Pandaing to the Audience

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
AAAAAAWWWWWWWW!
"I bring PANDAMONIUM!"
—Pandaren Brewmaster, Warcraft III

Proof that not everything is worse with bears. Given the iconic status of pandas, it's not surprising that they turn up a lot in media, especially while looking cute.

As a side note, until very recently, pandas weren't even considered to be bears. Zoologists were debating whether they (the pandas) were more closely related to bears or raccoons up until DNA stepped in to settle the question—just in the first decade of the 21st century. But even today, some people will still incorrectly call someone out if they refer to pandas as bears.

Finally, just in case you're Too Dumb to Live, cute as they are...do not try to cuddle a real life panda. Seriously. Unless you're Shaq. Pandas are MEAN motherfuckers. VERY MEAN motherfuckers.

This could've been named "Everything's Better With Pandas", but the pun was too obvious.

Yet Another Baby Panda can be a sub-trope.

Examples of Pandaing to the Audience include:

Advertising

You mess with the pandas - we bust your chopsticks!

    • Same thing with Wanchai Ferry
  • Jing Jing, the panda is one the mascots for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
  • Now-defunct Toys-R-Us competitor Child World used Peter Panda, a panda dressed in blue overalls, as its mascot from around 1982 until its demise in 1991.
  • Panda Energy International.
  • One advert for the directory enquiry service 118 247 has a panda driving a London black cab. No explanation given.
  • Genki Gang sells felt Panda-ear hats.
  • The skateboard company Enjoi uses lots of pandas, although they're famously often humping. Or indulging in S&M.
  • Vinnie , the mascot for Fox's "bisquits".
  • Don't say no to Panda. Seriously. This panda is a dick.
  • Pandamania, a kit for a vacation bible school class. They have both the regular and red variety as characters.
  • Hello Panda

Anime and Manga

  • Subversion: Ranma ½‍'‍s Genma Saotome, who frequently claims to be just a big cute panda, but really is a fat old human scam artist cursed to become a panda.
  • Panda Kopanda
  • Panda Z Robot Panda TV Tropes Made of Win Archive!
  • In Azumanga Daioh, Osaka wonders, "Concernin' pandas... is it black spots on white, or is it white spots on a black background?"
  • May Chang from Fullmetal Alchemist has a pet midget panda (Shao May) which is frequently mistaken for an oddly-colored cat.
    • Said panda nearly bit off Yoki's arm at the elbow after he tried to steal from May Chang. Keep in mind that Shao May is a very small panda.
  • Panda, while he is a hamster, looks like his namesake in Hamtaro.
  • Gantz has an alien-hunting baby panda named Hoi Hoi.
    • Not only does he function as the Team Pet after losing the Butter Dog, the thing proves that, although cute, it can still kick serious ass, gaining 40 points before disappearing somewhere.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Saejima is illegally importing giant pandas into Japan. Saejima tries to convince Onizuka that the pandas are really advanced robot toys.
  • China and Hong Kong from Axis Powers Hetalia definitely love their panda companions.
  • In Excel Saga, Excel and Hyatt must escort the T10000, a robotic bomb designed to go off in downtown F-City. Hyatt suggests the robot is too obvious, so they end up disguising it as a panda. It works the wrong way, since it attracts more people.
  • In One Piece there is Pandaman - a recurring character inserted into backgrounds. And he is Badass [dead link].
  • Pandaikon from Nerima Daikon Brothers is not only the mascot of the team and occasional mastermind behind the day being saved - he is also the object of desire of no less than two characters of a recurring cast of five.
  • Pandalian is an anime chock-full of pandas.
  • In Yakitate!! Japan, Mokoyama disguised himself as a panda for his second rematch with Azuma. He lost to Azuma, but he became a real panda.
  • Subverted in Naruto. While Pain has a panda summon, most woundn't consider it even remotely cute, with several large piercings in it, with Rinnegan eyes, and it's frozen snarl showing it's triangular, saw-like teeth.

Comic Books

  • Panda Khan, which was about a bunch of anthro Chinese pandas. The bad guy was the Lord of Death, who for some reason was the only human-looking character.
  • Usagi Yojimbo has Lord Noriyuki, a child-lord who is protected by Usagi's friend and comrade Tomoe Ame.

Film

Tugg Speedman: I killed one, Rick... the thing I love most in the world.
Rick Peck: A hooker. Oh Jesus, you killed a hooker!
Tugg: No, a panda!
Rick: Amanda? That's probably not even her real name.

