Beach Bury

It's the Beach Episode! What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Well, for one, Genre Blind characters will let themselves be buried in the sand, Hilarity Ensues when the gravediggers forget they're supposed to dig him out as well, or they forget where he is, or something prevents them from finding him again, or... well, you get the idea.

Also called a "sand necktie". A common variation involves the diggers using the sand to make a sand body for the exposed head, usually involving a shape that would be embarrassing to the buried person.

If you're doing this to kill the buried person by having the tide drown him, it's a subtrope of Buried Alive and goes on that page.

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Examples

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• In one Butterfinger commercial, Bart Simpson buries Homer in the sand at the beach so firmly that Homer can't move. Bart takes this opportunity to steal Homer's candy bar, while in the background Homer is being menaced by crabs... and then the tide starts coming in...
• Similar thing happens in an Alltell commercial, with the nerdy personifications of Alltell's competitors stuck in the sand, buried by frustrated customers. "Chad" (Alltell's personification) offers to help get them out but they refuse his help. Then the actual product offer gets shown. Cut to a 2 second stinger of sorts of the four, still buried, at night, surrounded by crabs, and screaming.

Anime

• Happens in an episode of Great Teacher Onizuka... to the title character, in revenge for taking his students on a treasure hunt they wanted no part of.
• In a Fullmetal Alchemist Omake, Ed has apparently buried Al in the sand, makes a female body with Gag Boobs out of the sand and starts laughing at him. Then Al's body drop-kicks Ed, since it was just his detached head that was buried.
• In the Beach Episode of Zoids: New Centrury Zero, the Blitz Team leaves Jamie buried vertically, then a crab wanders by...
• In the Beach Chapter of Free Collars Kingdom, this is done to Amesho, complete with a sand body...of a woman. But seeing who it is, he doesn't seem to mind.
• In the Beach Episode of Martian Successor Nadesico, the admiral of the ship is left buried up to his neck and is utterly left behind after the crew dealt with an abandoned Jovian weapon. When the girl who had it found him, she attempted to keep him around to complete a demented love suicide pact she attempted with Akito earlier!

Comic Books

• Prior to her joining The Avengers, Patsy Walker had to deal with this predicament.

Comic Strips

• One Far Side cartoon has a kid burying his father with the following (paraphrased) caption: "Billy, the tide's coming in... Billy, unbury Daddy now... You don't want Daddy to get angry..."
• In Zits, Jeremy and Sara bury Pierce on the beach, giving him a sand suit and tie and just about driving him into shock.
• Garfield once buried Odie up to his knees.
  • Garfield himself was buried in sand by some kids once.
• In Dykes to Watch Out For, Mo's friends stage a political "intervention" for her—they bury her in sand, then force her to listen to Lois live from the RNC protests, telling her not to vote for Nader again.

Film

• The last the viewer sees of the eponymous corpse in Weekend at Bernies, he's just 'agreed' to let a little kid bury him in this fashion.

Literature

• In the Doctor Who New Adventures novel The Also People, there's an epilogue in which the Doctor and his companions manage to grab an uninterrupted day at the beach. The Doctor dozes off, and wakes to find himself buried up the neck. He remains trapped for four pages; the first passerby is an alien who doesn't recognise his predicament, the next pair claim to believe that he got himself buried deliberately as part of some Cunning Plan, and finally his companion Benny makes it clear that she knows he wants to be dug out and that she's not going to until he gives her a proper explanation of the kind that he always claims there's no time for.

