Garlic is well-known for its nutritional value, anti-biotic properties, and protection against The Undead.
"I want a story about an Italian vampire. No romance, no action. Just 200 pages of 'What do you mean, I can't have garlic? Do you know where I'm from?'"
Vampires are repelled by garlic, whether flowers, bulbs, cloves or juice, and may be weakened by its presence. This is one of the oldest vampire tropes, dating back to medieval Europe.
Surprisingly, the vampiric aversion to garlic has some basis in biology: The 'burn skin on contact' version of this trope is similar (if exaggerated) to real life garlic allergies
. Additionally, garlic contains allicin, a potent anti-biotic and anti-fungal agent, and has been proven to kill mosquitos—i.e., real-world vampiric insects. In particular, though, is its use in preservation, particularly pickling. Much like salt, compounds in garlic can ward off decay, and therefore thought to drive off the undead. However, that hasn't prevented it from becoming a Discredited Trope in more recent fiction, where vampires often demonstrate, contrary to superstition, that they can eat garlic for lunch. Even those works often nod to tradition by making one certain vampire allergic to garlic.
As with most Vampire Tropes, this device was popularized by Bram Stoker's Dracula, in which Van Helsing gives garlic flowers to Lucy as a protection against the Count. Beforehand, the use of garlic as an amulet against the supernatural in world folklore was not strictly restricted to vampires specifically; it also served to ward off other creatures such as witches, werewolves, and The Fair Folk, as well as to prevent curses and bad luck.
A Sub-Trope of Supernatural Repellent and Weaksauce Weakness. Compare to Garlic Is Abhorrent.
Examples:
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Advertising
- One commercial for Dairy Bureau Canada in the late-90's had Mina cook Dracula a lovely three-cheese casserole, containing "...a single clove of garlic!" as its final ingredient. Dracula has just swallowed, and has an expression you'd expect from someone with a severe allergy who's just been told a half-second too late.
- A Delissio frozen pizza ad from the 90s has a father teasing his daughter about her goth-rocker boyfriend looking like a vampire, while eating a slice of the new, garlic-crust pizza. She offers some to the lad as she opens the door, whereupon the boy says "GARLIC!?" hisses, turns into a bat, and flys away. Dad can only snark "See? Vampire! Told ya!"
Anime & Manga
- One-time opponent Dracula Man in Dragon Ball recoils in horror (or perhaps disgust) when Upa breathes on him after eating garlic.
- In Interviews with Monster Girls, it's explained that vampires dislike garlic because they have heightened senses, including smell. This makes garlic's strong smell affect them even more. However, preferences vary for each person; the lead vampire Hikari loves garlic, but reacts to tobacco smoke much like your average vampire would to garlic.
- Similar to the above, Karin-style vampires find garlic repulsive because of their sensitive sense of smell: it's pointed out that they react in much the same way to other smelly foods like blue cheese or onions. Karin, being an unvampire with normal senses actually really likes garlic.
- In My Monster Secret, the protagonist Youko is a half-vampire, so the usual vampire weaknesses are underplayed for laughs. In case of garlic, it simply makes her eyes sting. However, we later meet her full-blooded father, and his reaction is pretty much the same, only exaggerated.
- Evangeline A.K. McDowell from Negima! Magister Negi Magi hates garlic (along with leeks). This is how she was defeated in the past by Negi's father.
Comic Books
- Alluded to in the 12th issue of Cartoon Cartoons (one of several comic tie-ins to Cartoon Network shows published by DC Comics at the time) in the Johnny Bravo story "To Sea or Not to Sea?", where a teacher Johnny tries to court while on a field trip faints while remarking that he had garlic for lunch. Johnny's response is "Aw, man! Is that why they call it a vampire killer with cheese?"
- Fascinatingly, in Italian Disney comics, Magica de Spell is weak to garlic. Even odder, this is often depicted is being the weakness of all witches, as well as vampires. Make of that what you will.
- Fiends of the Eastern Front: Hans and Karl create a circle out of garlic so that the Rumanian vampires can't get near them.
- Averted with Morbius the Living Vampire, who loves garlic, "especially in a nice pesto sauce." Justified since he is a scientifically-created pseudo-vampire, not a real supernatural one.
