Talking Appliance Sidekick: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A subtrope of [[Non-Human Sidekick]], normally a [[Snarky Non-Human Sidekick]], that has become very popular in [[Web Comics]], the '''Talking Appliance Sidekick''' is an inanimate object, normally a household appliance that talks and... [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|you see where we're going with this]]. Beyond that, they are very likely to be part of a comic with a technological or a fandom bent; if it's [[Two Gamers on a Couch]], expect something related to game consoles, and if it's a comic about the Surrey Woman's Institute knitting circle, expect it to be a sewing machine. Such a character will have a lot of similar attributes of the [[Robot Buddy]], but sometimes is used as a parody or deconstruction of it and, like a lot of webcomic sidekicks, will be the outrageous [[Comedic Sociopath]].

 

Unlike a lot of other [[Animate Inanimate Object]]s, these guys will have no problem acting up around normal people with no sense of [[Masquerade]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Satou hallucinates that he has these in ''[[Welcome to The NHK]]''.

 

* ''[[2000 AD]]'''s "Rogue Trooper" and his comrades have their memories and personalities hot-synced to chips which can be removed from their bodies when they are killed and plugged into weapons, helmet or backpack to provide advice and extra pairs of eyes (and firing commands in the case of the weapons). Though this isn't an option for Rogue (he's alone on the enemy planet and the last of his kind), he carries some of his comrades with him.

 

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* PF (Personal Frame) from ''[[Fragile Dreams]]''.

* The ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]: Old World Blues'' expansion has ten appliances in the player's apartment with simulated personalities [[For Science!|as part of a scientific experiment]]. The cast includes [[Terrified of Germs|a germophobic sink]], [[Casanova Wannabe|a smooth-talking]] agricultural research station obsessed with "[[Does This Remind You of Anything?|seeding]]" everything it can, a [[Red Scare|virulently anti-Communist]] book processor that turns [[Orwellian Editor|potential seditious documents into blank sheets of paper]], and a [[Robotic Psychopath|psychopathic toaster]] that would [[Kill It with Fire|burn the world]], if only its heating coils were more powerful.

 

== [[Web Comic]] ==

* A talking car, like KITT as mentioned above, but much more snarky and meanspirited Ultra Car from ''[[Walkyverse|It's Walky]]''.

* Tor the Calculate from ''Funny Farm'' is a... [[Stealth Pun|I think you can guess]]. Interestingly he is the sidekick of the main villain, who is a talking computer (although [[Computer Equals Monitor|you see only a monitor]]) called PC who, in his first appearances, was a bit more like the other examples before gaining freedom and becoming a [[James Bond|Bond]] villain in a [[Doctor Doom]] green cloak.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* A ''[[Schoolhouse Rock]]'' series from the early 1980s, now largely forgotten, was titled ''Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips''. [[Non-Indicative Name|Scooter was a human; Mr. Chips was his computer sidekick.]]

* Subverted in ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' where all of the talking furniture characters are actually humans under a magic spell.

* BMO from ''[[Adventure Time]]'' - an animate game console.