Everything's Better with Plushies

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When The Merch goes Fun Size. It seems anyone and everything you can think of has a plushie toy based on it, especially in Japan when it comes to Anime and Video Game characters (minor or major). These can be official or fan made.

Although they are mostly toys, they are still featured on shows, especially fan made works.

Compare Girls Love Stuffed Animals.

Examples of Everything's Better with Plushies include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Film

  • There's a line of Godzilla plush dolls made by a company called Toy Vault. Not only do they make plushies of well-known Kaiju such as Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan, but they also produce plushies of more obscure monsters such as Gabara, King Seesar, and even the completely evil Destoroyah.
  • There's a line of plush toys that are based upon the Alien franchise. These include the Chestburster, Dog-Alien Chestburster, the Queen Chestburster, and a Facehugger. While they are adorable versions of a monstrous fetus that emerges violently from one's chest, they're probably NOT the best thing to give your children as a gift.
  • Spencer's Gifts once sold Dr. Frank N Furter dolls that played a sample of the Time Warp when squeezed (Why they didn't play Frank's trademark song, Sweet Transvestite is beyond me). They're now very hard to find and are considered highly collectible by Rocky Horror fans.
  • There is a fan-made plush doll of Agent Smith and Elrond (Elrohir supports this); no Mitzi though. They were quite possibly from here several years ago.
  • There are commercially available plushie versions of the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
    • As well as the Black Knight, with Velcro limbs.
  • Kevin Smith is proud to sell you Mooby The Golden Calf.
  • You can buy a plushie Iorek Byrnison and golden monkey based on the movie The Golden Compass. You know, because that monkey was so lovable and cuddly.

Literature

  • Phear Plushie Cthulhu. They also come in such variants as Elvis Cthulhu Mythos, Miskatonic graduate Cthulhu, vacation Cthulhu, and Christmas Cthulhu (with a little Santa hat and jingle bells on its tentacles).
    • The Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) RPG supplement Secrets of Japan deliberately invoked this trope with Cthulhu, suggesting that a plushie doll made by cultists of Cthulhu could become possessed with the malevolent spirit of its Cosmic Horror namesake.
  • In the age before the films, Harry Potter had plushies out of the Golden Trio and their pets, though in the case of owls, there were about five different kinds and they had scrolls attached to their feet. Each scroll had a different message.
  • There is now a Phantom of the Opera plushie created by Chérie Shulter and El Gibbs. They are true to the original book by Gaston Leroux and are adorable to true "phans" and slightly strange to others.

Live Action TV

  • Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger exists. There were plushie toys of Zyuranger when it was airing (that even appeared in a late episode).
  • The Adipose from the Doctor Who episode "Partners in Crime" exist. There are plushie Adipose.
    • Soon to come are plushie Daleks! Quite possibly the cutest thing that will ever EXTERMINATE you. Also available is a plushie TARDIS.
  • Angel: Smile Time
  • Odd (and hilarious) in-universe example/subversion: In one episode, Earth insists that Babylon 5 put a gift shop on board. The thing that finally kills it is when Ivanova shows Captain John Sheridan a teddy bear dressed up in baseball attire, with a Babylon 5 cap and a baseball uniform listing his name as "Bearbylon" and his number as 5. Sheridan finds it cute, until he sees the initials "JS" stitched to the front. He spaces the teddy bear posthaste.
    • Reality Subtext: The bear was a gift to J. Michael Straczynski (yes, he has the same initials as his main character, why do you think that's weird?), from a friend who knew all about JMS's hatred of all things cute and cuddly. The spacing was retribution for the gift.
  • The conveyor belt round in The Generation Game always featured a cuddly toy as one of the items.
  • From The Big Bang Theory comes a plush made out of one of their more Memetacular moments: the Soft Kitty!

Newspaper Comics

  • Older Than Television. Since 1925, Alfred the penguin is the pet of French young globetrotters Zig et Puce. In early 1927, a plushy Alfred toy was merchandised: it launched a huge Alfred craze all over France. When aviator Charles Lindbergh achieved his historical transatlantic flight to Paris that year, he was given an Alfred plushy and brought it with him as a mascot in his flight from Paris to Brussels. Since Everything's Better with Plushies and Everything's Better with Penguins, you just can't go wrong with a plushy penguin.
  • Famously Averted Trope with Calvin and Hobbes. For obvious reasons, merchandisers were very interested in making Hobbes plushies. Since Hobbes was a plushie in-universe, this would have counted as Defictionalization. However, Bill Waterson was deadset against any merchandising of his strip and went to great lengths to prevent the syndicate from doing so.