- The Scary Godmother comic miniseries Wild About Harry has Harry the Werewolf ordering pizzas while staying at the residence of Count Max, Countess Ruby and their son Orson. He considers ordering a pizza with garlic as a topping with no regard to the family being vampires, which Max is understandably furious about.
Fan Works
- Garlic is harmless to most vampires in Bloodstained Heroes of Humanity and they can eat it like any other food. Izuku unfortunately is genuinely allergic to garlic and cannot touch it without breaking out in a rash. Sumi has fun teasing Izuku for it.
Film — Animated
- Weaponized by Batman in The Batman vs. Dracula. After discovering the existence of vampires in Gotham (led by Count Dracula himself), Batman quickly goes about making anti-vampire weaponry, such as garlic gas bombs and garlic-treated Batarangs.
- In Hotel Transylvania, Dracula confirms to Jonathan that vampires are harmed by garlic—however, from the way it's explained, it sounds more like your standard food allergy than the standard supernatural reason.
Jonathan: So, can I ask you a question? Is it true? About the garlic thing?
Dracula: Yes. I cannot have it. My throat swells.- Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation retcons this when Ericka tries to kill Dracula by tricking him into consuming guacamole containing garlic oil. It ends up causing Drac to pass gas rather than any serious harm. It's also revealed that garlic affects Mavis the same way when she tries the guacamole and ends up breaking wind, much to her mortification and her husband Johnny's amusement.
- In Monster Mash (2000), Drac remarks that he likes his pasta without garlic after devouring Freddie de Spaghetti, a slasher made of sentient pasta.
- The Scary Godmother animated special had Harry the Werewolf trying to order pizza and asking if it's fine to have garlic toppings as garnishing. Cue the vampire family freaking out, with the patriarch Count Max pulling an Angry Collar Grab on the werewolf asking, "Are you trying to poison my family?" before Max's son Orson restrains his father and tells Harry that they are very allergic to garlic.
- Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School: Referenced when the vampire Sibella orders a pizza. She says it has everything on it except garlic.
- Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire: For a gag in a chase scene, Shaggy and Scooby serve a vampire a plate of spaghetti, secretly topped off with tons of garlic. The vampire eats it without incident, but it wasn't a real vampire of course.
- Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire: Shaggy and Scooby try it again, wearing garlic necklaces for protection when going into a theater at a vampire-themed festival, only to be stopped by an unnamed teen vampire cosplayer who's working at the festival and claims garlic is prohibited in the theater. To get around this, the pair eat the garlic whole, much to the cosplayer's disgust.
Film — Live-Action
- The Blade Trilogy features garlic as one of vampires' main weaknesses; according to Whistler, it sends them into anaphylactic shock. When Karen sprays garlic into Mercury's mouth during the climax of the first film, she struggles to breathe for several seconds, then her head explodes.
- Averted in the Universal Dracula movie; considering how much influence it had on future Dracula adaptations and vampire depictions in general, it's a surprise that the vampire's weakness to garlic, one of the most iconic aspects of modern vampires, and Van Helsing's use of it to protect Lucy, was replaced with wolfsbane, a poisonous flower more commonly associated with werewolves than vampires (accordingly, it would reappear in The Wolf Man (1941)).
- At one point in Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Von Helsing tries to protect Lucy from vampiric attack by filling her room with so much garlic that the smell would drive just about anyone away whether they're undead or not. It works in the short term - Dracula is unable to enter her room, and has to resort to alternative methods to get to Lucy.
- Subverted in Howling II: Stirba: Werewolf Bitch, where garlic is presented as a repellent against werewolves. This is one of the many reasons why people have speculated that the script was originally supposed to be a vampire movie before they just switched monsters.
- In Monster Mash (1995), Dracula at one point panics when informed that he just consumed garlic.
- Garlic was instrumental in driving off Dracula during his first encounter with The Monster Squad, which had the effect of burning him.
- In My Best Friend is a Vampire, this is one of the earliest tip-offs of Jeremy's turning, discovered during a date that involves a loaded pizza. He's annoyed, because he likes garlic.
