Rainbows and unicorns are commonly paired together in modern works. Although the two weren't traditionally linked in older unicorn folklore and mythology, the association does make more than a bit of sense. Both rainbows and unicorns embody beauty, magic, and rarity.
There are several ways this trope can manifest:
- Unicorns appearing near rainbows
- Unicorns being able to control or manipulate rainbows in some way
- Unicorns having rainbow-colored body parts, commonly the mane and tail
- Unicorns leaving a rainbow trail when they run or fly
- In a more disgusting route, rainbows could be the color of a unicorn's bodily fluid, whether it be excrement, vomit, or blood
Sub-Trope of Everything's Better with Rainbows, Rainbow Motif, and Unicorn.
Examples
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Advertising
- The Truth Initiative's "It's A Trap
" ad has a unicorn puking a rainbow in front of a young woman to warn her that cigarette smoking "is a trap".
Art
- Lisa Frank is an artist well-known for making fun, playful designs for school supplies and other materials geared for children. Her artwork depicts neon- and rainbow-colored stylizations of animals, including unicorns with rainbow horns, manes, and tails.
Films — Animation
- Inside Out: Rainbow Unicorn is a unicorn actress with a rainbow-colored mane and tail who apparently features in Riley's dreams, alluding to the mystical characteristics of rainbows and unicorns.
- The LEGO Movie: Cloud Cuckoo Land, which can be reached by driving up a rainbow, is the home of Uni-Kitty, a combination of a Unicorn and a Cute Kitten. She is later seen walking on a rainbow-colored arch.
- In Turning Red, a sticker of a unicorn with a rainbow-colored mane is featured on the cellphone of one of Mei's classmates, likely as a reference to Rainbow Unicorn of Inside Out.
Literature
- How the Crayons Saved the Unicorn: The eponymous unicorn has a rainbow horn, mane, and tail. Interestingly, he loses his colors due to sadness over not having many friends and needs the titular crayons' help to both regain his colors and make some friends.
- I'm Basically a Unicorn: The titular unicorn has a rainbow mane and tail.
- It's Okay To Be A Unicorn: One reason regular horses are prejudiced against unicorns is because they think the latter fart rainbows.
- My Magical Unicorn: The titular unicorn has a rainbow-colored mane, tail, and hooves.
- Nerdycorn: In the first page of the book, a bunch of unicorns are seen jumping among rainbows.
- Unicorn (and Horse): Unicorn has rainbow hair and can create rainbow trails.
- Unicorn and Yeti: The series features a unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail.
- Unicorn Day: One of the unicorns has a rainbow-colored horn.
- Xander and the Rainbow-Barfing Unicorns: The series stars zombie unicorns who puke rainbows.
- You Don't Want a Unicorn!: The unicorn in question appears in a poof of rainbows and leaves behind a rainbow trail as it flies.
Live-Action TV
- Legends of Tomorrow: In the season 4 opening "The Virgin Gary", the Legends encounter a unicorn that leaves a rainbow behind as she walks.
Music
- "Space Unicorn", by Parry Gripp and Brianne Drouhard, whose lyrics talk about the eponymous unicorn "delivering the rainbows." It received a slight Colbert Bump after being featured in two episodes of Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
Video Games
- If you combine a rainbow with a horse in Alchemy Fusion 2, you get a unicorn.
- Battle Racing Stars: Zombie T-Rex has a "Dinocorn" skin, which gives him a unicorn features, such as white skin, a horn, and a rainbow-colored mane, parts of which shuffle between each other during the idle animation. Additionaly, it can be combined with a Super Rainbow trail, to give Z-Rex Colorful Contrails of rainbow when using the boost button.
- Guild Wars 2:
- The legendary shortbow "The Dreamer" looks like a pastel-colored unicorn, produces visual effects of unicorns and rainbows when used, and its wielders trail rainbows and leave rainbow horseshoe footprints as they move.
- In player-vs-player combat, victors can celebrate with a "rainbow unicorn finisher"— a unicorn rearing up as a rainbow and sparkles blast above their enemy's corpse.
