Basically, the fridge is the perfect place to hide, if you don't mind the cold. It muffles any noises you make, and whomever you're waiting for is bound to show up sooner or later. And they're guaranteed not to expect you, at least not in there. Plus, hey, there's food if you get hungry!
This trope is very different from It Came from the Fridge; that's about something that grew out of old and moldy food left in a fridge, whereas this is just someone hiding in the fridge. Similarly, it has nothing to do with being Stuffed into the Fridge or being a Body in a Breadbox. Also unrelated to Fridge Logic or Fridge Horror.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- During Stardust Crusaders, Devo the Cursed attempts to hide in the fridge to assassinate Polnareff. Polnareff just calls him out to ask what kind of imbecile tries this while leaving the fridge's contents out in plain sight. It turns out, however, that Devo always planned on being found by Polnareff, so as to trick him into powering up his Stand, Ebony Devil.
- Subverted in Golden Wind. While on a plane, Giorno overhears a noise from the nearby fridge and quickly asks Mista to get his revolver ready to fire. Upon opening it, they find nothing, until Mista points out the dismembered fingers laying in the center, giving them the indication the enemy has already boarded the plane alongside them.
Comic Books
- In Watchmen, Rorschach hides in the fridge to ambush Moloch. Later on, he pulls off an inversion: he tricks Moloch into thinking he's in the fridge, then appears behind him as he opens it.
Fan Works
- In Forward, River Tam ambushes an ex-Academy instructor from the fridge. Word of God confirms it was a deliberate nod to Watchmen.
- In Rites of Ascension, Princess Luna hides in the refrigerator to ambush Twilight Sparkle and Spike as part of their Training from Hell.
Film — Live-Action
- One of the home invaders in Cthulhu Mansion gets snatched up by a demon hiding in a fridge.
- Played with in Interceptor when the mercs break into the missile control room to find that the heroine has seemingly escaped. Suspecting she's actually hiding in the room with them, they warily approach a refrigerator that's been toppled on its side in an earlier fight, ready their guns and pull the door open...only to find she's not there.
- Inspector Clouseau's manservant, Cato, hides in the fridge in The Return of the Pink Panther to ambush him, the conceit of his character being that Clouseau has hired Cato to attack him at every opportunity so Clouseau can keep his self-defence skills up.
- In the 1986 TV movie Sword of Gideon, the Mossad hit team realise that someone has been in their apartment, so their bomb expert goes to investigate. He disarms a Booby Trap, decides I Need a Freaking Drink and opens the fridge to find another bomb that blows up in his face.
- The main character of xXx: State of the Union uses the fridge to chill himself so he can hide from the thermal imaging cameras of a SWAT team he's ambushing.
Literature
- Played for Laughs in Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl: Meme leaves a note that there's cake in the fridge to celebrate Makoto's discharge from the hospital, and it's close to the expiration date, so he needs to eat it quick. It's an Overly Prepared Gag — the cake is herself.
Live-Action TV
- Breaking Bad: "Bullet Points" opens with Mike riding in the back of a Los Pollos Hermanos refrigerator truck transporting Gus Fring's meth. The truck is ambushed by cartel gunmen, who kill the driver and shoot up the truck with machine guns. They then break into the cargo area of the truck... and are promptly shot by Mike.
Video Games
- In Cold Fear, when you enter the ship's kitchen and get close to the fridge, a Spring-Loaded Corpse will suddenly pop out. It's actually harmless, though the protagonist will still let out a "wtf is this?".
- In Luigi's Mansion, an ice ghost will attack Luigi if he opens the fridge in the kitchen.
- Resident Evil:
- In Resident Evil 0, there is a zombie hiding in a refrigerator in the dining car of the train. The zombie will pop out after you solve a few puzzles. Though interestingly you find a bottle of alcohol inside, heavily implying that before he became a zombie he had hid inside, drinking his terrors away.
- Similarly, in one of the later portions of Resident Evil 4, a Ganado bursts out of an oven to try to take down Leon while on fire. If Leon examines the oven afterwards, he wonders what the guy was doing in there in the first place.
Web Comics
- In the opening for Welcome to Hell, Sock waits for Jonathan in his fridge.
Western Animation
- The Robot Devil hides in the fridge in the Futurama episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" and leaps out at Bender when Bender opens the fridge.
- Teen Titans Go!: In "Terra-Ized", Robin repeatedly tries to sneak attack Terra to test if she's worthy of joining the Titans, including one instance in which he hides in the fridge when she goes to get a snack.