- In The Lost Boys, Max, the man whom the vampire hunters think is the Head Vampire, is invited over to an Italian dinner. When he asks for grated cheese, they slip him shredded garlic, which he liberally put onto his meal. He nearly chokes on it, but other than that is Ok. Turns out he was the Head Vampire, but 1) garlic doesn't actually work, and 2) he was invited in by the homeowner. Ooops!!
Gamebooks
- Played straight in all Fighting Fantasy books which has vampires as possible encounters, including The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Forest of Doom, City of Thieves (1983), House of Hell, Return to Firetop Mountain, Vault of the Vampire (well no doy), Eye of the Dragon and several others, to the point where if you come across garlic at any point in the adventure, you can brace yourself for an encounter against hostile vampires at some point later in the story. However most of the times the garlic is only effective in keeping the vampire at bay, rather than being used as a weapon capable of harming said vampire.
Literature
- In the Bailey School Kids series, Mrs. Jeepers, who may or may not be a vampire, is allergic to garlic.
- In Bunnicula, Chester succeeds at keeping the titular vampire wabbit away from the Monroes' vegetables by using garlic. Of course, this gets him in trouble the next morning when Mrs. Monroe catches him and gives the irate cat a bath.
- At one point in the Diana Tregarde novel Children of the Night, Diana's agent tried to invoke this trope with a delivery from his favorite Jewish deli — garlic bread, garlic bagels, chicken soup loaded with garlic ... along with a note telling her to keep Andre away from her neck. Diana laughs so hard she almost drops the bag. (Andre is unaffected, and almost as amused.)
- Discworld:
- Garlic is one of the ways the wizards consider getting rid of Windle Poons (who's actually a zombie anyway) in Reaper Man, as is a stake. The conversation then descends into whether or not you should put garlic on a steak. Somehow, they end up trying to use celery.
- In Witches Abroad, garlic sees off the vampire attempting to attack the witches at the Überwald inn ... in the sense that Granny Weatherwax is so offended by Nanny Ogg eating garlic sausage in bed that she throws it out the window, where it hits the vampire in bat form.
- The Magpyrs in Carpe Jugulum have trained themselves out of this, as they have all vampire weaknesses.
Count Magpyr: Garlic is just another member of the allium family. Do onions hurt us? Are we frightened of shallots?
- It's a very Discussed Trope in the book as well. All Myths Are True but the Discworld is powered by belief (As in Gods Need Prayer Badly) so there's people discussing on how to kill off a vampire permanently requires stuffing their mouth full of garlic or hammering carrots in their ears.
- Played straight in Thud!, where Lance-Constable Salacia von Humperding finds garlic in her locker as part of a hazing ritual, and has prepared for this by carving a bulb of garlic out of an apple so she can pointedly eat it in front of the ringleader. And carving another one stuffed with chilli seeds, which she offers to him...
- Doctor Who Expanded Universe: In Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks, the vampires from "State of Decay" are repelled by the flowers of garil, a herb also used in cooking. In The Eight Doctors, also by Dicks, the Doctor flat out says it's just another word for garlic.
- In Dracula, Van Helsing attempts to protect Lucy from Dracula by giving her a garland of garlic flowers to wear, and rubbing garlic around all the entrances of her bedroom. It fails because Lucy's mother, not realizing their significance, takes the garland off while she sleeps.
- In The Dresden Files, Black Court vampires are the classic undead type (in fact, Dracula was published as a Black Court hunting manual), and have an aversion to garlic, which burns them on contact. In one of the short stories, garlic powder from a pizza joint works just as well as cloves.
- Dr. Greta Helsing: Vampires are physically and severely allergic to garlic. When Greta needs to explain matters to a recently-turned teen in Dreadful Company, she compares the reaction to that faced by a friend of the teen with a dangerous nut allergy.
- In the picture book Frankenstein Takes the Cake by Adam Rex, the poem "The Best Man of Frankenstein Makes a Trip to the Buffet" is from Dracula's perspective as he bites into a piece of garlic bread. The harmfulness appears as an allergic reaction.
- In Girls Kingdom, a vampire hunter throws garlic at confirmed vampire Angelica, who catches it and tosses it aside with absolutely no ill effects.
- In House of Hell, one of the many opponents you can meet in the titular house is a vampire. The best way to survive this encounter is to use garlic against him.
