Should've remembered the green cross code

February 23, 2013 10:47 AM

Hit by a bus: the supercut. Not that Hollywood likes its cliches or anything. (slyt)
posted by MartinWisse (59 comments total)

(The green cross code.)
posted by MartinWisse at 10:49 AM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

The sad thing is, not all of these are comedies.
posted by emjaybee at 10:52 AM on February 23, 2013

Ahhh, America: where you are more likely to get hit by a bus on film than be able to hail one in real life.
posted by threeants at 10:53 AM on February 23, 2013 [5 favorites]

I was waiting at the bus stop in high school, and one of the other guys wondered aloud when the bus would get there. He stuck his head out from the wall of the shelter and WHAAANG got clocked by the bus mirror.

Oh, we laughed. He did too.
posted by notsnot at 10:58 AM on February 23, 2013

It's such a cliche that now whenever I'm watching a movie or television and a character is outdoors and arguing, begins to back up, and there's a cut from a medium shot or close-up to mid/full shot, I brace for impact.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2013 [4 favorites]

I AM PRETTY SURE YOU NEED A LICENSE TO DRIVE ONE OF THOSE THINGS
posted by louche mustachio at 11:10 AM on February 23, 2013 [7 favorites]

This is pretty much the ideal thing to run through the Benny Hillifier: http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=tmYrWXhFf4c
posted by abbazabba at 11:11 AM on February 23, 2013 [4 favorites]

A bus driver in my town was forced to resign a couple winters ago after video surfaced of him/her (don't remember) deliberately running down a snowperson.
posted by obscurator at 11:13 AM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

That is much better. the impact noises were starting to make me nauseous.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:15 AM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

[plea]
[declaration of intent to do something that would shorten the film by 45 minutes]
[crunch]
posted by ardgedee at 11:19 AM on February 23, 2013 [9 favorites]

Ahhh, America: where you are more likely to get hit by a bus on film than be able to hail one in real life.

"Hail" a bus? Where I come from you have to wait at a bus stop like all the other proles.
posted by chrominance at 11:20 AM on February 23, 2013 [8 favorites]

A bus driver in my town was forced to resign a couple winters ago after video surfaced of him/her (don't remember) deliberately running down a snowperson.


Derailish, but who builds a snowdude in the middle of the road?*


I appreciate the comedy, but for safety reasons that seems like kind of a dick maneuver.




*I know, it's "teenagers."
posted by louche mustachio at 11:20 AM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Damn. Twelve minutes of people getting hit by buses is about an hour and a half.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:28 AM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

I love how no one seems to hear them before they hit even though buses are loud as hell. Are they all electric buses?
posted by octothorpe at 11:37 AM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

I am kinda irrationally miffed about the omission of Roger's death-faking bus scene from American Dad. It's the best one!
posted by Sys Rq at 11:39 AM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

1) There sure as shit are a lot of unqualified, negligent bus drivers in movie world.

2) In at least two shots, and one very conspicuously, car windshields on modern cars are shown breaking like plate glass, which is idiotic.

I like that there wasn't one, but two showing a bus mowing someone down on a football field.
posted by maxwelton at 11:45 AM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just came in to say that, after two of them in a row were vans and not buses, I stopped watching, it destroyed the whole gestalt of the experience.. NOT what it says on the tin.
posted by HuronBob at 11:59 AM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

No need to get queasy, folks, in most cases it's dummies, clever editing, and, in some cases, it's just cans.
posted by sendai sleep master at 12:07 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

Snowperson?
posted by davebush at 12:22 PM on February 23, 2013

I wonder how fast a bus has to travel to make people explode like that.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:27 PM on February 23, 2013

I'll just leave this (previously) here.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 12:28 PM on February 23, 2013 [6 favorites]

The sad thing is, not all of these are comedies.

Right. It pisses me off not being able to laugh at someone getting killed by a bus.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:32 PM on February 23, 2013

In my city we have a previously pedestrian mall turned into a street, and the surrounding one way streets turned into two way complete with bus lanes.

It's known as the bowling alley.
posted by Sparx at 12:45 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Derailish, but who builds a snowdude in the middle of the road?*

Drunk college students. (The article says this happened in Champaign-Urbana, IL.)
posted by Daily Alice at 12:45 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

The sad thing is, not all of these are comedies.

--Right. It pisses me off not being able to laugh at someone getting killed by a bus.

