There is a point when something becomes so nerdy it becomes awesome. Giant Microbes are such a thing, proving that even Ebola is better with plushies.
Bordering on the Ugly Cute in places, Giant Microbes toys were created as an educational aid from real images of real microbes and are surprisingly accurate, despite the eyes, fluff, bright colours and x1,000,000+ size increase. As adorable as they are, they can, however, make rather tricky gifts—who wants to get chlamydia on Christmas? (Even in plush form.)
Some Giant Microbes plushes are currently housed in the Museum Of Modern Art, New York.
For the monster type, see Mega-Microbes.
Tropes associated with this toy include:
- Animate Body Parts: Basically organs, cells, and pathogens with a pair of eyes.
- Dualvertisement: Two so far, fittingly with Plague Inc. (a game about spreading disease across the world) and Cells at Work! (a manga/anime about anthropomorphized cells in the human body).
- Everything's Better with Plushies: Their raison d'être. Scary disease-causing agents are less scary as fluffy plushes!
- No Mouth: Just a pair of big, adorable plastic eyes.
- Only Six Faces: Given how similar-looking many bacteria or viruses are, there are several palette swaps (ex. Cold/HIV/Hepatitis) and designers need to use some Artistic License with certain designs, such as Flesh Eating Disease having a fork and knife, Mad Cow Disease being patterned like a Holstein, and West Nile and Dengue Fever having Egyptian eye markings.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The egg cell and the sperm cell wear a pink and blue hairbow respectively.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: They're not always "critters" as defined, but they're all adorable with their fluffiness and big eyes.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Even COVID-19 has its plush
◊. - Sperm as People: You can get a Sperm Cell plush.
- Talking Poo: A Poop plush with eyes!