- In one of the Kitty Norville books, Kitty takes a call from a new vampire unhappy to.be losing his career as a chef thanks to his newfound garlic intolerance.
- Ann Hodgman's My Babysitter Is a Vampire: Vampires really hate garlic, though it just drives them off and won't kill them - Vincent Graver can't even stand to be in the same room when there's a commercial for garlic bread on TV. His rival Boris, on the other hand, was driven back but not fatally injured when a bulb of garlic was shoved into his mouth.
- In The Parasol Protectorate, pesto sauce is not just tasty but useful against supernatural creatures because it's full of both garlic, which induces sneezing fits in vampires, and basil, which werewolves are allergic to.
- Mocked in a Your Vampires Suck moment in the Sabina Kane series. Vampires themselves disseminated the idea that they were weak to garlic as a distraction from their actual Weaksauce Weakness to apples and apple wood (which they believe is due to being descended from Lilith and Cain).
- Universal Monsters: In book 1, Captain Bob tries to use this against a vampirized Devin Chavarria. Unfortunately, she's able to keep him from hitting her with it. It later helps against Dracula in bat form, but less so when he attacks the Chavarria house; Captain Bob then uses it successfully in the penultimate battle, as it burns him. It's also found that putting garlic and a cross around Devin, while she's unconscious, will start to revert her to human. They have to stay in place or she'll start to turn back though.
- Deconstructed in The Vampire Files, in which Jack points out that using a bad smell against something that doesn't actually need to breathe is stupid. He also notes that, in traditional folklore of the part of Europe where this trope originated, garlic is alleged to be a cure for everything, so using it against vampires may just be an extension of that broader belief.
- In the short story "Wolfie" by Theodore Cogswell, Doctor Arsoldi, a sorcerer who uses the supernatural to help murderers commit the perfect crime, had had a close call with the You Have Failed Me clause of his Deal with the Devil when a lady temporarily becomes a vampire so she could suck out her husband's blood, not realizing he had had a steak dinner with garlic that evening. She was not "prostrated with grief" as the newspapers claimed, but by the injuries dealt by the garlic while she was a vampire. After that, it took a huge money offer to persuade Arsoldi to go back into the crime-aiding business, whereupon the next job, the focus of the story, faces an insurmountable slip-up.
Live-Action TV
- In Being Human (US) garlic forces vampires' Game Face on and locks it on.
- Implied in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We see cloves of garlic used in preparation against vampires, but the actual effects are never shown.
- Forever Knight. Don Schanke has been chewing garlic, and as a practical joke breathes on his partner Nick Knight, who unknown to him is a Vampire Detective. Nick visibly staggers to Schanke's amusement. Nick is also shown trying garlic pills that Natalie has given him in an attempt to ween him off his vampirism, only to regurgitate them immediately.
- Good Eats: In the episode "The Bulb of the Night", a vampire named Vlad hires Alton to help him get over his "phobia" of garlic. The fear itself seems to be his only problem; once he starts cooking with it, he's perfectly fine.
- In the Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation four-part episode "Unchain My Heart", the Turtles prepare for a fight with the vampire Vam-Mi and her minions Bing and Chi-Chu by arming themselves with vampire-repellent weaponry. One of the weapons Donatello devises is a squirt gun filled with garlic juice, but it isn't shown to be very effective when he uses it on Bing.
- In The Office (US), Jim is bitten by a bat and decides to prank Dwight by making him think he was turning into a vampire. One of the first hints he gives is acting as if he was burned from touching garlic bread.
- Sesame Street: In Episode 4931, Count Von Count goes shopping at Sarita's Supermarket, and says "Pass" when a vendor offers him garlic.
- Averted in an episode of So Weird. Fi confronts a secret cadre of vampires and wields several cloves of garlic against their leader. He takes the garlic and inhales deeply, commenting on how much he likes the scent. He then proceeds to take her homemade crucifix and toss it on a pile of stakes, crosses and other common anti-vampire implements, claiming that none of them work.
- Supernatural: Played for laughs in "Monster Movie". The villain is a shapeshifter who's a fan of old horror movies. In one scene, he's putting on his best Bela Lugosi impersonation when a pizza delivery guy rings the doorbell.
"Dracula": Is there garlic on this pizza?
Pizza Guy: I don't know. Did you order garlic?