I'm pretty sure reprise was saying these should all be comedies since "character suddenly hit by a bus!" is a laughable cliche.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:45 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I lasted about 6 minutes, at which point it's almost all cars, vans, and trucks. Fail.

Also, I honestly don't think I'd seen a single one of the movies featured up to that point, unless one of them was from the Dawn of the Dead remake.

Condense this down to solely "bus comes outta nowhere" clips and it could work.
posted by ShutterBun at 12:46 PM on February 23, 2013

For those few that don't know, Green Cross Man was the awesome Dave Prowse who also was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in the original Star Wars movies.
posted by w0mbat at 12:52 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

I can't believe I'd never recognized whatsisname, Van Pelt's boyfriend, as Cromartie #1.
posted by stebulus at 1:06 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

My pet theory is that it's just one bus driver who's responsible for every one of those accidents.
posted by GenericUser at 1:14 PM on February 23, 2013 [6 favorites]

Who could have guessed that angrily backing into a busy street would be so dangerous?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes, Crankshaft.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I made it two minutes. Rapid desensitization, yadda yadda.

Who could have guessed that angrily backing into a busy street would be so dangerous?

Except in most of these scenes there's hardly any traffic and the person is standing there a full three to five seconds before getting hit. How blind/malevolent are all these bus drivers?
posted by psoas at 1:27 PM on February 23, 2013

I happened to be on set for the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" when they were doing some "smash trucks at full speed into zombies" shots (the scene where they were backing into the loading dock of the mall). It was fascinating to watch as they set up the scene with the real life (or not) zombies on the loading ramp as the truck is speeding backwards, and then, 10 feet short of impact the truck stops, the zombies go out of scene and get the dummies, which look exactly like them, side by side you couldn't have determined which was a real person and which was a dummy.

The dummies are put in place, and they repeat the truck backing up with the dummies. Splat!

The odd part was that the dummies were made by the prop crew to look like themselves...this gave them a "zombie extra" roll in the movie in addition to the prop/FX job. It was a bit strange to see them carrying themselves out onto the set, but it had to be odd to watch yourself get smashed by a truck.
posted by HuronBob at 1:30 PM on February 23, 2013 [11 favorites]

The Benny Hill theme makes this so much funnier.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:51 PM on February 23, 2013

Can't stand watching long enough to see if it includes the bus scene from Superman II, which isn't quite the same thing, but what the hell.

Closest I've seen to someone getting hit by a bus was in a college town with well-marked bike lanes. Cyclist was already at the intersection when the bus pulled up; cyclist went straight, bus turned right. Cyclist jumped off with about a split-second to spare. Bicycle was pretzeled.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:18 PM on February 23, 2013

Where was Leatherface getting hit by a truck in Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

and don't say "in the middle of the road".
posted by orme at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2013

There should be a law that movie compilations like these should include the title of all the movies as they are played.
posted by zardoz at 2:28 PM on February 23, 2013 [5 favorites]

This makes a great PSA for not shouting angrily at someone on a sidewalk while backing into the street. Lesson learned.
posted by univac at 2:30 PM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

This makes a great PSA for not shouting angrily at someone on a sidewalk while backing into the street. Lesson learned.

Don't you tell me where and when I can shout --- beeeep! *splat*
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 2:36 PM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

Actually, I'm really curious when this was first used as a plot device.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 2:36 PM on February 23, 2013

I don't know if you saw it or not but the blog post linked in the description has a list of every movie and the corresponding time codes.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:48 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Actually, I'm really curious when this was first used as a plot device.

The relevant TVTropes page mentions a similar gag in Buster Keaton's "One Week" from 1920. (It's near the end.)
posted by stebulus at 2:51 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Actually, I'm really curious when this was first used as a plot device.

Well, it was good enough for Nabokov so... that makes it a cliche at least by the 50's.

poor Charlotte Haze.
posted by ennui.bz at 3:02 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

"I love how no one seems to hear them before they hit even though buses are loud as hell. Are they all electric buses?"

Just throwing this out there, but yes, sometimes buses can be hard to hear. When I rode my bike in Chicago I frequently wouldn't hear buses as they came up to pass me. Its a combination of (1) sometimes buses coast before they slow down (2) the loud part is on the opposite end as the part that hits you in the face (3) there's a lot of other road noise (on real streets, not in movies).
posted by midmarch snowman at 3:06 PM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

I like that there wasn't one, but two showing a bus mowing someone down on a football field.

