Be they cutelittle girls, or perverted old men, if they want to play on your sympathy, they'll turn eyes huge and shining with unshed tears upon you.
Generally, the younger the character doing it is, the more effective.
Often a forerunner to Ocular Gushers. Tareme Eyes enhances the effect. Surprisingly, plays very well with a Cat Smile. Occasionally, the "victim" will respond with something along the lines of "Don't try that trick on me, I invented that trick".
The three sisters in the Read or Die TV series do it en masse at least once.
Shinobu in Love Hina, to whom it seems so natural as to be an integral part of her character, done with unconscious ease. Her very character seems like perpetual Puppy Dog Eyes, as if the concept were incarnated as a character.
Chiyo-chan from Azumanga Daioh rivals Shinobu for use of this trope.
The titular protagonist from Steel Angel Kurumi gets these when she wants to get something done by her master - with varying levels of success.
Nel the Arrancar does this at times in the anime version of Bleach, usually when she's talking to Ichigo.
Ichigo, of all people, pulls this (something similar at least) with Captain Bitchninja in an episode of the Captain Amagai filler arc. It works.
In Fullmetal Alchemist, a bunny does this when the young Elric brothers are about to kill it for food. It works until a fox snatches it to feed her kits instead.
Nagisa from Animal Detectives Kiruminzoo pulls this on Ken in a couple of the earlier episodes. While she's part puppy, actually.
Used of all people by Rei Ayanami at Gendo Ikari in the new Rebuild of Evangelion feature. Succesfully! A bit more subtle than the average anime example, but still obviously present.
Natsu uses this, while wearing an over-sized cat-head (so you can't see his actual expression), it works to get the cat-crazy opponent to loosen his magic-negating bonds.
there's a Porn With PlotHentai set in a Standard Fantasy Setting (I don't know the title, I found it while surfing). The protagonist rescues a muteSex Slave girl, who attempts to "reward" him the only way she knows how. She reaches down to unzip his fly, and he bats her hand away. Cue huge, teary eyes. He rolls his eyes and lets her do her thing.
Episode 1. Taro's 3 personal maids do this when he orders them not to touch him while he's in the bath.
Episode 2. Ikuyo Suzuki (with tears) to Taro, when she thinks that she might be laid off.
Episode 10. Taro's personal maids when he asks to be allowed to dress himself and his maid cooks when he can't eat all the food they've prepared for him.
Episode 15. Ikuyo Suzuki to Taro agian, to persuade him to wear a maid's uniform.
La Verite episode 4. Konoe meets a little lost girl who tears up when Konoe asks who she is.
In an old commercial for Kellog's Corn Pops a teen has to resort to this because there's nothing else he can use against grandma to get the last bowl of cereal.
Fan Works
Miyoko in Kyon: Big Damn Hero when she asks Kyon to go see a movie together.
Latias in A New Chance at Life is fond of using these to get out of trouble, usually after playing a prank on someone.
Several Naruto fanfics usually feature this as a minor genjutsu or ninjutsu.
Pinkie in Turnabout Storm after Phoenix tells her that their investigation does not involve finding oatmeal, much to her dissapointment.
Kyle in the Shark Tale story "Alternate Ending" does this at the end to Lenny.
Film
Bolt had to be taught that but once mastered the trope worked marvels on campers, extracting huge quantities of "Awwwww" and half-eaten hot-dogs. It is significant (and hilarious) that his cat partner failed miserably in that.
Puss-in-Boots◊, in Shrek 2, uses it twice, to devastating effect, as the first use results in him joining Shrek and Donkey on their adventure, the second right before he unleashes a major can of WhoopAss on some guards.
He later makes the same face in Shrek the Third after being body-swapped with Donkey, hoping it will dissuade his enemies from trying to kill him. It doesn't.
He also tried it earlier in the movie on Shrek after the latter put him outside the window. Shrek just closed the curtains, thus making it the first time it didn't work on others for Puss.
He also used it on Donkey in the fourth movie to "borrow his tongue".
The recent spinoff Puss in Boots has Puss using kitty-cat eyes on the prison guard, when trying to convince him to let him go. It almost works.. On the tavern fight scene, he uses it on a DAGGER thrown at him. It turns back and hits the one who threw it. Kitty also did it at one point.
