Harmless Liquefaction

Oh, what a world. Who would've thought a good, little Stand like yours could've kept me alive and conscious while I'm becoming goop?

A type of Amusing Injury in which a character is somehow melted into a liquid state. They will still remain alive, often with their eyes still intact, and will almost always return to normal in the next scene. In some cases, they may even retain the ability to speak. They can melt due to the heat, exposure to acid, being hit by some strange machine, or other means. Supertrope to Lustful Melt. See also I'm Melting! for when the results of this are lethal instead of amusing. See Elemental Shapeshifter for when the person can liquefy themself as a superpower. Can often occur after some Harmless Freezing.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• Several football players begin to suffer a meltdown thanks to the heat until Boomer Esiason passes them all bottles of Pepsi. As they chug, the melting is not just stopped, but reversed.
• A man in a Sierra Mist commercial melts due to the extreme heat as he tries to make his way towards a vending machine. He gets his drink in time to chug himself back to normal only moments before he would have been unable to reach the machine, then he just has to pour out a single drop to restore his poor puddle of a dog.

Anime & Manga

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Golden Wind: Zucchero's Stand, Soft Machine, can literally deflate objects or people by stabbing them, reducing them to paper-thin husks. It also gives Zucchero the ability to deflate himself.
  • JoJolion: An interesting case with Tamaki Damo and his Stand, Vitamin C. The power of Vitamin C is that it melts people into goop, which he uses as a method of attack, but melting people with Vitamin C alone doesn't kill them. They're immobilized from it, but they're still alive and conscious; able to speak perfect sentences. It's the environments surrounding his targets which Damo weaponizes; for example, he tortures someone by melting them, then showing them how soft they've become by cutting one of their arms off with a 1000-yen note.
• In Doraemon, there is a gadget which allow the user to turn into liquid.

Comic Books

• Zan of the Justice League of America can transform himself into any state of water, including liquid. In more comedic media, such as Teen Titans Go!, this is often played for laughs.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes:
  • One of Calvin's Imagine Spots involves it being so hot outside that he melts, leaving only his clothes behind. His melted remains then evaporate and then rain, restoring him to solid form, and a now naked Calvin runs off. The strip ends with Calvin's mother picking up his clothes off the sidewalk while muttering, "Not again!"
  • In another Imagine Spot, Calvin imagines drinking one glass of water too many, so that his body becomes 90% water and melts. In reality, he drank too much water on a road trip and really has to pee.

Fan Works

• In The Land of What Might-Have-Been, this is a state that members of the Amorphous League actually aspire to: after years of exposure to the potion that grants them their shapeshifting powers, their bodies cease to need it and become formless goo continuously transforming into new shapes. However, novice shapeshifters trying to fast-track this process by overdosing end up in goo form without any ability to control their new bodies. It doesn't kill them... but under the circumstances, they probably wish it did.

Films — Animation

• Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation: Plucky, Hamton and Hamton's family take a trip to an Amusement Park named Happy World Land. One of the rides shown is the Happy Centrifuge, a capsule on the end of a rapidly-rotating arm. When it stops, the occupants are poured out into a puddle, complete with blinking eyes.

Films — Live-Action

• In Hot Shots! Part Deux, General Walters shoots an enemy soldier with a grenade launcher, which flings the soldier a dozen feet backwards and literally splatters him all over a wall. Aside from being turned into a splash of goo with a human face, the soldier doesn't mind and is even awed about the gun Walters used.
  Soldier: ...Now that is a hell of a gun!
• Looney Tunes: Back in Action: When the heroes arrive at Area 52, Daffy gets zapped by one of the security guards, melting him into a black goo. He spends the next few minutes inside a turkey baster before being reconstituted.
  Kate: Whoa, whoa, you're going to put him back, right? Because I can't go back to L.A. with duck soup!
  Mother: We do have the facilities to reconstitute the body. The mind, though, will remain a gooey mess.
• The titular creature and Serial Killer from Oily Maniac is a Blob Monster whose body is made of crude oil, who can melt himself into liquid puddles before turning back to human again. In more than one scene, he infiltrates his victims' homes via the bathroom, emerging from showerheads or from taps before turning himself back to monster form.
• Sky High: One of the sidekicks, Ethan, has the power to melt himself into a puddle.
• The T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, being made of liquid metal, can voluntarily melt himself into a sentient puddle of mercury-like liquid and reform himself back into any human form he wants.

Literature

• In the Give Yourself Goosebumps book, Trapped in the Circus of Fear, while you spend the entire story avoiding Madam Barbara and her clown minions who intend to turn you into a circus freak, your friend-slash-The Lancer Richie isn't as lucky, getting turned into a "bucket of human vomit with two eyes". In the good ending, you change Richie and the rest of the circus freaks back to normal children like yourself.
• In the Captain Underpants spinoff Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers, Petey accidentally turns Dr. Dinkle into a being made out of water after he inadvertently leans on the lever of the Liquidater 2000. Later, Dr. Dinkle turns into sentient urine after Petey drinks him and pees him out.