"Dracula": [looking horrified] No!
Pizza Guy: [bored] Then no, there isn't any garlic on it. - In Ultraviolet (1998), allicin is mentioned by name as the part of garlic that vampires can't stand, and the vampire hunters use allicin-based gas grenades to weaken their quarry.
- Wizards of Waverly Place: Juliet (Justin's vampire-girlfriend) and her parents explain to Justin and his family in one episode that while garlic is harmful to vampires, pumpkins are actually much worse for vampires—Juliet and her parents claim that part of the reason people starting using pumpkins for Jack-o-lanterns and putting them in front of their houses was to keep monsters (such as vampires) away.
Radio
- In a John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme skit, about someone booking a destination wedding at what is clearly Castle Dracula, Igor claims that quaint local customs prohibit garlic from being served at the reception. "So no chicken kievs for you!"
Tabletop Games
- Chronicles of Darkness:
- Vampire: The Requiem plays with this trope in a manner similar to its spiritual predecessor; once again, aversion to garlic isn't usually a weakness vampires have, but starting with the Second Edition, it's possible for them to accept part of the Beast in them in order to better keep it in check, at the cost of developing new, unique weaknesses known as "Bane". One of the suggested Banes is an aversion to a specific substance, which can indeed be Garlic.
- Hunter: The Vigil has this trope invoked by the Cainite Conspiracy, who can use a blood rite to actually make garlic harmful to vampires.
- Dungeons & Dragons. In 1st Edition "Vampires recoil from strong garlic" and in 2nd Edition "The odor of strong garlic repels them and they will not approach it."
- The Dracula Dossier: There are allicin-based weapons available, but since allicin breaks down rapidly they aren't something you can just pull out of a weapon stash someplace. If your Director is using the alternative "Telluric Vampire" build, garlic only has an effect if it was not grown in the vampire's native soil — grabbing a few cloves at a Romanian market before heading after Dracula is a waste of time.
- Vampire: The Masquerade: While most vampires avert this trope, you can play it straight by taking the Repelled by Garlic flaw.
Theatre
- The villagers who gather at Chagal's inn in Tanz Der Vampire certainly believe this, with an entire show-opening ode to garlic as a cure-all for everything from old age to erectile dysfunction, followed by a certain caginess around admitting to the local presence of vampires at all. The actual vampires of the setting seem more or less unfazed by it, suggesting it's a desperate placebo on the villagers' part.
Trading Cards
- The Killer Cards card "Vampires" depicts a vampire about to bite a woman, unaware that a boy is preparing a trap that will dump a bucket of garlic syrup upon the vampire.
Video Games
- The garlic in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest will stunlock any enemy that touches it and continuously drain their HP until they die. Using it on Death takes a very long time to defeat him, but it also renders the Reaper a Zero-Effort Boss.
- The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark: Played with; one character is a reverse-vampire, with inverted versions of the traditional vampiric weaknesses, and garlic is his favorite food.
- While the myth of vampires being weak to garlic is known in The Elder Scrolls, it isn't an accurate myth... with one, as far as the vampire in question knows, unique exception: Vicente Valtieri in Oblivion, who suffers a catastrophic reaction to being in close proximity with garlic. It doesn't kill him, but it makes him very easy to kill.note Admittedly close here is so specific that it's not enough for you to carry it, he must do so — but you only encounter him in the Dark Brotherhood questline, which encourages sneakiness (and the game allows 'reverse pickpocketing' of placing objects in other people's inventories)...
- Alchemically, garlic has the "Resist Disease" effect, so while it can't be used against vampires, it can be used to create a potion that can prevent you from becoming one. Developing a cure for vampirism also requires a whopping six samples of garlic.
- In Guilty Gear, this is averted by the resident vampire Slayer, who even eats garlic for breakfast (and lunch AND dinner).
- Played differently in Plants vs. Zombies. Garlic is one of your plants available to use against the zombies. He doesn't exactly scare zombies away, but he can, upon being bitten, redirect the zombie eating it away from his lane, making him useful for protecting the plants behind him and redirecting the zombies onto a more dangerous line.'
- Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes has the Garlic. Any zombie teammate attacking it is forced into the lane on the left, unless it's a Vimpire or Ancient Vimpire, in which the zombie teammate dies instantly instead.