The Direct-to-Video short "The Three Diablos" has three kittens try to outdo Puss, lealding to a kitty-cat eyes standoff. Puss wins.
Pacha's children Chaka and Tipo unsuccessfully deploy these in The Emperor's New Groove, in an attempt to stay up late.
It actually did work; but when they realized their parents were going to be all lovey-dovey they decided bedtime wasn't so bad.
In Road To El Dorado, Miguel deploys this technique to persuade Tulio to gamble for the map to El Dorado.
The two hungry street children in Disney's Aladdin, who gaze imploringly at the title character as he's about to eat some bread.
Giselita does this to Serge and Deni to try and get them to find their mother Giselle in Open Season 3.
In the 2009 Astro Boy film, the title character has mastered this. One might almost think it a factor in Tenma's Heel Face Turn, given how flagrant they were in that scene.
Jake Blues escaped his (and his brother's) certain death in the tunnel by his jilted bride (played by Carrie Fisher) in The Blues Brothers partly this way.
Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movies. Although he doesn't do it too intentionally.
No. He just does it for the entire film trilogy.
The eponymous protagonist of Coraline does this to her mother.
Lucy Pevensie does this in the first Narnia movie in order to get Peter to agree to play hide and seek. It's very effective, although that also might be because Lucy is supposed to be Peter's favorite sister.
This is pretty much Chekov's default facial expression.
Paul manages them quite well, which is helped by his eyes being freaking huge.
Guido and Luigi get them in Cars 2 when they read Mater's depressing farewell letter.
Agnes does it in Despicable Me to postpone the start of the Swan Lake recital for a few minutes. Gru misses it anyway.
Blu does this a lot in Rio.
In The Santa Clause 2 and 3, Lucy is very good at this expression. In the third movie, her parents, Neil and Laura, demonstrate where she gets that ability. No wonder Scott/Santa caves in and takes the Millers to the North Pole, getting the treatment from all three of them.
Red Dog: "All the sad faces in the world ain't gonna work, so you can just stop", John Grant tells Red Dog when they first meet as Red Dog tries to hitch a ride in John's bus. John overestimated his resolve in the face of extreme cuteness.
Loki in Thorin his last scene with Odin when he tells him that he did it all for his family and Asgard. The combined effect is tear-jerking.
Probably the most hilariously inapropriate instance is the freaking alien in Alien: Ressurection, or rather the human-alien hybrid, that has more human-like facial fetures, including, yes, big black eyes.
Literature
A curiously literal version is performed by Kalix in Lonely Werewolf Girl when she transforms fully into her wolf form to look cute for Moonglow at one point.
In the Last Olympian Annabeth does "her big pleading grey eyes thing" on Hermes to get him to give her her mother's message.
In The Angel Experiment, Fang lets Angel keep Total when she gives him "the bambi eyes."
Live Action TV
In Reba, some of the characters did this in some episodes.
In Eight Simple Rules, Kerry is so good at this that the other characters actually gave a name for it: "The Kerry Face".
And House isn't exactly adverse to looking like a kicked puppy when someone hurts him in one of his weak spots, either. His initial reaction to his cane snapping in half in "Safe" and his emotional moments with Stacy are good examples.
Cuddy: I'm here if you need me.
House: ...I need you.
For a more deliberate (and hilarious) version of this trope, see "Deception", where House needs a lab technician to run twenty-nine tests on one cc of blood. She refuses. House compliments her eyes. She starts to say something sardonic and turns — House, chin on a nearby centrifuge, slight sad smile, eyebrows up, gives her a soulful blue look.
She did the tests.
Supernatural - Nobody can resist Sam's Puppy Dog Eyes Of Doom, I repeat, nobody.
Dean is no slouch in the puppy-eyed-and-pouty department when he's feeling particularly angsty, either.
Castiel pulls off this look as well from his very first appearance - probably one of the main reasons he's so popular in the show...
Heroes: Despite being a self-described shark and a Magnificent Bastard (at least initially), Nathan Petrelli has one of the most effective, soul-melting puppy-faced looks in the business (case in point: Into Asylum). ...Damn you, Adrian Pasdar.
Yep. Perma-Bedroom Eyes.
Sylar also manages to pull off this look on occasion, when he's not being completely psycho.
