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->''"Now tho' you'd have said that head was dead\\
(For its owner dead was he),\\
It stood on its neck, with a smile well-bred,\\
And bowed three times to me!"''
-->-- '''Pooh-Bah''', ''Theatre/TheMikado'' ("The Criminal Cried")

A [[OffWithHisHead beheading]] can be a messy and extremely painful thing to see, let alone experience. While it's been said that, theoretically (it's understandably hard to confirm), consciousness may continue for a few seconds after decapitation, [[note]][[ScienceMarchesOn It has been shown that random brain activity can continue for many minutes, ending in a flurry of activity reminiscent of a brain seizure]].[[/note]] in ''[[ArtisticLicense fiction]],'' consciousness after decapitation can last much, ''much'' longer... [[BeyondTheImpossible or even indefinitely]]. [[ArtisticLicenseBiology The severed head generally possesses the ability to audibly speak despite their mouth no longer being connected to their lungs]], and may or may not even be capable of ''independent movement'', either by bouncing, rolling or levitating. Sometimes the body will still be functional and capable of moving on its own, [[CraniumChase resulting in the head trying to tell it to pick it up and reattach it]].

This trope can be justified for robots, [[CranialProcessingUnit which may have a power source in their skull that keeps them going after it's been separated from their shoulders]]: they may not have their core processor in their head anyway. TheUndead and other supernatural beings may also exhibit an ability to have a functioning head separate from their still-functioning body. Robots could also have their entire vocal system located in their head, but any biological creature should only be able to mouth words.

When multiple heads/brains/souls/[=CPUs=]/etc. are removed and then reinstalled in working order at the same time, this will almost always result in them being "returned" to the wrong bodies, giving a [[LegoBodyParts Visceral]] FreakyFridayFlip.

See: AlasPoorYorick, BrainInAJar, HelpingHands, YourHeadASplode, CranialProcessingUnit, DetachmentCombat, OracularHead. Related to HeadlessHorseman, PullingThemselvesTogether, AppendageAssimilation, and HavingAHeart. Contrast DecapitationRequired, when it's the ''only'' way to kill them successfully. For decapitation in general, see OffWithHisHead. Not to be confused with TalkingHeads, which is a stylistic convention.
----
!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]
* A TV advertisement for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZhHSC7EoQk Gusto]], a European snack food resembling shoestring potatoes, has a man's severed head lying on the floor, still talking, as his body stumbles around aimlessly.
* DSB Sikkerhed created a series of PSA animations called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9narjPxlnp0 Hovedløselille]] to remind people of the importance of situational awareness while at train stations.
* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb2riGMH9i0 Maestro credit card ad]] features a headless woman shopping for new clothes, and as she pays for her stuff with her Maestro card, she leaves her head behind.
* A banner ad for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc9PHD-hz7E Treximet]], a prescription headache remedy, has a woman who says, "My migraines are so excruciating, I just want to take my head off."
* A Dentyne Frost Bites [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=regx_JrpC68 commercial]] has a man still alive after his head becomes frozen solid and snaps off.
* Gary The Robot suffers [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmWQuf8NpYk this]] cruel fate in an ad for Pillsbury Pizza Pops.
* In an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx6C8_ZKno4 advert]] for [=VO5=] Extreme Style hair products a teenager removes his own head in order to style his hair. He then proceeds to flirt with a woman holding her head in her hands.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXl4wIB6Bto There are also a few sequels ads that]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbAiX9pGPUM also feature a few guys' disembodied heads and]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHJQR-Y4AjE their headless bodies]].
* An interesting case turned up in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTjTnjUftQw commercial]] for Fruit Gushers that had a space theme. Toward the end of the commercial, some kid's head turns into a flying saucer. At the end of the commercial, we see the kid's FlyingSaucer head fly away, leaving his headless body behind. Could also have some FridgeHorror if you consider the fact that the kid's head might not come back, leaving his body without a head.
* In a similar vein, the ad for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUWL7RK678o Gushers Magic Pieces]] ended with a girl making a candy "disappear," only for her head to vanish in a puff of smoke. Her voice says, "Hey, where'd I go?" suggesting that the head has turned {{invisib|ility}}le or gone [[AnotherDimension somewhere else]]. 'Cause, y'know, [[AWizardDidIt it's magic.]]
* A terrifying [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJXeSkBDiTo PSA]] circa 1971 from the Presidential Council on Fitness (?) posited a future where, due to physical inactivity, a man of the time was reduced to a head in a box, carted around by a humanoid robot. In the ad, the power goes off, leading the head to anxiously cry out "Hello? ''Is anyone there??''"
* A commercial for Kids Foot Locker features two kids sitting at a cafeteria table. One of them is clearly interested in the jacket that the other is wearing, and starts bargaining to trade one of his own possessions for the other's jacket. The offering quickly escalates from simple things like sandwiches and pudding, to the boy offering ''[[BreadMilkEggsSquick his very own head for it.]]'' Sure enough, this is what gets his friend's attention, as he finally agrees to the trade. After the trade, a passing student quips "Nice jacket!" to which the now-headless boy hi-fives him, almost as if to say that [[SkewedPriorities it was]] [[WorthIt worth it.]] View the ad [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8tnB3gTLlk here.]]
* Gary from ''Advertising/NintendoWeek'' begins hosting one [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxiUAQk3yM4 episode]] as a disembodied head, with his body stumbling into walls in the background. He promptly explains this is a nod to ''VideoGame/FaceRaiders'' for the [[Platform/Nintendo3DS 3DS]].
* A [[UsefulNotes/McDonalds McDonald's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVipDsvISIU commercial]] featuring the famous magician David Copperfield has this happen to his assistant via the Head Mover magic trick.
* There are at least [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhrt_WoOIEY two]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Z0xJXqm5A separate]] commercials from 1990 about Consolidated Auto Sales that feature Frank Sawark holding his own head on a platter.
* An ad for the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbJ3VmCKhAM Teacher's Training Agency]] starts off with a guy detaching his head when getting out of bed and then continues for most of the commercial with the headless bodies doing their jobs while the song [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs "Heigh ho"]] plays in the background.
* Happens to a kid in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUFt8F4223w this]] commercial for the Panasonic 3DO when his head flies off his body while his now headless body continues to play due to the graphics "blowing his mind".
* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSp1wtKEuU8 commercial]] for a film themed event that happened from 2013 to 2014 in a french community center has a headless DJ that after finding and then dropping his head he tries to [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattach it]] only for it to fall off again after sneezing.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKnLzLkh46A This]] commercial for Coca-Cola has a guy's headless body in a house that sitting in front of a television that is showing a tropical paradise which it then gets launched to by the Coca-Cola. It then reveals that his head is involved in a tropical paradise party that temporarily comes to a halt when his body arrives but then resumes with his disembodied head soon afterwards [[PullingThemselvesTogether getting reattached to his body]].
* There is a commercial for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpcM_yb0O-w MTV's Panasonic Face of Beauty]] that features three girls separated from their heads that only [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattach]] them after finishing on getting their headless bodies fully dressed up.
* A guy is seen holding his head while talking about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXE4rjsy_lY a college in Brazil]].
* There are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmITEOTpkRg two]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRqq41caJjo different]] Canadian [=PSAs=] that both involve a black kid detaching his head from his body to teach kid to eat healthy and exercise frequently.
* An ad for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb__nh5Wzo0 ECUST Sound Engineering]] features either an android or cyborg [[EasilyDetachableRobotParts removing his head]] to work on at least one of his ears.
* Has this happen to a boy wearing earbuds in an ad for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfXcHNLWnM NRJ mobile]] after listening to music that causes his ears to first wiggle and then start to grow in size until they large enough that his head flies off his body.
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-w9nLya2uI this]] ad for Halloween fanta has a breakdancer's head come off as a result of his breakdancing.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U337Ioe0ZX4 This]] commercial for a brand of condoms has a young couple have both their heads fall off when they can't find the advertised condom.
* On a rather NotSafeForWork [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAgv_4vk7Is PSA]] about AIDS education, a couple who has their heads [[note]] which was shown that they have due to their head being seen in the beginning reflection [[/note]] either disappear or detach from their bodies and moved to somewhere offscreen while having sex using their headless bodies.
* In a Japanese commercial for an cooking school called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAyHnS9PDlU Taiwa]] has a man with [[NonHumanHead an egg for a head]] literally sneezes his head off resulting in his headless body frantically looking for presumably his head [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext until it settles for a cabbage]].
* Happens to Terry Crews in some of the Old Spice commercials he appears in such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zkoxwPtjHk this one]].
* A 2002 Hong Kong commercial for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukYkuhY_6so E*Trade]] has it happen to a motorcycler when he takes off his helmet to which he immediately afterwards removes from his helmet and [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattaches to his body]].
* Similarily [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwH9jkIP65Q this]] Microsoft commercial also features someone with a helmet taking off their head when attempting to remove their helmet and [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattaching their head to their body]] only this time it happens to a Go-Cart driver after crashing their Go-Cart against the wall.
* Generally any commercial with penanggalans in them tend to play this trope rather straight. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgzY3yihx6w Here is a relatively recent PSA that features a penanggalan]].
* A commercial for a travel company called Best Day features an implied OffscreenTeleportation of a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95dFwWoTs3A Mother's head from her body]] in a similar vein to the start of the above Coca Cola commercial due to the head ending up in a tropical location while their headless body stays behind at home.
** There is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHpFdUN2-zM another commercial]] for Best day that is similar only with a boy instead of a mother.
* In a commercial for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28raec1mgqA RC Cola]] has the mother of a [[BodyHorror boy with 4 cups attached to his back]] take her head off to reveal [[BagOfHolding she has an entire RC Cola bottle connected to her neck]] to prove he isn't adopted, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext She then puts ice cubes on the glasses removes the lid of the cola bottle "head" and pours it in the glasses attached to his back, and by the end of the commercial the entire family each drink cola from one of the cups on his back]] [[SurrealHorror with the mom holding her disembodied head while she drinks and only the sound heard at the end is all of them going "Mmmm" and drinking.]]
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfC8vp7eODE this]] commercial for Miller Light a wannabe wrestler's friend imagine his head getting knocked off by Evander Holyfield followed by his still living disembodied head taunting his opponent.
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHDKEKAND7w one of the ads for the channel Vrak TV]] [[ButtMonkey a kid named Tommy]] gets his head kicked off his body by a girl practicing for football.
* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovDojH3Je5U commercial]] that appears to be about beds has one of the guys ending up with his head separated from his body by the monster under his bed.
* An [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1cKN3xZMug&feature=emb_title aspirin commercial]] features a headless couple relaxing in bed, with the woman saying she has a headache... [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext despite being headless]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Subverted in ''Manga/SazanEyes'' during the combat between [[TheHero Yakumo]] and [[TheDragon Benares]] on the moon: true, Wu such as themselves can survive anything, even decapitation (which happened to Yakumo himself earlier on in the manga) but, as Benares pointed out, the sheer pain of having your head [[FamilyUnfriendlyViolence graphically torn from your neck]] is enough to reduce the victim in a comatose state.
* ''Manga/AstroBoy'''s head is apparently not that well attached, judging by the frequency of which it detaches, though it's stated that his electronic brain is in his chest and not his head, which is just for talking, hearing, and sight.
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'':
** Titans can generally survive the removal of their heads (which they'll quickly [[HealingFactor regenerate]]), often being able to keep walking without it. Even on the occasions where decapitation kills them, it's not actually the loss of the head, but when the process of its removal also happens to cut away the nape of the [[AchillesHeel neck]].
** [[spoiler:Eren gets his head blown clean off by Gabi's anti-Titan rifle, but stays conscious long enough to enter the Paths once his head lands in Zeke's hand. He then becomes a mountain-sized skeletal Titan, but his true form inside is just his head. When Mikasa finally severs him from his Titan body, his remaining head instantly dies this time.]]
* Normally, humans and demons die when Guts of ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' shears their heads off. The Count from the Guardians of Desire arc proves to be quite more resilient than that, which drives Guts to torture him further because he "doesn't know how to fucking die."
* In ''Anime/BlackLion'', one of Ginnai's attacks involve him launching his cyborg head off his neck, which then fires his EyeBeams all over the place at his opponents while flying on rockets attached to his neck. It ''needs'' to be seen to be believed.
* In ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'', [[DecapitationRequired cutting the head is normally the surest way to kill a Claymore or an Awakened being]], except when it isn't. Two or three Awakened Being defied this norm.
** Of them, Europa is the one who plays this trope the straightest as she's able to "play dead" by being decapitated while in Human form and then transform in her true Awakened form Decapitation has otherwise no effect on her.
** The other two are Priscilla, who's not only resistant to decapitation but has the ability to regenerate FromASingleCell, and "Bloody" Agatha, who basically cheats as her human body is just an appendage while her true "necks" that connect her head to her true body are her hairs; when she was decapitated in battle she all but mocked her enemies.
* Dowman Sayman's ''The Collector and the Phantom Pain'' is a short story about Narumiya, a girl who finds her friend in pieces while on her way to school. Narumiya speaks to the girl's head and offers her help in [[GottaCatchEmAll recovering the scattered body parts]], which fell inexplicably in the hands of other clingy school girls who refuse to give them away, and easily does so [[spoiler:but secretly keeps her friend's breasts to herself, telling her that she was unable to find them. Narumiya's friend doesn't mind, however, saying that [[YuriGenre she feels them being taken care of very affectionately]]]].
* [[RobotGirl May]] spends most of ''Anime/CoyoteRagtimeShow'' as a disembodied head after Mister blows her up with an RPG.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/DoctorSlump''. Arale is a little android girl whose head pops off quite easily. For example, this may cause momentary horror in an onlooker who thinks she's human.
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** In the original ''Manga/DragonBall'' manga, Sergeant Metallic has his head blown up by Goku's {{Kamehameha|doken}}, but survives as he's a robot. Surely, it scares and surprises him. Shortly after, however, Metallic runs out of battery.
** ''Anime/DragonBallZ'':
*** After Vegeta decapitates Guldo, Guldo's head survives long enough to yell at Vegeta before getting vaporized altogether.
*** Similarly, Doctor Gero (a cyborg) is still able to rant after Android 17 decapitates him. 17 fixes this by ''stomping'' on Gero's head.
*** Happens to Android 16 (who, unlike other "androids", is 100% mechanical) after he gets blown to bits in the Cell arc. [[spoiler:After his FinalSpeech, Cell steps on the head and destroys it. Which makes [[BewareTheNiceOnes Gohan]] [[UnstoppableRage go BATSHIT on Cell]].]]
*** When Majin Buu punches Babidi's head to mush, his body continues to move until Buu vaporizes it.
*** Majin Buu has his head blasted off during [[spoiler:the fight against Kid Buu (having been removed from Kid Buu's system)]]. It's easily reformed from his body, however, since he can regenerate from almost every wound.
** In ''Anime/DragonBallZTheReturnOfCooler'', Cooler was reduced to his head after Goku knocked him into the sun in ''Anime/DragonBallZCoolersRevenge''. He fuses with a machine called the Big Gete Star and makes robot copies of himself.
* A number of people have had odd things happen to their heads in ''Manga/FrankenFran''. Fran herself has sewn her own head back on after decapitation.
* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'':
** Greed has Law take his head off with a huge sledgehammer [[SelfMutilationDemonstration as a demonstration of his powers]]. He then tells him to improve his aim after regenerating, due to him missing a part of his jaw.
** Al gets his head taken off multiple times. Of course, this barely [[AnimatedArmor affects him]]. He can still speak, as it seems the sound comes from the [[BloodMagic blood seal]] that's in the armor's body, which seems to indicate his head is essentially decorative.
** Same goes for Barry; he just snaps his head back on whenever it gets knocked off.
** Slicer's blood seal is in the helmet, so while it's still not fatal it does incapacitate him. [[spoiler:Of course, then his younger brother can just take over.]]
* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'': Batou is attacked by a MiniMecha who blows his head off. The pilot gets a shock when Batou's head starts talking back to him, as Batou has hacked his cyborg eyes and sent a false image. An unharmed Batou is actually standing right behind the pilot. Cue BoomHeadshot.
* Happens to various individuals around the heroine repeatedly in ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'', falling somewhere between {{Gorn}} and {{Narm}}.
* ''Manga/InterviewsWithMonsterGirls'': The dullahan class of [[OurMonstersAreDifferent demi-humans]] have their heads detached from their bodies from birth, but [[BizarreAlienBiology their heads and bodies are synchronized even if they are miles away]] (for example, if the head eats, the body will eventually have to go to the bathroom, and if the body stubs its toe, the head will scream in pain), to the point that wormholes were being suspected in-universe.
* ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'':
** Naraku often sends disguised puppets to fight in his place. The first time that this is revealed, the puppet is beheaded, and appears to be dead. After the protagonists let down their guard, the puppet springs back to life, including the head which rolls upright again, and begins to speak.
** The episode "3000 [[ShoutOut Leagues in Search of Father]]" also focuses around this. Demons have enough vigor to survive decapitation for a day or two, which leads to the son of a demon to find his father's body and place the head back on.
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood Phantom Blood]]'': Dio Brando decapitates himself [[AmputationStopsSpread to avoid being killed by Jonathan's Hamon]]. He later [[spoiler:steals Jonathan Joestar's body to replace his own]].
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Battle Tendency]]'': Wamuu briefly survives getting his head blown off, but Hamon already spread to it, so he dies not too long afterward.
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Stardust Crusaders]]'': Vanilla Ice decapitates himself using his own Stand so he can offer his blood to Dio. Dio then uses his own blood to revive Ice, claiming "you don't need to die." [[spoiler:Since Dio used his blood, Vanilla Ice becomes a vampire, making him unkillable until Polnareff exposes him to sunlight. Unfortunately for Ice, although he knew about the weakness, he didn't realize ''he'' was a vampire.]]
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'': Bruno Buccellati uses his zipper-ability to unzip rival gangster Zucchero's head clean off, which the other team members then hang from a fish hook in an attempt to interrogate him. When Zucchero refuses to comply, they resort to [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AQx_KMoCgJU the Torture Dance]], while Zucchero's head dangles helplessly by his eyelid and is ForcedToWatch.
* In [[WhamEpisode episode 18]] of ''Anime/KillLaKill'', [[spoiler:Satsuki]] decapitates [[spoiler:[[BigBad Ragyo]]]] during their epic confrontation. However, since [[spoiler:Ragyo is a Life Fiber hybrid]], she has no trouble at all putting herself back together -- or [[spoiler:[[CurbStompBattle beating the crap out of Satsuki afterward]]]].
* Kendaman from ''Manga/{{Kinnikuman}}'' uses his head as a weapon, which is easy considering it's more or less ''a wrecking ball attached to his arm''.
* ''Manga/LivingDead'': Being a FleshEatingZombie, Monako's parts fall off easily, especially her head as it can pop off her neck or tumble with enough force.
* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': [[TheDragon Count Brocken]] is a Nazi ex-officer who was mortally wounded. [[MadScientist Dr. Hell]] found him when he was dying, cut his head from his body and [[ReforgedIntoAMinion turned him into a cyborg]]. His head always follows him around, either floating on its own or resting on one of his hands. This was carried to MemeticMutation levels in ''Anime/ShinMazinger'':
-->''"[[SeveredHeadSports Brocken BALL!]] The game where everyone wins. Except Brocken."''
* ''Manga/MidoriDays'' did this with an android-version of a character. After she had been separated from her legs, her body later self destructed, but her head survived to jet into the professor who made her.
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'''s GrandFinale has 2 of this. Char's Zeong has a cockpit as the mobile armor's head, and he eventually has to separate it from the body. The Gundam gets it head tore off during the battle, and the famous "Last Shooting" pose has it shoots a beam rifle into a colony to destroy an empty Zeong's head, [[http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c151/Karsh1337/Gundam%20Stuff/Last_Shooting.jpg without a head nor a left arm.]]
