Captain Colorbeard

Touch his scruff and you'll get kilt.

Min: It's Rainbow Beard, the pirate from the book.
Rainbow Beard the Pirate: Ahoy, me hearties!
Now listen well, and a special secret I will tell.
If it's me treasure you wants to discover, then follow the map of shapes and colors.
It might be gold and jewels you find or perhaps a treasure of another kind.
It will be an adventure if ya dares to try it! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Sincerely yours, Rainbow Beard the Pirate!

— Barney & Friends, "The Treasure of Rainbow Beard"

Probably as a result of infamous sailors like Blackbeard and the Barbarossa brothers^note "barba rossa" is Italian for "Redbeard", although the name's attachment to the Ottoman privateers Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa is possibly based on a garbling of Oruç' title "Baba Oruç"., it's popular to give pirate or nautical characters names that reference their facial hair — and not just sailors, either. Despite the title, the beard name isn't restricted to names based around colors, or even necessarily beards (you'll see names like "Captain Blackheart" or "Captain Deadeye" about as often, and of course there's Captain Hook).

See also Dressed to Plunder, Father Neptune, Seadog Beard and Beard of Evil. And strangely enough, since blue is a color associated with the ocean, The Bluebeard is completely unrelated, being a Serial Killer rather than a Pirate.

Sister Trope to Long John Shout Out.

Dr. Brainpart is a smiliar convention reserved for Mad Scientists and their ilk.

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Examples:

Advertising

• This 90s advert for Weetabix (created by Aardman Animations) depicts the Marie Celeste as a pirate ship, whose crew are feared by all other pirates — "even Black-, Blue-, Red- and Yellowbeard!"^note  Of course, as pointed out above, Bluebeard was not a pirate, but then, the Mary Celeste wasn't a pirate ship either...

Anime & Manga

• After the Quirky Miniboss Squad of pirates in Berserk get caught and zombified by the local sea monster, they reintroduce themselves as Captain Bonebeard and crew.
• One Piece:
  • "Whitebeard" Edward Newgate. Funnily enough, he lacks an actual beard, but sports an impressive mustache. This due to Japanese not having a separate word for "beard".^note "Hige" refers to all facial hair, regardless if it's a beard or a mustache. "White Facial Hair" doesn't flow as well. Spain's dub actually renamed Whitebeard to "Albino Mustache" so it works better.
  • "Blackbeard" Marshall D. Teach, a former subordinate of Whitebeard. He also lacks a beard upon his introduction but slowly grows one throughout the series until it's a proper Seadog Beard.
  • Brownbeard, a Small Name, Big Ego trying to invoke this trope simply by naming himself after his facial hair, piggybacking on the hype of those with a similar name.
  • "Beardfall" Jorul and "Beardhill" Jarul were former co-captains of the Giant Warrior Pirates. They're named after the ridiculous lengths of their beards, resembling a waterfall and a mountain, respectively, with each beard touching the ground. Beardhill's beard even hides most of his body.
  • Peachbeard is the latest addition. A subordinate of Blackbeard, he is even more of a small-fry than Brownbeard.
  • In a series about pirates, non-beard names are also plentiful. For example, there's "Red-Haired" Shanks and his Red Haired Pirates, and the golden-eyed Warlord of the Sea "Hawkeye" Mihawk.
  • Even the voice actors gets in on it - in the English dub, the main character Monkey D. Luffy is played by Colleen Clinkenbeard.
• The Ride-On King: Chapter 53 has an encounter with a pirate Captain Squidbeard.

