Even being on the road allows this.note
Sometimes writers want to spice a work up by going wet and wild, either to Avoid the Dreaded G Rating or to add some Parental Bonus. One common way to do so is to add some Fanservice via a pool area, full of people swimming or sunbathing under summer heat — an area you'd be expected to be wearing as little clothing as possible due to contact with water. Since Most Writers Are Male, most examples feature ladies in scantily-clad bikinis or drenched swimsuits serving the straight Male Gaze, but the scene can also feature hunky shirtless guys.
Some particularly common element is for one of the shirtless or scantily-clad leads to get out of the pool in slo-mo, water glistening on their body, someone to lose their swimsuit or for someone to get pushed into the pool.
An "interesting" meeting point in Spy Fiction (with the justification that it's harder to conceal a bug) and younger cousin of the Beach Episode. Not to be confused with Bad Guys Play Pool. See Two-Person Pool Party for a more explicit variation. Compare Mermaid Arc Emergence.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Nestea: A 1983 commercial
, "Clearly Nestea," shows people enjoying a hot summer day at a swimming pool, drinking – presumably – Nestea's line of iced tea products.
Anime & Manga
- Code Geass: One of the Picture Dramas has the characters going to the pool, with Cornelia in a bondage-inspired bikini. It also offers a more candid look at Guilford and Darlton.
- The manga of Fruits Basket has one of these scenes in the seventh volume, involving Uo in a bikini, Hana in a low-cut one-piece, and Tohru in a school swimsuit.
- Haruhi Suzumiya's "Endless Eight". The sole purpose was to beat the number of swimsuit episodes in K-On! (which had two). Which it did. By six.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- JoJolion: In Chapter 86, Ojiro Sasame lounges around the pool at the top of his Sleek High-Rise Apartment while discussing his own plan to steal the Locacaca Fruit.
- The JoJoLands: As the group arrives at the villa for the heist, Jodio spots Rohan swimming around his personal pool.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: The setting of the very first Sound Stage featured Karaoke, nine-year-old girls in bathing suits, and a Monster of the Week made of water that tried to separate said nine-year-old girls from said bathing suits. Yes, the first season is quite blatant on its Fanservice.
- Mega Man NT Warrior:
- Episode 16 of Stream opens in a Health Spa, where Lan and Maylu are hanging out at the pool while Manabe is busy having her weight examined.
- Episode 15 of Beast+ is a whole pool episode, in which Lan and his classmates relax at a local water park, unaware that Tsuyuharu Nyoudo and his NetNavi ElementMan.EXE are out to sabotage technology as revenge because they laughed at his Epic Fail of a forecast.
- Metal Fight Beyblade had an episode towards the end featuring a cruise ship with a pool at the beginning, as the main characters travel to Europe.
- The first episode of My-Otome 0~S.ifr~ has a scene in a hotel pool. However, the main characters aren't actually swimming in it, but instead fall into it.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi has an episode that mostly takes place around the olympic-sized pool at the Class Rep's Big Fancy House.
- The second half of episode 8 of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, which Misaki throws as a spur-of-the-moment welcome party for Nanami.
- Ranma ½: Plenty of manga chapters, due to Fûrinkan High's Phys. Ed. curriculum (and to show off Akane's Super Drowning Skills). For obvious reasons, Ranma always ends up on the women's side. Given that these take place at school, and therefore the swimsuits are the standard regulation type rather than the sexy bikini type.
- Sailor Moon S: In Episode 105, Usagi, Ami, Rei, and Minako decide to spend a day at the pool when they have nothing to do and Makoto is too busy training, encountering Haruka and Michiru at the same place.
- Shakugan no Shana has a pool episode where most of the class gets to go to a water park. Cue bouncing at every turn, especially from Margery Daw and Yoshida.
- Yui Kamio Lets Loose: Chapter 27 shows the entire cast taking a break on Kiito's yacht.
Comic Books
- Cavewoman: Pool Party is an excuse to have the main female characters both swimming naked, and then cavorting in skimpy swimsuits when the guests arrive.
