Follow TV Tropes

Following

Ears as Hair

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/usagiyojimbo.jpg
Bugs: I like your hair.
Lola: Thanks, heh. They're my ears.

Lots of media stars Funny Animals, and as we all know, some animals have rather long ears, such as rabbits and various breeds of dogs. In nature, these ears serve the purpose of enhancing hearing or regulating body temperature, but once you put an animal on two legs, the ears serve a different purpose. Very often, Funny Animal characters will treat their long ears as if they were hair. Braiding a real animal's ears would hurt immensely, but Funny Animals seem to have no problem with it.

This trope is especially common with female animals. It most often occurs in Civilized Animal, Funny Animal, and Beast Men, but can show up in animals on any level of the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism.

For some female characters, this can be compared to Furry Female Mane. For another cartoon animal ear trope, see Ear Notch.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • Inverted in Shitsurakuen: Tomoko Oashi has hair which, according to the main character (Sora Himoto), looks like ears.
  • Usavich: Putin has his ears tied in a top-knot.
  • Rosario + Vampire: Nekonome-sensei's cat ears blend in with her hair, making it look like it's simply another layer of feathered hair.
  • Candy from Smile PreCure!, whose ears are styled in several different ways through the course of the show, usually being in rolled-up Girlish Pigtails.
  • Moriritchi of Tamagotchi wears her ears as a sort of cone shape and has several hair decorations on them a lot of the time. When they're not sticking up as usual, her ears droop down, making her resemble a lop-eared rabbit.
  • Inverted in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: Cathy styles her hair to look like cat ears as part of her Cat Girl theme.

    Asian Animation 

    Comic Books 
  • Looney Tunes: Honey Bunny from the comics would style her ears like this.
  • Star Wars: Female Gungans often tie their ears back.
  • Usagi Yojimbo: The hero, Miyamoto Usagi, most often has his ears pulled into a Samurai Ponytail (and was born from a doodle of a samurai rabbit). When he puts on a hat or a helmet, they disappear completely. Lampshaded once when Usagi thinks he heard his son shouting to him from a great distance (he was), and wonders if he's tied his ears too tight.

    Films — Animation 
  • Disney's Dumbo. Before he tries to participate in the pachyderm pyramid trick, Dumbo's ears are tied above his head so he won't stumble on them. Guess what happens while he's running out to the spring board.
  • In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Roger wrings water out of his ears. And yet it hurts him when Eddie picks him up by the ears, because he does not think it's funny.
  • Lola Bunny from the Looney Tunes franchise ties her ears into a ponytail.
  • Lady from Lady and the Tramp often poses with her ears arranged like hair, or flips her ears back like a shampoo commercial, giving the appearance of long flowing locks.
  • The Whippet Angel (later named "Annabelle") in All Dogs Go to Heaven has her ears tied in in her ponytail. Between the sequel and TV series, she was redesigned to simply have no ears at all, much to the confusion of fans.
  • Sasha from All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 has the same type of ears as Lady-and treats them the same way, even flicking one of them behind her head with a casual paw swipe, with them sometimes dipping in front of her eyes, particularly when she's being sultry.
  • Dixie from The Fox and the Hound 2 also has the same kind of ears — seems to be a thing with Disney dog females — and treats them the same way, even wearing a black bow in a way that should be physically impossible.
  • Georgette from Oliver & Company uses her ears as hair during "Perfect Isn't Easy", such as pulling a curler down her ear making it look curled.
  • Maid Marian from Robin Hood (1973) is actually depicted wearing an outfit that includes a hat shaped like her ears. Also, the older rabbit girl wears a bow on her ears.
  • Inverted with Sylvia in An Extremely Goofy Movie- her side tresses seem to function as floppy ears and she's wearing earrings on them during the disco scene with Goofy as well as having styled them into an afro.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Toys 
  • The '80s Mattel toy Poochie was a white dog with a pink Tuft of Head Fur and matching papillon-esque ears, making it look like the whole thing is just hair done up in big poofy pigtails.

