All The Tropes

Mobile Suit Human: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Mobile Suit Human (view source)

Revision as of 21:56, 11 March 2021

326 bytes removed ,  3 years ago
image markup, copyedits
VisualWikitext
m (categories and general cleanup)
(image markup, copyedits)
 
(14 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:s_Friend_Disguise_7275s Friend Disguise 7275.png|link=Phineas and Ferb (Animation)|rightframe]]
 
In sci-fi and anime you have your [[Humongous Mecha]] and you have ...this.
 
The [['''Mobile Suit Human]]''' is a [[Mini-Mecha]] designed to look like everybody else (more or less), manned by a tiny (usually about rodent-sized) pilot who can operate it to blend in with the rest of the population without being noticed; or to make himself seem more impressive than he otherwise would be. Nobody is ever afraid of anything tiny if it's not a [[Killer Rabbit]].
 
Most often employed for comedic purposes, the pilot of the suit is usually revealed at one point or another, to the astonishment and shock or amusement of who or whatever is unfortunate enough to be the one to open it up or see inside it.
Line 10:
The trope name is a pun on ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]''.
 
A potential subtrope of the [[Monster Suit]]. For stories that depict ordinary humans as ''metaphorically'' controlled by tiny pilots, see [[Ghost in Thethe Machine]]. For humans who are in mobile life support robots, see [[Man in Thethe Machine]]. See [[Little Green Man in Aa Can]] for different levels of alien and/or mecha.
 
For a more specific form of this trope, look to [[Totem Pole Trench]].
 
{{examples}}
 
== Advertising ==
* [[Sy FySyfy]] Channel hashad [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DH-v2G-aZg this commercial], back when it still was the Sci-Fi Channel.▼
 
▲* [[Sy Fy]] Channel has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DH-v2G-aZg this commercial].
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* A bad guy in the ''[[Maze Megaburst Space]]'' [[OVA|OVAs]]s.▼
 
▲* A bad guy in the ''[[Maze Megaburst Space]]'' [[OVA|OVAs]].
* Baltro from ''[[Gash Bell]]'' is an example. It's a foot-tall demon with telekinesis (more specifically, it can telekinetically control anything that has a special kind of flower attached to it). So until its defeat at the end of the story arc, Baltro hides inside an enormous suit of armor that it controls with that power.
** Koral Q, the [[Tokusatsu]] madon, also qualifies.
Line 34 ⟶ 31:
* In ''[[Space Pirate Mito]]'' the Titular character is about the size of a human third grader, and resembles one. Her [[Powered Armor|battle suit]] is of a normal-sized shmexxy woman. [[Hilarity Ensues]] when she has to leave it and it splits in half. So traumatizing for her son.
** It's later revealed that all [[Powered Armor|mail suits]] are modeled after the same woman, giving her son yet another shock when the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Samus Is a Girl|helmet comes off]], revealing the same face as his mother.
* Imoko, usually a small floating thing in ''[[Anime/Sora Wo Kakeru Shoujo|Sora Woo Kakeru Shoujo]]'', has a [[media:SoraKake-Mobile-Suit-Human-Imoko.jpg|"Maid-Droid" human-sized robot]] that she can be seen using. Though she doesn't use the Maid-Droid very often.
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima (Manga)|Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has the Life Size Host Robot Body Sayo-chan I that Haruna [[Art Initiates Life|created]] for [[Cute Ghost Girl|Sayo]] to pilot from its abdominal cockpit with her [[Haunted Fetter|voodoo doll]] so she can form a Pactio with Negi. [[Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids|It also comes equipped with]] [[Eye Beams]], [[Rocket Punch]], and torso-mounted [[Gatling Good|Gatling Guns]].
** The cockpit design is even a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', it's exactly the same as the orignal Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank, complete with the bulky fold-out targeting computer.
** There's also Chichigami, a fairly short mercenary who pilots the Paio II,a [[Mini-Mecha]] that wasn't revealed to be such until later.
* A variant occurs in a one-shot painted [[Mazinger- Z]] graphic novel done by [[Go Nagai]] and released by [[Dark Horse Comics]]: the titular super-robot is blasted into a sword-and-sorcery world where he rescues a topless princess (this IS''is'' [[Go Nagai]], after all) from invading lizard-men. When the princess attempts to offer herself to the mysterious knight to persuade him to aid her people, he reveals that he is a machine piloted by a human "just the right damn size for a pet!"
* In ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'', the Zentraedi are a humanoid species that stands 50 feet tall. The [[Humongous Mecha]] piloted by the humans are designed, on purpose, to be the same size. In one episode, one of the charactersMax even steals a Zentraedi uniform and puts it on his mecha to [[Dressing Asas the Enemy|pass as a member of the Zentraedi crew]].
* The titular heroine of ''[[Kemeko Deluxe]]'' is actually a [[Mobile Suit Human]] that's [[Bigger Onon the Inside]].
* A strange, but almost direct play on this occurs in ''[[Basquash]]'': actually the [[Humongous Mecha]] this show focuses on are later revealed to be created originally with the purpose to be a Mobile Suit Giant, allowing the humans to mingle easier with the race of the giants.
 
