Octopoids and other tentacled creatures are often depicted as funny and amusing creatures.
Octopuses are soft and lack bones, which, along with their regenerative ability, makes them easy to be the victim of Amusing Injuries. Their Hollywood Chameleon ability can also make them a comical Master of Disguise. Plus there's the inherent funny-ness in the squishy, tentacled body that is able to contour and squeeze through narrow places.
Oh, and they have eight or ten arms (except when they are drawn with fewer), perfect for Multi-Armed Multitasking. Comedy gold.
Heck, even "octopus" and "squid" themselves can be seen as Inherently Funny Words.
May overlap with Stealthy Cephalopod if an octopus' camouflage abilities are played for laughs. For other tropes about comical animals, see Beary Funny and Quacking Up. Contrast Tentacled Terror for cephalopods being depicted as scary and monstrous, though as our friend Ursula would attest, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Octopus aliens feature occasionally in Galaxy Angel:
- In one episode, the main characters visit a sushi stall run by a giant octopus who's a jerk to everyone except Vanilla. When the rest of them have had it up to here with his abuse, they decide to eat him.
- A recurring character is an alien octopus who's obsessed with Forte and repeatedly declares his love for her no matter how often or violently she rejects him. He's supposedly rich and famous on his home planet.
- Ranpha claims that the prince of a planet fell in love with her, and she only didn't marry him because he's an "octopod" alien.
- The Magic World of Negima! Magister Negi Magi has the pseudo-octopus called Cerberus Cloth Eater, which only eats and dissolves your clothes, but is still greatly feared by travelers since it licks them thoroughly then leaves them naked in the jungle. Poor Chisame encounters one.
- One Piece:
- The Kraken Surume starts off as the legendary ship-devouring monster one would expect, but upon taking a beatdown from the Straw Hats, he ends up befriending them and turns out to be pretty amicable. And dorky.
- Hacchan and his crush Octopako are cephalopod-fishmen and, after Hacchan stops being an enemy to the Straw Hats, the two of them live some rather mundane lives. For the both of them, their main gag is that they use far more of their many tentacle arms than necessary, such as Hacchan using all six of his arms in a thank-you gesture to someone helping him.
- In Pokémon the Series: XY, James' Inkay gets in on the slapstick and mischief as much as any Team Rocket member.
- Squid Girl. The eponymous Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Protagonist Squid Girl is a humanoid (whether she has a backbone is not mentioned). She has several squid traits, specifically Bioluminescence, Combat Tentacles, the ability to spit (or Waterfall Puke) ink, and Tentacle Rope.
Asian Animation
- Momo (2022): The main character and her father are peculiar wonderers of the aquarium they live in, sometimes veering out of their underwater exhibit. They can write words with their own ink. In addition, their being stranded at a closed gift shop led Momo to try consuming human food and soda and playfully throw stuffed animals at her father.
Comic Books
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police: Sam & Max get rescued from pirates in "Hit the Road" by "Ratso" and his "howling band of cephalopods." Sam comments on how their floppy heads look gross on land.
- The Umbrella Academy:
- The first issue opens with a man wrestling a giant space squid for no real reason.
- The character Horror, who's actually pretty squidish himself, for obvious reasons.
Comic Strips
- The pet squid in the comic strip Liō is a good example, inasmuch as he's supposed to be so cool primarily because he's a squid.
- In one sequence of Walt Kelly's "Comic Strip/Pogo" Albert the Alligator gets a nonspeaking octopus lodged on his noggin. After a wild panic and a debate about verb forms ("Is it 'a octopots is got Albert' or 'a octopots done got Albert'?" the alligator decides he looks good with a head of tentacles and wears the octopus as a coiffure for a few days.
- The giant squid in Sherman's Lagoon is Sherman's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis.
Films — Animation
- Animalympics has the Calamari Brothers who compete at waterball, freestyle swimming (one of them) and bobsledding.
- Aquamania has a long sequence of Goofy waterskiing with an octopus on his head. The octopus winds its tentacles around Goofy's head and takes over holding the towline to keep the two of them alive.
- Finding Nemo:
- Finding Nemo: One of Nemo's classmates is a young, somewhat nervous octopus ("Aw, you made me ink!").
