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Please don't list this on a work's page as a trope.
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Following

Unfortunate Character Design

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/easter-no-kkk_9219.png
Might not be sold in the 'hood.

You may have noticed that one of the Yo Gabba monsters is a flexible salami-like creature with one gaping eye at the top. I'm pretty sure I sketched the original design for that in the margin of a chemistry textbook back in 1985.
— Charlie Brooker, You Have Been Watching

Let's face it, some characters look odd. Something about their design makes them look ugly, or freaky, or... phallic. Or worse yet, maybe they resemble Blackface or the Ku Klux Klan.

The design is obviously unintentional (or at least probably not intended by the majority of the creators), and not meant as a Parental Bonus or Getting Crap Past the Radar. The offending part is pretty obvious. And it is so distracting that it can never be unseen.

See also: Fashion-Victim Villain (when the villain has an unconventional taste in fashion), Nude-Colored Clothes (when a character has the appearance of being naked because they wear clothes the same color as their skin), Accidental Innuendo (when a statement not intended by the creators to be dirty is still interpreted as something lewd by the audience), and Unfortunate Names (a character's name sounds wrong unintentionally). Will often be Nausea Fuel.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • The design of the London Olympics logo, otherwise known as the "Lisa Simpson Blowjob" logo.
  • In a non-sexual example, the logo of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is surprisingly reminiscent of a Facepalm. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight in light of the results of the game between Brazil and Germany, and to a lesser extent, Spain and the Netherlands.
  • The Storage Deluxe logo resembles the famous "Dick in a Box" skit.
  • Part of the reason why Mac Tonight became a Memetic Psychopath as "Moon Man" was that some people noticed his white crescent moon-shaped head resembles a Klan hood.
  • In the Sega Saturn Theatre of the Eye commercials, the Cones resemble Klansmen with their white outfits and pointy hats.
  • Monster Cereals:
    • Boo Berry has been hit with unfortunate design choices twice. His original design gave him chains that appeared to be attached where his nipples should be on his body. Later designs of him removed the chains, but gave him a look that looks like he's permanently blazed.
    • Multiple fans have commented how the dents in Frankenberry's head makes it look like a rear end.
  • In 2021, the CDC released a PSA image encouraging people to get vaccinated for COVID-19... featuring a character who looked a lot like an NPC Wojak with hair. Needless to say, memers had a field day.

    Anime & Manga 
  • The Antibodies in Brain Powerd have cockpits in their crotches, covered by a long, narrow strip of armour that extends when the pilot wants to climb out.
  • Shiro from Deadman Wonderland has a skin-tight bodysuit that's very close to the same shade as her skin, meaning that at first glance she looks totally naked apart from some body paint (which are actually patterns drawn on the suit) and it's even worse in the black-and-white manga since you can't make a comparison between the color of her face and the fabric and realize she is wearing something.
  • Digimon: The Data Squad version of Crowmon has a white mane that really stands out thanks to his mostly black and purple design. Said mane is braided into a single rope that dangles freely with a bell to each side of it.◊ Guess we should call the Data Squad version the four-legged crow. Also, the very un-wendigo-like Wendigomon from the first 02 movie has been compared to a minstrel show for its facial features.
  • Dragon Ball Z: In a random segment in the Cell Saga, Imperfect Cell crosses paths with a sports team who harasses him before getting killed. One of the athletes' heads looks just like a penis, which Dragon Ball Z Abridged made fun of by blurring it out.
  • Gundam:
    • ∀ Gundam: The titular Gundam's cockpit is placed on its crotch. This wouldn't be so bad, if said cockpit wasn't also a detachable aircraft with a translucent orb at its tip.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam 00: The MSJ-06II-ED Tieren Zhizhu, which was intended to guard the Orbital Elevator, besides some other weapons, has a 30 mm Machine Gun turret attached to its crotch, as you can see for yourself.
  • Hello Kitty: Hello Kitty's main pose is putting her finger to her... "mouth" as if pondering something. However, thanks to the lack of clear digits on her hands, it can easily look like she's flipping you off.◊
    • It's not just Hello Kitty, other Sanrio Characters that are typically depicted with no fingers (such as My Melody and Cinnamoroll) are sometimes seen putting their fingers near their mouths when they are curious, confushed, or deep in thought. But also looks like their flipping you off as well.
  • Hellsing:
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Guido Mista, of Part 5 fame, has a stylized arrow on his hat. Or, at least, what was originally intended to be an arrow. Many fans find his hat ornament to look more like a penis instead, to the extent that "dick hat" is a popular Fan Nickname for the said head accessory.
  • TerraforMARS: At least one reviewer has pointed out how the designs of the roaches that are the primary enemies of the series can be compared to racialized caricatures of black men.
  • Welcome to the NHK has the logo on Satou's shirt looking nearly identical to the Russian curse word "хуй" (meaning roughly the same as English "dick", but considered far more obscene), which led to it becoming a meme on Russian imageboards and anime forums.
  • Zorc Necrophades from Yu-Gi-Oh! has a dragon head on a long neck protruding from his crotch. It's meant to be an evolution of Diabound's snake lower body, but add on legs and it becomes... er... Takahashi was in the midst of a Creator Breakdown and had been hospitalized due to an ulcer at the time, which certainly explains a lot; he did try to rework Zorc's look in a collected edition, but the damage is largely done. Naturally, LittleKuriboh has a field day with this.
    Marik: By the way, what is that thing on your crotch? You know, that dragon-head thing?
    Zorc: Oh, that's my willy.
    Marik: Geez, man, put some [EFF]ing pants on, will you?

