In real life, seals and sea lions have sensitive whiskers, meaning that if they are trained, they are capable of balancing balls on their noses. This fascinating skill as such has made its way into the world of fiction, where they can be seen balancing balls, either with their nose or with their head. If the seal is a Sweet Seal, it is a good way of emphasizing their cuteness and playfulness, usually by showing them bouncing something adorable on their noses. On the other hand, if the seal is a Monstrous Seal however, they will use it as a weapon by balancing the ball (or something else circular, like a bomb or even a circular enemy) on their nose and then firing it at you. If the seal is a circus animal or otherwise trained, then it also works as a good visual indicator (since as mentioned before, seals need to be trained to do this as well).
This trope also applies to sea lions since, despite their differences (such as being able to walk on land using flippers and having ear flaps), they are also highly similar to them in most aspects.
Sub-Trope of Stock Animal Behavior and Animal Stereotypes.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- One Gaston Lagaffe strip has Gaston trying to act like a seal by balancing a ball on his nose, only to end up falling into a fountain. Fantasio then snarks that now Gaston is being like a seal.
Films — Animation
- Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: Stefano the seal's disastrous circus act in Rome is juggling various balls while balancing on a ball. It ends with him falling off the ball and choking on a few of the juggling balls.
Films — Live-Action
- In the Walt Disney movie Sammy the Way-Out Seal
(1962), the titular sea creature balances a beach ball on his nose.
Literature
- In the children's book Ant And Bee Time: during the zoo animals' swimming race, most of the animals play in the water instead of swimming, and two seals are seen bouncing a ball to each other, on their noses.
- Doctor Dolittle: In Doctor Dolittle's Circus, the titular doctor comes across a seal named Sophie who is being used as part of the circus. Apparently, part of her act involves being able to balance balls on her nose.
- In The Mouse and His Child, one of the Living Toys is a windup seal who spins a ball on her nose. Over the course of the novel, she loses it and replaces it with multiple other things, including a spinning platform for a mouse dancer to perform on and a rod to help the philosophical beaver wind his fishing line.
- There was one in the Crappy Carnival in The One and Only Ivan, but before the events of the book she ate too many of the pennies Bratty Half Pints threw into her pool and wasn't given medical attention, so she died.
- In the classic children's book Sammy the Seal by Danny and the Dinosaur-author Syd Hoff, the titular seal joins some elementary school kids in a game of volleyball and catches the ball on his nose. A little boy tries to do the same, with ugly results.
Live-Action TV
- On Season 1 of Jessie, Zuri is forced to compete in a beauty pageant so Jessie can crush her nanny nemesis, Agatha. Ironically, neither of the girls wins — it's the girl who's dressed up as a seal, balancing a ball on her nose.
- In the episode "Isaac's Teacher/Seal of Approval/The Successor" of The Love Boat, Donald O'Connor guest stars as a seal trainer. He has a seal named Shirley, who is capable of balancing a ball on its nose.
- In the Sesame Street New Year's Eve special Sesame Street Stays Up Late!, Wolfgang the seal is tasked with balancing a beach ball on his nose to throw in the air at midnight to act as the ball drop for the street's party.
Theme Parks
- Such feats were common in SeaWorld facilities. A good example of this is in San Diego, which had a show called "Sea Lions Live" where a sea lion would balance a ball on its nose.
Video Games
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: Played With, as Pompy, the boss of the first world, is more of a sea lion than a seal, but nonetheless, he will sometimes balance fish and urchins on his nose before tossing them onto the stage as hazards.
- Fiendish Freddy's Big Top 'O Fun has a seal during the juggling stage, who bounces the ball once before passing it to the juggler. Later levels in the event use different implements, such as bowling balls, knives, and torches. Finally, the seal also gets distracted with a quick meal, while the saboteur clown throws in an explosive into the juggled items.
- Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] has the Juggle Pup and R & R Seal Dream Eaters, both of which can use the balloon spell family.