* ''Manga/MonsterMusume'': Lala, being a [[HeadlessHorseman dullahan]], has her head permanently detached from her body. Normally, she leaves her head on her neck, but sometimes it gets knocked off and she has to get it back. Body and head are both capable of acting independently, but the body lacks the head's senses and needs to get it back in order to use them. The head, however, is very conscious of whatever the body's feeling.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** Hidan is immortal, but one time it was cut off he couldn't move until Kakuzu used his threads to sew it back on. Later, [[spoiler:Kakuzu isn't around to reattach it, and Shikamaru cuts his head off, but decides to be more thorough and blows up his body while [[AndIMustScream throwing his head into a deep pit in the private land of the Nara clan and then buries it in an avalanche. While the head is screaming curses at him]]]].
** Later still, [[spoiler:Kisame]] ([[spoiler:not really]]) has this happen to him, and he is somehow able to get off a compliment on his opponents' abilities as his head ''flies through the air''.
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'':
** Invoked in class 3-A's Haunted House in the Mahora Festival, where Akira, the guide in the school themed haunted house, appeared to get decapitated and her head told Negi to run away. She's actually just lying on the ground with a cover that matches the floor tiles camouflaging the rest of her body, but Negi was too freaked out to notice.
** In the backstory, [[spoiler:Tertium did this to Secundum after Secundum "rewrote" Shiori's older sister, effectively erasing the poor girl out of existence]].
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** Buggy the Clown can separate any body part, but his move "Chop Chop Quick Escape" involves him popping his head off to stop people from punching his face.
** There's also Trafalgar Law, who apparently can do similar things to other people. The first instance of him using tricks like that in the manga involves a justifiably weirded out marine juggling the talking head of one of his comrades.
** Crocodile got his head sliced off by Doflamingo, but because he can use his [[ElementalPowers Logia fruit's]] [[PullingThemselvesTogether reformation power]] by reflex he attached it just a second later.
** This only happened in the manga, but after being attacked by Dalton, Wapol's troupe of doctors were quick to patch him up... except for the fact that they hadn't reattached his head to his body, which they did off-panel.
** After the TimeSkip, [[DemBones Brook]] gets his head taken off by a Fish Man Pirate, but then reveals he's perfectly fine. Since learning to master the power of his [[BackFromTheDead Revive-Revive Fruit]], Brook learned that it was the power of his soul keeping his body moving. Since he has no vital organs to risk, it's a simple matter to pop his head back on.
* ''Manga/ReikoTheZombieShop'''s protagonist zombifies [[spoiler:her own]] head after an unfortunate run-in with a serial killer. [[spoiler:She gets a new body in the second volume.]]
* ''Anime/RioRainbowGate'' uses this as a RunningGag with Linda the RobotGirl.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' by [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Ling-Ling]], a [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombie]] who can (and frequently does) freely detach and reattach her body parts, most especially her head.
* [[{{Cyborg}} Kikuchiyo]]'s introduction in ''Anime/SamuraiSeven'' has him get decapitated by Kambei as part of a ploy act to distract a guy holding a baby hostage, with his head later berating him for stealing his rescue attempt. Later on, in an infiltration plan in which some of the samurai let themselves get captured, his head is delivered as a trophy, while his body enters enemy territory hidden within a pile of hay.
* ''Manga/TimeStopHero'': Vampires cannot be killed by decapitation or dismemberment. Their heads can still talk and they can eventually pull themselves back together. The only way to kill them is to expose them to sunlight or holy light, which will turn them to dust.
* ''Manga/{{Tomie}}'', but then she is an EldritchAbomination in human form.
* ''Anime/TransformersHeadmasters'': Some Transformers can change into heads while others change into bodies to combine and become more powerful.
* Happens to [[spoiler:Reiha]] in the ''Manga/VampirePrincessMiyu'' TV series. [[spoiler:After [[BattleCouple Miyu and Larva]] kill her, her body picks up her head and then disappears, sweating to return later.]]
* Happened to [[TheDragon Hell King Bass]] in ''Manga/ViolinistOfHameln'' during a flashback. Better yet, all of his body except for the head was annihilated. Unfortunately, he is a near-immortal mazoku, who can continue to exist even in this state, and he was swift to obtain a pupped to haul his (literally) disembodied head around.
* ''Manga/YouAreBeingSummonedAzazel'': This [[RunningGag constantly]] happens to Azazel, though he often has it coming.
* The duel between Mai and Marik in the ''Manga/YuGiOh'' manga. Mai's monster manages to decapitate Marik's monster, which are both tied by lifelines to their respective duelists. Guess what happens to Marik...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Card Games]]
* This trope appears in the diamond suit in John Littleboy's [[http://www.wopc.co.uk/usa/inky-dinky/bag-of-bones.html Bag of Bones]] playing cards, published in 2008.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/TheAmazingScrewOnHead'' is built on this trope, as the titular character is a mechanical head who is able to attach himself to different bodies and is frequently left without a body.
* Invoked by the Monkey King in ''ComicBook/AmericanBornChinese'', who continues speaking uninterrupted even after being beheaded.
* ''ComicBook/{{Arawn}}'': Arawn cut off Owen's head many years ago, but he's still alive and talking to him. This is because Arawn, as the Lord of the Dead, can render any part of a person immortal.
* ''ComicBook/{{Bloodpool}}'' has Rubble (who is indeed made of rubble), who likes to take off his head and throw it. After his head is blown to bits during this attack, he still retains consciousness and channels his dialogue through a telepathic teammate.
* ''ComicBook/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': The Mayor is able to possess dead bodies after his own death, and eventually settles in a "patchwork" monster built by the Initiative with such an ability.
* M.F. Enterprises' ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(M._F._Enterprises) Captain Marvel]]'' (unrelated to the [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Fawcett]] and [[ComicBook/CaptainMarvelMarvelComics Marvel]] characters who use that name) can detach all of his body parts, including his head.
* One arc of ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'' has the hero break up a {{human traffick|ers}}ing ring with the twist that the lynchpin is a new villain named Coyote who has replicated [[ThinkingUpPortals the Spot's powers]]. Coyote uses special collars with his portal abilities to indefinitely separate peoples' bodies from their heads, keeping them on shelves in a room, the disorientation and horror of the situation making them compliant laborers for various illicit operations.
%%* Dick Grayson in ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', believe it or not.
* In one ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'' comic, ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} cuts Deadpool's head off and comments that even with regeneration, he may still die from it, unless his head get reattached soon afterwards. It does, and Deadpool himself comments that his mouth is dry and that he hadn't spoken for a while. Later comics feature [[ComicBook/MarvelZombies Zombie-Deadpool]] a.k.a. "[[PunnyName Headpool]]", reduced to nothing but a hungry head. Like other zombies, he's compelled to eat but doesn't need to (not like it matters).
* ''ComicBook/DeathsHeadMarvelComics'': In their first encounter, ComicBook/IronMan 2020 decapitates Death's Head in battle. Annoyed, Death's Head used his headless body to beat up Iron Man and work off his aggression.
* ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'':
** Creator/GrantMorrison's run features a trio of bizarre government agents called the [=SeX=]-Men. One of them gets decapitated and is shown to still be able to survive without a body.
** After being decapitated at the end of Morrison's run, Niles Caulder spent Rachel Pollack's run as a disembodied head due to intervention of the Teiresiae and the nannos. He has since appeared whole again.
** Being a human brain in a robot body, Cliff Steele has occasionally survived having his head removed from his body and recovering by simply having his head attached to a new body (if reattaching to his old body isn't possible). [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness This is in spite of the original 1960s series making it clear several times that Robotman can't survive having his head being separated from his body]].
%%* Brick of the ''Doom's IV''.
%%-->''[[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/3024-dooms-iv-2 "Clumsy Me."]]''
* Numerous characters in ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' do this. including the Wooden Soldiers, Bright Day and Frankenstein's Monster.
* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'':
** Abin Sur, the man who gave Hal Jordan his ring, has an evil son. Sur Jr. gets his head chopped off. It's later revealed that his race (he's an alien) doesn't quite need their heads, and he regrows it (slowly) to return... only to get shredded after killing some kids. No luck there.
** At the end of the ''ComicBook/{{Larfleeze}}'' ongoing, the robot L-Frank appears to get killed from having his head blasted off, but later appears still functioning while holding his detached head.
* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'':
** The short story "Heads" is based on this trope. These heads reappear in Hellboy's AnimatedAdaptation "Sword of the Storms".
** In the story "King Vold", the King in question carries his severed head at arm's length.
* ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft'': Horatio is a zombie who also a fanatical basketball fan. When his team wins the playoffs in ''Back to the Garden'', the feedback of magical energy from Lori's battle with Elston Gunn is enough to knock his head off. Horatio doesn't notice and his head continues to cheer at the television while his body stumbles blindly around the workshop.
* ''ComicBook/MarvelZombies'':
** A Variant cover features the Undead X-Men with Cyclops carrying his head in his hands continuing to fire optic blasts at Magneto.
** Zombie Hawkeye is a disembodied head who talks. He's given a gynoid body at one point.
** In the crossover sequel with ''ComicBook/MarvelApes'', the zombie Reed Richards is beheaded and still moves around by using his [[RubberMan stretching powers]] to extend pieces of his neck stump into rudimentary legs.
* Mr. Gone of ''ComicBook/TheMaxx'' was somehow beheaded by an out-of-shape woman wielding a knife-length tooth of one of his henchmonsters, but that didn't stop him from continuing to play mind games with the heroes. He eventually finds a chiropractor to reattach his head.
* ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'':
** Thanks to magical precautions, Loki can survive decapitation, and his body can pick up his head and reattach it. At the climax of one arc, an empowered Thor inflicts this on Loki by ripping his head off and magically keeping him alive, forced to watch the conclusion of Ragnarok.
** Later, [[spoiler:the Enchantress does this to Donald Blake after he is separated from Thor, Thor eventually leaving Blake's head where it can remain in a 'dream' of the life he would have lived if he had been real]].
* ''ComicBook/MonicasGang'': The StockMonsters in ''Bug-a-Booo''/''Turma do Penadinho'' include Cranicola/Skully, a disembodied skull who lies atop a stone (though he jumps from time to time) and sometimes misses his body.
* The titular protagonist of ''ComicBook/MortTheDeadTeenager'' has the ability to remove his head, though on most occasions it’s involuntary.
* In ''ComicBook/TheMultiversity'' #2, [[spoiler:Captain Carrot gets decapitated by the corrupted Nix Uotan. Being a {{Toon}}, however, this does not stop him from continuing to fight, although he is unable to eat his PowerUpFood in order to replenish his superpowers until his head is reattached with Red Racer's help]].
* In ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'', vampire sidekick Cassidy is beheaded, leading to his asking "Can ye sew?" He is fine afterwards... by Cassidy's standards, anyway. (Healing was difficult; scarves were employed.)
* Creator/DCComics' ''R.E.B.E.L.S.'' volume two has Despero survive decapitation and subsequently grow a new body.
* In the ''ComicBook/{{RoboHunter}}'' reboot, Sam has been reduced to this, forcing his granddaughter to take over running the business.
* Page image Victor Manchas of ''ComicBook/RunawaysRainbowRowell'' is a cyborg who does just fine as a head: after he is seemingly killed by Vision and his wife, his head is sent to his friends in a box by Tony Stark, where his friend Chase eventually manages to reawaken him. Having been created as a weapon by Ultron, Victor notably ''wants'' to remain a disembodied head: as he believes he can no longer hurt people in his state and is visibly traumatized when Doombot installs him onto a weaponized robot body. He instead prefers roombas and quadcopters as transportation. [[spoiler:He eventually gets over it and ''grows a new body'' just by thinking about it.]]
* Orpheus from ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' is beheaded but unable to die due to a deal with [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Death]] he made while in the throes of grief.
* The villain Cyberface from ''ComicBook/SavageDragon'' survived as a disembodied head. Justified, in one aspect, that his power was interact with machinery.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Sleepwalker}}'', Rick Sheridan [[FreakyFridayFlip ends up trapped in Sleepwalker's body]] and becomes trapped in the [[DreamLand Mindscape]], where he faces several different demons, including one that knocked his/Sleepwalker's head off. [[BigBad Cobweb]] points out that since Rick is in the Mindscape, the normal laws of nature don't apply, and it's also implied that [[spoiler:the whole thing was just an illusion dreamed up by Cobweb to convince Rick that Sleepwalker's race actually planned to invade Earth]].
* Dimitri from ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' is a cyborg head in a floating fishbowl.
* Mysterio [[MasterOfIllusion projects an illusion of himself]] performing such an ability in various ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' comics.
* Creator/DCComics' ''Strange Adventures'' #136 has a robot having to get a new head after losing his old one.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In the 1990s, this became Metallo's power -- his head couldn't just operate without a body, it could seize control of any machinery and turn it into a body. In the absence of convenient machines, it scuttled around on spider-legs.
%%** The Puzzler.
%%** In the [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Superboy_Vol_2_25 cover]] of ''New Adventures of ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'' #25.
* ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'': In the Golden Age of the Sith, the Sith council has a Sith Lord who is a head in a container, kept alive with his Sith powers.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': In one issus, Optimus Prime's head was held captive and his body under the Decepticons' remote control.
** In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMegaseries'', Scorponok has been reduced to a badly damaged but still-living head as a result of the injuries inflicted upon him by Ultra Magnus. Sunstreaker suffers the same fate, courtesy of Scorponok’s human minions the Machination. In the ''Devastation'' arc, Runamuck survives being decapitated by one of the Reapers, only for another Reaper to kill him by crushing his head with a boulder.
** ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformersRobotsInDisguise Optimus Prime]]'': Wreck-Gar winds up losing his body when the positron core he stores inside explodes. He spent the rest of the series as a disembodied head being carried around by his consort, Rum-Maj. This resulted in many, ''many'' head-related puns.
* ''ComicBook/UltimateMarvel'':
** ''ComicBook/UltimateVision'': Vision cut Tarleton's head for killing Dima, and threw it to the horizon. That doesn't kill him, but left him in a highly uncomfortable position.
** [[ComicBook/UltimateXMen2001 Ultimate Wolverine]] at one point gets decapitated, yet remains alive to converse with Nick Fury. Fury theorizes it's because his HealingFactor is actually a "survival factor" and his body is [[AdaptiveAbility adapting to continue surviving]] instead of merely healing, with the skin of his head taking in oxygen to keep his brain alive.
* ''ComicBook/TheWickedAndTheDivine'':
** Baphomet decapitates [[spoiler:The Morrigan]]. She was still able to talk and sing his praises. [[spoiler:It was a fake anyway, so ultimately averted.]]
** [[spoiler:#33 reveals that three of the dead gods live on as disembodied heads.]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Wildguard}}'' has a character named Segmented Man who can segment his body parts. He demonstrates with his head.
* The Scarecrow demonstrates in the cover of ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'' [[http://skottieyoung.deviantart.com/art/Wonderful-Wizard-of-Oz-7-Cover-116965645 #7]].
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'':
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': D'grth's giant head continues talking after Diana decapitates him with her plane, and draggs him back to the other warriors gathered to put an end to D'grth's scheming.
** ''[[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Wonder Woman 600]]'': In the Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert and Rod Reis collaboration, Diana defeats Medusa by cutting off her head, and while this seems to do in the snake woman's body her head and hair is still snarling and furious.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'' villain Cameron Hodge survived beheading after a DealWithTheDevil that had made him immortal. Most of his appearances since have said head attached to an enormous SpiderTank.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* Horace Graevsyte in ''ComicStrip/NonSequitur'' has his head on a silver platter.
* Jeremy's head has popped off his body and went about its own way as a part of many visual gags in ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}''. Connie's head also floats away like a balloon to depict her "airheaded-ness".
* A [[http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2008&addr=081026 headless swamp monster]] doesn't scare ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} more than his dish bowl being empty.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'':
** After San was decapitated from [[MultipleHeadCase Ghidorah]] during the events of [[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 the movie]], the severed head retains San's mind and some degree of consciousness, although the head is immobile on the outside; except for its eyes appearing to track and follow Alan Jonah's men when they approach it, and except for episodes where the head moves its jaw or vocal chords around to accommodate the birth of the [[TwoBeingsOneBody hybrid creature]] it's forming and gestating.
** In Chapter 15, [[spoiler:the [[UndeadAbomination Many]]-infested, reanimated Manda]]'s head deliberately rips away from its main body in the style of ''Film/TheThing1982'', to escape its fight with Godzilla and Scylla.
* In the Literature/HarryPotter fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5402315/ Can't Have It Both Ways'']], Nearly-Headless Nick stretched his head up by the hair so that Harry could cut it off properly with the Sword of Gryffindor. This resulted in the head shooting across the room while his body stumbled about blindly.
* In ''Fanfic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'', a Sniper Joe in episode 9 has its head cut off by Metal Man, but just picks it up and wanders off. He loses it again later on, with the same reaction.
* In the ''WebAnimation/DickFigures'' fanfic "Giving Pink Head", Red steals a katana sword ends up chopping off Pink's head with it, though she still survives. Later, Red steals said sword later on and [[spoiler:cuts off Stacy's head with it. You can imagine how that ended up.]]
* In the FanFilm ''WebVideo/DeadpoolTheMusical'', after Deadpool demonstrates that he's "especially good at ''decapitating!''", the severed head still sings his part: "Heads roll for Deadpool!"
* In ''Fanfic/RobbReturns'', the still-alive head of a female wight inside a special cage that prevents it from decaying is used as proof that the Others are returning.
* ''WebVideo/ImAMarvelAndImADC'': Lance M. Donavan display this characteristics in "DC/Marvel Happy Hour".
* In Episode 10 of the ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'' fic, ''[[https://my.w.tt/3oHsyoHPIW Final Stand of Death]]'', Music/MelanieC finds herself in this while her body is being upgraded. Since it was done in the lab in the afterlife, so she doesn't die from it, though is place in a container until ready.
* The ''[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure Jojo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' AlternateUniverseFic ''Blog/SapphireHeartverse'' has this trope apply to Jonathan Joestar's head, as like in canon his body was taken by Dio who opted to magically keep Jonathan's head alive in a jar. As of the time the AU takes place, Jonathan has since learned how to move by bouncing and [[HandyMouth operating things using his mouth]], and any food he eats goes to Dio's stomach, which is often PlayedForLaughs. In later entries of the AU, the cast has since been joined by the living severed heads of other, deceased characters that were magically resurrected, with the same rules applying as with Jonathan's head.
* Music/SpiceGirls / Music/SClub7 AU fic, ''Spice Fortress'' short, "[[http://fav.me/dd5rggt Is There a Medic in The House]]", Geri the Hacker has this problem, which Victoria the Medic telling her she'll get to her.
* A strange version in ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/TheNightmareHouse'', where Lynn's nightmare involves accidentally beheading Lincoln, whose head then talks but it's implied he's still dead.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* The first thing the Genie in ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' does after escaping the lamp is complain about the crick in his neck, which he fixes by popping his head off, spinning it around once, and slamming it back on.
** He decapitates himself again while explaining the Genie rules- specifically the one where he can’t kill anybody.
* Rasputin in ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' loses his parts, head included, constantly as he's technically a zombie.
* The soldier ant Barbatus in ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'' is decapitated during a battle. This does kill him, but he survives long enough to make a FinalSpeech to Z, which makes for [[BlackComedy a pretty bizarre death scene]].
* The first ''Manga/{{Appleseed}}'' movie has a pair of gynoids with cutting whips that do quite a number on Hitomi's car and later on Briareos' HandCannon as well. Then, when a gynoid thinks it will be taken prisoner, it twirls the wire around its own head to slice up its cranial section. However, the lower jaw section apparently has enough functional circuitry to say the cryptic words "The Appleseed seal must not be unlocked" before it's destroyed by a BoomHeadshot (implied to have been fired to [[YouKnowTooMuch stop anything further from being said]]).
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBookOfLife'', Luis' head gets temporarily separated from the rest of his skeletal body during his journey alongside Manolo. Cures his arthritis for the duration though.
* ''WesternAnimation/BoysNightOut'': Linberg's reaction when the white-haired bombshell of a stripper makes her appearance at his table before he attaches his head back to his body.
* ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'': Paul the [[{{Pun}} "Head Waiter"]] He can't move under his own power very efficiently, so he is carried on the backs of cockroaches.
* Olaf the Snowman from ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'' manages to flip this one on its head when his head constantly loses its body.
* Ard of ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal'' chops off his own head in order to show Den that he can't be killed (at least through normal means).
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', the spirit of Fa Deng (the last ancestor Mushu tried acting as guardian to) is shown holding his severed head. In the closing scene, when the ancestors start celebrating Mulan's return, he throws it off and sends it crowd-surfing.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'': Jack Skellington, natch.
-->''"And since I am dead, I can take off my head/To recite Shakespearean quotations!"''
* Chronologically, this is how Genma gets introduced in ''Anime/NinjaScroll''; his head gets chopped off. [[spoiler:It's later shown that he can regenerate any wound ever, and someone put his head back on his neck and he sports a visible scar.]]
* This is referenced in ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'' in a scene where Smee mistakenly thinks that he [[DangerouslyCloseShave decapitated Captain Hook while giving him a shave]] and tells Hook that he will find his head, not realizing that this would have killed him, or that there should have been more blood if it had happened. He had actually just covered Hook's head with a towel and somehow didn't notice that he had been shaving a seagull that landed on it and then flew away.
* ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'': "[[ChekhovsGun Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite]]."
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Robots}}'': Rodney Copperbottom's second meeting with TheLoad and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Fender results in the latter temporarily losing his head. Much hilarity ensues:
-->'''Fender:''' ''[Lug is holding his head]'' Why, I'd, I'd smack you if I had a hand.\\
''[His body comes bouncing off buildings]''\\
'''Fender:''' Wow, speak of the devil... here I come.\\
''[The body falls on the floor]''\\
'''Fender:''' Owww! Daddy!
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSteamEnginesOfOz'', the Tin Man decapitated his advisor Scarecrow for daring to question his plans to modernize Oz. The heroes find Scarecrow's head in the Emerald Palace and are shocked when it calmly starts conversing with them.
* In the animated adaptation of ''Literature/ATerribleVengeance'' as the hero is fighting the BigBad other cossacks are fighting Polish hussars and Tartars. When one Cossack is beheaded, his head [[https://youtu.be/c7xb9vnNG64?t=511 starts attacking the head of a Tartar warrior]].
* ''Animation/SuurToll'' is an Estonian animated short based on the below-mentioned folktale of Tõll the Great.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Examples by creator: ]]

* Creator/GeorgesMelies takes off his head a surprising number of times. An identical one almost always reappears on his shoulders immediately, however, allowing him to pull off all sorts of multi-head stunts: just take a look at his films ''The Four Troublesome Heads'' and ''The Melomaniac''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Examples by work: ]]

* Played for BlackComedy during an ImagineSpot in ''Film/EightHeadsInADuffelBag'', when Joe Pesci's hitman character has a nightmare of the titular heads lined up and singing a parody of "Mr. Sandman."
* In ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'', the Sultan cuts off the Treasurer's head, which flies through the air, lands in one of the harem baths, and winks at one of the Sultan's wives. And then there are the King and Queen of the Moon, who have detachable heads, but that's not quite the same thing.
* ''Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod'': Taking a rest after the storming of an Indian village, Aguirre notices two soldiers sitting somewhat apart discussing desertion. One of them says that he has counted the river bends they passed. He draws a map into the sand and is counting out the river bends to his companion as Perucho approaches quietly from behind with a machete. When the man is at 'nine', Perucho swipes his head off, and we get a shot of the head lying on the ground, counting 'ten'.
* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'': This rule applies to androids in some capacity.
** ''Film/{{Alien}}'': While not completely decapitated, [[spoiler:Ash]] is able to operate with little more than a few wires keeping his head on his shoulders. Later, his head is successfully reactivated after it's been fully torn off from the body, save for a few connected wires.
** ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'': David's head likewise remains fully operational after being torn off, although his body can do little more than twitch.
** ''Film/Alien3'': Bishop from ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' is torn in half in that film, but in ''Alien³'', after his ship crashes only his head (and part of the chest) "survives". Ripley does have to plug his remains into various pieces of hardware in order to turn him back on/re-activate/bring back to life. She offers to keep him running in the hope of repair but he declines the offer and chooses to die/get turned off/de-re-activated.
* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'': In the climax, Hugo is fatally wounded by Zapan, and Alita carries him away in a nearby church. Thanks to Chiren's surgery skills, she separates Hugo's head from his body, maintaining it alive with her URM tech [[LiteralChangeOfHeart artificial heart]], passing him off as dead to the Centurions. Hugo's head is then grafted onto a robotic body.
* In the 1982 film ''Film/{{Android|1982}}'', [[spoiler:the MadScientist who built the androids Max and Cassandra]] is graphically revealed to be an android too after his head is ripped off in a struggle and [[CranialProcessingUnit keeps speaking until it is thrown down a trash chute]]. He keeps repeating "[[TomatoInTheMirror I'm not an android]]" the entire time.
%%* [[EvilTwin "Evil"]] Ash in ''Film/ArmyOfDarkness''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Beetlejuice-Poster.jpg The film poster of]] ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}''. In the movie, Barbara decapitates Adam to scare the living folks out of their house -- unfortunately, the two of them are InvisibleToNormals [[spoiler:except [[ISeeDeadPeople Lydia]]]].
* Hong Kong period piece ''Film/TheBeheaded1000'' revolves around a Ming-era Master Executioner famed for his quick, clean, precise decapitation methods. One of his executed victims had his head rolling across the floor, and ''compliments his swordsmanship'' before succumbing.
--> "That's... some fine chopping skill."
* The evil robots at the beginning of ''Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney'' play hoops with their heads.
* Happens in ''Film/TheBoxersOmen'' during a black magic ritual gone wrong; a witch doctor's head, upon being possessed, ends up detaching itself and floats around, with its intestines a-dangling underneath lashing out like a series of whips. Yes, it's a weird movie.
* In ''Film/TheBrainThatWouldntDie'', a scientist keeps his fiancée's head alive in a pan until he can retrieve a new body for her.
%%* The Mayor's Daughter from ''Film/CemeteryMan''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* ''Franchise/ChildsPlay'':
** Near the end of ''Film/ChildsPlay1988'', Chucky gets his head, arm and leg blown off by Karen. Santos, against Norris' caution, brings the head into the living room... [[spoiler:But then the rest of Chucky's body busts out of a duct to strangle Santos as the head commands it on.]]
** Happens again in ''Film/CurseOfChucky'', but in a non-graphic manner (as though his body were just a normal doll). He is also able to get hold of the head and stick it back on.
* In ''Film/CurseOfTheHeadlessHorseman'', the eponymous horseman carries a head(possibly his) with him. At the end of the movie, the Horseman can be heard laughing, so presumably it is still capable of some form of communication.
* In ''[[Film/Cyborg1989 Cyborg 2]]'', Creator/AngelinaJolie's character has her head removed when being interrogated.
* At the end of ''Film/DeathBecomesHer'', [[spoiler:which flashes forward to the funeral of Ernest, Helen and Madeline trip and fall on the front steps as they leave. Because the serum not only prevented them from aging, but ''dying'' as well, and they were so badly disintegrated by this time, they end up breaking apart when they hit the bottom, their heads still functioning]].
-->[[spoiler:'''Helen:''' Do you remember where you ''parked the car''?]]
* In ''Film/DemonKnight'', Brayker is being strangled by Uncle Willy. but manages to [[OffWithHisHead decapitate him]] with a machete. However, because Willy is possessed, and demons can only be destroyed by the Key or by having their eyes destroyed, Willy's body continues to strangle him while the head controls it from the floor.
* ''Film/{{Dollman}}'': Sprug's entire body has been destroyed during various fights with Brick. His head now sits on a hoverboard that acts as a life support system and mobility device.
* A beheaded demon-possessed woman does a rather memorable dance while headless in ''Film/EvilDead2''.
* The villain in ''Film/TheFourSkullsOfJonathanDrake'' is revealed to be the patchwork undead creation of a Jivaro witch doctor, who'd sought vengeance for the massacre of his tribe. He'd reanimated the body of a decapitated Jivaro after attaching the head of one of their Caucasian enemies, so the result could track down and murder the descendants of the massacre's instigator in the guise of a white scholar.
* The ending of ''Film/FreddyVsJason''. Where Jason comes out of Crystal lake with Freddy's head, and he smiles and winks at the camera.
* ''Film/GhostbustersII'' discusses this trope when detailing the [[RasputinianDeath fate of Vigo the Carpathian]]. Just before his ''head'' died, he uttered [[AlmostDeadGuy a prophetic statement that he would return]].
* ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'' has the eponymous Golden Army, MechaMooks towering over the heroes, who can pull themselves together after being ripped apart. In the final scene where various destroyed Golden Army monsters starts self-repairing, one of their heads attaches itself to a wheel and then moves along the floor before getting picked up by a headless monster, who puts it back on its neck.
* Nakano clings to life after being beheaded by Kane in ''Film/HighlanderIIITheSorcerer'' long enough to trap him in the cave they are in.
* In ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005'', Humma Kavula takes one of Zaphod Beeblebrox's heads as collateral while they retrieved the POV gun. He mounted it on a hula girl bobblehead and put a sign that read "Idiot". (No, he's not bitter about losing the election to Zaphod. Why'd you ask?)
* The Saturation Chamber in ''Film/HouseOnHauntedHill1999'' has Mr. Price hallucinate many horrifying things. One of them is his wife holding his living head in his hands.
* In ''Film/IdleHands'', Pnub is decapitated by a thrown circular saw blade, and as his head bounces down a flight of stairs, he looks up at the killer and says "Whoa, cool."
* [[EvilTwin "Evil"]] Gadget in ''Film/InspectorGadget1999'' once the real Gadget pulls a plug in the back of "Evil" Gadget's neck.
* The first ''Film/JakaSembung''. Ki Hitam is an immortal sorceror who can't be killed - Jaka Sembung relives him of his cranium in the final battle, only for him to continue walking around. His head, on the floor, lets out an audible ''smirk'' before leaping up to reconnect with the neck.
* After the femmebot in ''Film/JasonX'' is decapitated by Jason, her head is retrieved by her creator and hooked up to the ship's computer.
* The first shark attack in ''Film/Jaws3D'' is on a large grouper, the head of which is left floating in a cloud of blood. Its mouth is still moving.
* The Fireys in ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'' can come apart. To escape, Sarah throws their heads away from the clearing.
* In ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'', the android Beta removes his own head to repair it.
* ''Film/LittleMonsters'' has this happen to a [[TheFairFolk monster]] kid named Arnold due to [[TheDragon Snik]] tearing his head off for not giving "[[BigBad Boy]] what he wants" and then promptly [[LEGOBodyParts replacing his head]] with [[NonHumanHead what appears to be a ball with a face]].
* Daffy Duck in ''Film/LooneyTunesBackInAction''. Lasers can be hazardous to your health.
* ''Film/TheMagicSerpent'' has the protagonist get decapitated when one of the ninjas throws a boomerang at him. He not only survives but can also control his headless body, talk as a severed head, and levitate his head around from one place to another.
* ''Film/MarsAttacks'': Donald and Natalie's heads are severed, but survive on hanging wires and attached to her pet chihuahua respectively. For bonus points, Natalie's body is now inhabited by the chihuahua's head.
* In ''Film/MonsterHighTheMovie'', both the Headless Headmistress and [[spoiler:Clawdeen]] (when Draculaura uses a spell to make her resemble the former) briefly have their heads separated from their body.
* ''Franchise/MonsterVerse'':
** ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': Godzilla reduces King Ghidorah to just his middle head. The head continues roaring and trying to bite Godzilla until he vaporises it.
** ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'': [[spoiler:The company APEX acquired King Ghidorah's severed left head. Although the head rotted away until nothing was left but a skull, it turns out it is ''still conscious'' when it absorbs enough energy to awaken and take control of [=MechaGodzilla=].]]
* ''Film/MyFavoriteMartian'' has Martin literally fall apart during "Martian depression".
* The two friends in ''Film/{{Nothing}}'' eventually [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor wish away everything around each other]] in an argument until they're both down to just their heads... [[ThePowerOfFriendship which they find they can't bring themselves to wish away because they still like each other after all]]. Awwwwww.
* One of Davy Jones' crewman in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'' did this. Eventually his body ran off without him and the head crawled off on its own, using his HalfHumanHybrid abilities.
-->''"Follow my voice! Follow my voice! To the left. No, the other left. ''(body rams into a tree)'' ...No, that's a tree."''
* ''Film/PrinceOfDarkness'': The woman who becomes TheChosenOne of Satan has her head cut off. She picks up her head and puts it back on her neck, where it re-attaches itself.
* ''Film/ReAnimator'' has his rival's head in a pan and tells him, "You're a no-body!" Many viewers have quipped about ''that'' scene where "the head gave head".
* Mombi and her Hall of Heads plus Gump in ''Film/ReturnToOz'', which was adapted from Langwidere -- see the literature section below.
* The live-action movie version of ''Creator/RLStine's Mostly Ghostly: Who Let the Ghosts Out?'' has this happen to the ghost boy called Nicky when listening to a [[{{Hellgate}} portal in the wall to an evil dimension]]. A hand comes out of the wall and grabs him by the hair. His sister grabs his ankles and pulls to stop him from getting dragged in. The hand tugs hard enough that his head comes off and his headless body aimlessly wanders away until his sister stops him. She tries to pull his head free from the hand with no avail, so she tells his body to help her pull him free from the hand. The hand lets go and his head falls on the floor. His sister [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattaches his head to his body]], [[HeadTurnedBackwards only she apparently put his head on backwards]], so [[AbnormalLimbRotationRange he rotates his head back to normal]].
* In the short film ''Film/RobotBastard'', the TinCanRobot hero escapes the BigBad by shoving his head in the {{space station}}'s waste disposal unit and pulling the lever, severing his head and sending it down a chute into outer space. The body then self-destructs, destroying the station.
* Harris from ''Film/Severance2006'' wonders what it is like to be beheaded. He gets his wish, and the last sight of his body stumbling around raises a smile.
* The movie version of ''ComicBook/SinCity'' has one of the protagonists imagining that a dead body is talking to him. At one point, the dead body loses a head. The main character later imagines the severed head trying to talk with him briefly.
* The Borg Queen, first introduced in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', displays the ability again in ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]''.
%%* B4 from ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'': C-3PO gets his head knocked off and switched with that of a battle droid, resulting in a horrifyingly cringe-inducing HurricaneOfPuns.
** In ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', General Grievous' bodyguard robots can continue fighting after decapitation due to having a backup brain and optical receptors in their chests.
* Inverted in ''Film/TankGirl'', where Kesslee [[spoiler:suffers a terrible facial injury from the Rippers, so has his own head ''cut off deliberately'' and his consciousness downloaded into a hologram-projecting computer, installed in his neck. No telling [[MST3KMantra how he eats and breathes]] and perceives his surroundings thereafter, but it generates a 3-D image of his head that moves in synch with a voice synthesizer.]]
* ''Film/TheySavedHitlersBrain'': Hitler's head in a jar pretty much ''has'' to have inspired the folks at ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''.
* Decapitating the monster in ''Film/TheThing1982'' doesn't work -- in one instance, the head ''pulls itself off'' to avoid being [[KillItWithFire burned]] with the rest of the body, grows legs, and walks away.
* ''Film/TheThingThatCouldntDie'' features the disembodied head of an evil hypnotist, cursed to a FateWorseThanDeath back in the 1500s. It's dug up centuries later by a bunch of dim-witted ranchers and is able to manipulate anyone it makes eye contact with. Only after it has been reattached to its body can it be destroyed.
* In an old ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' short, a MadScientist is looking for a human head for his monster. In one scene Larry pokes his head through the underside of an open-leaf table. Moe enters, sees just Larry's head poking through the hole, and assumes the worst. Cue scream and faint.
* ''Film/Tormented1960'': Although the deceased girlfriend was not beheaded or otherwise dismembered, she can send selected bits of herself to vex her unfaithful beau. Her detached head is quite sarcastic.
* Alsatia in ''Film/{{Toys}}''. [[spoiler:[[RoboticReveal She's a robot]], and does wind up needing a fair amount of repair work as a result of her decapitation.]]
* ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'':
** In ''Film/Transformers2007'', when Frenzy's head is severed with a sawzall, the head is capable of scuttling around on its trailing components, and also turning into Mikaela's cell phone.
** Igor from ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'' is stated in [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary materials]] to have been built from the decapitated remains of another Decepticon, with [[Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen Long Haul]] being the most likely culprit.
* The Filipino movie ''Ulong pugot: Naglalagot'' has a majority of the plot revolving around the protagonist trying to find his headless body.
* The third Martian in ''Film/WarGod'' has his head hacked off by Guan Yu's Green Dragon Saber, but instead of killing him, the Martian's head just floats around while its headless owner runs behind him.
* An example near the end of ''Film/{{Wolfen}}'' has a character's throat torn out by a wolf, resulting in his head ending up separate from his body. When it's obvious from the attempted mouthing of words and blinking that the head is still functional, [[ShootTheFuelTank a colleague shoots the car he's next to]], [[MercyKill putting him out of his misery]].
* ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'': [[spoiler:In one of {{The Stinger}}s, Deadpool's severed head wakes up before shushing to the audience and fading to black.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gamebooks]]
* In ''Literature/{{Deathmoor}}'', one of the monsters you can come across in the titular moor is a [[MultipleHeadCase two-headed]] Cradoc, a reptilian beast with the head of a dragon and an ogre sharing the same body. After killing it, you'll need to sever one of its heads to finish it off for good, but choosing the wrong head [[note]] the dragon's [[/note]] will have the severed stump coming to life on its own and attacking you from behind, killing you instantly. For reasons unexplained however, the [[TakeAThirdOption third]] and most obvious option, severing ''both'' heads, isn't available.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* According to ''Literature/TenSixtySixAndAllThat'', Charles I was so little affected by his beheading that he continued to walk and talk for half an hour afterwards. This angered Cromwell.
* In ''Literature/AgainstADarkBackground'', [[spoiler:Feril]] ends up decapitated. The severed head is still able to talk and even [[spoiler:move his also-severed arm, since Feril is an android]].
* In ''Literature/AngelsOfMusic'', some of the characters attend a stage show at the Théâtre des Horreurs. At one point in the show, a representation of Saint Denis is decapitated and his headless body continues to blunder around, while his bodiless head preaches against immorality until another character kicks it off stage like a football.
* ''Literature/TheBlackCompany'':
** This happens to The Dominator for a short time (less than an hour), up until his soul was imprisoned inside of a silver nail, and his head grounded and incinerated into ashes.
** In the same battle that the Dominator was slain, The Limper's head was lost. And then found by the demon, Toad-Killer Dog, who extorts tribes of savages and their shamans to construct a wicker body for the wizard whose name currently grosely overstates his mobility (i.e. The Limper).
** For a time period spanning half the series [[spoiler:Soulcatcher]], would travel with her disembodied head that she would carry in a black box. Her state of head-not-being-on-top-of-her-shoulders ended when Croaker sewed it back on.
* ''Literature/BookOfTheDead2021'': Tyron is still a low-level necromancer, and doesn't have any idea of how to actually give a spirit control of a body; he only knows how to make puppets controlled by himself. So when [[spoiler:Dove the summoner]] dies an untimely death, and Tyron wants to raise him, he doesn't keep the full body, just binds the spirit into its own skull, resulting in a (rather unhappy, but easily portable) talking head.
* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos'': In ''The Orphans of Chaos'', [[spoiler:Orpheus]] appears as a headless man who carries about his head separately. On the other hand, he is dead and just coming from Hades (and they are about to make him Psychopomp).
* ''Literature/DifferentSeasons'': In ''The Breathing Method'', a woman who's about to give birth [[spoiler:is decapitated in a car accident in front of the hospital. She remains alive and conscious for several minutes, from [[{{Determinator}} sheer willpower]], until she gives birth to her son]].
* ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'':
** In the ''Xtreme [=Sk8ters=]'' comic strip in the first book, one of the stick figures gets decapitated by a telephone wire. His head still manages to talk.
** Greg's [[RealDreamsAreWeirder bizarre dream]] in ''Double Down'' involves himself kicking his own head, which is shouting, "Mustards on my turnips, please!"
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** Vampires have to be staked as well as decapitated to kill -- Otto loses his head in ''The Truth'' and merely has to put it back on the stump. They find it embarrassing to reattach their heads in public (he compares it to using the facilities in front of people).
** Likewise, zombies on the Discworld can survive almost any dismemberment.
** The ghost of Champot, first King of Lancre in ''Literature/WyrdSisters'', carries his head under his arm in the standard ghost-of-Anne-Boleyn style. However, while he claims he was decapitated by his son, the ''Discworld Companion'' says he actually died of gout, and the reason for the head-under-the-arm thing is unknown.
* ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'': Celty, quite literally. Her head wasn't [[HeadlessHorseman attached to begin with]], but losing it is what sent Celty to search for it in Ikebukuro.
* Ant heads remain alive for some time in the ''Literature/EmpireOfTheAnts'' novels (only the first was translated to English), and this is at times a crucial plot point.
* In ''Literature/TheFaerieQueene'', Corflambo's decapitated head still manages to blaspheme and curse for a bit after his body is killed by Arthur.
* In ''Literature/FengshenYanyi'', [[RivalTurnedEvil Shen Gongbao]] tries to bully Jiang Ziya into not helping Xiqi and carry out the selection of the new gods and tries to prove his superiority in the arts of the Immortals by cutting off his own head and make it float above his body, impressing Jiang Ziya into almost surrendering. Unfortunately for Gongbao, the Elder Immortal of the South Pole was nearby and sends his disciple in the form of a crane to steal Shen Gongbao's head and drop it into the North Sea, an act which will result in him dying for real. Jiang Ziya is merciful enough to beg for his old friend, who gets his head back (with the text mentioning that he accidentally put it on backwards and had to twist it by the ears).
* ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'': Cutting off the head of the goblin king put the final seal on the spell that put all the goblins into dormancy, but the head itself is still alive, and it's reanimated when his spirit returns to it. Reversing this and reattaching his head to his body, by means of a magic collar, restores his sanity and that of the other goblins by extension.
* In ''Literature/TheGolgothaSeries'', Clay reanimated the severed head of Auggie's wife Gerta.
* ''Literature/GreyKnights'': In ''Dark Adeptus'', [[spoiler:Thalassa]] remains able to talk after decapitation due to Chaos sorcery.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter''
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' introduces the Headless Hunt, a [[TheWildHunt Wild Hunt-esque]] troupe of {{Headless Horsem|an}}en who partake in SeveredHeadSports like Horseback Head-Juggling, Head Polo, and Headless Bowling. A perennial source of frustration for [[FriendlyGhost Nearly Headless Nick]] is that [[DreamCrushingHandicap he can't join because his head is still attached to his neck by one little strip of flesh]].
** One means of communicating via the Floo network is to have just your head travel through fireplaces to speak with whoever is on the other side. The feeling while doing so is described as having a hot muffler around one's head and neck.
* Averted in Michael Slade's ''Headhunter''. When the POV of a just-decapitated woman is shown, she can only think, not speak or breathe, and remains conscious only briefly.
* There's a medical horror novel, ''Heads'', in which the heads of people who'd agreed to donate their bodies for research are kept preserved and wired up as [[WetwareCPU organic supercomputers]]. Nobody warned them that it'd be their ''heads'' that were made use of... or that they'd [[AndIMustScream regain consciousness]] once integrated into the system.
* The Denizens of the House in ''Literature/KeysToTheKingdom'' have the ability to survive being decapitated, so of course one bad guy announces himself by flinging talking severed heads at the main character's feet.
* ''Literature/KnownSpace'':
** In ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'', Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, is decapitated. Luckily, not only does his species have ''two'' heads, but neither of them are where Puppeteers keep their brain. It's at most an inconvenience until he can get a new head attached.
** The short story "Procrustes" starts off with Beowulf Schaefer stepping out of an autodoc. It's later revealed that he was in it because he had been beheaded and was regrown from the removed head.
* ''Literature/ALandFitForHeroes'': The baddies in ''The Steel Remains'' cut off their victims' heads and [[AndIMustScream do really terrible things]] to them, by way of an object lesson to anyone who tries to work against them.
* ''Literature/LandOfOz'':
** Princess Langwidere, a character in ''Literature/OzmaOfOz''. She has 30 different heads that she can place on her neck. Her heads come in a variety of hair, eye, and skin colors. Princess Langwidere was the inspiration for Mombi in the adaptation (see ''Film/ReturnToOz''), and given a chilling treatment in the Music/ScissorSisters song "Return to Oz". Mombi and Langwidere were separate characters in Baum's books, and the latter was merely a spoiled and careless RoyalBrat instead of a villain.
** In ''Literature/TheTinWoodmanOfOz'', the Tin Woodman returns to the (now empty) tinworker's house and finds his original, flesh-and-blood head. (For him, the trope was {{inverted|Trope}}: he lost the rest of his body.) They have a conversation and find they [[OtherMeAnnoysMe don't like each other]].
** In ''Literature/TheMarvelousLandOfOz'' (which features Mombi), when [[PumpkinPerson Jack Pumpkinhead]] is riding in the flying Gump, he refuses to look over the side, fearing that his head might fall off. Prof. Wogglebug {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this with one of his insensitive puns, declaring: "In that event your head would no longer be a pumpkin, for it would become a squash."
** Later on in the ''Oz'' books, Jack Pumpkinhead has his own pumpkin patch. Every time his head begins to spoil, he carves out a new head for himself.
* In ''Literature/TheMasterAndMargarita'', during Woland's magic show, Behemoth rips off Bengalsky's head. Bengalsky's severed head is conscious and horrified by the ordeal. They soon put his head back on with him being no worse for wear.
* In ''Literature/TheLegendOfHuma'', Huma has to fight the immortal warlord Crynus. After running him through the neck and the stomach barely slows him down, Huma gets his hands on Crynus' battle axe and knocks off his head with one blow. Then Crynus's body stands up again and starts to stumble single-mindedly towards his severed head. [[spoiler:He almost reaches it before the silver dragon arrives and [[KillItWithFire disintegrates him with dragonfire]].]]
* The HeadlessHorseman in ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow''.
* Urza in the ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' tie-in novels to the "Invasion" block. Planeswalkers being energy beings, this is understandable.
* The fate of Edward Page Mitchell's AbsentMindedProfessor Prof. Dummkopf in the 1877 short story "The Man Without a Body", in the aftermath of what may be fiction's earliest TeleporterAccident. Unusually for this trope, Dummkopf is rendered mute by the loss of his vocal cords, and as a result, it takes [[AndIMustScream several years]] before anyone notices that [[StayingAlive the loss of his lungs, heart, and other vital organs hasn't inconvenienced him in the slightest]].
* In ''Literature/TheNekropolisArchives'' novel ''Dead Streets'', main character Matthew Richter gets decapitated. Since he's already a zombie, it doesn't kill him, but it renders him unable to do anything but talk until his friends are able to get it reattached.
* The Mighty Night Dragon from, uh, ''Literature/NightDragon''. Upon being defeated (in a long, exhausting, difficult battle), the dragon then finally goes down... but not before its head detaches itself, grows legs, and continues fighting.
* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': Kari, intent on revenge for the death of his son in the Burning of Njal, pursues the Burners on their voyage to Rome and catches up with them in Wales. He spots Kol Thorsteinsson, one of the Burners, selling goods at a market; Kari strikes at him just as Kol is counting silver, and "Kol kept on counting the silver, and his head counted 'ten' as it flew from the trunk."
* Sacha and Wyan from ''Literature/ThePrismPentad''. They were decapitated for not siding against Rajaat, and were turned into zombie heads by Kalak. They serves as mentors for King [[TokenEvilTeammate Tithian]] during the series. Oh, they also have a [[HorrorHunger desire for human flesh and blood.]]
* In many of the ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries'' novels, space suits are designed to deliberately decapitate and then [[HumanPopsicle freeze]] the user's head in the event of an emergency (such as a suit breach). Once the head is recovered, they can be reattached to the body or even have their whole body regrown from the neck down, though in at least one novel a character opts to have his head installed on a prosthetic body and is pretty much none the worse for wear.
* Discussed (in a way) in ''Literature/SagaOfTheJomsvikings'', when a captured Viking facing execution suggests he will hold up his knife if he still can after being beheaded.
* ''Literature/TheSagaOfThePeopleOfLaxardal'': Audgisl Thorarinsson looks for an opportunity to kill Thorgils Holluson at the Althing and comes upon Thorgils as he is counting out the money he is to pay for the killing of Helgi. As Thorgils is counting 'ten', Audgisl strikes, and "everyone thought they could hear his head say 'eleven' as it flew off his body."
* ''Literature/SaintessSummonsSkeletons'': It turns out that if you don't need to breathe or bleed, you can cut your own head off and survive. [[spoiler:Sofia still uses a False Immortality rune before testing it, just in case -- which actually gets in the way, because the rune blocks her ability to heal, so she can't just stick her head back on.]]
* Early in ''Literature/SandmanSlim'', Stark cuts off the head of Kasabian, the hardest-luck member of the circle that sent him to Hell. He did so with an enchanted knife that only kills when he orders it to, so Kasabian's head sits in his closet for most of the book, bitching about its state. Near the end, it dies outright, only to get sent back by Lucifer as part of a job deal. Between the first book and ''Kill the Dead'', Stark gets it an animated table with articulated legs so that it can move by itself.
* In "Literature/TheScarletCitadel", Tsotha-lanti tells Literature/ConanTheBarbarian that "[[PullingThemselvesTogether if you hack me in pieces, the bits of flesh and bone will reunite and haunt you to your doom!]]" The next moment, Conan cuts off his head. The head remained alive, and the body attempted to recover it. Fortunately, a friendly sorcerer took away the head, the body ran after him, and the king was rid of the need to find a solution.
* Robert Olen Butler's ''Severance'' is a short story collection in which each short story is told from the point of view of a beheading victim in their last minute or so of life.
* In a poem by Creator/ShelSilverstein, the protagonist complains about losing their head and about the fact that they can't [[CraniumChase look for it]] ("'cause my eyes are on it"), call to it ("'cause my ears are on it") or even think about it ("'cause my brain is in it") -- "so I guess I'll sit down on this rock/and rest for just a minute." (Three guesses what the "rock" is.)
* ''Literature/SirGawainAndTheGreenKnight'': The Green Knight comes to Camelot, taunts the knights, and issues a challenge: he will allow any knight to deal him one blow and then he will return the following year to inflict the same. Gawain accepts the challenge and decapitates him. The Green Knight picks up his severed head and tells him to meet him at the Green Chapel at the appointed time.
* ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant'''s real [[DemBones skull]] was stolen by goblins. The one on his neck now is an entirely different one, which he won in a poker game. After the third book, the original skull becomes the MacGuffin.
* Averted in Creator/CharlesDeLint's ''Svaha'': A minor character who's just been [[OffWithHisHead beheaded by]] a {{ninja}} sent by the {{Yakuza}} maintains consciousness only long enough to see his body collapse.
* In ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'', the title of Head of the N.I.C.E. turns out to be horribly literal. The villains are taking orders from a guillotined criminal's head, which they've kept alive by supplying it with artificial blood. And yes, Lewis was well aware that it wouldn't really work -- that's a plot point.
* In ''Literature/TooManyCurses'', Decapitated Dan was a serial killer executed for strangling people, whose head and body were retrieved and de-fleshed by dark wizard Margle, then re-animated separately. Dan's talking skull rants insanely from atop the kitchen spice rack, whereas his body — no longer subordinated to his wicked mind — has become perfectly polite and helpful, cooking meals for Margle's kobold housekeeper and her friends among Margle's many transformed captives. "Mr. Bones" can't speak, but gestures or knocks to communicate.
* ''Literature/UseOfWeapons'': Special Circumstances operative Cheradenine Zakalwe crash-lands on a primitive planet and is sacrificed by the natives through decapitation. Fortunately, [[BigDamnHeroes his colleagues zoom in just in time]] to snatch back his head, but not before he's had a horrified moment to realize exactly what just happened. Later, Zakalwe is in hospital waiting for a new body to be grown (they gave him the choice of remaining unconscious, but he'd rather watch television) when the artificially intelligent drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw (who doesn't like Zakalwe much and has a twisted sense of humor) sends him a present: a hat.
* In ''Literature/VenissUnderground'', the genetically engineered assassin-class meerkats produced by Quin are capable of surviving for several days as just a head. [[spoiler:Shadrach decapitates the meerkat Salvador in order to render him harmless and portable, and renames him "John the Baptist".]]
* At one point in the ''Literature/{{Voidskipper}}'' novel ''In Pursuit of Bark's Finest'', Madeline Zargosty gets her head blown off in a firefight. Courtesy of several backup brains and other redundancies this proves to be only a minor inconvenience, allowing her to keep fighting effectively for an extended period afterwards. Later on, she gets her morph updated to have a detachable head as a normal feature instead of an emergency backup.
* ''Literature/WorzelGummidge'' only has three heads -- swede, mangel-wurzel, and turnip -- "for different occasions".
* The heads in jars of Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''Wyrms''. They are kept alive by bio-engineered alien worms, and are chemically conditioned to never lie. The king keeps them as advisors, and many of them openly hate him, and were his enemies in their former lives. They can't speak unless someone pumps the bellows that push air through their vocal cords.
* ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'': In ''A Spell for Chameleon'', Trent beheads the mortally wounded Herman at his request. Herman's severed head thanks him for a quick and clean death.
* The giant Bolloggs from Creator/WalterMoers' ''Zamonia'' novels are unique in Zamonia in that they can survive without their heads; once they reach a certain height they tend to discard their heads -- and then go off on wanderings looking for the same heads they just discarded. (Bolloggs aren't very bright, especially not after losing their heards.) In ''Literature/TheThirteenAndAHalfLivesOfCaptainBluebear'', one of the many obstacles the titular character has to face is a huge, discarded Bollogg head.
* One of the historical stories from ''Literature/TheZombieSurvivalGuide'' had a tale told to a Jesuit Missionary in FeudalJapan. The story goes that Japan had a secret society whose function was to hunt down and eliminate zombies, and the finial initiation was for an acolyte to spend a full night sitting in a room full of moaning zombie heads that had been cut off and preserved in jars. The "editor" of these historical stories does note that this would be impossible because of the FridgeLogic about the zombies needing lungs to moan, thus either meaning the tale is false, exaggerated, or the moans are the product of the terror felt by the acolytes.
** The book also contains several other cases of zombie heads kept in jars, either as part of ancient science experiments or as oddities in various courts.
* An old UrbanLegend tells the story of a young girl that wears a ribbon around her neck and how she falls in love with a wonderful boy. At the end of the tale, the boy is forced to remove the ribbon from the girl's neck, at which point her head falls clean off her body, revealing her to be DeadAllAlong. [[https://bookriot.com/the-girl-with-the-green-ribbon/ The story has a long history]], and has since been adapted many times, from Creator/AlexandreDumas' ''Literature/TheWomanWithTheVelvetNecklace'', to Creator/WashingtonIrving's ''The Adventure of a German Student'', to [[Literature/ScaryStoriesToTellInTheDark Alvin Schwartz]]' ''The Girl With the Green Ribbon''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The comedy/documentary ''50 Outrageous Animal Facts'' includes a clip of a CGI cockroach that loses its head. Its decapitated body taps the ground in front of it a few times, finds a tiny rock, sticks the rock where its head used to be, and scuttles off. TruthInTelevision, as roaches can live for days after decapitation.
* S.T.A.N. in ''Series/AaronStone'' since he's a robot.
* The ''Series/AmazingStories'' episode "Go to the Head of the Class" has SadistTeacher B.O. Beanes, after accidentally being killed by the hiccups spell, coming back to life with his head separate from his body because the picture used in the resurrection spell got torn in two.
* In ''Series/AllThat'', Coach Kreeton receives an antique cannon as a birthday present, sticks his head inside and loses his head when it fires.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
** Angel figures out that an overzealous cop is a zombie when he decapitates the cop and the cop keeps on talking for awhile.
** Lorne gets his head sent to Cordelia on a platter in another episode. His people can survive this, however; as he explains, his species of demon only die if their body is mutilated too.
* Spoofed in ''[[Series/{{Blackadder}} The Black Adder]]''. After Edmund has beheaded Richard III, his ghost comes to haunt him, with his head flying playfully around the room.
* ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf Nightmares II'': In ''The Shadow Wood'', while traveling through the titular forest, one of the obstacles the hero faces is a headless knight... whose own head is used as the head of the mace he wields.
* In an second season (yes, there was one) episode of ''Series/BuckRogersInThe25thCentury'', Mark Lenard, Sarek from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', played an ambassador from a planet where a symbiotic relationship existed between his kind, a living head, and a type of organism that resembled a headless body. He even points out to Buck that on his world, Buck would be considered a freak since Buck could ''not'' remove his head.
* The Headless Horseman does this to Piper, Paige, and Phoebe in ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' episode "The Legend of Sleepy Halliwell", with the sisters only surviving as they were decapitated in the Magic School that protects the residents from suffering permanent damage.
* [[spoiler:[[MagnificentBastard Rick Twittler]] ends up having his head and body separated at the end of the]] ''Series/DangerForce'' episode "A Henry Among Us".
* One episode of ''Series/DarkAngel'' from season 2 featured an experimental assassin from Manticore whose head and body could operate independently. Max encounters the head and spends the majority of the episode trying to find and stop the body from assassinating a minister. [[spoiler:Turns out it was AllJustADream.]]
* ''Series/DeadtimeStories'' has the episode "Little Magic Shop of Horrors" where a kid called Bo ends up with his head painlessly flying off his body... as a result of performing a bike flip about an hour or two after his best friend [[TheProtagonist Peter's]] magic trick was performed.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose "Rose"]]: The Doctor rips off the head of Mickey's Auton duplicate. In response:
--->'''Auton!Mickey:''' Don't think that's going to stop me.
** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld Face]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E1NewEarth of]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E3Gridlock Boe]] qualifies. Given who he is ([[spoiler:Captain Jack Harkness]]), one wonders what happened to all the other bits and how the head part wound up so large.
** This seems to be a general trade mark of Russell T Davies-written episodes of the show. As well as the above, there are the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums Tocla]][[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords fane]] (severed heads in floating heavily-armed metal spheres), Max Capricorn in [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned "Voyage of the Damned"]], and also, if you include disembodied faces, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld Lady]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E1NewEarth Cassandra]] and poor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E10LoveAndMonsters Ursula]].
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens The Pandorica Opens]]" demonstrates Cybermen can survive decapitation, then reattach their heads.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar The Headless Monks]] sometimes do this, keeping living heads around post-decapitation. Since the Monks behead you while you're alive, both the head and the body remain... active. The bodies seem to fall under the control of the other Monks (or possibly the papal mainframe) immediately after beheading. The heads apparently keep the same personality and are left to rot (or be [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong preserved in boxes]], if you're rich).
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong "The Husbands of River Song"]] has ''two'' characters losing their heads to the independently-functioning robot body of the tyrannical cyborg King Hydroflax when the Doctor and River Song make off with the monarch's head, which apparently underwent this trope many years ago. The heads remain alive as the body uses them to get information about the heroes' whereabouts; it can even store and switch between them. Later, another villain convinces the body not to take his head by offering to get him ''the Doctor's''...
* In the "Look at the Princess" trilogy of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', John and his alien princess bride are turned into fully conscious statues so they can observe the workings of the Senate until it is time for them to begin their reign. The jealous prince tries punching him (ineffectively) but his Scarran associate decides to just chop John's head off in an attempt to render him unable to rule. The head is still able to talk (via magic headsets) until it is successfully reattached.
* ''Series/GodsOfHonor'' sees Nezha challenged by the evil sorceror Shen Gong-bao to be ''decapitated'', with their flying heads engaging on an impromptu CraniumChase in the heavens while their headless bodies remain on the ground.
