And what exactly are those strings attached to, Daffy?
This is a trope where a character will pull out a parachute from Hammerspace. Most of the time, this is done for Rule of Cool.
See also Ass Shove or Trouser Space. Compare Improvised Parachute.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In The Castle of Cagliostro, Fujiko jumps from an autogyro and unfolds a parachute that wasn't visible before.
Comic Books
- In The Incredible Hulk #375, Rick Jones is trapped on an exploding Skrull spaceship. Just when it looks like it's curtains for our favorite Kid Sidekick, he parachutes to safety. He tells Bruce that he always wears a parachute just in case he gets trapped on an exploding Skrull spaceship and needs to jump to safety.
Bruce: That's...that's ridiculous.
Rick: Why? I needed to, didn't I?
Bruce: Yes, but... skip it.
Films — Animation
- Monsters vs. Aliens. W.R. Monger does a Dynamic Entry by parachuting from the balcony above onto the President's conference table. He's just wearing his uniform at the time.
- Both Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are wearing visible packed parachutes as they converse with the 'chuteless gumshoe Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Desperate for anything that'll save him from his death plunge, Valiant pleads with the Toons for a spare. Bugs Bunny supplies one from Hammerspace, cautioning, "But I don't think you want it." Valiant takes it nonetheless, and Mickey and Bugs deploy their parachutes. Subverted, however, because when Valiant pulls the ripcord on his, he finds himself holding a spare tire.
Films — Live-Action
- Inverted in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, where Wilbur parachutes out of a plane when he first appears and never removes it.
- In the cold open of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, James skiis off the edge of a cliff, only to deploy a parachute with a large Union Flag on it.
- In TRON: Legacy, Sam is equipped with a hidden parachute which he uses for his Suicidal "Gotcha!" escape on the rooftop of the Encom building.
- Undercover Brother. At the beginning Undercover Brother jumps off the top of a building and suddenly deploys a parachute that he clearly wasn't wearing earlier.
Video Games
- In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Ezio's Hyperspace Arsenal includes parachutes, as well. And not just one parachute: he can carry around dozens of them. This is, however, justified with the usual AC justification of the gameplay taking place in a virtual reality based on Ezio's memories, so the real Ezio didn't lug around piles of fabric — he simply had a parachute prepared before every occasion he actually needed them.
- Most Battlefield games allow the player in MP mode to just equip a parachute out of nowhere for as many falls as they wish just by pressing the X/A (Playstation/Xbox) button once or twice in mid-air, allowing them to jump the largest heights the map has to offer so long as they release their Hammerspace Parachute.
- Despite only having a backpack the size of what a high-schooler would carry, Rico in Just Cause has either an infinite supply of parachutes, or that it retracts to his only suit.
- Kurt's "ribbon chute" plays a vital role in the gameplay of MDK and its sequel.
- The Player Character gains one in Saints Row 2. In Saints Row: The Third, your character's parachute will pop out of their backpack if they have one equipped, but if they don't then a backpack will magically appear whenever they need one.
- The Paraglider
in Sly Cooper that first appears in Sly 2: Band of Thieves lets Sly get to new locations with ease. It appears on command without issue despite seemingly being big enough to take up the entire backpack, which should also hold the rest of his equipment. Not only that, but the glider actually falls apart after use, meaning that whenever you use the Paraglider, it's actually a different one each time.
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Anyone that isn't Mario or Luigi can pull out a hat out of nowhere and use it as a parachute when equipping the Parachute Cap Badge.
Western Animation
- Happens a lot in the Looney Tunes universe, with Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny being two common users of this trope.
- Mr. Bogus is seen wearing a parachute on his back after getting blasted into the air on a firework in the third act of the episode "Beach Blanket Bogus".
- Perry the Platypus in Phineas and Ferb has a parachute with his logo on it. We never see him wearing one, and there's no sign where he keeps it. (Except perhaps his hat, but where does he keep his hat when he's not wearing it?)
- In Storm Hawks, everybody has one, which makes sense since the bulk of the action is dogfights over deadly heights or cloud-covered volcanic doom. However, everyone wears skintight outfits that have no indication of hiding a parachute. Regardless, villains seem to use this the most.
- In the first segment of the very first episode of Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, after Scrambles bails out from the windmill that he, Chopper, Revs, and Hi-Riser were riding in, just as said windmill crashes, the next scene shows Scrambles floating down towards the ground with a parachute that he seemingly got out of nowhere.
Real Life
- Real Life parachutes can be packed in a surprisingly small volume — the usual rig contains both main and reserve canopy, with the deployment bag being actually smaller than a plastic grocery bag. It is the harness which is the difficult part: to prevent the harness from slipping away with fatal results, the harness must have leg straps and at least one chest strap. To be comfortable, they should also be wide enough and padded. The harness is the Surprisingly Realistic Outcome for this trope, not the canopy itself. A good example is the making of the skydiving opening sequence of the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. Stunt supervisor Don Calvedt and Stunt Double BJ Worth invented a new parachute that was only an inch thick and could be concealed under a suit jacket (which had Velcro seams to allow the parachute to open).
