Face Doodling

Practical joke or mumble rapper?

"...the forehead can still be a powerful communication tool. For example, if your friend passes out at a party, writing obscenities next to the naughty drawings where his eyebrows used to be is a very effective way to tell the people on the bus that his friends are assholes."

— Seanbaby

So you've come across a sleeping or unconscious person, and you feel a bit playful. Maybe you've knocked them out in battle and want to lower their ego a few notches without further physical damage. Or maybe your friend pulled a prank on you earlier, and you want retribution. Maybe you're a hard-partying Frat Bro and a new pledge is passed out drunk.

Got a marker handy? Then pull it out and do a Picasso on their face!

For some reason, characters have a thing about drawing on people's faces with felt-tip markers. Usually, it's nothing too elaborate—a pair of glasses, a monocle, a mustache, and maybe a goatee, sometimes they get a little more creative and start drawing little pieces of art on their target.

Just who pulls it off depends on the culture from which it comes:

Almost always the purview of young (or immature) female characters in the East, and primarily the domain of immature frat boys in the West, where crude drawings of male anatomy are usually the go-to subject to depict.

Awake examples are rare, but not unheard-of. The circumstances vary much more widely than the sleeping or passed-out version.

Sistertrope to Plaster Cast Doodling. See also Humiliation Conga, of which this is sometimes step one. Not to be confused with Facial Markings, which are even more permanent than a permanent marker. The resulting appearance may be similar, though. See also Mustache Vandalism, Suntan Stencil, and Tattoo Sharpie.

As any regular, or friend of a regular to heavy drinking parties would know, this is a rather obvious case of Truth in Television. If you have been on the receiving end of this, hand sanitizer gel helps greatly at removing ink from skin.

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Examples

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• In one of those anti-drug PSAs, a girl passed out on the couch gets drawn on and used as a puppet by her "friends" to mock how dumb she is, and then said friends ditch her to go back to the party.
• Promotion for the new movie Kingsman: The Golden Circle, an animation where Eggsy Unwin meets with Sterling Archer from Archer who happened to stumble upon the secret Kingsmen gear room while suit shopping. Getting locked in a standoff after Eggsy's finally had enough, he challenges him to a drink-off instead in order to drug him. Eggsy turns to find Archer downing the entire decanter then passing out. Intending to have a talk with America about their standards, he enacts a bit of revenge first.
  Eggsy: But first, I'm gonna draw a knob on your face.
• In a 2022-2023 State Farm commercial, Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid confesses that he draws mustaches on the faces of his players while they're asleep, while demonstrating on his sleeping seatmate. The punchline has a mustached Patrick Mahomes come down the aisle complaining to his coach that "it happened again" while oblivious to who's responsible.

