Protection in Mouth

"Mouth."^note From a fanmade finishing of the unfinished ''Rhinestone Eyes'' music video.

"Unorthodox" was putting it lightly. As it turned out, Plan B stood for Plan Bella, and involved them all facing a prospect that would give any civilized animal pause: being eaten alive.

— Born to Be Wilde

A Gentle Giant, Dire Beast, or even just a normal person travelling alongside Lilliputians are naturally going to be able to take much more damage and travel faster than their smaller bretheren. By this logic, the easiest way to get around quickly is for one to carry the other, demeaning as it may be. Some carry their friends in pockets, or in hands. This is about the least pleasant option.

Racked for time and ideas, a larger character may simply shove the smaller one into their mouth and make off with them. This will likely be met with disgust from the other participant, and is almost always done for protection or transport (or, on occasion, to hide them from someone kept out of the loop). Cue bulged cheeks and Let Us Never Speak of This Again upon being spat out.

Usually doesn't result in getting Swallowed Whole, unless the participant is that big and Getting Eaten Is Harmless. If the two are already close and all the smaller party sees is their friend's jaws rushing at them, it may be Mistaken for Betrayal. If willing, it's a friendly version of Eat Me. Sub-Trope of Eaten Alive. When done non-fatally but the eater refuses to release them, it may be Caged Inside a Monster. Compare with Stomach of Holding in regards to storing items in the body. Sister trope to Kangaroo Pouch Ride, for carrying someone physically inside a part of your body, only less species-specific.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Digimon Adventure: Recovering from his earlier Mind Control, Whamon helps the Digidestined escape Metalseadramon by taking him in his mouth and diving deep underwater, reflecting a kinder personality since he previously swallowed them maliciously.
• Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan: Organic Transformed Flyers are dragons disguised with technology as fighter planes. In order to protect the driver inside, the dragon swallows them whole, and allows them to issue commands safely from inside their armoured bodies.
• One Piece: In the Whole Cake Island Arc, the giant fish man Wadatsumi (after his Heel–Face Turn) was able to protect the Straw Hats from the Big Mom Pirates by pulling their ship underwater and placing it in his mouth so they could sneak by the enemy ships unnoticed.

Comic Book

• The Dark Knight Strikes Again: While rescuing Ray Palmer from his captors (who'd been keeping him forcibly shrunk small enough to keep in a petri dish), Carrie puts him in her mouth to keep her hands free. Unfortunately in the confusion of the escape she ends up accidentally swallowing him, leading to a Vomit Indiscretion Shot (though Ray was none the worse for wear afterwards).
• Fritz the Cat: 'Superstar' opens with Fritz in one of his usual lecherous antics, bothering an alligator woman until she gets annoyed enough to chase him back to his estate. While wrestling in one room, he gets a sudden visitor, and has her answer the door for him. She pretends to have not seen him until Fritz realizes the visitor has arrived to help him with his taxes. Fritz reveals himself to have been hiding inside the alligator, leaning out of the woman's mouth to hold a conversation until she finally gets sick and spits him out.
• A malicious example in Justice League 3000: Resident Reality Warper Locus spares Hal from her wrath by shrinking him and tossing him into her mouth, but only so she can kill his friend, send the rest of his teammates to another planet, and then freely have her way with him.
• Lanfeust: In the comic's universe, trolls despise water for its cleaning properties. To this end, every time he has to go into the water, the troll Hébus puts his flies in his mouth to keep them safe.

Comic Strips

• Garfield: One strip has Garfield hiding a mouse from Jon in this manner, and very nearly swallowing him in the process.

Fan Works

• Born to Be Wilde: When it becomes clear that the protagonists can't use the normal route to Narwhalter's underwater base, they take Plan B — riding inside the mouth of Bella Blue, a friendly whale, in order to make it down safely.
• Show Me The Way To Go Home: After negotiations with the Seaponies go awry, Sunset's ability to breathe underwater is magically revoked, immediately subjecting her to the crushing pressure and lack of oxygen. She's barely saved from this process by Adagio, who eats her and regurgitates her once they're safely on dry land.

