alt title(s): Head With Limbs
What, you think he asked to be a giant head with limbs?
Critters which, rather than having a head and a torso, are basically heads with limbs. Usually a cartoony simplification, though spider-limb heads sometimes appear in horror movies and the like.
If you're not sure whether a creature has a head-torso or just a particularly thick neck, check how much their mouth can open. If it goes all the way to the groin, you've got a winner.
Another good way to check is the position of their arms. Generally a Cephalothorax's arms will be at the same height as his eyes (approximately where his ears would be except Cephalothoraxes almost never have ears)
If they are videogame characters with really stubby legs and arms (or no arms at all), they are
Waddling Heads.
You probably shouldn't think too hard about where the digestive tract or heart/lungs are located.
See also
Everything's Squishier With Cephalopods.
Examples
- The Lagann, the Gurren, and several other Ganmen from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann; being a Combining Mecha, however, the Gurren Lagann and its larger forms have a normal humanoid shape.
- Well, Gurren Lagann and the other "boss" Ganmen still have giant faces in their torsoes, they just also have smaller heads in the normal position.
- Jigglypuff and many other Pokemon.
- Many Digimon as well, specially the baby ones.
- Taz from Looney Tunes.
- Dizzy Devil from Tiny Toon Adventures.
- Kirby, Ristar and Starfy from their respective videogames.
- Half of the Super Mario Bros. enemies.
- Pac Man's cartoon form, also present in the Namco video game Pac-Land.
- Humpty Dumpty from Alice In Wonderland.
- Sponge Bob Square Pants.
- The Goblins from the Rankin-Bass Animated Hobbit. Their mouths are larger than their bodies.
- The Yolkfolk of the Dizzy series.
- Reboot has Mike the TV and the "1" and "zero" binomes.
- Baby Poof, from The Fairly Odd Parents.
- Strong Mad from Homestar Runner might be more appropriately called a Thoraxocephaloid, as he's the exact opposite: A torso without a head.
- Literary: The Kaldanes in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "The Chessmen of Mars".
- Tabletop RPG: Sekis, a character in "The Velvet Circle" adventure in the Demon Magic supplement for Stormbringer.
- The 'Mr. Men' from Martin Hargreaves' series of children's books.
- Mike Wazowski in Monsters Inc.
- The Green alloy in Super Smash Bros Brawl Note also that its body is based off of Kirby's, who is listed above..
- Vargouilles in Dungeons And Dragons are Body Horror heads with wings and tentacles, created by The Virus.
- Beholders are giant floating heads, with extra eyes on eyestalks. They look pretty comical, until their eyes start shooting rays of destruction in all directions at once.
- MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) from the Marvel Universe, pictured above. He was originally a normal human mook before he got shoved very unwillingly into the machine that transformed him. Then he used his new hyperintelligence and psychic abilities to take over the organization. Despite his appearance, he's not a true Cephalothorax. He's got a normal-looking body and a truly massive head, and can only sit or move about at all because of the floating chair thing.
- This troper will take the chance to do some marketing.
- Galius Zed of the Green Lantern Corps.
- One of the deformed toys from Toy Story was a truly frightening sight for a kid's movie: A bald doll's head with mechanical spider legs made from an Erector set. Like all the other "monster" toys, though, it turned out to be good-hearted and kind.
- Magnanimous from Megas XLR
- Imagine the cartoonish lovechild of Bruce Campbell and MODOK and you'd be halfway there.
- Or MODAM, since Bruce doesn't swing that way.
- He was even voiced by the man himself, for extra style points.
- And he was called a toter tot. Epic win.
- One Piece villain Buggy the Clown resembles one of these when he tries to assemble himself after his torso and limbs are tied up (leaving only the head, hands, and feet). He ends up stuck that way for quite a while after Luffy gives him a Megaton Punch, until Alvida finally brings him back to his crew (who held onto his torso).
- Sugar Man of the Marvel Universe.
- The In Living Color sketch "The Head Detective": the doctors tell the partner of a detective in the ER that they could rebuild him... for six million dollars. But since the partner only has $28.45 on him, the best the surgeons can do is a cephalothorax.
- Kool-Aid Man
- The cartoon versions of the Madballs
- Jibaku (actually, all the spirits) from Twelve World Story.
- In Dead Space there are enemies that amount to little more than a grotesque head with a couple of arms and legs. If they kill you, they hijack your body in a rather squicky death sequence.
- Jama-P from Wedding Peach.
- No love for Wells's Martians? Surely an ur-example.
- The Nakaleen Feeder from Babylon 5
- Technically, the members of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, depending on whether you consider food with a face a "head". But their faces are centered on their bodies, and none of them have actual heads, so...
- Krumm from AAAHH!!! Real Monsters had no head, but a mouth in the middle of his chest. And that was far from being the most unusual feature of his anatomy—his eyes weren't attached to his body at all, and he had to carry them around in his hands.
- Gnaars from Serious Sam.
- Modrons from D&D.
- The Gnomes in Kingdom Of Loathing.
- King Nikochan and his alien race from Dr. Slump.
- Judge Kray-Tor from Marvel Comics, foe of Captain Marvel in the Silver Age adventures as written by Starlin. Bonus points for having TWO pair of arms where his ears would be.
- Big Fat Baby in Histeria, essentially.
