Head Turned Backwards
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"My ass! I can see my ass!"
—Madeline Ashton, Death Becomes Her
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When a freak teleportation accident, or some other strange occurrence ends up with a character's head on or turned the wrong way, but this is a case where this is the result of a teleportation or tripping, or bumping against something accidentally. Could also be caused by the head being reattached backward.
Examples of Head Turned Backwards include:
Films -- Live-Action
- Death Becomes Her. After a fall down a flight of stairs, the now-immortal Madeline finds her neck broken and her head backward. Cue the quote above.
- The Empire Strikes Back sees this happen to C-3PO after Chewbacca reassembles him.
- In Spaceballs, this happens to President Skroob via Teleporter Accident:
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President Skroob: Why didn't anyone tell me my ass was so big? |
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- There's a Laurel and Hardy short where they run into some big guy who threatens to "turn their heads north and south" if they don't stop annoying him. The final scene shows them with their heads on backwards.
Literature
- In the Inferno, fortune-tellers have to walk forwards with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because of their forbidden attempts to see the future in life.
- Deliberately invoked in Perdido Street Station, where some of Motley's moth-keepers are reMade this way to allow them to safely view the moths through mirrors while the rest of their bodies are directed towards them.
Radio
- A sketch show on Radio 4 had a man wake to find his head was on backwards. It turned out to have been done by medical students as a fundraising stunt—to raise money for the victims of their previous fundraising stunts.
Video Games
- In the final battle of Luigis Mansion, you fight King Boo in a mechanical Bowser suit. You blow the head off the suit so King Boo comes out and you can start sucking him up. Once you get his HP down to a certain point, though, he'll start attaching the head to the Bowser suit backwards, causing him to run and flail around for several seconds before twisting it back around.
Western Animation
- Futurama. In one instance, in Bender's Big Score, Zoidberg affixes Hermes' head wrong.
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Zoidberg: I thought you were happy. Look, your tail is wagging. |
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- This happens to Sheen Estevez in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron episode "Vanishing Act" when he reattaches his head after finding his body, which also heavily Lampshades this trope.
- Looney Tunes, Rabbit Fire. One of Elmer's gunshots turns Daffy's head upside down.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Neptune's Spatula", King Neptune blasts Patrick to cinders. He revives him, only with his face on his butt.
- In one episode of Popetown, it happens to the Pope after a (harmless) beheading. He has his head sewed back, but backward.
- Happens to Moredcai in Regular Show, caused by a rap battle of all things.