Live Action Television

• On Friends, Joey falls asleep in a beach house with a lot of sand on the floor and gets buried, including sand boobs..
• There are several gags about this on the Beach Episode of El Chavo Del Ocho.
• Bertie gets one in an episode of Jeeves and Wooster. One can only assume that he asked Jeeves to bury him.
• On Cougar Town, this is Bobby's favorite thing, since it lets him imagine that he's just a head on a beach. Jules and Grayson use this to their advantage, since a buried Bobby won't run away when they tell him that they are now a couple, leaving Bobby as the only single in the group.
• On an episode of the short-lived FOX sitcom Titus, there is an Imagine Spot showing Titus and his dad Ken enjoying a day at the beach, which ends with Ken playfully burying Titus in the sand and putting a pirate hat on his head (it was a fantasy Titus had when, after Ken congratulates him on designing his truck, Titus realized that maybe his dad does love him underneath all the deadpan snarking and hilarious abuse during his childhood). When Ken gets in trouble with the police over his car, Titus then has another Imagine Spot, showing Ken trying to drown Titus in the ocean (in the first fantasy, they were splashing each other playfully), Ken shoving ice cream cones in Titus's eyes (in the first fantasy, they were doing that intertwined arm share so they can lick each other's ice cream cones), and—in a perverse mirror of the first fantasy—Ken is shown burying Titus in the sand, only this time, Titus's is buried headfirst with his feet sticking out. Ken then puts the pirate hat on Titus's feet, sneers, and leaves Titus in the sand.
• A non-malicious example, in The Monkees pilot "Here Come the Monkees, the guys (except Davy) are buried side by side up to their necks at the beach. Each has a bucket over his head, and Davy lifts the bucket off so each can sing a tune (to help the Girl of the Week study for her history test).
• Both Tory and Grant were buried up to their necks in Myth Busters to test whether you could dig yourself out before the tide came in and drowned. Tory was able to dig himself out but only because they were a good distance away from the waterline and the process took him over an hour for the "dry bury". Grant, on the flip side, had to attempt the "wet bury" under controlled conditions and couldn't because the water would loosen the sand and fill in any gaps he would've made. Another danger besides drowning was the sand's weight compressing on the chest, preventing you from being able to breathe.
• One of the Have I Got News for You "in the news this week" jokes had a close-up photograph of a boy buried up to his neck, with a line about unexpectedly sharp frisbees.

Music

• Appears in the music video for Katy Perry's song "California Gurls".

Puppet Shows

• This was the basis for a Sesame Street sketch with Ernie, Bert, and Sherlock Hemlock.

Video Games

• In Tales of Symphonia, you can do this with Regal if he comes along with you to the beach event.

Web Original

• This classic bash quote.
• One Chopping Block comic has Butch come across a dad buried by his kids and decide to finish the job...
• Strong Sad straddles the line between this and Buried Alive in the Homestar Runner cartoon "Somber Vacation". In typical fashion, Strong Sad has a really depressing version of an average beach trip, which involves burying himself in the sand—entirely, including his head, and sculpting a gravestone on top.

Western Animation

• In The Simpsons, Ned is buried like this and Homer parks his car on Ned's head (with Ned discovering that Homer stole his muffler for his car).
• In SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob buries a beachgoer, Scooter, and then asks Bubble Buddy, his inanimate friend, to unbury him before the tide rises. We later see him as an angel.
  • In the episode "Ripped Pants", a whale claims to be "the biggest loser on the beach" because his friends buried him in the sand and forgot about him.
• Happens once in Rocket Power.
• X-Men Evolution has Quicksilver doing this to Spyke... in combat, but the reference is clear.
• The Critic: When Jay Sherman attends the Cannes film festival, he marvels at the view from atop a sand dune. It turns out to be a buried Marlon Brando.
• In an episode of The Oblongs, Hilda had herself intentionally subjected to this, as her sand body was far more appealing than her regular self. She then asks for seaweed to simulate going through puberty.
• In a beach vacation episode of Hey Arnold, Ernie spends most of it buried from the neck down, hidden by a pail and later a fat beach goer.
• This is done in the Yogi Bear short "Gleesome Threesome".
• At the start of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "The Boardwalk Booby Trap", the Ant Hill Mob are burying Penelope in the sand. They soon become aware that the Bully Brothers are about to run over her with a steamroller.
• Young Justice's Beach Cold Open has the heroes burying Superboy this way.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh Four prefers this to swimming. He even sings a song.

"I'M BURIED IN. THE. SAND. WHOO-HOO-HOO!! I'M BURIED IN THE, BURIED IN THE..."