    Arts 
  • A crucifix in the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Warr Acres, Oklahoma, depicts Jesus with a distended stomach and abs — which some critics say looks a bit too much like an erect penis and scrotum.◊ The clergy response was basically "whatever", and they refuse to discuss the controversy any further.
  • Nearly all reconstructions of Tsintaosaurus depict it with a vaguely phallic-shaped unicorn-crest on the head, although some modern theories speculate it had nothing of the sort, and what people believed to be a horn-like crest was in reality only a fragment of a totally different-shaped head-ornament. But if that wasn't enough, some old illustrations (and an infamous toy) also gave it two, inflatable sacs at the base of said crest.
  • Red McCombs Superior Hyundai in San Antonio, TX has a statue of a Native American in the classic "how" pose,◊ with his left hand resting at his side. Approaching it from a certain direction driving along Loop 410, though, makes his left thumb look like something else entirely.◊
  • Liverpool, UK, boasts a locally infamous statue of Queen Victoria which is holding an Orb and Sceptre. From the front and right side, the Sceptre looks like a Sceptre, but from the left side, the bottom of it looks like... something else.
  • A particular statue of William Penn at the Philadelphia City Hall is notorious for this among news photographers, since if you photograph it at a certain angle the placement of his right hand is pretty suggestive.◊
  • Among other figures of the past, the Château de Versailles has a statue of General Emmanuel Leclerc, Pauline Bonaparte's first husband. If the fact that he is the only naked figure in a gallery otherwise filled with fully-clothed statues is not weird enough, the sword resting on his right hip can easily look like another kind of sword from certain angles.
  • A sculpture called Domestikator was moved from the Louvre in Paris to the "edgier" Pompidou Centre after some people thought that the human figure was penetrating the animal, which the artist claimed was not the intended meaning.
  • The statue atop the Burnside Fountain in Worcester, Massachusetts has become infamous for its, um, suggestive posing. Officially called Boy with a Turtle but known colloquially as Turtle Boy, the statue is of a naked boy riding on the back of a turtle — however, it looks a lot like the boy is “riding” the turtle in a different manner.

    Card Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • Uktabi Orangutan, a.k.a. "Sex Monkey." The flavor text even does some Lampshade Hanging on the position of the two monkeys in the background and a later parody card shows the two monkeys again, but now one of them is pregnant.
    • The art on Gorilla Titan prompted the creators to give it the flavor text "I want a banana this big."
    • Ekundu Cyclops depicts a female figure riding what appears to be a giant phallus (with the twin moons in the background as testicles).
    • The Ninth Edition version of Paladin en-Vec depicts a knight wearing what appears to be a KKK hood. Even worse, it's a white knight with protection from black.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Guess where the biggest drill on Drillago is. Not to mention the two drills on its boobs.
    • Some character designs are unfortunate enough to set off the censors. Such as Flying Fortress SKY FIRE, which has a very conspicuous missile stack between its legs that's missing from the international artwork. Or the pointy bit between Bicular's wheels.

    Comic Books 

    Comic Strips 
  • The Far Side:
    • There is a comic of a sleeping dog dreaming of having caught a car and howling atop it, called "When dogs dream". Larson said later he drew in the car's transmission box where it was supposed to be, but when the editor cleared it to be published newspapers were inundated with mail from offended people thinking that the dog was supposed to be having sex with the car. The caption has been changed to "When car chasers dream" to rectify this.
    • Gary Larson was flustered when a reader pointed out that an old woman he drew for the cover of In Search of the Far Side looked like a giant phallus. His editor responded, "So?"
  • A common joke about Argentine comic character Gaturro is how his giant cheeks make his face look a butt or testicles.

