An Amusing Alien is a sci-fi, fantasy, or otherworldly character whose main purpose is to amuse the audience.
While the Amusing Alien might have a mundane purpose in the story, a character belongs in this trope only if comedy is their primary reason for existing in the work. Most of the time, the Amusing Alien will be a secondary or background character, to avoid excessively derailing the plot with their antics. The primary exception is in comedies, where casting an Amusing Alien as the main character leads to lots of easy jokes.
May overlap with Funny Foreigner, but the two tropes are not identical. An otherworldly Funny Foreigner elicits laughs from their ignorance and bizarre behavior; an Amusing Alien, on the other hand, can be anything from The Smart Guy, a Deadpan Snarker, or a Genre Savvy Fourth-Wall Observer. As a general rule, if the Amusing Alien is of a race or species that's common in the work, the trope is Funny Foreigner instead.
If there's a multi-character party, the Amusing Alien will probably be the Team Pet, the Non-Human Sidekick, or the Token Non-Human.
Given the subjective nature of comedy, the risk is high that an Amusing Alien can end up becoming a Scrappy if not handled carefully. This trope documents alien characters that were intended to be funny; whether or not they succeed is another matter...
Also see Alien Among Us, Pet Monstrosity, Plucky Comic Relief, Fantastic Anthropologist, and Crazy Cultural Comparison. Supertrope to Funny Robot.
Examples:
- Battle of the Planets: 7-Zark-7 is an alien robot who acts as a Greek Chorus and comedy relief. He also serves to assure American audiences that nobody actually got killed in action scenes.
- Dragon Ball:
- It is eventually revealed that the series Big Eater Idiot Hero Son Goku is this when a Wham Episode reveals he is an alien.
- The Ginyu Force, the elite Laughably Evil fighting force of Frieza who are like to make silly poses before a fight.
- Majin Buu is a Fat Idiot who is Obsessed with Food and has an apitite that puts the series main Big Eater Idiot Hero Son Goku to shame, while also being even dumber.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable: Mikitaka Hazekura... maybe. Even among a cast as, well, bizarre as Jojo Mikitaka still manages to stand out as a major cloudcuckoolander.
- Magic Knight Rayearth: Mokona, until it's revealed that he's actually the creator of both Cephiro and Earth.
- America's little buddy Tony of Hetalia: Axis Powers, provided you find his habitual cursing and severe hatred of the English amusing.
- Sgt. Frog is about a band of silly-looking frog-like aliens, their Odd Friendship with their Earthling hosts, and their various inept attempts to "invade" the Earth.
- Urusei Yatsura translates to “Noisy and Annoying People from the Star Uru,” or more idiomatically, “Obnoxious Aliens.” Almost every non-Terran cast member qualifies.
- DC Universe:
- Batman: Bat-Mite, who tends to show up only at the most annoying or inconvenient times.
- Lobo, an egotistical Bounty Hunter who indulges in various forms of Black Comedy.
- Mr. Mxyzptlk, a Reality Warper from Another Dimension whose favorite pastime in life is coming to the main universe and pranking Superman and his friends.
- Wonder Woman Vol 1: Glitch is a tiny harmless alien gremlin whose interest in figuring out how things work causes chaos.
- Teen Titans: Starfire's naivete as a newcomer to Earth makes her be Fish out of Water who is often Played for Laughs, with her constantly getting into misunderstandings or making Fee Fi Faux Pas regarding human customs and has a few odd customs of her own, such as her casual view on nudity and sex. This is exaggerated on her solo series Starfire (2015), where she's unfamiliar with even the most basic terms and is very Literal-Minded, for example, imagining that having a meal "on me" means eating on top of a person.
- Marvel Universe:
- The Awesome Slapstick: Before he became Darker and Edgier, Slapstick certainly qualified. The guy dunked a bucket of water on Ghost Rider's head,◊ fer crissakes...
- Fin Fang Four: The titular four Gorgilla, Fin Fang Foom, Elektro and Googam are former monsters who are "rehabilitated" and do mundane jobs (window washer, parking lot attendant) at the Baxter Building.
- X-Men:
- Kitty Pryde's pet dragon, Lockheed. He mostly flies around as a background pet, with occasional pantomime reactions to the events around him.
- There's also Doop from the mutant team X-Staxix, a floating green blob who talks in alien wingdings. From later X-Men comics, there's Broo, the outcast Brood, who's adorable as well as amusing.
- Impossible Man and his fellow Poppupians - little green Cloudcuckoolander aliens who can shapeshift.
- Sally Forth (Wood) is about a squad of US soldiers and their Innocent Fanservice Girl... along with the martian Snorky, who provided wry observations of their actions.