It pains me to admit that I know this, but they're from the same horrible "parody" movie, The Comebacks. I won't bother looking it up to see whether it's from those Epic/Date/Superhero Movie crapmongers, but it's of that ilk.
posted by Etrigan at 3:11 PM on February 23, 2013

In Des Moines bus vs. pedestrians got to be so common that they did a newspaper article about how you pretty much had them weekly. The busses were retrofitted with these annoying as fuck beeping things that play when they make right turns.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:14 PM on February 23, 2013

"Hail" a bus? Where I come from you have to wait at a bus stop like all the other proles.

Under exciting new austerity measures, urban transit will now be administered by Busmax, LLC. Each US metro area will be equipped with two top-of-the-line buses, which will drive a comprehensive and random route. We recognize that different-sized metro areas have differing needs; consequently particularly large cities such as New York and Los Angeles may be eligible for up to five buses. Any citizen may hail a ride as the bus passes by! Fares will be on a sliding scale and the driver will serve stops in order of fare contribution. Riders may be subject to drug and/or civics testing. And for only $250 per year, users may become members of Busmax Platinum Eagle™!, allowing access to covered bus shelters, which are otherwise festooned with barbed wire and snakes.
posted by threeants at 4:29 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

"Hail" a bus? Where I come from you have to wait at a bus stop like all the other proles.

Depending on various factors, municipal bus systems may or may not limit their stops to locations with signs. When they don't, you can hail a bus at any street corner along the route, more or less.
posted by dhartung at 4:35 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Where's the super cut of the hit, the stop, and then the reversing over the bodies?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:53 PM on February 23, 2013

Area Man Goes And Gets Himself Hit By A Goddamn Bus (The Onion)
posted by neuron at 9:21 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

My pet theory is that it's just one bus driver who's responsible for every one of those accidents.

Jessica Fletcher?
posted by sweetkid at 9:21 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this on the blue was J.J. Abrams. I was watching Lost on DVD at around the same time I was watching Felicity. Which made the bus motif stick out in both series, and was all the more funny...
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:01 PM on February 23, 2013

Thought of showing this to my kids because pedestrian accidents are one of the largest causes of accidental deaths for kids 14 and under. Give them a proper sense of fear next time they cross a busy street. Though the number of deaths has apparently gone way down recently because of helicopter parenting resulting in parents driving their kids everywhere.

Less road deaths, more obesity.


(I won't actually show it to them).
posted by eye of newt at 11:14 PM on February 23, 2013

I loved this. It does drag a bit when the focus drifts to non-bus vehicles, but I like how the constant repetition reveals the cliches of the trope -- the victim stepping backward into the street (usually for no good reason), the abrupt medium/wide shot to make room for the eventual bus, the there/suddenly not there payoff.

The best thing about this is how, after a while, the bus starts to seem like some kind of malevolent trickster god that goes through the city dealing out random death. It seems to especially delight in cutting off the moment of triumph of people who have just dealt someone else an awesome comeback or dramatic exit line.
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 6:37 AM on February 24, 2013 [4 favorites]

Stranger than Fiction was the only one not to make me cringe. Including Futurama.
posted by RainyJay at 1:49 PM on February 24, 2013

"Hail" a bus? Where I come from you have to wait at a bus stop like all the other proles.

I suspect you come from a city. On account of in the boonies if you want that Greyhound to stop for you, it would be a good idea to hail it.
posted by notreally at 2:23 PM on February 24, 2013

I'd never really heard of hailing a bus either. Interesting.
posted by sweetkid at 2:41 PM on February 24, 2013

In London they have two kinds of bus stop, request stops and normal stops. Request stops have a red background on the sign rather than white, and if you are waiting at a request stop you have to hail the bus (ie raise your hand) to get it to stop for you. This is so the number 73 doesn't have to stop to pick you up, when you are actually waiting for a number 19.

I think this also applies to leaving the bus: you need to ring the bell to get the bus to drop you at a request stop.
posted by w0mbat at 3:30 PM on February 28, 2013

I live in the city and you have to wave to get the bus driver to stop here since there are multiple buses going past the same stops and he/she has no idea which bus you're waiting for. The 71A doesn't want to have to stop for you if you're waiting for a 61.
posted by octothorpe at 5:03 PM on February 28, 2013