They do say these four are a barrel of laughs.
"I will decree that all hay be shipped in tightly-packed bales. Any wagonload of loose hay attempting to pass through a checkpoint will be set on fire."
— Item 181, Evil Overlord List Cellblock A
A Cargo Concealment Caper is when a character hides in cargo shipments, typically those travelling long distances by ship, truck, or aircraft. This is usually for one of the following two purposes:
- Infiltration: Someone sneaks into a cargo shipment in order to enter the location receiving the shipment.
- Escape: Someone uses a cargo shipment in order to escape the location sending the shipment.
While persons attempting this in Real Life would likely be detected by security screening processes or injured by rough cargo handling processes, a fictional character's level of success is dependent on the plot. Although airliner cargo compartments are pressurized, checked baggage is subject to harsh x-ray scanning and may tumble down long chutes which humans are not fit to be subjected to.
Sister Trope to Human Mail, where instead of hiding in or among the cargo, the characters are the "cargo", and Little Stowaway, where children use their small size to hide within people's luggage to tag along. Super-Trope to Trojan Horse, which is when soldiers hide in cargo while specifically intending to attack a target. Stealth-Based Mission usually requires the trope.
Because of its nature, the trope falls under No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Infiltrating via Cargo Shipment
Comic Books
- Asterix: In Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield, the Gauls hide from a Roman patrol by hiding in the coal reserves and then sneak into the Roman governor's palace by hiding inside the weekly delivery of coal. Much to Dogmatix's chagrin, because he'd been given a bath to clean up from the first one.
Fan Works
- The Mountain and the Wolf: Accidentally done by Tyrion: When the warcamp besieging Harrenhal is attacked by surprise by the Wolf's men, Tyrion hides in the first place available, an empty winebarrel and he pulls the lid on himself. Unfortunately, the barrel is then seized as plunder and taken on a ship. He ten hides in a bigger crate to be sure no one will lift off the lid, and ends up carried into Harrenhal.
- In the Discworld fic Strandpiel
, the rooftop Air Station from which the Pegasus Service flies is, in theory, one of the most securely guarded locations in Ankh-Morpork. However, after covert observation, a young Assassin discovers a way of getting up there for a purpose of his own. The external cargo lift picks up fodder and hay bales from street level to service the rooftop stables occupied by the very special equines housed there. Once the lift is loaded, nobody checks it again and it is raised automatically. An extra part of the cargo, on this occasion, is a black-clad Assassin. He isn't there to inhume anybody or plant any bombs. He is taking the risk because his girlfriend is a recruit to the Pegasus Service. And Girls Love Chocolate.
- Vocaloid Concerto: At one point in the world of Fantasia, Miku and co. have to infiltrate the Yellow Country, which have closed off their borders except for cargo shipments, inside a cargo load from Red Country.
Films — Live-Action
- The Fifth Element: After Korben Dallas "wins" two tickets to see Plava Laguna at Phloston Paradise, Priest Vito Cornelius knocks him out so that his assistant David will pose as Korben with Leeloo as his date. However, Korben regains consciousness and catches up with David. When Cornelius finds out, he sneaks onboard the transport to Phloston Paradise by hiding among the luggage.
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: The Dwarves pay Bard to sneak them into Laketown. Much to their dismay, he does so by hiding them inside barrels of fish he's delivering.
- The Last Voyage of the Demeter. The Demeter is contracted to ship fifty crates—supposedly carrying silverware packed in dirt—from Romania to England, with a considerable bonus for early delivery. Things start to go wrong when a crate breaks and they find a sickly Romanian peasant girl hidden inside. With his food source out of immediate reach, Dracula emerges and starts killing members of the crew. When the crew decide to search the other crates, they find that one of them has concealed catches that enable the crate to be opened and closed while appearing to remain sealed.
- Meg 2: The Trench opens with Jason Statham's character hiding inside a shipping container on a vessel that's illegally dumping radioactive waste. When he's finished doing push-ups he uses some kind of spray-on explosive to quietly blow a hole in the container so he can get out.
- In Monkey Business, the four Marx Brothers stow themselves in herring barrels on an ocean liner, where they are carried with the cargo before emerging to wreak havoc on the ship.
- In A Night at the Opera (1935), Harpo stows himself in Groucho's luggage in order to sneak onto an ocean liner, and spends a good amount of time asleep in the giant trunk, where he remains throughout the chaos of the famous Stateroom Scene.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: In "Atonement", Marcus and Stephen have to be smuggled to Mars in a freighter's cargo hold in order to open contact between the B5 crew and the Martian Resistance.