Films — Animated

• Finding Nemo:
  • Dory and Marlin are at the mercy of the seagulls, when Nigel the pelican realizes he is looking at Nemo's dad. He flies over and tells them to hop inside his mouth if they want to live. Nigel scoops up both Dory and Marlin in his beak along with a swig of water and flies away. Keeping Dory and Marlin safe in his pouch, he gets them away from the seagulls and where they need to be.
  • Early in the film, a whale 'eats' Dory and Marlin for seemingly natural reasons. By the end of their trip, it turns out he chose to only hold them in his mouth, and the climactic 'swallow' was rather him sending them out the blowhole to their destination.
  • In the character interviews for Finding Dory, Destiny claims Dory used to use her mouth as a hiding spot in hide and seek.
• Ice Age: Continental Drift: Through much of the movie, Granny makes reference to her pet 'Precious', which is never seen and assumed to be nonexistent by the others. In the climax, the pet finally reveals itself to be a whale loyal to its owner who saves both of them from danger. To reach the final battle, the two commandeer her as a submarine and save Manny from falling to his death with a well-timed mouth catch.
• Kung Fu Panda 4: The pelican Chip keeps her son in her beak the entire time they're together, allowing him to 'steer' her onto land and duck inside unless he needs to talk.
• Attempted in Rudolph's Shiny New Year. Big Ben the Whale meets with Rudolph in the middle of the ocean, and this idea occurs to him first. When it becomes clear that this makes communication difficult (and Rudolph just generally dislikes the idea of spending the entire trip inside something's mouth), they elect to let him ride on Ben's head instead.
• The Sea Beast: Maisie and Crow initially think themselves swallowed as food by the Red Bluster, only for it to turn out to be this, as it only ever holds them on its tongue.
• Shark Tale: While attending a hostage negotiation with the Shark Mafia for Oscar's love interest Angie, Oscar pretends not to care and plays up his tough image by having Lenny the Shark (disguised as a dolphin) "eat" Angie, possibly inspired by Lenny's earlier near-swallowing of him. Unfortunately, Oscar stays too long to gloat, and it suddenly becomes relevant again that Lenny can't stand the taste of fish when he spews her out onto the table from where he hid her in his cheeks.

Films — Live-Action

• Aquaman (2018): In order to hide from Orm and his men, Arthur and Mera take refuge inside the mouth of a whale he commands to his will. Mera is not amused to find out Arthur came up with this idea because he Saw It in a Movie Once.
• Where the Wild Things Are: To hide Max from a rampaging Carol, KW places Max inside her mouth... maybe. Her anatomy is more like a sock than a stomach and esophagus, so Max mostly rests in her chest despite no swallowing being done.

Literature

• Animorphs: In ''The Prophecy'' the Animorphs come up with a complex plan to assault a Yeerk pool that involves Cassie morphing into an osprey and carrying the others in flea morph in her mouth, then rapidly demorphing mid-air and re-morphing into a humpback whale before landing in the pool. Her whale morph's giant mouth then acting as a shelter for the other Animorphs while they morph into their battle morphs.
• Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.: Sally is horribly afraid of ghosts and other undead so in order to get her through a location full of them, Maple transforms into her kaiju mode and carries Sally in her mouth. Sally notes that it's only just barely not worse than having to see the ghosts.
• Downplayed in Boojum when Black Alice ends up merging with the Lavinia Whateley by crawling into the mouth of the Living Ship and letting it eat her. The only alternative is a Fate Worse than Death by being turned into a Brain in a Jar by the Mi-Go.

Live-Action TV

• Ahsoka: When the Eye of Sion escapes to the other galaxy and the protagonists have no means of pursuing, Ahsoka gets the idea to hitch a ride in a mouth of a massive Purgill, which can naturally fly between galaxies
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch: In The Great Mistake, while briefly shrunk down due to magic reasons, Sabrina gets up onto her bed from the ground floor by asking Salem to carry her in his mouth. Neither are particularly pleased by the event when they relate it later.
  Salem: It took all my self control not to eat her.

