Snowlems: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:invadersfromtheiceworld.jpg|frame|The Magic Snowman. [[This Is Your Premise on Drugs|On Acid]].]]

 

{{quote|''"By the power invested in me by the mighty and awful snow demons, I command you to come to life! LIVE! LIVE! LIVVVE!"''|'''Calvin''', ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]''. ([[Be Careful What You Wish For|It doesn't end well]].)}}

 

See also [[Improvised Golems]].

{{examples}}

* ''Lipton's'' corporation ran a series of ads for its iced tea products, in which an animate snowman skeleton wanders into a convenience store in the dead of summer, downs a bottle of iced tea, and recrystalizes into a decidely sinister-looking snowman. Who then steals a carrot and stalks-off.

* Conversely, there was an oft-repeated ad for Campbell's soup which began with a small snowman walking inside a house to get a bowl of soup, and melting away as the soup warms it up... revealing it was really a boy underneath.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131217083340/http://www.irn-bru.co.uk/advert/snowman.html Irn Bru] parody of the flight sequence from [[The Snowman]] (see Western Animation).

 

* One episode of ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' from the third season had crazy snowmen.

* Chilly from the ''[[Kirby]]'' [[Kirby: Right Back at Ya!|anime]] falls under this trope. Gamewise, it's debatable.

** In his introduction to the story, [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|Principal]] [[Cloudcuckoolander|Kuno]] disguised himself [[Non Sequitur Scene|as a living, Engrish-speaking snowman for some unfathomable reason]] and went around trying to trim his students' hair.

 

* ''The Snowman'' (see Western Animation) was originally a wordless graphic novel by [[Raymond Briggs]].

* The image at the top of the page comes from an issue of ''Strange Adventures'' called "[[media:invadersfromtheiceworldful.jpg|Invaders from the Ice World]]", which is a brain-breaking example of [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]?

* In an issue of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage|Tales of the TMNT]]'', the turtles, Splinter, Casey, April, and Shadow have their Christmas ruined by a snowlem sent by a Foot operative.

 

* ''[[Jack Frost (1997 film)|Jack Frost 1997]]'' had a serial killer become transformed into a snowman due to [[You Fail Biology Forever|ribonucleic acid]]. In the film, he ''rapes'' a woman in the shower ''with a carrot''.

** This was followed by ''Jack Frost 2: [[Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie|Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman]]'', a more humorous film, where Jack Frost is eventually defeated by ''a banana''.

* One of the creatures listed on the monster board in ''[[The Cabin in the Woods]]'' is "Snowman".

 

* Mr. Snow in the ''[[Mr. Men]]'' books was created by [[Santa Claus]] as an assistant.

* In [[Discworld]], the Ice Giants often mentioned to be at war with the gods have eyes of coal and snowmen are stated to be idols built by human racial memory.

* One ''[[Goosebumps]]'' novel centered around an evil snowman who was really a [[Sealed Evil in a Can|monster trapped in that form by a witch.]] A group of regular snowmen are later animated to help combat the monster when it is freed.

 

* Fozzie builds a snowman who comes to life in ''[[A Muppet Family Christmas]]''. They're briefly a double act, but the snowman retreats outside due to heat and heckling.

** ''[[It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie]]'' featured Joe Snow (voiced by Mel Brooks), who was a parody of Sam the Snowman from ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]''. He claimed to be the narrator, but the camera crew said otherwise.

* The ''[[Pee-Wee's Playhouse]] Christmas Special'' featured an interesting case: Pee-wee builds a regular snowman, and Cowboy Curtis suggests that it'll come to life if they stare at it long enough. And it does, exclaiming, "Why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer!"

 

* "Frosty the Snowman" actually started out as a song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and recorded by Gene Autry in 1950.

 

* This page can't be complete without mentioning the ''[[Calvin and Hobbes|Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons!]]'' Calvin builds a snowman and decides to try to bring it to life. It works, and promptly starts trying to kill him. It then proceeds to start packing more snow onto itself, give itself extra arms and heads, and start making more. By the end of the story, there are about 17 of the things on his lawn and his parents are once again considering sending him to a therapist. {{spoiler|He finally defeats them by [[Kill It with Water|spraying them with the hose]], causing them to freeze solid.}}

* Decades before Calvin, Charlie Brown - in the old ''[[Peanuts]]'' strip [https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts-begins/2019/12/31?ct=v&cti=2129226 seen here] - fools Patty into thinking a snowman is chasing him.

* ''The Strange Adventures of Frappe, the Snowman, and His Papa'' features a mischievous yet friendly living snowman.

 

* The high-level ''Simulacrum'' spell in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] creates a low-power duplicate of a living being out of snow or ice. That's right, they're deranged mutant killer monster snowlems... and they ''walk among you!''

** Eve worse is the ''Ice Assassin'' spell, a Version III upgrade to the above. While a simulacrum could theoretically be put to benign use, an ice assassin's entire purpose is to kill whoever it's based on.

