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Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot
aka: Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie

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Hey, there's no pirates on there anywhere!?note 

"Oh my goodness! They've come back! As ninja pirate robot monkey clown bandito werewolf zombies! How CRraAAaaZZzzyyyyyy!

When cool things are combined, the combination is cooler than the sum of its parts. This combination is usually physically impossible or contradictory, like the title of this page. Fortunately, if done right, nobody cares (Rule of Cool!)

This doesn't always work. If the cool things somehow cancel each other out, if it's just so overwhelming the Willing Suspension of Disbelief snaps like a brittle twig, you may get left with a piece of camp that is at best funny and at worst disgusting… often falling into the realm of Cool, but Stupid. Just remember Strong Bad's words of wisdom: "Too much of a good thing is an awesome thing. But too much of an awesome thing is… umm… really, really dumb and bad."

Two relatively straightforward forms of this alluded to in the trope's name are Boxing Lessons for Superman, in which a character with inherent abilities is trained in a cool skillset (a dragon trained in ninjitsu, for instance), and Empowered Badass Normal, in which a skilled character is imbued with special abilities (a Gadgeteer Genius given an Imagination-Based Superpower)

See also Awesomeness Is Volatile, Cool Versus Awesome, Fantasy Kitchen Sink, Heinz Hybrid, Hybrid-Overkill Avoidance (avoiding this trope), Impossibly Cool Weapon, Mix-and-Match Critter, Monster Mash, Rule of Cool. May also overlap with Twofer Token Minority. See Hailfire Peaks for the level variant.

Subtropes:


Examples with their own subpages:

Other examples:

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    Advertising 
  • The 90's remake [1] of the classic 60's Tootsie Pop commercial [2], which features a CGI kid talking with a giant dragon and a giant terminator-like robot.
  • Three words: Puppy Monkey Baby. For context... 

    Asian Animation 
  • One of the main characters of the Mongolian series Bultsgar is Yuni, an anthropomorphic unicorn who's also an alien.

    Board Games 
  • Atomic Sock Monkey Press offers a free boardgame, Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot, its not-free expansion Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot Deluxe (which also includes Clowns, Cowboys, Mutants, Punks, and Zombies), and Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot: the Roleplaying Game, which includes Aliens.
  • A popular variation on Rock Paper Scissors is Bear Ninja Cowboy. Another variant, Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock, introduces two new hand signs.
    • Only five hand signs? Pfft, try a hundred and one.
      • If you care to add more, any odd number up to infinity can be made into an RPS variant.
  • Ladies and gentlemen: chess boxing.
  • There's a boardgame called For The Win where each player controls two Monkeys, two Zombies, two Pirates, two Aliens, and two Ninjas. Each piece has a special ability and you win by forming one of each into a group.
  • In the popular board game Small World, player-controlled factions are combinations of unique powers, one 'adjective' special ability and one 'noun' race. Vampire Elves, Were-Orcs, Seafaring Ghouls, Magic Giants, Flying Dwarves...
  • The entire premise of the game Smash Up is combining cool things: the base game comes with Aliens, Robots, Pirates, Ninjas, Dinosaurs, Fey, Zombies and Wizards, which are then combined into decks such as "Ninja Dinosaurs", "Wizard Pirates" or "Zombie Robots"; expansions add things such as Steampunk and Bear Cavalry (AKA Russians). In development, the game was even called "PNZR" (for "pirate-ninja-zombie-robot").