Anime & Manga

• In A Certain Scientific Railgun, Miho Jufuku would knock other girls out with a stun gun and then draw Big Ol' Eyebrows on them with a marker. When the heroes knock her out, Ruiko Saten pulls out a marker and attempts to return the favor, only to find that Miho naturally has Big Ol' Eyebrows.
• Chapter 10 of Ai Kora revolves around a "mystery molester" who attacks girls, then doodles glasses on their faces and takes pictures. Much to everyone's surprise, the assailant turns out to be a girl herself.
• In A Place Further than the Universe, after the four main characters exhaust themselves while doing training, Yuzuki realizes that she can't even lift her arms, and threatens to kill the others if they do anything to her. Hinata doodles "I'll kill you" on Yuzuki's head, which she frantically scrubs off in the bath.
• Assassination Classroom: In chapter 37, Sugaya brings in henna paint and offers to tattoo the class. Once he's finished with everyone, he decides to use Ms. Jelavić (who was knocked out) as a canvas, entering a drawing competition with Koro-Sensei, drawing on her whole body and face a mustache, glasses, manga panels, and writing "medium-sized" (her boobs), etc. When she regains consciousness, her response is to use the class as target practice. With real guns, not the harmless Anti-Sensei stuff.
• Isidro does this to Schierke as part of their Ship Tease behavior in Berserk while the group is on board a ship to the island of Skellig. Boredom prevailed, apparently.
• Rukia Kuchiki does this to a magically immobilized Ichigo when he criticizes her drawing (and exposition) in the first episode of Bleach. After drawing a Frenchy-looking mustache on him, she also calls him "Monsieur." Definitely not the best time to mock the teenage-looking girl's artwork.
• Bungo Stray Dogs: Adam tries getting Chuuya to do it with him on Verlaine's face after the assassin is defeated.
• One of the murder victims in Case Closed paints a small butterfly on her lover's face with nail polish while he's asleep. It's revealed that this was a habit of hers during get-togethers with friends, became her secret signature in her magazine illustrations, and ends up becoming a vital clue in proving that her lover really did kill her.
• Code Geass:
  • Marianne vi Britannia, Lelouch's mother, was holding a marker and standing over an unconscious Suzaku when she was still in the body of Suzaku's friend Anya, but to her annoyance, he woke up before she could begin.
  • In a Suzaku of the Counterattack manga omake, Rolo (who otherwise never appears in the manga), tries to use his Geass to save Lelouch from Schneizel, but Schneizel, having become immune to Geass' effects, prepares to draw on Lelouch's face while his perception of time is stopped.
• Faye Valentine of Cowboy Bebop lets her immaturity shine through when she draws eyebrows on the dog. (She does this when she realizes the dog reminds her of an ex-lover who double-crossed her.)
• In D.Gray-Man, Lavi does this to Allen adding insult to injury as Allen is having a traumatic dream about General Cross at the time. Lavi even doodles on the bandage over Allen's damaged eye.
• Doraemon: Occurs in "Soap Bubbles". Sue's friends draw with markers all over Sue's dog's face. They claim they made the dog "handsome".
• Durarara!!: Yagiri receives an "I love the head" courtesy of Shingen.
• Iwata does a rather extreme version of this to hospitalized Watanabe in Excel♡Saga manga, drawing his face and lots of other exposed skin full of rather embarrassing doodles with a marker that doesn't wash off. In retaliation, Watanabe gives him a thrashing with a baseball bat, while still recuperating — as a result, both end up back in hospital.
• The children in Eureka Seven do this to Renton to get a rise out of him.
• Futari wa Pretty Cure: In episode 16, this is how Nagisa solves the problem of telling a brainwashed classmate apart from the Zakennas that have taken on said classmate's appearance.
• Gunsmith Cats: When Rally is hospitalized with a broken arm and ribs, she discovers she is unable to sleep without her Pillow Pistol, has Becky bring a holdout to her hospital room, then promptly falls asleep despite her friend's demand for gas money. Rally can handle being grabbed by her gown and shaken without a whimper, but when Becky goes to take the holdout back she winds up staring down its barrel. When Rally falls right asleep again, Becky decides to test her awareness further; drawing a Kilroy on her cast, circling an eye and even giving the little sleepyhead whiskers.
  Now, ain't that just the strangest old thing? Try to take the gun out from under her pillow, and she practically kills you... but do this and she doesn't even blink.
• Done in typical Jerkass fashion by Mamoru Takamura in Hajime no Ippo, when he and his gym mates doodle on Ippo's penis while he was in a coma after a fight.
• Genre-savvy Kyon in Haruhi Suzumiya worries that Haruhi might have drawn on him when he wakes to find her standing over him. She returns the favor later when she falls asleep to find Kyon standing over her.
• Izumi in Hayate the Combat Butler gets this treatment from the other two of the trio when she falls asleep just after arriving at Mykonos.
• In Hetalia: Axis Powers, Italy saves the world (and the other countries) from permanently being faceless Noppera by drawing on the faces of all of the aliens.
• Hyouka, in the second opening. Oreki really should go to sleep earlier.
• In chapter 10 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Fujiwara decides to play a prank on a pretending to be sleeping Shirogane by writing on his forehead. Kaguya is aghast at this since she couldn't comprehend the idea of pranks being a sign of closeness. When she does the exact same thing to Ishigami in chapter 82, it's a subtle sign of both her Character Development and her growing closeness to him.
• A trio of mischievous Dusks constantly doodle on Roxas while he was in a coma in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.
• Occurred at least once in Kochikame when Ryotsu doodles all over Bucho's face and takes pictures while he's asleep and Nakagawa tries to hold his laugh. Ryotsu ends up putting the pictures in purikura stickers. Let's say Bucho ends up in a weapons rampage at the end hunting down Ryotsu.
• In the live action of Lovely★Complex both Otani and Risa fall asleep on a bus during their school trip and are left behind. Risa wakes up normal and then turns to see Otani with what is probably the best face doodling ever. Near the end of the movie, Risa uses the same picture when she goes on the Hello Girlfriend show.
• In Lupin III: The First, Zenigata does this to Lupin after he arrests him. Later, Lupin does this back to Zenigata.
• Happens to Macharu in Monkey High! when his classmates catch him napping after staying up way too late.
• Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation: When Rudeus defeats two school delinquents then kept them prisoner in his dorm room, they feign showing respect to him just so he can let them go. Fitts, however, sees through the facade and decides that confinement is not enough, so, as extra punishment she draws on their faces with special ink that, when a certain incantation is chanted, the marks will show themselves and become permanent. Rudeus actually felt sorry for the two, until Fitts told him she lied about the ink's properties, something the delinquents never apparently figured out.
• Naruto's debut scene involves him pulling an elaborate prank involving Face Doodling on the statues of the Hokages.