    Eastern European Animation 
  • Fairy Tale Sits on the Doorstep: A lot of the monsters resemble KKK hoods, especially when one steals the pointed hat of the main character and puts it on. Given that the animation is from Soviet Latvia, it's pretty unlikely that they intended to promote American white supremacy.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • Countryside Bears by Dingo Pictures has a kangaroo with some sort of doll in its pouch that makes it look a male kangaroo with a yellow and white groin, as seem in this video starting at around 4:32. With the company that made it, this sort of thing is to be expected.
  • Foodfight!
    • In an early scene, when Dex Dogtective asks Daredevil Dan to be his best man, Dan starts... well, he's supposed to be crying tears of chocolate, since he's the mascot for a chocolate product, but just about everyone who's seen the movie will say it looks more like he's violently spewing feces from his face.
    • Cheasel the Weasel's head and neck look extremely phallic. That they're constantly bobbing and wiggling around does not help. The texture of his brown fur has caused some to call him "poop rat" or "shitweasel". This is due to the cheap budget the film was made with. The original trailer shows a less unfortunate looking model, however the film had to be re-built from the ground up after the original version was stolen.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989) has a priest who appears to get a little TOO excited and sport an erection◊ during Eric and "Vanessa's" wedding. A separate shot makes clear that the bulge is actually from his knobby knees, but Disney edited it out◊ all the same because it really looks like an erection.
  • Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa shows one overhead shot of Ricky where his dreadlocks make him look like a literal pile of crap.
  • Turaga Nokama from BIONICLE: Mask of Light has "decoration" on her chest that look like a pair of crudely drawn breasts. This could be an inappropriate joke put into a kids' film by the designers, except it's not hidden in the slightest. The other five Turaga's chest armor reflects the details of the masks they wear, but Nokama's mask is so plain that her chest detail had to be made up from scratch. Even if it was meant to look like cleavage, the fact that they put it on an elderly robot-lady with a serious role inadvertently makes her come off as silly.
  • Unstable Fables has several animals, such as the wolves and the bears, who have noses that extend past the rest of their faces, which make them look quite phallic.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Live-Action TV 
  • The notorious Federation Security Robot in Blake's 7. Not only was it a very cheap-looking Tin-Can Robot, but its main weapon was mounted in a... very unfortunate place.
  • The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Doublemeat Palace" had a demon with an incredibly phallic-looking tentacle that squirted venom at Buffy. And then Buffy's lesbian best friend chopped the tentacle off with an axe... According to the creators, the symbolism was completely accidental, although a dialogue joke was made about it in a later episode.
  • Doctor Who has had more than a few unfortunately designed monsters:
    • In "The Web Planet", there's a scene where a biological tentacle on a wall (called a "bio-gun" in the novelisation) squirts a sticky white web at the Doctor and Vicki before slowly going flaccid and shrinking.
    • "The Krotons" features a Cliffhanger where a long, prehensile, biomechanical... thing with a slightly bifurcated head with a hole in the end shoots out of a hole in a wall and starts thrusting the Doctor to the floor. The Doctor gets around it in the next episode by having the end spray white fluid on a Mauve Shirt instead of on him.
    • One of the most famous is probably the ambassador from Alpha Centauri◊ in "The Curse of Peladon" and its Sequel Story "The Monster of Peladon". The cloak they're wearing is a last minute attempt to cover it up. The complaint simply changed from "It looks like a giant dick," to "It looks like a giant dick with a cloak on." There was even some speculation that they could be a companion for a while, though the design soon put paid to that.
    • In "Frontier in Space" the Ogrons are said to worship a hideous beast that fills them with terror. The designers created said beast, which unfortunately turned out looking unmistakably like a giant orange scrotum. The appalled director had to then rejigger the story so that the creature was shown only once and in very, very long shot.
    • Davros' design in "Genesis of the Daleks" is great, so long as you aren't seeing him from the back, where the back of his chair is shaped like a hand flipping you off◊.
    • The Organic Technology ship controls in "Terror of the Zygons" are very slimy, veiny and turgid. Tom Baker is clearly having a great time handling them as suggestively as he can in the scene which requires him to use them. This may be a theme with his take on the Doctor. (Later lampshaded in "The Zygon Invasion" in the Twelfth Doctor era, where the Doctor insists Zygon controls only work if you "titillate" them.)
    • The infamous Creature from the Pit, with its many... protuberances. There was even a scene where, while trying to communicate with it, the Doctor picks up a longish, fleshy... thing from the Creature's midsection, looks it up and down, massages it slightly and then puts the end of it in his mouth, sucking and blowing on it. It is probably Accidental Innuendo. The costume designer and Tom Baker laughed about it in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine — apparently it had originally been even worse and the costume department had made heavy last-minute alterations to it to improve it, but were ultimately powerless to how badly the design had been botched up.
    • The Vervoids in "Terror of the Vervoids", which look like either a) uncircumsized dicks or b) vaginas with prominent clitorises. A newsagent once refused to stock an issue of Doctor Who Magazine with an image of one on the cover on the grounds that it contained a "graphic sexual image".
  • An in-universe example occurs in How I Met Your Mother, where a Running Gag in season 2 is that Ted's boss is completely unaware that the skyscraper design he wants to present to their clients happens to be incredibly phallic, complete with a semicircular roof and two spherical entrance halls at the base, which are surrounded by wild foliage.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • Kamen Rider Gaim: The title character's Super Mode is primarily white with a pointed helmet. It's modeled after samurai warlord armor, but Westerners are more likely to associate its shape and color with the KKK.
    • Two in Kamen Rider Revice:
      • Giff is presented as the Greater-Scope Villain and Sealed Evil in a Can that the rest of the villains are trying to revive. Until they do, he's represented as a statue that's big, pink, and looks like a giant vagina.
      • The main heroes, Kamen Riders Revi and Vice, can work in conjunction Two Men, One Dress style to act as animals; which can put them in pretty awkward positions. The worst is the T. rex combination, where Vice holds Revi by his legs and ends up planting his face in Revi's butt. Vice even complains to the audience about this the first time they do it.
  • An episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus featured a scene where a man comes into an apartment to sign a man's severed leg. The reveal of the leg was from the knee down, making it look like a giant bell-end. Executive Meddling was mentioned in one of their documentaries.
  • Super Sentai:
    • While Clotho's adult human and knight designs in Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger aren't too bad, but her child form, which includes a pointed hood, has had many people, including Lewis Lovhaug when he reviewed Burai's debut and death arcs for Atop the Fourth Wall, to call her "the little Klansman".
    • In Ressha Sentai ToQger, ToQ-Oh is built in a way that the Red Ressha can unfold and extend a large red cylinder from the mecha's crotch. Which would be bad enough if it were just something people could do with their toys at home, but it was actually used once in the show.
  • The Blessing from Torchwood: Miracle Day is revealed to be a fissure underground which some have remarked looks like a vagina.
  • Ultra Series: The franchise has its share of monsters and aliens, and inevitably some of them ends up with rather... awkward designs.
    • For starters, Mukadendar (Ultraman Taro) and Kendoros (Ultraman Leo) are supposed to be creative-looking with their bodies flipped around, but looks more like their heads are attached to their crotches.
    • There's also Alien Buraco from Ultraseven, who is supposed to blob alien with arms and legs... but looks more like anthropomorphic poop.
    • And then there's Alien Varduck from Return of Ultraman, whose head looks like a pair of scrotums.
  • Yo Gabba Gabba!: Muno is a one-eyed monster who... looks like a giant red dildo. Charlie Brooker said he looks like "a Dalek's cock".

