History Main / CaligulasHorse

* In ''JudgeDredd'', [[PresidentEvil Chief Judge Cal]], who was based on Caligula, appointed his goldfish to the position of Deputy Chief Judge.

* In the film Film/{{Gordy}} the head of a major corporation hands over control to the title character, a small pig, upon his death.

This trope can also be {{Invoked|Trope}} by rather [[ManipulativeBastard more cunning rulers]]; either as a symptom of ObfuscatingInsanity, a way to install a SockPuppet in a position of power ("Well, Incitatus agrees with me, so I'm afraid it's two votes to one"), or both. The second of these overlaps with AintNoRule.

[[SelfDemonstratingArticle Don't dare to question Incitatus — he outranks you! What's that, Mr. Incitatus? Why yes, the person who wrote the above paragraph SelfDemonstratingArticle is being disrespectful. Sir, I regret to inform you that the horse has decided you are to be executed for rudeness.]]

* In the film {{Gordy}} the head of a major corporation hands over control to the title character, a small pig, upon his death.

--> "Oh, for the love of God, Roger! Bonkers is not real! Bonkers is a stuffed bear, a toy! I didn't want to tell you, but I hate this bit! Here's why, it's stupid! A teddy bear is out receptionist? It doesn't even make sense! Do you know how many calls we've missed?!"

* TropeNamer: EmperorCaligula famously planned to appoint his favourite horse Incitatus to the consulship, the highest office in Rome. However, it's a little more complicated than it sounds. He may have done this in order to mock the senate. It may have been a rumor started after his death. Or he genuinely might have been completely insane, which was the firm position of most ancient writers.

* One of the many signs that the Helmacrons from ''{{Animorphs}}'' are completely insane is that ''all'' of their leaders (or ship captains at least) are examples of this trope, being corpses. They believe that the best leaders never make mistakes. Since the living inevitably make mistakes, [[InsaneTrollLogic dead people are the best leaders]]. [[spoiler:Of course being "promoted" this way doesn't really hurt them at all since all Helmacrons have BornAgainImmortality.]]

[[SelfDemonstratingArticle Don't dare to question Incitatus — he outranks you! What's that, Mr. Incitatus? Why yes, the person who wrote the above paragraph]] ''[[SelfDemonstratingArticle is]]'' [[SelfDemonstratingArticle being disrespectful. Sir, I regret to inform you that the horse has decided you are to be executed for rudeness.]]

* It is common practice that the mascots of military units hold pretty high military ranks. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Nils_Olav Nils Olav]], the mascot of the Royal Norwegian Guard, is a King Penguin from Edinburgh Zoo, but not only does he hold a fricking knighthood, but also the official rank of ''Colonel-In-Chief''. Oh, and just to clarify, he thus outranks the actual commander of the Royal Guard, a Lieutenant Colonel.

* It is common practice that the mascots of military units hold pretty high military ranks. Nils Olav, the mascot of the Royal Norwegian Guard, is a King Penguin from Edinburgh Zoo, but not only does he hold a fricking knighthood, but also the official rank of ''Colonel-In-Chief''. Oh, and just to clarify, he thus outranks the actual commander of the Royal Guard, a Lieutenant Colonel.

*** Yet another episode had most of the Springfield Republican Party mistankenly assume the mayoral candidate they've chosen to back was a water cooler. They seemed to think it would make a fine representative.

--> "Oh, for the love of God, Roger! Bonkers is not real! Bonkers is a stuffed bear, a toy! I didn't want to tell you, but I hate this bit! Here's why, it's stupid! A teddy bear is out recepotionist? It doesn't even make sense! Do you know how many calls we've missed?!"

* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Douche and Turd" had a camp of [=PETA=] members who had a goat (one that was also a doctor, apparently) as their leader.

** In the same year, the Youth International Party (the Yippies) famously nominated a pig named Pigasus as their presidential candidate, saying the Democratic and Republican Parties had [[TakeThat done the same thing already with Hubert Humphrey and RichardNixon]].

* In ''TheSimpsons'', the nuclear plant is actually owned by a canary, so that if the government ever conducts a proper investigation, the canary is the one that will go to jail. Mr. Burns implies that this is standard practice. In another episode, he made a dog a vice president.

*** Its also implied that hiring animals to even work at the plant, never mind making them high officials, was one of Mr. Burns' quirks, as in the episode "The Last Temptation of Homer Simpson", it was shown that he had, aside from hiring an illegal Iranian immigrant worker, also had hired a duck named "Stewart" as a low level employee who tows nuclear waste.

-->-- '''VorkosiganSaga'''

* Lord Midnight in the {{backstory}} of the ''VorkosiganSaga'', a horse who gets appointed heir by a Count as part of a feud between the Count and his son. The funniest thing about Lord Midnight is that he's ''important''. When his appointment was legally challenged, [[RefugeInAudacity it was upheld]]-- thus establishing the precedent that a Count's designated heir need not be his own descendant, or even human. This becomes important when cloning and genetic engineering technology starts to blur the traditional definitions of what makes someone a descendant, or a person.

* A town in the mid TurnOfTheMillennium saw a ficus tree elected as mayor. The only reason he/she/it/His Leafieness didn't hold the title was because it was ruled that only humans could be candidates.

* On ''ThirtyRock'', Don Geiss stacks the board of directors with "the most reliable collection of sycophantic yes-men this side of an Al Franken book signing: His golf cronies, his army buddies, [[ChekhovsGunman a collection of unemployable family members]] and his hunting dogs." It's unclear how intelligent the dogs are, but they're apparently capable of staying seated at the table and voting in some fashion.

* a town in the mid TurnOfTheMillennium saw a ficus tree elected as mayor. The only reason he/she/it/His Leafieness didn't hold the title was because it was ruled that only humans could be candidates.

* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', a past Patrician of Ankh-Morpork (the aptly named 'Mad Lord Snapcase', though most Patricians had names like that) appointed his horse as a city councilor, though it is pointed out that it wasn't a ''bad'' councilor compared to some of the others, which included: a vase, a heap of sand, and three people who had been beheaded.
** In ''Discworld/MakingMoney'', when Topsy Lavish dies, she leaves 50% of the shares in the bank to her dog, Mr Fusspot (who already owns 1% of the bank, giving him a majority and making him chairman). Of curse, she then left the dog to Moist von Lipwig forcing him to take control of the bank, which was her plan all along.
** Also, ''[[AllThereInTheManual The Discworld Companion]]'' states that the Sto Plains village of Scrote has elected a dead body as its Mayor for several decades. The first time it was because the candidate died in mid-election (but was still more popular than the alternative); after that, the villagers really liked how the late Mayor ''hadn't'' raised taxes or embezzled town funds.
** There is also the (in-universe) historical example of S:t Ossory's ass (his donkey, not his behind) which was made a bishop in the Omnian church.

* {{Subverted}} In ''Webcomic/OrderOfTheStick'': The ruler of Azure City has a cat as a trusted adviser, but he doesn't actually take its advice - it's just to make people [[ObfuscatingInsanity think he's senile when he isn't]].

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