- Kirby and the Forgotten Land: One of the new enemies in the game is the Balloon-Meister, a large seal-like enemy which balances bombs on its nose before throwing them at Kirby.
- Manic Miner: The guardian monsters in level 4, "Abandoned Uranium Workings", are seals balancing spinning balls on their noses.
- Math Circus: One of the minigames has a whole bunch of seals balancing balls on their noses, and the player must rearrange the balls so they match the stand the seal is laying on by shifting the balls by row or by column.
- Pokémon:
- One of the scrapped Pokémon from the Spaceworld '97 demo of Pokémon Gold and Silver is "Bomushika", a Water/Fire-type seal balancing a fireball on its nose.
- Sealeo, which is likely based on an earless seal, is described as rolling anything new it encounters on its nose to test its smell and texture. This is something most clearly seen in Pokemon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire, where a bonus field featuring them has them bouncing either a Spheal or a Poké Ball on its nose and into the baskets in the field to earn points. Its pre-evolution Spheal would also be on the receiving end of this in New Pokémon Snap, where a Dewgong can be seen bouncing one on its nose.
- Popplio is the seal-like Water-type Starter of Pokémon Sun and Moon, who is capable of balancing bubbles made from the snot on its nose. Additionally, its Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and German names are all portmanteaus of the words for ball and seal in the respective languages.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit): Balance Master, a Mecha Sea Lion and one of the bosses of the game, takes it further than most by using its own inflatable nose as the ball, which it then uses as an explosive weapon by bouncing it in the direction of Sonic.
- In The Simpsons: Virtual Bart, the third section of the Baby Bart level takes place outside a circus tent. Behind a fence is a colony of performing seals that pop and down, balancing balls on their noses. Bart must hop across the balls when they pop up without falling onto the ground below so he can make his way into the circus tent, which forms the fourth and final section of the level.
- In Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES version only), the king of World 6, Iced Land, is transformed into a seal that balances his crown on his nose.
Web Animation
- Robotzi: FOCA's name is an acronym for "fabricat original cu aluminiu" (made originally with alluminium) which forms the Romanian word for "seal". This is often joked in the series. At one point in the short named "Episodul 3.14ZDA", FOCA balances a ball on his head and makes seal noises.
Western Animation
- Big Mouth: In "Obsessed", Nick hugs his dad while the latter is covered head to toe in lotion and comments that he's slippery as a seal. Elliot responds by balancing Nick on his nose.
Elliot: If I'm a seal, then you're my ball. Is this a dream? For me it is.
- BoJack Horseman: In "A Horse Walks Into a Rehab," an anthropomorphic seal at the Wild Teen Party stands on top of a juice keg while balancing another keg on his nose.
- Pingu: In the episode "Pingu's Circus", Robby the seal puts on an animal tamer act along with Pingu. During the act, Robby balances a ball on his nose and later jumps through hoops.
- One Popeye short involves Popeye and Bluto trying to win over Olive Oyl's affection (as per usual) while at a zoo, which culminates in Bluto dropping Popeye into a seal enclosure where Popeye is mistaken as a ball by two seals and gets bounced around until he eats his spinach.
- The Tom and Jerry episode "The Little Runaway" features a baby seal that balances Jerry and later Tom on its nose. Towards the end of said episode, Tom tries to capture the seal by disguising himself as one and the two play catch by tossing a ball from nose to nose.
- Total Drama World Tour: In "Aftermath Aftermayhem", Lindsay is challenged to balance three Swedish meatballs on her nose. She does so while barking like a seal. Oddly, she did this with the meatballs before knowing this was her challenge.
- Wonder Pets!: In the Circus Episode, two seals are seen balancing balls on their noses.
Real Life
- In Sweden, it is illegal to train a seal to balance a ball on its nose.
- This practice is often controversial due to claims it doesn't respect the seals' physiological requirements.
- At Como Zoo in Minnesota, a perennial attraction is Sparky the Sea Lion's show. Ball balancing is usually a part of the act. They're always inflated beach balls, so the possibility of harm is nonexistent.