Also Peter, when he's trying to convince Nathan to go along with one of his ideas.
And when he replies "I didn't mean to make 'dog-eyes' at you..." it has the same effect on her.
Part of Willow's Woobie appeal is her ability to do this. Must be something about Alyson Hannigan...
As Joss Whedon put it — "There is nothing more painful in the world than Aly when she makes her big eyes."
Let's not forget Angel himself. At least one reivew of the show placed at least part of the shows success on David Boreanaz's ability to always look like a slapped puppy.
Lampshaded on Hannah Montana, where both Miley and Jackson use it.
Michael Westen: Accomplished spy, brilliant fighter, master of the puppy eyes. In the pilot episode he was talking with an old friend Lucy for some help (just being a burned spy would not be good for Lucy's reputation to help him). As she continued to say "No" he just kept staring at her, eventually making himself look like a puppy putting his paws on the table. Lucy eventually caved.
Djaq (Anjali Jay) and Much (Sam Troughton) from the BBC's Robin Hood were the indisputed masters of the puppy dog eyes. All it took was for either one of them to look sad and you'd have an instant Tear Jerker on your hands.
iCarly: Freddie cannot resist when Carly follows up a request, or asking for a favour with a pouting "Please, for me?"
Chuck from, well, Chuck does this without even knowing whenever he's let down by Sarah, or when he needs to persuade her to help him. Specifically the season 1 finale, when he even had the watery eyes. Come to think of it, Chuck is basically Chuck and Sarah making Puppy Dog Eyes at each other throughout the series. Casey also makes the face after Chuck blows up his precious Crown Vic, and right after his flashback to when Ilsa "dies".
Cassidy Casablancas from Veronica Mars. He doesn't even really try and use them, but he just always looks like that.
Arguably one of the main reasons why Nathan from Misfits is deemed a Jerkass Woobie instead of a plain old Jerkass, is the fact that he keeps giving everyone looks like THIS.◊ Damn him.
Occasionally Richard Hammond on Top Gear. Might not be deliberate: his eyes are naturally large and he quite literally looks up to the very tall Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson likes to lampshade it by pointing out Hammond's resemblance to "that cat in Shrek 2."
Clarkson gets in an epic puppy-dog mope of his own in the S12E6 news segment when he has lost his voice and both his fellow presenters and the audience are merciless.
Davis Bloome played by Sam Witwer in Smallville. Sure when he hulks out he could tear you limb from limb but when he's normal he's got the biggest, most endearing puppy dog eyes in the cast.
Him being a Cosmic Plaything, Rory's big eyes can look permanently sad.
Annie in Community uses this often to manipulate the group.
Glee's Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) can make grown men cry with a mere look.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: DS Barbara Havers, whose large, expressive sage green eyes are more than capable of this, and clue the audience in to her vulnerability when she's covering it up with a scathing remark. It is, in fact, largely because of her eyes that Barbara is such a sympathetic character; if her eyes didn't provide a window into just what a good reason she has to be defensive and prickly, she would come off as a complete bitch in early episodes.
Ziggy from The Wire, oh God, Ziggy of all the characters. Take a look at any scenes where he's upset, but particularly scenes involving Frank, his neglectful and rather disdainful father. For all Ziggy's faults, the jailhouse scene dialogue coupled with his big sad browns is a reason, why some viewers finally warmed up to him.
James Ransone, who plays him, continues this in Generation Kill.
M*A*S*H - Col. Potter pleads with Hawkeye and B.J. to make Maj. Burns feel like part of the gang, and the two consent to it - Hawkeye says "How can I resist those big Colonel eyes?"
The Woobieness of Niles Crane in Frasier at least partly owes itself to the masterful skills of David Hyde Pierce's huge, sad, brown eyes.
He does pull off that look with great success (occasionally earning an exasperated "Don't look at me like that!" from Frasier), but his eyes are blue. Daphne's alluded to their color more than once.
Josh Lyman of The West Wing absolutely owned this trope, particularly the facial expressions that go along with the eyes. He was outmatched only by the even more heartbreaking puppy dog eyes of his assistant, Donna Moss. Josh once explicitly told Donna that he couldn't bear to tell her a particular piece of bad news because her sad eyes haunted him.