* Happens in the ''Series/GoodLuckCharlie'' episode "Gabe Turns 12-½" when Bob Duncan goes to the fridge to get some cake in a platter only to find P.J.'s very much alive head instead, which then asks where his body is at (which is never directly explained). Bob then realizes his son's unable to stop him so he eats a cupcake in front of his face. Of course, since it's an end credits gag, this never really happened.
* Happens at the end of one of the [[HalloweenEpisode Halloween Episodes]] of ''Series/HomeImprovement'' called ''A Night To Dismember'', where Tim and Jill Taylor have their disembodied heads in a basket and their bodies are implied to be somewhere else offscreen after their son decapitates them for his film.
%%* ''Series/InLivingColor'''s segment "The Head Detective"
* In the ''Series/JourneyToTheWest1996'' two-parter, Tang Sanzang and disciples faces off against the Tiger, Deer and Goat Demons, with their second challenge being ''surviving'' decapitation. Wukong answers the Deer Demon's challenge, and as magical beings both of them can survive losing their heads and continue moving around unscathed... until Wukong sneakily turns one of his clones into a dog and steals the Deer Demon's head. With the head out of range, the demon quickly dies.
--> '''Deer Demon''': Reattach head. Reattach head. I said ''reattach head''! What's going on?\\
'''Sun Wukong''': [''whispering to Bajie''] His head's not coming back. I just turned a copy of myself into a dog and stole it.\\
'''Deer Demon''': Reattach... ''aaaargh!!!!'' [''[[ThisWasHisTrueForm transforms into a headless deer carcass]]'']
* Happens in ''Series/KyojuuTokusouJuspion'' [[spoiler:to [[WizardsFromOuterSpace Gilza]] after [[TheProtagonist Juspion]] [[OffWithHisHead beheads]] her, to which she not only survives but also manages to immediately summon her head back, which is capable of speech even when still detached.]]
* 790, a robot, is beheaded in the pilot of ''Series/{{Lexx}}'', and tries to obtain a new body several times over the course of the series but never manages to keep one for long. Whereas Kai is dismembered or decapitated (sometimes both, such as his fight with Thodin) fairly regularly but since he's already dead it amounts to little more than a momentary inconvenience before he puts himself back together.
* In the ''Series/LostGirl'' episode "Where There's a Will, There's a Fae" shows this as one of the clear ways of telling apart a [[TheFairFolk dullahan]] from a human, that and the fact that they are also [[{{Determinator}} able to shrug off most injuries like they were nothing]].
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
** Tom Servo's gumball machine head falls off a few times. This happened quite often during shooting, as the HilariousOuttakes show, and sometimes they decided to ThrowItIn.
** On an episode where the movie involved a ghostly disembodied head, both bots remove their heads and speak in ghostly voices in an attempt to scare Joel. Unimpressed, he takes their inert bodies away and leaves them alone with the lights off.
* In ''Series/MythQuest''[='s=] sixth episode, a mysterious knight offers to play "the beheading game". His head is chopped off, then he gets up and retrieves his head and sword.
* The "Job Interview" sketch from ''Series/NoSoapRadio'' has a disembodied head waddling around a desk as the president of a hat company.
* In ''Series/OnceUponATime'' the victims of the Queen of Hearts experience this. [[spoiler:Jefferson a.k.a. The Mad Hatter is unfortunate enough to be a demonstration. He recovers, but it does leave a nasty scar.]]
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
** Bones, the first MonsterOfTheWeek on ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' can detach his skull and have it fly around to attack his enemies.
** And in ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'', Ecliptor could separate his head from his body, and the head would fly around and fire EyeBeams while the body continued to attack with his usual sword.
** Mack of ''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive'' discovered that he was a robot when he woke up to see his headless body lying on a slab nearby.
* A duo known as "The Floating Heads" appear to startle [=LeVar=] Burton in an installment of ''Series/ReadingRainbow''.
* ''Series/RedDwarf''. Kryten has multiple spare heads on a shelf that argue with one another.
* JD in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' has three odd daydreams of Head and Body Doctor where he imagines life as a floating head with his body doing something else. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw4lajMiMN4]]
* Happens to Data a few times in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''; as an android, he can survive his head being removed and can still talk in that event. Some examples:
** In the TimeTravel episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E26S6E1TimesArrow Time's Arrow]]", his head doesn't remain active while disconnected from his body, but it does survive under San Francisco for five hundred years, and when reconnected to his body (which was blown back through the time portal into the 24th century, thus not taking TheSlowPath), it works fine.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E5Disaster Disaster]]", Data offers to use himself to absorb an electric current, allowing Riker to pass, which will cripple him, but should leave him repairable later on. Riker points out to him that even if he's willing to sacrifice Data (which he isn't), it would be pointless, as Riker wouldn't be able to fix the Warp Core without him as he's not an engineer. Instead, they disconnect Data's head and toss his headless body into the current, diverting it, but allowing Riker to take Data's head along so he can talk him through the necessary repairs.
** In the ExpandedUniverse novel ''Imzadi'', a decapitated Data is still in control of his body.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** In "[[Recap/SupernaturalS07E06SlashFiction Slash Fiction]]", Bobby discovers that a Leviathan can survive even after you cut its head off (the head actually managing to somehow return to its body), so he puts the head in a box and tells a friend to chuck it off a bridge. "Don't open it, even if it starts talking. ''Especially'' if it starts talking."
** In "[[Recap/SupernaturalS11E04Baby Baby]]", the MonsterOfTheWeek can survive decapitation and is extremely pissed off about it.
* Reversed in ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', in which Cromartie's body seeks out his head which does not appear to have any activity.
* ''Franchise/UltraSeries''
** The ''Series/UltraSeven'' monster Gabura was able to survive as a floating head after Seven chopped it off with his Eye Slugger, catching the hero by surprise. Fortunately for Seven, it turned out that the spaceship of the aliens commanding Gabura needed to be destroyed to kill the monster permanently.
** ''Series/UltramanTaro'' had Mukadender, who could detach its head from its body at will to fight as two combatants. The catch is that damage to Mukadendar’s head is still felt by its body and vice versa (same goes with actions such as being thrown into the air).
** Sakuna Oni from ''Series/UltramanTiga'' pulled the same trick on Tiga that Gabura did to Seven as the only thing that can truly slay Sakuna Oni is the sword of the samurai who originally defeated it.
* Rhonda Shear did this in wraparounds on ''USA Up All Night''.
* Orpheus spends most of the ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' episode ''Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'' without his body.
* In "[[Recap/TheXFilesS04E12LeonardBetts Leonard Betts]]" of ''Series/TheXFiles'', Betts is able to regenerate his severed body parts. His head stayed alive after decapitation, and if Scully hadn't performed a high-tech mummification process, the head might have grown its own new body.
* ''VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack'': A headless "Troy Stevens" returns from backstage following a Jack Attack round in one episode (his [[GreenScreen Green Screened]] head still on the big monitor as it is during this round).
* ''Series/TheYoungOnes'', Vyvyan sticks his head out the train window and another train cuts it off. His head lies in the tracks calling out to his body, which stumbles around looking for him.
** And then kicks it further along the track after the head insults it.
** Another time, two head-carrying ghosts wander through the lads' flat and accidentally drop their heads, forcing the bodies to stumble around picking up round objects ("No, that's a grapefruit!") in search of them. Later, the ghostly heads are seen arguing about whose body is whose, and even ''forehead-butting one another'' over possession of the one with a nicer bottom.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/TheArrogantWorms's "Johnny Came Home Headless", about a tall and forgetful man who walked into doorways so often that one time apparently knocked his head off -- and his body didn't notice.
* Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At". Although the song doesn't imply it, a lot of people seem to make fan videos associating with this trope.
* Music/WarrenZevon's "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" is about a Norwegen mercenary who gets double-crossed by a comrade who blows his head off. [[RevenantZombie Roland's headless corpse]] then tracks the traitor all the way across Africa for revenge and ends up blowing his entire body away.
* In the final verse of Music/WeirdAlYankovic's "A Complicated Song", he sings about how he stood up while riding a roller coaster and got his head knocked off. He thinks it is [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction "a major inconvenience"]].
** "Everything You Know Is Wrong" also has the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders.
* Music/{{Dismember}} has the cover art of ''[[http://www.metal-archives.com/images/9/8/5/5/9855.jpg?5006 Pieces]]'', showing the band members themselves like this.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music Videos]]
* Music/MichaelJackson 's "Ghosts", Michael turns into a skeleton and proceeds to dance, removing his head in the process.
* Happens to Music/WeirdAlYankovic again in the "Right Round" part of the official music video of the medley song "Polka Face" where [[AbnormalLimbRotationRange he spins his head around 360 degrees]] until it unscrews off of his body.
* In Music/{{Slipknot}}'s "Wait and Bleed" music video, Clown has to put his head on because the doll-maker didn't finish him.
* Happens to a CreepyDoll and Chibi in Music/TheBirthdayMassacre's video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp1FRKc24Zk Blue]]
* Music/MissyElliott does it to herself in the video to "One Minute Man."
* In Music/InsaneClownPosse's "Headless Boogie", Violent J jumps into a graveyard and witnesses headless bodies dancing. He gets his own head chopped off and joins in.
* In the music video for Music/ReginaSpektor's song "Laughing with", which is full of surprising impossibilities, the singer at one point reaches as if to remove the mask she's wearing, but instead leaves it in the air as she removes her head from behind it for a moment, which doesn't faze either the head or the body.
* ''Music/{{Gorillaz}}'s'' "DARE" features a giant head of Shaun Ryder kept on life support in Noodle's room; he starts singing when Noodle activates some of the machinery. The video also spoofs some special effect mistakes often found in old horror movies, by showing some of the parts on his head shifting positions throughout the video.
* “Good Intentions” by Music/ToadTheWetSprocket features Creator/CourteneyCox doing this in cut-out animation form.
* Big Boi ends up with his disembodied head being held by a girl while his headless body is seen dancing to his own music in the background in the music video for "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWsvkW6rKkQ Shutterbugg]]".
* In the music video for "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_z6XhrW0-Q Break Down The Doors]]" by Erick Morillo ft. Audio Bullys, at two points in the song the first is when singers are seen in a room with 3 [[HumanHeadOnTheWall girls' heads mounted on the wall]] in the background followed immediately afterwards with all 3 girls' headless bodies dancing to the beat, and then later Erick's disembodied head is seen on a plate in a room with 2 girls that look alike with his body nowhere to be seen.
* Pate No.1's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSd4m0Te8fs Always]]" has the lead singer take off her head and place it on a nearby table as her headless body strips down to her undergarments before her very eyes not long before said body takes a shower.
* RACKETT's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rognoG-YHZo Prey]]" showed a woman [[ImAHumanitarian eating RACKETT's body parts]] throughout the song. At the end, the woman opened a serving dish, revealing RACKETT's severed (and still-alive) head. As RACKETT's body crawled around looking for her head, the woman cut off one of RACKETT's ears, put it on a cake and ate it.
* In Dizzee Rascal's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T41QZE1tzO0 Couple Of Stacks]]", after Dizzee popped up under a sleeping woman's bed (and terrified her), he suddenly walked into her room through the doorway and chopped off her head. The woman's body crawled around while looking for her head.
* Several scenes in Blue, The Misfit's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_5zH95ok-Q Alive]]" show headless women dancing.
* In Lisa Crawley's "[[https://youtube.com/watch?v=hTTeEJCDXPg Elizabeth]]", Lisa's headless body plays an electric keyboard while a scientist keeps her head alive on a tray.
* In a Canadian show called ''Ants In Your Pants'' that features music videos, this happen in one by the name of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhQFzb_sUmY I Didn't Need That]]" by Eric Nagler & Friends to Eric when his head levitates from from his body and then rolls away.
* Ghost Revue's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uirvehr3bG8 Lost My Head]]" is played by the band members' headless bodies. The lead singer goes out to find the band members' heads and puts them all in a bag before he returns to the band and they reattach each other's heads.
* Most of the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIjBwLhGY3o Cafe]] by Pappa Boy has Hadar Golan's head on a platter on a dresser separated from her headless body that appears frequently throughout the song getting various things for her head until the near end where she [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattaches her head to her body]].
* In Jain's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDXOzr0GoA4 Come]]", Jain is seen holding her head in a few shots.
* Happens in the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exh9J_WtAs0 Run Away]] by Scalawag to Teo himself not long after his body [[AnimateBodyParts appears to gain a mind of it's own]].
* [[Film/TheAddamsFamily Wednesday Addams]] decapitates Music/MCHammer with a guillotine in the beginning of the music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqQwzgixHAM Addams Groove]] which he not only appears to survive but is also able to sing as his head bounces around for a bit.
* In Music/SleaterKinney's song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkPJtv32WtA High In The Grass]] this trope happens in a rather [[ExaggeratedTrope exaggerated]] manner due to it occuring to every person that appears in the song at least once.
* Music/DireStraits' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0 "Money For Nothing"]] features two CGI appliance deliverymen who stand around gawking at music videos. One of them leans on a refrigerator and doesn't notice the fridge door swing open, and in a short time he's [[HarmlessFreezing encased in a block of ice]]. The other guy decides the way to remedy this is to ''put his co-worker's decapitated head in the microwave''. It seems to work as the next scene shows him restored and comfortably watching his TV at home.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* Myth/ClassicalMythology:
** Orpheus, according to Roman writer Ovid: his severed head continued to sing for a while after his murder.
** One of the Lernaean Hydra's heads was immortal. After Heracles chopped it off, he buried it under a boulder.
* The Christian martyrology has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis Saint Denis]] (Bishop of Paris, executed by pagan Romans during the Imperial prosecutions) and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solange Saint Solange]] (MysteriousWaif murdered by a nobelman who tried to abduct her). Both were beheaded, then their dead bodies just took their heads in their hands and walked away, praising the Lord until they reached the nearest towns and dropped dead there. In fact, Saint Denis is ''always'' represented in media with [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Saintdenis.gif his severed head in his own hands]].
* The Welsh have Saint Winefride, who was decapitated by a jealous suitor when she announced her intention to become a nun. Her head is said to have rolled down a hill, with a healing spring bursting forth where it stopped. If that's not enough, Winefride's uncle, Saint Beuno, then picked up the head and attached it to the body, bringing her back to life.
** Then the suitor melted, [[BoltOfDivineRetribution thus showing why you should never annoy saints.]]
* Saint Quitteria was beheaded and thrown in the ocean. She is often depicted walking back out of the ocean with her head under her arm.
* It's probably not a coincidence that many of cephalophoric saints (like the three aforementioned) come from Celtic or formerly Celtic lands like Gaul and Britain: [[Myth/CelticMythology Celtic myths]] have several examples of gods, heroes or giants whose heads continue to talk, drink or recite poems after having been severed.
* As for [[Myth/HinduMythology Hinduism]] and Buddhism, there's the deity [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhinnamasta Chhinnamasta]] who severed her own head with her own sword just to feed her two attendants with her blood. Now that's hardcore.
* Brazilian folklore has the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_Mule headless mule]], which has fire coming out of the stump - though it's described as "[[FridgeLogic coming out of its nose]]"... and that it has a bridle tied to its mouth. A few versions reduce the FridgeLogic by saying the fire covers its head, not replaces it.
* The ''Literature/ArabianNights'' story of King Yunan and Duban the Sage. Duban the Sage comes to the king's court when the king is very ill, and manages to save the king's life. However, an EvilChancellor convinces the king to distrust the sage, and the sage is put to death. His head is able to speak after being cut off, reprimanding the king and eventually leading to the king's death also.
* Mimir in Myth/NorseMythology, as the wisest god. He was beheaded in the Aesir-Vanir War, but Odin used magic to preserve and revive the head, and it serves as his advisor.
* From Myth/EgyptianMythology, the sorcerer Naneferkaptah had to face a serpent both [[AntiMagic immune to magic]] and who had this ability as the FinalBoss guarding the [[MacGuffin Book of Thoth]]. When standard freezing spells didn't work, Nefrekeptah went for the direct approach and cut off the serpent's head, and threw it far into the river. However, the head came back almost instantly and blocked his path again. Nefrekeptah again cut off its head, threw it into the river, and this time put sand on the neck before the head could come back. The head couldn't reattach, and though the serpent couldn't die, it just lay there, helpless.
* In Japanese folklore there are monsters called Nukekubi; they seem like normal humans during the day, but in the night their head detaches from their bodies and starts to float around and search for a human victim to devour.
** Similar monsters are recorded in a number of East Asian countries, with perhaps the best-known being the Malaysian penanggalan.
* Baba Deep Singh. The legend says that his head was cut completely or almost completely off and still was able to fight.
* In the medieval Dutch ballad "Het lied van heer Halewijn" (the song of lord Halewijn), the evil Halewijn's head keeps talking after the heroine chops it off, asking her to blow on his horn to summon his friends, and to rub salve on his neck (the heroine refuses). Possibly justified because Halewijn is hinted not to be quite human.
* Störtebeker, the legendary pirate of Hamburg. When he finally met his fate, he asked that all his mateys, which he could walk on by after his beheading, would be pardoned. His wish was granted, and when the executor saw that he really did it, he played unfair and tripped him.
* Estonian folklore tells the story of Tõll, a giant who came to the aid of the Estonian people in a time of conflict, transporting soldiers en masse on giant wheels. During the subsequent battle, Tõll was decapitated and placed his own head on his sword. He then walked to his grave, promising to rise again in the event of another war against Estonia.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pinballs]]
* ''Pinball/BoneBusters'' has Ol' One-Eye, a disembodied skull who throws quips and jokes at the player.
* Similarly, there's Skull the Bone Head in ''Pinball/NoFearDangerousSports,'' who's strictly for the snark.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
* Dragon [[RepetitiveName Dragon]] has survived despite losing his head in Wrestling/{{Chikara}}, due to him being a giant stuffed animal, that can somehow move and compete in matches.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy]]
* This was the subject of one of Robert Schimmel's bits on ''Robert Schimmel Comes Clean'':
-->"I saw a plane crash on TV. The reporter says, 'Yeah, the plane crashed over here, decapitated this guy. He's apparently dead.' Good guess. No, the head's alive by itself. 'Psst! Over here, behind the bush!' What would you say if you saw something like that? 'Hey, are you okay?' 'I can't feel my legs!' 'Don't look down.' Well, what if your head lived for a minute after? It'd be weird to see some torso hopping around. 'Shit, lookit that!....Hey, that's MY shirt. Oh, fuck, my head's off. This is bad.'"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Roleplay]]
* Mei from ''Roleplay/{{AJCO}}'' can remove her head [[PullingThemselvesTogether (among other limbs)]] and stitch it back on at will, due to being a zombie. She mostly does it to freak people out.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy incarnation]] of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Murrieta Joaquin Murrieta]] died. [[BackFromTheDead He came back.]] Then, he got beheaded. Now, his (understandably insane) body's looking for his head, and is more than happy to "borrow" yours until he finds it. [[spoiler:The best part? Undead Joachin Murrieta can only be stopped if you destroy his head. Happy hunting!]]
** In ''Deadlands'' in general, this is what happens when you decapitate a [[RevenantZombie Harrowed]]. The head is unfazed by the loss of the body and stays fully conscious, but helpless because of not having any arms or legs. A Harrowed can recover from this condition if someone kindly sews the head back on and feeds them some meat.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]]; anything cut off them, including heads, can live and will either reattach itself or regenerate. One of the TabletopGame/{{Mystara}} supplements described trollish games, some of which involve using the head of one of the participants as a living football. Which tries to bite the feet that kick it.
** Unsurprisingly, the TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}} setting plays with this trope. Jacqueline Montarri is a headless NPC villain who steals the heads of women to wear, and has an enormous collection of decapitated ''and still conscious'' female heads in her basement. (This is a curse, which she can only undo by finding her real head, which she has been looking for ever since she was executed by beheading centuries ago. To be blunt, as she will tell you, [[GypsyCurse horrid fates like this]] will often befall those who cheat and murder members of the Vistani.)