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'' has the minor [[Recurrer|recurrersrecurrer]]s the Vaulton Force, a parody of the main cast of ''[[Voltron]]'' as Leprechauns defending a vault full of gold. Their title mecha is about six feet tall when combined.▼
 
▲* ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'' has the minor [[Recurrer|recurrers]] the Vaulton Force, a parody of the main cast of ''[[Voltron]]'' as Leprechauns defending a vault full of gold. Their title mecha is about six feet tall when combined.
** It can also combine with its support mecha to a far more powerful ultimate form!... that stands seven or eight feet tall.
* ''[[Top Ten]]'' features an intelligent talking Doberman Pinscher in a humanoid mechanical suit of armor.
* ''[[Hellboy (Comic Bookcomics)|Hellboy]]'' villain Herman Von Klempt is simply a head in a jar. In the story ''Conqueror Worm'' he gains a robot body with the original biological head concealed in the chest.
** Also [[BPRD]] agent Johan Krauss, who's pretty much a cloud of gas in a pressurized suit.
* In the [[Marvel Comics]]' [[Retcon]] series ''[[Marvel]]: The Lost Generation'', a [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Brain In Aa Jar]] hero called the Eternal Brain was given a robot named Walkabout to provide him with mobility.
* [[The DCU]]'s Mr. Mind (a tiny but very evil Venusian worm) has been seen to use large robots as bodies when he's not taking over humans.
** He's...uh...[[It Got Worse|not]] [[Cosmic Horror|tiny]] [[Eldritch Abomination|anymore]]. Or interested in humans, for that matter.
*** Fortunately for, well... ''everything'', he got reverted. He's still damn dangerous, though.
* The Brain, from [[The DCU]], went from, urm, [[Brain In Aa Jar|being a brain]] to possessing a certain robotic supervillain later on, then [[Squick|professing his love to his French talking Gorilla, Monsieur Mallah]]....
* [[The Beezer (Comic Book)|The Beezer]] (and later [[The Beano]]) had the [[Numskulls]] who controlled a real person, with various skulls in charge of different bodily functions.
** There were a number of [[Expy|similiar strips]] in other [[British Comics]] to The Numskulls with small variations the most common of which were changing the setting to a television rather than a human or having the characters inside the person be Germs. [[The Beano]] currently runs both The Numskulls and The Germs. [http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/variations-on-small-theme.html\]
* Number None, ''[[Nextwave]]'''s second [[Disc One Final Boss]], turned out to be a robot piloted by a baby MODOK
* One strip of ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' has Calvin imagining that this is what's going on inside of him as he trips down the stairs, and the ensuing panic that the tripping is causing among the crew. A later strip uses this as a metaphor for the phenomenon of dreaming, with the crew of Calvin's brain descending into the subconscious to gather random reels of tape and then playing them out of order.
* Early on, the original ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage (Comic Book)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' comic book introduced the Utroms, as species of vaguely brain-like aliens who, after being stranded on earth to to [[Mobile Suit Human]] exoskeletons in order to blend in with the population. Krang from the [[TMNTTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|first cartoon]] was loosely based on this concept, although his own humanoid exoskeleton was decidedly not designed for blending in.
 