Moriarty, the main villain from BBC's Sherlock has large brown eyes that can range from murderous to really cute in the span of two seconds.
Music
Japanese rock band The Pillows recently released a song, titled Tokyo Bambi, that seems to imply this trope. Roughly translated, a line from the second verse is "Whatcha smiling about with those Bambi eyes?"
Newspaper Comics
Parodied in Calvin and Hobbes, where one strip shows Calvin practicing "Bambi eyes" in preparation for asking his mother if he can have a flamethrower. Not surprisingly, it doesn't work.
Video Games
Wendy Oldbag attempts this on occasion in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. She's in her seventies, so it's not exactly successful. Its chief effect is to cause the most common target, Miles Edgeworth, to lose his composure and demand that it stop.
Larry Butz also has them when doing his Ocular Gushers bit. It virtually never works.
Dahlia Hawthorne does this, and it does tend to work until her true nature is revealed.
Her ex-boyfriend, Terry Fawles, does this in the courtroom lobby.
There's a humorous subversion in Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Alrevis. In one of Pamela's Character Quests, she enjoys making medicine that are actually dangerous to anyone who drinks it. Problem is, all the victims (even ROXIS!), although they know of the med's effects, cannot refuse Pamela's offer to test them, because of Pamela's Moe Moe eyes.
This seems to be Pamela's, er... weapon throughout Atelier Series. A far less dangerous example occurs in Atelier Iris 3, involving the quest for decorating the Grimoire Castle's library.
In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, the titular pair does this in an attempt to have the Lord of Games give them their old powers from previous games back...it fails.
He winds up giving them back in the end, however, in case Nuts & Bolts didn't sell well. Not surprisingly, it did, lampshaded by Mumbo in game no less.
Mumbo: Need to put floaters on boat, otherwise, boat sink like this game at retail.
Your Mabari war hound in Dragon Age: Origins can do this to anyone. It even works on Morrigan.
Maybe they should have tried it against the darkspawn horde...
Oddly enough, in Dragon Age II, Fenris of all people has a tendency towards this now and again, at least on a Hawke who's his friend; Merrill even namechecks the trope in a bit of party banter if Fenris is Hawke's love interest. It's remarkably effective, too...
Merrill would know. She's a master of this herself.
Max tries to pull this off in "Abe Lincoln Must Die!" to get into the War Room, but fails.
Mylune, a quest giver in World of Warcraft, says that she'll "give you the big eyes" if you don't save the fawns trapped in a burning forest.
Emi in Katawa Shoujo is rather good at this. Even when Lilly has hardened Hisao, he still falls for it when Emi pulls it.
Web Original
The titular doctor in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog at the beginning of act two. Oddly, he's not trying to garner sympathy. He's just crushed that he inadvertently introduced his archnemesis to the girl of his dreams.
He also has the puppy-eyes after telling his viewers about the failure of his latest crime ("Captain Hammer... threw a car... at my head").
And in another Joss Whedon work, Firefly's resident woobie River sometimes has these in her more vulnerable and traumatized moments.
The Whateley Universe has Jade "Generator" Sinclair and Bunny "Bugs" Cormick. The former looks like a 11 year old girl (she's 14) and the latter, at first glance, appears to be your typical teenage blonde bimbo (when not in Mad Scientist mode). Both are both so good at this that their friends often joke that it's one of their mutant powers. Bugs even managed to win her combat final just by crying.
Jade's version is so powerful it has a Fan Nickname: the Big Sad Puppy Dog Eyes Of Doom.
The Nostalgia Critic's pretty green eyes have a tendency to go puppy-wide whenever he's suffering. This is particularly noticeable in Kickassia, where he stays like that for at least three scenes. (The ham-tastic conversation with Spoony, after he accidentally kills Santa Christ and when he's pinned to the fridge by the others.)
Frequently satirized in webcomics, most notably Marsha Hart's 'anime eyes' ability in College Roomies from Hell!!!!!!, which is almost superhumanly persuasive to the opposite gender.
In thisEl Goonish Shive strip the rest of the main cast uses it for enhanced peer pressure. That is, to get Susan to sing karaoke.
And in this one, in which Sarah, intentionally or unintentionally, uses puppy dog eyes to make the principal allow her to wear a beret. In this one, Sarah does it to show off her general cuteness... err... that is, distract Susan... Yes.
