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Sphere Eyes
aka: Huge Round Eyes

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Bertha: Your eyes look like hard-boiled eggs.
Jon: You don't say!
Bertha: No! Really!

Sometimes, cartoon characters are given large (or small), round/bulging eyes shaped like a geometric sphere or oval, often with tiny little dots for pupils.

This is a fairly common design choice in newspaper comics and cartoons with exaggerated, wacky styles. Other times, a character may be given these eyes for added simplicity in their design, making them come across as more comedic and light-hearted than other characters not drawn this way (as is the case for many comic relief characters in the Disney Animated Canon).

This trope comes in two forms: one where the eyes slightly overlap or touch on the border between them, and one where the eyes are separate from each other.

Alternatively, if a character with separate eyes makes an excited or shocked expression, his/her eyes may touch or overlap. Likewise, if characters with overlapping eyes make these expressions or face the front, their eyes may separate.

Compare Conjoined Eyes, which uses just one eyeball with two pupils. Not to be confused with Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises or Eye Pop, though a Pie-Eyed character or one with Black Bead Eyes may suddenly gain these kinds of eyes for the sake of the gag when a Wild Take is called for.


Touching/overlapping eyes:

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    Asian Animation 
  • Many of the characters in King Shakir have these overlapping spherical eyes.
  • Most of the characters in Simple Samosa have spherical eyes that overlap with each other.

    Comic Books 

    Comic Strips 
  • Garfield is an example, since he (and most other characters in the strip) has huge eyes.
    • Jim Davis always uses this trope on his strips like U.S. Acres.
    • Surprisingly, despite practically being a trademark of Jim Davis, the sphere eyes were gained through Art Evolution, as the characters originally had normal circle eyes.
  • Most characters in Heathcliff have these too.
  • Mother Goose, Grimm and Attila in Mother Goose and Grimm.
  • Bloom County: Opus and Bill the Cat.
  • Most of the characters in Buckles, such as the title character.
  • Sherman's Lagoon is also an example of this.
  • The characters in Pearls Before Swine usually have these too.
  • This is also used in FoxTrot. It was even parodied in one strip where Paige cuts ping-pong balls in half and puts them over her eyes to give the impression that she's not falling asleep in class.
  • Calvin and Hobbes: It happens in one strip, but since the characters are not normally drawn with Sphere Eyes it looks a bit creepy.
    Calvin: [wearing the bulging fake eyes] ...Or will I look too interested?
  • Adam@Home is another example.
  • Citizen Dog also uses these eyes.
  • A lot of the characters from Dogs of C-Kennel.
  • Plus, it was used for characters in Matt Groening's comic strip Life in Hell.
  • Most of the characters in Madam & Eve have these. Somewhat averted with Mother Anderson and Thandi, who are drawn with either two pupils in a single sphere eye or eyes with only a partial circumference.
  • Peanuts: Mostly averted with many characters having Black Bead Eyes. However, many of Snoopy's siblings have big round eyes.

    Puppet Shows 

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 

Separated eyes:

    Anime and Manga 
  • The sextuplets of Osomatsu-san and its predecessor Osomatsu-kun. No surprise there since Osomatsu-kun had its run during the 60s.

    Asian Animation 
  • In Happy Heroes, a lot of the human characters, including the Supermen, typically have spherical eyes that are separate from each other.

    Toys 
  • The Trash Pack, The Grossery Gang, and Shopkins, all blind bag toylines by Moose Toys, are given perfectly round separated eyes. In the case of The Trash Pack and The Grossery Gang, they are simply given small dots for pupils, to bug out the eyes more, while Shopkins are given highlighted pupils and irises, along with eyelashes irregardless of gender, to give them a cuter look.

    Video Games 
  • Shantae: Risky's Revenge: The Steam-Powered Oceanic Tinker Tub has giant, larger-than-Shantae sized eye orbs at both sides of its prow, to look forward.

    Web Animation 

    Western Animation 
  • The characters from Gumby.
  • Many of the works by Seth MacFarlane, like Family Guy, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show feature this. Humans and most other characters typically have separate eyes, though a few (such as Brian Griffin) have overlapping eyes.
  • Rick and Morty characters also have these eyes.
  • Almost everyone in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has spherical eyes. Most of them, including all the humans, have the eyes separate from each other, but a few (including Bloo, Coco, and Cheese) have connected eyes.
  • The Watterson family in The Amazing World of Gumball have unconnected eyes. In the first two seasons they switched between ovoid and spherical depending on the expression. From the third season on, they're always spherical.
    • Lampshaded in "The Lesson", where a delinquent student squeezes Gumball's head.
    Darwin: Dude, STOP! His eyes are touching each other!
  • Characters in Adventure Time, some depending on their expressions and others as their default look.
  • Many of the supporting characters in We Bare Bears. The main bears, however, tend to switch between these and their default Black Bead Eyes.
  • Most characters in Steven Universe.
  • The human characters in Star vs. the Forces of Evil have spaced, usually oval-shaped eyes, though it can vary for the monsters.
  • Danny Phantom: The characters have more spaced out eyes, in contrast to other Butch Hartman cartoons.
  • The centaurs in Centaurworld.
  • Buddy from Looney Tunes.
  • All the characters in Clarence have spherical eyes. With a few exceptions like Chad and Mr. Reese, most of their eyes are separated.
  • Bluey: All the characters have large, ovoid eyes that are thinly spaced from each other.


Alternative Title(s): Googly Eyes, Large Round Eyes, Huge Round Eyes

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