 
== Film ==
* ''[[Men in Black (Filmfilm)|Men in Black]]'': The alien prince of the Arquillian Empire who had the Galaxy was piloting a Mobile Suit Human, the better to hide from enemies -- andenemies—and to pet his cat.▼
 
** Subverted with a side of [[Body Horror]] by the villain of the movie -- whilemovie—while he is using a human guise for the majority of the film, referred to as an "Edgar-suit"; it's actually the skin of a farmer he killed in the beginning of the movie. Also could be considered an inversion, in that the "pilot" of the suit is somehow ''much'' bigger than the human he's pretending to be (or the ship he arrived in for that matter).▼
▲* ''[[Men in Black (Film)|Men in Black]]'': The alien prince of the Arquillian Empire who had the Galaxy was piloting a Mobile Suit Human, the better to hide from enemies -- and to pet his cat.
▲** Subverted with a side of [[Body Horror]] by the villain of the movie -- while he is using a human guise for the majority of the film, referred to as an "Edgar-suit"; it's actually the skin of a farmer he killed in the beginning of the movie. Also could be considered an inversion, in that the "pilot" of the suit is somehow ''much'' bigger than the human he's pretending to be (or the ship he arrived in for that matter).
* ''[[Star Kid]]''
* The 2008 Film ''[[Meet Dave]]'', an [[Eddie Murphy]] vehicle, takes this to extremes, featured a suit that looked like... Eddie Murphy. And was captained by... a miniature Eddie Murphy (actually a tiny humanoid alien). And was also a spaceship with about a hundred crewmen, making it a [[Humongous Mecha]] at the same time.
* A truly excellent example in the ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' movie. {{spoiler|The villain turns out to be Scrappy inside one of these.}}
* Got a rare serious turn in ''[[Independence Day]]'' - {{spoiler|the roughly human-sized alien invaders turned out to be biomechanical suits; the real deal were child-sized. They were implied to be physically weaker, but [[Starfish Aliens|by no means disarmingly cute]].}}
** In the novelization, it was explained that they're not ''just'' {{spoiler|biomechanical suits}}... They were literally {{spoiler|ANOTHER''another'' alien species that the [[Big Bad]] conquerers had defeated, found them to be useful, and [[Body Horror|TURNED''turned THEMthem INTOinto THEthe SUITSsuits!'']] Or perhaps they somehow evolved some sort of symbiotic/parasitic relationship.. Psychic revelations like that tend to be unclear.}}
* In a very ''un''-comedic example, the aliens in ''[[Dark City]]'' used corpses as [[Mobile Suit Human|Mobile Suit Humans]].
* Done hilariously in a skit in the [[Woody Allen]] movie ''Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex'', complete with a control center in the brain (infiltrated by a religious "spy" mid-coitus) and paratrooper sperm. Seriously.
* The main characters in ''[[Ratatouille]]'' played with this trope, one is a <s> pilot</s> Chef and the other is an expert at <s> being</s> [[Shaped Like Itself|appearing human]], [[Character Development|at least at the beginning]].
* According to [[All There in the Manual|''The Art of]] [[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story 2'']], the evil Emperor Zurg is actually a miniature alien in a suit of armor.
 
