The exact opposite of Perpetual Frowner. This is a character who, no matter what, is never seen without a smile of some kind. A Stepford Smiler would be a sub-trope, one who smiles because that's all they can do to keep from breaking. A Cat Smile or Cheshire Cat Grin can also be their perpetual expression. A Perpetual Smiler's smile can change, and the emotions behind it can be literally anything... so long as there is something that can be called a 'smile' on their face. Usually, though, this smile is pleasant and cheerful, or at least calm, and often, the feeling behind it is genuine, so The Unsmile doesn't usually appear. Compare to Glasgow Grin, where the smile is ear-to-ear and usually inflicted by cutting.
As a Super-Trope of those listed above, all examples of them should be sorted into their respective categories. This page is only for examples of this trope who do NOT fit into the other perpetual-smile categories.
Examples:
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Advertising
Jack the Clown in the "Jack In The Box" TV commercials, who's been appearing as a living, ball-faced humanoid since 1995. It disappears when he's particularly perturbed, though.
Smilin' Bob from the Enzyte commercials. His smile is particularly creepy...
Wolfgang Grimmer from Monster doesn't even stop smiling as he bleeds to death. He is a pleasant person but the smile is just something he was trained to do.
Konata Izumi from Lucky Star has a Cat Smile that, while not quite perpetual, is her default expression.
Raquel from Scrapped Princess is perennially cheerful no matter what's going on.
Elmer C. Albatross of Baccano! is always smiling and happy. He'd be The Messiah were it not for the fact that there are times where one shouldn't be smiling and jokey, so he just comes across as creepy. Oh, and he's friends with Huey Laforet.
Kaede of Mahou Sensei Negima! is always smiling mysteriously, to go along with her Eyes Always Shut. She isn't actually very mysterious as a character, having no secrets to hide, she just looks it. Unless she's so good at hiding secrets that we don't even suspect them.
Albireo Imma Ku:Nel Sanders also has a perpetual Cheshire Cat Grin, although he's generally much more suspicious than Kaede.
Ryuk from Death Note. It's creepy. He only broke it once when Light snapped at him after Offering the eyes after meeting L.
D.Gray-Man has the Millennium Earl, who smiles even when he's pissed.
Takeshi Yamamoto from Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, for the most part. When he stops smiling though, you had better start hoping you can run faster than the baseball player, because you're about to get screwed over epically because Yamamoto is ticked off.
The Joker, obviously (his appearance was based partly on the Laughing Man). So perpetual is his scary grin that if he ever stops grinning for an extended period of time, it's like his version of the Broken Smile, and it's a sure sign that either something has very definitely gone wrong with him (more so than usual, that is), or the proverbial crap has gotten seriously real.
There's also Mad Harriet who's smile is quite similar to the Joker.
For the first portion of his appearance in Transmetropolitan, Presidental candidate Gary Callahan is one of these. That's why they call him "The Smiler" (also to contrast with incumbent "The Beast"). He rapidly loses the quality once he starts dealing with Spider Jerusalem.
The Smiler from Transmetropolitan. He must be under great pressure before the raised corners of his mouth even twitch.
The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme Qui Rit) is a man who literally cannot stop smiling as he has no cheeks (he was kidnapped by gypsies as a baby, who mutilated him like this to make money showing him off). His picture currently illustrates the Slasher Smile page.
Most of the toys from the Toy Story series are this in their 'toy' mode.
Atom in Real Steel. His face (if he has one) is obscured by a metallic mesh that only shows his eyes, but there are seams in the mesh that resemble a nose ridge and a smile. It helps highlight his child-like appearance, which is most noticeable when his Shadow Function is activated.
"The bastard never stops smiling, too. You notice that? Always with the damned grin on his puss. I don't trust somebody who grins all the time - it usually means they found someone else to put the blame on."
This is a characteristic of sculpture from the Archaic period. One notable example is the "Dying Warrior from the Temple of Aphaia", which depicts a wounded man pulling an arrow from his chest... with a cheerful smile.
