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Rubber Forehead Aliens: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:Worf2375.jpg|link=Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|frame|This is the forehead that defeated countless enemies and charmed numerous women. [[The Worf Effect|But also ended up getting smacked down a lot]].]]
{{quote|''I'd buy a big prosthetic forehead''
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The next step past '''Rubber Forehead Aliens''' (catlike or buglike or lizardlike aliens that can still sit in chairs and hold weapons) is [[Humanoid Aliens]], possibly overlapping with [[Intelligent Gerbil]]s. Contrast with [[Starfish Aliens]].
{{noreallife|at least, not until we actually meet aliens.}}
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* In UK advertising, the Tefal Eggheads. Later parodied by Ant
== Anime and Manga ==
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* Lampshaded in some Space Agent [[Valerian]] book. There are quite a few non-human aliens but also a multitude of practically humans, to the point where it's mentioned that "one head, two hands, two feet, two eyes, could be anyone".
▲== Films -- Live-Action ==
* The movie ''[[This Island Earth]]'''s aliens were similar to humans except for huge foreheads and white hair. The actors literally wore rubber foreheads.
** [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|...but I'm not an alien!]]
* In ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'', the character of Dr. Lazarus from the [[Show Within
** The Thermians themselves are a subversion of this: on first appearance, they look like short-ish humans who have Vulcans for hair stylists. However, it turns out it's just an illusion
* The movie ''[[Trail of the Screaming Forehead]]'' takes this to the logical extreme. The aliens ''are'' foreheads that attach themselves to humans. The movie is pure, high quality B grade.
* ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' has a variety of particularly tacky examples. The alien opera-singer sort of looked like a hybrid between an [[Mass Effect|Asari]], a [[Star Wars|Twi'lek]] and a [[Alien (franchise)|Xenomorph]].
* The ''[[Battlefield Earth (film)|Battlefield Earth]]'' film featured the Psychlos, whose main distinguishing features were that they were big, had eyebrows that joined their hair, high foreheads, and dreadlocks.
== Literature ==
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* A large number of [[The Culture]] alien species are near human. It was explained as a convergent evolution thing.
* C. J. Cherryh's series [[Foreigner]] deals with the deceptively humanoid alien race known as the Atevi. While they look similar to us, they think entirely different then Humans.
== Live-Action TV ==
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** The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Chase" provides a tidy explanation (part [[Retcon]], part [[Lampshade Hanging]]) for the prevalence of Rubber Forehead Aliens in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' universe. All the main races in the universe were created from "seeds" placed in their respective worlds' primordial oceans by an even more ancient humanoid race.
** There's another [[Lampshade Hanging]] when the Bajoran Ro Laren, who has something of a chip on her shoulder, refers to herself as "the token bumpy-forehead".
** Parodied [https://web.archive.org/web/20100223083833/http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32439 in this article] from ''[[The Onion]]''.
** Of course, Klingons only gained their rubber foreheads when the movies' increased budget permitted it. Prior to the [[Retcon]], they were "Entire Bottle of Bronzer and Upswept Eyebrows" Aliens. In fact, until attention was called to it in ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'', the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] was the official explanation: in-universe, they weren't considered to look exactly like humans. There just wasn't the budget to portray them as they actually looked. (There's actually an onscreen reference, sort of: a Klingon posing as a human was said to have been ''surgically altered'' to appear human (if we take what's onscreen at face value, it wouldn't take surgery, just a haircut).
** The [[Star Trek (film)|2009 movie]] seems to be going out of its way to give us a new variation with the large eyed aliens.
*** It also makes the Romulans ''worse'' than the Klingons in the "where'd the foreheads come from?" department. They went from [[Star Trek: Enterprise|having ridges]] to [[Star Trek: The Original Series|to not having them]] to [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|having them again]] to [[Star Trek (film)|having lost them again]]. [[Continuity Snarl|What the HELL?]] Also, keep in mind that while Klingons' gaining ridges after TOS has been referenced, and explained much later, there has never been any onscreen acknowledgment of the changes in Romulans.
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* Played straight in '' [[Hyperdrive]]''.
* Some of the aliens in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' fit in this category. According to ''The Writer's Tale'', the aliens that were to become the [[Doctor Who/Recap/S30/E17 E18 The End of Time|Vinvocci]] were called the [[Lampshade Hanging|Prostheticons]] in the rough draft.
== Tabletop Games ==
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* ''[[Teenagers From Outer Space]]'' divides aliens into Near Humans, Not Very Near Humans, and [[Starfish Aliens|Real Weirdies]].
== Video Games ==
* The Split race in the ''[[X (video game)|X]]-Universe'' games are tall human-like aliens with very rough looking narrow faces, and odd colored skin.
* The dominant race in the ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' series are basically humans with excessively long pointy ears.
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* Miriam in ''[[Shining Force]] Feather'' might be a living [[Lampshade Hanging]]. She meets our protagonists and is immediately amazed, as she hasn't ever seen a human before. Never mind that Miriam is an elf, and that the only difference between her and Jin are her pointy ears, slanted eyes, and skinnier build. One scene later, she meets Alfin and is equally wowed, as she's never seen a Core Unit before, despite that Core Units are... [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]]. Meanwhile, she meets all the varieties of [[Petting Zoo People]] with no more than [[Genki Girl|chipper enthusiasm]].
== Web Comics ==
* [[Subverted]] in ''[[Freefall]]'': Sam Starfall ''looks'' humanoid, but it's really a suit to let him operate in an Earth-like environment. We don't get to see his true appearance, but it involves tentacles, and humans apparently find it disgusting.
* The [[All Trolls Are Different|trolls]] in ''[[Homestuck]]'' make reference to a ''lot'' of [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] endemic to their species, like "chitinous windholes", "auricular sponge clots", "porous cranial plates", and various colors of blood, but outwardly just look like grey-skinned humans with [[Eyes of Gold|yellow-orange eyes]], horns, and fangs.
== Web Originals ==
* The Pelkons from the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' are humanoid, and have the right number of fingers and toes and such, but their eyes are pure milk-white, their hair is thicker and more brush-like, and they have spots like a leopard. on their forehead that run down the back of their necks and across their shoulders.
* In the [[Homestar Runner]] episode "buried", Strong Bad unearths what he believes to be an alien artifact. He states that the earth was colonized by extraterrestrials, and that it explains "why all beings look the same except for slight differences of our foreheads!"
== Western Animation ==
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{{reflist}}
{{Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Bizarre Alien Biology]]
[[Category:Alien Tropes]]
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[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]
[[Category:Personal Appearance Tropes]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
▲{{Template:Alien Continuum}}
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