    • The Tropic Thunder example is more accurately a subversion, since Tugg's reason for killing the panda is that it is ferociously attacking him and he is afraid of it. In fact, it's not even revealed that this fierce animal is a panda until after it's been killed.
  • In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the first panda birth in the San Diego Zoo is Serious Business.
  • Vince McCain from Fierce Creatures imported a (robot) panda to the zoo. It is later seen with an "out of order" sign.
    • But again, we're reminded that real life pandas can be quite aggressive. When Vince walked into the Panda pen for the first time, the staff members were all terrified because they thought the panda was real and about to attack.
  • Mushu and Cri-Kee actually threatened Chi Fu with a bunraku-puppet mounted on top of a panda in one scene from Mulan.

Mushu (inside the puppet) "You've never seen a black-and-white before?!"

Literature

  • The title of Lynne Truss' book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, is a reference to a joke on poor punctuation: A panda walks into a cafe and orders a sandwich. After the panda has eaten his meal, he takes out a gun and shoots several holes in the ceiling. As the panda begins to leave, the waiter cries out, "What was that for?" in regard to the shootings. The panda tosses a wildlife guide to the waiter. The waiter reads the guide, and it says, "Panda. Black-and-white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
  • The Berenstain Bears New Neighbors deals with new neighbors, specifically Pandas. Fantastic Racism becomes this to Papa Bear while the others are okay with them.
  • The A to Z Mysteries series has The Panda Puzzle, in which the three protagonists search for a missing baby panda bear.

Live-Action TV

  • The Sooty Show has a female panda puppet called Soo.
  • On Thirty Rock, Jack Donaghy shows Liz Lemon a baby sneezing panda, before telling her to fire 10% of her staff.
  • Purple Panda in Mister Rogers Neighborhood
  • The Colbert Report has brought up pandas on a number of occasions. Stephen has clarified that the panda is a bear (although the red panda isn't) and, as such, holds full Godless Killing Machine status.
    • Although it was interesting to watch him view a video on baby pandas and keep having to remind himself that the awesome cuteness was just a trick.
  • Similarly, Jon Stewart has mentioned pandas more than once. On one occasion after Thanksgiving, he notes that Barack Obama's Thanksgiving address received far fewer Youtube hits than a video of baby pandas sleeping.

Jon And to answer your next question, no, we cannot just watch that for the rest of the show.

Music

  • The song "The pandas must die" by Corky and the Juice Pigs is built on the shock value of contradicting this trope.

Newspaper Comics

  • The Italian strips A Panda Piace... (Panda Likes...). The answer is a lot of silly things.

Radio

Video Games

  • Tekken has a female panda character, named Panda.
  • The Pandaren in Warcraft III. Rumor had it, for quite some time, that they didn't appear in WoW due to sensibilities and marketing the game in China, in that China's national animal was originally depicted in the style of a Samurai, which is Japanese. This was officially put to rest by their announcement as a playable race in the fourth Expansion Pack: Mists of Pandaria.
    • And in the fangame Defense of the Ancients, there are two heroes based on the above Pandaren race: Mangix (Brewmaster) and Raijin Thunderkegg (Storm Spirit). They get their less-Panda models when DoTA 2 is released.
  • Pandas are notably absent in Guild Wars (in particular, the Far East Factions campaign) due to Chinese laws. There are a couple pandas in the game, but they have Gameplay Ally Immortality; pandas also exist as minipets.
  • Lao Jiu, a magical mini-panda, is Litchi Faye-Ling's mascot, pet, and hairclip in BlazBlue. Cute enough to distract one opponent, and fond of spending time in Litchi's Secret Compartment.
  • Spinda is the Pokémon variant of this.
    • Interestingly, though they are shaped more like giant pandas, their coloration is more akin to that of the raccoon-like red panda.
  • Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard has a blue-eyed panda as one of the four options for the Beast class. (The other choices being a brown bear, a Big Badass Wolf, and a sabertoothed white tiger... which are all functionally the same.)
  • Wii Fit features a game where you have to shift your body weight to head footballs. You to avoid flying boots- and panda costume heads.
  • In Digimon World DS, Pandamon (Monzaemon painted to look like a panda) is the only digimon in the game that you encounter at the end of a level that you WILL NOT FIGHT. EVER. Rather, he asks you some questions about Digimon that are insultingly easy to see if you're worthy of helping him with the question that perplexes him. Apparently, he couldn't get a multiple choice question, even though there are only two possible answers.
  • The Monster Rancher series has Mewnda, who is a hybrid of a Mew and a Pancho monster. It looks like a stuffed panda toy. Initially this seems kind of weird—Mew is a cat, and Pancho is a cute bug living in a giant pumpkin—but makes sense as a pun. Panda, Pancho.
  • Pankichi, the mascot character in Getter Love!! "Panda Love Unit" is the name of the group of girls involved in the game (not including Reika, of course). The game is set in a town called Panda Town (complete with Panda Burger, Panda Park, Panda Game Corner, etc.), Ayumi keeps a Pankichi doll at home, Reika gives you a Pankichi doll as a gift, and panda angels or devils appear when certain item cards are used or after a girl accepts or rejects an "I love you". Oh, and there's also a Chinese exchange student as one of the girls, and a Chinese restaurant on the map. China, native country of pandas, not likely a coincidence.
  • The French MMORPGs Dofus and Wakfu have the Pandawa class, a race of anthro pandas. Anthro Ninja Pandas that attack by getting drunk and setting parts of their body on fire.
  • Chub Pan is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a chub panda.
  • Bamboo Pandamonium from Mega Man X8 chucks grenades and launches bamboo rockets (yes, really). You don't want him to hug you, it does massive damage.
  • Overlord II has pandas, who are definitely not nice. Harm the bamboo the eat and you have several tons of angry panda rushing to rip you to pieces. Worst part? If you want to advance you must break down bamboo blocking your way.
  • The King of All Cosmos would "like to become an adorable panda in everyone's hearts and minds" in Katamari Damacy.

