History Main / CaligulasHorse

* Dogs in the US Military are officially NCOs, and outrank their handlers. Not so they can issue orders, but because anyone caught abusing the dog can be charged with assaulting a superior officer.

** In ''Heir-Conditioned'', WesternAnimation/{{Sylvester the Cat|AndTweetyBird}} is left the sole inheritor of a vast fortune from his deceased mistress, but after dealing with WesternAnimation/ElmerFudd serving has his financial advisor, urging him to invest the money, followed by his cat friends who listened to Elmer's lecture, Sylvester is left wishing that his mistress had found a way to take it with her.

* Pulvapies, a brand of foot powder, once ran for and got successfully elected as the mayor of a small town in Ecuador. This happened thanks to a series of election-themed ads that said "Vote for any candidate, but if you want well-being and hygiene, vote for Pulvapies." People took these ads at face value and actually voted for the product. No word exists of how the problem of having an inanimate object as mayor was resolved.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_%28cat%29 Tama the cat]] was a station master in Japan from 2007 until her death in 2015. The stations on the Kishigawa Line had all been destaffed as a cost-cutting measure, with station masters being selected from local business owners. Tama was selected from a number of cats being cared for by passengers and Kishi Station's manager, Toshiko Koyama. She had several cat assistants and a deputy, Nitama (literally [[LegacyCharacter "Second Tama"]]), who took up the role of station master after Tama's death. The whole affair became a minor tourist attraction which the management played it with straight-faced seriousness. The new station master's "office" was a windowed niche in the main terminal equipped with a cat bed and blankets with a private out-of-sight "restroom" complete with litter box. Visitors could look into the "office" while boarding their trains and there was a kiosk close by where they could pay for treats to be fed to the station master as a gratuity. And more somberly, after the original Tama's death, a small shrine in her honor was erected next to the station; the first duty of deputy Nitama upon assuming the post of station master was to be escorted/carried to the shrine to pay homage to her predecessor before taking on her duties. Notably, the primary duty of the station master was to greet passengers - something that a cat could actually be quite good at (allowing for a lack of speech or even awareness of the position), making this particular example surprisingly adept at her job.

* Lord Midnight in the {{backstory}} of the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'', a horse who gets appointed heir by a Count during a feud between the Count and his son. The funniest thing about Lord Midnight is that he is an ''important precedent'', because when his appointment was legally challenged it was upheld by a rump majority of the Count's friends and political allies, thus establishing 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. Midnight fortunately/sadly predeceased the Count, who designated his now reconciled son as heir once again.

Doesn't apply if the animal is [[AmplifiedAnimalAptitude intelligent]] and [[TalkingAnimal capable of communication]], and could reasonably handle the demands of the office. You'll be lucky if they're housebroken.

* In ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings II'', if your character has the Lunatic trait, you can get a random event where you decide to appoint your horse as your chancellor. Previously, this just dismissed the current chancellor and left the position vacant, but a later patch made the event generate an actual horse character named Glitterhoof to fill the position. Naturally, someone took it to the [[UpToEleven logical extreme]] and used an exploit in order to [[https://imgur.com/a/K1utf make a horse the ruler of the restored Roman Empire]].

** The Judges once put an orangutan as a candidate to show the people how ridiculous democracy was and how good their regime was. [[RuleOfFunny The orangutan won by a landslide and is considered one of the best leaders Mega City One ever had.]]

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_%28cat%29 Tama the cat]] was a station master in Japan from 2007 until her death in 2015. The stations on the Kishigawa Line had all been destaffed as a cost-cutting measure, with station masters being selected from local business owners. Tama was selected from a number of cats being cared for by passengers and Kishi Station's manager, Toshiko Koyama. She had several cat assistants and a deputy, Nitama (literally [[LegacyCharacter "Second Tama"]]), who took up the role of station master after Tama's death. Notably, the primary duty of the station master was to greet passengers - something that a cat could actually be quite good at (allowing for a lack of speech or even awareness of the position), making this particular example surprisingly adept at her job.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_%28cat%29 Tama the cat]] was a station master in Japan from 2007 until her death in 2015. The stations on the Kishigawa Line had all been destaffed as a cost-cutting measure, with station masters being selected from local business owners. Tama was selected from a number of cats being cared for by passengers and Kishi Station's manager, Toshiko Koyama. She had several cat assistants and a deputy, Nitama, who took up the role of station master after Tama's death. Notably, the primary duty of the station master was to greet passengers - something that a cat could actually be quite good at (allowing for a lack of speech or even awareness of the position), making this particular example surprisingly adept at her job.

** In ''WesternAnimation/BallotBoxBunny'', WesternAnimation/BugsBunny and WesternAnimation/YosemiteSam are running against each other for mayor. They were defeated by a [[IncrediblyLamePun dark horse]] candidate. An actual dark horse is the town's new mayor. (Mare?) Bugs doesn't count, since he's a TalkingAnimal. The new mayor only neighs.

* Only a borderline example, since there is an actual human being under that costume somewhere, but one has to wonder what will happen if [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckethead Lord Buckethead]] (an explicitly ''fictional character'' from an Eighties SF movie called ''Film/{{Gremloids}}'' who is being played by an actor in all public appearances) actually gets elected to Parliament.

* One WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon had Bugs and Yosemite Sam running against each other for mayor. They were defeated by a [[IncrediblyLamePun dark horse]] candidate. An actual dark horse is the town's new mayor. (Mare?) Bugs doesn't count, since he's a TalkingAnimal. The new mayor only neighs.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' cartoon, "Heir-Conditioned", WesternAnimation/{{Sylvester the Cat|AndTweetyBird}} is left the sole inheritor of a vast fortune from his deceased mistress, but after dealing with WesternAnimation/ElmerFudd serving has his financial advisor, urging him to invest the money, followed by his cat friends who listened to Elmer's lecture, Sylvester is left wishing that his mistress had found a way to take it with her.