    Mythology & Religion 
  • Capirotes (the page's picture), hoods which are worn by Catholic penitents during Holy Week (Easter) processions in several cities of Spain, are pointy, occasionally white, and completely cover the face apart from eye holes. They have nothing to do with the Ku Klux Klan (which hates Catholics, by the way) and in fact predate it by hundreds of years. This has led to a rather unfortunate recurring example of this trope in anime and manga; The Klan obviously isn't a thing in Japan, so the capirote has not been stained by association with them like in the US, but it has become commonly used as cliche bad guy attire thanks to the Rule of Cool, leading to all sorts of potential awkwardness during localization. For instance, Neo-Atlantis from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, who all dress up in a manner reminiscent of Klan-members despite having absolutely nothing in common with the Real Life organization.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech has had its share of unfortunate-looking mechs over the years. One of the original machines to have issues is the Stalker◊, whose design has been compared to a sex-toy with legs pretty much since it was introduced. Another one is the Arctic Fox◊, which has an unfortunate resemblence to a heavily-armed toilet. The Dragonfire is a particularly egregious example, having a large cannon protruding from, for lack of a better word, its crotch.
  • Heroes Unlimited: The Justice Machine features a couple of characters drawn in such a way as to look like they have unclothed female crotches on otherwise masculine bodies.
  • In early Rifts supplements, artist Kevin Long illustrates a vast number of Humongous Mecha with guns in their lower torsos as alleged anti-infantry position, which end up looking, well, phallic.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The design of the Dreadknight, which has its pilot mounted on the chest wearing a harness. Fans have derided the design as looking more like a baby carrier...or a certain dodgeball robot.
    • The Lord of Skulls has a cannon which is meant to be mounted on its stomach, but the somewhat awkward proportions and lack of legs results in the cannon looking more like it's mounted on the crotch.

    Theatre 
  • Cirque du Soleil's Luzia has a few characters who are cacti. One of them has a long, straight arm jutting out from his crotch.

    Toys 
  • Battle Beasts: A really surprising number of the 1980s figures had their cybernetic armor sporting crotch fins, guns, sliding panels, or just highly suspicious protrusions.
  • BIONICLE:
    • The rhino-like Vako from the Master Builder set used a bent "pipe" piece for a tail that connected at the bend in its middle, so half of it stuck backwards like a tail, and the other half hung between the legs due to there being no friction to hold the piece in place. Worse, both ends were outfitted with an extension, not just the tail part that was meant to be seen.
    • Stronius◊ from the Glatorian Legends series has an extra long protrusion on the bottom of his torso armor with a widened tip, which looks okay from the side but hugely questionable from the front as it hangs way below his belt line. For what it's worth, his packaging art tried to hide it.
  • Jurassic Park has a Utahraptor in one of the early toylines that has leg kick action. Unfortunately, the button to activate the legs is placed beneath its tail, right behind its pubic bone, and it's been the, er, butt, of a few jokes.
  • Monster High: Catty Noir◊ was meant to resemble a black cat, but her bright pink lips against black skin has been criticized for looking more like a blackface caricature.
  • My Little Pony:
  • There's a Punisher toy that was infamously recalled because the first part of its transformation into a pistol results in the gun barrel coming out of its crotch.
  • Torch/Fire from Slizer has his head between his legs, while Granite/Rock's action feature requires you to repeatedly push a giant rod into a hole on his butt.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The first action figures were set to give the Turtles tails, which their Mirage counterparts did have. While tails did work on the characters in the two-dimensional drawings, in the 3-D mock-ups, they ended up looking rather... phallic. So the tails were removed, and the Turtles have never depicted as having tails since.
  • Transformers:
    • It's quite common for a Transformer to have some sort of unintentionally amusing crotch design. A particularly unfortunate example is Scattershot.◊ That silver-bordered black shape? That's a heat-sensitive sticker that you're supposed to activate by rubbing. And if that weren't bad enough, he can easily be mistransformed so that the nose and cockpit of his spaceship mode is protruding forward from there instead.
    • The original toy of Megatron◊ is infamous for having a trigger on his crotch.
    • A good number of Mini-Cons have unfortunately-placed Powerlinx connectors.
    • The Transformers: Armada Hot Shot is a particularly infamous case of gimmick-induced silliness, as his Mini-Con gimmick involves plugging his Mini-Con into, well... his butt. This also results in a massive cannon swinging out of his body (his shoulders, admittedly, but that's still not great), which fires a red missile.
    • Transformers toy designers don't seem to be all too familiar with dinosaur anatomy, as at least two such figures have gimmicks located in unpractical places. The Beast Wars Dinobot mold (and its repaints and remolds) has a rod sticking out of its cloaca that you have to push in to activate a feature, while Transformers: Cybertron Beast Megatron has a Cyber Key slot in the same place. (Apparently it's because tails frequently end up as arms or arm-wielded weapons in robot mode. Apparently, Hasbro didn't think fans would realize this means in beast mode you're shoving things directly where the sun don't shine. Which means, apparently, Hasbro doesn't know kids very well.)
    • The figure of Beast Machines Obsidian has a tiny machine gun dangling under his cockpit. Since the cockpit is his chest in robot mode, this means that the gun ends up hanging down from between his legs... Thankfully, the toy's more cartoon-accurate configuration, in which his legs are "fused" together, makes this far less obvious.
    • A good number of planes, such as G2 Smokescreen, have a design where the front part of the plane becomes the upper body, leading to a plane canopy in their chest and the nosecone on their crotch, but it's not especially noticeable. Beast Machines Ultra Jetstorm, meanwhile, has a long, flexible cockpit with a bulbous head, designed to "look around" in vehicle mode. In robot mode, it's tucked between his legs, but still has working joints and can hang low or point forward with relative ease. Yep, it's the first Transformer to have an articulated wang.
    • TJ Omega released a video called "Top 5 Inappropriate Transformers" on this subject, featuring a variety of questionable designs, misbehaving gimmicks and oddly placed kibble.
    • Beast Machines Silverbolt, a figure widely regarded as one of the least successful Transformers figures ever, turns into (what is said to be) a condor, but the robot head isn't hidden in the least, and remains visible between the legs. The head also has a tall, thin, tubular shape, and can easily swivel forward, making it look like the condor has a grinning erection. Even if you transform it according to the instructions, it's clearly a head coming out of a condor's butt. This could easily have been avoided, as the toy has a big torso-piece which the small head could have retracted into. In robot mode, the condor's head ends up on his belly, staring at his own crotch — not much better.
    • Beast Wars Blackarachnia was made into a more feminine figure compared to her toy being a Palette Swap of Tarantulas. She later got a Transmetal II figure that was designed to translate more easily into the show, but the logistics of making a feminine figure had designers concerned about her looking naked, but ended up making her look like she is wearing a bikini. Furthermore, due to last-minute changes her Breast Plate was a last minute add on and able to be easily removed... with the attachment plugs on her chest in unfortunate places.
      • Beast Machines Blackarachnia has enormous, unmovable middle fingers, which make her looks like she's constantly flipping others off. Ironically, this probably would have fit perfectly for her Beast Wars incarnation.
    • It has been noted by some that Transformers: Prime Megatron's crotch looks like the face of the twins Skyquake and Dreadwing, two of his most loyal servants.
    • Combiner Wars Silverbolt's two heads wind up in dubious places. Superion's head has his ears poking out of Silverbolt's chest, forming little rubber nipples: only mildly unfortunate. Where Silverbolt's head winds up in Superion mode: much more unfortunate.
    • Transformers: Cybertron's Backstop was originally designed to feature a genuine left hand, but on the toy's final release, the appendage is formed out of his rhinoceros mode's rear end, and as many fans have noted, it's sorta shaped like a poop scoop. Since the rhino's tail forms his middle finger, he's also one of the few Transformers who can flip the bird.
    • The Classics/Henkei Sideswipe and Sunstreaker figures have a pair of oddly placed circular details right on the bottom of their crotch that look fine from most angles other than the front.
    • Fortress Maximus, who turns into a base, has an elevator gimmick controlled by a tiny red circular crank. Unsurprisingly for this page, when in his robot mode, the crank ends up on his crotch.◊ Bonus points: since the peg has a shallow handle, it makes him look like he has a Teeny Weenie. (You can even keep turning it while he's in robot mode!)
    • The 2021 Kingdom Rattrap toy's design is a little too realistic. To make room for the robot arms, the rat form's rear end was expanded, resembling the enlarged testicular area that actual rats have. This in itself wouldn't be too strange, but the figure's round robot fists are fully visible, looking either as giant wrinkly buttocks or a pair of balls. Adding to the awkward design, the fists are colored a vaguely flesh-toned light brown, and in one episode of the original cartoon an angry Rattrap does tell one of his comrades to kiss his "pink, hairless..."
    • A lot of bootleg transforming dinosaur toys have their dino-heads ending up in questionable places in robot mode, hence Transformers fans dubbing them "Dinocock Prime".

