THIS is what a REAL mustache looks like!
"I grew this mustache through sheer force of will, don't tell me I'm not ready."
— Gordito Delgado (age twelve), The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
This trope occurs when someone (often someone who should not be able to grow facial hair at all) grows a beard or mustache just by willing it. Naturally a sign of extreme manliness and a sign of extreme silliness.
Compare Girls with Moustaches, Perma-Stubble, Perma-Shave, and Manly Facial Hair. Not related to Growing the Beard.
Examples
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Advertising
- A Capital One Venture card ad has a Viking family reunion in which one of the events is a Beard Growing Contest. The two competing Vikings instantly grow small beards, while the host Alec Baldwin wins by growing a full bushy beard.
Comics
- Hector in Zits is able to grow facial hair by concentrating for a short time, which is a cause of jealousy from Jeremy whose inability to grow noticeable facial hair is a Running Gag.
Fanfic
- Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami: In one scene, Dark spontaneously grows a mustache to impress Naomi. It works and they have sex.
- A Shadow of the Titans: During the fight with the Oni Generals, Gadjo forces a mustache into existence in order to look more badass.
Film - Animated
- In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, the protagonists are forced to temporarily move to a different city while their homes at Swallow Falls are completely covered with oversized food. Earl Devereaux - a badass Mr. T stand-in - has to shave his beard and change his job from a policeman to a vendor at a candy shop during this time. However, when it's time to go back to Swallow Falls and try to get their home back, Earl immediately gets back into his policeman outfit, and instantly regrows his beard by merely squinting his eyes.
- In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, when Dennis encounters SpongeBob and Patrick after they passed through the monster valley, the two say that they aren't afraid of him since they've become "adults" by having mustaches — fake ones given by Mindy, but they didn't know that as she claimed it was her "mermaid magic." Then Dennis rips those fake mustaches off of their faces and then shows them what a real mustache looks like — by opening his mouth covering and then instantly growing a bushy mustache. Patrick wonders if Dennis is a mermaid too.
Live-Action TV
- In one episode of Cheers the guys at the bar have a beard-growing contest with none of them shaving for a month, and whoever has the longest beard at the end of the month wins. Cliff (the only one at the time who regularly had facial hair - a moustache) is seen growing barely any facial hair while the other guys' beards come in thick and lush. On the last day of the contest Cliff enters the bar with an epic beard, saying it grew in overnight. After he wins the contest, he is on the phone with a superglue company asking what happens when it comes into contact with human skin - he cheated by supergluing the hair to his face and now he needs a doctor.
Video Games
- One of the bonus levels of Toadette Strikes is a Future Imperfect play where Mario starts out without a mustache, then instantly grows one as a plot point. He can then use the mustache as a boomerang.
Webcomics
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Gordito, a twelve year old boy, proves that he is a man at heart (and therefore should be allowed to claim his inheritence) when he concentrates and grows a handlebar mustache through sheer force of will.
- Miss Abbott and the Doctor: Whenever Andreas Marino is stressed out, his facial hair can grow very quickly within a day or two, something no one (not even himself) can explain.
- Two Guys and Guy: In one strip, Guy successfully wills herself to grow a beard just to prove that she is manlier than Wayne.
Web Original
- LoadingReadyRun has "Olympic Beard Growing"
, where athletes race to grow the largest beard.
- Critical Role: One of the effects of equipping the Belt of Dwarvenkind is that it carries a 50% chance of instantly growing a beard. Grog is beside himself with glee when he experiences this effect.
Western Animation
- Richard from The Amazing World of Gumball did this twice to look manlier and intimidating, though it reverts when he gets scared. Also in an other episode, Gumball and Darwin got theirs after wishing to a shooting star it actually was an effect of their father's food supplement they took by mistake at breakfast.
- In a few episodes of The Simpsons we see Homer shave, be clean-shaven for a moment, and then spontaneously develop his Perma-Stubble.