Web Comics

  • In a Running Gag in Pv P, Brent is mauled by The Office Panda
    • ... who also seems to be the mascot of a coffee chain: Panda Espresso
  • Radioactive Panda a giant panda can be seen wearing goggles and fixing machinery, miniature versions of which are used to power devices.
  • Twisted Kaiju Theater once featured a Panda Z figure as Emo Panda, who also happened to pilot a panda mech. Though in a subversion, Emo Panda was really more whiney than cute.
  • The Boy has a dream about pandas in this Scary Go Round-strip. But it seems that he preferred the dream about the perpetual motion machine, he had before.

Web Originals

  • Google's autonomous problem-solving AI, CADIE, examined the whole internet and designed a personal site from mean variables. It was brightly coloured and flashed, and full of pictures of pandas.
    • Since CADIE has been revealed to be an April Fools' hoax, the page design must be a Google programmer's comment on this trope.
  • Horribly, horribly subverted by Snoofles in Forbiden Fruit the Tempation of Edward Cullen
  • Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series has one baby panda in the cast. It plays card-games and has an Egyptian Pharaoh living in it's body... And is not actually a panda at all, but still, the trope's invoked.
  • The mascot for web-only Puzzles & Answers Magazine. Why? Well, the magazine goes by P&A from which its web address derives.
  • An anti-virus software called... Panda Security. It's actually pretty good.
  • Homestar Runner Pan-Pan, the 20XD6 version of Pom Pom.
  • Inverted in Weebl's song, 'Cucumbers', where pandas are the cucumbers' enemy. They attack them with their feet.
  • Sneezing Panda

Western Animation

Real Life

  • Panda diplomacy
  • The British police used to have patrol cars called pandas, logically enough because they were blue and white. Yeah, blue. Don't ask me.
    • When police cars were introduced they were black and white or black and blue. The former inspired the nickname and it stuck, even in areas which used blue ones.
    • The Mexican Federal Road Police cars are appropriately black and white, and called pandas as well.
  • If you wish to distract a six-year-old and have it hug and kiss your computer ('cause even computers need cuddles sometimes), show it this page.
  • Apparently the Chinese government didn't think that the live news coverage of the eclipse of 22 July 2009 was complete without pandas. See it all here.
  • Little Tai Shan the panda, now apparently Butterstick, from the Washington D.C. zoo. The idea behind the name is that the little panda was described as "the size of a stick of butter" when he was born; instantly, DC area bloggers struck up a campaign to name him Butterstick. The zookeepers went with Tai Shan instead, but Butterstick remains a popular nickname, even used in official materials.
  • Wang Wang and Funi. Need I say more.
  • A bullion coin is a type of coin made from a precious metal like gold or silver, used as a form of making small investments in that metal, and which sell for a price close to the spot price of the metal (and a markup for the minter or dealer to make a profit). Most of these coins have fairly boring, traditional designs, and they repeat the same design every year. China's bullion coins, however, have a different panda design on them each year, which has led to them being valued as collection items and thus commanding a higher premium over the value of the metal, compared to plainer bullion coins.
  • In January 2010, Mozilla Firefox started a website with live webcams on a pair of red panda[2] cubs, in support of protecting them.
  • There's a shop in London that sells basically nothing but panda toys and panda themed items.
  1. ↑ They're training trivia contests to do anything nowadays. Weird universe...
  2. ↑ which are not technically pandas
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