- The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Spaceship," extraterrestrials Gidney and Cloyd serve as comic characters. They resemble bipedal dogs, they aren’t very smart (Rhino is able to convince them to kidnap a scarecrow instead of himself), have translating collars that malfunction and engage in Malapropism usage, dress eccentrically (wearing tight lavender jumpsuits, threadbare bunny slippers, and tarnished helmets topped with scrub brushes), and labor under a penny pinching budget that shows the interior of their spaceship having been repaired with duct tape.
- Lilo & Stitch has plenty:
- Stitch himself is quite a Comedic Sociopath.
- His older cousin Reuben (625), whose entire existence is mostly based around sandwiches and Deadpan Snarking.
- Pleakley is also one for being a Crossdressing Know-Nothing Know-It-All (for one thing, he believes that mosquitoes are an endangered species) who's fascinated by Earth life and culture.
- The Cat from Outer Space: Jake, the title character, can be quite the Deadpan Snarker.
- The Lord of the Rings: Gimli the Dwarf, the only dwarf in the Fellowship, is a Deadpan Snarker whose observations, complaints, and battle cries lighten tense or angst-filled scenes. While running the plains, trying to catch up with orcs, Gimli notes that he's wasted on long distant running, but is deadly in a sprint to fight. When Rohan is overrun with Orcs and Gimli and Aragorn are trapped, he asks Aragorn to throw him across the gap as he can't make it on his own. This is in direct contrast to his earlier protest and ire when Aragorn threw him across a gap he couldn't make on his own. He makes Aragorn promise not to tell Legolas.
- Men in Black has several:
- Frank the Pug is an alien who disguises himself as a dog, speaks in a heavy New York accent and wears sunglasses. His main scene in the first movie? Being interrogated by K. By being shaken. Tommy Lee Jones is barely keeping a straight face.
- The Worm Guys can frequently be found in MIB headquarters drinking coffee.
- Star Wars:
- A New Hope has Greedo, the unfortunate Rodian that Han shoots in the cantina. Note that he wasn't trying to be funny, but his only purpose in the film was to be a punchline for Han Solo.
- The Phantom Menace has Jar-Jar Binks and Boss Nass, who are more deliberately amusing but less successful, and are intended to serve as the movie's primary comic relief through their peculiar speech patterns, hammy dialogue and exaggerated expressions, alongside Binks' general clumsiness.
- Ancillary Justice: The Presger ambassadors in Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, being completely unaware of human culture, biology and psychology, tend to act out in a funny way as a result. On the flipside they serve as a reminder of just how terrifyingly alien the Presger are, in that they're able to make 'humans' to communicate with that still act in some ways terrifyingly inhuman.
- Animorphs
- Ax falls into this trope when in human form. Being unused to having a mouth, he tends to play with sounds of words and put odd things in his mouth.
- The Iskoort are a species of amusing and annoying aliens.
- Discworld:
- Rincewind's Luggage, though the humor tends to be more... violent.
- The Death of Rats. Regular Death can often be The Comically Serious, but has plenty of dramatic moments as well.
- Hoka: The Hokas look like living teddy bears and spend all their time reenacting various Earth concepts, not really understanding them.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya is a thousands-year old demon who hangs out with the Scooby Gang. She often makes remarks about noodle incidents from her past that aren't helpful to the situation but will make the viewer laugh.
- Doctor Who: Sontaran Combat Medic Strax, an ally of the Doctor's. Also, after his death and resurrection, a complete Cloudcuckoolander who is incapable of distinguishing genders, declared war on the Moon and has terrible bedside manner. And a Large Ham, which was a trait he possessed from the beginning.
- Ollie from the Look and Read series Earth Warp is an alien hoping to find a research probe from his planet before it explodes and destroys the surrounding area. He's also incredibly clumsy, has the mind of a child, never seems to stop eating, and wears some painfully obvious Paper Thin Disguises to hide from the hotel guests and staff, and later staff at the hospital.
- Masked Rider: Dex, has traces of this at times. In one example would be that his race, Eltarians, derive from insects instead of apes. Now guess what he answered on an Earth biology test on the subject of human origins...
- Mike & Angelo: Angelo.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Pakleds start off as a straight example of this trope but actually use their ignorant appearance to deceive others. They are slow - just not quite as much as people tend to think.
- Morn, the perpetual barfly at Quark's Bar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is a meta example; he's described as an extremely talkative being who knows the funniest joke in the universe, and others have attributed various fantastic feats to him. Even so, he's never shown talking on-screen on the show despite clearly being able to.
- And there's the puff-nosed alien from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Counterpoint". At one point, Kate Mulgrew is visibly on the verge of corpsing.
