Waddling Head

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Clockwise from top left: Waddle Dee, a Metool, a Monstar, and a Bogey.

There are a large number of video game enemies and creatures which physically resemble a coloured sphere with eyes and feet. It is a mystery how they are even capable of lifting their feet to take a step, let alone anything as complicated as running or jumping. These goofy-looking creatures are often The Goomba of their respective games.

The most they have with regards to other limbs are stretchy, stubby stumps in place of arms or hands. Otherwise, expect them to lift and manipulate objects, if they must, with Invisible Anatomy.

The reason for this is partly because it's cute and partly practicality. Back in the 8-bit era, most video game sprites had to fit in 16 x 16 squares. The easiest way to make a cute, harmless-looking enemy with that many pixels is to just draw a big-eyed face, and put feet on the bottom to justify its ability to walk.

A subtrope of Cephalothorax and Cartoon Creature.

Examples of Waddling Head include:

Video game examples

Action Adventure

• Dizzy of the Dizzy series is another Player Character example. Dizzy is an egg with boxing gloves, as are the other Yolk Folk.
  • The monsters from the arcade spin-off Fast Food go even further: they have no arms.
• Both the titular characters of Head Over Heels.
• The ghosts in Ufouria/Hebereke.
• Bubbles in The Legend of Zelda are skull versions of this, although they don't walk. They either hop around or use tiny wings to fly.
• Balrog from Cave Story. Though he's not exactly an oval, really. Interestingly, in the early version of the game, this character design was a common level enemy, rather than a specific character. (Perhaps Pooh Black is a remnant from this stage of development?)

Maze Game

• Pac-Man, in all incarnations except the early and Championship Edition games (where he's only a head).

Platform Game

• Kirby of the Kirby series is a rare Player Character example, but his foes include such quintessential waddling heads as Waddle Dee.
• Super Mario Bros.' Goombas are somewhat justified, as they're supposed to be stout chestnuts. Or maybe mushrooms. Try not to think about it. As are the Bob-ombs, which are Cartoon Bombs with eyes, feet, and a windup key.
  • Shy Guys started out as this trope, but developed torsos over time. Compare this to this.
• Braid's grumpy-looking Monstars. (No relation to certain Space Jam characters.)
  • These guys went through some freaky design phases.
• Mega Man's Metools are just helmets with feet.
  • That often shoot bullets, unlike many of the other examples on this page. And often in multiple directions.
  • Oh, Metools are known to do much more than just shoot bullets, if you're playing the right level of the right game. Some levels contain nothing but Metools in various forms. One nice example is the miniature pink lightsabers seen in the first Mega Man ZX.
    • They're more futuristic police batons, considering they also make a siren noise and only attack when you're not in "civilian" mode.
  • They are also much tougher than most examples on this page. Waddling Heads are typically weak little mooks, but these things are usually invincible when not attacking and can be quite frustrating to deal with.
  • The Metool viruses in the Mega Man Battle Network are even worse, due to their barrier-piercing shockwave attacks. Met1s aren't so bad, but Met3s with their Dynawave attacks can be a nightmare.
• The main character of Eversion. Also the regular enemies, although they end up being footless Slithering Heads by the end of the game.
• Gooms, Pirate Gooms, certain other enemies and types of Bandineros from the Wario Land series are this kind of enemy.
• The Moos from Klonoa.
• Starfy resembles a Waddling Head more than a five-limbed aquatic creature rightfully ought to.
  • Then again, he's not a starfish or a star. He's a creature that resembles the two.
• The main character and many enemies in Mr. Gimmick!
• An old computer game called Zeek the Geek features a little red alien who fits this trope.
• Most characters in Purple are waddling heads, including the player character.
• Most minions in Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.
• The Undergrounders from Mr. Driller
• The Pookas from Dig Dug
• BLOB, the protagonist of Starquake.
• Miss Chack'n & Mr. Chack'n from Chack'n Pop. They have three-fingered hands, but no arms.
• Plodder, the weakest enemy in FHBG.

Puzzle Game

• From Adventures of Lolo we have Lolo and Lala.
• Nuts, Milk and Yogurt from Nuts & Milk.
• The Angry Birds and their target pigs.
• Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
• Number Munchers and the hostile Troggles.

Rhythm Game

• The Patapons (and their enemies) of Patapon

Role-Playing Game

• Rabites, icons of the Mana (series), are essentially furry blobs with puffy tails and rabbit ears. Though they are generally regarded as pitifully weak, there are some terrifyingly formidable variants.
• Many Pokémon are like this. In the fourth generation games, there's a new section in the Pokédex for body-types. Oddish, Poliwag, Bonsly, Seedot, Azurill, Shroomish, and Tangela are amongst the many.
• EarthBound's Mr. Saturns, and the generic enemy Foppy and its orange Palette Swap counterpart, Fobby.
  • To remember which is which, just remember that foppies are pink and Fobbies Are Borange.

Shoot'Em Up

• Yukkuris in Touhou fanon are essentially these.
• The true form of the final boss from the NES game NARC, Mr. Big, was a giant head.

Tower Defense

• The Minirobots from Mini Robot Wars, who bear a huge resemblance to the above-mentioned Metools from Mega Man. They're not so much waddling heads as they are standing heads, however, because they are not shown walking in-game.

Non-video game examples

Anime and Manga

• In Dog Days, because of some protective enchantments, when someone is wounded or "killed", they temporarily turn into one of these rather than dying.
• Don Patch from Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo (and his Kopatch lackeys).
• Most baby Digimon. Very few of them have any sort of limbs at all and most are generally constrained to bouncing around.

Live-Action TV

• Jamie Hyneman once made an army of Waddling Head robots in order to see if an army marching in lock-step across a bridge could collapse it.

Toys

• Furbies.

Web Comics

• The webcomic Kid Radd has Bogeys as the Goombas of the fictional Kid Radd game.
• User Friendly's Dust Puppy.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Molly's pet tentacle bunny Snookums is basically this, although he hops instead of waddling.
• Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures has Fluffy.
• Deconstructed in Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire; the Beemahs are a race of digitigrade Waddling Heads, and as a result require assistance with vital life functions, which is used to force them into slavery.

Web Original

• Fuzzy fits the bill.
• The characters in the Tales of the Blode flash animations.
• Tako Luka.
• JubJubs in Neopets (cute fluffballs with humanlike feet) and Kikos (inexplicably bandaged spheroids with clawed hands on the ends of two bendy arms). JubJub feet seem dexterous enough to serve in the office of hands. Kikos are aquatic creatures which use their arms to swim or paddle; on land they bounce.

Western Animation

• Marvin the Martian temporarily became this trope whenever his doomsday devices backfired, reducing him to a helmet waddling around on oversized shoes. Ur Example?
• Many of the characters from Veggie Tales, such as Bob the Tomato.