- Every house in Quest for Glory IV is adorned with huge amounts of garlic, and garlic is a major condiment in virtually every meal (to the point where the standard field ration is a garlic and avocado sandwich). The townsfolk are utterly paranoid of Things That Go "Bump" in the Night. Seeing as the valley is home to the carcass of an Eldritch Abomination, so they have good reason.
- RuneScape uses this in two quests: Vampire Slayer, in which holding garlic in your inventory weakens the vampire so he can be slain, and Fishing Contest, in which using garlic in a certain place will chase a vampire away from an ideal fishing spot that he is occupying.
- Downplayed in The Sims 3. Vampires are fine with garlic as long as they don't actually ingest it, whether directly (in a food that contains garlic), or secondhand (by ingesting the plasma of a person who recently ate something that had garlic in it). Even then, the garlic only makes vampires ill, and generally not in a life-threatening (unlife-threatening?) way.
- In The Sims 4, unless vampires have the Garlic Immunity power, vampires will be too uncomfortable to drink plasma while under the effects of garlic's stench.
- In The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (and its Japan-only predecessor, Makai Prince Dorabocchan), the protagonist is a Vegetarian Vampire and Waddling Heads of garlic are trying to kill him. In fact, all enemies' Life Meters are represented by heads of garlic.
- Discussed and Averted in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines when Jack gives the newly-turned vampire PC a rundown on their new weaknesses and tells them that it doesn't actually do anything to vampires.
- Garlic is a weapon option in Vampire Survivors, though its efficacy against vampires is questionable, given that no vampires appear in the game. At any rate, Garlic generates a damaging aura around the player character — not enough to do much against mid- or lategame enemies, but enough to easily handle the Cannon Fodder at the start of a run — and also increases foes' susceptibility to Knock Back or freeze effects, which can combo nicely with other weapons. Garlic can also evolve into the Soul Eater, becoming so pungent that it gains a Life Drain effect.
- In Wario Land 3, Wario loses his Vampire Wario transformation if he touches garlic (which is especially ironic, considering that garlic happens to be Wario's Trademark Favorite Food).
- In Witchery, some anti-vampire equipment is made with garlic, and garlic can also be strung up into garlands that can be placed to repel vampires. Bewitchment's vampires take damage when standing on garlic crops or holding garlic, and garlic can be used as a material for rituals and items that repel all unholy creatures, not just vampires.
Visual Novels
Web Comics
- Appears to apply to all known types of vampires in Charby the Vampirate though the results of eating garlic have not been seen for any of them.
- In Kevin & Kell, when Desdemona, a vampire bat (analogous to vampires in this World of Funny Animals), was asked if vampire bats are repelled by garlic, she replies that they actually aren't, it's just that garlic breath messes up a bat's sonar, so that's how the myth got started.
- In Monstra it's explained that garlic is more of a common allergen to vampires then an outright ward since their heighten senses don't work well with it's potent smell, causing them to sneeze which disrupts their concentration and their powers. They can ward them off easily however though physical means (merely covering their noises and knocking the garlic aside) and smaller bits aren't that effective on them, meaning they can eat things like pizza with it without effect.
- Rosianna Rabbit has a strip where Harry Hare is a vampire and tries to bite a sleeping Rosianna, only to find out that she's used garlic spray to keep him away. After noticing that she is presently wearing a tampon, Harry settles for instead feeding on Rosianna's menstrual blood, the final panel showing him flying out the window, smiling in content at the satisfaction of earning his red wings.
- Subverted with the hipster vampires in Rusty and Co. who've removed all their traditional vampire weaknesses. A pizza causes the male vampire's face to melt, but it turns out to be caused by the gluten, not the garlic.
- In Sluggy Freelance Vorpyr-type vampires are killed by cutting their heads off and stuffing their mouths with garlic, Aylee hilariously misremembered it as "cut off their feet and stuff onions up their butts". In a later arc a Vrykolatkas (who lack that weakness) paralyzes two Vorpyrs with aerosolized garlic oil.
- In Vampire Girl, this is one of the reasons Levana has for disliking being a vampire, as this greatly limits her diet of foods she can consume without otherwise having to worry about any fatal consequences. In fact, after she becomes human, she notes in her diary eating twelve or more (she loses count) slices of pizza at a party.
