Fluffy Dry Cat

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When a wet cat (or any animal with fur) gets dried off, their fur sticks up. This can give the effect of making them look kind of like Tribbles with faces. This trope is about the way hair standing on end when dried is taken Up to Eleven for comedy. This isn't just "cat is slightly fluffier when freshly washed and dried"; this is "short haired cat is now one big puff of long, fluffy fur".

Examples of Fluffy Dry Cat include:


Film

  • Toyed with in Austin Powers: Goldmember. During the infiltration of an enemy submarine, Foxxy Cleopatra shakes out her damp hair and it springs into a huge Afro, accompanied by a humorous sound effect like an umbrella opening.
  • Snowbell from Stuart Little.

Newspaper Comics

  • Sometimes happens to Garfield.
  • Happens to Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes after Calvin's mom throws him into the dryer.
  • Pretty sure it's been done in the comic strip Rose Is Rose.
    • A Running Gag in Rose Is Rose was about Peekaboo being "all fur" (not completely to the extent of Intangible Man, but almost). I can't bring to mind any examples where Peekaboo "poofed" after being dried off, but I do remember several where Peekaboo becomes a clawed poofball when startled or angered.

Video Games

  • Bubsy did this after riding a waterslide and drying off.

Web Animation

  • Happens a few times to The Cheat on Homestar Runner. Especially after he's thrown in the dryer—he turns into a big lump of fluff.

Western Animation

  • Oliver and Company.
  • The Lion King exhibits this trope during the "Hakuna Matata" number.
  • Salem in Sabrina the Animated Series exhibits this trope once.
  • Happened to The Pink Panther.
  • Pepe LePew from Looney Tunes.
    • Another Looney Tunes cartoon had Sylvester put in a washing machine: The final step of the washing cycle was "fluff dry".
  • Happens on Tom and Jerry, too. Tom gets stuck in a washing machine (and survives, of course). It cycles through the usual: Wash... Dry... Fluff... and out pops Tom, now a round, grey ball of fluff, who has somehow been fluffed so much that he now floats through the air sans legs.
  • This happens to a few of the My Little Pony characters (Gusty, Licketysplit and Heart Throb, I think) after the enemies capture them for their hair and force them through a cleaning process similar to a car wash. After they're dried, they come out looking poofy for a few seconds. In this case, it's one of the few times it's obvious that the ponies have fur all over their bodies and not just on their manes and tails (as real horses do).
  • In the Walt Disney short cartoon "Rugged Bear", Donald Duck does such a thing with a bear who pretends to be a carpet in Donald's cabin.
  • Happened to Archimedes the Owl in The Sword in the Stone when completely drying himself after "saving" Arthur as a fish when almost been eaten by a big moat fish.

...golly fluff!

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