• Nodame Cantabile: Averted when Flamboyant Gay Masumi attempts to do this on Nodame who was pretending to sleep.
• Photon: The Idiot Adventures: Aun writes "Baka" on Photon while he is sleeping. Photon later writing "Baka" on a sleeping Keyne actually results in an Accidental Marriage. She cannot read kanji and in her culture, a man draws his crest on a woman to signify marriage.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • This is a Running Gag with a certain wild Jigglypuff; its reaction to having people fall asleep mid-song is to vandalize their faces with a marker, which it also uses as an impromptu microphone. By the end of the episode, it does this to an entire town full of extremely rude and hostile people, who take one look at each other, and burst into laughter (turns out, they all just needed a good night's sleep). It gets to the point where when the gang actually needs it to sing, they provide it with a box of several markers to use. In one episode of Sun and Moon, although the face doodling continues on multiple characters, Jigglypuff herself gets its face doodled on by Komala when it falls asleep during their battle.
  • One Battle Frontier episode also had a Scizor that did this to defeated opponents. Yeah, a Scizor.
  • In the Sinnoh League Victors episode "Teaching the Student Teacher!", while taking a nap, Dawn's Piplup's face gets drawn on by Thomas, one of the students in "My Very First Pokemon Coordinator Class", causing him to angrily chase after Thomas.
  • In "The Ancient Puzzle of Pokémopolis" a giant ancient Jigglypuff is summoned to stop the rampaging giant ancient Gengar and Alakazam by putting them to sleep with its song. Said giant ancient Jigglypuff has the same reaction as the above Jigglypuff when it realizes the Gengar and Alakazam have fallen asleep mid-song. It doodles on their faces with a paintbrush instead of a marker presumably because it predates the invention of markers by centuries.
• In one of the The Prince of Tennis specials, the punishment that Ryoma and his teammates would face for losing or slacking during practice was to get their faces doodled on.
• Psychic Squad:
  • After Kyousuke managed to infiltrate into Fujiko's bedroom (to tamper with her computer terminal while she was sleeping) and then escape, when Fujiko wakes up she discovers that her face was doodled on. Then, in a later supplement 4-panel strip, we find out that she was doing the same to Kyousuke regularly when they were both kids.
  • In one of the supplement 4-panel strips, after Sakaki gets drunk and falls asleep, Shiho doodles not only on his face but on his torso as well, drawing (among other things) a bra on his chest and a funny face on his belly.
• Ranma ½:
  • After Ranma knocks Mikado out on his feet, nobody is certain what happened for a moment... until Asuza, Mikado's rather childish partner, starts drawing on his face. Everyone Mikado has ever angered takes turns adding to it once it becomes clear.
  • After Pantyhose Taro crash-lands in the Tendo home while in his monster form, Soun and Ranma change him back to human, somber and worried about what sort of super-powerful creature could have hurt him so badly. Then they doodle on his face and put tiny flags in his hair.
  • Genma also does this when possessed by an oni.
  • When Mariko confesses her love for Kuno, she puckers up for a kiss. Kuno, having eyes only for Akane and The Pigtailed Girl, doodles on her face instead. Mariko laughs it off, but every single bystander is outraged at Kuno for being so lucky and yet so stupid.
  • The first real Ranma/Kuno duel ends as a sort of draw. Ranma has a nasty bruise from the air sliced by Kuno's sword, and Kuno has insults scribbled on his face. This provides for a nice gag, as it provides a chance for Nabiki to insult his spelling as he describes the incident.
• A chapter of Read or Die involves the Paper Sisters trying to come up with ways to make money—they do this to each other when they come up with unworkable ideas.
• In a particularly nonsensical Saiyuki Reload Omake, Sanzo, Gojyo, and Hakkai discover that they are somehow stuck inside Goku's dream, and they will remain stuck until he wakes up. Since Goku sleeps like a log, Hakkai ends up just drawing open eyes on his face.
• In The Seven Deadly Sins, after the heroes defeat Guila the first time, they tie her to a tree and draw on her face, including eyes on her eyelids (she's an Eyes Always Shut type person).
• At the end of episode 103 of Sgt. Frog, while the world is still frozen in time after a failed take over of Earth, Fuyuki and Keroro do this to Kogoro.
• This is one of many funny moments in Slam Dunk. During the study night at Akagi's house, as the host takes a nap, Hanamichi picks up a marker that conveniently fell to his reach and strikes.
• In solanin, Meiko draws on Taneda's face after he pisses her off. After she gets home from a rough day, they have a very tender moment together, which is only made funnier by his crazy face doodles.
• Soul Eater:
  • Black Star autographs a temporarily paralyzed Maka's face and doodles a Hitler 'stache on her.
  • In another story arc in the manga, Death the Kid is kidnapped and one of his captor's servants doodles on his face on only one side, after inadvertently discovering Kid's SuperOCD.
• Strawberry Marshmallow:
  • At the end of the first episode, Nobue writes, "Ran away from home" on her little sister Chika's sleeping face. Of course, her little sister had just made a birthday card that said, "To my Big Sister, who's been putting on a little weight lately." Mi-chan sees it and doesn't let anyone tell Chika.
  • This is the anime's amalgam of two events in the manga:
    • First, in episode 4, Miu and Chika make an ashtray to replace her cruddy old one, and each makes separate birthday cards, staying up late to make them and falling asleep in the process. Chika's card makes fun of her weight, her smell, and her general health. Nobue retaliates by writing "Homeless Orphan" on her cheek. (This goes on to be one of the things Chika remembers when they play baseball, prompting her to throw the baseball at Nobue's side.)
    • In episode 35, sometime between 8 and 10 AM, Miu draws a fire button on Chika's forehead while she's sleeping. Nobue doesn't say anything, and the two prompt Matsuri not to reveal it when she comes over. Nobody at the used manga shop they go to that afternoon tells her, either. Later, at 7:30 PM, a minimum of nine-and-a-half hours later, Chika goes to the bathroom and finally sees the button and the kanji for "fire" in the mirror.
• In Stretch, both Ran and Keiko do this to one another at various times. Part of the dynamic between the two.
• In the Tenchi Muyo! OVAs, it was revealed that Tenchi's own mother, Kiyone, did this to Seina as a child. Turns out she wasn't the sweet and kind lady Tenchi remembered her to be.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has a variant. In this OVA where a character uses a marker to blackout Kamina's cool shades, when he wakes up he thinks he's gone blind. And then laments being "doomed to a life of darkness"
• In Yotsuba&!, Yotsuba does this to her sleeping father because she thought daddy would look good with a mustache... and then it was so much fun she couldn't stop.
• In YuYu Hakusho, at one point in the Dark Tournament Arc, Hiei uses an attack that leaves him "requiring hibernation". Kuwabara, upon being informed that almost nothing they do will wake him up, asks, "Can I draw a mustache on him?" He then holds up a felt-tipped marker to illustrate the point. He never ends up doing it, though, apparently, since we see Hiei mustache-free when he wakes up.