    Video Games 
  • Von Bolt from Advance Wars: Dual Strike, for the most part, has a pretty good design for a Dark Lord on Life Support, but what ruins it are the hoses in his mouth that look like he's sticking out a big doofy tongue: along with his beady eyes, it makes him basically look like a pickled Lickitung..
  • The dragons in Adventure look less like dragons and more like freakin' ducks.
  • The Atari Jaguar's CD add-on looks like a black toilet lid. Take a squint. The Angry Video Game Nerd, wastes no time noticing and sums it up:
    That's some cool looking design. It looks just like a toilet. Yeah, it's a fucking toilet. What a perfect analogy!
  • Bahamut Lagoon:
    • Yoyo's battle sprite makes it seem like she has a giant chin, due to her clothes' neckline making her neck look like it's part of her face. (Thankfully, gets a better sprite halfway through the game.)
    • Diana wears a giant ribbon on her waist, but it looks more like a tail.
    • Mist's map sprite is only one pixel long if she walks left or right, making it look like a plant stem.
  • Most golems in Baldur's Gate wear loincloths that look just a little too much like giant flapping dongs.
  • Janet from Brawl Stars wears a pair of blue shorts as part of her stuntswoman outfit. However, a handful of fans pointed out that it looked like a giant blue diaper instead.
  • The BEMANI game Otoiroha has a cabinet that is infamous for resembling a toilet.
  • Clockwork Knight: As Vinny from Vinesauce states, it's difficult to not see Pepper as a skinny Wario.
  • The player character in the NES game Code Name: Viper has the same three-color palette limitations as most sprites did in the era. Brown was used for his hair and outline and green for his jacket and boots, while a pinkish flesh tone was used for his skin... and his pants, which has the very unfortunate effect of making him look like he's undertaking his mission with no pants at all.
  • The Cooking Mama spinoff Babysitting Mama comes with a doll that you have to stick the Wiimote into in order to play the game, which also requires use of the nunchuck attachment. Unfortunately, the hole where you stick the Wiimote is located right below the back of the doll's head, so with the nunchuck cable sticking out, it looks like your baby's hanging itself — especially if the wrist strap ends up around the baby's neck, as one YouTuber discovered.
  • Crash Bandicoot:
    • Many of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex's character models look infamously ugly compared to the PS1 titles, but Cortex really takes the cake because his character model's slanted, unmoving eyes combined with his skin tone and goatee make him a dead ringer for an old-fashioned Yellow Peril villain. Interestingly, Cortex's yellowish skin tone was retained in later installments despite his character model improving.
    • In Crash Bash, Rilla Roo's facial expression was permanently locked into an ":o" expression, which, due to the limitations of the PS1, made his mouth look like a butthole, adding to the fandom's dislike for the character at the time. Ironically, Rilla Roo's ridiculous design ended up being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap over time as he gained an ironic following, to the point that complaints over his divisive redesign in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled led to the addition of an updated version of his original Crash Bash design as a separate playable character named "Fixed Rilla Roo", complete with the perpetual ":o" expression that made his original design so laughable.
  • Day Dreamin' Davey on the Nintendo Entertainment System has the outlaws fought in the Wild West levels who have rather unfortunately-drawn noses. The way their noses are drawn could easily be mistaken for penises.
  • Drakengard's wyrms have tails that resemble giant penises, not helped by the fact that the tail tends to dangle between their legs.
  • Pokey/Porky Minch's sprite in EarthBound made him look like a cyclops due to his real eyes being obscured by his hair.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • The popular recurring Cactuar enemy stands in a particular pose supposedly inspired after a Japanese EXIT sign, but some Western players think it looks more like a swastika.
    • Zeromus's second form from Final Fantasy IV appears to have a massive, ribbed equine penis continually jizzing blood out of the end. This particular appendage was removed in the DS version.
    • In Final Fantasy VI:
      • Due to sprite limitations, the Finger Wag emote can be interpreted as a character Flipping the Bird.
      • Emperor Gestahl, an old man with long white hair and a white mustache-and-beard combo, looks like a dog-headed bipedal creature. This is referenced in Final Fantasy XIV with a Shi Tzu puppy familiar named Gestahl.
      • Kefka Palazzo's final form is clothed in nothing but a waistwrap. Unfortunately, one of the folds ended up in the wrong place, which makes Kefka seem like he's a little too happy to see you. This was promptly acknowledged by many, many people. This may have been subtly referenced in Dissidia Final Fantasy, after using his Ex-Burst, Kefka goes "That was titillating", implying he is actually getting off on the destruction.
    • In Final Fantasy Tactics Ramza's sprite changes from chapter to chapter. His last costume contains pants that, due to the sprite artwork, look like they are totally skintight and riding quite far up his butt crack. The fact that the said outfit has noticeably less armor in the back doesn't help matters either. Fans of the series have affectionately dubbed the disturbing garments the Buttpants◊.
    • Final Fantasy IX:
      • Garnet's trance form in Final Fantasy IX has some design elements that bear an unfortunate resemblance to a bare bottom. Made all the worse by how lovingly well-rendered her (tightly) clothed bottom is even out of trance.
      • Likewise, it wasn't such a good idea to give Eiko pants that are almost the same color as her skin, since it makes her look like she's nude from the waist down. Add to that the fact that she's six years old and looks very, very young and most fans react with Squick. Most other art and her in game sprites make her pants a much darker red to avoid this.
      • The Stroper enemy looks very phallic.
      • Zidane Tribal, at least in Dissidia Final Fantasy. The point at which his tail sticks out of his pants should really have been placed just slightly higher up in order to look like it was actually coming from the base of his spine; as it is, it looks far too much like he's pooping it out.
    • Final Fantasy X:
      • The diving suit briefly worn by Rikku has beige-colored segments in front of her crotch and on her ass, making it look like she's wearing a lot less than she actually is.
      • The Final Fantasy X HD Remaster retextured the main characters in a more cartoony style that some players found fell straight into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. A particularly common comment is that the characters, with plasticy skin and exaggerated lips, now resembled deluxe sex dolls.
    • With Final Fantasy XII's character design being extremely realistic, Vaan's drawn-on chest... shadow... things seem very much out of place. Depending on who you ask, they either look like really odd sunburns, or signs of emaciation. Luckily, the Zodiac Age remaster fixes this.
    • Dissidia Final Fantasy (2015) textures Exdeath's loincloth sash to have a weirdly regular pattern that makes it look like a pack of sushi rolls.
    • The animation used for Cactuars in Final Fantasy XV gives them what appear to be really tight, cute butts.
  • Fire Emblem Gaiden has the infamous "Dong Armor"—most visibly on the cover of the game◊, Alm's suit of armor has a massive segmented crotchpiece that dangles between his legs. It was removed completely for his redesign in the remake, unsurprisingly, though it returned for one of his alternate designs in Fire Emblem Heroes, to much rejoicing.
  • Halo: As stated in the reference book The Art of Halo, Bungie's co-founder wanted the Elites to have tails until an employee pointed out to him that, alongside the non-sexual factor of the sliding scale of ferality vs. intelligence conveyed by character design (of which the Elites are on the latter end), the tail would look phallic when an Elite is sitting.
  • Home Alone 2: Lost in New York: In the Game Boy version, the ending screen has Kevin McCallister raising his fist in victory over the Sticky Bandits. Due to the hand being undetailed, it could easily be mistaken for either him missing his hand or Flipping the Bird.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kirby:
    • Kirby Star Allies: The game's Big Bad, Lord Hyness, is an Ax-Crazy priest whose face is hidden behind a long, white, hooded robe. While his design is meant to resemble a stylized monk's habit, American players have noted a strong resemblance to the Klansmen. It gets more awkward when he is redeemed at the end of the postgame campaign, Heroes in Another Dimension, and still keeps the hood on.
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe: One of the new bosses introduced in this remake is Hydriath, an elemental Underground Monkey of Goriath who has a tendril of water spouting out of his head in place of Goriath's hair. The unfortunate part of this design happens when Hydriath Turns Red and "goes Super Saiyan", which turns that water a suspiciously urinary shade of yellow.
