History Main / BaldnessAngst

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Chimdale" reveals that Stan lost all of his hair in college as a side effect from an experimental acne medication and wears a hair piece. He's very insecure about his baldness, refusing to set an example for Steve (who's insecure about the back brace he has to wear to fix his scoliosis), lying about taking his hair piece off at work even though he didn't. When the rest of the family sees Stan bald, they reveal that they've known the whole time. Stan decides to abandon the hair piece but is shown wearing it in all following episodes and the writers seem to have forgotten that it's not his real hair.

* ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'': In "Uncle Fester's Toupee", [[CloudCuckooLander Uncle Fester]] has a LoveInterest and wants a toupée as she is said to hate bald people.

->''"'''880.''' Never tell a man he's losing his hair. He already knows."''

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime, the owner of the fishing pond near Lake Hylia went bald during the seven-years time skip and hides it below a fisher's hat. During the FishingMinigame, you can then use the fishing rod to remove his hat and expose his baldness. You can then return it, or drop it into the pond - if you do the latter, the pond owner will demand 50 rupees as compensation, but the hat will remain lost, even during the ending cutscene.

Sometimes caused by a TraumaticHaircut. May lead to HairTodayGoneTomorrow.

The tone of this trope is largely gender-dependent. Since roughly half of all men will lose their hair to a noticeable degree by age 50, complaining about this inevitability is often considered the height of vanity, and thus this trope is often PlayedForLaughs with men (though not always). With women, drastic hair loss is much more likely to be PlayedForDrama since women are expected to have long, luscious locks, and are less likely to lose their hair barring a medical condition. [[BaldHeadOfToughness Some embrace the new look]], however.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In basically every continuity, Lex Luthor lost his hair in a traumatic event. In ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy'', he lost his hair in a lab accident that ComicBook/{{Superboy}} saved him from. Unfortunately, Lex convinced himself that Superboy deliberately messed up his experiment (he didn't), [[StartOfDarkness marking the beginning]] of a lifelong hatred of Superboy that would ultimately lead to becoming Superman's ArchEnemy.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In basically every continuity, Lex Luthor lost his hair in a traumatic event. In ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy'', he lost his hair in a lab accident that ComicBook/{{Superboy}} saved him from. Unfortunately, Lex convinced himself that Superboy messed up his experiment and caused this on purpose (he didn't), which marked the beginning of a lifelong hatred of Superboy that would ultimately lead to becoming Superman's ArchEnemy.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In basically every continuity, Lex Luthor lost his hair in a traumatic event. In ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy'', he lost his hair in a lab accident that ComicBook/{{Superboy}} saved him from. Unfortunately, Lex convinced himself that Superboy messed up his experiment and caused this on purpose (he didn't), beginning a lifelong hatred of Superboy that would last into his adulthood as Superman.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In basically any continuity, Lex Luthor lost his hair in a traumatic event. In ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy'', he lost his hair in a lab accident that ComicBook/{{Superboy}} saved him from. Unfortunately, Superboy ruined one important experiment as saving him, and Lex convinced himself that Superboy screwed him up on purpose.

The tone of this trope is largely gender-dependent. Since roughly half of all men will lose their hair to a noticeable degree by age 50, complaining about this inevitability is often considered the height of vanity. With women, drastic hair loss is much more likely to be PlayedForDrama since women are expected to have long, luscious locks, and are less likely to lose their hair barring a medical condition. [[BaldHeadOfToughness Some embrace the new look]], however.

* Rarity mixes up Zecora’s silly string remover with shampoo in “Not the Mane Thing About You” and spends the episode freaking out because a large part of her mane falls out. She keeps trying to hide it and replace it and make it grow back because she has a magazine photo shoot in a couple days. Zecora does make up a restoring shampoo but it can’t work that fast. Luckily, things still work out when she turns it into a punk hairdo and the look catches on.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic:'' In "A Friend In Deed", Cranky's self-conscious enough about his baldness to wear a toupée. When Pinkie Pie accidentally destroys that toupée, and then [[InnocentlyInsensitive tells the entire town about his baldness while she's trying to find a replacement]], that's when Cranky starts to ''really'' dislike Pinkie.

* Jimmy [=McGill=]/Saul Goodman of ''Series/BreakingBad'' and ''Series/BetterCallSaul''. In the prequel series he sports an ultra-wide side parting which over time develops into a full-on comb-over. When we finally see inside Saul's home we see the bathroom contains a staggering quantity of hair loss treatments. He is finally forced to accept his hair loss when goes on the run, adpots a new identity and has to alter his appearance to avoid arrest.

* The famous "Going Bald" Hoedown on the American version of ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'' had Brad Sherwood and Creator/DrewCarey singing their verses trying to ''invoke'' this on their balding co-star Creator/ColinMochrie, with Brad's verse having his character being self-defeating except for that "at least I'm not quite as bald as Colin Mochrie", and Drew's verse having his character glad to have hair to care for and is "real happy that I'm not Colin Mochrie either." But Colin brutally subverted this with [[TheDogBitesBack an amazing comeback towards them]].

* Wrestling/KurtAngle did something similar when Wrestling/{{Edge}} shaved his head bald, but Kurt wore a wig and had protective wrestling headgear on top of the wig. Once the FakeHairDrama ran its course, Kurt ditched it and has been bald ever since. (His hairline was receding anyway and Kurt intended from the get-go to remain bald.)

* Wrestling/KurtAngle did something similar when Wrestling/{{Edge}} shaved his head bald, but Kurt wore a wig and had protective wrestling headgear on top of the wig. Once the FakeHairDrama ran its course, Kurt ditched it and has been bald ever since.