- Finding Dory: Hank, the octopus Dory meets at the I*nstitute, is pulled into her wacky hi-jinks. He tends to be more of a Straight Man than funny on his own, though he does have his moments, such as disguising himself as a baby.
- In The Great Mouse Detective, one performer in the Bad Guy Bar is an octopus clown, juggling three balls between his tentacles. He becomes the victim of Produce Pelting from the patrons of the bar who are unsatisfied with his act.
- Monsters, Inc. 1 has an octopus-like sushi chef working in the restaurant named Harryhausen's. Like all the patrons, the octopus monster is terrified of the human toddler, Boo.
- "Neptune Nonsense" features an octopus working as a traffic cop on the sea floor. This octopus tickles Felix the Cat for bumping into him.
- Oktapodi is the story of a pair of octopi living contently in an aquarium, until one gets sold to a restaurant. It's up to the other octopus to effect a rescue.
- Dave the octopus from Penguins of Madagascar may be the Big Bad, but he's quite Faux Affably Evil at times, which, combined with his sheer ham, makes him a very entertaining character. His octopus Mooks are even funnier, with their silly antics such as sleeping on the job or starting fights with each other, their "blub" language, and their tendency to fall victim to Amusing Injuries more than any other character in the movie.
- Luca the octopus from Shark Tale provides necessary comic relief for the sharks. He is also Captain Obvious. He isn't that bright.
- Theater manager Buster Moon from Sing hires two hundred deep-sea squid to add their bio-luminescence to his stage and backdrop to create a living light show. Buster soon learns why it's a bad idea to enclose several thousand gallons of water with ordinary window glass.
Films — Live-Action
- Bride of the Monster makes use of a prop octopus that gets Bela Lugosi in its clutches (though Bela has to toss the tentacles over himself for the effect). Supposed to be "evil" but clearly in the "comical" category.
- DC Extended Universe:
- Aquaman has Topo the drum-playing octopus, in a Comically Serious fashion.
- The sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, expands Topo's role and cranks up the funny with him. When Atlanna talks to Arthur/Aquaman about sending the octopus to help him free Orm (akin to R2-D2 in Star Wars), she lists everything the animal does, and playing music comes last. He is indeed of great help to Arthur, but not without acting a bit goofy when Arthur and Orm have to escape by the sea (rushing first to the sea without bothering about the two of them and hindering Arthur by climbing on him while he's running). He also makes bizarre gargling sounds.
- The Mermaid: The merpeople community consists mostly of part-fish merfolk... and then there's Brother Octopus, the sole mer-octopus and resident Butt-Monkey, who often got his tentacles stomped on or sliced off, suffering all kinds of Amusing Injuries throughout the film which is Played for Laughs.
- Return of the Jedi's Admiral Ackbar is certainly a good guy, but not deliberately funny. Then Memetic Mutation set in. All together now, "It's a trap!" Ackbar's notable for being one of the only squid creatures you'll ever see who's squid-like because of his face, not having multiple limbs. Jabba's guest Tessek (a.k.a. Squidhead), on the other hand, is not a nice guy.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit has an octopus working the wet bar of the Ink And Paint Club, where he mixes drinks, serves patrons, polishes glassware and examines notes for counterfeits all at once.
Literature
- The Curious Squid in Jingo has cephalopodian intelligence Played for Laughs; the squid are, as the name suggests, curious, about all kinds of things. What they aren't good at is making connections, which makes them very easy to catch.
- The friendly monster Sketchy from Warren the 13th heavily resembles an octopus.
Music
- Henry the Octopus, a supporting cast member of The Wiggles. Known for breakdancing with all his legs.
- A nice one at any rate, in Ringo Starr's "Octopus's Garden". He'd let us in, knows where we've been. On a vacation in Greece, Ringo was told of their penchant for collecting objects to put around their homes. Truth in Television: aquariums often report that if they do not give their octopus shiny things to play with, it will often escape and steal them.
- Takoluka, a parody illustration of one of the newer Vocaloids, Megurine Luka, as a very cute octopus.