    Card Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering's Mistform Ultimus is as of the end of 2022, an Advisor, Aetherborn, Alien, Ally, Angel, Antelope, Ape, Archer, Archon, Army, Artificer, Assassin, Assembly-Worker, Astartes, Atog, Aurochs, Avatar, Azra, Badger, Balloon, Barbarian, Bard, Basilisk, Bat, Bear, Beast, Beeble, Beholder, Berserker, Bird, Blinkmoth, Boar, Bringer, Brushwagg, Camarid, Camel, Caribou, Carrier, Cat, Centaur, Cephalid, Child, Chimera, Citizen, Cleric, Clown, Cockatrice, Construct, Coward, Crab, Crocodile, C’tan, Custodes, Cyclops, Dauthi, Demigod, Demon, Deserter, Devil, Dinosaur, Djinn, Dog, Dragon, Drake, Dreadnought, Drone, Druid, Dryad, Dwarf, Efreet, Egg, Elder, Eldrazi, Elemental, Elephant, Elf, Elk, Employee, Eye, Faerie, Ferret, Fish, Flagbearer, Fox, Fractal, Frog, Fungus, Gamer, Gargoyle, Germ, Giant, Gith, Gnoll, Gnome, Goat, Goblin, God, Golem, Gorgon, Graveborn, Gremlin, Griffin, Guest, Hag, Halfling, Hamster, Harpy, Hellion, Hippo, Hippogriff, Homarid, Homunculus, Horror, Horse, Human, Hydra, Hyena, Illusion, Imp, Incarnation, Inkling, Inquisitor, Insect, Jackal, Jellyfish, Juggernaut, Kavu, Kirin, Kithkin, Knight, Kobold, Kor, Kraken, Lamia, Lammasu, Leech, Leviathan, Lhurgoyf, Licid, Lizard, Manticore, Masticore, Mercenary, Merfolk, Metathran, Minion, Minotaur, Mole, Monger, Mongoose, Monk, Monkey, Moonfolk, Mouse, Mutant, Myr, Mystic, Naga, Nautilus, Necron, Nephilim, Nightmare, Nightstalker, Ninja, Noble, Noggle, Nomad, Nymph, Octopus, Ogre, Ooze, Orb, Orc, Orgg, Otter, Ouphe, Ox, Oyster, Pangolin, Peasant, Pegasus, Pentavite, Performer, Pest, Phelddagrif, Phoenix, Phyrexian, Pilot, Pincher, Pirate, Plant, Praetor, Primarch, Prism, Processor, Rabbit, Raccoon, Ranger, Rat, Rebel, Reflection, Rhino, Rigger, Robot, Rogue, Sable, Salamander, Samurai, Sand, Saproling, Satyr, Scarecrow, Scion, Scorpion, Scout, Sculpture, Serf, Serpent, Servo, Shade, Shaman, Shapeshifter, Shark, Sheep, Siren, Skeleton, Slith, Sliver, Slug, Snake, Soldier, Soltari, Spawn, Specter, Spellshaper, Sphinx, Spider, Spike, Spirit, Splinter, Sponge, Squid, Squirrel, Starfish, Surrakar, Survivor, Tentacle, Tetravite, Thalakos, Thopter, Thrull, Tiefling, Treefolk, Trilobite, Triskelavite, Troll, Turtle, Tyranid, Unicorn, Vampire, Vedalken, Viashino, Volver, Wall, Walrus, Warlock, Warrior, Weird, Werewolf, Whale, Wizard, Wolf, Wolverine, Wombat, Worm, Wraith, Wurm, Yeti, Zombie, and Zubera. *phew* The list lost many types in the Grand Creature Type update. The Unfinity set finally gave it the Robot type, making it a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot. It's also a Mutant Ninja Turtle.
    • See also this comic for several other things it is. Unfortunately, with the GCTU, all of these except "Fish Monger" no longer apply.
    • Magic also has the Phyrexians, Super-Soldier zombie cyborgs.
    • The Mistform Ultimus has somewhat lost its unique status with the Lorwyn block and its introduction of the 'Changelings', shapeshifters with an eponymous ability that grants them every creature type at all times. Amusingly enough, there are also some 'tribal' cards with that ability that aren't themselves creatures at all — Wings of Velis Vel, for example, is an Advisor-Aetherborn-Alien-Ally-...-Wurm-Yeti-Zombie-Zubera spell that temporarily sets a target creature's power and toughness to fixed values and grants it flying and all creature types in turn for the duration too.
    • Apart from the special case of changelings, there are many completely intentional interesting combinations of creature types; recent ones include Minotaur Wizard, Human Ooze, Zombie Plant (and a whole lot of other Zombie combinations).
    • The Unstable joke set introduces the host/augment mechanic as part of the plane's general mad-science theme. Any augment card can be played onto any host card to create a unique half-and-half creature (so you could play Ninja onto Labro Bot to make a Ninja Bot, but you could also play that Ninja onto Adorable Kitten to make a Ninja Kitten, or play Half-Squirrel, Half- onto the Labro Bot to make a Half-Squirrel, Half-Bot.
  • Also from Steve Jackson Games, Munchkin's myriad and sundry genre-spanning sets can all be combined, with minimal rule modifications for doing so. Also present in some individual cards, such as "freezing explosive potion" or "flaming poison potion".
    • Recommended combo for a more or less literal Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot character: Star Munchkin, the new Munchkin Booty, Munchkin Fu, and these rules. For added hilarity, add any of the other sets. Or all. Example: Ninja Pirate Zombie Munchkin can be created using: Ninja (Munchkin Fu + Munchkin Impossible), Munchkin Booty, and Zombie Munchkin.
    • The Munchkin Blender pack is specifically designed to spice up set blending, and includes cards that allow a player to have a character with three races et cetera.
  • Ninja Burger, which combines Ninjas with fast food delivery.
  • Heyo! Guse here! A card in my deck in Sentinels of the Multiverse features me as a ninja pirate zombie robot fanboy... IN SPACE!! I also have a Mr. Chomps plush (which actually exists) and a shirt that reads Play, Power, Draw (the order you follow on turns in the card game. I’m imformative!).
  • The premise of the card game Smash Up, where each player is required to make a deck by combining two unrelated factions. In the base game, the expected Ninjas, Pirates, Zombies and Robots are joined by Aliens, Dinosaurs, Wizards and "Tricksters" (i.e. The Fair Folk).
    • In development, the game was even called PNZR (for Pirate Ninja Zombie Robot).
  • Steve Jackson Games came out with the Fanservice-laden card game SPANC Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls.
    • The relevant "Designer's Notes" column in Pyramid Magazine had a Suspiciously Specific Denial concerning the non-existence of an expansion pack called BDSM: Barbarian Dogboy Space Marines...
  • Z-Man Games has a series of B-Movie card games (all of which can be combined into, well . . .) which take every trope you can think of in a genre, and using it. Titles include Grave Robbers from Outer Space, Bell-Bottomed Badasses on the Mean Streets of Funk, Bushwhacking Varmints out of Sergio's Butte, and Kung-Fu Samurai on Giant Robot Island.
  • The cardgame Zombie Ninja Pirates, which also includes Mad Scientists. Has a standalone sequel called Vampire Werewolf Fairies, which also includes Witches. And they can be combined...