Web Original
- In season 1 of Carmilla the Series, the students incapacitate a vampire by duct-taping her to a chair and putting a string of garlic around her neck.
- Epic Rap Battles of History: Gets a mention during the battle between Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, where Vlad mentions his plans to kill Dracula with the garlic breadsticks at Olive Garden (presumably via impaling him with them.)
- In How to Hero, legend has it that the very first vampire was very rude at a monster get together and requested blood in lieu of the garlic dish the hostess, a witch had slaved over. As the night went on, the vampire kept doing more rude things until eventually the witch placed several curses on him. One of those curses was vampires' classic weakness to garlic.
- Neopets: The "Garlic! Run!!" avatar shows a Halloween Cybunny, which is dressed as a vampire, being attacked by a Garlic Kiko.
- Whateley Universe: Played with in the character of Vamp. Shortly after arriving at WhateleyAcademy, Vamp is confronted by Pucelle over their previous encounter in Bostonnote . In the middle of this bitchfest, Vamp stops suddenly to ask her new main squeeze, XO, to remember to pick up some garlic in case she goes Drunk on the Dark Side again like she had that time in Boston. Pucelle takes note of this, and when she next confronts Vamp, she shoves a string of garlic bulbs in her face - which Vamp thanks her for, saying she loves garlic. She's Actually Not a Vampire, you see, but she likes garlic so much that it is one of the things which can snap her out of her frenzies, so she was actually asking XO to help her if she flipped out again.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time vampires are likely vulnerable to garlic, considering that Peppermint Butler includes a "super garlic bomb" in his vampire-hunting kit (along with a regular clove). We never get to see the bomb's effect, since it gets accidentally dropped and broken when there are no vampires nearby.
- In the spin-off Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, the garlic bombs are the main weapons used by Princess Bubblegum in an alternate universe where vampires rule the land, and are shown to kill all of the vampire minions nearby. Similarly, Huntress uses garlic bulbs in the point of her arrows.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
- The Aqua Teens' landlord Markula is a vampire. While he's holding them captive, Frylock asks Carl to douce him with garlic champagne at his birthday celebration.
- In "Vampiris", Shake's immunity from the killer horde of bats was actually from his garlic deodorant, which Frylock expands on by making toothpaste, cologne, and shampoo all garlic-flavored to eradicate all the vampires.
- Vampires in Archie's Weird Mysteries can't handle garlic in even the tiniest amounts. Archie and his friends are able to outright kill a vampire merely by breathing garlic breath at him, and they later use garlic juice as a non-lethal means to incapacitate their vampirized friends with the intense itching it causes them.
- Subverted in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Shadow of the Bat!", where the vampirized Batman mocks self-proclaimed horror aficionado Booster Gold for trying to drive him off with a garlic-based sauce. Then again, it was All Just a Dream...
- The Big Knights: After Maurice eats the raw garlic given to them in the hopes of defeating the vampires, he instead takes them out by burping.
- Bunnicula: Zig-Zagged. Being a vampire rabbit, Bunnicula has no aversion to sucking garlic dry. However, doing so causes him to be turned into a walking skeleton, though thankfully it turns out he can regenerate by simply zipping up a new skin.
- Castlevania (2017) opens with Lisa demanding that Dracula teach her medicine. While trying to intimidate her, he mockingly asks if she plans to stake his heart or if she's loaded down with garlic. Lisa suddenly gets scared and responds that yes, she ate some roasted garlic (it was all she had left), and then asks if that was rude of her!
- On Celebrity Deathmatch: When Sarah Michelle Gellar battles a rather uncool vampire, he scoffs at her attempts to use garlic on him, saying that all it does is make him gassy. Of course, when she uses the string of garlic as a makeshift whip...well, he hates that...
- Count Spankulot from Codename: Kids Next Door has shown to react negatively towards garlic, swelling up like he was allergic.
- DuckTales (2017): Violet, who is well-versed in magic, wears a garlic necklace when preparing for supernatural trouble (reasoning that it's only a matter of time until vampires do show up), and when they confront Magica, the most powerful sorceress, she eats the garlic and declares Violet is now susceptible to vampires. An actual vampire appears 2 episodes later, but he is never shown displaying this sort of weakness.