Comic Books

• Barbe-Rouge (Redbeard), the French comic series. Better known by their parody in Asterix, although the title character is never named in the books.
• Batman: In one Golden Age story, Batman fights a one-shot villain called Blackbeard, who styles himself after the historical Blackbeard (see Real Life below).
• Deadpool: Parodied with Captain Wackbeard in Deadpool: X Marks the Spot. He shoots anyone who uses that name.
• Fantastic Four: Due to time travel shenanigans, Ben Grimm is Blackbeard.
• Futurama: In one issue where Fry, Leela and Bender are trying to convince the Rigelians that the currently-abandoned Earth is fully inhabited and thus not up for grabs, one of the personas that Bender takes on is No-Beard the software pirate, "scourge of the briny binary deep".
• The 17th issue of The Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century, the comic book tie-in to the Legion of Super Heroes (2006) animated series, had the heroes get into conflict with a group of Thanagarian pirates led by Talon Redbeard.
• In the second issue of Madballs, the Madballs went back in time and fought a pirate named Captain Weirdbeard.
• The pirate captain featured in the 13th issue of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) is eventually revealed to be named Hoofbeard.
• Gold Key issue #6 of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, an adaptation of the TV episode "Go Away Ghost Ship," had Redbeard the pirate but his beard was colored white. Corrected in the reprint in issue #26.
• She-Beard from Seaguy.
• The Subway Pirates of Seven Soldiers of Victory (2005). The ones we see are the slick, hairless Nobeard and the gruff, fur-faced Allbeard, but mention is made of other, older captains like Falsebeard. Midnighter and Apollo adds Halfbeard, who shaves his beard vertically down the middle of his face.
• Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen: According to one Silver Age story, Jimmy Olsen is a descendant of Greenbeard Olsen, a buccaneer from the 1700s. Over the course of the story, Jimmy suffers from a curse whereby he assumes Greenbeard's personality under a full moon. A summary of the story can be read here.
• Wonder Woman (1942): In issue 20 Di fights a pirate known as Captain Redbeard, whose pirate crew is actually commanded secretly by his wife Nifta.

Comic Strips

• FoxTrot: Jason is too young to grow a beard, but when he's going through a Viking phase, he adopts the moniker "Jason the Yellow" based on his blond hair. Doesn't really inspire the same fear as Erik the Red.

Films — Animation

• The LEGO Movie has Captain Metalbeard, a cyborg pirate.
• Scooby Doo! Pirates Ahoy! featured a pirate ghost named Skunkbeard.
• Burgerbeard the pirate is the main villain The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water.
• The Big Bad of the unproduced sequel to Treasure Planet, which was cancelled due to the movie flopping disastrously at the box office, was going to be an evil pirate cyborg named Metalbeard, who would've been voiced by Willem Dafoe.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Martian, Mark Watney notes that Mars is legally under maritime law, and that he's going to be commandeering a rocket in order to get home, which makes him a Space Pirate. As a result, he insists that the ground crew refer to him as "Captain Blondbeard."
  • Upon hearing it, Kapoor immediately thinks of the same laws.
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • Hector Barbossa was named "Captain Blackheart" in early drafts of the script of the first film, but his name eventually was changed to something less Narm-inducing. A reference to his previous appellation is included when Elizabeth returns the dress and says, "Goes with your black heart." "Barbossa" is based on real-life pirate Barbarossa, which means red-beard, even though his beard isn't red, but "Barbossa" can also be read as Latin for "Bony Beard", which makes it a hidden example of both this and Meaningful Name.
  • In the fourth movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the antagonist is the original Captain Blackbeard.
  • One of Davy Jones' crewmen is named Greenbeard. He's certainly green, but he hasn't actually got a beard.
• Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map revolves around Scooby and the gang searching for the treasure of a pirate named Gnarlybeard.
• In Akira Kurosawa's Red Beard Toshiro Mifune plays the eponymous character.
• Yellowbeard

Literature

• Adrian Mole: In The Wilderness Years, Adrian refers to Pandora's middle-aged lover Cavendish as "Bluebeard".
• In one of the later Angelique historical novels by Anne Golon, a former lover of the title character turns up as a pirate now using the name Goldbeard. Too bad Angelique has been reunited with her husband....
• Amagi Brilliant Park has a pirate named Captain Ironbeard. He doesn't have a beard, but he has a massive mustache made of iron.
• Bluebeard, Trope Namer of The Bluebeard. A noblemean with a blue beard who kills the women he marries.
• Marauders of Gor has Ivar Forkbeard, who is a Viking outlaw pirate.
• In the Hoka story "Yo Ho Hoka!", the main character dons a false green beard as a disguise and ends up as the Pirate Captain Greenbeard.
• The children's book How I Became A Pirate tells of Braidbeard and his crew of friendly pirates in need of a digger. They take in a young boy they find on the beach and happily teach him the pirate ways.
• In The Martian, Mark Watney figures out that because he's piloting a vehicle (the rover) in international waters (Mars) without explicit permission, he's technically a Space Pirate under maritime law. He then sends a message to NASA asking them to call him "Blondbeard".
• The novelisation of the Puff the Magic Dragon animated movie had a pirate called Very Long John Black and Bluebeard Kidd.
• Firebeard (an Expy of Blackbeard) is one of the pirate kings in The Pyrates.