Fan Works
- Friendship Is Magical Girls naturally has one of these in the episode aptly called "Pool". It features the mahoushoujo and Spike spending a day at Rarity's pool, getting some last-minute relaxation in before their showdown with Sunset Shimmer.
- Child of the Storm: The "Ghosts of the Past" book has one in the first chapter, as part of Harry and his friends enjoying their summer vacation.
- Difficult to Endure, Sweet to Remember: Chapter 15 begins with Asuka dragging Shinji to the base's indoor pool -and into the pool- together with Rei to teach him how to swim, whether Shinji likes it or not.
- The Great Snowball Battle Trilogy: The fourth chapter has Shinji and his Friends going to a pool to make the summer heat more bearable.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: During the Indigo League arc, Ash and his female companions take the day off battles after the preliminary rounds to lounge at public pool. Misty, who's wearing a rather skimpy black bikini, takes the chance to flirt with Ash for fun, and the two have a heart-to-heart talk about how to act on their growing feelings of attraction, until they're joined by a few others.
Films — Live-Action
- All Cheerleaders Die has the cheerleaders' traditional annual pool party, with all of the cheerleaders in bikinis. It is here that Maddy plants the first seeds to break up Tracy and Terry.
- In Art of the Dead, Donna goes to a pool party hosted by the Alpha Bitch of her school.
- The caddy invasion of the country club pool in Caddyshack; which results in at least one topless female character.
- Dana Delany and Stephanie Niznik swim nude in Exit to Eden.
- The iconic scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, wherein Brad masturbates while daydreaming about Linda getting out of the pool and taking her top off.
- Final Destination 4: Hunt visits a country club to score, not wanting to die a virgin if Death itself will really target him, and soon after he meets his Cruel and Unusual Death by getting his innards sucked out of his anus by the drain of the club's pool.
- India Sweets And Spices: Alia likes to swim, and is seen a couple times doing so or sunbathing in her swimsuit while at her backdoor pool.
- James Bond:
- Goldfinger. After the opening credits, Bond is spending time by the pool of a Miami hotel, where he learns of his assignment involving the eponymous villain.
- For Your Eyes Only, one villain is killed by the Bond Girl at his personal pool. The scene became notorious when one of the women in it later turned out to be trans.
- In Lady in Cement, Tony attempts to lose the pursuing cops by ducking through a luxury hotel. In doingso, he runs through the pool area and past a long line of bikini-clad extras sunbathing on lounges.
- In this scene in My Tutor, Terry checks out Bobby when he comes out of the pool.
- Several of these occur in the National Lampoon's Vacation franchise:
- The scene with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and Christie Brinkley, then Clark and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) in the hotel pool in the first Vacation movie.
- Clark Griswold's fantasy sequence in Christmas Vacation.
- Gender-flipped in Phat Girlz when a glistening, trunks-clad Jimmy Jean-Louis emerges from the pool in Slow Motion (while Etta James' "At Last" plays).
- One of the interview scenes in Lake Mungo takes place poolside, with three of Alice's friends in bikinis.
- One of the many pointless scenes in Laserblast involves teens in bikinis and board shorts enjoying the pool at some girl's birthday party. The main reason for the scene seems to be to pan across several dozen fairly ordinary-looking half-naked California teens, while the film takes a breather from its not-very-pulse-pounding plot.
- In Priceless this trope is tweaked for drama. Gorgeous Irene (Audrey Tautou), a veteran Gold Digger, goes out to a hotel pool in a bikini for some sun. However she is soon very unpleasantly surprised to discover that her Meal Ticket Gilles found out she was cheating on him, checked out of the hotel, and took absolutely everything in the room with him. A terrified Irene realizes that she is marooned there at the pool with no possessions whatsoever other than her bikini and wrap.
- Special Female Force: The prologue has the first Special Female Force doing a stakeout in a pool area, since it's where their target is. This leads a lot of Fanservice due to all the members being Head Turning Beauties clad in bikinis to fit in, with one of them even being introduced with a Sexy Surfacing Shot.