* The Ice Giants of Narandu in ''[[Talislanta]]'' are at very least strongly ''implied'' to be Snowlems (of the third variety).

 

* [[Cirque Du Soleil]]'s ''Wintuk'' show has a bunch of ten-foot ice golem-esque things come to life and attack the heroes. The golems are puppets, of course.

 

== Toys ==

* In 2007, [[Spawn]] creator Todd McFarlane released [http://www.oafe.net/yo/mcmon5snow.php a Version III Snowlem] in Series 5 of his company's "Monsters" toyline.

 

* ''[[Bible Buffet]]'' featured killer snowmen as one of the villains. Because that was totally predicted in the Bible.

** Killer snowmen [[The Angry Video Game Nerd|whose heads you can fucking blow off]]!

* You play a heroic snowlem in [[The Caverns of Hammerfest]]

* The [[Time Splitters]] series featured a character named the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Snowman]], who rides on a magic rug instead of running on legs. According to its [[All There in the Manual|gallery description]], it was brought to life by a child's [[Be Careful What You Wish For|wish]], who then proceeded to traverse time and space in search of death and glory.<ref>...and maybe some legs, too</ref>

 

== Web Animation ==

* [[Homestar Runner|Blue Laser Commander]] announces his intention of making super-soldiers out of snow ("They're called 'Super-Snowldiers,' thank you very much!") as soon as he can find some carrots.

 

* Either subverted or justified in ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'': Shadehawk is attacked by one of these while on patrol after heavy snow, but it turns out to be a giant robot who was caught in the blizzard.

* Christi from ''[[The Princess Planet]]'' creates a living Snowman because using dead body parts instead is [https://web.archive.org/web/20080517132129/http://www.theprincessplanet.com/p1.html too hard and gross.]

* ''[[VG Cats]]'' [[Nightmare Fuel|hilariously]] subverts the tale of [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=275 Frosty].

* A side story in ''[[Jack (webcomic)|Jack]]'' features the characters attending the premiere of [[Stylistic Suck|the film]] ''[http://www.pholph.com/whole_arc_viewer.php?id=5&sid=1508 "Frigid McThunderbones"]''. A [[Shout-Out]] to the first ''Jack Frost'' is quick to be made once the characters realize the plot of the movie.

* The heroes of ''[[Keychain of Creation]]'' encounter one [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0256.html in this filler strip].

* Mr Nutty of ''[[Pokey the Penguin]]''.

* ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]:'' Molly built a [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20110301.html steam-powered snowman.] He melted, for obvious reasons.

 

* The [[Whateley Universe]] story "There's an Angel in Father John's Basement" plays with this: The third-rate mystic villain trio after the power of the titular 'Angel' find a magical tome which will let them unleash an evil so powerful that all the major superheroes in New York will have to fight it. To do this, they build themselves an army of evil Santas and mobile, energy-absorbing snowmen. The prophecy comes true when the individual snowmen eventually combine into ''[[Norse Mythology|Ymir]]'' in the middle of New York...

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edavGZ4UoIU Freaky the Scary Snowman], a prank done by some folks in Rhode Island, draws some inspiration from this.

 

* The original ''[[Frosty the Snowman]]'' animated television [[Christmas Special]] was aired on December 7, 1969. What followed were several [[Sequelitis|increasingly bad sequels]]: ''Frosty's Winter Wonderland'' in 1976, ''Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July'' in 1979, and ''Frosty Returns'' in 1992.

* They were all follow-ups to ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]'', which was narrated by Sam the Snowman, a Version I snowlem [[Ink Suit Actor|patterned after]] Burl Ives.

* A freezing villain makes version III snowlems in an episode of ''[[Johnny Test]]''.

* The [[Monster of the Week]] in an episode of ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]''. As the last of the snowmen, his nefarious scheme is to extract the anti-melting gene from humans and implant it into himself, allowing him to outlive the inevitable warming of the earth. Also he speaks with a Scottish accent. Take from that what you will.

** He shows up in a later episode and freezes Courage's house and owners to make a cozy home for himself. Courage retaliates by {{spoiler|going to the North Pole, sewing up the hole in the ozone layer, and making it cold enough to revive the last snowman's snowfriends.}}

* The snow soldiers from the three part [[Christmas Special]] of ''[[Bump in the Night]]''

* Features in the ''[[Adventure Time]]'' episode "Thank You"; it's not exactly any of the above-mentioned types, being somewhere between types one and three, but not malevolent. The episode is about a chance meeting it has with a firewolf pup that hasn't learned to hate it yet (firewolves and snow golems being natural enemies) and the golem's quest to return it to its family in spite of the danger this poses the golem.

 

* ''Trigger Happy TV'' reminds us that [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwb6st5BLL0 no one is safe.]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:These Tropes Were Frozen Today]]

[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]

[[Category:Christmas Tropes]]