Swivel Chair Antics

A Sub-Trope of Cool Chair, Swivel Chairs are amusing pieces of furniture because they have wheels and can spin. Boredom and these can lead to endless possibilities.

Could include either someone spinning in a chair out of boredom or restlessness, rolling around in it in favor of just getting up, rigging them with explosives to fight bad guys with, or riding them like makeshift chariots.

This is often an integral part of Office Sports; also compare Wheelchair Antics.

Examples of Swivel Chair Antics include:

Anime and Manga

• Soul Eater: Stein enjoys riding around on his. Early on there was a Running Gag where he would "trip" over door frames (in fact he did so twice when he was introduced, failing to make a dramatic entrance).
• Light Novel/Durarara: Izaya has one in his office. In one memorable scene, he spun around repeatedly while laughing about how interesting humans are.

Film

• Back to The Future Part II:, Mr. Strickland is in a swivel chair; he turns toward the window and then pushes back, smashing Marty's hand against the desk.
• Batman Forever: the Riddler ties his boss to a rolling office chair and rolls him off a cliff, then later makes it look like a suicide.
• Superman III: the programmers in a 80's mainframe centre move about by pushing themselves backwards on swivel chairs; despite a two-lane corridor, two of them collide.
• Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me has Dr. Evil goofing around with his evil chair... and promptly having it go psycho on him.
  • THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!

Live Action TV

• In one of the opening title sequences of the 1970s CBS Sitcom Arnie, the title character, having just been promoted from a blue-collar position, spins around on an office chair, tips over and pulls down a venetian blind in the process.
• There was a Britcom called Two In Clover where the heroes leave their boring job by tying their boss to a swivel chair and pushing him out the window. On the ground floor, it is hoped, although it may well be a fantasy sequence...
• Early in Angel, the eponymous character defenestrates a corporate executive on swivel chair through a glass wall. Only the chair hits the ground, the executive having combusted on exposure to direct sunlight.
• Battlestar Galactica Reimagined: Baltar is seen swiveling his chair aimlessly, in a homage to his namesake's swiveling Cool Chair in the original series.
• The Countess Dowager(Maggie Smith) on Downton Abbey is caught off guard to be sitting in one when she visits Matthew Crawley's office:

Countess: (almost falling off) Good heavens! what am I sitting on?
Matthew: A swivel chair.
Countess: Another modern brainwave?
Matthew: Not very modern, they were invented by Thomas Jefferson.
Countess: Why does every day involve a fight with an American?
Matthew: I'll fetch a different one.
Countess: No, no, no, I'm a good sailor!

Newspaper Comics

• Dilbert: Someone stands on a swivel chair to hang up a "Ten days without an accident!" poster. The chair slips, and he falls and injures himself. Dilbert comments on the Irony, and the guy who fell replies, "No, it was ironic when this happened 11 days ago."

Other

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  • This pic

Video Games

• Most Triumphant Example: Harry the Handsome Executive, a game based entirely on scooting around an office on a swivel chair by kicking off walls.
• Joker of Mass Effect fame is entirely too fond of his swiveling pilot's chair on the Normandy, especially its second incarnation. (Real leather!) However, EDI takes control of it when he's antagonizing her, spinning him around until he gives up.
• Rhythm Heaven Fever has a minigame, "Board Meeting", about anthropomorphic pig businessmen spinning around on swivel chairs.

Web Comics

• Xkcd has the famous "my code is compiling" comic.
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• A very similar battle ensues in Questionable Content involving broomsticks. Dora is not pleased.

Western Animation

• Sparks from Sealab 2021 is always seated in a rolling chair. Presumably he can move without it but it's never shown.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Ice Cream of Margie (with the Light Blue Hair)", we find Homer, Lenny, and Carl playing office chair hockey at the plant; Mr. Burns comes in and chastises them for goofing off...but then we see him complaining that they're not practicing their chair hockey moves hard enough.
  • In another episode (season seven's "Bart on the Road" [the episode where Bart makes a fake ID while spending "Go To Work with Your Parents Day" with Patty and Selma at the DMV]), Lisa (who's spending the day at the nuclear plant with Homer) decides to liven things up by spinning in swivel chairs wearing hazmat suits. Homer replies that, "This is a lot more fun with a second person."
  • In yet another episode ("Homer's Enemy"), Bart combines a swivel chair and a fire extinguisher for some real fun.
• Camp Lazlo: Nurse Leslie uses such a chair to move around. In fact, when the chair is broken, he can't even use his legs to stand.
• Megamind in his very own film has a number of swivel chair scenes, and of course spoofs the "villain in turning chair" thing.
• Principal Prickly on Recess has one as his desk chair. When TJ becomes "Principal-for-a-Day", this is one of the first things he does:

TJ: Wow, this is one big chair.
Prickly: Yes it is. And it takes a big man to fill it.
TJ: (immediately takes it for a spin) WOOHOOOOOO!

• On The Looney Tunes Show Bugs gets a job at Porky's office and convinces him to have more fun at work. During a montage of various fun activities they spin around ad roll on swivel chairs.

YouTube Originals

• ideoProductions made a video of Jory Caron rolling through the hallways of Emerson College in an office chair.