    Comic Strips 
  • Calvin and Hobbes
    • One strip combines a bunch of fighter toys and dinosaur toys in Calvin's imagination to make the new menace of the Mesozoic era: "Tyrannosaurs in F-14s!!"
      Calvin: This is so cool!
      Hobbes: This is so stupid.
    • Calvin also once demanded that his father read him a bedtime story in which the Three Bears eat the Three Little Pigs, and then team up with the Big Bad Wolf to eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood. Then, when Dad sarcastically asks what should happen to Hansel and Gretel, Calvin suggests that the witch should eat them—right before herself getting eaten by the Wolf.
    • And one of Calvin's most memorable fantasies had an engine on a jumbo jet explode, sending the smoking aircraft nosediving down toward the exact same spot where a derailed train is about to crash. That spot lies over a fault line that is just about to experience a record-breaking tectonic shift—and said fault line is right underneath the house of Farmer Brown... who is trying to light a match right next to a kitchen stove that has sprung a gas leak. As he strikes the match, Farmer Brown happens to glance out the window and manages only an involuntary Oh, Crap! reaction before he is violently killed in four ways simultaneously.
  • In Peanuts Lucy once offered to do the cover art for Snoopy's "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" novel. Snoopy suggested "How about some pirates and foreign legionnaires fighting some cowboys while some lions and tigers and bears jump over this girl who is tied to a submarine?"
    • When she did so, his reaction was "Needs more tigers".

    Mythology 
  • The mythological griffin could be seen as an example of this. Part lion (king of the animals) and part eagle (king of the sky) would make it rather awesome for the medieval noble class.
  • The chimaera. It's a lion. And a goat. And a dragon. Why? Just 'cause.
    • One could argue that it was thusly named so as to provide the title of an NCIS episode, solely for the purpose of the fantastic line, "They did not name it 'The Puppy.'"
      • … because they named it "the she-goat."
  • Ancient Egyptian Mythology had creatures like this. They were made up from the parts of ferocious and dangerous animals to, well, depict them as ferocious and dangerous.
    • Tawaret had a lion's head and limbs, a pregnant hippopotamus's body, a crocodile's backside and tail, and sometimes carried a knife. She was a goddess that protected pregnant women and new mothers from any complications.
    • Ammit had a crocodile's head; the mane, front body and legs of a lion; and the hind body and legs of a hippopotamus. She was a demon of the underworld who ate the unpure hearts of deceased ancient Egyptians, thus damning them to nonexistence
  • Vseslav of Polotsk, a Ruthenian/Rus'n prince who attacked Kiev and Novogrod, is in medieval Russian folklore a Werewolf Sorcerer King. Cracked laments that he never invaded Transylvania.
  • The Nue of the Japanese mythology has a monkey's head, a tanuki's body, the legs of a tiger, and the tail of a snake (or alternately, a snake as tail). To complicate matters, it is said to have the call of a thrush, which at a certain period of time is also called Nue.
  • Middle and Eastern Europe folklore of the 16th - 17th has an undead creature named "shroud-eater" or "chewing dead", which is a not-so-dead buried corpse who is eating its shroud (or its own flesh) either because it is hungry or because it cannot leave its grave. It is the ancestor of the modern vampire, but shares some similarities with Revenant Zombie (they mostly pestered their own family) and a kind of Flesh-Eating Zombie which can also drink blood. Oh, and their shroud-gnawing was though to spread plagues. Zombie-Vampire-Plaguemaster, if you want.
  • Believe it or not, most traditional abrahamic angels. Cherubim are described as tetramorphic creatures with four heads, one human, another that of a lion, another that of a bull and another that of an eagle with four avian wings, basically what happens when you mix all the "holy beasts" together. In 2 Enoch, there are angels with a lion's body and a crocodile's head that live in the Sun, clearly following the gryphon shtick to showcase the most badass creature around.

