"Have a Nice Day" Smile



"99. A smiley face is not used to mark a minefield."

- Skippys List

The yellow smiling face with the message "Have A Nice Day". Gained popularity as a Fun T-Shirt, and now has some parodies.

Originally designed to stop postal employees from, well, Going Postal. The smiley face is also commonly used as a sort of ironic symbol of psychopaths, typically those who are also mentally ill.

A company called Smileyworld Ltd. owns the trademark on yellow smiley faces.

Compare Emoticon.

Comic Books

 * Watchmen has one, but trademark issues caused problems in the Watchmen fan community when Smileyworld refused to let Warner Bros. release memorabilia involving the series' famous bloodstained smiley logo. Smileyworld's trademark can been seen on at the end of the movie's trailers and on its posters.
 * This smiley face, with a streak of blood, was probably the first use of the "ironic symbol" of the smiley face. Originally the Comedian's symbol, it acquired a streak of his blood from his murder. Alan Moore, the writer, himself noted how the meaning of the smiley face changed so much from such a small change. Additionally, the smiley face is the first use of the recurring "five minutes to midnight" symbol, with the streak of blood acting as a minute hand pointed at 11.
 * Boss Smiley, the Big Bad of Prez (probably best known to modern readers from an appearance in Neil Gaiman's Sandman) has a smiley face for a head.
 * Transmetropolitan has one with three eyes. The significance of this is to explain that, Transhumanism or not, people are still shallow and stupid.
 * Evil Ernie's sidekick Smiley The Psychotic Button is a smiley face button that's gained sentience and a Slasher Smile.
 * Gahan Wilson hates this smile, and has done several cartoons about it (including one with a Hitler Expy using smiley faces instead of swastikas).

Film

 * Forrest Gump spoofed the origin of this.
 * The film Evolution had one with three eyes.
 * Which seems to have been... er... appropriated from the 3-eyed smiley in Warren Ellis' comic Transmetropolitan.
 * Which in turn appropriated it from the UK acid-house scene, as per Word of God.
 * Dazed and Confused used a stoned Smiley Face on its poster.
 * In Blazing Saddles, Hedley Lamarr's "army" of evildoers includes among its ranks a pair of Ku Klux Klansmen with smiley faces and the phrase "have a nice day!" written on the back of their robes. This is either hilarious or Nightmare Fuel, depending on how you look at it (or both!).

Literature

 * The Stand introduces Randall Flagg, the Walkin' Dude, who, among other interesting buttons, wears one with a smiley face with a bullet wound in its forehead.

Live Action Television

 * Used on the Idiosyncratic Wipes of the early seasons of That '70s Show.
 * Serial Killer Red John in The Mentalist leaves a smiley face painted in his victims' blood at his crime scenes.

Music

 * The Bon Jovi album, song and album cover uses the phrase as a sarcastic/ironic subversion, as seen here.

Professional Wrestling

 * Mick Foley used the smiley sometimes in his Mankind character; he also used "Have a nice day" as his Catch Phrase.

Video Games

 * The Multi Platform game Faceball 2000 was all about smiley faces in a maze shooting each other.
 * In Misfile Rumisiel often wears a T-shirt with a straight line for a mouth and a slogan which simply reads "Have a Day".
 * The smilies gang in Manhunt wear dirty, worn smiley face masks, with messages like "Please stop me" scribbled on them.
 * Berzerk (the game, not the show) turns smiley faces scary--one's the symbol for the unkillable Evil Otto.
 * Quest for Glory I has a smiley face in Yorick's room. When you look at it, Yorick will say "Have a nice day!"
 * A smiley face pops up just before the Allied Time Bomb goes off in Red Alert 3, along with the caption "Have a Nice Day".
 * Battlefield: Bad Company features the smiley prominently in its box art as well as in game grenades.
 * Unreal Tournament has the secondary fire of the flak cannon, wich launches an explosive shell with a smiley face painted in the front. This means that you can only see the smiley face when being shot at with the flak cannon. Not sure if it also is in Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3.

Western Animation

 * On The Simpsons, Lisa was put on anti-depression medication and saw everyone as a smiley face.

Real Life

 * The page image combines this with Wearing a Flag on Your Head.
 * Cuirassiers (armoured heavy cavalry) of the early 1600s wore menacing helmets with freakishly grinning faces to intimidate the enemy.
 * Wal-Mart used to have one in its ad campaigns (it was also part of their "Rollback" logo). It was de-emphasized during The Noughties, and was gone by 2007 in favor of an asterisk-like symbol that would become the corporate logo the next year.
 * There was a restaurant in Cincinnati that was called Have A Nice Day that was covered in smileys. The restaurant may still be there, it has been a while.
 * There's a smiley face on Mars. It was used as part of the smiley face motif in both the book and the film of Watchmen when Dr. Manhattan & Laurie were on Mars.
 * The smiley face was invented in 1963 by an artist for use in a morale-boosting campaign. He got paid $45. You can learn more here.
 * In the 1960s, New York-based Top 40 radio station WMCA billed itself with the slogan "The Good Guys", accompanied by a smiley-face logo. Here's Mick Jagger donning a WMCA sweatshirt of the period.