- This was also the niche the Ferengi eventually settled in, after failing to be convincing as the new top villains in their earliest TNG appearances. DS9 depicted them as a hilariously greedy Proud Merchant Race who delight, nay, encourage any deal that involves ripping off others if they can benefit from it.
- Star Trek: Discovery: Inverted, as Klingons consider humans who can speak Klingonese to be amusing, "like a dog on water-skis". Of the Discovery crew, Linus the Saurian stands out. An alien amongst a crew of aliens, some running jokes include: the Universal Translator being unable to consistently translate his native language, having really bad colds due to having six nasal passages, needing time off to shed his reptilian outer skin, and one episode has him struggling to master personal transporters, popping in and out of otherwise very serious scenes.
- The Party Zone: The Super Sonic Robotic Comic is a meta example — his lines are unintelligible gibberish, but everyone else reacts with uproarious laughter.
- The Houston Astros' mascot is a silly green alien named Orbit, who is known for his on-field antics. He often does random things in the outfield (dancing, setting up a lemonade stand, doing yoga, having a tea party, playing Twister, etc.) and tries to convince the players or the security guards to join him. He's also something of a Troll, and loves to mess with the opposing team's players, especially Texas Rangers players. He's particularly fond of Visual Pun: he sorted his laundry while the White Sox were playing, set up a birdhouse for the Blue Jays, and went after Mike Trout with a fishing pole. Even fans of opposing MLB teams find him hilarious.
- Rocket Age: Europan Emissaries insert themselves into cultures they have no real understanding of, meaning they often commit such faux pas such as wearing men's and women's clothing on alternate nights or giving themselves inappropriate names. They also can latch themselves onto social outcasts and take on their mannerisms.
- Warhammer 40,000 the Orks have this as a hat. They are a an entire race of violent manchildren who will start a war for any reason they can think of, the main reason being it's fun, and their philosphy operates on Insane Troll Logic.
- Xenoblade Chronicles X:
- L, an alien who learned English from watching archived American films and has a questionable grasp of metaphors.
L: [Ambushed] "It's a horse-eat-horse world!"
L: [Enemy reinforcements] "What a nice hot welcome!"
L: [Asking for healing] "Could someone get our party started?"
L: [KO'd] "This number has been… disconnected."
L: [Low HP] "It's not over until the fat baby sings!" - The Nopon, a highly ecentric Proud Merchant Race. Tatsu, the game's main comic relief character, ironically proves to one of the more normal ones.
- Tatsu's younger siblings all mistake him for their father.
- Like in the original Xenoblade, the Nopon have a tradition where they nominate someone to become their Legendary Heropon. The "Legendary Heropon" being a position given to a new Nopon each year, often as a way for the Nopon to work off debt.
- The Nopon are very cute. They know other races find them cute, and will use it to swindle them.
- L, an alien who learned English from watching archived American films and has a questionable grasp of metaphors.
- WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$: Orbulon, an alien intending to take over the world, has his plan stopped when he crash-lands in Diamond City. He's become quite enamoured with Earth culture in spite of this, if a little airheaded.
- Capt'n Crazy. Actually, this was a late development - for a long time, even the author wasn't sure WTH the Capt'n actually is.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Ahem is a sort of three-legged jellyfish described as a useless, cowardly slacker, but one who is fun to hang out with.
- Penny Arcade: Div, an alcoholic Deadpan Snarker DivX player.
- The Petri Dish: Even though he abducts Thaddeus, Gwog is actually pretty comical. His species doesn't have a nudity taboo and he thinks people at Comic Con are freaks despite looking weird himself. His pet is also comical, insisting that he's not his pet and it's a "symbiotic relationship".
- Roomies!, It's Walky!, Joyce and Walky!: The Aliens in It's Walky!, so-called because they come from the planet Alien, are ostensibly trying to take over the world, but in reality they're lost on Earth and their activity consists of random hijinks that result in them being slaughtered in chunky droves. Their leader, the Head Alien, is originally treated as a Harmless Villain (and described as sounding like Jon Lovitz), until Cerebus Syndrome hits and suddenly he was a terrifying mastermind all along, though even when his plans are at their most gruesome, he comes across as Laughably Evil much of the time.
- Sluggy Freelance: Kiki, if a talking ferret is considered "otherworldly".
- Dragon Ball DC has Larfleez this way thanks him acting as an ally. He is, much like his canon counterpart, an insane hoarder thanks to the orange light of Averice. He is convinced by Kakarot to help on a journey for the Plot Coupons under the promise it will give him an adventure, something he's never had before. Spending some time on Earth, Larfleeze took part in a podcast, where he desired that videos with him be given lots of likes, comments, and views, but not be shared because he hates sharing.