    Video Games 
  • Cream the Rabbit from Sonic the Hedgehog has her ears as sort of the equivalent of Girlish Pigtails.
  • Klonoa's ears wave like hair when he's running.
  • Neopets:
    • The Usuls appear to have scrunchies holding up their ears, though Hannah from the games "Pirate Caves", "Ice Caves", and "Kreludor Caves" is depicted with human hair on her head.
    • Delma Harrence, defender for Faerieland's team in the Altador Cup has a hairband around her ears, and because they flop to the side, they essentially look like a side-ponytail.
  • Inverted with Juri from Street Fighter IV, whose hair has been compared to cat ears/ox horns. In one of her concept designs, the two parts of her hair that stick up were less pronounced, and genuinely looked like cat ears were a part of her hair.
  • Inverted by Toyosatomimi no Miko of Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires, a newly-resurrected saint whose hairstyle resembles animal ears (hence the name). Her actual ears are covered by giant earmuffs, further confusing the issue.
  • Fay Spaniel from Star Fox 2 has shaggy ears that REALLY look like hair.
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening Panne/Velvet has an odd variation on this in that she arranges her braids around her rabbit ears in such a way that they give this impression.

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • Furry Experience:
    • Ronnie (again, a rabbit) usually has her ears looking like wavy hair, though she braided them at one point. At another, she had to worry about a "bad ear day" and a "bad fur day" at the same time.
    • Her roommate, Dawn Doe, wears her ears down, in keeping with her more formal dress style. They only point upwards when she's surprised.
  • Big Ears from Goblins usually ties his namesake ears back in combat situations.
  • Cupcake from Sugar Bits, has both real hair and this trope as part of her hairstyle.
  • 70-Seas: Particularly visible with Nikol, who ties her ears in a ponytail.

    Western Animation 
  • Looney Tunes:
  • Dot Warner from Animaniacs wears her ears in a scrunchie.
  • Fern is the only female character on Arthur who doesn't have a Furry Female Mane. She's a dog with floppy ears.
  • Brandy Harrington from Brandy & Mr. Whiskers.
  • In CatDog, Rancid Rabbit wears his ears like a sleazy ponytail when working at Better Bottoms.
  • Panini from Chowder.
  • Parodied on Family Guy with Peter's line about Brian's appearance at an upcoming dog show: "We haven't even talked about how you're gonna wear your ears. You know, 'cause I was thinking up."
  • Kaeloo:
  • The Loud House: One of the rabbits seen in Lincoln's Dream Sequence from "White Hare", Beulah, has her ears styled like a braided ponytail.
  • Molly Cunningham on TaleSpin wears hair ribbons around her ears.
  • Subverted in Team Umizoomi. Milli is a girl, but what appear to be ponytails coming out of her hat are actually tape measures.
  • Word of God is that what we think of as the "hair" of Wilykit and Wilykat from ThunderCats (2011) is actually their ears, which means that Wilykit's ponytail is actually her pinning the hair on the tips of her ears back.
  • Usagi Yojimbo (see above under Comics) is also a recurring character on the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): Bunnie is shown using curlers on her ears.
  • Younger female pigs in Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks don their ears as they were pigtails.
  • Dotty Dog from The Get Along Gang wears hair ribbons around the base of her shaggy cocker-spaniel ears.
  • Bluey:
    • Indy and her mother have ears that look very much like human hair, due to both being Afghan hounds (which is Truth in Television, since this breed's ears look a lot like hair). Indy's ears are tied off at the ends to resemble pigtails, though in a few earlier episodes they were much longer and resembled braids before they were shortened in order to be easier to animate, while her mother is shown to wear dream-catcher earrings under her ears in a place where a human would wear them.
    • This is also implied to be the case with Frisky, since her "ears" are nowhere to be seen but she has a very human-like head of hair; it's likely that she ties her ears back to resemble a ponytail.

Top