Wacky Wake Up Gadget

Sometimes, a simple alarm clock will not do, and a mechanical device is used to make sure that somebody is awake when needed, perhaps a Heavy Sleeper, or for the Rule of Funny. The device in question could be an alarm clock which does more than make a noise: perhaps sprays a sleeper with water, beats them into wakefulness, or forcibly moves them. A really elaborate gadget can be a Rube Goldberg Device, where a chain reaction happens to wake the sleeper.

The mechanism can be a weird and wonderful mechanical device as described above, or it can be much simpler, taking the form of a string tied to the sleeper's finger, toe or other limb, which can serve the purpose of waking the sleeper not at a preset time, but if something happens, such as an intrusion, or if a valuable object is moved. This is not to be confused with String-on-Finger Reminder.

Some Truth in Television in that novelty alarm clocks are often marketed, which might require the user to actually get out of bed to silence it. They only fit here if they do something more unusual than making a loud noise; for example, moving about.

Compare Cuckoo Clock Gag, with which this can overlap.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Doraemon has its share of weird, alarm-clock themed gadgets, including the Ghost Clock - a gadget shaped like a wooden haunted house that dispenses a ghost robot who literally scares the sleeper awake - and a compact robot alarm who drags the sleeper out of bed at a designated time.

Comic Books

• The Smurfs: At the start of The Smurfs Book 6, Story 2: The Weather Smurfing Machine, Handy Smurf is woken by his alarm clock, which starts with a cuckoo, escalates with a bell, and culminates with dumping a cup of water on him.

Films — Animation

• The Wallace & Gromit films feature elaborate devices designed to get Wallace out of bed (usually by upturning said bed and sending Wallace down a chute) and get him ready for the day ahead. As is typical of most of Wallace's handiwork, they often backfire somehow.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Elmo has an alarm clock where a bird comes out in the manner of a cuckoo clock and yells, "WAKE UP!".
• Played with in Return to Oz: Mombi keeps her ruby key tied to her wrist, and Dorothy has to untie it extremely delicately while Mombi sleeps. She succeeds, although Mombi snorts and jerks.
• Videodrome: Max's secretary, Bridey, records daily wake-up calls (in the form of videos) that remind him of what day it is and his schedule for that day.

Literature

• Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein. When Don Harvey goes to sleep in a New Chicago hotel, he needs to get up in an hour and sets the bed's alarm on "Earthquake" so he won't oversleep. He wakes up with the bed shaking him around, a blinding light flashing in his eyes and a siren going off. Once he gets out of bed, the alarm shuts down.
• In Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, the Chippendale Mupp bites its own tail before going to sleep - its tail is so long that it takes eight hours for it to notice the bite.
• The Famous Five: In Five Go Off To Camp, George suspects that the boys will sneak out of their tent at night to have an adventure without her, so she ties a string from across the entrance of their tent to her big toe. The boys notice this and squeeze out of the side of their tent to avoid the trap, but they forget about it when they return, and they pull the string and wake George.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: When Uncle Vernon does not want Harry to receive his letter from Hogwarts, he sleeps on the floor just inside the front door, so that Harry will tread on him if he gets up early to receive his letter: this does indeed happen.
• In the children's picture book One Moonlit Night: two boys sleep in a tent in their garden, but wonder what to do if they need help in the night. Their dad rigs up a long tight string tied to his big toe, which they can pull if they need help. Unfortunately, this string is pulled three times in the night: by an owl which sits on it to rest, by a cat which sits on it to clean its whiskers, and by the milkman early in the morning. Each time, their dad dutifully plods out to check on the boys, who are fast asleep. In the morning, they pull it to see if the idea works, only to be met by their mum, who tells them their dad has hardly slept.
• The Six Bullerby Children: In one story, Lisa and Anna try to run away from home, and Lisa ties a string to her toe and tells Anna to pull it from the window to wake her up. However, her brothers show up and pull it before Anna can get there.
• Tatu and Patu: One book features a morning activity machine that the brothers built, which wakes up, feeds, and dresses the user. A later book also features an Ancient Egypt-themed variation with some parts replaced with helper snakes and a machine that puts the user in an "Egyptian pose".
• The Three Investigators: "The Mystery of the Screaming Clock" revolves around an alarm clock of mysterious origin that makes the screaming sound of a terrified woman instead of a normal alarm sound.

Live-Action TV

• Monarch of the Glen: Hector keeps trying to steal a valuable cask of ale from Archie, who guards it by tying a rope to it, attached to his wrist while he sleeps. It works as intended.
• Mr. Bean: In "The Trouble with Mr Bean": Not content with an ordinary alarm clock, Mr Bean uses a tea-making alarm clock, with a hose attached to its spout, which sprays hot water over his feet. However, it does not work, because he blocks the hose with his toe, and falls asleep again.
• In the episode "Christmas Joy" of Psych, Shawn claims that in the third grade, he invented a toaster alarm that woke people up by slapping them in the face with a waffle.

Web Video

Joseph's Machines: Joseph creates a machine that does someone's entire morning routine, including waking them, face-washing, applying moisturizer, and putting makeup on.

Western Animation

• In The Addams Family (2019), Wednesday has a guillotine over her bed, which her alarm clock triggers.
• In the Betty Boop cartoon "Betty Boop for President", has a Rube Goldberg device set up at the Weather Bureau to wake up a weatherman sleeping in a nearby chair. The machine starts with rain water filling a flowerpot and ends with a spring loaded glove punching the weatherman awake.
• I.N.K. Invisible Network of Kids: The opening sequence shows all four of the kids being awoken by their alarm clocks and going through their morning routine. Newton ignores his alarm for thirty minutes, after which a mechanism is triggered that launches him out of the bed, onto a chair, where a robot dresses him in his daytime clothes.
• The Jetsons: If the parents or Rosie need to wake the kids up for school, they may press a button on the wall, causing the beds to go into the wall, leaving the kids on the floor.
• Mickey's Trailer: Donald Duck's alarm clock has a little rod attached to its gears that roll up his bed's covers and slap them repeatedly against the soles of his feet, making him wake up from the pain.
• The opening of The Octonauts and the Ring of Fire implies that Shellington's pullout is designed to launch him out of bed when the alarm rings.
• The Simpsons: In "Trilogy of Error", Bart's day begins with his Krusty alarm clock buzzing to wake him up. He presses the snooze button. The alarm calls him lazy and ejects cuckoo-clock figures of Itchy and Scratchy, who hit him repeatedly with miniature axes and hammers until he gets out of bed.
• Spongebob Squarepants: The titular character has an alarm clock named Alarmy, an alarm clock with a foghorn built into it. It will emit a loud foghorn sound that doesn't fail to wake him up.
• Talespin: In the episode "From Here to Machinery", in order to stay awake during an endurance race against a robotic pilot, Baloo adds two devices to the Sea Duck: a bunch of speakers that blare out loud noise and a pair of automated fly swatters to slap him awake. They don't work, and Baloo falls asleep and loses the race.
• Woody Woodpecker: In Sleep Happy, Woody has an alarm clock that wakes him up by bopping him with a mallet and playing Reveille on a bugle.

Real Life

• Clocky is an alarm clock on little wheels that rolls away (ideally off the night stand) and around until the sleeper catches it to turn it off.
• Alarm clocks that have flashing lights and "bed shaker" vibration modes exist; they work both for heavy sleepers and normal sleepers who are deaf.
• Two different alarm clock beds (which tipped the sleeper onto the floor) were exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. One is sometimes attributed to Theophilus Carter, an Oxford furniture dealer believed to have inspired the Mad Hatter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

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