LEGO Body Parts is when someone switches any body part(s) between two or more people. Making this an appendage equivalent to a "Freaky Friday" Flip. Mind you, this trope is not just limited to teleporting accidents. Meat Grinder Surgery is another way this can happen; also, just simply interchanging body parts, which is by far most common.
Compare Easily Detachable Robot Parts. A subtrope of Physical Attribute Swap.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Happens in a Bristol ad.
- This trope happens multiple times in a commercial about Cefalex.
- Happens in a commercial for BubbaPops Twice where a Cartoon Cat and a Teenage Boy switch heads after having the Bubbapop candy.
- Two people actually go as far as to switch heads despite one being in somewhere in North or Central America while the other is in Japan the commercial can be seen here.
- Happens in this advert for Renault Cars where 3 drivers swap heads.
- Played Straight in this commercial for DJ Hero 2. Especially in the End where the White and Black DJ swap heads.
- Subverted in this commercial for Vivedent Cube where its played similar to the above Cefalex commercial only the heads detach and attach like a toy, the voice and mind come from the bodies, and the reason for being subverted is due to the other heads and the bodies getting nothing in return.
- This halloween commercial for New Yorkers has a man manually replace body parts to become a woman.
- This variation of the Levi's Twisted to Fit Ad features one of the guys and the woman primarily featured switching head for her to enter the Men's Restroom.
- There are many different commercials about online banking that involves people of two separate people of different generations having their heads detached from their bodies by a claw machine and then placed on the other person's body and usually have their body switched back at the end.
- This commercial for Old Spice has an employee switch heads with his notably older boss in a very unusual way.
- This commercial for the game H.E.D.Z has a guy who appears to play sports take off his head and then place the heads of various characters in the game on his body, though it is somewhat subverted due to the guy's head being left detached instead of being placed on another body. Also the commercial is somewhat misleading due to the game itself being more about aliens wearing masks that were once people/animals than actual head swapping.
Anime & Manga
- In One Piece, Trafalgar Law's Devil Fruit power enables him to change around other people's limbs without killing them. If he's feeling nice, he'll replace them with other people's body parts. if he isn't, you might end up with a bomb where your head used to be.
- In Doraemon, there's a device that can swap body parts between two persons. Nobita initially uses it to swap his head with Shizuka, thinking he will inherit her brain and become smarter. It doesn't work, and it gets even worse as everybody starts forcing their unwanted body parts into him.
Asian Animation
- Happy Heroes: At the end of episode 3, Big M. and Little M. accidentally land themselves in a circus act where they're placed in boxes that get cut into smaller segments and scrambled between the two. The experience ultimately leaves their heads swapped.
Comic Books
- In one issue of The Flash, Mirror Master somehow managed to switch Flash's legs with his own, leading to the villain gaining his superspeed powers... and forcing Flash to run with his arms.
- One Bronze Age Justice League of America story involves Flash and Hawkman trying to beam up to the Justice League satellite, only for some nutty alien creature to sneak into the teleport booth with them. The three of them arrive with their parts scrambled, and the alien's (non-speaking) personality more or less dominant across all three. Naturally, the team gets everybody returned to normal by the story's end.
- EC Comics' The Vault of Fear ran a story called "Horror We? How's Bayou?" about a man named Sidney who finds victims for his homicidal maniac brother Everett, whom he keeps locked in a remote swamp cabin. Eventually the dead bodies of Everett's victims arise— and having been decapitated by Everett, they don't match up their heads with their bodies. They take revenge on Sidney, not Everett in a very appropriate way, completely dismembering him and sticking the limbs randomly on his torso.
Comic Strips
- Garfield: In Jon's Dream Sequence,(pictured above) many characters' heads get switched around; first his head with Garfield's, then Odie's with a Teddy Bear's, Then Odie's with Garfield's, then Garfield's with the Teddy Bear's, then back to the first one but now with Odie's head switched with the Teddy Bear's and lastly Him, Garfield and Odie's head switched around.
Films — Live-Action
- This scene in the Bollywood movie Jai Maa Durga Shakti.
- The Fireys from Labyrinth can swap heads.
- Little Monsters has Snik replaces a monster kid named Arnold's head with what seems to be a ball with a face after tearing his head off.
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action has an assortment of all four heroes' and the primary villain's body parts switched around when they are teleported to Acme industry with a Teleportation Accident result.
- Natalie and her dog switch heads in Mars Attacks!.
- Ninja Wars has this happen as a plot point for two girls who have their heads constantly switched around to each other's bodies.
- Mombi from Return to Oz subverts this due to the people she took the head from not getting any head in return.
Literature
- in Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, one of Artemis' eyes is swapped with one of Holly's eyes after they travel in time magically. Holly uses magic to adjust for resulting difference in size.