  • Kuro No Ken Sword Of Darkness has some serious design flaws thanks to its static animation and graphic limitations. For instance, your hero has a special move where he sheathes and unsheathes his sword rapidly, causing repetitive damage to his opponents, but with his hand movements and his sword being sheathed at around groin level, it looks more like he's masturbating. (In the middle of a fantasy battle, no less!)
  • The Orc Chasm in Kingdom of Loathing is shaped quite a bit like a vagina, though given the name this was probably intentional. The valley beyond it was originally represented by two mountains a short distance apart from each other with a row of trees at the bottom, looking uncannily similar to two knees and pubic hair. This was allegedly accidental on the artist's part, and it was eventually edited to use the same graphic as its predecessor. The level 9 quest was revamped again in August 2012, and the Valley of Rof'lm'fao was split off into a separate zone that used the original graphic.
  • In King's Quest III, because of the limitations of the graphics, the protagonist's sprite has, for eyes, a solid line of red pixels, making him look like Cyclops.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Ganon's sprite design◊ in The Legend of Zelda has confused a lot of people with some of his poses. Is he pretending to be a catgirl when Link walks in?
    • This same game attempted to give Link irises and pupils. Actually, since each eye is two pixels high, he just looks like he has four eyes, which is talked about here.
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link:
      • The Wizzrobe's design◊ is quite reminiscent of KKK robes, right down to the colour.
      • Link's death sprite is rather... suggestive, due to the fact that his "recoil from damage" sprite has him holding his very short sword at waist-height and perpendicular to his body, and the death sprite turns it into a silhouette.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess's Ooccoo◊ is infamous for looking like it has four pairs of exposed saggy breasts because of some extremely badly placed markings combined with suggestive feather shapes.
    • Bucha◊ the Kikwi elder from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is shaped like a scrotum. Really, the Kikwis as a whole look like scrotums, but Bucha most of all.
    • As for the bosses in Skyward Sword, The Imprisoned◊ looks like a giant black pinecone with stubby legs and an anus on top, and Tentalus◊ looks like the chubby child of Mike Wazowski and Celia.
    • The Moblins in Skyward Sword blatantly look like their anuses are exposed because of the way their scant, thin loincloth is designed, which is made worse by how the player is encouraged to stab them in the ass a lot when fighting them because they block their front with wooden shields, and there is a big height difference.
  • Mega Man:
    • The Yellow Devil MK-II in Mega Man 3 is supposed to have manly pectorals, but to some it looks like it has a pair of boobs.
    • Zero of the Mega Man X series is notorious for having a pair of Power Crystals in an unfortunate placement. It's made even better in Mega Man X4 when he yells what sounds like "titties!" when he uses the Shippuuga/Hurricane Fang move.
    • Oil Man in Mega Man Powered Up is an Uncle Tomfoolery who resembled a blackface caricature in the Japanese release. International releases changed his black parts to blue and made his lips yellow, but it still didn't help that the character still acts like a stereotype. The Archie comic's depiction of Oil Man is blue with a red scarf covering his mouth at all times.
    • In Mega Man 11, Impact Man has the ability to transform into a three-pronged piece of mining equipment with a disturbing resemblance to a fidget spinner.
    • Rospark from Mega Man ZX Advent has a giant metal horn protruding from a very unfortunate place when he's in his unfolded form◊. The fact that he's an extremely flamboyant villain with lots of creepy dialogue for Grey doesn't help matters, either.
    • The miniboss in Tunnel Rhino's stage, Hell Crusher, has a giant drill placed in a rather unfortunate area.
  • This◊ Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots promotional statue. Snake's outfit is not unfortunate unless you're allergic to shameless female-aimed fanservice, but the placement of that lamp seems to be trying a bit too hard.
  • One of the bosses from Nier, a giant crocodile-like Shade named Hook looks like it has multiple pairs of either breasts or testicles hanging from its neck.
  • NieR: Automata has the incredibly phallic-looking aliens◊, as well as the giant orb bosses, most of whom (with the sole exception of Hegel) have a hole on their backside that occasionally lets out a linked-sphere type machine, bringing to mind anal parasites such as tapeworms.
  • Resident Evil 6: A lot of people had fun pointing out that the logo looks like a man bending forward to suck off a bipedal giraffe.
  • In Shadow of the Colossus, Pelagia, the twelfth Colossus, is defeated by stabbing a weak spot on its belly, but a lot of players saw it as Wander defeating Pelagia by stabbing its crotch because of the rather low placing of the weak spot.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • The Carnival Night Zone miniboss, along with the bosses of Marble Garden and Flying Battery Zones in Sonic 3 & Knuckles suffer from rather phallic designs. It doesn't help the flames it shoots are also suggestive in shape.
    • Silver the Hedgehog, whose debut in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) meant the addition of a third new main hedgehog to the series. Except one of the very first things just about everyone noted about his design is that his head quills look like a marijuana leafnote . This (combined with the fact he has a friend named Blaze) led to a lot of stoner jokes. One of the most notable was BrainScratch Commentaries coining the Fan Nickname "Pothead the Porcupine".
  • Splatoon 3: The Inkopolis Square DLC introduced Fred Crumbs, the proprietor of the local shoe store. He's meant to resemble a Japanese dish called aji furai, which consists of a butterflied and deep fried fish fillet. Unfortunately, unfamiliarity with said dish combined with his... unusual shape means that to many people, he resembles a deep-fried scrotum.
  • StarCraft: Artwork for the Goliath mech often features an anti-infantry gun that looks… erm.
  • There's absolutely nothing weird about Claude C Kenny's character design in Star Ocean: The Second Story when viewing his artwork, and it's pretty easy to tell he's wearing a beige jacket in the original game's sprites. However, the 2023 remake introduced a lighting system that alters the shading on sprites depending on the location. …And in areas with bright light the coloration of his jacket on his sprite is so close to his skin color that if you're playing on a small screen, his sprite sort of looks like he's wearing a virgin killer sweater with white tights and white bandages on his arms, especially from the back.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Mario in the original Super Mario Bros. has eyes shaped like letter "L"s. It's possible they were supposed to look like they were reflecting light, but that doesn't excuse the fact that his head is permanently twisted at a 90 degree angle to the rest of his body.
      • There's also Toad in the same game whose sprite could be mistaken for him Flipping the Bird at the player.
    • Super Mario Sunshine: There is a Dummied Out enemy that is essentially a three eyed giant onion with a suspicious looking hole that it poops out enemies from. Why Tramplin' Stu even made it past the concept stage and got semi-programmed is a mystery.
    • Magikoopas usually wear blue robes, but Palette Swap versions of them appear as enemies in Paper Mario 64. One of which wears a white robe, and is described as "one of the magicians in the Koopa Clan" in its tattle log.
    • None of these have anything on Smithy's "Magic Head" form from the remake of Super Mario RPG, which sports a pronounced Wario-like nose. It was hard to notice on the pixelated SNES version, but between the nose's placement and the clear high-res graphics of the Nintendo Switch make that thing look like the hardest part of the battle. Your mind doesn't have to be in the gutter to see genitalia◊.
  • Tales of Berseria has Kamoana. She's a preteen girl that was turned into a Therion, with her Therion-form having her wear what looks like black, swirly bodypaint.
  • Barricade from Transformers Universe, according to TFWiki, has a crotch shaped like Bonecrusher's face.
  • In Undertale when you first encounter Mettaton's second form and he appears from the smoke, thanks to the way the game's engine handles transparenciesm that area at his crotch looks way too much like a penis◊. Making things worse is the game has repeatedly played up how Alphys finds this form sexy and that it's an intentional in-universe case of fanservice.
  • In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Dagas wears an outfit similar to Napoleonic royalty, including white pants. This would be fine if his skin wasn't just as snow-white as those pants, which to some can make it look like a cut-out showing off his crotch.