- The Chosen: The episode "The Messengers" features Mary Magdalene hiding among a wagon's cargo to get past the Roman guard.
- Mr. Bean: The final sketch of the series in "Hair By Mr. Bean of London" has Mr. Bean attempt to sneak onto a passenger train by hiding inside a mail bag and sneaking across the platform. Unfortunately, the train leaves before he gets aboard, and then the station crew retrieve the bag and loads it onto its train, bound for Russia, with Bean still inside the bag.
- Torchwood: Children of Earth: In "Day Two", Gwen and Rhys make their way to London by stowing away in the back of a lorry carrying potatoes, as they would be traced and killed by the British Government if they used their own private transport.
Tabletop Games
- Traveller: Game 3 Azhanti High Lightning, adventure IV "The Great Wine Heist". The Imperium regularly ships bottles of the wine Tokaj Eszencia from Earth to the Imperial Capital. Some adventurers smuggle themselves onto the ship Imperial Reaumur in crates of cargo and try to steal the wine the ship is carrying.
Video Games
- Ghost of Tsushima: Kenji smuggles Jin into Mongol camps by hiding him in an empty sake barrel on two separate occasions.
- Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II: In the Mysteries of the Sith expansion pack, the third mission (levels 9-11) revolves around the Lumini Pirates attacking and robbing a New Republic escort ship. Mara Jade has to hide in one of the crates they're stealing, allowing her to get aboard their ship in order to reach their base and retrieve a Jedi holocron they stole from the New Republic ship.
- Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast: In the bonus level "Mission to Alzoc III", Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors infiltrate a suspected Imperial Remnant base on Alzoc III this way — Jan poses as a cargo hauler, dropping a couple of supply crates off in front of the base to be taken inside, and once she's out of the way Kyle emerges from one of the crates to fight off the stormtrooper guards and confirm the place is a Remnant base before making his way to the hanger on the far side of the building so he can meet up with Jan again and they can escape the planet.
- The Legend of Dragoon: In order to sneak into Hellena Prison, Dart uses a horse-drawn wagon full of supplies and other items to sneak in. Notably, he needed to first hide from the guard inspecting the supplies, then he could jump in whilst the guard gave the command to lower the drawbridge.
- The famous cardboard boxes from the Metal Gear series have this as a secondary utility in addition to simply hiding in plain sight. Certain games allow Snake or Raiden to hide in their cardboard box in certain locations, such as inside a truck or on a conveyor belt, and sitting still for a few seconds will cause enemy guards to move the box with its occupant to another location in the game world.
- Mirror's Edge: In the mission "The Boat", Faith sneaks aboard the eponymous boat by hiding in the back of a cargo truck delivering goods to it.
- Operation Na Pali (a campaign add-on for Unreal Tournament): At one point, Agent 046 must infiltrate a heavily guarded facility on complete lockdown. He does so by hiding in a crate near a delivery ship's crane, which sends him to the other side of the wall.
- Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't so Frightening: Early in the game, Sam tries to get into World Wide Weather to confront Thunder and Lightning about the thunderstorm they're making in his neighborhood, but the gate won't let him in. Sam sneaks around the back and finds a crowbar, which he uses to open a crate so he can stow away inside it and a forklift will take the crate to World Wide Weather.
- The Payday Gang use this trick a couple of times in PAYDAY 2, to infiltrate Russian mobster The Commissar's headquarters in the "Hotline Miami" heist and the titular Murkywater black site "Henry's Rock".
- Quake II: The Reckoning: Joker enters into the Strogg Freighter by hiding into one of the crates at the end of the level "The Hangars".
- One of the deaths in Return of the Obra Dinn is a stowaway who was killed when the ropes holding the cargo they were hiding in broke and the cargo crashed down into the hold. The crew member the cargo landed on was also killed.
- Wolfenstein:
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein: At one point, B.J. Blazkowicz must infiltrate a heavily guarded area in order to reach a rocket facility. He enters said facility by hiding in a box at the back of a truck at the end of said mission.
- Wolfenstein: The New Order: in order to steal a U-boat, the Kreisau Circle breaks into a Kriegsmarine munitions depot and hides B.J. inside a torpedo casing. The torpedoes are delivered to Eva's Hammer, which B.J. commandeers and the Circle eventually turns into their own base of operations.
- Star Wars: Empire at War: In one story mission of the Rebellion campaign, Han Solo and Chewbacca are sealed inside a cargo container and smuggled onto the planet Carida to search for some schematics for Mon Calamari cruisers.