Live-Action TV

• The Barney & Friends episode "Treasure of Rainbow Beard" had the namesake pirate send Barney and the kids on a color and shape themed treasure hunt to find his treasure.
• Blackadder has Redbeard Rum. And the beard is all that's left of him after the cannibals are finished.
• Käpt'n Blaubär
• Conan: The episode where Will Ferrel shaved Conan O'Brien was titled "The Last Stand of Redbeard."
• Horrible Histories: One episode had Captain Saltybeard giving a weather forecast as dictated by pirate superstitions. The original Blackbeard also makes an appearance, recounting his career in piracy as a jaunty sea shanty.
  Blackbeard: What my enemies feared was my thick black beard, which I always enjoyed setting light to!
• Yellowbeard, recurring Monty Python character, who finally managed to get his own movie. Sort of.
• In the Mythbusters pirate special, Adam's pirate name is Redbeard the Savage.
• The Power Rangers Operation Overdrive episode "Pirate in Pink" features Captain Brownbeard. He shaves his beard off at the end of the episode and Rose suggests he now go by the name of Captain Nobeard.
• In Sherlock, the titular character had a dog named Redbeard when he was a boy. It turns out Redbeard was actually one of Sherlock's childhood friends with whom he used to play pirates, hence the name Redbeard. When Sherlock's sister killed him, though, Sherlock's mind rewrote his memories so that he remembered his friend as a dog rather than a playmate.
• In Brazilian series A Turma do Arrepio, there was a Captain Greenbeard. His beard was actually red but the pirates enforced the One-Steve Limit trope.
• The Studio C sketch "Most Deadly Pirates" starts of with a meeting between the Captain Blackbeard, Captain Whitebeard *and* Captain Redbeard. The trope is then taken up to eleven with the arrival of their enemies Captain Neckbeard, Captain Rainbowbeard, Captain Babybeard, Captain Weirdbeard, Captain Frobeard, Captain Lipbeard and ultimatley the deadliest and most respected pirate on all the seven seas, Captain Beard!

Pinballs

• The eponymous Pirate Girl in Black Rose is a variation, as she does indeed have black hair.
• Blackbeard the pirate captain, on the "Blackbeard and Ironmen" table of Super Pinball: Behind The Mask

Tabletop Games

• Munchkin Booty, a pirate-themed set, has a whole series of Captain Colorbeards, including Greenbeard (who's an anime character), Fatbeard (who's a geek), and Nobeard (who's a woman).
  • And don't forget Redbeard, who is a communist. If you run into him and the Red Herring at the same time, trouble is afoot (apegleg?).
• The Ravenloft setting included a domain lord named Bluebeard who, like the namesake fairytale character on which he is based, actually does have a blue beard.
• In Salvage Hidden Treasures, one of the loots the players can collect is Blackbeard's Treasure.
• Warhammer 40,000 features Lugft Huron, infamous Chaotic lord of the Red Corsairs, better known by his nickname Huron Blackheart.
  • Canon Immigrant Orkish Space Pirate Kaptin Bluddflagg fits the name pattern, and is even more overtly piratical in appearance and behaviour than Huron.