Asian Animation

• Colorful Crayon: In “The Colors Have Disappeared”, Crayon doodles deadpan-looking eyes on Funny’s face while she’s sleeping. Dingding finds her and laughs at her doodle eyes, while Funny isn't enthused, especially when she finds out it's Crayon who drew the eyes on her.
• Happy Heroes: In the first episode of Season 7, when Ambassador Wang first appears, she sports a mustache and is mistaken for a male as a result. She's quick to point out the mistake and wipes off the mustache, which her son Lele doodled on her as a prank.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 69, after Sparky tranquilizes Wolffy, Weslie goes into the Wolf Castle to free Paddi and doodles an "O" over one of Wolffy's eyes and an "X" over the other. Unfortunately, Wolffy wakes up before Weslie can leave the castle and promptly uses him for a trap to catch the other goats.

Comic Books

• Tintin's Captain Haddock does this once to an advertisement for a concert of Bianca Castafiore.
• A recurring gag in Knights of the Dinner Table—after the characters lose a fight (usually one they picked for no good reason), B.A. will sometimes announce that they wake up adorned with "runes of shame".

Fan Works

• Anything for Family: Nao and Akira draw on Joker's face while he is passed out in the corner, sleeping off his drunkenness.
• Atomic Number 79: In the rare awake example, Vegeta restrains Goku's head while drawing on his face with a permanent marker. He writes the word "stupid" across Goku's forehead in perfectly mirrored writing.
• In Black Crayons, Annabelle Lennox does this to the twins, Mudflap and Skids, in "Summer Vacation." Glitter was also used.
• In the JLA Watchtower universe, this was a common trick for the senior Titan boys to play on one another. It was used on-panel when Roy Harper passed out exhausted on the ride back from the Olympics. Dick found the peanut butter and jelly sandwich MRE and started doodling.
• In Opening Dangerous Gates, Chelia, Wendy, Happy, and Carla draw on Juvia's face when she gets drunk.
• Rise of the Minisukas: Prankster writes on Rei's face with black marker while she is sleeping, creating in Rei a burning need for getting even upon awakening and discovering her new "moustache" and "goatee".
• The Twilight Child: This is how the main character first meets the Cutie Mark Crusaders, opening her eyes to find Scootaloo mere seconds away from drawing on her face.
• In Ninja Wizard Book 5 a time-traveling Harry and Tom draw on the faces of the Gryffindor fifth-year boys, including Harry's past self.
• In The Very Best Harry's Jigglypuff doodles on the Death Eaters at Voldemort's hideout after putting them to sleep.
• In Three Black Birds Daphne falls asleep during a Hogwarts feast and Harry and Roderick doodle on her face with custard.
• In Endless Night an unknown student draws a mustache and goatee on an unconscious Umbridge.
• Boldores And Boomsticks: Blake dyes Mal pink while he sleeps.
• Evershade: Done by a mad/sad sister, leading to a Mirror Reveal and Description in the Mirror:
  I looked in the mirror to see my face, and my reflection seemed as surprised as I was.
  Pink hearts on my left cheek, flowers on my forehead, eyeshadow all around my eyes, cat whiskers coming from my nose and outward, and huge red lips all around mine. All done in bright markers.
  Gabby! I growled as I immediately grabbed a wet towel, and began to wipe the drawings off my face.
• In Kiss of Life Ron and Dean write on Seamus' face after he falls asleep in History of Magic.
• True Potential: During his genin graduation test, Kanji ends up having a mustache and a beard drawn on his face after he uses his Mind Transfer Jutsu on one of his sensei Naruto's clones.

Film — Animated

• In the "outtakes" for Toy Story 2, Woody pulls this on Buzz a few times. He doodles funny faces on Buzz's helmet that show up when he snaps it closed and puts "This Space For Rent" on his wings.
• The matchmaker in Mulan manages to do this to herself by accident. Mulan had written the final admonition on her arm to help aide her memory but then been forced to take a bath so the ink ran, so when the matchmaker grabbed Mulan's arm the ink rubbed off onto her hand which then led to the Matchmaker transferring it to her own face without realising it, she'd stroked around her mouth in concentration leaving a pattern that looks like a beard.

Film — Live Action

• A rare awake example, Todd in 10 Things I Hate About You doodles a penis on the character trying to speak to him at the time.
  "...I have a dick on my face, don't I?"
• In Barely Lethal, Liz drinks a bit too much at Gooch's party, and winds up with penises drawn on her face after she passes out on the couch.
• The Jet Li film Dr. Wai in "The Scripture with No Words" have Li's character fighting a burly thug in an office. The thug is armed with a katana and Li has a pen, but being Jet Li... the fight ends with Li restraining his opponent effortlessly and scribbling "Dr. Wai was here!" on the face for good measure.
• Happens to Zach Braff's character Andrew in Garden State — even worse, when he gets to the doctor's surgery for a checkup, he finds people have covered his whole body with swear words.
• High School (2010): Travis' first scene in the movie is of him asleep, with Big Dave and Little Dave having written "loser", played a Tic-Tac-Toe game, and drawn a dick, and also a mouthache, all on his face.
• Done to Gilbert in The Sand. He passes out during a party at the beach and his friends draw a penis on his face in marker. He wakes up wedged in a trash barrel, which he can't escape from due to the monster in the sand and spends the whole movie in there.
• A variation in Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005): the pompous actor returns to his cabin to find that someone has vandalized his face on all of his movie posters. Then he stops for a bit to consider growing a Porn Stache like one of the doodles.
• In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Jenny writes "Dick" on Matt's head after the inevitable breakup.... via heat vision.
• In Justice League (2017), when a man acts rude to Barry Allen, Barry draws a mustache and glasses on him at Super-Speed. The man doesn't notice until someone points it out.
• Project Almanac: Quinn draws a smiley face on himself in the past to test the ripple effect, causing both of them to start shifting in and out of existence. Lucky for him, they manage to drag him away before it becomes permanent.
• Snuff Movie: After seeing the film of her having sex with Matt, Jack writes the word 'WHORE' on Angie's forehead with a felt tip marker. He then starts tattooing it on.
• In Love at the Christmas Table, Sam and Kat get Christmas-themed doodles after they pass out on the couch at the Christmas party.
• In Preservation, Wit, Mike and Sean wake up to find that someone has stolen all of their gear, and drawn a big black "X" on each of their foreheads.