Live-Action TV

• In Doom Patrol, the same powers that allow Rita Farr to mould and shape her body frequently result in her melting into a shapeless puddle of flesh if she can't maintain concentration, to the point that her default state first thing in the morning is that of a Blob Monster hiding under the blankets. Given that she can reform herself with sufficient willpower, the process is harmless to Rita - though it's definitely a dignity-stripper.
• The Good Place: Bad Janet, disguised as Good Janet, creates a device she said could tell if a demon is lying, but instead blows demons up into goo. She uses it on Glenn who blows up. They gather up all of his goo pieces into a container. Because he's a demon, he doesn't die and eventually reforms into his former self.
• One episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 opens with Mike coming upon Crow having melted himself into a puddle. It turns out that he confused his Thighmaster (an exercise device) with a Thawmaster (a hot plate designed for thawing out food). Of course, being a robot, he's okay.
• The Secret World of Alex Mack: One of Alex’s powers was the ability to melt into a silvery puddle of liquid.
• In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Odo the shapeshifting alien's natural state is a liquid. He transforms by turning himself into liquid and re-forming as the desired object. He actually needs to turn into a liquid every sixteen hours. His species are the same and actually prefer to spend their time in a liquid state, merged with one another in the Great Link.

Video Games

• Subverted in Stealing the Diamond from the Henry Stickmin Series, where one of the fails is using a device with the intention to turn into water and slip through the cracks. The device kills Henry by turning him into an inanimate puddle of such.
• Iron Commando: Mutant Couba, the second-to-last boss, who appears from a septic tank as a humanoid Blob Monster form and can alternate between human and liquid goo forms at will.
• Kingdom Hearts: The lower-ranking Nobodies all give the impression of being the exact same amorphous grey blob with a jagged mouth that’s been poured into the costume which defines its form and its abilities. The ones that aren’t wearing hard armor tend to ripple and jiggle uncontrollably inside their clothes with every hit they take.
• Moshi Monsters: In the Super Moshis mission "Missing on a Star", you have to turn the heat up in a room to melt Judder, who is frozen within ice. This also melts Tomba the snowman Moshling, though he's still alive and he comments on how hot it is. You can later turn the heat back down and he'll go back to normal.
• The move Acid Armor in Pokémon is an invoked example, where the Pokémon rearranges its molecular structure to melt into a puddle, and then turn back to normal to sharply increase their defense.
• Tomodachi Life: When a Mii eats their least favorite food, they'll turn gray and melt into a puddle as a Scare Chord is heard in the background.

Web Comics

• Girl Genius: According to Aldin (who apparently lacks the imagination to make stuff up), his brother Hoffman was once liquefied during an adventure and Aldin had to carry him in a jar for the rest of it. Given that Hoffman is perfectly healthy during the events of the comic he solidified no worse for wear, and it's implied this isn't even the worst thing ever to happen to him.