Toys

• In a LEGO Pirates line, there was a Pirate-captain figure referred to in the literature as "Redbeard."
  • Redbeard appears in LEGO Soccer Mania alongside his crew, the Tricorner Pirates, an entire team of Colorbeards: Bluebeard, Greenbeard, Whitebeard and Greybeard.
  • LEGO Rock Band has a pirate minifig called Gingerbeard; his description cites the name as an improvement over the alternative, "Strawberry-Blonde-Beard".
  • LEGO Battles features Captain Brickbeard in the Pirate story-line as the protagonist and in the Imperial story-line as an antagonist.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag features Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch himself.
• In the beginning of the Captain Scarlett DLC in Borderlands 2, you fight a pirate named No-Beard.
• Chibi-Robo! has Captain Plankbeard.
• Cuphead has Captain Brineybeard as one of the debtors you have to fight.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns: The leader of the Scurvy Crew is named Captain Greenbeard.
• Parodied in Fancy Pants Adventures World 3. One of the antagonists is a pirate named Captain Rainbowbeard, who has a multi-colored beard. This earns Rainbowbeard endless mockery and ridicule from his own crew, who deem him to be an unmanly wuss. He later uses the legendary "Beard Dye of Norris" to turn his beard brown and regain control over his men.
• Final Fantasy XIV features the NPC Eynzahr Slafyrsyn, formerly known as the legendary pirate Mistbeard.
• Captain Greenbeard from Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.
• The Optional Boss Deadbeard in Golden Sun.
• Thinbeard of Jay's Journey, who has no visible beard at all.
• There's a fan-made custom map for Minecraft titled "The Treasure of Captain Rainbowbeard".
• Life Is Strange protagonists Max Caulfield and Chloe Price used to play pirate as children. Chloe’s pirate alter ego went by “Captain Bluebeard”, unknowingly befitting her dyed blue hair in the future.
• The Monkey Island series has Yellow Beard (who had a drink named after him in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge) and Blonde Beard (who runs a fried chicken restaurant on Plunder Island in The Curse of Monkey Island).
• Naughty Bear: Episode 9 has Captain Bearbeard, a friendly pirate bear who's more of a sea sailing treasure hunter than an actual pirate... Friendly to everyone except violent murderers like Naughty. The treasure he's looking for is buried under Naughtie's hut, so he and his crew plan to tear it down so they can dig up the treasure.
• Ocean's Heart: Aside from a heavily fictionalized version of Blackbeard being the main villain, there's also an "Honestbeard" in Ballast Harbor who runs an Honest John's Dealership selling stolen and overpriced goods. Funnily enough, Honestbeard's actual beard is a short and fairly nondescript brown goatee.
• Pirate101 Parodies this with two different characters, Ratbeard and Catbeard, an anthropomorphic rat and cat respectively.
• The main villain of Rayman 2: The Great Escape was a robotic pirate named Admiral Razorbeard.
• No-Beard from Reality-On-The-Norm.
• Risen 2 - Dark Waters has the in-universe Memetic Badass Steelbeard.
• Sea of Thieves has Glitterbeard, a legendary pirate created and named after a Rare employee who passed away. The game's error codes are also coded after different Colorbeards, such as Kiwibeard, Bronzebeard, Lapisbeard, Redbeard, Denimbeard, and several more.
• This is parodied in the first Skylanders game when you play Pirate Cards. There are different pirate characters on the card and each one has a name relating to beards, including "No-Beard" and "She-Beard."
• Slime Forest Adventure features a pirate named "Silverbeard II".
• Strider (Arcade) has the pirate-themed captain of a futuristic Airborne Aircraft Carrier, Captain Beard Jr., who may have been named after the legendary pirate Captain Beard from an older Capcom game, Higemaru Makashima.
• Life Is Strange: Before the Storm: Chloe's pirate nickname is "Bluebeard," which is a call forward to the blue color motif she will have as a teenager after dying her hair blue.

Webcomics

• William Shakespeare as seen in Irregular Webcomic! daydreams of being a pirate called "Shakesbeard".
• Captain Greenbeard, an ocean-going version of the Joker, who appears in Li'l Gotham.
• The Princess Planet:
  • One strip features a whole string of oddly-bearded pirates, including a Plaidbeard. One of them, Captain Auberginebeard, wound up becoming a main character in the Epic Sails arc.
  • There's also recurring antagonist Clearbeard, who completes the look with a nosepatch.
• Rusty and Co. has Plaidbeard the pirate. Beat that.
• Starslip has the Space Pirate Infra-Redbeard.
• At one point in Edmund Finneys Quest To Find The Meaning Of Life, Edmund finds himself on a pirate ship commanded by one Captain Twobeard.