Literature

• Adrian Mole: In Cappuccino Years, Adrian returns home to find that his son William has scribbled on Adrian's father's bald patch. As a punishment to his father for falling asleep while babysitting William, Adrian doesn't tell him about the scribble on his head.
• In both the book and the film versions of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Edmund rather tackily scribbles a mustache and glasses on a lion that's been turned to stone, telling himself it's probably Aslan himself.
• This not only happens to the heroine in L. M. Montgomery's Emily Climbs, but she has reason to suspect her best friend of the deed.
• In the Discworld novel Night Watch, a 16-year old assassin-in-training Havelock Vetinari sneaks up on and knocks out an inebriated older assassin boy (the later-day Lord Downey) and paints tiger stripes on Downey's face. Downey had previously made fun of Vetinari for reading a book about animals using colors and patterns for camouflage and how to make oneself invisible by hiding in plain sight. The lesson was entirely lost on Downey.
  • Vetinari had the printer's plates for the book destroyed and the existing copies hidden away to ensure that nobody else would learn the lesson either.
• In Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones there's a scene at a party at an SF convention where several people are drawing on a handsome, almost naked guy who's drunkenly fallen asleep on the stairs. One of the artists is a magic user whose doodles constitute a spell designed to lead the guy to her bed later.
• In a Kate Daniels novella, Andrea's love interest Raphael knowingly overexerts his magic and passes out, when he could have stayed in his warrior form and answered her questions. Annoyed that he's avoiding her (and irritatedly wondering if he expects her to admire his naked body) she gets a Sharpie out and doodles on his face. Instead of being annoyed, though, Raphael thinks it's funny and takes her teasing as a sign that she returns his romantic interest.
• In The Good Soldier Švejk, Švejk tells a story about a bald man who fell asleep at a bar, and when he woke up, he found that someone wrote an advertisement for life insurance on his head.
• The Blood Of Olympos has a converse example - Reyna talks about the difference between (Roman) fauns and (Greek) satyrs. (As: If you fall asleep on duty, the faun steals your stuff, draws you a mustache and hits the road. Since it's a children's book, the satyrs, in contrast, seem to be well-educated with respect to their usual habits in Greek mythology...)

Live-Action TV

• A variation occurred in The Bill when the police officers are hanging around in a van as backup for a demonstration. Nothing much is happening so one of them falls asleep, whereupon another officer shoves a couple of pipe cleaners up his nostrils.
• Cheers. Sam does this to a dead drunk Rebecca, doodling a Mexican mustache and beard on her, then putting a poncho and a sombrero on her head as she dozes.
• Friends:
  • During an escalating prank war on the plane to Vegas, Ross draws a beard and moustache on Rachel's face. She doesn't notice until they reach their destination and discovers that it won't come off. Later on, Ross suggests that she draws on him so she won't feel so self-conscious. She gives him whiskers and writes 'Ross' on his forehead. They then get married and stumble drunkenly about Vegas together, calling one another Mrs. Ross and Mr. Rachel.
  • Also seen in "The One At The Beach." The gang is on vacation at the beach, too bad they're trapped inside by the rain. Rachel wants to paint Ross's toenails, but he won't let her. A chase around the room ensues. They collapse into a chair and Ross grabs Rachel's hand to make her paint nail polish on her own face. From the same episode, Joey wakes up to find his body covered in sand and made to look like a particularly busty mermaid.
• Super Sentai:
  • In GoGo Sentai Boukenger, Masumi and Natsuki put glasses on a sleeping Satoru.
  • Chiaki does this to Takeru during the Samurai Sentai Shinkenger "Freaky Friday" Flip episode where Takeru's soul is swapped with a good luck cat statue. A couple of episodes later it's used as the penalty for losing in a card game. Takeru... wasn't doing very well but Chiaki was enjoying himself immensely.
• On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after the ditzy blonde Harmony Kendall was turned into a vampire (a ditzy vampire) and had Spike share a lair with her, she was fond of doodling on the sleeping Spike's back during the day, much to his annoyance. (episode: The Harsh Light of Day) In case you're wondering, she was writing "Spike loves Harmony" on his back. Spike's reaction when he wakes up? He's not pleased.
  Spike : I love Syphilis more than you.
• In the lonelygirl15 episode "Hungover", Daniel wakes up after a night out drinking to discover that his face is now covered in doodles and the words "Jonas was here".
• Alain ends up with his face turned into impromptu canvas after a trip into an imaginary world in #34/35 of Kamen Rider Ghost left his guard down for a while. Onari is not missing opportunities. Unfortunately for him, Alain is petty enough to pay him back immediately after getting to know this.
• In the first episode of Kamen Rider Build, Misora draw on Sento's face while he slept after defeating the Needle Smash. He retaliates by writing mathematical formulas on her face when she drops to sleep after purifying Needle's Full Bottle.
• An episode of Dog with a Blog has Tyler go around drawing moustaches on pictures. At the end of the episode, Bennett and Elen draw a moustache on him in retaliation.
• Scrubs has it a few times, but with awake victims.
  • In one episode, Kelso responds to JD that "he can do whatever he wants" and proceeds to draw a mustache on him. Cue Turk asking JD if he invited Kelso to "Mustache Sunday".
  • In another episode, JD gets PROM written on his forehead in a flashback mere weeks before prom, and needs surgery to get it off.
  • Two more examples: When the Janitor is accidentally given a leaky pen by J.D. he thinks it was intentional and retaliates by using the spilled ink to give J.D. a mustache. And when Dr. Kelso is reading the last Harry Potter book, he doodles Harry's glasses and scar on anyone who threatens to ruin the ending for him.
• Shake it Up: After Flynn passes out from an energy drink-induced sugar rush, Ty draws a moustache and a goatee on him and also writes "I Love Ty".
• In Green Wing, Dr. Statham invades a comatose Mac's hospital room and draws facial hair and glasses on his face in marker pen.
• One episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show has Richie and a playmate "connecting the dots" with the freckles on Rob's back as he sleeps on the couch, producing a picture of the Liberty Bell, which neighbor Millie Helper submits to an "Odd But True" newspaper column.
• On The Cosby Show, an episode opens with Cliff asleep on the couch while Rudi applies makeup to his face.
• In the Doctor Who episode "School Reunion", David Tennant did this to himself, to make sure Billie Piper and Elisabeth Sladen laughed during a scene.
• In Top Gear Clarkson, May and Hammond all have to act as crash test dummies and need to draw reference points on their faces. You can see where this is going.
• Andy does this to a sleeping Barney Fife in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.
• An episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has a subversion. A bunch of people at a party finds an unpopular girl passed out and start painting things on her face. As one of them moves the girl's head, she realizes that there is blood on her fingers. The unconscious girl was hit on the back of the head and then left lying on a bunch of coats.
• In the Modern Family episode "The Incident", Manny comes home from a sleepover with a Spock-style evil beard and moustache doodled on his face. He keeps the beard, takes to stroking it thoughtfully, and later sets the culprit's bike on fire.
• In iCarly, any sleeping student is prone to be Sam Puckett's victim during a Ridgeway HS all-nighter. To the point that the principal warns the entire school about this.
• A Brick Joke in the Wizards of Waverly Place episode "The Good, The Bad and The Alex". After Warren faints from Harper's Death Glare, Alex wants to draw a moustache on him and thinks he might have a marker. This is proven correct later on when Warren gives Justin a marker and tells him to keep it away from Alex before fainting again. But when Max also wants to draw a moustache on Warren, Justin instantly gives him the marker because he only agreed he wouldn't give it to Alex.
• In Raising Hope, Jimmy's mom forcibly writes the word "Dork" on his face in permanent marker to ensure that he will not want to spend too much time flirting with Sabrina (the girl at the grocery store). Apparently, she's done this often in the past.
  Sabrina: You might wanna think about wearing make-up.
  Jimmy: I tried that. It makes me look like a dork.
• Done in one episode of the The Nanny via Niles to a sleeping C.C using fingernail polish.
• In Series 4 Episode 5 of Misfits, Finn and Grace draw a mustache and glasses on Rudy, who has passed out. When Rudy finds out, he pins Finn to the lockers and draws a Hitler mustache on Finn.
• CSI: NY: In "Get Me Out of Here!", Danny and Adam arrive at a frat house to investigate a murder. They wake up a pledge who has had a pair of glasses drawn on his face and the word 'TOOL' written on his forehead.
• The IT Crowd has a variant of this, where Roy has lipstick applied to him after a drunken night out. It's still there when he goes to work the next day.
• Good Luck Charlie:
  • In the episode, "Guys and Dolls", when Gabe and his new friend Logan accuse P.J. of being just like Bob, P.J. tries to prove to them that he can still be fun by having them draw on Bob's face in the middle of the night. They try to do the same with Amy, but she stops them. When Bob awakens the next morning, he thinks Amy drew on his face as retribution for giving Spencer bad advice on pleasing girls by telling him to pretend to like what they like.
  • And in an early episode, Charlie scribbles all over Teddy's face when she was forced to sleep in Charlie's crib before her big audition the next day. Ironically, this actually helped her get the part. Teddy lampshades this during her video diary at the end of the episode.
    Teddy: If you ever draw on my face again, well...good luck Charlie
• In Series 4 Episode 2 of The Affair, this happens to Cole after he passes out on a beach.
• Once on NCIS, Tony tries to do this to Ziva when she falls asleep at her desk. Turns out she's not too asleep to warn him off.
• In the 2003 ITV comedy-drama The Booze Cruise, one character, Rob, happens upon another, Maurice — whom he doesn't get on with — fast asleep in the sun, and proceeds to write on his forehead... in sunblock. A furious Maurice is left walking around for the rest of the episode with the word "TIT" branded on his head.
• In Mimpi Metropolitan, during the six main characters' movie night, Bambang falls asleep. Prima uses Melani's marker to draw on Bambang's face. And when Bambang wakes up, Alan has the six of them take a selfie, with Bambang only noticing the doodle after the selfie is taken. Bambang can't be too mad about it however, since it means he made Melani happy.
• In Young Sheldon S4 E16, Paige tells Sheldon to close his eyes to kiss. Instead of kissing him, she draws a moustache on his lip instead. Adult Sheldon states that he didn't realize it until three classes later.