** Lebendtod, a zombie-like undead template, can remove their heads and limbs at will.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has an odd version of this from the dangerously powerful Charcoal March of Spiders supernatural martial art. The user delivers a punch so ludicrously hard that the head not only explodes, but the person whose head did explode has several seconds thereafter to think and react because they, and reality itself, haven't caught up to the fact just yet.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' 3rd Edition, one of the supplements full of fantasy magic spells had a spell called Decapitate, which [[AllThereInTheManual did exactly what its name says]]. Not only that, both the head and body were still alive, and since the head was still magically able to speak, if it knew any spells, it could still cast them! Of course, without the head, the body could not eat or drink, and would eventually die of dehydration or starvation. But this was not a problem either! Another spell allowed you to turn everything BUT the head into stone... and THEN you could decapitate him.
* The [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orks]] of ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' are so tough that their severed heads can survive for up to an hour, more than enough time for a [[DeadlyDoctor Mad Dok]] to easily attach it to a new body or just staple it back on.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* In ''Theatre/{{Pippin}}'', Pippin has a poignant conversation with the head of a fallen Visigoth soldier. In a later scene, after Pippin has been crowned king, a headless man comes up to him and asks for his head to be reattached.
* In a ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' skit performed at [=GenCon=] 1999, "One Piece at a Time", a lady surgeon attempts to bring her fiancée back to life after he dies in a tragic accident. The title says it all, but early scenes correspond to this trope. Sean Reynolds, playing the fiancée with his head stuck through a hole in a covered table, couldn't see the page of lines lying beside him. [[BreakingTheFourthWall "I can't even hold a script!"]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* In the safety video for ''Ride/TheSimpsonsRide'' at Ride/UniversalStudios, Scratchy ends up decapitating himself while trying to lift the lap bar.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* There are a couple non-canon moments of this in ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'', usually for RuleOfFunny:
** Very early storyboards for a [[WhatCouldHaveBeen planned promo animation]] of Tahu [[PullingThemselvesTogether reassembling himself]] on the Ta-Wahi beach show him attaching his fallen-off head first.
** In the game ''BIONICLE: Heroes'', it's a recurring theme, and every boss you defeat (apart from the final boss) is left as just a head at the end of the fight. RuleOfFunny applies. There's also an IdleAnimation where your character starts playing keepie uppie with its head.
** A gag video released online had Hahli Mahri's head popping off due to a rough submarine ride. It falls on her foot, causing much pain.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* This happens to Mutoid Man of ''VideoGame/SmashTV'' as the next step after getting his arms blown off (causing a ''bunch'' of heads to fly out), [[spoiler:as well as his re-skin, The Host, who is fought at the end. In both cases, another head will be inside of the main body once that part's gone.]]
* ''VideoGame/SkeletonWarriors'' ([=PlayStation=] tie-in to the cartoon) have Prince Lightstar trolling Aracula after the boss fight, where in the following cutscene the defeated Aracula [[PullingThemselvesTogether pulls himself together from a pile of bones]], but Lightstar managed to snatch his skull away. Cue Aracula comically fumbling around to look for his cranium until Lightstar throws it down a corridor, and the headless Aracula running after it before hitting a wall.
* ''VideoGame/SpiritualAssassinTaromaru'' have two skeletal demons who has the ability to throw their heads as a ranged attack, before flying back to their necks. There's also a Karakuri puppet who, upon having her body destroyed, detaches her head and sends it floating around to continue the fight.
* ''VideoGame/SuperCyborg'' have a giant insect boss, the Flying Jarmai, who can continue fighting after you destroyed it's body, torso, abdomen, until it's a severed head sitting on the ground who then tries attacking you with it's OverlyLongTongue.
* Mimir, of ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4''. When Kratos and Atreus first meet him, he has been trapped in a tree for over a century by Odin. Since Mimir was Odin's advisor and ambassador to all nine realms, he has a wealth of knowledge about everything in them, and offers to share said knowledge with the pair in exchange for cutting off his head, and having the Witch in the Woods resurrect it. He spends the rest of the game dangling from Kratos' belt, acting as MrExposition and occasionaly TheConscience.
* In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'', Samus has to deal with the Quads, four-legged sentry robots that are built so that their bodies and heads can function independently of each other - if the body is destroyed, the head simply detaches and continues shooting, zipping back and forth via levitation. This trait also applies to their massive boss counterpart, Quadraxis.
* Jenova was decapitated in the events leading to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. Sephiroth, realizing the jig is up (and unable to take the entire body with him), removed his "mother's" head on his way out of the Nibelheim mako reactor. However, he was waylaid by [[spoiler:pre-amnesiac Cloud Strife]] and thrown from the connecting bridge, sinking into the pool of mako. The headless body of Jenova continues to live on - albeit in cryogenic suspension - waiting to be "[[PullingThemselvesTogether reunited]]" with its missing parts.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Primal}}'', the Wraith can apparently survive being decapitated. A group of severed heads in Raum's torture chamber (all of whom hate each other) eventually take time out from arguing to help the [=PCs=]. One, however, calls the guards, simply to antagonize the rest.
:::Other severed heads are scattered almost randomly throughout the upper mansion, giving comments, advice, and encouragement. One somehow knows Scree's name.
* In ''VisualNovel/AnimamundiDarkAlchemist'': The hero's little sister was beheaded, but still survived. Granted, by the game's universe rules, it was part of a [[BurnTheWitch "Test"]] - only witches can survive beheading.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' one skeleton character, which you have to assemble, starts off as a talking skull.
* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', [[spoiler:when you fight Nemesis in the Treatment Room. Douse him with a remarkable strong acid two times and his head will come off. But rather than die like the zombies, he continues attacking, albeit blind.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'' has Susie, a severed head you tend to meet in very enclosed spaces (the first one being a washing machine). She always has a ring in her mouth when you find her. She's also a ghost. She's also completely loopy.
* The ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' franchise is fond of this trope.
** In ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'', your guide through the BloodyBowelsOfHell is the [[ShrunkenHead preserved head]] of a navigator with an [[OracularHead unerring sense of direction]] -- the rest of his body was eaten by the Monkey Island cannibals. BigBad [=LeChuck=]'s undead first mate Bob is a skeletal ghost whose skull is constantly tipping off his spine -- he misses the WeddingFinale when he drops it into the sea of lava in which their GhostShip is anchored.
** Murray the Mighty Demonic Skull in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland''. Justified in that he was actually dead and [[AnimateDead re-animated]] by [[HollywoodVoodoo spooky voodoo magic]] well before he became a disembodied skull. Originally intended to be a OneSceneWonder who only appeared in the prologue, his appearance in the demo [[EnsembleDarkhorse proved so popular with fans]] that the devs hurried to ensure he popped up a few more times in ''Curse'' (he's the only character other than Guybrush, Elaine ([[TakenForGranite technically]]), and [=LeChuck=] to appear in every chapter), made a cameo in ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland'', and even popped up again in one episode of ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland''.
--->'''Murray:''' [[EvilIsHammy I'm a powerful demonic force!]] I'm the harbinger of your doom! And the forces of darkness will applaud me as I ''stride'' through the gates of Hell, carrying your head on a pike!\\
'''Guybrush:''' [[IWouldSayIfICouldSay "Stride"]]?\\
'''Murray:''' ...Alright then, roll! ''Roll'' through the gates of hell. [[MomentKiller Must you take the fun out of everything?]]
* A head in a jar is a "work of art" that you can purchase in the console version of ''VideoGame/TheSims''.
* Boomer in ''VideoGame/{{Ballz}}'' throws his head as a special attack.
* ''Franchise/{{Tekken}} 6'' has Alisa Boskonovitch who can remove her head and have it explode in front of her opponent. Of course, a new one emerges shortly after.
* Kangaxx from ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'', when you first meet him was just a skull. Helps he's a lich who had been disassembled and this game was based on ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''.
* ''VideoGame/BladedFury'' has a ''headless'' demon as a boss, with it's cranium held in one hand. The lack of a noggin' doesn't stop it from attacking you however, the head will [[BreathWeapon breath energy bolts]] on you while the hand raises and lowers to position where it's targeting.
* Kratos in the ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' games not only is able to tear off the head of the Gorgons, but proceed to use their (apparently still living) heads as weapons, petrifying enemies with their eye-beams. In the third game he does the same for the god Helios, using him as a Lantern.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** The Recapitator ([[DemBones skeleton enemies]]) in ''VideoGame/WarioLand: Shake It!'' have their sole attack being to detach and throw their head at Wario like a boomerang, catching it afterwards. They also come back to life when killed like the Dry Bones in the main ''Mario'' games, and can only permanently be killed by destroying their body while their head is in mid air. Or, if you're feeling saucy, destroy the head and leave the body hanging for awhile before it collapses into a heap.
** Broque Monsieur of the ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' games is shown in ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory Bowser's Inside Story]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam Dream Team]]'' to be able to [[http://www.mariowiki.com/File:CharlesBloquette.gif flip his head in the air]] in order to, of all things, ''change his facial expression''.
* [=PS1=] RPG ''Shadow Madness'' had a disembodied telekinetic head by the name of Xero von Moon. He was kept alive (and presumably afloat and able to speak) by a thin metal ring at his neck, and fought primarily with kinetic bolts (though he could resort to a headbutt).
* In the first episode of ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', the [[HealingFactor functionally immortal]] [[TheDragon Dragon]] Albedo is left in charge of a young hostage. So he ''rips off his own head'', throws it at her feet, then spends a while like that mocking her fear (and making creepily suggestive puns [[BilingualBonus in French]]) before '''stomping it into paste'''. [[ForTheEvulz Just to pass the time.]]
* Morte, a floating skull and the resident DeadpanSnarker of ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment''. Morte didn't lose his head; it's right here. He also didn't lose his body, it's where he left it.
* ''VideoGame/FearAndHunger'': Nas'hrah lost his body a long time ago. He's still perfectly capable of advanced magic even as a floating head, and is notably the only party member that [[{{Permadeath}} can never die for good]].
* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'' has beheaded rocketeers, beheaded bombers, beheaded firecrackers and beheaded kamikazes. Former three carry their head with one hand while the latter doesn't have a head at all. Despite not having a head, the Beheaded Kamikazes can still ''scream''. The scream of a kamikaze is one of the most recognizable ([[HellIsThatNoise and feared]]) sounds in the game.
* Played with regarding the beings known as the Headless from the ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series. They are indeed quite headless and uninhibited by being such, but they are not some undead creature that originally suffered decapitation; they also have no place on their torso where a head would normally ''go'', with only an empty patch of skin between their shoulders. It's a mystery even in-universe as to how they get around and make such dangerous enemies without any evident sensory organs.
* Dr. Nefarious in robot mode gets his head knocked off by Qwark in one of the vid-comic sections in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal''. [[{{Pun}} Horrible punning ensues.]]
* When [[SpacePirates Captain Slag]] is defeated in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction'' his severed head talks to his first mate Rusty Pete for a full minute before losing power. In the DLC ''Quest For Booty'' Rusty Pete continues to carry around Slag's head and use it as a ventriloquist dummy, [[spoiler:until he finds a new body for Slag, and after Ratchet destroys ''that'' body his head is shown still alive in the epilogue.]]
* Although very loosely, ''VideoGame/DynamiteHeaddy'' surely counts as the main character throws his head around and switches it with power-ups. Not to mention [[YourHeadAsplode it explodes]] when he dies and it gets replaced with a game over sign.
* In ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'', if you play a custom mutation called "Plague of the Dead" (which is the part of [[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121070254&searchtext=rayman Rayman1103's Mutation Mod]]), theres a bug, if you [[OffWithHisHead decapitate]] a zombie with a melee weapon, sometimes there's a chance where the zombie still attack you while headless, hit it again will make him dead.
* The main character of ''VideoGame/NeverDead'', a game about an immortal gunslinger fighting a demonic invasion. Even if dismembered, he can put himself back together again. He loses his head (both figuratively and literally) in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt9z2lOoe4Y first trailer]]. "My story was just getting interesting too!"
* ''VideoGame/NinjaCommando'' have this happening when you fight Lu Bu. As soon as you kill him, his head detaches, floats a little bit, gloats at you and transforms into a Chinese dragon with a new health bar - cue next stage of a SequentialBoss fight.
* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}} Vampire Savior]]'', Jedah has a move called Spregio that has him doing this to ''himself'' and blasting the opponent with the resulting rush of blood!
* This is the entire plot and gameplay gimmick of ''VideoGame/DeadHeadFred''.
* ''VideoGame/DecapAttack'' is an NES platformer where you are Chuck D. Head, a {{mummy}} with a detachable head which you repeatedly fling at enemies to defeat them in various levels. Your head [[SummonToHand returns to you moments after being thrown]].
* Some enemies in ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' will feel for their head for moment after decapitation.
* Several enemies from ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' can remove Isaac's head, one will take over his body after his death. Instant decapitation results in Isaac feeling for his missing head for a second.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}} 3'', you can get a talking skull, which will shout random phrases at random times. One hilarious one goes: [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings "Aragorn! Boromir! Come quick... Oh, never mind."]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'''s "A Clockwork Syringe" quest features a severed zombie pirate head, which the PlayerCharacter has to torture for information.
* The original ''VideoGame/KungFuMaster'' has the [[EvilSorcerer Black Magician]]: any mid/high attack would result in his head falling off, and him teleporting back to reappear complete and unharmed.
* In ''[[VideoGame/ThreeWonders Chariot: Adventures Through the Sky]]'', FinalBoss Lar loses his entire body halfway through the BossFight, but he's got no problem keeping up with the BulletHell as a disemboweled head.
* In the [[QuirkyWork extremely bizarre]] ''VideoGame/SamuraiZombieNation'', you control the detached (and giant) head of the samurai [[BilingualBonus Namakubi]] as you use {{Eye Beam}}s and acid spit on [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]]. Really.
* Yet another ShootEmUp example: Tripod Sardine from ''G-VideoGame/{{Darius}}''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-SAiZxzgEw#t=02m48s Once it takes enough damage]], its head gets blown off. It still survives, though.
** A straighter example would be the FinalBoss of ''Darius Force'', Galst Vic (a Franchise/{{Terminator}}-esque robot). When his first form is defeated, you have to escape the [[OutrunTheFireball exploding base]]... and then his head comes to attack you! Strangely enough, his head can [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091228013751/darius/images/6/6b/GVic8.gif grow]] and [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091228013726/darius/images/d/de/GVic7.gif shrink]] in size.
* The player character in ''The Incredible Crash Dummies'' can lose his head, resulting in [[StatusEffects reversed controls]] until you find a spare head.
* In ''VideoGame/DisneysVillainsRevenge'', Alice (of ''WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland'' fame) actually gets beheaded and you have to travel a maze to find her head.
* The boss Echizen in ''Death Crimson OX'' has a head that I can only describe as an egg with a pair of giant red lips. Part one of the boss fight is fighting his kung-fu kicking body as his head continuously inflates. Part ''two'' involves his head floating off of his body, then ''splitting into six individual floating heads that then proceed to ram into you and shoot lasers at you''.
* While inversions are also more common, in ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'', Pestilence and sometimes Gapers and Mr. Maws continue moving after losing their head.
* A scene from the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' promotional video [[WebAnimation/TeamFortress2 Meet the Medic]] shows the head of the BLU Spy, which the RED Medic keeps in his fridge, being sustained by some eldritch and surely illegal medical technique involving dry-cell batteries.
* ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' has Ms. Fortune, an undead catgirl who was chopped up into pieces by the mob after stealing and swallowing a gem that made her body undying. [[DetachmentCombat Her fighting style revolves around extending, detaching, and reattaching her limbs]] -- most notably her head, which functions not only as a weapon but is capable of propelling itself around and attacking independently of her body.
* Jet Headstrong had this power on ''VideoGame/DefendersOfDynatronCity''.
* In ''VideoGame/LollipopChainsaw'', after Nick is bitten by a zombie Juliet decides to save him by [[ALoveToDismember chopping off his head]] and preserving it with a magic ritual of some sort. He's not exactly happy about the situation but Juliet thinks that it is just ''awesome'' that her boyfriend is now a talking head.
-->'''Nick:''' How am I still talking... ''without a FUCKING THORAX?!''
* In the "Test Your Luck" game in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', one of the results causes both fighters to fight the next match ''headless''. The worst thing about this is, neither player can use X-Ray moves; exactly how bad it is otherwise depends on what fighter you're using. (For many, it's not much else, but for a few, it can be very hindering. It's the most debilitating for Kung-Lao, seeing as half his moves and almost ''all'' his Fatalities require his hat.)
** In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', this is the fate of [[spoiler:Shinnok at the hands of Dark Raiden, because he is an Elder God and cannot die]]. In one of the stages of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'', his severed and still living head is on display.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** From the series' backstory comes Pelinal Whitestrake, the legendary 1st Era hero of mankind/[[FantasticRacism racist]] [[TheBerserker berserker]]. Believed to have been a [[EternalHero Shezarrine]], [[GodInHumanForm physical incarnations]] of the spirit of the [[GodIsDead "dead" creator god]] Lorkhan (known to the Imperials as "[[IHaveManyNames Shezarr]]"), Pelinal came to [[FounderOfTheKingdom St. Alessia]] to serve as her [[PhysicalGod divine champion]] in the war against the [[AbusivePrecursors Ayleids]]. When Alessia and her army was too struck with fear to attack the White-Gold Tower occupied by Ayleid leader Umaril the Unfeathered, Pelinal [[OneManArmy charged in himself]] and defeated (though could not kill) Umaril before he himself was slain. His body was [[CruelAndUnusualDeath cut into eight pieces]] by the Ayleids to mock the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Eight Divines]]. His head was left behind and discovered by Morihaus, with whom he had one final conversation that is now lost to history.
** A {{Good Bad Bug|s}} in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' sometimes causes enemies [[KilledMidSentence beheaded mid-sentence]] to continue a taunt after decapitation. The game doesn't stop the sound file when the enemy dies, resulting in a disembodied voice for a second or so.
* The [[DemBones Skelterwild]] Dream Eater in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' has a tendency to do this whenever it receives a hit strong enough to make it stagger. This is by no means a good thing [[MonsterAllies (unless it's your friend)]], as it causes the head and body to attack in tandem by using ice breath and by ramming respectively.
* In ''VideoGame/GrimFandango'', [[spoiler:Salvador Limones]] gets reduced to a talking skull. Sure, he was DeadToBeginWith, but the rest of the skeleton, which you have to find later, is ''not'' animated, implying that the head is still the part that holds one's consciousness, even after death. [[spoiler:Even as a skull, Sal manages to perform a HeroicSacrifice by spitting Sproutella into the face of a character who betrayed him, thus rendering both of them DeaderThanDead.]]
* The Evil King/Witch Doctor in ''VideoGame/WonderBoy1[=/=]VideoGame/AdventureIsland'' loses his head each time you defeat him, only to have it replaced by an uglier mug.
* Sekibanki of ''Franchise/TouhouProject'', a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rokurokubi Rokurokubi]] with some Dullahan motifs mixed in. She has the ability to make her head fly off independently from her body. ZUN mentioned in his music notes for her theme music that [[SadlyMythtaken he wasn't sure if the Rokurokubi]] was the {{Youkai}} that could [[RubberMan stretch their neck]] or if it was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukekubi youkai that could detach their head]] (a possible ShoutOut to Lafcadio Hearn who mentioned in his book that people misidentify the Nukekubi for a Rokurokubi), so he gave her both powers.
* One rather disturbing scene in the anime of ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' features [[spoiler:Maria]]'s head on a platter. [[EvilLaugh Laughing psychotically]] and daring [[spoiler:Rosa]] [[LetsMeetTheMeat to eat her]].