Western Animation

• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: In "Tails' New Home", Sonic briefly gets muscular while he's trying to tell himself that giving Tails to his "real" family^note They were actually disguised Badniks was the right thing to do. He then melts and slides down a rock.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: Towards the climax of "The Job", where the rest of the Wattersons and Larry pursued Richard, who was unwittingly breaking reality as a result of having a job. One of his World-Wrecking Waves cause Nicole to melt into a puddle. She tells the others she's fine and to go on to stop Richard. This is ultimately reversed along with the other anomalies that episode after Richard is fired.
• Animaniacs: In one of the "Animator's Alley" segments in episode 42, all three of the Warners melt from the sheer boredom of Cappy Capbarnhouse's long-winded tangents.
• Arthur: In "D.W.'s Name Game", D.W. has a nightmare that Arthur melts after she calls him the ultimate mean name, and then puts him in a Mary Moo Cow cup.
  Arthur: Calling people names can be dangerous to their health.
• The Batman: In "Meltdown" Joker manages to capture Ethan Bennett while robbing a WayneTech building using a pair of extending shoes. As a giggle, Joker extends the shoes to their maximum height as Bennett dangles by a leg before dropping the man. The Clown Prince of Crime is quite surprised when Bennett hits the pavement with a literal splat, seemingly reduced to a puddle of goo. Of course the audience knows Bennett is actually the villain Clayface, whom Joker created in a previous episode and who does not harbor friendly feelings towards the Harlequin of Hate.
• Darkwing Duck: This is how the Liquidator (formerly Bud Fludd) came to be; after falling into a vat of contaminated water, he became a being made out of water.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • In "Pop Goes the Ed", when the boys try to cool off in a freeze, Sarah kicks them out as one large block of ice, which quickly melts in the sun... taking the boys with it.
  • "One + One = Ed" had Jimmy melt down into a puddle because Eddy removed his "outer lines" (in other words, he pulled off of the ink outlines like they were wires and left the colored paints to melt away). Sarah later confronts Ed about it, holding Jimmy in a lemonade pitcher. Turns out it was just their imagination and never happened... or did it?
    Sarah: Wait 'til I tell Mom what you did to Jimmy! [holds up pitcher]
    Jimmy: Don't spill me!
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Ecto Cooler", Billy recites a poem claiming that looking at Sperg's mother would cause your face to melt. Surely enough, Principal Goodvibes looks at her and his face promptly melts.
  Goodvibes: Could someone get me a tissue?
• KaBlam!:
  • June once does this (using a magnifying glass against the sun) to both her and Henry in an episode.
  • In Action League NOW!, the character of Meltman is a melted G.I. Joe-like action figure who is said to have the power to melt. However, he is never actually seen using this power on his own, as the show's opening credits show that he's being melted by a magnifying glass, implying that he can't even consciously start melting himself and has to have others do it for him. Two specific episodes from the show where he's shown being melted are "Testimony of Terror" where he gets trapped in a waffle iron by a Bratty Half-Pint who's a key witness in The Mayor's trial (and his body ends up shaped like a waffle), and "The Naked and the Dumb", where he gets knocked into a lamp as a result of trying to teach The Flesh how to draw a triangle.
• Kaeloo: In the Beach Episode, Stumpy takes steroids to get buff, but uses too many instead of following the instructions. As a result, he ends up getting inflated "muscles" instead of real ones. When he tries to hit a volleyball with his new muscular arms, he pops and ends up as a pile of goo on the ground. In the next scene he's back to normal, though wearing bandages.
• Kid Cosmic: One of the stones of power introduced in Season 2 is the Goo Stone, which allows for its user to turn into a pile of goo. Kid gets it after losing his Telekinesis Stone, much to his regret.
• The Impossibles and The Super Globetrotters both have a member named Fluid Man, who can turn his body into water temporarily.
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006): In "Child's Play" the team have to combat Zyx, a bratty alien wizard who keeps having a fit every time things don't go his way. He manages to turn Lightning Lad into a rat, and partially liquifies Bouncing Boy.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "Zoom at the Top", trying to thaw himself with a magnifying glass after being frozen by the ACME Instant Icicle Maker does not help Wile E. at all, as it melts him along with the ice.
  • In the Daffy Duck cartoon "Ain't That Ducky?", Daffy and the hunter chasing him keep running into a duckling crying over a briefcase, and their attempts to help him just get rejected. At one point they try to take the briefcase by force and the kid knocks them out cold, causing them to slide down a slope as if they were melting.
• Mickey Mouse: In "Stayin' Cool", during the hottest day of the year, Goofy gets so hot he melts into a puddle. He's fine in the very next scene.
• Phineas and Ferb: In the episode "Doofapus", Phineas and Ferb create a device that turns any solid into a liquid. Candace gets hit by it and is turned into a puddle. She's eventually solidified again by Phineas and Ferb.
• In the Rick and Morty episode "Forgetting Sarick Mortshall," Jerry decides to join Morty and Nick in trashing Rick's garage. Unfortunately, the first thing Jerry breaks is an alien crystal that promptly melts him into a puddle with his face protruding from it; fortunately, Jerry is otherwise unharmed by this transformation and is still capable of moving and speaking — enough to beg to be restored to normal, at any rate. By the next episode, he's back to normal.
• The Simpsons: In "Brother from the Same Planet", Bart is furious with Homer for picking him up so late, and has an Imagine Spot of Homer's face melting.
  Homer: Now how 'bout a hug?!
• Happens occasionally in SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Pre-Hibernation Week", SpongeBob melts into yellow goo when Sandy takes him on one dangerous exercise regimen too many.
    SpongeBob: This squirrel's trying to kill me! Any more of these stunts, and I'll be reduced to a puddle.
  • In "Chocolate with Nuts", SpongeBob and Patrick melt when the crazed fish that has been chasing them throughout the episode asks to buy all their chocolate.
  • In "Moving Bubble Bass", this happens to Bubble Bass when Patrick intimidates him for making SpongeBob move his junk, leaving his Eye Glasses floating in midair until they drop into the puddle.
• T.U.F.F. Puppy: The Chameleon's debut episode ends with him getting blown up twice and his malfunctioning transformation suit electrocuting him until he melts (with a fart sound).
  The Chameleon: I will now defeat you, by turning into a pile of smoldering goo! [melts] Feeeaar meeeee...!
• Young Justice: In "Odnu", Mary manages to send Klarion flying into a wall, turning him into a pile of goo.

---