Newspaper Comics

• Garfield draws a mustache on sleeping Jon in this strip

Radio

• Cabin Pressure: While stuck at an airport in Douz, a tetchy Scottish cricket team get very insistent about getting some beer, and to make sure Arthur remembers this write "beer" on him.

Video Games

• This is a status in Dokapon Kingdom that you can apply to your rivals after slaying them. Best part is you and your victim have to wait at least an in-game day to see what they have. It's funny to do this early game but you'll want to steal their equipment or dump your debt on them later in the game rather than draw an inconsequential monocle.
• Part of Kula Diamond's ending in The King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2 is that she does this to Nagase after their battle.
• Losing characters in the Power Instinct series suffer facial doodling from their opponents after the bout.
• Blanca from Animal Crossing wants the player to redraw her(/his) face entirely, using the same interface that the game uses for drawing clothing patterns.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles games the player can draw on moogles in moogle houses in the first game and save points in the second.
  • In the DS rerelease of Final Fantasy IV, Rydia obtains a larval Eidolon called Whyt. Using the DS stylus, the player can change what its face looks like.
• In Eternal Sonata, Phil does this to an old man and is run off. He heads in the direction of the cliffs, which you have to descend to find him.
• You can do this to sleeping Miis in Tomodachi Life by tapping their face with the stylus. If you tap the "erase" button, it'll erase the Mii's entire face. It automatically goes back to normal once you click away, however.
• A rare awake example in Bayonetta, the titular character draws Amaterasu's facial markings on Luka's face with her lipstick while he's delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to her. He can't see her while she does it, though.
• Surgeon Simulator 2013: The Inside Donald Trump DLC lets the player doodle and apply makeup to Donald Trump's face.
• Komari can become a victim of this in Little Busters!, provided that you, the main character, doesn't stop Haruka.
• The Servant (Nagito Komaeda) in Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls spends most of Chapter 4 with his face covered in doodles, likely the Warriors of Hope's doing. Absolutely no one comments on this, even during a particularly dramatic plot reveal scene.
• In Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, Jovi drew on a sleeping old man's face with makeup.
• In the companion campaign of Super Mario 3D World, Bowser's Fury, it turns out that Bowser's been turned into a mindlessly enraged brute because his son drew on his face with his magic paintbrush while Bowser was sleeping, as a joke, but Bowser was so mad when he woke up, his anger turned the magic paint into a hateful corruption that infected himself and the surrounding lands.
• In The Eden of Grisaia while Michiru is sleeping in, Makina takes it on herself to doodle all over her eyelids so whenever she closes them she has open eye doodles on them.
• Takeshi of Ever17 is subjected to this◊ after annoying everyone else with his snoring and sleeptalk.
• Done to the loser of the penalty game on numerous occasions in Higurashi: When They Cry.
• The first Galaxy Angel reveals that Milfeulle had this happening to her once at school. When she fell asleep in class, the teacher couldn't resist and drew her a moustache, even taking a photo of it. She's naturally freaked and embarrassed when the Hellhounds reveal this to the rest of the Angels and the Elsior.

