Bob is being chased and/or attacked by a Big Thing, which is probably some sort of monster. (The Big Thing can range anywhere from "10 feet tall" to "Friggin' Godzilla", just so long as it's bigger than Bob.) But Bob discovers a convenient hiding place, which protects him from the Big Thing because the Big Thing is too big to fit inside. This hiding place is called the Convenient Cranny.
The Cranny may be something like cave with a narrow entrance, or a doorway, or a gap between tree roots, or whatever. Often, the Big Thing will claw or dig at the edges of the Cranny's entrance, but this rarely works. Bob may now be effectively trapped in the Cranny until something kills or distracts the Big Thing, or perhaps the Cranny has a back door of some kind which allows Bob to get away on his own.
Compare Behind a Stick, Convenient Escape Boat and Corridor Cubbyhole Run. May overlap with Try and Follow.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Doraemon
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King have the gang being attacked by a giant moray eel while underwater, and finding a convenient cave they could hide in. Unfortunately, as usual Nobita ends up lagging behind and was nearly swalloed by said whale.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicles of the Moon Exploration have the gang encountering a giant Moonbit Monster in the middle of Moonbit Town. While fleeing, Nobita managed to escape said monster by sticking himself through a conveniently-placed sewer grate.
- At one point in Fullmetal Alchemist, Ed manages to survive being crushed by a rolling ball of death due to his small size allowing him to squeeze into the corner of the hallway he is walking down... Then he feels relieved about being the height he is before he starts complaining about himself accepting that fact.
- Early on in Arrietty, Arrietty escapes a cat by slipping through the metal grid of the basement window which the cat cannot fit through.
Comic Books
- Bone: Fone Bone, those Stupid Stupid Rat Creatures, Bartleby, Smiley Bone, and all the orphans attempt to escape Kingdok in one of these.
Films — Animated
- Occurs in The Lion King (1994) at one point. As a cub Simba runs from the pride lands, hyenas on his tail, he squeezes through a tiny passageway. One of the hyenas swipes its claws where he vanished just moments before.
- During A Bug's Life the current 'gang' has to duck into a rather convenient bush to avoid a hungry bird.
- The Fox and the Hound (the animated version, if you didn't gather that) also demonstrates this trope. Todd and his new mate dive into a burrow to avoid the snapping jaws of Copper. However, this cranny proves useless when the hunter finds a way to drive them out.
- Meet the Robinsons .. when the Big Bad brings a T-Rex into the future, it's unable to attack Lewis when he stands in the corner of a building.
Tiny: I have a big head and little arms!
- In Zootopia, when Nick and Judy are chased by Manchas they are able to hide in a tree trunk which Manchas is unable to fit into.
Films — Live-Action
- Seen in the film Avatar when Jake flees from the creature near the beginning of the film. He ends up ducking into some sort of Hammerspace under a tree, but his hiding place is not that effective; the beast still manages to claw at him fairly decently.
- Luke does this in Return of the Jedi, getting a breather from the Rancor... just long enough to plan his exit.
- Emmett hides from an alien in one in Cowboys & Aliens.
- The hero of Edge of Tomorrow escapes the aliens at the German Dam by sliding underneath a contraption that is too low for the aliens to fit under.
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Ian, Sarah, Kelly, and Burke hide from the rampaging T. rexes in a convenient cave behind a waterfall, where the huge dinosaur can't reach far enough inside to eat them. However, Burke panics when a poisonous snake slips into his clothing and gets nabbed.
- The Host (2006): Hyun-seo is taken by the monster to its sleeping area in the sewers, where it occasionally excretes the skeletal remeains of its victims. She manages to survive by hiding inside a small alcove for an extended period, which is just big enough for a child to fit inside.