- Somebody I Used to Know: Most of the cast members swim in a stream, which serves to show Cassidy and Ally in revealing swimsuits.
- Summer: Anne, her brother and their friends all go to the river. They swim and horse around in their swimwear there. All of them are attractive young people.
- Thelma (2017): Thelma meets Anya the first time at the swimming pool, and is quite smitten by seeing her in a swimsuit. This serves as the first sign that she's a lesbian.
- Trap for Cinderella: Micky and Do are shown at length wearing bikinis on vacation as they swim, sunbathe or lounge around by the water. This includes Micky going topless too.
- We Are the Night: The vampires visit an indoor pool that has an artificial light resembling the sun wearing bikinis, with all but Charlotte going in.
Literature
- One of these appears in the Alex Rider novel Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz. Alex comments that they are unusual lifeguards.
- In 1946 novel Blood on Biscayne Bay, private detective Michael Shayne first meets Estelle Morrison when she's lounging by her pool. This provides a chance for the narration to not just describe Estelle's sexiness, but also to describe her in a bikini, something that would have been unusual and titillating for 1946 readers, and was before the word "bikini" came to be used as the name of a two-piece swimsuit.
The woman wore a wisp of flowered cloth over her pointed breasts, and a triangular piece of the same material for a loincloth.
- The main characters of CHERUB all go swimming together at least once, and there are lots of scenes throughout the series of one or two of them in the pool at one time or another.
- War Veteran: The story at the beginning had a group of women sunbathe at a pool in the park while naked.
Live-Action TV
- Alias, several times, most notably after Sydney strips to her underwear and high-dives off a penthouse balcony into the hotel pool.
- The "Xander gets out of the pool dripping wet and wearing only a Speedo" scene in the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Burn Notice lampshades the Spy Fiction element of the trope, with the bad guys holding a meeting in a hot tub, and Michael noting "I've never found a good way to hide a gun in a bathing suit". Another episode notes that pools and hot tubs are a good way to make sure whoever you're meeting with isn't wearing a listening device of some kind.
- Columbo: In "Swan Song", Columbo visits Tommy Brown to question him regarding the death of his wife. He finds him holding a party in his backyard with several bikini-clad young ladies lounging around the pool as he plays his guitar and sings.
- CSI: Miami, very frequently, but the main characters never end up in bikinis.
- Doctor Who: Downplayed in "Midnight". The first scene sees Donna sunbathing by a pool, but she's snug inside a white bathrobe.
- Dystopia (2021): Most of the LARPers swim around in a nearby stream during "Blackout", though Tess stays out. They're all shown in their bathing suits, and most are attractive young people.
- Gossip Girl (2021): The Season 1 finale has a long scene with the kids sitting or standing around the pool in their swimwear, showing off all their attractive bodies with the girls mostly wearing very revealing swimsuits.
- L.A.'s Finest: "Defiance" has Izzy and two friends all lounging in or near her backyard pool while they're in revealing swimsuits.
- Lizzie McGuire has a few, including "Pool Party" (It's all in the name.), the episode where Lizzie and her friends are fighting enemy girls to take back the school and the school pool, the smoking episode, the camera stunt video episode, etc.
- Murder, She Wrote: "Murder in Milan" features several gratuitous scenes set around the pool at the film festival, featuring a multitude of bikini-clad extras.
- NCIS:
- One of Ziva David's very first scenes occurs in a pool. Since it's plot-related, she's swimming laps in a one-piece.
- She does get bikini-time in season 5 — and it carries over to season 6 in photos the boys seem to appreciate.
- Another male example: In the short-lived Fox series New Amsterdam (2008), the hero, 400-year-old hunk John Amsterdam, swims naked at the Y after hours. (He has a key, since he's one of the founding members.) His partner runs into him there and unexpectedly gets an eyeful when he climbs out.
- In the Odd Squad episode "Skip Day," Dr. O shows Otto a video of Olive swimming at the Odd Squad pool. Since Olive has the skips, she's still wearing her Odd Squad uniform.