- "Little Octopus Climbing Over Rock
" by Parry Gripp is about a tiny, cute octopus crawling over a rock to get to the sea.
Teletext
- Reg the Octopus from the BBC's Ceefax service, whose attempts at performing multiple tasks at once with his tentacles would invariably lead to hilarious disaster.
Toys
- There are three different octopus Beanie Babies, each designed with Rule of Cute in mind.
- Squishables has both an octopus plush as well as a squid one.
Video Games
- In ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay, there's Octohead and his Evil Twin (and less funny) Jack.
- The antagonistic but incompetent Ultros/Orthros from Final Fantasy VI is a large purple octopus prone to Puns and pathetically easy Boss Battles.
- Gaia Online:
- Aquarium Cuttlefish are as difficult to please as they are adorable. One of the items they can drop when they die suggests that they are Emo. In addition, the Squid set and The Experiment play tentacles for laughs.
- The Yemaya's Pearl item has a pose in which purple tentacles replace the wearer's legs. Yeah.
- During the midpoint of Mario Teaches Typing, the Mario Bros. encounter an octopus guarding a lake and one of the Plot Coupons. While the earlier editions of the game make him a Tentacled Terror, Updated Re-release on CD-ROM instead makes pull a Big Damn Heroes just to make Mario and Luigi leave. His comedic timing and Facial Dialogue mark him out as an unapologetic Silent Snarker.
- The Octodad games are about an amiable cephalopod and his clumsy attempts to pass himself off as a Standard '50s Father.
- Octogeddon stars a cephalopod kaiju who embarks on a quest for bloody revenge, over watching an octopus sushi cooking video. Armed with mutant limbs like a chicken who spits explosive eggs and a pelican that eats whole submarines before spitting them back out. And wields them against Humongous Mecha themed after National Stereotypes.
- Blooey the Blooper from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is of the comical variety. Unlike Mario's partners, who followed Mario out of respect or another benevolent reason, Blooey, as well as the rest of Luigi's partners (excluding Hayzee), follows Luigi around out of a desire for revenge after Luigi accidentally threw him into lava.
- Pokémon:
- Clobbopus from Pokémon Sword and Shield is a Fighting-type octopus Pokémon with the intelligence and mentality of a three-year-old. It investigates things by punching at them with its tentacles.
- Splatoon:
- The Inklings, cartoony squids that can change into humanoid kids with vaguely squiddish features. They talk in fish puns and are described as fun-loving hedonists.
- Octolings, their octopi counterparts, are a bit of a subversion, with their race in general being far more diligent and hard-working than the Inklings, who are incredibly hedonistic. It doesn't stop them and the other half of the greater Octarian race (which consist of anthropomorphic tentacles), from acting goofy from time-to-time, with the leader of their military being a Large Ham.
- The non-Octoling Octarians are shown as a more disturbing version; most of them are literally tentacles with a face and legs, and even the ones that are more than just a walking tentacle tend to be rather Gonkish.
- Squid Ink features several cute and comical squids that the player strokes to get ink from. Several of them have quite hilarious flavor text for their abilities.
- Sunless Skies gives us Deidre, the Rubbery Suffragette's talking pet octopus. She lives on the Suffragette's sunhat, perpetually drinks fine wine along with her owner, and offers some of the most hilarious dialogues in the game. In the end, she along with her owner are the most lighthearted people you'll meet in the otherwise dreary and foreboding Eleutheria.
- Twisted-Wonderland: Azul is a cecaelia who's very intelligent, cunning and self-serving… and physically weak. There are many jokes about his ineptitude at physical activities, especially how much he sucks at flying on a broomstick even compared to fellow mermen.
- Onionsan from Undertale is a Giant Squid-like creature who initially seems threatening... until they reveal their onion-shaped head and comical Animesque facial expressions.
Web Animation
- In the "Medimoji" web animation series by ZDoggMD, the pharmacist is an octopus named "Phil," with a Southern accent. He has to use a tentacle as his assistant, because the pharmacy where he works is short-staffed. And he's pulled a Laxative Prank on a customer who was seeking opioids they didn't really need.
