecker" from the episode, "Stuff That Goes Bump in the Night", when Buster tricks Montana Max into thinking he's a ghost after Monty drops his summer house on top of him, Monty screams and launches himself in the air, hoping to land in his pool. He does, but not before Buster drains it of its water.
- The short "The Re-Return of the Toxic Revenger" from the episode "Looking Out for the Little Guy" involved Montana Max stealing water from Plucky's pond for his own pool. Plucky makes such a dive when it first happens, and in the end inflicts an epic one on Max (by catapulting him into the stratosphere before draining all the water back).
- In the short "Lifeguard Lunacy" from the episode "Pledge Week", Calamity Coyote is the junior lifeguard and is assigned to keep little children off the high dive. He suddenly sees that Li'l Sneezer has climbed to the top of the high dive (which is revealed to be in space), and is allergic to heights, so naturally, Sneezer sneezes and falls off the board. To make matters worse, Elmyra presses the button that unplugs the drain plug and drains the pool of its water. Calamity saves Sneezer by using an inner tube as a trampoline, but since it is taken away from him, Sneezer lands in the drain.
- In "Son of the Wacko World of Sports", after Roderick Rat sabotages his high dive, Buster retaliates by dressing like Moses and parting the water in the pool when Roderick is doing his dive, resulting in Roderick eating linoleum.
- In "Rock N' Roar", Plucky is about to dive into his swamp when Rover, Buster's pet dinosaur drinks from it.
Plucky: Hey! My water's gone! Oh, the ACME Water Authority is going to hear about this!
- Brainy makes a dive into an empty river bed in The Smurfs (1981) episode "The Patchwork Bear".
- In Garfield in Paradise, Jon and the pets go to the pool at their motel, only to find there's no water. Then the diving board breaks when Jon's laying on it, causing him to fall into the empty pool.
- Garfield and Friends: Jon shows the World Records representative his vacation slides to make more time, in which he mentions he took a dive in the empty pool of the resort. Then he was drowning in the empty pool. And then a lifeguard went to save him from the empty pool. And then the lifeguard realized the pool was empty.
- In a different episode based around a heat wave, Garfield fills a kiddie pool with water, goes to put the hose away, and then jumps in...only for all the water to have completely evaporated in the interim.
- At the end of the SpongeBob SquarePants short "The Endless Summer", SpongeBob dives into a swimming pool that was full when he dived, but due to the really hot weather caused by global warming, all of the water evaporates before he lands.
- This happened with The Inspector during one of his safety lectures in an early 1970s bumper on The Pink Panther Show.
Inspector: Deux Deux, where is the water?Deux Deux: Holy frijoles! Didn't you know I was cleaning the pool?
- In the T.U.F.F. Puppy episode, "Cruisin' For a Bruisin'", Kitty lies to Dudley about a villain trying to ruin T.U.F.F.'s cruise so he can leave her alone. When Kitty is about to dive into the pool, Dudley drains it to look for clues, resulting in Kitty getting injured.
- Viva Piñata: "Hudson Tells All" starts with Hudson falling victim to this trope, resulting in his angry rant about the construction workers he hired that sets off the episode's plot. It's only after he's splatted against the floor of the pool that Simone tells him said workers built a dam blocking off half the pool instead of the gazebo he ordered.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Just Desserts!", Timmy wishes that all the food in the world was desserts, which results in everyone (except for Mark Chang, who eats healthy food for dessert) becoming morbidly obese and the Earth to hurtle towards the sun. When Timmy is about to wish for everything to be back to normal, Mr. Bickles is about to dive into his pool, when the sun's heat causes the water to evaporate, and his weight causes the diving board to break and him to fall into the empty pool. When Timmy wishes that everything is back to normal, Mr. Bickles' pool is filled with water again and Mr. Bickles, thin and unharmed, is shown swimming in it.
Real Life
- Proving once again that a little stupidity goes a long way, here's two idiots deciding to go down an empty water slide. Judging by the Sickening "Crunch!" that occurs when the guy leading the way makes contact with the stairs at the end ass-first, this one's going to sting. Don't Try This at Home, kids!