Polly Graph: Looks like she skipped the step where she put on a bathing suit.
- One of Us is Lying: Several young people, including Addy, Vanessa, Cooper and Keely are shown in their swimwear while at the pool or beach.
- S Club 7 had quite a few of these in the Miami 7 series. They were employed at a hotel so naturally, they used the pool from time to time.
- From Saturday Night Live: Schmitts Gay Beer.
- The Saved by the Bell TV movie "Wedding In Vegas" featured a pool scene. It didn't seem to serve a purpose other than getting the five leads all wet and into swimsuits. Once Slater gets out of the pool, things get interesting. He sits in Carla's deck chair and starts chatting her up...
- Sky Med:
- In "Line Indoc" some young people are shown partying while on a boat wearing their swimsuits, but then run into another boat due to not paying attention. Hayley is also wearing a bikini on a beach in the same episode as she goes out there for a walk with Bodie.
- "Where There's Smoke" has the whole team partying right in the beginning at the beach, with everyone wearing swimsuits.
- In "Clarity" Hayley and her aunt are both at the beach while wearing their bikinis when a nearby woman starts choking then falls into the water. Hayley dives in to save her.
- In a Soap Opera Pool Scene, a real pool isn't featured. Instead, he or she will jump off-camera followed a splash on the soundtrack and a bucket of water's thrown on the set.
- Special Ops: Lioness: Cruz first meets Aaliyah's friends while they're lounging in a pool wearing swimsuits. They're all attractive young people.
- The Summer I Turned Pretty: Belly, Taylor, Steven and Jeremiah have fun while they play around in the pool, with them all naturally seen wearing swimsuits that are pretty revealing. Jeremiah works as a lifeguard at a pool, so he's in such scenes the most, with his brothers and friends coming often.
- Tehran: In "The Rich Kids" the party at Paynem's house has a huge number of young attractive people wearing swim wear hanging around the pool if not inside it.
- One scene in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has Jessie sunbathing at a pool while Derek Reese shows up to question her. There's no particular reason why that scene needed to be at a pool, except that it involves Stephanie Jacobson in a bikini, which is reason enough.
- The Unit:
- One episode played with this, involving a most fanservicey scene of Summer Glau in a bikini, on a floaty chair... in a kid's inflatable wading pool.
- Another episode does this straight, with Bridget getting out of the pool.
- Episode 3 of UnREAL (2015)—or rather Everlasting, the Show Within a Show that UnREAL is satirizing—features Adam, Adam's buddy Roger, and some of the ladies competing to win Adam's affections at a pool party. The other women competing for Adam show up, clothing is shed, alcohol is consumed, and things get out of hand. Maya may or may not have been raped by Roger.
- The White Lotus: Most of the main characters have scenes while in or sitting near the pool, since they're at a Hawaii resort. The highlight of course being on younger female characters wearing bikinis or other swimwear.
- Wonder Woman (1975): Having some of these scenes is practically unavoidable when Lynda Carter is your star. For example, "I Do, I Do" had Diana Prince and her fake husband discussing plans and Diana diving into the pool.
Music Videos
- The video for "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne, which is also a shoutout to Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
- The music video for "Jesus He Knows Me" by Genesis.
- The video for "Hangin' In" by Tanya Tucker.
Pinball
Video Games
- In Galaxy Angel, the Elsior has an artificial beach used to house a Space Whale and other animals. The crew often uses it to chill out, and Tact gets to see the Angels in swimsuits.
- The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-: In the 2nd Scenario Route, the students decide to take a breather by having a pool party at the academy together.
- Persona 5: The Cruise Ship Palace features a massive pool deck, where one of the mini-bosses is found lounging in a sunbed. Being a lecherous old man, the Phantom Thieves get his attention by changing into swimsuits and letting Ann in a bikini do the talking.
- River City Girls Zero: As Kunio and Riki arrive at school after escaping from prison, they meet up with Misako at the school pool, the latter being the only one wearing a bikini while the other students are wearing one-piece swimsuits.