== Literature ==
* ''[[The Mote in GodsGod's Eye]]'' by [[Larry Niven]] and Jerry Pournelle. A human spaceship is overrun by "Brownies" - ferret-like animals that breed like crazy and use advanced technology by instinct. When the humans evacuate the ship, several Brownies try to tag along inside a human space suit. They operate the limbs from inside, and put a severed human head into the transparent helmet for camouflage.▼
 
* In ''[[Bill the Galactic Hero (Literature)|Bill the Galactic Hero]]'', the [[Harry Harrison]] spoof of military sci-fi, [[Eager Young Space Cadet]] "Eager" Beager turns out to be a Chinger spy living in the head of a human-looking robot. The Chinger aliens were presented as giant lizards in the official military propaganda, but they are actually seven inches tall.▼
▲* ''[[The Mote in Gods Eye]]'' by [[Larry Niven]] and Jerry Pournelle. A human spaceship is overrun by "Brownies" - ferret-like animals that breed like crazy and use advanced technology by instinct. When the humans evacuate the ship, several Brownies try to tag along inside a human space suit. They operate the limbs from inside, and put a severed human head into the transparent helmet for camouflage.
▲* In ''[[Bill the Galactic Hero (Literature)|Bill the Galactic Hero]]'', the [[Harry Harrison]] spoof of military sci-fi, [[Space Cadet]] "Eager" Beager turns out to be a Chinger spy living in the head of a human-looking robot. The Chinger aliens were presented as giant lizards in the official military propaganda, but they are actually seven inches tall.
** The inverse (a human concealed inside a robotic alien suit) happens often in [[Harry Harrison]] sci-fi, such as ''Repairman'', ''Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers'', and ''[[The Stainless Steel Rat|The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You]]''.
* And an even earlier version comes from [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' ''[[John Carter of Mars]]'' series; the Kaldanes are head-sized insectile beings who symbiotically live atop the bodies of Rykors, which resemble headless humans, connecting themselves to the Rykors' spinal columns to "drive" them.
* ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' features a subversion. Normally the Yeerks enslave humans by basically turning them into biological versions of this. Eventually an android captures one and places it in his skull, unable to enslave it the Yeerk is trapped in a [[Mobile Suit Human]] with no access to the controls.
* ''Broken Angels'' by [[Richard Morgan]]. A child is seen using the brain-dead body of a cyborg soldier this way; he rides on his back.
* {{spoiler|Skool}} from the novel [[Un Lun Dun]] by [[China Mieville]]. For most of the story, he appears as {{spoiler|a big strong human in a diver's suit}}. Turns out, {{spoiler|the suit is actually full of water and inhabited by a school of fish, hence his name}}. Also, {{spoiler|the mercenary Mr. Cavea}}'s human body turns out to be just a suit. And the examples can go on.
Line 88 ⟶ 81:
 
== Live Action TV ==
 
* The short lived Saturday Morning show ''[[Los Luchadores]]'' had an evil chihuahua who operated a man-sized robot.
* In ''[[Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger]]'', villain Sargain was a small, ant-like alien operating a man-sized armored robot. His ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'' counterpart Zurgane didn't include this and was... uh, we're not sure.
** Sargain would then operate [[Humongous Mecha]], meaning he was piloting a robot to ''[[Meta Mecha|make it pilot another robot.]]''
* Kevin is purported to be one of these in an episode of ''[[The Office]]''.
* The Teselecta, in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S32 E8/E08 Let's Kill Hitler|Let's Kill Hitler]]'', is a shapeshifting humaniform robot piloted by miniaturized humans who traveled back in time to, you guessed it, [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act|kill Hitler]].
** In a ''Meanwhile in the TARDIS'' extra.
{{quote| '''Amy:''' "What kind of an alien (are you)?"<br />
'''Doctor:''' "Well, a nice one; definitely one of the nice ones."<br />
'''Amy:''' "So you're like a-a space...squid? Or something...are you like a tiny little slug in a human suit? ''(Doctor gives her a sour look)'' Is that why you walk like that?" }}
 