* Some zombies in ''VideoGame/Doom3'' have lost their heads, leaving only the lower jaw and below still attached. The game code even refers to them as "neckstump". The lack of head or brain does not hinder them in the slightest, [[PossessingADeadBody which makes sense]], and they can even make the same grunts and moans as zombies with heads. This only affects civilian zombies, however - Z-secs, zombified security forces and marines that wield weapons and behave like actual humans in a firefight, are unaffected.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/LEGOIsland''. The island's inhabitants, being made of Franchise/{{LEGO}}s, can easily survive decapitation:
** The opening cinematic has the ambulance have a tow truck crash into it, and the patient's head gets knocked off into the road. The ambulance driver just picks up the head, chucks it into the back of the ambulance, and gets back behind the wheel.
** An encounter in the residential area has a character get his head knocked off by a passing truck. The head starts ''directing the body to try and pick it up''.
---> "Hey, I'm over here! To my left! Er, your left! Er, ''our'' left!" ''(body walks towards head)'' "Right." ''(body goes right)'' "Not 'go right,' 'correct'!" ''(body kicks head)'' "It's not a soccer game! Use your brain! Oh, I guess ... that's over here." ''(body kicks head again)'' "Ow! Just bend down slowly and--" ''(body kicks head high into the air and it lands on the neck)'' "He shoots, he scores! ''OW!''"
* In ''VideoGame/OgreBattle'', you can recruit Pumpkins (men with pumpkins for heads) into your army, who attack by ''tearing off their own heads'', kicking them into the air, whereupon they grow to huge size and ''land'' on an enemy, halving their HP (or killing undead units outright) unless they miss. If you upgrade them to a Hallowe'en, they can do it twice a fight!
* In ''[[VideoGame/OfficeJerk Office Zombie]]'', you can cut the Zombie's head off with a couple of items. When you throw it back, he'll stick it back on his neck and be good as new.
* Vengarl of Forossa from ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' was a [[BloodKnight brutish, bloodthirsty mercenary]] until he got decapitated in a fierce battle... and woke up as a disembodied undead head. Ironically, he learned to enjoy his newfound peace, spending his time watching the forest, thinking and occasionally talking with random travellers. His only concern is that his headless body still is rampaging somewhere else.
** The Earthen Peak area is populated mostly by headless, magically animated mannequins. The boss of said area, Mytha the Baneful Queen, tore off their heads for 'daring to gaze upon her'. Mytha herself is a half-woman-half-snake, also beheaded, who carries her head in her left hand and uses it as a sorcery catalyst, and occasionally as a magic grenade.
* ''VideoGame/ChivalryMedievalWarfare'''s "Black Knight" GameMod makes decapitations (and other severed bits and pieces) non-lethal, allowing for a headless, armless knight to run around kicking people to death.
* In the reboot of ''[[VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2013 Shadow Warrior]]'', Xing, one of the Ancients, lost his head on the order of Enra, the leader of the Shadow Realm, for [[spoiler:conspiring with Hoji to poison their sister and try to overthrow him]]. But because Xing is an Ancient, an immortal demon that cannot be killed except with the [[MacGuffin Nobitsura Kage]], being decapitated is just an inconvenience to him. You encounter his head late in the game, when you journey to the Shadow Realm to [[spoiler:rescue Hoji and stop him from creating a Whisperer of you and sacrificing his memories of you]], and he proves to be quite the amiable and chatty fellow.
* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'', when HK-47 is describing his history of enacting assassination protocols against Jedi, he notes their love of sending his limbs and head flying with their LaserBlade, which he describes as "an inconvenience".
* The ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' series has Bonehead, Baba Yaga's gatekeeper. He's a talking skull animated by ''some'' form of magic, though little else is elaborated on.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Headlander}}'', you wake up in the future with no body and must make do with a space helmet that comes equipped with rockets and the ability to attach to various robot bodies.
* In one of ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG's'' Bad Ends, [[spoiler:Kaoru]] is decapitated. Not only do they remain alive for a minute, but they're even capable of holding a conversation over a phone, something that they recognize should be impossible.
* ''VideoGame/DragonsCrown'':
** Skeleton enemies will lose their head if you damage them enough but they will still fight in this state. However, since they no longer have eyes to see with, they'll mainly run around randomly while flailing their sword wildly.
** The WarriorMonk you meet in the Forgotten Sanctuary is injured by a HellHound's head that continued to bite down on her leg even after it was decapitated.
* In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', a [[GoodBadBugs glitch]] can cause enemies or even the player to survive decapitation.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'', the boss monster Jermafenser/Helmethead will lose several helmet-covered heads that proceed to float and attack Link independently of the body.
** Blind the Thief from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' has a similar strategy, losing and regrowing his head through the fight while the extra heads attack Link.
** Igos du Ikana from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' attaches and reattaches his head to attack Link during the fight against him. Once he and his Skull Knights are defeated and their bodies disintegrated using reflected sunlight, their incorporeal spirits are represented by the same floating skulls.
** In ''VideoGame/{{The Legend of Zelda Oracle|Games}} of Seasons'', a skeletal Piratian had his entire body destroyed except for his skull. Link must carry his skull so the Piratian can help locate the bell his Captain was looking for.
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', attacking the body of a [[DemBones Stal]] creature will just cause the head and body to separate. It can only be defeated if Link destroys the head... but if there are any ''other'' Stal creatures of the same type, any head can reaffix to any matching body, leaving the bodies to attack Link until all heads are destroyed. Fortunately, all Stal heads will die from a single blow from ''any'' weapon, [[BoomHeadshot even if still attached to the body]].
* Ed in ''VideoGame/BenAndEd'' can have his head cut off, or he can even detach it himself, and will still be able to continue the level albeit with less maneuverability. Alternatively, he can just reattach it to his body. Justified in that Ed is a zombie.
* The Onkies from the ''VideoGame/{{Grow}}'' games (and other games from the ''Eyezmaze'' website) may sometime lose their head after tripping or doing a big jump, but they can simply put it back on has if nothing happened.
* One of the randomly generated mutations in ''VideoGame/{{Rad}}'' allows you to throw your head at enemies, which will then explode. Upgrades to this will add either a bone-mohawk or a spiked skull, both of which will cause extra damage.
* Schezo Wegey is infamously beheaded by protagonist Arle Nadja in the Platform/PC98 version of ''VideoGame/MadouMonogatari Madou Monogatari 1-2-3''. Just when Arle thought he was through, his head somehow springs to life and sticks around to continue fighting by casting spells for a while before he goes down for real. He later appears in other installments of ''Madou'', and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment his decapitation is never mentioned again.]]
* The second ''VideoGame/GarfieldsScaryScavengerHunt'' game has a part where the player can open the fridge to find the severed head of Orson Pig from ''ComicStrip/USAcres''. Unlike Lyman's severed head shown in the same game, Orson appears to be still alive in spite of his beheading, as he says to Garfield "Watch out for sneaky mice!"
* ''VideoGame/SekiroShadowsDieTwice'' has the Guardian Ape fight. At the climex, Sekiro uses the sword lodged in the Guardian Ape's neck to decapitate him. [[VictoryFakeout This gets you a "Shinobi Execution" screen.]] After a few seconds, however, the boss gets back up, retrieving his head with one hand and the sword with his other, becoming the Headless Ape.
* Chicken from ''VideoGame/NuclearThrone'' gets decapitated when losing all her health, but can temporarily survive ([[TruthInTelevision like a real chicken]]) long enough to potentially regain some health, reattaching her head.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania}}'', Dracula's head pops off his body when you reduce his health to zero, only for him to reveal a [[OneWingedAngel more powerful form]] right afterward.
* ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'' has the skeleton soldiers under Cliff's command who are capable of fighting even after their heads are shot off. This immunity doesn't apply, however, if you sneak up behind them and decapitate them with the Strand.
* ''VideoGame/PajamaSam3YouAreWhatYouEatFromYourHeadToYourFeet'': If you help Mickey fix his comedy routine, his final joke causes the audience to literally laugh their heads off. They're fine since they're all AnthropomorphicFood.
* Agon from ''VideoGame/BrutalOrchestra'' is holding his severed head above his body, and still feels pain from it (if PlayedForLaughs) judging by his frequent {{Overly Long Scream}}s
* ''VideoGame/ABiteAtFreddys'': Talkshow Freddy is fended off by activating a fan in an air vent, but deploying it at the wrong time can slice off his head. Freddy responds to his decapitation by becoming much more aggressive in his attempts to enter the office.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': Some enemies, such as ghouls or deathclaws, are capable of surviving with one or more limbs completely removed; however, due a glitch, the ''head'' is sometimes counted as a non-essential limb.
* ''VideoGame/HelldiversII'': Some variants of Terminids can survive for several seconds when their heads removed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* In the second ''WebAnimation/MysterySkullsAnimated'' video Lewis punches Shiromori's head clean off when she wakes him by messing with his locket. She grows it, and her burnt arm, back in short order but decides to book it rather than have an all out brawl with the fiery ghost.
* In the ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' [[http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail148.html "disconnected"]], Strong Bad imagines what it'd be like if he had a disembodied head.
* ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': Lopez seems to handle life without a head quite well.
* [[http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/spumco/Bjork/bjorktubsmall.mov Bjork]] in the video for "I Miss You".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Another Princess Story'', [[https://www.deviantart.com/dragon-fangx/art/Another-Princess-Story-Only-the-Heads-564673159 during one]] [[HalloweenEpisode Halloween storyline]], Roya finds [[ThoseTwoGuys Eliza and Beth]] after their heads have been removed from their bodies by a [[HeadlessHorseman headless, ax-wielding woman]], who can do the same to Roya. The headless bodies are still capable of some level of sentience and the disembodied heads lose their eye colors until they're attached to a body, [[EyesAreMental causing them to gain the eye color of the body's original head]] (and in the case of the rider, her sharp teeth).
* Happened in ''Webcomic/BiteMe'' via ''guillotine''; her head was later located by the main character being asked to list head puns (in a room full of severed heads) until she groaned loudly enough to be found.
* Most of the ''Webcomic/{{Boneheads}}'' are able to take off their heads and be perfectly fine, [[DemBones being undead skeletons]] and the like. Three of the Boneheads [[AlasPoorYorick perform while holding their skulls in their hands]]. This comes as a shock to Sans and Papyrus, who ''can't'' just take off their heads. Poor Papyrus thought he killed Brook by accidentally knocking off his head before Jack assured him Brook was fine.
* In ''Webcomic/CommanderKitty'', CK ends up in pieces after a TeleporterAccident, [[http://www.commanderkitty.com/2009/03/15/some-assembly-required/ with his still-talking head landing inside a toolbox.]] Fortunately for him, it seems he just needs someone to snap him back together like a LEGO minifig.
* ''Webcomic/DaisyIsDead'' [[http://www.daisyisdead.net/Comic241.htm has]] [[http://www.daisyisdead.net/Comic199.htm two instances]].
* ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'': "[[http://www.missmab.com/Comics/Vol_904.php You would be amazed how difficult it is to aim when your head is in a box across the room.]]"
* Runcible Spoon in ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'' is known for sending his own head flying. Also once happened to [[http://dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2008-02-13 Quilt]], including the "hey, body, over here" routine.
* ''Webcomic/DragonBallMultiverse'': [[spoiler:Cell does this to himself to avoid being [[TakenForGranite petrified]] by Dabura.]]
* Done in ''Webcomic/{{Fanboys}}'' in a [[http://fanboys-online.com/index.php?comic=329 very nightmarish fashion]]. With an '''undead cat'''.
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'':
** Tinka's head continues to talk after being sliced off.
** Castle Heterodyne while its mind was stored in the body of Otilia.
** Doctor Sun keeps Selnikov's head in a jar, preserved and conscious for interrogation.
* In the ''Webcomic/GirlsInSpace'' storyline The Prototype, Fergus Macrumble punches the Henchbot's head off.
* Nostrom in ''Webcomic/{{Jack|DavidHopkins}}'' has a habit of switching his head between a bunch of bodies after he goes to hell. And he keeps his bodies' original heads in a jar where they're constantly begging people to kill them.
* Done in ''Webcomic/{{Khatru}}'', where HealingFactor powered Ranger unwittingly agrees to test one of GadgeteerGenius Kira's medical scanning devices. She tries everything to fix him, but in the end, he recovers all on his own.
* Ashley Yakamura from ''Webcomic/LightAndDark'' can detach her head, along with other parts of her body.
* In ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'', one of the men in [[spoiler:Richard]]'s village. Justified because he's not exactly human...
** Also, Richard is beheaded but still able to maintain his normal levels of [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/328 awesome]].
* An entire storyline of ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' revolves around how Dave's disembodied head ''is forgotten on the bus''.
* In ''Webcomic/NoRestForTheWicked'', Red severs the witch's head. The witch sticks it back on, [[http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/03-59.html grumbling]].
* Hector in ''Webcomic/NoSongsForTheDead'' got his [[http://nosongs.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/152523 head punched off]] [[spoiler:by Romeo, after which Hector taunted Romeo, saying "You punch like a girl."]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' has Morag The Immortal, a follower of the dead god Sithrak. As revealed in "Bellows" and "Rise of the Funsnake" Morag's body was eaten by the funworm, a demon god disguised as group of men in a cheap parade costume. She now needs somebody to blow into her neck to talk because nobody understood that one blink meant "yes" and two meant "no".
* In ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'' the third head of Cerberus [[spoiler:seems to be perfectly fine with just being a skull/living headgear for Darius.]] This is a temporary punishment for insufficient vigilance, that dragged out far longer than expected.
* Happens to [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html Xykon]] in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''.
** And also to the [[DemBones Eye of Fear and Flame]], which was kept by Belkar until it decided death was better than living (well, undying) as an immobile skull with ''Belkar'' as a master.
* One ''Webcomic/ProjectFuture'' side comic has a healing mage reattach a decapitated waitress's head [[http://www.projectfuturecomic.com/darklord.php?strip=02-04 before her brain died]], though she needed additional spinal regeneration afterwards.
* ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'' had an ImagineSpot featuring Penelope [[http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1437 vomiting a rainbow]] mixed with CheshireCatGrin.
* In ''Webcomic/RustyAndCo'', [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-6-48/ decapitation does not work on the vampires.]]
* Happens from time to time in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. The level of medical technology available in the series allows ''entire bodies'' to be regrown so long as the head remains intact. Der Trihs spent quite a few strips as a head in a jar, as have most of the cast. Karl Tagon once spent an arc as a head in a jar as well. Attached to a ''headless monkey'' he was able to control, and ''still'' kicked a ton of ass doing it.
* Probably the single most infamous comic from ''Webcomic/SexyLosers'' involved Shiunji, a necrophiliac, a corpse whose head fell off, and what he did to its neck. The comic's subtitle read "I am certain that at some point in the future, I will be prosecuted for this comic in a court of law."
* A pair of minor characters in ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'' are a zombie couple comprising a headless body and a bodiless head. Unity has also been known to lose her head on occasion, on one occasion getting into a fight with her EvilTwin in which they ''both'' ended up as just heads.
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', Torg invented the "[[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=090216 Zombie-Head-On-A-Stick]]." It's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
** To say nothing of the time Riff managed to disconnect his own head (and trap Torg and Gwynn's upper halves in another dimension) by thinking with portals.
* ''Webcomic/StubbleTrouble'' features the decapitated characters of Gynette the spidertaur and Lilith the Headless Goth Vixen. Gynette's boyfriend really seems to like her ability and her friends are unfazed as she often takes her head off. Lilith the Headless Goth Vixen was a former model who was famous for her decapitation.
* Rick of ''Webcomic/UmlautHouse'' is cybernetic below the neck, and his head can detach and walk around on mechanical spider legs.
* ''Webcomic/VioletZombie'': Penelope Martinez demonstrates this ability frequently, either to scare people or just for fun.
* ''Webcomic/{{Zomgan}}'': As Mirae On simply can't die thanks to his quick, powerful HealingFactor, he can survive beheadings and regenrate another head.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Blog/{{Athyrmagaia}}'' has the Athyrmatherians, alien creatures which resemble familiar Earth animals like lions, gazelles and wildebeest: except that the head, thorax, abdomen and rump of each Athyrmatherian is a ''separate animal'' of its own, having metamorphosed from four separate sibling larvae that then proceeded to unite at adulthood. As such, heads can detach from the bodies and survive for a while separated: which becomes a tactic of a predator group called [[MeaningfulName headhunters]] that finish their prey by detaching the head zooid and devouring the still-living head, before moving onto the incapacitated body.
* Happens in short film called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztHWolXv7Zg changing head]]''.
* In "WebVideo/DeadpoolTheMusical," Deadpool demonstrates that he's "especially good at ''decapitating!''" by removing a mook's head via katana, and the severed head sings in response: "Heads roll for Deadpool!"
* GR-210 is reduced to just a head in ''Literature/StatlessAndTactless'' when he horrifically fails an attack roll and the GM is feeling vindictive. However, being a robot he's still alive as a head and gets carried around in a backpack.
* This video based on the catchy theme tune to ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}''. "''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8VfreZsuPg They're decapitated so easily!]]''"
* In ''Podcast/LessIsMorgue'', [[FriendlyZombie Brains Vincent]] survives as a severed head after Riley eats his body.
* The Website/YouTube series ''[[https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSAPproject Some Assembly Required]]'' is all about this.
* A short film called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7obqrZMao4 Halloween Party]]'' has its main character be a guy who can detach his head like a toy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': In the magic-themed episode "Vanishing Act", Cindy Vortex, Carl Wheezer, Sheen Estevez and Betty Quinlan, become floating heads when they enter a [[AcidTripDimension strange dimension]] and look for their headless bodies. [[PortalPicture Once they enter a picture of a desert]], they find their headless bodies are searching around the desert feeling the ground for them. They [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattach their heads to their bodies]] and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment act like nothing happened]] (except Sheen, [[HeadTurnedBackwards whose head is on backwards]]).
* ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' has a villain named Kapok whose evil head is separated from his kind body. Interestingly, [[EmotionsVsStoicism his head thinks with his mind, but his body thinks with his heart]]. Aladdin even gets inflicted with the same curse during the episode. Don't worry, he gets better.
* Sarah from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' removes her head every night before she goes to sleep and puts it in the freezer.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'':
** The Warners exhibit this ability.
** In one short, "[[Recap/AnimaniacsEpisode30 Moon over Minerva]]", a smitten Minerva Mink's head turns into a balloon [[HeartBeatsOutOfChest because of her pounding heart]] and starts to float away before she catches it and hastily reattaches it.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** In "[[Recap/ArthurS1E17MeekForAWeekArthurWorldsGreatestGleeper Meek for a Week]]", Arthur and his friends imagine Francine, who has recently taken to bottling up her natural aggression, will build up enough pressure that her head will pop off. We then see an ImagineSpot of just such happening with Francine's disembodied head complimenting the beautiful lawn she just landed in.
** Similarly, a different episode has Buster's head fly away instead, only his head breaks into pieces upon landing.
* Absorbing Man after his battle with the Hulk in ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'': In "[[Recap/TheBatmanS4E12TheJoiningPart1 The Joining, Part 1]]", Batman and J'onn J'onzz are able to interrogate the severed head of Lucius Fox's robot duplicate. "In order to nod, you need a neck."
* This happens to the titular character several times in ''WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}}'', perhaps most unfortunately when he falls in with a group of headhunters. (In one episode, this actually causes his head and body to argue with each other, his body doing so by forming a mouth with its hand.)
* The titular character in ''WesternAnimation/{{Bunnicula}}'' has had his head knocked off or intentionally removed it to mess with Chester the cat on a few occasions, he can just stick it back on like it's nothing due to his supernatural abilities.
* XR in ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' is prone to this.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow'', this happens to Rallo after he runs with scissors.
-->'''Rallo's severed head:''' Little help?
* ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'' has this happen, quite unsurprisingly, to the clone of UsefulNotes/MarieAntoinette. In the second-to-last episode, she is decapitated by a [[HelicopterBlender helicopter]]. In the last episode, she appears alive and well, or at least as well as a girl whose head is no longer attached to her shoulders can be.
* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'':
** In one episode, Courage, Eustace and Muriel have their heads chopped off by the Windmill Vandals' weapons (with their headless bodies frantically feeling around for their lost heads) and [[LegoBodyParts end up on each other's bodies]]. Courage's head (transplanted on Muriel's body) even uses Eustace's complaining head as a bowling ball to momentarily topple the marauders.