Susan has finally used them too... inadvertently — she's so surprised when told she's doing it that she feels her face to confirm it.
Grace managed to "convince" Ellen and Nanase to agree on a double date with her and Tedd.
Tedd, shocked by his own bout of badassery and in need of a hug.
Subverted in Freefall, where Florence replies to an enormous terraforming robot's use of puppy dog eyes by saying, "Sorry. Puppy dog eyes only work when the eyes aren't bigger than my head."
Jyrras Gianna of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures generally employs these, helped in part by being the same age yet half the size of most of the cast. Lampshaded twice, in one strip where the other character is immune and in another where they are used on him. (Prompting a bemused "That's my gimmick!" when he recovers)
Fighter from 8-Bit Theater supposedly used them on one occasion, but because of the art style of the comic we don't actually see them. As he tried to use them on Black Mage, they didn't work.
A bit more tempered in Avatar The Last Airbender, nonetheless, Aang has used this at least once or twice.
One of the many running gags in Kim Possible was the "puppy dog pout◊". While it doesn't look the same, it's used to the same effect, and it apparently works on every non-villain she knows; besides, Kim has too much self respect to use it on a bad guy. Her mother, Ron, and Rufus have all appropriated it at one time or another.
Not to forget the subversion aspects: in more Troped shows, puppy dog eyes is one of the tactics a cheerleader would be expected to use to get anything she wants, especially from the parents. In Kim Possible, not only does this work seemingly on anyone, it more specifically works when a mother uses it on her daughter.
These aren't actually exceptions to the above rule — they were on the same side at the time.
Miss Go's looks◊ the◊ most◊ like puppy dog eyes then anyone else's in the series.
In Wolverine and the X-Men Toad of the Brotherhood breaks out the most pathetic cutie-face an anti-hero has probably ever worn when Quicksilver refuses to rescue him from mutant-jail. The large eyed pout is accompanied by a small-voiced "You... you're dumping me? But... but why?"
It doesn't work, but that just might be because Quicksilver is a cold-hearted bastard.
Looney Tunes: Charlie Dog uses the "big, soulful eyes routine" when wooing prospective owners.
Another Looney Tunes example: in Broom-stick Bunny, Bugs Bunny pulls this on Witch Hazel, who is about to cook him. She relents because Bugs reminds her of Paul, "my pet tarantula."
And another Looney Tunes example: the little penguin Bugs ends up protecting against his will. Chuck Jones couldn't resist using 'em.
In Teen Titans, this is taken a step further. Beast Boy can morph his entire body into that of an adorable kitten so he can do puppy dog eyes with his entire face◊
AAAAAAAAAWWW!!!
Johnny Test parodies this when the title character gives multiple people this look, which is referred to as simply "The Look", with a sad song on a tape player.
Yin and Yang use this to get master Yo buy them stuff in Yin Yang Yo.
Dudley does this often. Since he's an actual puppy, it's funnier that way.
An episode of House of Mouse has Max trying this in order to convince Goofy to buy him a car. It works.
Chowder attempted this on Mung. He caved less because of the eyes and more because he stretched out a please so long it became irritating.
On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise tries doing this, accompanied with the phrase "I feel bad about it now," to try and appease Jimmy when she does something he disapproves of. It rarely works.
In fact, she's tried doing this several times when trying to attract him. Jimmy, being Jimmy, doesn't notice.
Subverted in Ren and Stimpy - Ren's eyes are already bugged out of their sockets; this takes it a few disturbing steps further.
"Don't do that too long, or your face might stick that way!" The faces of Precious Moments figurines and the characters of the five Precious Moments animated specials did stick that way. Not only are they stuck in a Super-Deformed proportion, but the upper eyelid is at such an angle that the shape of the whole eye suggests a teardrop, and the iris and pupil are large enough that the white shows up only at the bottom of the teardrop.
Done by Bugs Bunny (towards the audience) in What's Opera, Doc?, after he hears Fudd singing "Kill the wabbit".
In an episode of King of the Hill Hank's friends are trying to find out why Alamo Beer isn't in stock and Peggy knows the secret, and Hank says "Aw Boomhauer don't give me those basset hound eyes" and Boomhauer has his usual expression.