== Real Life ==▼
 
* Though not mobile, the Mechanical Turk -- an 18th century "chess-playing automaton", which was secretly operated by a man hidden in its base -- is perhaps the closest [[Real Life]] has come to one of these. Its clockwork arm ''did'' move, via a complex series of levers.▼
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the ''[[Trinity Universe (Tabletop Gamegame)|Trinity]]'' RPG by [[White Wolf]] the alien Qin use these, but most of the time it's subverted, since the suits, though human shaped, are obviously alien. They're just more practical for interacting with humans than their natural small 'furry squid/slug' form. In one particular plot a faction on Qin tried to use 'perfect human replica' suits to infiltrate a radical, racist, Slavic supremacist terror group, but only having a limited understanding of human culture, they used a suit modelled on an ethnic African appearance. Needless to say, [[Hilarity Ensued]].▼
 
▲* In the ''[[Trinity Universe (Tabletop Game)|Trinity]]'' RPG by [[White Wolf]] the alien Qin use these, but most of the time it's subverted, since the suits, though human shaped, are obviously alien. They're just more practical for interacting with humans than their natural small 'furry squid/slug' form. In one particular plot a faction on Qin tried to use 'perfect human replica' suits to infiltrate a radical, racist, Slavic supremacist terror group, but only having a limited understanding of human culture, they used a suit modelled on an ethnic African appearance. Needless to say, [[Hilarity Ensued]].
 
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Earthworm Jim (Videovideo Gamegame)|Earthworm Jim]]'' is a foot-tall worm piloting an indestructible supersuit. A few scenes boot Jim out of his suit and he has to chase it down/endure the boss until he can reclaim it.▼
 
▲* ''[[Earthworm Jim (Video Game)|Earthworm Jim]]'' is a foot-tall worm piloting an indestructible supersuit. A few scenes boot Jim out of his suit and he has to chase it down/endure the boss until he can reclaim it.
* ''[[Captain Commando]]'' has [http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=182ℑ=7 a playable character] that is a super-intelligent baby riding a human-sized, headless robot. During the game, characters and enemies [http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=182ℑ=5 can ride other headless mechas], so you can have a baby riding a mecha that rides a mecha.
* In ''[[Meat Boy (Video Game)|Meat Boy]]'', Dr. Fetus sits in a mobile glass container. Which wears a tuxedo and a monocle and is occasionally able to fly.
 
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Cinema Bums (Webcomic)|Cinema Bums]]'' features a [https://web.archive.org/web/20160318145903/http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=187 strip] where Mr. Potter from ''[[ItsIt's a Wonderful Life]]'' is actually one of these.▼
 
▲* ''[[Cinema Bums (Webcomic)|Cinema Bums]]'' features a [http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=187 strip] where Mr. Potter from ''[[Its a Wonderful Life]]'' is actually one of these.
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' has Bun-Bun build human-sized mechanical costumes for himself and Kiki (a rabbit and ferret, respectively) so they can masquerade as Riff and Torg on Halloween and steal candy from Trick-or-treaters.
** Similarly, Frog's Frech (Frog-Mech), which parodies [[Star Wars|Darth Vader]].
* ''[[Mechagical Girl Lisa ANTA.N.T.]]'' takes this to an interesting conclusion, as the heroine's Powered Armor was supposed to be a Humongous Mecha for its inventors.
* Sam Starfall of ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'' is a boneless squid-like creature occupying a humanoid suit that provides an exoskeleton to allow him to keep a humanoid form for interacting with a human world, walk on dry land, and provide him with [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1000/fv00907.htm a breathable atmosphere]. As a bonus, the suit protects him from being added to the dinner menu of just about every terrestrial animal he encounters. And from what he firmly believes to be a human nurturing instinct (when they see his true form, they regurgitate their last meal.)
** It's necessary not only because of how Sam's ''looks''. He also [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2200/fc02109.htm sweats ammonia].
* In ''[[Its Walky]]'', {{spoiler|Alan}} is revealed to be an alien in such a suit.
Line 125 ⟶ 110:
* {{spoiler|Sin}} from ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]'', is one of these.
* A few [[Our Angels Are Different|angels]] from [[Blip]] used these near the beginning.
* Occasionally used by smaller species in ''[[Twenty First21st Century Fox (Webcomicwebcomic)|21st Century Fox]]'', though mostly in [http://techfox.comicgenesis.com/d/20040105.html emergency situations]
* In ''[[PvP (Webcomicwebcomic)|PvP]]'', Scratch Fury turns the Ottobot into one of these. After learning to use it to (somewhat) convincingly pass himself as a human, he tries uses it to try to take over the Mayor's office. [[Reality Ensues|He's immediately thrown in jail]], forcing him to leave the empty suit behind.
 
