Brain Food: Difference between revisions

== Advertising ==

* A set of HULU ads broadcast in the early 2010s had various celebrities encouraging people to watch more television, because it softens your brain so they (being, of course, aliens in disguise) can eat it.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In one of the weirder scenes in the film, the apes in ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'' ask San to give Ashitaka's (unconscious) body to them so that they can eat his brain. They believe that, in eating a human's brain, they will become as strong and as smart as the humans are.

* One of the numerous [[Serial Killer|serial killers]] in ''[[MPD Psycho]]'' uses brains as plant food for his favorite flowers... by cutting open their skulls and using them as flower pots. While they're still alive.

 

== Comic Books ==

*** She named it after him, but there's no in-story suggestion that it is or isn't actually him.

* [[Jack Of Fables]] introduced us to Lady Luck during his stint in Vegas. She lost a good chunk of her powers due to a soured romance and regains some of it when she eats the brains of high-rollers.

 

== Film ==

* In ''Terminal World'', by Alastair Reynolds, there are bio-mechanical creatures called "Carnivorgs" that survive by eating the brains of the people they capture. The front of their heads [[Nightmare Fuel|end in a drill]], which they use to punch through their victims forheads. The worst part? This process ''[[Fate Worse Than Death|doesn't]]'' [[Fate Worse Than Death|kill the victim]].

 

* The Psirens from ''[[Red Dwarf]]''.

** The only brain-eaters to use a ''straw''.

*** This is actually [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the first episode of Season 3: {{spoiler|we cut back to Sylar and Claire after last having seen Sylar cutting the top off of Claire's head, and he is indeed doing something - poking at Claire's brain, occasionally stopping as though examining something. Claire asks, "Aren't you going to eat it?" His response?}}

{{quote|'''Sylar''': {{spoiler|Claire,}} that's disgusting.}}

* In the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Bachelor Party", a demon tries to eat Doyle's brain so that his family will let him marry Doyle's ex-wife.

* In ''[[Farscape]]'' the cyborg Kaarvok had a habit of removing the brains of his victims with a straw- which would them be fed into a slot in his head.

** After removing the neurochip from Crichton's brain, [[Magnificent Bastard|Scorpius]] finds that there's a large chunk of cerebral tissue clinging to it. [[Slasher Smile|Grinning wickedly]], he eats the piece of brain matter in a single bite.

** Glory sucks the sanity out of people's brains.

* ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "Hungry" is told from the point of view of a [[Monster of the Week]] who tries to resist his cravings for human brains.

* [[Played for Laughs|Invoked]] on the "Bottle Bash" episode of [[MythBusters]], in which Adam speaks to a Jello-brain: "You remember when I hit your head with a beer bottle?" (eats spoonful of Jello out of the brain) "No you don't!"

{{quote|"Mm, it's a delicious memory!"}}

 

== Music ==

* [[Iron Maiden]]'s ''Piece of Mind'' has it on the [http://www.somvinil.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Piece_Of_Mind_LP.jpg inner gatefold]{{Dead link}}, and also the [http://www.vinylrecords.ch/I/IR/Iron_Maiden/Piece_FR/piece_mind_fr_13.jpg record label]/[http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3512/album04pom1998cdbm2.jpg CD] art.

* In several of the ''[[Rhapsody of Fire]]'' songs, is often stated that demons feed on brains. In a moment of extreme wrath, the [[The Hero|Warrior of Ice]] threatens to come back from the dead to eat [[Big Bad|Akron's]] brains.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]]'', a game entirely about zombies, has "Braaaaaaaains" as an option for a zombie's diet. Because this takes effort and means the zombie needs to eat more people to stay active (as opposed to "All Flesh Must Be Eaten", where they can eat any part), it reduces the zombie's power level.

* In [[White Wolf]]'s ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'', one secret society of werewolves has discovered that they can gain spiritual power by eating the brains of other supernatural people. Doing so rapidly makes them insane pawns of the Wyrm, however.

 

== Video Games ==

* In the ''[[Shantae]]'' series, [[Cute Monster Girl| cute zombie girl]] Rottytops often makes light of this, jovially expressing a desire to eat Shantae's brain; she keeps this craving in check by drinking coffee. In the "Friends to the End" DLC of ''Half-Genie Hero'' this is a game mechanic. She can use [[Mana| Dream Magic]] to consume a brain (presumably taken from [[Hammerspace]]) to refill the team's Health Bar completely.

 

* Annabelle in ''[[The Spider Cliff Mysteries]]'' must eat brains to prevent the decay of her own.

* Parodied in ''[[Narbonic]]'' when Zombie Dave keeps saying "Braaains", even though Helen informs him there's no reason he needs to eat brains.

* In the ''[[Goats]]'' comic, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130605155711/http://www.goats.com/archive/991108.html one of the characters decides to capitalize on the zombie plague] by selling brains to zombies over the Internet on a site called Brains4Zombies.com. The comic's creators then [[Defictionalized]] the site [http://www.brains4zombies.com/ here].

* One ''[[Brawl in the Family]]'' comic has most of the main cast turn into brain-eating zombies. [[Metroid|Mother Brain]] looks [[Oh Crap|awfully nervous]].

 

== Web Original ==

{{quote|'''Skinny Guy:''' Well then how come all you ever said to us is "Brains"?

'''Zombie Boy:''' Oh gee, let me think. [[No Fourth Wall|Maybe it's because it's in the F[bleep]ing script!]] }}

 

== Western Animation ==

{{quote|'''Bart:''' Braaaaains... braaaaains...

'''Homer:''' Use your brains to help us! Your delicious brains... }}

** And then there was Billy's pet chupacabra...

{{quote|'''Grim:''' I think it's trying to suck his brains out!

'''Mandy:''' Poor thing's gonna starve. }}

* Parodied and subverted in ''[[My Gym Partner's a Monkey]]'' episode "That Darn Platypus", where a new platypus student keeps rubbing into everyone's faces that he is an alien. Adam refuses to believe this, but the animals have reason to believe from various signs, such as when he keeps mentioning he enjoys brain juice. Turns out it was just a nutritional fruit juice. And then got inverted towards the end where it is implied that it really is made from brains.

* In the ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars", ZIM is simultaneously trying to keep his Robo-Parents from eating a child, pilot the (incredibly large) ship of his alien leaders to come to Earth to see his "progress" while trying to keep his rival Dib from crashing said ship, and keep a creature in a containment chamber's status stable. The creature is a giant brain-sucking parasite. No reason is give as to why it sucks the brain right out of your skull or even how ZIM managed to obtain such a thing in the first place (but this ''is Invader ZIM'' after all...)

* ''[[Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles]]'' has the Brain Bugs doing this to obtain information from prisoners (the bug absorbs the knowledge from the brain it eats).

* Subverted on ''[[Phineas and Ferb]].'' The zombies moan for brains, spleens, pancreases, kidneys, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|cucumber sandwiches.]]

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Tropes of the Living Dead]]

[[Category:Otherness Tropes]]

[[Category:Food Tropes]]

[[Category:Horror Tropes]]