    Podcasts 
  • Mocked in the House To Astonish podcast, in an episode entitled "Zombie Pirate Ninja Monkey Viking Cowboy", in which they complain that this sort of thing often isn't nearly as awesome as it sounds, and diminishing returns are setting in on how awesome it even sounds. What set them off was a comic called Werewolves on the Moon Versus Vampires.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Theatre 

    Theme Parks & Rides 

    Toys 

    Web Animation 
  • Anicopters: Armageddon not only parodies mass-marketing kids shows via having a squadron of animal heads with elemental powers and helicopter rotors, but the Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot trope, as the credits display various characters that didn't even appear in the short, such as Captain Deadsaws (zombie pirate with chainsaw hands), Aborted Potato-Hitlers, Cannon Santa, and even Lucifer. The fake soundtrack credits also include a song titled "GIANT POTATO-HITLER VS. 2,000 VELOCIRAPTORS".
  • DSBT InsaniT: Cell is a Mega Microbe made of water whose brain and entire body is a pink nucleus and whose vacuoles can be fired as projectiles.
  • Angel Dust from Hazbin Hotel is a Gay Drag Queen prostitute gun-running former-gangster spider-demon. As one YouTube commenter astutely pointed out, with that many arms, your gun mob is just you.
  • Homestar Runner dips into this territory now and again
    • In the Strong Bad Email "different town", Strong Bad imagines an idealized town where "Bubs would give away flamethrowers that shoot chocolate hundred-dollar bills"
      Bubs: Imitation chocolate!
    • In "Weclome Back", Strong Bad claims to have done an email while parachuting with narwhals and celebrities, but screwed up the recording.
    • According to "date", Strong Bad keeps Strong Badia secure with a cardboard cut-out of a Bear holding a Shark
    • A minigame in episode one of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is aptly named Snake Boxer V. In the episode "Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective", the Bear holding a Shark plays the role of "a Western Lowland Grizzlysharkasaurusbot... and it's holding a shark!"
    • In "what i want", Strong Bad's Decemberween wish list includes a catapult that launches balls of cobras and a chainsaw-car.
    • In "buried", Strong Bad worries that a bottle cap is actually the trigger for a booby trap that shoots "poison-tipped witch doctors".
    • Strong Bad's science fair display in "caffeine" features a picture of a Shark-Mobile ("Can it work?").
    • During Strong Bad's "Deleteheads fan fiction" in "fan clubs", Strong Sad is attacked b "an 8-foot sub sandwich constrictor" that engsmsploded out of nowhere.
    • In one of the Powered by the Cheat shorts, The Cheat got his new boots from "a cute girl and an astronaut".
  • How to Kill a Mockingbird is made of this trope.
    "And then the pirate's like "No way!" and pulls out his musket. Actually it was more like a laser. Well, a laser sword. With guns on it. And it shot other swords."
    "The ninjas all started flying, and some of them were turning into fireballs, and dinosaurs, and Presidents - wait, not Presidents, I meant volcanoes. The pirates were all flying on their burning sharks, and many of them were shooting angry bears. That were on fire. Cold fire."
  • Blake Belladonna from RWBY is a Ninja bookworm who's also a former terrorist and a Cat Girl.
  • Chris the Ninja Pirate from Weebl & Bob. He's not that cool, though, so he may be a parody of this phenomenon.
    • The pirate being the natural enemy of the ninja, it's possible he's just supposed to represent a Thing That Should Not Be.

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Alternative Title(s): Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie, Cool Awesome Combination, Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot, Pirate Ninja Zombie Robot

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Laser-Shooting Dinosaur

Angus McSix's steed of choice, as shown in a music video aping circa-2000 flash animations, is a cyborg theropod dinosaur that wipes out armies of goblins singlehandedly, and was made of metal from the Moon and assembled in Tokyo by dwarven samurai.

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