- Rumble Roses have scenes of the girls stretching in bikinis near pools.
- Tekken:
- Anna Williams's ending in Tekken 3 features her and sister Nina by a pool at a resort. There are two versions of this ending — Anna is busy chatting with a group of guys and Nina gets jealous and pulls her sister's bikini top off and Anna having a Naked Freak-Out. The US version was censored into Anna eventually walking off with all the boys while Nina looks on shocked.
- There is also a pool arena available as a fighting stage from Tekken 4 onwards.
- Valkyria Chronicles II has a pool scene. They cranked up the Fanservice considerably with -Ahem- warm-up exercises.
- Similarly the X-Men: Mutant Academy game has a pool arena and the characters all have a specific swimsuit costume to go with it.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: The hidden bonus scene in Chapter 2, where Shuichi sets up a parasol for Tenko at the pool, who brings Angie, Himiko and K1-B0 along for a "celebrity-like vacation" at the poolside, with Kirumi pampering them.
- The scene in Double Homework with the protagonist looking at all the girls on the main deck of the yacht has this feel. The presence of a jacuzzi makes it complete.
- The Dragon's Last Flight: if Marius the dragonslayer chooses to check Tashka (the dragon mentioned in the title) in the lake, he encounters her swimming and even singing to herself in the process. While this scene is not sexualized and thus not an example of Fanservice, Marius still forgets his purpose of meeting her to talk and just admires her iridescent body with shimmering plumage and glinting scales while she is splashing... until she found him and asked to stop staring at her, as she's not for his amusement.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: In "Wife Insurance", after Jim agrees to be Francine's backup husband, she invites him over to use their swimming pool, and Stan finds Francine sunning herself while Jim swims in the pool.
- Happens in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the episode "The Casket of Ancient Winters", where Hawkeye, Hulk and Wasp chill at the pool in the Avengers Mansion, which would seem to serve no other purpose than to give Hawkeye a Shirtless Scene and put Wasp in a bikini, showcasing her boobs.
- Beverly Hills Teens has plenty of scenes where the characters (especially the female characters) hang out beside a pool.
- May be incorrect, but Braceface has a couple. Examples include "The Coolest", "Up in Smoke", and "Second Thoughts".
- Happens in several episodes of Code Lyoko ("Marabounta", "Déjà Vu", "The Secret", "Kadic Bombshell"...), mostly for Phys. Ed. classes. Since this is set in France and not Japan, though, the swimsuits aren't regulated. Most of the girls are wearing one-pieces, however, Aelita and Yumi included. Except Sissi.
- The Pool Episode in Codename: Kids Next Door isn't exactly standard for this trope... since it involves fighting with a pair of antagonistic lifeguards and their Humongous Mecha chair. Par for the course for the series, otherwise.
- On The Gary Coleman Show, the segment "In the Swim" features Lydia hosting a pool party at her mansion, and Lydia is seen in a bikini in this episode. The arch-nemesis Hornswoggle plans to sabotage the event.
- The Mr. Men Show:
- Mr. Happy, Mr. Messy, Mr. Bounce (briefly), Mr. Persnickety, Mr. Rude, and Little Miss Sunshine have one in the episode "Hotel". As the characters are Accessory-Wearing Living Polyhedrons, they wear their normal outfits.
- The episode "Getting Around" also had a brief one with Mr. Grumpy, Miss Chatterbox, Mr. Noisy, and Mr. Stubborn (who was the bus driver taking the first three to the pool).
- The final segment of the episode "Travel" takes place at a swimming pool.
- The Richie Rich (1980) cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera did feature a handful of episodes with a pool scene. In "A Younger Irona", Richie and Gloria were seen swimming in a pool on the Rich estate, while in the beginning of "The Haunting of Castle Rich", Richie was seen swimming in a pool onboard his private self-driven double-decker bus in England, while Gloria was seen lounging on the deck.
- Spyke's first episode of X-Men: Evolution ends with one (the Xavier Institute has a pool) where Evan accidentally pops Kitty's lie-low with his powers.