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 
  • Invoked in this Penny Arcade comic, based on a real conversation between the artist and writer. The image is no longer on the site, but Tycho showed a vertical banner meant to be hung in one of their convention halls. Gabe was positioned below Tycho, giving a thumbs up, but his hand happened to be placed exactly on top of his crotch, making it look like Gabe was giving Tycho an eager handjob.
  • Arthur, King of Time and Space sometimes used the "triangle" art style of Gadzikowski's The Hero of Three Faces. Lancelot in the superhero arc was a Batman-like character called the White Night, who wore a white cowl. The one appearance of White Night in triangle format was a No Fourth Wall strip concluding they should never do it again.

    Western Animation 
  • Balloon Land: The Pin Cushion Man is shaped to look like a safety pin, which his head and mouth being the clasp. However, when the pin point is unclasped, it looks like an erect penis sticking out of his cushion. This, combined with his predatory behavior, has earned him a reputation as a Memetic Molester.
  • When Batman: The Brave and the Bold did its version of Emperor Joker, it gave the Joker a crown in the shape of a whoopie-cushion. However, there are a few people who say his crown looks more like a giant pink condom.
  • Recurring Beetlejuice villain Scuzzo the Clown has a black face with a long nose in reference to the mask worn by the Pulcinella comedy character, but combined with his red lips it is easy to misinterpret as a blackface caricature.
  • The titular character of Bing is an anthropomorphic rabbit who looks somewhat like a Blackface caricature with a cleft lip.
  • Family Guy:
  • Kim Possible: The titular character's upper lip looks like a mustache to some people because of the way it's stylized. Other female characters have this same problem as well. Once you see it you can't unsee it.
  • This may or may not have been intentional, but the head cat of Birds Anonymous from the Looney Tunes short of the same name appears to be high due to his half-closed eyes and dazed expression.
  • Rolie Polie Olie: Gloomius Maximus has a faint, reddish dripping stain on his chin. It might be rust, or maybe the red paint on his lips leaking. But (hopefully) unintentionally, it looks almost like a blood stain.
  • One of the issues with Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles's Splinter was his character design. While his short, pudgy stature was meant tio evoke Danny DeVito, but the smaller eyes make him look like he's squinting like a stereotypical Asian — which wasn't helped by his promotional key art was extremely unflattering and actually showed him squinting in exertion.
  • Smiling Friends has an in-universe example with the forest demon. He is a black humanoid with a large mouth and branches on his head that act as hair. When the demon accidentally invades a Halloween party, the guests think that he’s a human dressed up as Blackface. After he unsuccessfully tries to tell the them the truth and that he just naturally looks like that, they proceed to beat him to death, devour his insides, and light the corpse on fire.
  • In SpongeBob SquarePants, there is a background anchovy with a protruding belly button. Due to a combination of the way that his belly button is drawn and the position on his stomach, many fans misinterpreted it as a penis.
  • It's not uncommon for Steven Universe: Future fans to point out how Monster Steven looks like he has a penis for a head, thanks in no small part to his thick long neck and the small, rounded shape of his head. The fact that his skin is entirely pink does not help.