- Pacific Rim: As a child, Mako Mori was in Tokyo when it was attacked by the Kaiju Onibaba. She ran from it into an alleyway, but it noticed her, and pursued. It would've broke into the allyey and killed her, but it was distracted by the arrival of the Jaeger Coyote Tango, piloted by Stacker Pentecost
Literature
- Book of Brownies: The brownie trio Hop, Skip and Jump unintentionally find themselves in the Land of Giants, and captured alive by one of the giant residents. After a daring escape, they accidentally wandered into the chicken-coop filled with oversized poultry, who inevitably tries pecking the brownies until they found a tunnel made by a giant worm, too narrow for the chickens to peck.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: After managing to subdue the humongous three-headed dog, Fluffy, the trio drops down a hatch to escape the dog. Of course, this did not turn out to be as convenient as it may have at first seemed.
- Dune: While Paul and Jessica are fleeing a Sand Worm, they find a crack in a cliff and successfully hide from it.
- In Clan of the Cave Bear five year old Ayla hides in a cranny to escape a Cave Lion. The lion can just manage to stick its paw in to slash Ayla on the thigh, thus marking her totem.
- Binks of Hezabad in the short poem "Municipal
" by Rudyard Kipling met a mad elephant and had to hide in a reeking clogged sewer drain.
- In the novel Jurassic Park, one of the kids hides from a Tyrannosaur in a convenient cave behind a waterfall. The Tyrannosaurus then proceeds to pull the child out with its tongue. Fortunately the tranquilizer it was shot with earlier kicks in just before it pulls the kid into its mouth.
- This happens many times in the Warrior Cats series when they are chased by dogs or other predators, such as badgers: cats will hide in places such as under a thick bush, or in a rabbit hole, or in a crevice between rocks, where the larger creature cannot reach them.
Live Action TV
- Lost: Banyan trees are often used to hide from the Smoke Monster.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Adventure OA6 Ronin Challenge. In the Kobar Valley, the Player Characters can encounter an 80 foot tall humanoid gargantua. If they're lucky, they can find a cave or crevasse to hide in where the gargantua can't get at them.
- Adventure WG6 Isle of the Ape. Inside the title giant ape's lair are tunnels - some of them 20 feet wide, some only 10 feet wide. If the Player Characters go through a 10 foot wide tunnel, the giant ape can't follow them and they'll be safe.
Video Games
- When the Player Character can do this in video games, Cherry Tapping can often result. An example of this would be The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - you can hide in the tunnel to the arena and shoot hundreds of arrows at the minotaurs who can't reach you.
- In Alice: Madness Returns, the Executioner is enormously larger than Alice, has a gigantic scythe, cannot be bargained with, and absolutely will not stop, until you are dead... but as you're running away from him, shrinking down and entering a keyhole lets you slip through into another room, buying yourself respite (until he finds you again).
- Primal: When The Dragon Belhazur shows up, Jen hides in a Convenient Cranny while Scree possesses a statue for the Boss Fight.
- In Crash Bandicoot's first and second games, the Indy Escape levels have you running away from a boulder (or a giant polar bear) until you find a small shelter that lets you in but will block the boulder or polar bear.
- Subverted in Shivers (1995), in that the crannies turn out not to be so convenient. Merrick hides inside a hollow lion, but because he is clutching the jade skull he is killed anyway. Beth hides in the basement wall but she is eventually caught by fire. Windlenot is seen in the underground cavern, in the middle of drawing some kind of symbol, but the walls are made of stone and it is stone that kills him.
- Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows: Solo Bunnies can enter small tunnels and automatically come out from the other side, but Pâquerette can't go into them. If there is no path for her to the other side, the bunny becomes inaccessible.
Webcomics
- Charby the Vampirate: Menu escapes from the much larger werewolf that turned him by fleeing into a small abandoned mine shaft it can't fit in.
- Sleepless Domain: During Rue's fight with a massive insect-like monster, she ducks into a narrow alley to escape its reach. Unfortunately, this doesn't do her much good — the monster had split in two when she attacked it, and its other half was now blocking Rue's only way out.
Western Animation
- In Tom and Jerry, Jerry tends to run at his rat house whenever Tom tries to get him. When Tom tries to reach his hand into the rat house, Jerry will usually exit through another way, or play a prank on Tom.