** Moreover, this isn't the first time Eustace has lost his head. In an earlier episode, a space chicken that Courage defeats and leaves featherless and headless in the pilot episode returns to replace its missing head by using Courage's head as a replacement. It only partially succeeds with its plan, taking Eustace's head instead. Although defeated, the head never returns to its original body (at least until the next episode), culminating with the appearance of a headless walking Eustace that scares Courage.
** Eustace loses his head again in "Mega Muriel the Magnificent" when Courage's computer temporarily takes over his body and accidentally hits a wall while running, causing Eustace to collapse part-by-part. His disembodied head then spends the remainder of the episode watching the possessed Muriel's death-defying stunts on TV, oblivious to the fact that he no longer has a body.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'', Ditzy's head is detachable, and with its lightness and string, it floats and looks like a balloon. Both the head and body can function on their own. The string can secure her head to the body by a tied knot. Her head can come off by force or surprise. There is an episode where her head is unable to float.
* ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'':
** Mr. Freeze is reduced to a disembodied head that can detach from his robotic body to move on mechanical spider legs by the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[Recap/TheNewBatmanAdventuresE3ColdComfort Cold Comfort]]". In a ContinuityNod, when he shows up again in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS1E7Meltdown Meltdown]]", all that's left is his head. He's understandably not too happy about it. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Early drafts]] for ''Beyond'' played this for BlackComedy, with Old Man Wayne keeping the head in his refrigerator. It curses him impotently whenever he opens the door.
** Mr. Mxyzptlk in his debut episode of ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' at one point removes his own head, which then regrows his body. Of course, he ''is'' a RealityWarper.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'', the villainous Lena decapitates her business rivals and keeps their heads in jars, where they are somehow still alive and able to talk. Notably, when Dilbert discovers one of these heads, he speaks to it first, as if he expects it to be able to answer. [[spoiler:Lena [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard suffers this same fate herself]] by the end of the episode.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'': Toot's body manages to flash her boobs at Xandir after she chops her head off in the first episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** A CutawayGag in the episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS10E17ForgetMeNot Forget-Me-Not]]" has Stewie meeting a woman's best friend whom she claims is hot. Said woman comes by holding her severed head.
** Another cutaway in the episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS17E10HeftyShadesOfGray Hefty Shades of Gray]]" shows what it was like for Chris to get off sugar; when Peter asks him for the syrup at breakfast, Chris violently rips off his head in response. Meg laughs at Peter in this state, and in retaliation, he commands his body to throw mashed potatoes at her. At the end of the episode, Lois also rips Peter's head off when he tells her that the Griffins are joining the Trump administration.
* Scared Stiff, the ghost robot in ''WesternAnimation/FilmationsGhostbusters'', suffers from this.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/FlashGordon1979'' features a race of aliens who can remove their heads.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
** The Heads in Jars combine this with BrainInAJar. It's eventually revealed to be a form of limited time travel, creating a tiny bubble in which the heads are perpetually in the time period during which they were alive.
** Bender frequently suffers this, at least once as a ShoutOut to ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. In "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E3AHeadInThePolls A Head in the Polls]]", he purposely sells his body for lots of money (it's worth more due to supply and demand). He drives around in a little car until getting it back from President Nixon. He also uses his ability to detach his head to (what else?) rob people.
** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E7PutYourHeadOnMyShoulder Put Your Head on My Shoulder]]", Fry has his head surgically removed and placed on Amy's shoulder after being severely injured in a car accident.
** This happens to Hermes in ''[[Recap/FuturamaM1BendersBigScore Bender's Big Score]]''. Somehow, he manages to keep yelling at people for several minutes after being decapitated, before he's put in a jar.
** In ''[[Recap/FuturamaM3BendersGame Bender's Game]]'', Zoidberg's head crawls on tentacles once it's been severed from his body. Since that instance took place in Bender's fantasy world it's not certain if the real Zoidberg can do it as well.
** This happens to the Professor in the [[VideoGame/{{Futurama}} video game]] when Mom decapitates his head to use his brain in her plot against his will.
* ''WesternAnimation/GadgetAndTheGadgetinis'': Fidget gets his head bitten off by a tiger at one point in the episode "Claw's Collection". The tiger spits it out, none the worse for wear, a moment later, leading Fidget to pop it back on.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'':
** Grim is frequently hit with this trope.
** In an episode parodying "The Fly", Mandy unzips her head and accidentally zips onto a fly's body.
** Grim inflicts this on Jack O'Lantern, a one-episode villain from the Halloween special. Justified in that he had wished for [[WhoWantsToLiveForever immortality before he was decapitated]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleCrashDummies'' seem to spend a lot of time without their heads (or arms or legs) attached.
* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': This happens to Heloise in the episode "Heads Will Roll", thanks to [[MadScientist Dr. Scientist]] trying to obstruct her from entering Miseryville's Annual Mad Scientist Awards. Both her head and body were able to operate relatively well on their own, with the former managing to somehow build a vehicle out of sticks and stones to get to the awards and Dr. Scientist in time.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': This happens to Quack Quack the duck, who is [[NighInvulnerability indestructible and can't be killed]], almost OnceAnEpisode.
* ''WesternAnimation/KevinSpencer'': Kevin fantasizes about this in one episode: he imagines himself living in an old age home as a head, refusing to die. The staff decide to just run him over with a car. [[spoiler:This trope is played with in the final episode, with Percy.]]
* In the Canadian short ''[[http://www.nfb.ca/film/land_of_the_heads Land of the Heads]]'', a headless vampiress forces his husband to go out into the village and collect the heads of younger people to replace her old and wrinkled one.
* In the Canadian short "WesternAnimation/LaSalla", after a man's head is knocked off, it rolls around the floor singing, while the headless body lumbers around looking for it. Of course, the main character losing his head isn't the only thing that [[MindScrew makes this screwy]].
* In a particularly bizarre episode of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes2006'', on their way to FindTheCure, Brainiac 5's head is separated from his body by a PortalCut; the body then proceeds to run amok while the frustrated Legionnaires try to recapture it.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'' HalloweenEpisode "[[Recap/LiloAndStitchTheSeriesS1E5Spooky Spooky]]", [[MonsterOfTheWeek the episode's titular experiment]] scares Mertle Edmonds and her posse by shapeshifting to appear as Lilo (in her dead hula girl costume from earlier in the episode) with her head detached from her body.
* Dr. Pretorious from ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'' has heavily modified his body, including allowing his head to be detached from his body and move around on spider legs. Unfortunately, this tends to work against him, as his opponents tend to take advantage of this and knock his head off to distract him during his plans. His body can move independently on its own.
* ''WesternAnimation/MegaManRubySpears'': At the beginning of "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man", Mega says "don't lose your head" to a disassembled Roll.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Mashed Potato Johnson, the oldest living blues guitarist, educates Deathklok on the music, relateing several gruesome stories on the origins of songs, including one Shorty Johnnytop, who made a deal with the Devil and was hit by a train -- "...as his head traveled in the air, he wrote 'Blue Train Blues'."
* Jenny from ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' has this happen occasionally.
* Unsurprisingly happens a few times in ''WesternAnimation/NightmareNed'''s many {{Nightmare Sequence}}s:
** In "Headless Lester", Ned has a run-in with the eponymous campfire-story creep and afterwards walks back to his cabin, whereupon his constantly giggling head topples off his body after his worried cabin counselor grabs him by the shoulders. Notably, and a bit ironically, this was in the one episode of the series wherein [[spoiler:[[OncePerEpisode the obligatory nightmare]] wasn't actually being had by Ned]].
** In "A Doll's House", this happens to Ned when he drives a toy car down his house's stairs in an attempt to escape his ([[IncredibleShrinkingMan now giant to him]]) cousins. His cousins "fix" the broken "dolly" by sticking Ned's head on a cheerleader doll, [[CatapultNightmare much to Ned's chagrin]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches'' episode "It's Been a Hard Day's Noise", Oggy gets this after repeatedly opening and shutting a door. [[https://youtu.be/EUqWrqb9Oug?t=135 Proof here]].
* ''WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit'' demonstrates the ability to attach and detach his head at will, with no justification other than the RuleOfFunny. It is unclear how well he can function headless, as in two cases, his head doesn't get very far, and in the third, he's reassembled by outside means. A post-Disney short indicates that other characters in the setting can do this too.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In [[Recap/TheOwlHouseS1E1ALyingWitchAndAWarden the very first episode]], Eda gets her head cut off by Warden Wrath. Luz is horrified, but thankfully Eda is still alive (though she does complain that losing her head is rather uncomfortable and inconvenient).
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePatrickStarShow'': Patrick can safely remove his head from his body, which gets used for a couple of jokes.
** In "[[Recap/ThePatrickStarShowS1E18ThePatterflyEffectASpaceAffairToRemember The Patterfly Effect]]", Patrick's head detaches from his body. It runs wild around the house until Bunny calms it down with some breakfast. Squidina brings his head back into the kitchen while the body is trying to eat.
** In "[[Recap/ThePatrickStarShowS1E23TheStarryAwardsBlorpsgiving Blorpsgiving]]", a wedding ceremony would involves both parties' heads being torn off their bodies to be refit into fancy clothes; harmless to Inga-Tron, but it would kill Quasar. Patrick, feeding popcorn into his severed head, casually comments, "I don't see what the big deal is."
* In one ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch, [[Series/TalesFromTheCrypt the Crypt Keeper]] tries to find a new job after his show is canceled, but when he finds one he's quickly fired for disrespecting his manager. Following this, his wife leaves him, [[DrivenToSuicide which drives him to suicide]]. When he tries to hang himself, his head pops off.
* [[MusicalAssassin Scaramouche]] the [[KillerRobot assassin android]] from ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' is seemingly killed in the first episode of Season 5, his head being the only part of him that survived. Five episodes later, it reboots, and he hops off to go tell [[BigBad Aku]] that [[TheHero Jack]] has lost his sword. As a head, though, he becomes prime ButtMonkey material, being kicked and tossed around by people and denied entrance to a ship due to his lack of a body.
* ''WesternAnimation/SevenLittleMonsters'': Seven, the youngest of the titular monsters, is able to survive removing his own head.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Scratchy from ''[[ShowWithinAShow The Itchy and Scratchy Show]]'' loses his head tons of times thanks to Itchy. Whether he lives or [[OffWithHisHead dies]] from it seems to vary.
** One CouchGag has the Simpsons switching heads. This was repeated in the Season 2 DVD artwork.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E5TreehouseOfHorrorIV Treehouse of Horror IV]]", Homer is decapitated while spending a day in Hell.
** Homer's costume (which [[BecomingTheCostume becomes real]]) in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E4TreehouseOfHorrorXVI Treehouse of Horror XVI]]".
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''
** Man Ray's head is removable, as shown in his first appearance in "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS2E11MermaidManAndBarnacleBoySquirrelJokes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III]]" when he takes it off and gives it to [=SpongeBob=] when [[NotHyperbole he literally can't show his face in Bikini Bottom anymore]]. When he later appears in "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS6E17ShuffleboardingProfessorSquidward Shuffleboarding]]", he weaponizes this by throwing his head at [=SpongeBob=] while fighting him and Patrick at the laundromat, only for it to fly into a washer and shrink because it's dry clean only.
** In "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS11E9SquidNoirScavengerPants Squid Noir]]", Patrick throws a rock at Squidward, thinking that he's being attacked by a monster when he's actually playing his clarinet. The rock pins Squidward's head to a wood mount on his wall, leaving him without a head.
** Patrick's head harmlessly popping off his body for whatever reason is something of a RunningGag in the show (especially in post-sequel era). For example, in "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS12E24EscapeFromBeneathGloveWorld Escape from Beneath Glove World]]", when Patrick finds out that the [[MrAltDisney Hieronymus Glove]] robot [[OffWithHisHead literally wants Patrick's head]], Patrick nonchalantly removes his head from his shoulders and gives it to him.
%% Needs context * Commander Bem from the ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS2E2Bem Bem]]".
* In the ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' episode "[[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E15GameOfFlags Game of Flags]]", Star's Uncle Lump was decapitated during the Game of Flags at last year's family reunion, but they managed to save his head and attach it to the body of a horse. Later in the episode Uncle Lump's head bounces in from off-screen, still alive but incredibly annoyed that he lost another body.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': In the {{Crossover}} episode "Say Uncle", When Belly Bag explains who WesternAnimation/UncleGrandpa is, it makes Steven's and the Gems' heads float off their bodies and orbit the Earth. Pearl is understandably [[FreakOut freaked out]] by this, she feels to make sure her head is back on her body where it belongs and then proceeds to FaintInShock; Amethyst [[FreakOut freaks out]] because her head reattaches backwards, and Garnet [[NotSoStoic visibly shudders after being frozen in an uncomfortable expression]]. Steven takes it a lot better, giving Uncle Grandpa a fist bump when they come back.
* ''WesternAnimation/SwatKats'' has this in the episode "[[Recap/SWATKatsS1E10MetalUrgency Metal Urgency]]": the Metallikats are reduced to heads scuttling around on spider legs after their bodies are crushed. This doesn't prevent them from driving the Metallikat Express ''or'' operating a pair of gigantic combat robots.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'', Leonardo cuts off the Shredder's head in a SingleStrokeBattle. This would have been more effective if the Shredder wasn't actually an alien inhabiting a much larger robot body.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' episode "[[Recap/TeenTitansS2E11Fractured Fractured]]", [[RealityWarper Larry]] briefly makes little wings grow on Starfire's head, causing it to fly off of her body and needing to hold onto it to avoid it flying away.
* ''WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons'':
** The outlaws in the short "Deputy Droopy".
** This happens to Spike/Butch in the short "Darevil Droopy" when he tries to sabotage the TestYourStrengthGame for Droopy.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTick'': In a time-travel episode, the Tick has his head momentarily teleported, minus his body, onto a golf tee in the 1950s. He loudly declares "Men in plaid!" at the sight of the golfers.
* Happens in ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' in the short "Born to be Riled" when Babs does an impersonation of Shirley Loon.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTofus'': This happens to Mrs. Tofu in the episode "The Great Escape" when Mr. Tofu performs a magic trick that ends up resulting in her head being teleported to a nearby box via magic while her now headless body is clearly seen still standing in the larger box.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** Megatron, Bulkhead, Sentinel Prime, Starscream and [[spoiler:Waspinator]] have all suffered from this in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated''.
** As does Optimus Prime in ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1''. Unicron gets reduced to a head after his body is blown up, and he's incredibly dangerous whenever he regains consciousness.
** All of the Headmasters have this as their backstory. (To summarize, the future Headmasters were a subgroup of Autobot pacifists called the Nebulans who were sickened by the conflict, and as a result had little trust for any other resident of Cybertron. to gain trust, five Autobots removed their heads and offered them to the Nebulans to earn trust. Later, the Nebulans could no longer avoid the war, but were still unwilling to trust the headless Autobots enough to reassemble them, so as compromise, they used special technology on five of their own, so they could become the heads, working with the five Autobots in a symbiotic bond. Each Nebulon controls the body, while its partner's true head -- which is hidden somewhere -- maintains telepathic communication while providing fighting skills and advice. Unfortunately, it isn't long before the Decepticons learn how to do this too.) Also, Arcee becomes a "new" Headmaster in the finale of the series, the same deal as the others.
** Waspinator in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', [[TheChewToy several times]]. In fact, numerous characters, primarily Predacons, end up in pieces, including an intact head. Silverbolt is the only Maximal who suffered this indignity while serving as a Maximal.
%% Needs context * ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'': Dean in "Escape to the House of Mummies".
* ''WesternAnimation/VivaPinata'' has this as a mild inconvenience. It happens to Dr. Quackberry in "Party Parasite".
* The ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'' episode "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!]]" has this happen to [[spoiler:Scott Lang. Since [[Film/AntManAndTheWasp Hank Pym's attempt to save Janet van Dyne from the Quantum Realm]] ended with Janet becoming PatientZero to a ZombieApocalypse in this universe, Hope assumed that Scott had died with the others. Until the group makes it to Vision's stronghold and discover he made a cure for the zombie plague; while reduced to a head in a jar, Scott is alive and well thanks to cure testing. He even takes the time to make a lot of head puns at his situation]].
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[[folder:Other]]
* Happened in the ''Creator/{{YTV}}'' block ''ZAPX Movies'' to Simon Mohos during one of the program blocks that happened between the scene from Film/{{Beetlejuice}} mentioned above and the commercial break, where his head was lying on the floor calling for his headless body [[CraniumChase which was seen searching for his head in the background]].
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[[folder:Real Life]]
* A series of controversial experiments by Robert White showed that it is possible to transplant a monkey's head onto a different monkey's body, although establishing spinal communication between the two was not possible. Originally proposed by the surgeon as a means of prolonging the lives of quadriplegics whose own bodies are failing, this technique has been soundly rejected by bioethicists... not because it's gruesome, but because donor organs can save more lives if they're distributed among many transplant patients, rather than the whole body being used to aid one.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken Mike the headless chicken]] was a chicken who survived a full two years after his owner tried to chop his head off and slaughter him for supper. The axe had missed one of Mike's ears and most of his brain stem, and a clot in his jugular vein prevented him from bleeding out. For all intents and purposes, Mike didn't notice that he was missing the top half of his head, and behaved like any other chicken; he could still walk around, albeit clumsily, and would try to peck the ground for food, preen himself, and crow. Mike's owner toured the country with him for the next two years, watering him with an eyedropper and feeding him worms and small grains of corn. Mike finally passed away in a motel room after choking on some corn, and his caretakers left Mike's cleaning syringes behind at the previous sideshow and couldn't save him.
* Tapeworms. Their head, known as the ''scolex'', is all the tapeworm really needs to live, while the rest of the body, consisting of segments called ''proglottids'', are just merely reproductive organs that in fact break away from the body to release its eggs. As such, tapeworm removal is very difficult, as even if the entire length of the body is removed, if the head remains, it will just grow an entire new body.
* [[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-cockroach-can-live-without-head Cockroaches]] can live for weeks after decapitation. They will eventually starve to death because they can't eat without their mouth.
* Back in the days where LosingYourHead was a punny way of saying "capital punishment", some curious people (again, we can't tell you who or when) did a series of experiments which basically consisted of waiting until the next execution, then shouting at the head to see whether and for how long they could keep its attention. The head can stay conscious for 10 seconds or so, though most lost consciousness instantly due to shock. We can thank the French for this information, since they kept using the guillotine for executions until the 20th century.
* When UsefulNotes/CharlotteCorday was executed via guillotine, a man named Legros disrespectfully picked up her head and slapped it across the face. According to witnesses, her face, [[FaceDeathWithDignity which had been peaceful]], briefly reacted and turned indignant. Legros was arrested for his actions.
* ''Internal'' decapitation, in which the skull is forcibly separated from the spinal column but the soft tissues of the neck remain intact, can be survivable if the injured person receives artificial respiration and other care. If the spinal cord isn't broken, a full recovery is also possible.
* A male praying mantis can survive for a short time after decapitation. The female has a tendency to bite his head off, and this feature allows the male to finish mating before he dies.
* Some snakes, particularly rattlesnakes, can react to their surroundings and bite up to an hour after decapitation.
** [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2732523/Chef-dies-spitting-cobra-cooking-bit-hand-20-minutes-cut-head-off.html A Chinese chef was bitten and killed by a cobra AFTER he had chopped its head off and was about to dispose of it]].
* A scientific study showed that a type of sea slug known as ''Elysia'' is able to decapitate ''itself'' to rid its body of parasites ([[CuttingTheKnot by getting rid of its entire body]]). It's probably able to survive because it's also a [[{{Planimal}} partly photosynthetic slug]], and can sustain itself on photosynthesis long enough for its body to regenerate in a few weeks.
* The ocean sunfish (''Mola mola'') and its close relatives ''look'' like this trope, as their post-cranial structures are diminished to the point where their bodies appear to end just behind their gills. A subversion, as all essential body parts are present, just drastically foreshortened and compressed.
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