See also Interrupted Suicide and Heroic Fire Rescue. In a comic setting, can be subverted with The Not Catch.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Subverted in a commercial for Glad garbage bags. A piano breaks loose from the rope used to pull it up to a third-story window. Two workers use a Glad bag to make a fireman's trampoline. The piano completely misses, it breaks into a hundred pieces, and the workers use the trash bag to deliver the pieces to the piano's owner.
Films — Animation
- The clown firemen routine in Dumbo ends with the clowns catching Dumbo with a trampoline, but he falls through it and into a vat of whitewash.
- In Monsters vs. Aliens, a trampoline is provided to catch Derek when he's dropped by the newly giant Susan. He bounces off it and hits the ground.
- Kiki's Delivery Service has a charming use of this trope at the end of the film. After Kiki saves Tombo, firefighters rush a safety tramp below the kids as they slowly descend, just as a safety precaution considering the weight Kiki had to manage with her flight power.
Films — Live-Action
- In 1948 documentary short Going to Blazes!, firemen are shown practicing this, with most of the trainees holding the net while one has to climb a few floors up and jump.
Literature
- An anonymous bit of doggerel:
Framed in the first-story winder of a burnin' buildin' happeared a 'uman 'ead!
"Just jump into this net wot we are 'oldin' and you'll be quite orl right."
But 'e didn't jump, and the flames rose 'igher and 'igher and 'igher, strewth!
Framed in the second-story winder of a burnin' buildin' happeared a 'uman 'ead!
"Just jump into this net wot we are 'oldin' and you'll be quite orl right."
But 'e didn't jump, and the flames rose 'igher and 'igher and 'igher, gawd!
Framed in the third-story winder of a burnin' buildin' happeared a 'uman 'ead!
"Just jump into this net wot we are 'oldin' and you'll be quite orl right, honest!"
So 'e jumped. And 'e broke 'is bloomin' neck!
Live-Action TV
- An Emergency! episode, "Details," had the firefighters have to use a life net to evacuate John and Roy off a burning building. The Station 51 captain noted that was the only time he's ever seen that piece of equipment used.
- When the officers of Reno 911! have to save someone from the upper story of a burning building, they grab a trampoline for the person to land on. Needless to say, it doesn't go to plan.
Manhua
- Subverted painfully in Old Master Q. Big Potato tries jumping from a burning balcony onto a safety net, but unfortunately said net was above an inconveniently-placed fire hydrant. Cranial Eruption ensues.
Music Videos
- In the Rammstein Music Video for "Benzin", the other band members (as firefighters) try saving Flake as he jumps off a building, using a trampoline. It rips.
Tabletop Games
- In Hostage Negotiator, some of the expansionsnote introduce the Life Saving Net card. In this scenario, the abductor is holding his ex-employer's board of directors hostage, and he can throw them out of the boardroom window (several stories up). If the Life Saving Net card is used, though, hostages that would otherwise have been killed end up being saved. This is notable because in Hostage Negotiator the best-case scenario for most attempts on hostages' lives is that they remain alive but still in the abductor's clutches; it's rare to be able to turn what would otherwise have been a death into a full-on rescue.
Video Games
- The main premise of the Nintendo Game & Watch game Fire was to save people jumping out of a flaming building into a waiting ambulance with a trampoline.
- In Super Smash Bros., this is Mr. Game and Watch's recovery move. Starting in Brawl, the move is followed by a parachute from Parachute.
- At the beginning of Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!, Larry jumps into one of these to escape a burning condo. He bounces out and ricochets around the scene before finally ending up on a cactus.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has an event where you need to maneuver a straw-filled truck under a suicidal rapper to break his fall. An infamous bug led to Unintentionally Unwinnable where he jumps before you can get to him.
- In the online game Save Me, the player controls two firemen holding a net between them as they catch people, animals, and furniture falling from the windows of a burning apartment building.
Western Animation
- In Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin improvises one of these using his jacket to help Roo jump down from a tree. Tigger, on the other hand, is unwilling to use it.
- In one episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, a fire drill fails when Pooh is not there to help hold up the trampoline.
- Used by Screwy Squirrel in one of his cartoons. At the last second he pulls it away, because that's just the way he is.
- Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart: Mao Mao, Badgerclops and Adorabat try to use one to catch Sweety Pie, Slim Pigguns from a burning building that he was too oblivious to realize he was in danger from. Just to make it more frustrating, the trio were currently not on speaking terms and refusing to speak at all and couldn't convey for him to jump into the net. Suffice to say, he lands next to the net.
- Phineas and Ferb, "One Good Scare Ought to Do It!": The Fireside Girls save Phineas in this manner with an improvised trampoline made from their sashes when he falls out of the haunted house being lifted into the air.
- The Simpsons: In "Homer the Heretic", Ned throws Homer from the second-story window of a burning building onto a mattress. When Homer lands, the mattress bounces him back into the house through the ground floor window.
- In Rocky and Bullwinkle. Boris Badenov persuades Bullwinkle to jump into a firemen's net (twice!) as a publicity stunt. The second time, the net is lying on the ground with no one holding it.
- One episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show involved the two working at a fire station. They end up manning the trampoline; Ren ends up getting crushed by everyone who jumps.
- This comes into play in The Smurfs (1981) episode "Skyscraper Smurfs", when the Smurfs have to jump out of the burning smurfominium and Papa Smurf with a few other Smurfs come to their rescue.
- In The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "The Terrible Trolley Trap", Pockets produces a trampoline for the mob to hold over the ship's smokestack in hope of catching Penelope. They catch the streetcar instead, and end up falling into the smokestack.
Real Life
- Life nets used to be standard equipment for fire rescues with a usual upper jump height limit of six storeys, although eight storey jumps have been noted. However, the life net was phased out by the 1980s since it was too dangerous with a real risk of jumpers landing on the hard rim or a firefighter holding it up or worse, missing the net altogether. Today, aerial apparatus fire trucks are used instead since they enable firefighters to simply reach up to victims to get them down.