- The legendary shortbow "The Dreamer
- In Monster Sanctuary, the Qilin's light-shifted form has a rainbow-coloured mane. It's also based on the modern, unicorn-like depictions of the qilin, since it has one horn.
- Weaponized in Red Faction: Armageddon with the Lethal Joke Item Mister Toots, a tiny unicorn who farts rainbow lasers from his butt.
- Robot Unicorn Attack: The titular unicorn has a rainbow mane and tail and produces rainbows when dashing.
- Skylanders: Whirlwind is a half-unicorn who fires rainbow energy blasts from her horn.
- Terraria: You get an achievement called "Rainbows and Unicorns" for firing the rainbow gun while riding a unicorn.
Web Animation
- In the Charlie the Unicorn parody ''charlie teh unicron", Pink vomits a rainbow for no reason.
- In Mr. Weebl's "Unicorn", a leprechaun swears vengeance against the local unicorn because it keeps generating rainbows that show everyone where his gold is.
Web Comics
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Sparklelord is a unicorn with a rainbow-colored mane in his home dimension. When transported to McNinja's dimension, he takes the form of a sentient motorcycle with flippin' sweet rainbow markings on it. However, Gordito mocks him for looking like a Lisa Frank creation.
Web Videos
- The viral internet song "Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows", by Andrew Huang, is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: it has exactly one lyric. Three guesses as to what it's about. Halfway through, he even tests an audience of children who sound suspiciously like him about what color the unicorns are, where they're dancing, and the texture of their fur. They get two out of three right.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: Lady Rainicorn and the rest of her species are half-rainbow, half-unicorn.
- Dorg Van Dango: A lot of Jet the unicorn's bodily substances, such as his spit and farts, are rainbow-hued. It also shows in the Mind-Control Eyes of victims of his hypnosis powers.
- Dr. Dimensionpants: Phillip the unicorn has tri-colored (pink, yellow, and blue) rainbow hair.
- My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony (G3):
- Rarity is a unicorn pony whose mane is dark pink, orange, and yellow, while her tail is blue, green, and purple. Additionally, her heart-shaped cutie mark is surrounded by rainbow swirls.
- Rainbows are created by magical unicorns. Without the first rainbow of the season rainbow colors fade, rainbowberries won't grow, and no other rainbows will appear again. The show even has the ponies riding on and sliding down rainbows at one point.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Princess Celestia is a Winged Unicorn whose mane and tail are blue, green, pink, and purple. Similarly, her adopted niece Princess Cadance has a mane and tail composed of pale gold, rose, and violet.
- Played with by Rainbow Dash. While she has a rainbow mane, tail, and (lightning bolt-shaped) cutie mark, she's a Pegasus as opposed to a unicorn. She leaves a rainbow trail whenever she flies fast, and whenever she breaks the maximum speed barrier, she bursts out an explosion of colors called a "Sonic Rainboom". One "Sonic Rainboom" became a catalyst that brought the Mane Six together.
- Also played with are the other pegasi who oversee the weather throughout Equestria via a cloud factory in Cloudsdale. One of their tasks is to extract and refine the colors of the rainbow.
- My Little Pony (G3):
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Hail Doofania!", Phineas and Ferb are eating from a cereal box with a rainbow and unicorn on it.
- Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty: The eponymous character is a unicorn-cat-rainbow-butterfly hybrid. Normally, she appears as a horned cat with a rainbow color palette. However, she can transform into four other forms (rainbow, butterfly, unicorn, kitty) with unique powersets.
- Rainbow Rangers: Floof (the page image) is a Prismacorn, a unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail.
- Both She-Ra: Princess of Power and the Continuity Reboot She-Ra and the Princesses of Power feature Swift Wind, a unicorn with rainbow-colored wings who functions as Adora's magically-empowered steed.
- Spongebob Squarepants: In "Wishing You Well", the title character says "you'll ride unicorns on rainbows" during his song about the magic of wishing wells.
- Yin Yang Yo!: Rainbow Mane, who is the leader of the Twonicorns, has rainbow hair, a rainbow tie, and rainbow argyle socks.