    Other 
  • The OrganWise Guys is a company dedicated to promoting good health among children. Fair enough. They also use various mascots to represents different types of health. Still fair enough. They have an anthropomorphic Stock Femur Bone called "Calci M. Bone" to promote good bone and dental health. Still fair enough. Then they made a poster depicting her wearing a hat. Suddenly the bone looks like a different part of the body. And to make things even better, her name has a "®" symbol after it, meaning that the poster literally says "Calci M. Bone®".
  • The National Hockey League's Columbus Blue Jackets introduced a second mascot, Boomer, to go along with their cannon-themed third jersey in 2010. Boomer, whose costume was an inflatable cannon suit with "wheels" at the legs, was derided for being too phallic, and was quietly phased out.
  • Early Euro coins showed a map of the EU countries. On the 1 and 2 Euro coins, Scandinavia minus Norway ended up looking like flaccid male genitalia. They changed it to a complete European map after a few years.
  • During D23 Expo 2022, Disney would unveil a special Mickey Mouse ear hat and Minnie Mouse ear headband intended to celebrate the company's 100th anniversary. However, the design they went with is um… questionable to say the least. The idea was that they've been splashed with platinum paint. However, many have noted it looks like they've been splashed by a certain white bodily fluid instead. The fact that the item description on the shopDisney site says Mickey and Minnie are "dripping with excitement" only makes it worse. Likely in response to this, Disney would quietly change the item description to rid the "dripping with excitement" part a few days after the intial listing, before they ultimately decided to delist both hats from the store shortly after.

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