Web Video
- Star Wars Downunder. The evil Darth Drongo is trying to steal all the beer on the planet, so our heroes hide themselves in a couple of barrels so his Sith Troopers will carry them inside his fortified brewery.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3: In the episode, "Toddler Terrors of Time Travel", Mario, Luigi, and Toad sneak aboard King Koopa's Doomship by hiding in one of the crates that Koopa's henchmen load onto the ship.
- Blue Eye Samurai. In "A Fixed Number of Paths", Heiji Shindo offers to smuggle Mizu into Fowler's castle hidden in a barrel of cheap sake that's brought in for the prostitutes. Taigen loudly objects to this idea, given that he would be helpless to defend himself, so it's likely a trap. Mizu agrees and refuses (not least because Heiji has inadvertently tipped him off about someone else who knows a way into the castle). At the end of the episode Taigen is captured and delivered to Fowler sealed up in a barrel, so he was likely right about that.
- Many Bugs Bunny cartoons start with Bugs inside a crate of carrots, which takes him to whatever location the story takes place in.
- Dennis the Menace (1986): In the episode, "Ice Show Show-Off", Mr. Wilson takes Dennis to an ice show but makes the mistake of giving his ticket to Dennis. When Mr. Wilson is stopped at the front door of the arena by the manager, he tries to explain the situation to him, but the manager doesn't believe him. To get into the arena, Mr. Wilson hides in a barrel set to go on stage for an ice-skating routine. As the workers take the barrels inside, one of them complains about how heavy one of them is, not knowing Mr. Wilson is inside it. Mr. Wilson later finds out that the ice-skating routine involves a skater jumping over twelve barrels, and when he hears that the skater's blades are razor-sharp, he tries to escape by rolling his barrel but only ends up messing up the skater's routine and getting caught by the manager.
- In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Phineas And Ferb And The Temple Of Juatchadoon", in an Indiana Jones parody Candace plays the role of the Intrepid Reporter as she tries to get a story out of Phineas and Ferb. When she joins the group-off screen, Isabella points out "Well, it's a lucky thing you accidentally hammered yourself in that crate marked 'Temple Expedition Supplies' then, isn't it?" and Candace responds "Boy, I'll say" with zero hints of deception in her voice.
Escaping via Cargo Shipment
Comic Books
- Tintin: Subverted in Tintin: The Blue Lotus, where occupying Japanese soldiers check an outgoing cart full of ricebags by jabbing their bayonets in the bags before letting the cart leave. An armored car then rolls up and yells at the commander for letting Tintin escape in the rice bags, much to the commander's confusion. The car then leaves the city, where we see Tintin driving.
Films — Animated
- The Road to El Dorado: Happens accidentally when Miguel and Tulio hide in barrels from their pursuers, but before they can climb out, the barrels are loaded into the ship of Hernan Cortes. They are found out and put on the brig, where they escape on a boat with Cortes' horse and end up discovering El Dorado.
Films — Live-Action
- George of the Jungle: George hitches a ride back to his jungle home this way; unfortunately, he picks a small crate, leaving him cramped. He learns from this experience in the sequel and uses a crate big enough for his whole family to sit comfortably in.
- In The Great Escape, a group of prisoners try to escape by concealing themselves in a load of tree branches a group of trucks are taking out of the newly-completed prison camp. One of the guards is Genre Savvy enough to take a pitchfork and stab it into one of the truck's cargo beds, so the prisoners hiding there give themselves up.
- In The Longest Day, two resistance men leave an occupied French city by hiding in a cart full of loose hay. While the Germans were savvy enough to prod the hay with their bayonets before letting the carter leave, the resistance also arranges for a pretty girl with a half-open blouse be the next person in line at the checkpoint, so the guards cut corners on searching the cart so that they'll have more time to flirt with the girl.
Literature
- In City of Thieves (1983), one of the possible methods of escaping the titular location, Port Blacksand, is befriending a kindly old man driving a hay cart by killing the ruthless troll Sourbelly. The old man will help you escape by smuggling you in with his hay.
- Robert A. Heinlein's novel Friday. Friday is trapped on a starship and must escape. She sneaks into a landing boat loaded with cargo. When the landing boat carries the cargo down to the planet the ship is orbiting, she goes down with it and escapes onto the planet.
- In The Hobbit, the dwarves get away from the elves by hiding inside empty barrels that the elves send downriver. (There's a funny moment when Bilbo puts the last dwarf into a barrel- including sealing the top- and only then realizes that there's no one to help him into a barrel. He's certainly not going to ask any passing elf to help....)