- Happens at one point in the Yasunari Kawabata's novel One Arm where the protagonist switches his girlfriend's detached right arm with his own and then switches back to his own arm later.
- Ozma of Oz has Princess Langwidere who switches heads like clothing putting on a different head every day. note It's not quite clear where they came from, though at one point she does offer Dorothy to give her head in exchange for one of Langwidere's.
- In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the narrative mentions how uneasy people are with teleporters, and goes so far as to print a short comic song on the subject:
I teleported home one night, with Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Megan's heart away, and I got Sidney's leg. - Retief's War has a particularly literal version: the natives of the planet Quopp are all biological robots with interchangeable parts, which they frequently trade with or steal from each other.
- Revelation Space Series: In Absolution Gap, swapping body segments and appendages was commonplace among the scuttlers, who colonized Hela and then went extinct. Archaeologists have inferred a social stigma against keeping too many body parts from the same source.
Live-Action TV
- Happens a lot in Eurotrash, where one guy constantly switches heads with girls.
- Days of Our Lives subverts this when Sami fantasizes of Kate, Roman and Marlena being mannequins, and her removing Marlena's head, then removing Kate's head and placing Kate's head on Marlena's body, but subverted because both Marlena's head and Kate's body get nothing.
- Future Man: Three people using a time machine with an unstable fuel supply end up swapping scars... and dicks.
- One of the gimmicks of Galidor was that characters were able to "Glinch", that is, swap various body parts and gain the abilities they provide.
- The UnSub in the Criminal Minds episode "God Complex" is a skilled surgeon who thinks he can do this by cutting two people's legs and switching them with the other. It doesn't really work as much as he likes to believe it does, as none of them can really move with it.
- Passions has this happen to Norma and Edna Wallace after Kay accidentally used a spell that separated everyone in the areas' heads from their bodies and then used another spell to reattach all their heads to their bodies which resulted in their heads landing in the wrong bodies.
- Subverted with The Outer Limits (1995) episode "Donor" via a Full Body Transplant (which is basically a synonym for Head Transplant) because while Dr. Peter Halstead ends up with Timothy Laird's body, his original body remains headless due to having cancer and Timothy Laird's head remains bodiless due to being dead.
- In the Tales from the Crypt episode "Spoiled", two adulterers say they want the other's body during the throes of passion. When the woman's husband, a doctor who performs transplant surgeries, hears, he is more than happy to oblige.
- Ultra Series: A few fusion monsters fall into this category:
- Ultraman Ace: Jumbo King, the series' final Choju, has many of its components' body parts mish-mashed together.
- Ultraman Taro: Tyrant is a chimera made of the resentful and angry spirits of deceased foes of the Ultras, it has Red King II's legs, Alien Icarus' ears, Seagorath's head, Bemstar's torso, Hanzagiran's back spikes, King Crab's tail and Barabas' arms.
Mythology and Religion
- This is the origin of Ganesha's elephant head in Hindu Mythology. One day, Parvati went to take a bath and asked her son to guard the entrance. When Shiva arrived and demanded to see Parvati, Ganesha refused to let him in, and in response Shiva fought with him and cut off his head. Parvati went mad, and she chew out Shiva for killing the boy, whom he didn't know was his son (Parvati created him with clay). Feeling sorry, Shiva revived the boy and asked his men to get the head of the first animal they could find. They brought an elephant.
Toys
- Though construction toy brand LEGO is the Trope Namer, it's actually not all that easy to rearrange parts of LEGO minifigures - aside from their legs and hat, they're intended to be pretty difficult to dismantle without really trying. Of course it can still be done, more so nowadays since they started packaging heads separate from bodies, but it's not as easy to accomplish as you'd think. LEGO Themes featuring larger constructed humanoid entities like BIONICLE and Hero Factory play it straight with ease, and in many pre-Traveller's Tales LEGO video games this is exactly how designing playable minifigure characters tends to work. Also, it's rare that this trope in its conventional meaning comes into play in any LEGO theme's Excuse Plot.
- Mr. Potato Head has swappable body parts like this.
- The Marvel Super Hero Mashers line is based around this trope, having swappable body parts to mix and match your heroes and villains.
Theatre
Video Games
- Rayman has the Big Bad Mr. Dark flee in the middle of his final battle, and Rayman instead fights fusions of previous bosses that are pretty much parts of certain bosses picked apart and put together. One fusion takes parts from Mr. Skops and Mr. Stone, another takes parts from Moskito and Space Mama, and the last one takes parts from Moskito, Mr. Sax, and Space Mama.
- The titular group of Skylanders: SWAP Force.