Web Animation

• In the College University web series episode "St. Paddy's Day Special", the leprechaun Studystilskin forces Mike to shotgun beers throughout the day. Eventually Mike passes out stone-cold drunk. It turns out the entire thing was a ploy to render Mike unconscious so that Parks could draw a giant penis on his face.
• In the Happy Tree Friends TV episode "Chew Said a Mouthful", Lumpy draws a mustache on Toothy's face while operating on him.
• An Easter egg at the end of the Strong Bad Email "haircut" shows the results of Strong Bad using his "light pen" on his brother Strong Sad while the latter is taking a nap.

Web Comics

• Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: Steph and Cass draw a unibrow and facial hair on Dick's face when he falls asleep on the couch.
• This happens to Ichabod in one page of Far Out There... among other things.
• This page of Gunnerkrigg Court gives a whole new meaning to the trope's name. The King of Robots, being a robot, can't use facial expressions... so he has a flat face like a whiteboard and carries a marker and a rag everywhere. It looks ridiculous.
• In Mob Psycho 100, Mob and Reigen search around the city for rumors they've heard about, one being about a "human-faced" dog, which is actually a dog covered in marker drawings. After taking a photograph, Reigen gives the dog a quick clean-up.
• In Narbonic, Helen and Mell do this (a lot of this) to Dave while his mind is busy with Mental Time Travel.
• In The Order of the Stick, after Roy gets crippled by poison, Elan and Belkar scribble on both Roy and the wall he's leaning against. Unusual, in that Roy is still conscious (and, naturally, really annoyed) while they're doing this.
  "I eat you stinky roy!" [sic]
• Implied in this Precocious strip. The actual results only appear as bonus material in the print collection.
• The Property of Hate: Hero does this to RGB early on. Since he's got a tv for a head, she doesn't even need a marker.
• In PvP, this was how Francis amused himself during a flight home from a convention. At Brent's expense, naturally.
• In Questionable Content, when Faye is working for the secret robot fighting ring, she tells a recently repaired robot, "Remember, no punchin' stuff until the epoxy is cured. You'll rip the myomer off the strut, and I'll paint a dick on your face." It is implied that he didn't wait, as the next time we see this robot, he has several drawings of dicks on his face.
• Taken to a disturbing new level in this Snafu comic (referencing Naruto).
• In Weak Hero, Teddy torments a nameless student by doodling sideburns onto their face, then forces them to draw a large 'X' on Gray's shirt with the same marker.
• Subverted in Wizard School, where our 'hero' winds up with a Power Tattoo after a little Alcohol-Induced Idiocy. When he wakes up to find three pretty blue stars on his face, he assumes the two children with him have done this—and berates them for drawing stars instead of a penis or two.

Web Original

• Morgan of LoadingReadyRun will instantly wake up and stand at alert if anyone so much as uncaps a Sharpie within earshot of him due to this.
• In an episode of What the Fuck Is Wrong with You?, Nash gets drunk and the Stick Man does it to him.
• A frequent Running Gag in RiffTrax, where they talk about 'Sharpieing a wang on someone's forehead'.
• In Sword Art Online Abridged, when Kirito wakes up from a nap to find Asuna sleeping next to him, he draws some cat whiskers on her face. When she wakes up later, pulls her sword on him and demands to know what he's smirking about, she's clearly surprised that's all he did to her.
  Kirito: Um, yeah? You were asleep, what else would I have done?
  Asuna: (sputtering) Well... I... I-I mean... you know! You-you could've...
• This Cracked article suggests that people do this while monitoring their passed-out friends for symptoms of alcohol poisoning.
• Vax of Critical Role does this to Grog at one point, sketching a pair of testicles on his forehead with a gunpowder-coated finger.
  • Earlier on, in a similar fashion, he shaves off half his beard. Big mistake.
  • In a later episode, Grog and Percy contemplate returning the favour...while Vax is bleeding out and near death.
    Grog (miming scribbles across his mouth): Insert...here...