Tabletop RPG

Toys

  • The Matoran exist. There used to be plushie avatars of them on BZPower. Don't know if the plushies still exist though, that was a long time ago.

Video Games

Web Comics

Web Original

  • On Neopets there were plushie versions of the paint brushes. There is even a paint brush that turns neopets into plushies. It is very expensive. Also just about everything and everyone in Neopets, from the Real Life founders, to various kinds of food both in the real world and on the site.
  • Potter Puppet Pals
  • Little Kuriboh of Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series likes to have a Yami plushie pretend to be Dan Green, and play him as a grown up 10-year-old, including thinking Girls Have Cooties.
  • The War of the Abridged Series Creators features loads of plushies for the respective shows.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender Youtube Spoof: Avatar The Last Puppetbender
  • Even Zero Punctuation has gotten in on this, with plush versions of the black imps.
  • And finally, for all you New Media creators out there who want to get in on the game, CustomPlush.com is here to serve all your squeezable Merch needs! They require a minimum run of 500 units, so this is definitely for creators, not fans.
  • You can collect plushies of just about anything in Subeta. Pets, pies, poop (no seriously), potions...
  • AlternateHistory.com once started the Sealion World Tour (still going on in 2010). The members send a plush sealion named Sealion from one member to another, who'll take pictures and post them on the forum. At the moment, Sealion has already visited three continents (North America, Europe, Asia) and about a dozen different countries. And South America is where he is now.
  • B Group is currently collecting donations to fund the creation of a talking plush version of the demonic main character of their Reincarnation series.

Western Animation

  • There have been numerous Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers plushies, but plushie-sized figurines of Monterey Jack and Gadget have only ever been made once. These figurines made by Applause aren't even true plushies with their vinyl heads and paws, and Gadget doesn't contain a square inch of plush at all. But since these figurines have ceased to be manufactured long ago, and since there isn't any alternative, it is her who is the most expensive by far. Chip and Dale as Rescue Rangers can still be acquired as true plushies at every Disney theme park, though.
  • In-universe, we see a binome with a Guardian Bob plushie in one of the later seasons of ReBoot.
  • Another in-universe example: Heloise on Jimmy Two-Shoes has several Jimmy plushies as part of her Stalker Shrine.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has surprisingly few plushies, but there are many fans capable of making plushies of their own. While they're of course a whole lot more show accurate, and while they're based on several variations of characters ranging from the Mane Six to background ponies and even Lauren Faust's pony avatar herself, they're also handmade one-of-a-kind pieces, and if they're sold, it's for very high prices. One fan is famous for making high-quality plushies of the main characters in their Gala dresses which include embroidered eyes and cutie marks and which sell for four-digit prices.
  • Plushies of the main six from Recess were made back in 1999-2000, and were primarily sold at Toys "R" Us and The Disney Store.

Other

Real Life

  • Food in felt plush form. Japan has also made plushies of the ideal shape of poo. ...No, we don't know why either.
    • Subeta have heavily parodied both situations as items. When you get a taco beanbag, and a ham plushie, it's just because they love this trope.
  • Airbus A380s exist. You can buy plushies of Singapore Airlines A380s aboard Singapore Airlines flights.
  • Anybody want plush GIANTmicrobes? You can get them here! They even have plush sperm and egg cells wearing blue and pink bows, respectively.
  • Or how about these lovely d20s for your mirror? Careful about this one, folks; he'll bite your ankles off! And be even more careful of this one... looks pretty vicious, doesn't it? If only they made a plush Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch... oh wait... THEY DO!!
  • The Philosopher's Guild presents.. Little Thinkers. Who wouldn't want a Nietszche doll?
  • Gamestop has now released a plushie of their bunny mascot. It even has a voice chip in it.
  • Any animal or popular fictional creature can have a plushie. They don’t have to be soft and fluffy in real life, like a mammal.
    • Plushies of marine animals also exist, including octopuses, orcas, and sharks. Just do a google search to see for yourself.
    • There are even plushies of reptiles. Go Figure. The same goes for amphibians and bugs.
  • There are plushies based on the monsters from Lovecraft. Evil has never looked so cute.