== Web Original ==
 
* Doctor Infanto, a supervillain active in the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' is a super-intelligent infant who interacts with adults while wearing a "grown-up suit" that allows him the full range of motion that his still-underdeveloped body makes difficult. Imagine a baby's head on [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]]'s body and you have the right idea.
* In the [[Whateley Universe]], Rack fits this trope. He looks pretty much like a normal-sized guy in power armor. But he's really a small dwarf in [[Mobile Suit Human]] hardware that he built. He operates it using hand controls and telekinesis.
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Ben 10: (Animation)|BenAlien 10Force]] Alien Force'' has Volcanus. Deprived of his [[Powered Armor]], he turns out to be only 2 feet high, and half of that is his head.▼
 
▲* ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben 10]] Alien Force'' has Volcanus. Deprived of his [[Powered Armor]], he turns out to be only 2 feet high, and half of that is his head.
** There's also {{spoiler|the creator of the Onmitrix, who turns out to be an older version of Ben's Grey Matter alien.}}
* Technically, Grizzle from ''[[Care Bears]]: Adventures in Care-a-Lot''. He wears a suit that makes him appear to be large and intimidating, but in reality he's slightly smaller than [[Care Bears|the Care Bears.]]
* An episode of ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Animationanimation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' had Gadget make a matador machine out of random junk so the team could bullfight El Emenopeo.
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' enemy Skulker is a tiny ghost about the size of a gerbil, who wears a suit of armor.
* Magnanimous from ''[[Megas XLR]]'' would have been this, except he is first introduced as small, and then sticks himself into a robot body afterwards.
* Brain's human outfit from ''[[Pinky and The Brain (Animation)|Pinky and The Brain]]'' is a mechanical human body topped off by Brain's own head. He claimed his tiny head and large ears were the result of a "medical condition". On another occasion, he stated outright, "[[Sarcastic Confession|Actually, I'm a laboratory mouse in the advanced stages of a plot to take over the world.]]"
** One episode reveals <s> Bill Gates</s> [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo|Gill Bates]] to be a suit piloted by Brain's archrival Snowball the Hamster.
* In the ''[[Men in Black (Animationanimation)|Men in Black]]'' cartoon series, there were many Arquillians living on Earth, and their suits were [[Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids|very powerful compared to humans.]] In one episode, another similarly-sized race, the Fmek, ran around body-jacking the pacifist Arquillians to use their suits against them.
** It goes even further with Microcephalopoids, aliens so small that they use Mobile Suit ''Arquillians'' to ''[[Meta Mecha|pilot]]'' Mobile Suit Humans.
* Roach Coach, from ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'': a one-off villain who despises humanity and has a device that let him control roaches. He appears at first to be an ordinary man (with antennae), but he turns out to be a roach in a robot human suit.
* In one episode of ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]'', baby Stewie climbs into a robo-Peter suit, and ''everyone'' [[Wig, Dress, Accent|mistakes him for Peter]]. Seeing Stewie emerge from the robot's stomach causes the neighbor to ''freak out''. (Although he ''did'' have a device that not only made his voice sound like Peter's but translated his words into Peter's speech patterns.)
* The second ''[[TMNTTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' brought the Utroms (from the original books--seebooks—see above). An Utrom named Ch'rell, in particular, was one of the series' main antagonists, and was almost always in one of these.
* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' had the (ironically named) Gargantuns who were six inches tall. Dissenting Gargantuns would often times use normal sized suits to blend in and attack their targets. (One such case featured framing Buzz Lightyear by wearing one of these suits and attempting to kill the Galactic President who was signing an important treaty. They then attempted a Xanatos Gambit by demonstrating a suit that looked like the President and pretending to use it to derail the peace treaty, all to get the real Buzz to shoot the real President.)
* A gag in the title sequence of ''[[Bounty Hamster]]'' shows Cassie trying to hire a bounty hunter, and selecting a hulking figure in powered armour - which immediately falls apart, revealing the title character. (The armour never appears or gets a mention during the actual episodes.)
Line 154 ⟶ 137:
** In the Japanese continuation series Transformers Masterforce, the Pretenders are shown to basically be improved Micromasters: they are only human sized.
** Considering the size of the Transformers from the Beastwars, it isn't unlikely that this is prelude to the "Great Upgrade" that allowed them to don more energy efficient, human-sized bodies.
* The [[One -Episode Wonder]] "Troy Ride" is based on this trope.
* The recurring villain for ''[[Three Two One3-2-1 Penguins!|3-2-1 Penguins]]'' is Baron Von Cavitus, in actuality a mechanical suit driven by a hamster named Burt.
* One episode of ''[[Bucky O'Hare and The Toad Wars (Comic Book)|Bucky O Hare and Thethe Toad Wars]]'' features one of these played as [[The Mole]]. Or technically, {{spoiler|the walrus, or the chairman}}
* On ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]'', Plankton will sometimes dress up in robot contraptions that make him equally big as the rest of the cast. Not exactly ''human'', though. Generic fish or Mr. Krabs himself are his favourites.
* ''[[The Amazing Screw-On Head]]'' by [[Hellboy (Comic Bookcomics)|Hellboy]]'s creator Mike Mignola is a [[Steampunk]] [[Alternate Universe]] where the title character is, for reasons unexplained, a head with a threaded bolt for a neck that can screw into various robot bodies, mainly humanoid.
* ''[[Adventures of the Gummi Bears]]''- in one episode, one of the Gummis used a [[Clock Punk]] human-sized suit of armor to masquerade as a human. It did well for a while, but then the limbs started coming off...
* ''[[The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs]]'' had Humanesks, which pretended to be fat humans. They had spy dogs as pilots.
* Right on the line between this and [[Humongous Mecha]], in ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' Episode XVI, Jack & the Smackback (aka the Dome of [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Doom]]), Jack fights The Aqualizer, which, while quite large, we discover after Jack lays the smackdown on it is controlled by a rather tiny sea slug looking critter.
* One episode of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' showed Mr. Flynn-Fletcher's body being revealed to be a suit piloted by Perry the platypus at one point in said episode. Another had an alien in a Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher suit so he could learn about the habits of Earthling mothers while Phineas and Ferb repaired his spaceship.
* One episode of ''[[Sealab 2021]]'' sees most of the crew of the eponymous research station's bodies turned into these for mice, while the crew themselves have their brains put into giant robots. It is made more amusing by the fact that the whole cycle was started because the captain of the station had scandalous photos of the science officer engaged in sexual acts with a fat intern, which said captain was threatening to show to said science officer's girlfriend...and the science officer spent 90% of the episode drunk.
 
▲== Real Life ==
▲* Though not mobile, the Mechanical Turk -- anTurk—an 18th century "chess-playing automaton", which was secretly operated by a man hidden in its base -- isbase—is perhaps the closest [[Real Life]] has come to one of these. Its clockwork arm ''did'' move, via a complex series of levers.
 
{{reflist}}
Line 172 ⟶ 158:
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:DoppelgangerDoppelgänger]]
[[Category:Cartoon Characters]]
[[Category:Mobile Suit Human{{PAGENAME}}]]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/863078...1872811"