Propellers are funny little things to put on hats. Unless they serve a practical purpose (such as being on a Hat of Flight, though overlap is possible), they're often just a shorthand for someone who is whimsical, youthful, or otherwise innately light-spirited. Propeller hats tend to be colorful as well, contributing to their lighthearted aesthetic.
Usage of the propeller hat comes in a few, closely-related flavors:
- On children, to highlight their youthfulness. This extends to typical childish behaviours such as cheerfulness, innocence, and immaturity. Older characters who act like children or try to pass off as someone young may wear a beanie copter as part of the getup. See also Adults Dressed as Children.
- On comedic characters and entertainers, who enjoy making others laugh.
- To mark someone as imaginative, with their "head in the clouds", or a bit far out there.
A common variant, the propeller beanie (which was popularised in the 1960s by the cartoon series Beany and Cecil), is also strongly associated with the science-fiction fandom. Earlier depictions of the propeller beanie marked teens or college-age students (usually male) as sci-fi fans, to point out a type of person who enjoys the outlandish and quirky kinds of entertainment. The terms "propeller head" and "prophead" are used for computer geeks and other devoted technophiles. Not to be confused with the electronic music duo Propellerheads.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Quisp and Quake: Quisp is the mascot character for the Quaker Oats cereal Quisp. He's a silly pink alien with an actual propeller on his head. The prop actually spins, and Quisp can hover in mid-air with it. Although Quisp's age is never determined, he behaves much like a school-age child, taunting his in-house rival Quake.
Animation
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: In one arc, Calvin (who is known for his active imagination) orders a propeller hat in the mail, mistakenly believing it'll make him fly. He even spaces out in class and imagines flying with it. He finds out too late that it only spins and can't make him airborne, much to his disappointment.
Films — Live-Action
- Forbidden Zone: Flash Hercules wears a propeller hat to show that he's a little boy, despite looking like an old man. He uses it to fly him and the ex-queen out of her cell.
- Toys: Eccentric toy manufacturer Kenneth Zevo — who lives in a house with a front that unfolds like a pop-up book and drives a carousel-ride car, and whose factory basically looks like Willy Wonka's would if he made toys rather than candy — wears a propeller hat. It also serves a practical(ish) purpose, as it's linked to his pacemaker, and stops spinning when he has a heart attack.
Kenneth: It's... whimsical, Leland. [passes out]
Literature
- In one of Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten books, he tells the story of the day he was in a bad mood, so he counters it by wearing his grandkid's propeller beanie for a walk around the neighborhood. He cheers up a lot of people as he walks around. Just imagine an old guy in a suit walking around in a propeller beanie and try not to smile.
- The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: The "Bad Little Kid" is a porky young redhead who wears a propeller cap and looks like a stereotypical brat. Subverted in that his actions are pure evil instead of naughty, and he turns out to be something DEFINITELY not human.
- In the Speculative Biology book What Does a Martian Look Like? by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, each chapter opens with a humorous vignette about two aliens arranging tours of Earth. Towards the end, they discover that there's been some cultural contamination, with the result that humans are now writing stories about aliens. Since they have an Alien Non-Interference Clause, this is a problem. One of the aliens proposes creating the Sci Fi Ghetto, suggesting that if they somehow encourage science fiction fans to gather together while wearing propeller beanies, nobody will ever take the genre, and therefore the idea of aliens, seriously.
Live-Action TV
- Being the Trope Codifier for Dawson Casting and Adults Dressed as Children in Latin America, El Chavo del ocho has one the "kids" wearing a propeller hat as well a sailor suit (not that one), that is Kiko (or Quico), one of the friends and mostly frenemy of Chavo. Even after his departure from the show, he kept making Suspiciously Similar Substitute characters in other shows, but always using the propeller hat as distinctive clothes.
- From the Earth to the Moon: "That's All There Is" follows the Apollo 12 mission and its crew... who are not your typical astronauts. This is a crew seemingly comprised of three goofballs complete with propellers on their official mission hats. Don't let that fool you, they're still astronauts, which means they're highly competent.
- I Was a Sixth Grade Alien: The episode "To See the Invisible Geek!" features the Invisiblunker, an alien device resembling a propellor cap that turns the wearer invisible when the propellor is spun. Tim initially wears it to spy on his crush, but after he overhears her call him a dork, Tim feels depressed and almost turns permanently invisible by wearing the Invisiblunker for too long.
- Lidsville: One resident of the titular setting is Twirly, a child-like character who himself is a sentient propeller beanie.
- The Piglet, a contestant in season five of The Masked Singer, has a perpetually spinning propeller beanie as part of his costume, which is deliberately designed to look childish.
Music Videos
- In Hall & Oates' "Jingle Bell Rock" video, their drummer is dressed as a goofy kid with a propeller hat and is one of the visitors to Daryl and John's house (along with the rest of the band, also dressed like various family members). His propeller evens spins when he opens his Christmas present, which is naturally a toy drum.
Video Games
- Bee Swarm Simulator has a propeller hat as a purchasable accessory, which has the description "A playful hat that keeps the sun out of your eyes."
- Castle of Dr. Brain: Propeller Head is one of the three robot heads used in a puzzle. Naturally, it is the one that alternates between following instructions and doing the opposite.
- Club Penguin:
- Rookie, the most immature, goofy, and cheerful of the secret agents, is always seen with a propeller cap.
- Green puffles are zany and like to goof around. One of their favourite toys is the propeller cap, which they can actually use to fly.
- Fingered: Suspects that wear propeller hats fit the description of looking young (or at least not old).