Music

• Gorillaz: In the plot of Plastic Beach, while briefly giant, Russel runs into Noodle out in the ocean (recovering from having her ship blown up), and the two reunite with the rest of the gang. Initially he carries her on his head, but while approaching the chaos ensuing at Plastic Beach, he protects her inside his mouth. The very last shot of the scrapped music video for "Rhinestone Eyes" (which later got a finished fan version) is this reveal, with Noodle slowly crawling out from between Russel's lips.

Video Games

• New Pokémon Snap: In the Reef (Day) stage, Pyukumuku can be found sheltering in the mouths of Pelipper. You can throw an Illumina Orb at the Pelipper to make it open its mouth and get a 4-star photo of Pyukumuku.
• Pokémon: Pelipper in general is this trope, as they're described in many Pokedex entries across the game as using their bills to carry Pokemon and their eggs. The above example is one of the few times we get to see it on-screen.
• Sonic Heroes: During their fire attack, Vector carries the other members of his team (rolled up into Spindash forms) in his jaws, evoking the real life behavior of mother crocodiles towards their children.
• Utawarerumono: In one skit, Camyu is playing hide-and-seek with Aruruu and can't find her. She then decides to ask Mukkuru where Aruruu might be. When she notices that the giant cat seems awfully nervous she decides to give him a good tickle which results in him spitting out Aruruu. Turns out she was using his mouth as a hiding spot. Cue Spit Take from Hakuowlo who was watching the whole thing.

Webcomics

• Wanderlost: "Out to Sea" has Sheldon the pig getting saved from sharks by a friendly whale named Tuvia, who allows him to camp out inside her until he can decide where he's going. The two hit it off swimmingly, and when they part Tuvia provides him with a television, fridge, and generator from inside her to keep him company on his desert island.
• Work Sucks: While shrunken down and trying to save Gayle from Kaz' jilted ex-coworker, Terra liberates a vomit-inducing pill from his pocket to save him from said coworker's sentient tail. Upon being freed, Gayle reveals that he had quickly popped her into his mouth to carry her out with him. Neither comment on this, likely already used to being eaten from workplace experience.

