History Main / LivingMuseumExhibit

* Some characters in the anthromorphised-warship game ''VideoGame/KanColle'' form an odd variation on this trope, in that the characters in question are no mere exhibit but ''the actual museum'' itself. Some of the characters in question are more upfront about their museum-ship status than others; while Iowa only does so in (official) supplemental materials, Intrepid's in-game lines frequently bring up her status as a Sea, Air, and Space Museum, while Drum has lines actively inviting the player-character commander to visit her own museum.

->''"And yet, no matter how fleeting their existence, I welcome all...to a place in my carefully curated collection!"''

* This is the Collector's shtick in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. He gathers rare specimens of countless alien species for his private collection. He tried many times to include superheroes in his gallery, especially Franchise/TheAvengers.

Such exhibits can be part of a MuseumOfTheStrangeAndUnusual. Strongly related to PeopleZoo. For its much darker relative, see LivingDollCollector.

* Played with in the ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "The Night Owl". Mordecai, Rigby, Muscle Man, and High Five Ghost are all [[HarmlessFreezing frozen in liquid nitrogen]] for a few thousand years by an evil radio DJ, who has a convoluted plan to build a museum exhibit around them so that he can become rich and powerful. But eventually, all four of them are unfrozen and try to escape via TimeMachine.

* The bonus episode of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' features the characters, both stock NPCs and named characters, on display. Looking at them will result in them slowly acting a scene from a movie, shooting them will kill them, and there's a button that will cause all the characters in a room to agro against the player.

* One episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' ends with an astronaut as the "human" exhibit of a zoo on a planet he's crash-landed on.

* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': In the episode "The Main Man", an alien known as the Preserver keeps endangered aliens in his zoo, in which he hired ComicBook/{{Lobo}} to capture Superman. The Preserver also betrayed Lobo since he knew all along that he is also endangered ([[WhereIWasBornAndRazed by his own volition]]) but the two escaped and defeated him. Superman took his zoo and placed them in the Fortress of Solitude.

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/DoctorWho https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_space_museum_7.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Their freedom comes at the cost of their collector's value.]]

* This is the Collector's shtick in [[Franchise/MarvelUniverse Marvel Comics]]. He gathers rare specimens of countless alien species for his private collection. He tried many times to include superheroes in his gallery, especially Franchise/TheAvengers.

* At the start of ''[[Film/Restoration1995 Restoration]]'', Dr Merival is shown a man with an exposed heart due to a chest injury. He later visits a room of scientific curios kept by the King, and is dumbfounded to see the same man sitting on a chair as one of the exhibits.

* In ''[[DanShambleZombiePI Death Warmed Over]]'', the mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh on display at a museum reanimates, and he's not too happy about being used as an exhibit. Eventually, a compromise is worked out in that the mummy is hired as a lecturer.

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Most Toys" has a man kidnap Data with the intention of housing him in a private collection.

* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': In the episode "The Main Man", an alien known as the Preserver keeps endangered aliens in his zoo, in which he hired ComicBook/{{Lobo}} to capture Superman. The Preserver also betrayed Lobo since he knew all along that he is also endangered ([[WhereIWasBornAndRazed by his own volition]]) but the two escaped and defeated him. Superman took his zoo and placed them in the Fortress of Solitude.
* Played with in the ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "The Night Owl". Mordecai, Rigby, Muscle Man, and High Five Ghost are all [[HarmlessFreezing frozen in liquid nitrogen]] for a few thousand years by an evil radio DJ, who has a convoluted plan to build a museum exhibit around them so that he can become rich and powerful. But eventually, all four of them are unfrozen and try to escape via TimeMachine.