- Five Nights at Freddy's: The Balloon Boy animatronic ("BB" for short), introduced in the second game, is modelled after a young boy and wears a propeller beany. It is also worn by his Palette Swaps Balloon Girl and Dee-Dee, the latter of which is comically oversized. The decidedly creepier looking Phantom Balloon Boy, Nightmare Balloon Boy, and XOR wear it as well.
- In Jr. Pac-Man, Jr. Pacman wears a propeller beanie to distinguish from his father (Pac-Man).
- In Legends Of Idleon, the Beginner class is represented by a character wearing a propeller cap on its portrait to represent them being an inexperienced newbie.
- The Sims 2 features a propeller hat accessory, which is exclusive to teenagers.
- Skylanders: In Spyro's Adventure, there's a cheerful, curious young Mabu named Quigley who wears a propeller hat.
- Team Fortress 2 has the Pyro's Beanie, which is a cosmetic item for well, The Pyro, who is a Psychopathic Manchild.
- Tomodachi Life: Adult Miis, when given the Kid-O-Matic item that de-ages them into children, will wear a propeller hat in the Kid-O-Matic cutscene (that they will not get to keep afterwards).
Web Animation
- Happy Tree Friends: Cub the innocent baby bear wears a red and orange propeller hat.
- The titular character from Homestar Runner wears a baseball cap with a propeller on it, which he refers to as a "buzzer". He's goofy, childish, and not too bright in personality.
- JaidenAnimations: In Jaiden's video on Amazing Island, "Pokemon But Ugly"
, Jaiden celebrates unlocking the "kid" body-type by creating a child-like monster called "Child" with a green propeller on top of his head.
- In TheOdd1sOut, whenever James draws himself as a kid, the kid will usually be wearing a propeller hat.
- OverSimplified:
- In Part 1 of the videos that details Hitler's life, a young Hitler is depicted wearing a propeller hat. He's also the only kid out of his family and other classmates shown wearing it until he's presented losing the hat when neighbors reported strange behavior in the young man after Hitler's brother died such as talking to trees, staring at the stars while standing atop the cemetery walls, and losing interest in religion giving an indication of Hitler losing his youthfulness and innocence.
- In the video "Prohibition", a woman of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement reads a picture book to schoolchildren about the dangers of alcohol by showing a character called little Timmy, who is wearing a propeller hat, exploding when he drinks a sip of whiskey.
- Spooky Month: The child Frank kidnaps in "The Stars" — only referred to as "Kid" in the character sheets — wears a multi-colored propeller hat and a pair of overalls, reminiscent of stock depictions of young boys.
- Zero Punctuation: Children are often portrayed as characters wearing propeller hats.
Webcomics
- Dogelore: Lil Bro, Doge's younger son, is a kid who's usually depicted wearing a propeller hat.
Web Videos
- Billy Hamburger is a recurring character played by Ian Hecox in various Smosh videos, usually acting as a "child" character that is grievously wounded or bullied.
- In the TomSka sketch "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode", Tom plays a small boy running a Juice Stand and wears a multicoloured cap with a propeller.
- In Half-Life but the AI is Self-Aware, Tommy is depicted wearing a red and yellow propeller hat to signify his childlike personality. Initially, he only had the hat in highlight reels and art, but the hat was added to the model in the series itself during Act 4.
Western Animation
- Back to the Future: Verne, the youngest son of the Brown family, has a favorite hat aside from his coonskin cap — a propeller beanie. Of course, given that his father is a science geek, it's actually a Hat of Flight.
- Beany and Cecil: The meaningfully-named Beany is, of course, a happy young boy who wears a propeller beany.
- Chalkzone: Villain Scrawl employs henchmen referred to as Beanie Boys who are in fact a large group of identical dull-witted man-children wearing propeller beanies that enable them to fly. Like the rest of the Zoners, the Beanie Boys are the result of someone in the real world drawing then erasing them, though who would make so many in such a vast number remains a mystery.
- Ducktales 2017: Played with in "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks!" Waddle trainees Dewey and Huey wear propeller hats called "Trainee Beanies" as part of the informal uniform. This sets the young interns apart from the regular workers, but also says less about Huey and Dewey than about CEO Mark Beaks, emphasizing the forced fun atmosphere of the company and how nonserious the internship is. Mark also later slaps a trainee beanie on his abductor Falcon Graves as part of a disguise, showing how flippant Beaks is about his own kidnapping. Subverted when it's revealed that Beaks staged the kidnapping to scam his investors, showing how Affably Evil he really is underneath the immaturity.
- The mischievous crow in the Looney Tunes short "Corn Plastered" wears a beanie with two propellers, which he sometimes uses to fly around.
- In both Muppet Babies (1984) and its 2018 reboot; Fozzie, the would-be comedian, is signified by his propeller beanie.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Shanghaied," the Flying Dutchman is looking for someone to scare, and SpongeBob suggests a muscular and intimidating metalhead. The Dutchman instead looks at someone who'd be infinitely easier to terrify: a small child skipping along and wearing a propeller beanie.
- Dizzy Devil from Tiny Toon Adventures is the Junior Counterpart of Looney Tunes star Taz the Tasmanian Devil. His only article of clothing is a yellow propeller beanie, which besides being a symbol of his ability to spin like a tornado, much like Taz himself, is a symbol of his hyperactive party animal personality.
- T.O.T.S.: In "Toy Trouble", one of the old belongings Mia the Cheerful Child kitten is not pleased about donating is her propeller hat, which she calls her "nyow-nyow".
- Wakko's Wish references the trope, where King Salazar at one point says one of the wishes he's considering is to be 16 forever. Yakko then claims the wishing star would give that a Literal Genie spin, representing the idea of being permanently 16 by putting a propeller hat on Salazar.
Real Life