* During World War II, WesternAnimation/BugsBunny was made an honorary [[SemperFi United States Marine Private]] in 1943 and was promoted up the ranks to Master Sergeant before his honorable discharge. Similarly, Donald Duck is an Army Buck Sergeant.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' cartoon, "Heir-Conditioned", Sylvester the Cat is left the sole inheritor of a vast fortune from his deceased mistress, but after dealing with Elmer Fudd serving has his financial advisor, urging him to invest the money, followed by his cat friends who listened to Elmer's lecture, Sylvester is left wishing that his mistress had found a way to take it with her.

* During World War II, [[WesternAnimation/LooneyToons Bugs Bunny]] was made an honorary [[SemperFi United States Marine Private]] in 1943 and was promoted up the ranks to Master Sergeant before his honorable discharge. Similarly, Donald Duck is an Army Buck Sergeant.

* The president of the Henchmen Guild in ''ComicStrip/{{Nodwick}}'' is a hamster. Of course, the hamster only got appointed to membership in the Guild by its owner, the previous president. It was elected president at the next election due to all people present and voting being drunk. The hamster's re-election (for life) was due to the guild steward being bribed.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E14CEDoh C.E.D'oh]]", Burns reveals the nuclear plant is actually owned by a canary, so that if the government ever conducts a proper investigation, [[PromotedToScapegoat the canary is the one that will go to jail]]. Mr. Burns implies that this is standard practice, saying "Standard Oil was once owned by a half-eaten lunch." Homer is shown at the very bottom of the nuclear plant's employee hierarchy via a chart (the canary being at top, with Burns directly below him). Directly above Homer is the inanimate carbon rod.

** 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). She then left the dog to Moist von Lipwig, forcing him to take control of the bank, which was her plan all along.

** There is also the (in-universe) historical example of St Ossory's ass (his donkey, not his behind) which was made a bishop in the Omnian church.[[note]]The parellel in Literature/TheBible is the tale of Balaam's ass, who developed enough sentience to rebuke the prophet Balaam for not doing God's will.[[/note]]
** In ''Discworld/SoulMusic'', Susan reaps an old man who left all his money to his cat, because he hated his entire family. He then rejoices in the prospect of the animal trying to get away from the family alive, because he hated the cat as well.

* In 1958, a female rhinoceros named Cacareco was elected on to the city council of UsefulNotes/SaoPaulo, Brazil. In this case, ''100,000 people'' had voted for her to embarrass and ridicule the city's corrupt and inefficient city government. While Cacareco was ultimately disqualified from serving by city officials, the term "Cacareco vote" is used in Brazil to this day as a term for votes of protest to express dissatisfaction with the available candidates in an election.

* Non-villainous example: In ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', after Daitokuji Sensei's death, his cat Pharaoh becomes the ''de facto'' headmaster of the Osiris dorm. It's likely they couldn't find a teacher who wanted the position, as the Osiris dorm was traditionally for failing students and those expected to fail, the only ones willingly rooming there were those allied with Judai and those protesting the school's policies for some reason. Not that running the dorm was a big job; by season three, the number of official Osiris students started to dwindle until Judai -- who had earlier turned a promotion down -- was the only one left.

* In ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings II'', if your character has the Lunatic trait, you can get a random event where you decide to appoint your horse as your chancellor. Previously, this just dismissed the current chancellor and left the position vacant, but a later patch made the event generate an actual horse character named Glitterhoof to fill the position. Naturally, someone took it to the [[UpToEleven logical extreme]] and used an [[GoodBadBug exploit]] in order to [[https://imgur.com/a/K1utf make a horse the ruler of the restored Roman Empire]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** In "Deep Space Homer", an inanimate carbon rod from the nuclear reactor was honored as Employee of the Month (much to Homer's chagrin), and [[spoiler: after Homer accidentally "used" a different Inanimate Carbon Rod to lock the door on the spacecraft after he broke it]], it was given its own ticker-tape parade.
** In "C.E.D'oh", Burns reveals the nuclear plant is actually owned by a canary, so that if the government ever conducts a proper investigation, [[PromotedToScapegoat the canary is the one that will go to jail]]. Mr. Burns implies that this is standard practice, saying "Standard Oil was once owned by a half-eaten lunch." Homer is shown at the very bottom of the nuclear plant's employee hierarchy via a chart (the canary being at top, with Burns directly below him). Directly above Homer is the inanimate carbon rod.
** In "Homer's Enemy", Burns made a dog a vice president.
** In the episode "The Last Temptation of Homer Simpson", it was shown that he had, aside from hiring an illegal Iranian immigrant worker, also hired a duck named "Stewart" as a low level employee who tows nuclear waste (he also berates it to "get back to work!" when it briefly stops to catch it's breath). This may be less outright insanity and more Mr. Burns' cheapness combined with a callous disregard for life. Later in the episode Burns is scanning the security monitors trying to find a pair of employees who are ''not'' currently fighting with each other to send as his representatives to a convention, not only is the duck seen fighting another employee, he's ''winning''.
** In the episode with the flashback of Maggie's birth, Homer briefly quit his job. When he returned to the plant he found he had been replaced with a chicken. Which he later ate.
** Yet another episode had most of the Springfield Republican Party mistakenly assume the mayoral candidate they've chosen to back was a water cooler. They seemed to think it would make a fine representative.

The new appointee may also be the Puppet in ConsultingMisterPuppet. Closely related to PetHeir, the next branch down the crazy tree. See also CrazyCatLady.