- Deep Fried Live is a cooking web toon starring Tako the Octopus, who has to move everywhere in his bucket full of water. This doesn't stop him from being a decent chef and teaching recipes.
- hololive talent Ninomae Ina'nis◊, better known as Ina, is a Cthulhumanoid, but is more funny and wholesome than she is scary, and a well known Pungeon Master. An even straighter example comes in the "takodachi◊" mascot that stands in for her fandom, with humorous traits like eating lots of cookies and Ina threatening to hit them with a crowbar for acting perverted.
Webcomics
- Zelig, the vaguely cuddly coconut octopus on Academia, who functions as a sort of Team Pet.
- In Dinosaur Comics, T-Rex's unseen neighbors are cephalopods. He's scared of them, but we the readers are certainly amused by them.
- One of the secondary characters in Errant Story has a pet miniature tentacle monster, Genre Savvily named Rape-kun. Despite the name, he is completely harmless, and oddly cute. It's mentioned that the owner doesn't have the password to unlock Rape-kun's "Adult Mode". Make of that what you will.
- Freefall. Despite being a Mobile-Suit Human most of the time, Sam is a Lovable Rogue who is said to be not remotely humanoid in his true form. According to the creator, his species is inspired by the intelligence and dexterity that octopodes often show.
- Homestuck:
- The Squiddles, adorable octopuses that star in a disgustingly cutesy cartoon. They're actual humanity's subconscious representation of the Horrorterrors, which take this trope and kick it all the way over to the "bizarrely and terrifyingly alien" side instead.
- Also, Feferi's cuttlefish.
You capture and cage CUTTLEFISH by the thousands for their own good, and also because they are funny and colorful and you love them. They often swim through the bars of their cages, but that is fine.
Western Animation
- The Addams Family (1973): Ocho, the pet octopus.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender features the absolutely adorable Purple Pentapus for one episode, five legged, purple cephalopods that cling to any surface steadfastly. Despite this, they're completely benign and can be dislodged by rubbing their heads a few times. The show's Asian influence may have inspired the creature's ridiculous cuteness.
- The Beatles (1965): The Beatles encounter a lovesick female octopus in "I Want to Hold Your Hand". They buy a male octopus from an oceanographer and toss it into the ocean to be with the female.
- Futurama: Zoidberg isn't a Cephalopod, he's an Arthropod. He does, however, have cephalopodian features, such as his facial tentacles and ink-producing abilities. And his younger stages include a cuttlefish-like form (as well as a bivalve, a hydra, a sponge, and every other kind of aquatic invertebrate).
- Laff-A-Lympics: Orful Octopus of the Really Rottens.
- Oswald: Preschool character Oswald the Octopus is an extremely cute and friendly octopus with a literal wiener dog for a pet, who wears a hot dog bun.
- Pocoyo: Fred (Pulpo) is a friendly octopus that will make jokes along the main characters.
- Ocho from Salty's Lighthouse is an octopus who is friends with the titular young boy. Ocho likes to paint and often uses his tentacles to squirt paint onto his canvas. He also likes to pretend to be a pirate named Captain Calamari.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Squidward Tentacles varies from Only Sane Man to Comedic Sociopath between the episodes, being The Comically Serious foil to SpongeBob's wackiness and unstoppable cheer. Also, he's not quite as good at playing the clarinet as he thinks he is.
- Squiddly Diddly is an octopus (with six arms) who lives in the Bubbleland marine park. He wants to be a musician and his comic adventures occasionally involve him escaping from Bubbleland in an attempt to become a star.
Real Life
- Otto the octopus, who is known for stunts like juggling hermit crabs, throwing rocks at the glass, or rearranging his tank's scenery. His best prank involved shorting out the lights of the aquarium by shooting water at them (they have since moved the lights so he cannot do that anymore).
- Paul the Octopus, resident of a German aquarium who successfully predicted the results of Germany's matches, plus the final, in the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
- Egbert the octopus, who befriended a diver. The diver recounts one especially funny moment when she gave Egbert a dead fish to eat. Since he was holding the fish, Egbert couldn't fit into the shell he lives in. Other fish took the opportunity to try and steal Egbert's food, and Egbert responded by punching them with his tentacles.