Western Animation

• Brandy & Mr. Whiskers: In the pilot, Lola Boa, already fairly fed up with Mr Whiskers, rescues him from being stewed in a pot by simply demanding he get in her mouth. Upon refusing, she grabs him in it anyway and slithers off.
• Bunnicula: In 'Prism Prison', Harold the Dog finds out that all vampires are held captive inside the titular prison and subjected to sunlight in order to weaken them. While saving his vampire rabbit companion, he gets the idea to pick him up in his mouth and let Bunnicula regenerate his strength in there. However, when he realizes soon after he can't let the other (human) vampires stay here, he confidently pops the muscles in his jaw, and in the next scene we see him carrying every vampire at once in his cheeks.
  • Much earlier in the pilot, he's forced into this position by Chester. When the cat needs a place to hide from a rampaging mummy-monkey, he wrenches the dog's jaws open and shoves himself inside. Harold doesn't complain (apparently enjoying the taste) and escapes the monkey fairly easily, spitting out Chester at the feet of their owner... who also doesn't see anything off about it.
    Mina: You guys can be so weird sometimes.
• The Garfield Show: In "Honey, I Shrunk the Pets", Garfield gets shrunk down by Nathan and he asks Odie to carry him in his mouth at one point. Naturally, he doesn't forget to comment on Odie's bad breath.
• Gigantosaurus: A completely unintentional example. In Don't Cave In, the protagonists decide to take shelter in a cave filled with sharp rocks. Come morning, surprise surprise, it turns out to have been the open mouth of local Gentle Giant Gigantosaurus. Although unintended, the 'cave' served its job giving the characters a safe place to spend the night, since nobody would dare approach the massive dinosaur anyway.
• Hilda: On their quest to return a overdue library book, Hilda, Frida, and the Librarian take part of the journey inside the mouth of a large fish. When questioned how she knew it wouldn't swallow them, Frida explains that she noticed how it avoided eating the much smaller fish around it. As they leave, it gives a Burp of Finality before flopping back into the water.
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: In Paw of the Jaguar, Kipo and Co need to find their way to the Chevre Sisters, a mysterious trio of goat Mute siblings. In order to be brought to them, they're forcibly grabbed by a pair of pigs and carried to be spat out at their destination.
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Playing up the My Beloved Smother personality of Bubbie, Flapjack is shown to literally live in her mouth when he's not out and about.
  Bubbie: "He doesn't live with me. He lives inside me. My mouth. He lives inside my mouth. That sounds weirder than it is."
• In the Miraculous Ladybug episode "Kwamibuster", Marinette takes all of the kwamis to face the titular villain. She uses the Mouse miraculous to split herself into several miniature duplicates, and then each miniature Marinette hops into the mouth of a kwami to be flown to the fight, commanding them like horses.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: In 'Operation Antarctica', Private starts a Predator-Prey Friendship with the leopard seal Hunter. A maneuver the two develop together involves her picking him up in her mouth and tossing him, mimicking her natural way of hunting penguins. While it's occasionally performed for fun, it's primarily used for locomotion, and is done one final time at the end of the episode to save Private from the rest of Hunter's kind.
• In Rocko's Modern Life, Rocko was able to save a large group of bugs from the bug eating Mr. and Mrs. Bighead by asking Mrs. Bighead if he could snack on some bugs and continues until they're all in his mouth with his cheeks bigger then his body. When he rushes back to his home next door, he spits them out in disgust and rapidly cleans the inside of his mouth with toothpaste and mouthwash.
  Bug: Hey, it was no picnic for us either.
• Sanjay and Craig: A rare unwilling example on part of the predator. In order to hide when the police are called on them, Sanjay hides himself and the neighbor's baby brother forcibly inside Craig, leaving him with a Balloon Belly and unable to move until he's wheeled away on a stretcher.
• Teen Titans: After their T-Sub is destroyed, the Titans find themselves stranded underwater and rapidly drowning. Beast Boy thinks quickly and saves them with a whale transformation, and they (hesitantly) use the same method to leave.
• Timon & Pumbaa:
  • In Rome Alone, it is demanded by Quint that Simba eat Timon and Pumbaa. They play along to make it seem as if he has, holding the two of them in his cheeks and then taking the excuse to leave. Cramped inside his mouth, Pumbaa and Timon start a fight, forcing Simba to spit them out and ruin their plan.
  • Unlucky in Lesotho has Pumbaa trying to hide a panther cub from Timon. In his panic at one point, he shoves the cub in his mouth, only for it to begin playing with his uvula like a scratching post. He's forced to sit still and pretend everything's alright even as his mouth's occupant makes it a painful experience.
• Total DramaRama: During a game of Hide and Seek in season 2, Owen tries to utilize this trope with a wild snake by letting it swallow him. Unfortunately subverted, as the snake clearly has a hard time getting him down, and he's immediately found out by the seeker.
• An especially silly example from We Bare Bears, where in the episode "Chloe and Ice Bear" as the pair sneak in to a museum after hours, they briefly "hide" from the guards while in one of the displays by having Chloe resting in Ice Bear's jaws. Somehow, the guards don't pay any mind of the "statue" of a polar bear eating a little girl amidst a bunch of tigers eating a gazelle.

Real Life

• Alligators and crocodiles will carry hatchlings in their mouths to transport them to safe waters while protecting them from predators. It's not like they have a choice: crocodilian limbs are just not designed for grasping things.
• Mouthbrooding fish carry their eggs in their mouths until they hatch. Some of them do the same with their babies after they hatch, which increases their chance of survival.
• Gastric-brooding frogs take this further by incubating their eggs inside the female's stomach, a feat achieved by the eggs and tadpoles secreting compounds that shut down the frog's stomach acid production.

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