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Finn and Jake do this to the Ice King when they steal the gems from his crown while he is asleep in "The Lich".
• Amphibia: In ""The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers", on the way to the basement, Polly doodles on a sleeping Olivia's face. It's revealed near the end that she gave her a moustache, goatee and wrote "Polly wuz here!" on her eyelids.
• Arcane: After discovering that Silco has concealed the news of Jinx's sister Vi still being alive and back in the Undercity, Jinx ties his Number Two Sevika from the ceiling of his office with the word "LIAR" scribbled on her body, and adds insult to injury by drawing a mustache and glasses on Sevika's face.
• Beany and Cecil: "The Wildman of Wildsville" has the title character painting a test pattern on Cecil's face. He turns one of Cecil's nostrils like a TV control knob; Cecil's eyes conjoin and form the CBS eye.
• Big City Greens: In "Tilly Style", Tilly draws wrinkles on her face as part of her old lady costume. She wisely uses dry erase markers rather than permanent ink.
• In BoJack Horseman, Diane comes home to her family after the death of her father, to discover that her brothers have done this to his corpse.
  Diane: Oh, my god! Is that dad?! ...Did someone draw balls on his forehead?
  Artie: That was before we knew he was dead. We just thought he was wicked hungover.
• In the DC Super Hero Girls (2019) episode "#SoulSisters", Supergirl uses lipstick to draw glaring eyebrows and a grin on Catwoman's face after Katana used the Soul-Taker sword to swipe her essence.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy has one episode in which Eddy is doing a documentary video on how much he's grown to show his older brother that he no longer needs any baby material sent to him. Towards the end, Eddy is shown in his bedroom giving his autograph to the cardboard cutouts of the children (walked around by Rolf's chickens), and when Edd, the cameraman, warns Eddy that Rolf is right behind him, Eddy nonchalantly signs his name on Rolf's face.
  Rolf: YOU HAVE VANDALIZED ROLF'S FACE! AND YOU HAVE... (stops to see one of the cardboard cutouts moving past him) ...AND YOU HAVE STOLEN ROLF'S CHICKENS YET AGAIN?!
• In one Family Guy episode, Quagmire passes out after a rather lopsided drinking game. When he awakens later his face has "penus" written on it.
• Final Space: Episode 1, the final scene shows KVN trying to do this to a sleeping Gary, but Mooncake interrupts him when he has only finished a circle around Gary’s right eye and half a moustache.
• There are a few instances on Gravity Falls, including Mabel waking up with "Party Gurl" written on her face in the episode "Carpet Diem", Dipper having "Goober" written across his forehead by his gruncle in the between-season short "Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained: Stan's Tattoo", and the leader of the Society of the Blind Eye having his facial tattoo vandalized by Mabel in the episode "Society of the Blind Eye".
• The Hair Bear Bunch pulls this on zookeeper Mr. Peevly in the debut episode "Keep Your Keeper." Hair makes Peevly think he's suffering an ailment only zookeepers get called "zoolirium." While Peevly sleeps, Hair dresses up as a doctor while Square and Bubi paint his face green with red polka dots and fit him with a long beard.
• In the Jelly Jamm episode "My Little Queen", the kiddified Queen does this to the King, drawing stuff like hearts and flowers on his face with a pencil.
• King of the Hill: Bobby and Joseph with a book of jokes, attempt a prank on Dale by giving him a quarter face message with black marker on the rim of the coin. Example of Springtime for Hitler when Dale is at the gun club for reelection, the members thought Dale wore war paint and vote him for president again (when wanting to resign Dale).
• The Loud House: A flashback scene in "Lynn-er Takes All" shows that Lynn once doodled the word "LOSER" on her siblings' heads while they were asleep among the events leading up to the episode. Lincoln says he got out of that one, but then turns around to reveal that she shaved the word in the back of his hair.
• In the Merrie Melodies short "Daffy Doodles", Daffy Duck draws mustaches on posters all over town. When he's not doing that, he's drawing them on people and Porky Pig, the police officer trying to bring him in.
• In "Otter Pox" from PB&J Otter, when Peanut shows Jelly her face with Otter Pox in the mirror, she asks if he's been drawing on her face again while she was sleeping, implying he's done this before.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: King Julien gets a moustache on his face, but then reveals that he was who drew it.
• In the opening of the The Pink Panther series, the inspector does this with a brute, mistaking him for a poster. When the brute knocks the inspector out, the Pink Panther does the same to the inspector. ^note  It should be added that Pink Panther begins all the Mustache Vandalism with defacing a "Wanted!" Poster, and the inspector finds it funny...
• Regular Show: "I'm gonna draw on your face! No, seriously, I'm gonna draw on your face." While you never actually see Percy the doll draw on anyone's face (though he does attempt to do this to Rigby), you do see Pops with his face drawn on.
  • In an earlier episode, Dizzy, Rigby draws on Pop's face while he's passed out from spinning too much.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Deep Space Homer", Bart wrote "Insert brain here" on the back of Homer's head. And later "Hero".
  • Also, he once tattooed "Wide Load" on his ass.
  • In "I Am Furious Yellow", Ralph doodles on his own face. "I'm called Ralph!".
• Steven Universe: Future: Bluebird doodles a drawing of her gems on Steven's face during his sleep.
• The South Park episode "Stunning and Brave" had Randy and a group of literal PC thugs by bully Kyle for saying Caitlyn Jenner is not a "hero" by, among other things, drawing penises on his face.
• Reef does it to Ripper and No-Pants Lance in an episode of Stōked. Vengeance is swift and brutal.
• Total Drama:
  • In "Dodgebrawl", Harold has kept the Killer Bass up all night with his snoring and that's after they already didn't get any sleep for a multi-day challenge. In retaliation, someone, almost certainly Duncan, pranks him by drawing a mustache on his face. It backfires because, even though everyone laughs at him, Harold actually likes the look.
  • For all the stunts Heather pulled on the campers trying to get the prize, Leshawna draws a smiley face on the back of her bald head in "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island". She considers herself merciful because Heather deserved to get it straight-up tattooed. Several campers get a good laugh at Heather's expense, but only Beth bothers to inform her about the smiley face.
• In X-Men: Evolution, Toad draws a pair of glasses and a mustache on the Blob’s face while he's passed out sleeping.

Real Life

• British magazine FRONT, has a subsection on a page (or two) with people who got pissed ^note  (that is, drunk, not angry) and passed out and other people doodling stuff on 'em like dicks, balls, or covering them in flour or something along those lines. So quite obviously, this happens a lot in real life. Truth in alcoholic beverages?
• Happened to one of the New England Patriots Cheerleaders at a party where other members drew, among other things, Swastikas. Patriots owner Robert Kraft is Jewish. You can guess the rest.
• You think using markers is funny? Try it with toothpaste.
  • or a stencil or some sort of blocking cream on the back of somebody who is sunbathing while asleep/drunk.
• When dealing with a mass casualty event, first responders are trained to fill out a triage tag for each patient, if they run out of tags (or if they feel the tags risk getting damaged), they will write the information on the patient's forehead with a waterproof sharpie.
• In the Japanese game of Hanetsuki (similar to old-style badminton, often played by girls at New Year's), missing a shot traditionally meant paying a penalty of letting the winner put a mark on the loser's face with ink. Extended matches might end with both players sporting (painted on) black eyes, scars, moles and kanji characters.

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