- Fanboy and Chum Chum: This particular vampire weakness comes up in the episode "Fangboy", where Fanboy believes himself to have become a vampire after waking up with a mosquito bite on his neck. After attempting to bite his friend Chum Chum so he can become a vampire, too, Fanboy notices that Chum Chum doesn't have a neck and decides to go to a neck specialist named Dr. Acula so that Chum Chum can get one. Fanboy gives Dr. Acula a garlic necklace in case he has to defend himself from Fanboy, Fanboy not being aware that Dr. Acula is an actual vampire.
- Filmation's Ghostbusters: In "The Girl Who Cried Vampire," garlic causes Victor to shrink to three inches tall.
- Garfield and Friends: In "Count Lasagna", the lasagna delivery man tries to wear garlic around his neck in hopes that it will ward off the titular vampire cat who subsists on Italian cuisine. His boss explains to him that Count Lasagna actually likes garlic and that he's better off wearing raisins around his neck.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In an episode from the final season, it's revealed that Irwin (the Black and Nerdy friend of Billy, Mandy and Grim) is the grandson of Count Dracula, as Irwin's father, Dick, is Dracula's son through Tanya, Irwin's paternal grandmother (which also makes Dick a Dhampyr, as Tanya's a human and not a vampire like Dracula). After learning of this, Irwin gets sprayed in the face (twice!) with garlic butter from Mandy—the first time was presumably to prove that Irwin is indeed part vampire (and presumably to keep him from kissing her, as Irwin tried using his vampire heritage as a way to flirt with her) while the second time was...just because.
Irwin: AAAAH! Why woman, why?!
- Comes up in the Johnny Bravo episode "Going Batty", where Johnny eats some pasta while dating a vampire named Lois. The pasta happened to have garlic in it and Lois tries to run away to escape Johnny's garlic breath.
- The Mina and The Count episode "The Vampire Who Came to Dinner" involves the Count being invited to Mina's family for dinner. He decides that he'll give the food a chance in spite of finding mortal food disgusting, but then discovers to his horror that Mina has prepared a garlic souffle.
- Molly of Denali: Referenced in "Steam Bath Ch'oondaii," when Layla jokes about how the wreath of garlic that Mr. Patak gave her will help keep her safe from vampires.
- The Monster in My Pocket animated special "The Big Scream" had Carrie Raven attempt to ward off Vampire using garlic. Vampire promptly eats the garlic and smugly remarks "Don't believe everything you read".
- Averted in Monster Loving Maniacs. Dracula is immune to the effects of garlic on account of having lived in Italy for many years at one point during his unlife.
- In Sabrina: The Animated Series, Sabrina makes friends with a group of vampires who convince her to help them rob a blood bank by eating an entire room full of garlic that is protecting the safe. When Sabrina's aunts show up just after the robbery and end up getting arrested for it, Sabrina is able to defeat the vampire judge at their trial by burping at him.
- Scooby-Doo
- In the Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo episode "I Left My Neck in San Francisco", Scooby and Shaggy get the idea to ward off the Lady Vampire of the Bay by eating garlic pizza.
- Played with on The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show in the Scrappy-Doo and Yabba-Doo segment episode "Vild Vest Vampire", where garlic is used by Scrappy and Dusty to cure Yabba after Count Zarko has turned him into a zombie and is later used to cure the rest of the zombified citizens of Tumbleweed after our heroes get rid of Count Zarko.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!: In the episode "Count Koopula," Mario, Luigi, and Toad are able to defeat King Koopa's titular persona by eating garlic and breathing in his face.
- The second Teacher's Pet Halloween Episode, "The Tale of the Tell-Tale Taffy", had a sub-plot where a black cat named Spooky had been brought into the house by Leonard and Mr. Jolly worried that Spooky was a vampire. Mr. Jolly at one point wears garlic around his neck to try and ward off Spooky, but Spooky actually likes it. Spooky later turns out to be an actual vampire when Mr. Jolly and Pretty Boy force him out of the house and he turns into a bat before flying away, disproving any prior assumptions that the garlic didn't work because Spooky wasn't really a vampire.
