History Main / MegaMicrobes

Some varieties of Mega-Microbes can overlap with the BlobMonster. More often than not, they will be portrayed as MonstrousGerms with eyes, jaws, pincers or tentacles.

-->--'''Creator/KarlPilkington''', ''WesternAnimation/TheRickyGervaisShow''

* Used in ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', with a single-celled cold virus grown to the size of a cucumber. Yes, they did call it a "[[TaxonomicTermConfusion single-celled virus]]".

* [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/the-bacterium-part-one This story]] at the Wiki/SCPFoundation site, as well as [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-371 SCP-371.]]

** The Meba, the mooks in ''Series/DoubutsuSentaiZyuohger'' are also humanoid amoeba. [[spoiler: Ginis, the BigBad, is revealed to be a conglomeration of these creatures, which fueled a massive inferiority complex.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Unity}}'' has, in the [[https://beesbuzz.biz/comics/unity/invasion/ Invasion story arc]], a number of sentient single-celled organisms which the colonists end up calling "macrobes."

* Another very large single-celled organism is ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa Valonia ventricosa]]'', the bubble algae, which averages 1 to 4 centimeters across.

* The Baomea {{Mooks}} of ''Series/BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger'' are humanoid amoeba.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', a giant paramecium is the winner of the Miss. Universe pageant.
* The Amoeba Boys are a gang of three dimwitted crooks in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls''. They're about the size of humans, and sort of float along the ground.

* In ''Film/FantasticVoyage'', the heroes had to survive being caught in the crossfire of antibodies versus bacteria, "recticular fibers" that clog the intake ports, an direct attack on Grant and Cora by antibodies, and white corpuscles. Inverted though in that the microbes are normal size but the heroes have been shrunken down.

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'': One of the creatures Captain Olimar can encounter is a Goolix. It's a giant unicellular organism at least a foot across (gigantic compared to the tiny Olimar) with a watery interior and two nuclei.

* ''VideoGame/{{Illusions}}'' involves guiding "amoeba-like creatures" called Gleebs to safety.

* Series/AliensInTheFamily: When Spit is sick, he sneezes out some germs that are the size of baseballs. The have faces and can talk.

* A very large single-celled organism is ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa Valonia ventricosa]]'', the bubble algae, which averages 1 to 4 centimeters across.

** Another competitor for largest single-celled organism is ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa Valonia ventricosa]]'', the bubble algae, which averages 1 to 4 centimeters across.

* The largest known single-celled lifeforms on the planet are amoeba-like protista called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophore xenophyophores.]] They run about ten centimeters across. Small by monster standards, but positively {{kaiju}}-sized by cell standards. They are found exclusively in the deepest parts of the ocean.
** Another competitor for largest single-celled organism is Valonia ventricosa, the bubble algae.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': In the first game, one of the creatures Captain Olimar can encounter is a Goolix. It's a giant unicellular organism at least a foot across (gigantic compared to the tiny Olimar) with a watery interior and two nuclei.

* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'' has the toddler-sized virus [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/003.html Dr. Phage]] and [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/094.html Zoe]] the protozoan receptionist on staff; there is also a [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/289.html thriving community]] of "bacterians" on a corpse-themed world, most notably the grandmotherly Dr. Staph.

* Viruses in the ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series. Back in ''VideoGame/DrMario'', these were a reasonable size (bigger than they should be, but still small enough to fit rows of them inside a medicine bottle). In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' and ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam''? They're about as big as a person is and come in armies about 16 strong at a time. They also tend to show up in rather unusual places like deserts, caves, mountains, parks and towns.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1407863212052027500
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* One of the monsters of the week in WesternAnimation/StaticShock is a colony of bacteria mutated by exposure to Bang Baby Gas, giving them a HiveMind and the ability to move together as a massive acidic BlobMonster.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'':
** Plankton and his relatives are downplayed examples. While Plankton is easily the smallest member of the central cast, [[MouseWorld and the entire cast is tiny in comparison to humans,]] he's still visible to the naked eye of the viewers and the aquatic cast, [[RuleOfFunny unless he has to be seen though a microscope for a gag.]]
** Plankton's pet amoeba Spot is an even more downplayed example. At the size of a head of a nail, he's even smaller than Plankton [[YourSizeMayVary (in his first few appearances anyway)]], but is visible to the naked eye nonetheless.

* ''Manga/{{Moyashimon}}'': The protagonist can perceive and interact with microbes as if they were macroscopic and sapient creatures.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': A Silver Age story deals with a sheltered bubble boy who, after seeing that Superman is real, decides that everything on TV is real and escapes to warn the character on a futurist version of ''The Fugitive'' that the cop that's chasing him is about to capture him. He tries to trick the kid into killing the other actor to save his career only to end up consumed by one of the kid's white blood cells, as his parents never informed him that exposing his blood to air caused them to grow to blob monster size and he'd scratched himself on a bush earlier.
* In ''Creator/BenitoJacovitti'''s sci-fi epic ''Arcicomiche Stellari'', the protagonists at one point are threatened by [[PlantAliens alien humanoid plants]] that happen to be single-celled organisms -- making them immune to the hero's DisintegratorRay.

* In ''Film/FantasticVoyage'', the heroes had to survive being caught in the crossfire of antibodies versus bacteria, "recticular fibers" that clog the intake ports, an direct attack on Grant and Cora by antibodies, and white corpuscles. Inverted though in that the microbes are normal size but the heroes have been shrunken down.