The older kind more so; newer ones (from around the mid-to-late nineties on) have plenty of frowns, neutral expressions, and other miscellaneous emotions to perpetually display. Some of their heads can be turned around for different expressions.
Within that, Flex from Alpha Team is said to always smile "even when danger threatens".
A Robot Chickensketchlampshaded this to creepy effect by depicting a spaceship accident resulting in the astronauts inside burning, their faces still stuck in Perpetual Smiler mode while screams were overdubbed. Despite the sketch's Black Comedy, it crosses into nightmarish, especially when one of the firemen yells "Their faces! Their horrible faces!" before another cut to them smiling/screaming.
Maxwell in Scribblenauts is always smiling, even when he's getting eaten alive or otherwise mauled.
Evil Otto in the early 1980s arcade game Berzerk, who is basically a smiley button, who comes onscreen to chase after the player and to electrocute him, passing through walls and destroying robots along the way. On top of that, he's also invulnerable. Designer Alan MacNeil put Evil Otto in the game because he hates smiley buttons.
Evil Otto also appears in the game sequel Frenzy, but he loses that smile when the player can now shoot him down.
Inazuma Eleven's 3D character models have fixed expressions. Characters who smile will smile even though the ball hits them. Masaru Gojou always has a rapist's face, and Hijikata will never stop grinning.
Miranda in Mass Effect rarely drops the grin she wears. Even when it looks like the suicide mission will become just that, she still looks happy.
Poppy Bros from the Kirby series has this to imply a Mad Bomber vibe.
Visual Novel
Leo Shishigami, protagonist of Rose Guns Days, never drops neither his smile, nor his laid-back attitude. The very few times he does, you know he is really serious.
Phineas from Phineas And Ferb rarely changes to any other expression - in the whole series, he was only truly sad during the Christmas Special, and once angry and frantic in Summer Belongs To You!. Isabella could count, too, but she's more prone to expressing anger than the eponymous Everyman.
In the cartoon of Where's Waldo?, Waldo almost always smiles.
Ed the hyena from The Lion King is always smiling the only instances he doesn't smile is when he's trying to warn Banzai and Shenzi that Simba and Nala are escaping and later when hears Scar outing them as the reasons why he's evil.
Galaxy Rangers: Zozo is a very cheerful and laid back guy, even in the middle of a brawl with guys twice his size. It's not like he can't stop smiling, it just takes a lot for him to choose not to.
Whatever he's actually feeling, Bull Gator is, in verbiage and tone, almost invariably cheerful and collected about the situation. Even when he's facing down a Tasmanian Devil who regards mauling him as good, clean, Sunday-afternoon fun.
In Thomas The Tank Engine, the titular character kept his grin throughout the whole entire episode of "Thomas And Trevor".
Otto from Time Squad is this. Even when he gets sad or angry, he ends up bouncing back up eventually.
Real Life
This is a symptom of the Angelman Syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by development delay, speech impediment, movement or balance disorder, and frequent laughter and smiling.
A running theme of the 2012 United States presidential debates. In the first debate, Mitt Romney smiled constantly and was complimented for his confident body language, while Barack Obama was roundly criticized for his annoyed and detached expression. During the vice presidential debates, Joe Biden noticeably made an effort to gain lost ground by smiling broadly throughout the debate and laughing frequently. Although some criticized his excess, he was roundly considered to have won the debate. In the second presidential debate, Obama smiled confidently far more often, obviously in response to previous criticism.
Judah P. Benjamin, Jewish Senator and Secretary of State of the Confederate States of America, was almost always photographed with a smug little smirk. Because it was so unusual in the 19th century to purposefully smile in photographs, this was apparently his default expression.
Colonel (ret.) Gail Halvorsen, USAF. And HOW! In every single picture of this guy, from 1948 to 2012, he's wearing a huge, ridiculous smile. Definitely justified in that it was his idea to drop candy on Berlin during the famous Airlift.