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged, due to its nature, almost every alien is turned into this to the point where it's easier to list the exceptions. Vegeta and Frieza are both turned into Laughably Evil characters, Vegeta himself in the third season also heavily suffering from Sanity Slippage turning him into a Cloud Cuckoolander
- The Gungan Council: Utkon Mai, a tiny, spice-addicted Jawa. Returned from being assumed dead by singing "Bad Romance".
- Lobo (Webseries): The titular character is a foul mouthed and hilariously violent alien bounty hunter.
- American Dad!: The Smith's mooching housemate Roger is a grey-skinned alien who's always busy with zany schemes and coming up with new personas.
- In Atomic Betty, Sparky is the sole alien of the 3 main characters and the comic relief of the team.
- Danger Mouse: Quark from the first series (1981-92) spoke in a Scottish accent and had an obedient robot who he had the verve to name Grovel. When he arrives on Earth to take charge (through a cosmic charter he inherited), his first thought is to make the Mediterranean Sea his own private swimming pool.
- Futurama: There's a variety of comic relief alien characters, but the most prominent example is probably John Zoidberg, Planet Express's incompetent and underpaid doctor. A lot of humor comes from the fact he has a poor grasp of human anatomy, manners, and basic hygiene.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Adam's best friend is Orko, an Inept Mage from planet Trolla who serves as the show's comedy relief with his bungling attempts to help.
- Invader Zim: Zim has been sent to conquer the Earth to get him out of the way, as he is both incompetent and incredibly egotistical. And not only is he terrible at invading, he's utterly incapable of disguising himself as a human.
- Ready Jet Go!: The Propulsions may as well be the prime example for this trope. They talk in a rather eccentric English (for example, they say "way the by" instead of "by the way"), cook odd dishes such as deep-fried lollipops, think that Valentine's Day decorations are scary enough to put in a haunted house. Overall, they are just very wacky.
- Space Goofs has a goofy group of aliens crashing on Earth. They settle in a house for rent and try to find a way to get back to their far away planet. The funniest of the bunch are Gorgeous (a Big Eater), Bud (The Slacker) and Candy (a Camp Straight Neat Freak).
- Star Trek: Prodigy: Murf is a gelatinous alien of an unknown species who is best summarized as "no worries, just vibes". It's unclear if it's an alien who speaks a language the Universal Translator doesn't recognize or is its native planet's equivalent of a domesticated animal, but Murf seems to understand the crew. Murf generally breaks the tension of a scene by eating a non-edible object, the most memorable being explosive ordinance, sending Rok-Tahk into a panic as to whether the ship would be destroyed when the ordinance was dissolved by stomach acid. Fortunately, all that happened was a Burp of Finality.
- Steven Universe:
- Peridot is this, in a show already heavily populated by (for the most part more Earth-smart) aliens. She briefly barricaded herself in the bathroom at Steven's house and tried to escape by flushing herself down the toilet, has an affinity for Earth clothes such as boxer shorts and is obsessed with a daytime drama called Camp Pining Hearts despite her lack of understanding of its content (when two characters kiss she thinks they're "attempting fusion"). She once pushed Steven's father off a roof, apparently out of sheer curiosity. Her official Twitter account details such antics as running across the countryside for hours with a pizza because she had no idea what to do when the delivery guy showed up.
- Also, the Rubies play this role whenever they show up. Most of them are ditzy, brutish, and way too naive for their own good. A squad of them put their mission at risk over a baseball game, and then promptly left Earth when told a very obvious lie that their target was on Neptune. There are a few exceptions: Crystal Gem Ruby does have some of these quirks, but her appearing usually means Garnet has some sort of internal conflict, so she's not used for laughs as often. The other exceptions are Eyeball Ruby, who seems as harmless as the other Rubies until she reveals unsettling details about Pink Diamond's fate, and an episode later tries to stab Steven to death, and Navy Ruby, who seems cheerful and enthusiastic about everything but is really a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who manipulates Steven, Lapis, and Peridot in order to steal back the Rubies' spaceship, and to relish her revenge on them for tricking her and her squad-mates.
- Teen Titans (2003): Starfire's odd Tamaranean customs and fish-out-of-waterness is the show's main source of funny.
- She drinks mustard as if it were soda...
- Confuses the familiarity levels of social greetings...
- Thinks it's a good idea to give spine-snapping hugs to nearly every new friend they make...
- Misinterprets Earth Slang ("You diggin' the scene?" "I... did not know we were supposed to bring shovels!")...
- Is allergic to chromium (The reaction is sneezing star-bolts).
- The Venture Bros. had a pretty amusing example with the very tall alien who just shows up one day. He had a very scratchy translator, like someone speaking too close to an old microphone. His catchphrase was a very loud "IGNORE ME!"