Western Animation

• Beetlejuice: One of the members of Jean LeFoot's crew in "Ship of Ghouls" is a pirate named Bluebeard.
• Camp Lakebottom: The campers run afoul of the Ghost Pirate Captain Spitbeard in "Pirates of Ickygloomy".
• Non-villainous example Captain Greybeard in Care Bears.
• The ChalkZone episode "Tiny Pirate Problem" featured a pirate named Red Facial Hair.
• Stickybeard from Codename: Kids Next Door (Also his Spanish name literally translates as "Sweetbeard").
• In the Darkwing Duck episode "Film Flam", one of the movie villains Tuskerninni brings to life is a pig pirate named Fleabeard.
• Parodied in the cartoon based on the British Dennis the Menace, with a series of paintings showing a family of pirates with names like these, ending in "Weirdbeard", whose beard was green with stuff sticking out of it.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • The Oh Yeah! Cartoons short "Where's the Wand?" has Cosmo call himself Greenbeard when dressed as a pirate.
  • In "Odd-Pirates", Timmy, Poof, Wanda, and Cosmo encounter a pirate named Dirtybeard.
  • "Summer Bummer" once more has Cosmo become Greenbeard in addition to Wanda dressing as a pirate named Pinkbeard and the episode ending with Chloe dressing as a pirate while calling herself Blondebeard.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum: Fanboy goes by the name Captain Fanbeard when pretending to be a pirate in "Fanboy A'hoy".
• Flying Rhino Junior High: One of the Phantom's personas is "Captain Peachfuzz Beard".
• Futurama: "A Bicyclops Built for Two" has a statue of the cyclopean Purplebeard the Pirate, Scourge of the Six Seas. Of course, given the way the episode turns out, he almost certainly never actually existed, and even if he did he wasn't a cyclops.
• In Garfield's Halloween Adventure, Garfield is dressed as a pirate captain named Orangebeard.
• The Garfield Show special "Against All Tides" featured a pirate named Purplebeard, whose skeleton is eventually found inside a whale that eats the cast alive when they try to find a way out.
• The Goof Troop episode "Slightly Dinghy" had Max try to uncover the treasure of a pirate named Nearbeard.
• One of Captain Tighty-Whitey's pirate crew in Grojband is the clean shaven Shavenbeard.
• In the Laff-A-Lympics episode "Russia and the Caribbean", one of the challenges was to find the treasure of a ghost pirate named Bluebeard.
• The Muppet Babies (2018) episode "Playground Pirates" has Kermit pretend to be a pirate named Captain Greenbeard.
• Phineas and Ferb: "The Ballad of Badbeard".
• Puff the Magic Dragon has a pirate giant, whose name is a mashup of different pirate names: Very Long John Black-and-Bluebeard Kidd. He doesn't actually have a beard, just an impressive moustache.
• The Random! Cartoons short "MooBeard the Cow Pirate" was about a bovine buccaneer with a lot of gadgets hidden in his coat sleeves who goes on a journey with his first mate Sailor Bird to find the treasure of the island Hookamookapookalap.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • Redbeard in the "Go Away, Ghost Ship" episode of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.
  • The A Pup Named Scooby-Doo episode "Ghost Who's Coming to Dinner" had a ghost pirate named Boobeard as the villain.
  • And in the Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated episode "The Grasp of the Gnome", Scooby uses the name 'Dogbeard" while dressed as a pirate.
  • The Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! episode "The Curse of Half-Beard's Booty" had the gang's old enemy Captain Cutler manipulate them into helping him find the treasure of Half-Beard, a pirate so named because he couldn't grow hair on one half of his face.
• The Simpsons:
  • When Lisa is researching the family history in the episode "The Color Yellow", hoping to discover a Simpson in her family tree that was not an alcoholic, criminal, or sexual fetishist, one of the newspaper articles refers to "Bart-Beard the Pirate". This might be a Bilingual Bonus, as 'bart' means 'beard' in German.
  • In "Bart Gets An F", when asked to name one of the pirates from Treasure Island, Bart (inaccurately) guesses "Blue-Beard." Though, considering the number of people with blue hair in Springfield, it's highly possible a Blue-Beard would've existed.
• South Park mocked this with the episode "Fatbeard", Cartman's pirate name.
• An episode of the Where's Waldo? cartoon featured a pirate named "Peg-Beard", who had a Seadog Peg Leg on his chin with tufts of hair sticking out of it. Mention is also made of a "Captain Peg-Neck" who had an ill-fated encounter with some termites.
• Spongebob Squarepants has given us Blindbeard the Pirate, Longbeard the Pirate, and Redbeard the Pirate.
• Captain Grease Beard, the leader of the Road Pirates in Team Hot Wheels: Build the Epic Race, who outright drives a pirate ship-themed car, complete with cannons on its engine!
• Laser Pirate's crew in Teamo Supremo are aptly named Mauvebeard, Chartreusebeard, and Indigobeard.
• Team Umizoomi gives us Squarebeard the pirate, made from Geo's shapes.
• In the Ultimate Spider-Man story arc "Return to the Spiderverse", Spidey's counterpart on the pirate world is Captain Webbeard.

Real Life

• The aforementioned Blackbeard, a.k.a. Edward Teach.
• The late-15th/early-16th century Turkish-privateer-turned-governor-of-Algeria Oruç Reis, who was known by the nickname Barbarossa, Italian for "Redbeard". He was previously nicknamed "Baba Oruç" ("Father Oruç"), but the pronunciation was similar to "Barbarossa" and he actually had a red beard. So the Italian nickname became more widely known, and was even adopted in Turkey. The same nickname was inherited by his younger brother Khizr after the elder's death in battle, who became "Hayreddin Barbarossa".
• This nickname was shared by Frederick I of the Holy Roman Empire, who likewise had an actual red beard as his most distinguishing physical feature.
• Many notable Vikings had colourful nicknames, among them Sweyn Forkbeard.

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