Live-Action TV
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The episode "Angels" has two Central American boys, Jose and Ernesto trying to flee to their home country by hiding in the luggage compartment of a bus. The boys were 'adopted' by a pedophile and used as sex slaves, only for them to escape. Sadly, Jose did not live very long after fleeing.
- NCIS:
- In the Season 2 episode "UnSEALed", a petty officer who was imprisoned for killing his wife escapes (offscreen) by slipping into the laundry using a stolen ID card, then hides in the laundry and is taken out of the prison with a load of used clothes.
- In Season 4's "Singled Out", a well-organized team of robbers successfully steals a load of rare and valuable coins from a hotel safe and gets them out of the hotel by hiding them in a loaded laundry cart. However, when the cart reaches the robbers' truck, it turns out that the NCIS team intercepted it; Ziva comes out from under the decoy laundry and takes down the leader in time to save the life of the robbers' hostage.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the episode "Dagger of the Mind", a criminal from a penal colony sneaks aboard by hiding in a cargo container that's beamed up to the ship.
Tabletop Games
- Traveller: The Traveller Adventure. Early in the adventure, the Player Characters need to get the Vargr named Gvoudzon off the planet Aramis without going through customs. One way suggested to do so is to smuggle him onto their ship in a box of cargo.
Video Games
- Empire Earth: At the start in the first mission of the Novaya Russia campaign, Grigor escapes Voronezh hiding out on the back of a potato truck.
- Full Throttle: After being suitably bribed, Emmett agrees to smuggle Ben through the police roadblocks searching for him. Ben is hidden in the truck's engine compartment, while his motorbike is buried in the truck's cargo of concentrated fertilizer powder — which Emmett assures him no-one will want to search through.
- Road 96: One of the ways the teen can escape the fictional country of Petria is to stowaway in the back of a truck that's crossing the border, which you can do by breaking or picking a lock or bribing the driver. However, the Petrian border police have security measures against people trying to escape this way, and failing to evade any of them will get the teen arrested.
Web Videos
- Pirates SMP: Decades before the events of the series, after being sent on the run for criticizing the local military government, Jojo's mother Mila smuggled her way out of Naya in a crate on a trading ship.
Western Animation
- Josie And The Pussycats: The group discovers that Midas is exporting spray cologne that's really gold-dissolving mist. The whole gang hides in a cologne crate to hide from Midas's mooks, but Alan sneezes, blowing their cover. They escape anyway by using the crate to slide down the snowy mountain.
- The Simpsons "Bart on the Road": Bart has gotten himself and some schoolmates stranded in Knoxville, Tennessee. Homer orders a T-437 Safety Command Console for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, from the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The console gets air freighted with Bart and company stowing away with it.
- In the pilot episode of Star Wars Rebels, our heroes rescue a group of Wookiees from Kessel by hiding them in a cargo container that the Ghost picks up. Kanan calls this a "22-pickup".
Other uses of the trope
Anime & Manga
- Shows up in all three versions of Doraemon: Nobita and the Haunts of Evil (manga, original anime, remake). Doraemon and gang befriend Chippo, a peasant boy from Bauwan currently under citywide curfew. Chippo, posing as a farmer transporting hay, helps the gang travel around the city by sneaking them in his hay cart.
Literature
- Animorphs
- In Animorphs: The Underground some of the Animorphs get into an insane asylum by transforming into cockroaches and hiding in a box of bananas being transported into the facility. They are menaced along the way by a spider hiding among the bananas.
- During Animorphs: The Unexpected there's a firefight at an airport and Cassie morphs small and takes cover in some baggage which ends up on a conveyor belt into the hold of a passenger airliner. When she demorphs, she gets concussed by the golf clubs that were on the belt behind her and wakes up painfully cold mid flight.
- In the third The Cemeteries of Amalo book, Celehar and his airship mechanic friend discuss the trope. She tells him that the most likely fate of anyone who sneaks onto an airship and stows away in the cargo hold is to freeze to death in the unpressurized, unheated space and jokes that if he ever has to stow away somewhere, he'd better come to her so she can tell him how to do it right. Sure enough, before long he has to come to her for exactly that, and it turns out that the safest and best bet is to have her introduce him to the airship captain and bribe said captain to let him ride in the cabin with the legitimate passengers.
Films — Live-Action
- In A New Hope, the heroes hide inside some floor panel openings intended for smuggling in the Millennium Falcon to keep away from the stormtroopers searching the ship.
Web Original
- Defied by the expansion of the Evil Overlord List, Evil Overlord List Cellblock A. Item #181 states: "I will decree that all hay be shipped in tightly-packed bales. Any wagonload of loose hay attempting to pass through a checkpoint will be set on fire."