* The oldest known example of this trope dates back to a French pulp adventure ''Une Invasion de Macrobes'' / ''The Invasion of the Macrobes'' published in 1909.
* The Belgian sci-fi/horror book ''La sortie est au fond de l'espace'' by Sternberg starts like this. All the microbes start growing, making the Earth uninhabitable in a series of scenes between horror and BlackComedy. For the survivors who fled in a spaceship, it goes FromBadToWorse.

* Creator/WilliamTenn's story "Winthrop Was Stubborn", one of the luxurious pastimes available in the far-future world is getting shrunk to microscopic size to hunt microbes.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** In an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', the Enterprise crew fight a giant space amoeba at least as big as a planet.
** There is another episode that involves {{Puppeteer Parasite}}s that are described as single cells that act as a HiveMind.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. The episode "Macrocosm" has the crew dealing with [[ArtisticLicenseBiology Giant Basketball-sized flying viruses]].
* Used in ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', with a single-celled cold virus grown to the size of a cucumber. Yes, they did call it a "[[TaxonomicTermConfusion single-celled virus]]".

* One Muppet Labs sketch on ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' features Bunsen using a germ enlarger to make microscopes obsolete. The giant germ attacks Beaker.

* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'': While hunting for the Mask of Life, the Toa Inika encounter some strange monsters that self duplicate when struck and figure out that they are actually enlarged microbes.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has Solosis and its evolutions, all of which are giant cells. There's also Deoxys, a giant, humanoid space-virus. The latter isn't explicitly un cellular or single cellular; all we know is that it started that way before the Pokemon world changed it.
* ''VideoGame/ElViento'': The third boss is a huge single-celled organism.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': Morpha's BossSubtitles identify it as a Giant Aquatic Amoeba.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'': These show up as enemies in the Bionis' Interior, and all possess the trait of being highly resistant to physical attacks.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': In the first game, one of the creatures Captain Olimar can encounter is a Goolix. It's a giant unicellular organism at least a foot across (gigantic compared to the tiny Olimar) with a watery interior and two nuclei.
* Viruses in the ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series. Back in ''VideoGame/DrMario'', these were a reasonable size (bigger than they should be, but still small enough to fit rows of them inside a medicine bottle). In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' and ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam''? They're about as big as a person is and come in armies about 16 strong at a time. They also tend to show up in rather unusual places like deserts, caves, mountains, parks and towns.

%%* ''VideoGame/TempleOfApshai'': The Giant Amoebas.
* ''VideoGame/EVOSearchForEden'': The final boss, Bolbox, resembles a giant algal cell who [[spoiler:thinks he's human. In contrast to the natural evolutions of the protagonist, Bolbox took advantage of Martian crystals in order to rapidly mutate.]]

* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'' has the toddler-sized virus [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/003.html Dr. Phage]] and [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/094.html Zoe]] the protozoan receptionist on staff; there is also a [[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/289.html thriving community]] of "bacterians" on a corpse-themed world, most notably the grandmotherly Dr. Staph.
* "Webcomic/{{Unity}}" has, in the [[https://beesbuzz.biz/comics/unity/invasion/ Invasion story arc]], a number of sentient single-celled organisms which the colonists end up calling "macrobes."

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'' Kevin gets sick and the source of the disease is a microbe called Viroid. In response to this the N Team shrinks down to confront him inside Kevin's body

* The Amoeba Boys are a gang of three dimwitted crooks in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls''. They're about the size of humans, and sort of float along the ground.

* ''WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries'' had a gigantic bacterium the Big G had to fight. It could infect other organisms with smaller versions of itself, depending on how large the organism was.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', a giant paramecium is the winner of the Miss. Universe pageant.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode "Getting Antsy", the antagonist Lilliput shrinks Darkwing down to the size of a germ with his ShrinkRay - and Darkwing convinces a handful of friendly germs to make Lilliput sick. When Darkwing is turned back to his regular size, two of the germs, whom Darkwing introduces as "Blob and Ray", are turned human-sized too. They look like green {{Blob Monster}}s, but with recognizable facial features.
* Used in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', which featured Morty being shrunk down in order to go into the body of one of Rick's associates, who has been turned into an amusement park based around the various biological functions and organs, as well as featuring many diseases.
* ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'': In the premiere episode, Carol has to take K.O. into work with her because his usual babysitter Punchin' Judy is "fighting the flu". She turns out to mean this literally, as Judy goes by fighting a giant flu virus.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'': These show up as enemies in the Bionis' Interior, and all possess the trait of being highly resistant to physical attacks.

* The third boss of ''VideoGame/ElViento'' is a huge single-celled organism.
* Morpha from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', whose BossSubtitles identify it as a Giant Aquatic Amoeba.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'', these show up as enemies in the Bionis' Interior, and all possess the trait of being highly resistant to physical attacks.
* Giant vaguely-microbial... things were present in earlier ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games as generic {{Mooks}}, and seem to have been abandoned as the series became more "realistic".
* In ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'', one of the creatures Captain Olimar can encounter is a Goolix. It's a giant unicellular organism at least a foot across (gigantic compared to the tiny Olimar) with a watery interior and two nuclei.

* The Giant Amoebas from Creator/{{Epyx}}'s ''VideoGame/TempleOfApshai'' series.
* In ''VideoGame/EVOSearchForEden'', [[spoiler:the final boss, Bolbox, appears as a giant algae cell who thinks he's human. In contrast to the natural evolutions of the protagonist, Bolbox took advantage of Martian crystals in order to rapidly mutate]].

* ''X Multiply'' is an old shmup by Irem, similar to their flagship series ''VideoGame/RType'', where an experimental ship gets shrunk and injected into a human body to destroy the diseases that are microscopic aliens from within. Said diseases look like the cyber-organic foes from ''R-Type'', complete with a BattleshipRaid against some huge multi-part monstrosity.