- In Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation, a player can mix Zangief's head, with a squid hat, Shin's arms, Chun-Li's legs in her Street Fighter Alpha uniform Teiran's chest in a cheerleader uniform if they want to. Also, each part has a different trait, heads for the character's voice, arms for arm-based command and special attacks, legs for leg-based command and special attacks, and chests for different Super Combos.
Web Animation
- Zubs and Coach B from Homestar Runner. One of them (it's never made clear which is which) is Bubs with Coach Z's body from the neck down, while the other is simply the reverse.
Webcomics
- 8-Bit Theater has Black Mage and Thief have their heads swap in here and here where both their heads get "placed back"(via illusion) to their original bodies.
- Happens to Commander Kitty after a Teleporter Accident. His head, arms, legs, and torso are scattered around the room, but his tail is swapped with Fluffy's.
Web Original
- The SCP Foundation has SCP-291, which is an anomalous machine specifically designed to do this.
- The Pinies from the Ask Piny Twilight blog can detach their body parts, though some of them don't seem connected in the first place.
- In Void Domain, body parts from demons can replace any missing human pieces: they bond naturally to the body and resize to fit their new host. Eva Spenser gets new eyes and limbs, while Devon replaces a lost arm with a Combat Tentacle. Then the Mad Scientist necromancer Sawyer starts getting creative with custom minion design.
Western Animation
- Phineas and Ferb:
- It... May have happened in the "With My X-Ray Eyes" song in episode "No More Bunny Business". Starting at 0:08 and ending at 0:10.
- Played as a plot point in the movie within a show of the episode "Invasion of the Ferb Snatchers" where people's heads get switched with an alien and the person's head is placed in a jar.
- It... May have happened in the "With My X-Ray Eyes" song
- Happens in the Canadian show Hoze Houndz where Squirt and Fontaine switch heads in a Teleportation Accident.
- Back at the Barnyard:
- Peck and Freddie switch mouths in the episode "A Catfish Called Eddie" after chewing defective Pizza Gum, which explodes.
- Otis and Pig switch heads in episode "Snotty and Snottier" after getting beaten up by "Phlegmy Boy".
- In the CatDog episode "Dopes on Slopes" Dog and Rancid Rabbit switched heads under the Rule of Funny.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- In the episode "You-Doo", a fight with magical You-Doo dolls scrambles Cosmo and Wanda to piece and they have to put themselves back together, with results such as their heads being on each other's bodies, having each other's hair, and being attached to each other CatDog-style.
Cosmo: How do we go to the bathroom?- In "Fly Boy", while trying to see a movie called 'I Was A Teenage Blowfly' (being the only the one in Dimmsdale not allowed to watch it), Timmy wishes for the body of a fly so he can be a fly on the wall. Unfortunately, Poof ends up taking a cue from the movie and ends up switching Timmy's head with that of an actual fly.
- Futurama has this happen in the season 4 finale "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings", where Robot Devil trades his musically-talented hands with Fry.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show has this happen in the episode "Prehistoric Stimpy", where Ren saws off both his and Stimpy's heads and places them on each other's bodies.
- In one episode of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Prof. Nimnul invents a device that allows him to travel via phone lines. When Zipper lands on him as he's about to travel, they wind up with their heads on each other's bodies. Later, the same thing happens with Chip & Monterey Jack, and Dale with Gadget. In the end, they manage to get themselves back to normal, then Zipper uses Nimnul's device to send him to the police.
- Johnny Bravo:
- Johnny switched heads with a boy who has supernatural powers in one episode.
- In another, Johnny switched heads with a fly.
- Eustace, Muriel, and Courage accidentally swap heads in the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Windmill Vandals."
- In the Adventure Time episode "The Great Bird Man", Xergiok is shown to be able to swap his limbs, first doing so to a bird whose leg was crushed by a rock, then switching the damaged leg with Jake's leg when he almost becomes a heel again.
- In The Amazing World of Gumball Gumball and Darwin make occasional use of this, such as in "The Pony" where they switch legs and "The Storm" where Gumball's head gets switched with Alan's body (Alan being a balloon).
- In one episode of Beast Wars, Megatron and Inferno collide so hard with each other that their heads temporarily trade bodies. Megatron is furious, but Inferno seems to find it hilarious. How it actually happens is anyone's guess (outside Rule of Funny).
- In one episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, an experiment of Jimmy's accidentally causes him to switch heads with that of Carl's pet hamster, Mr. Wuggles.
- In one Garfield and Friends cartoon, Garfield and Jon dream about switching places, with Garfield being the owner and Jon being the cat, with them switching bodies but keeping heads.
Real Life
- Transplants of any body part subvert this trope because the donor gets nothing in return. There are plans, along with excessive preparations and research, to transplant the head of a terminally ill man onto the body of a (then recently) deceased man to save the first man's life. This would be a historical first and, if successful, a major breakthrough in transplant science/medicine.
