History Main / InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers

->''We want...your children. We will take your children.''

* A group of ''Anime/SailorMoon'' movie villians once tried to kidnap all the children of the earth in order to power a LotusEaterMachine that would feed off their dreams and in turn the BigBad would feed off of it.

* In the second season of ''Anime/PrincessTutu'', it's revealed that Rue/Kraehe [[spoiler: is not [[AbusiveParents The Raven's]] daughter. Instead she was kidnapped from her parents as baby by his crow henchmen and brought to him, where he then raised her as his own and told her that she was born into "an ugly human body".]]

* Malekith in Marvel Comics taunts Tony Stark with the knowledge that a regular Dark Elf pastime is kidnapping children from Midgard for sport. This backbites however, as Tony had just learned he was adopted and he's so outraged he designs an armor made to exploit Elves' weakness to ColdIron and hunt his court down. This becomes a ChekhovsGun when the arc ends with one of his minions delivering an EnfanteTerrible that mysteriously went missing in an earlier arc to him.

* The Little Man (a.k.a. The Coachman) from ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio''. He lures children to a place without schools, parents and annoying rules. In this place, you will have a lot of fun, but [[PleasureIsland you will have to pay dearly for that fun]]... as a donkey, forever and ever, unless you count with a fairy.

** On the plus side, they are extremedly long lived, have a healing factor, and have a number of strange Hadal powers, so it's not[[CursedWithAwesome that bad]]

* Two of the paintings described in Creator/HPLovecraft's "Pickman's Model" imply that the ghouls are at least partially responsible for [[ChangelingTale the changeling myth]], and that the stolen children will themselves become ghouls.

* ''Series/StormOfTheCentury'': André Linoge's goal is to take one of the town's children to raise as his successor. Although he is an incredibly long-lived wizard/demon compared to a human lifespan, he admits that he is not immortal by revealing that he's actually a frail old man beneath his {{Glamour}}. He lets the townfolk decide which of their children he'll take or he'll wipe out the whole town. They eventually decide on [[spoiler:the protagonist's son against his father's will.]]

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'': the kingdom of Coastal has been cursed so that any newborns will eventually change into monsters, rampage through the streets every night, then wander off and vanish. When they first arrive, the heroes witness this firsthand, along with the complete breakdown of the unfortunate mother. While they have witnessed many atrocities in their time-traveling quest to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, they all quickly declare this situation to be the worst they've ever seen, and vow vengence on the one responsible.

* In ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'', [[TheFairFolk Princeling Dolan's army]] stealthily abducts, not only babies, but all children under a certain age from a resistant duchy.

->''We want... your children. We will take your children.''

* Subverted with ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'' in that while Jareth steals baby Toby, Sarah was the one to summon the goblins to take him away in the first place. Jareth says that he only did that because she wanted him to.

* ''Discworld/LordsAndLadies'', being based on TheFairFolk legends, references [[ChangelingTale the folklore version of this]] -- elves are known to have a habit of stealing children, and while they aren't seen to do it in the book itself, the mere possibility is [[BerserkButton so infuriating]] to the [[BewareTheNiceOnes usually laid-back]] [[MamaBear Nanny Ogg]] that she actually (if half-jokingly) suggests ColdBloodedTorture. Later, in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'', their child-stealing ways get actual page time.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Trollhunters}}'', Changelings were once trolls who were stolen at a very young age by the Gumm-Gumms and experimented on, turning them into "impure" species of trolls that can walk in daylight and disguise themselves as humans. They would then kidnap humans (especially babies) and keep them as "familiars" in the Darklands, using their appearance to blend in with the human world.

[[quoteright:183:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/baby_snatchers.png]]

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* There's a B-grade horror movie called ''The Guardian'' that uses this trope.
* ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' has this as the EvilPlan.
* The Childcatcher in ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang''.

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* The 456 from ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' are this on a global scale, with the sickening twist that they require human co-conspirators (and have some very effective means of coercing human cooperation). In the 1960s, they offered humankind a cure for a pandemic that would have killed millions, in exchange for 12 children. They return in the events of ''Children of Earth'', this time not offering help, but an ultimatum: 10% of all Earth's children, or humanity's extinction. [[spoiler:The most disturbing part of all this? They use the children as living drug dispensers. Not the prescription kind...the ''recreational'' kind. The 456 are space junkies and they're holding the Earth at gunpoint for a ''fix''.]]

* The [[FairFolk Wood Elves]] of TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} have a habit of kidnapping human children from Bretonnia and turning them into ageless servents.

* In ''WebComic/TalesOfTheQuestor'', [[TheFairFolk Princeling Dolan's army]] stealthily abducts, not only babies, but all children under a certain age from a resistant duchy.

* The ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' Myths & Legends reveals that the Bear Holding A Shark is implied to steal babies.

* The appropriately named Kryb, from ''GreenLantern''.

Not to be confused with Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers which is more of an AssimilationPlot than child kidnapping.

* The [[FairFolk Wood Elves]] of Tabletop/{{Warhammer}} have a habit of kidnapping human children from Bretonnia and turning them into ageless servents.

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* Inverted in ''Literature/TheSecretOfPlatform13'' by Creator/EvaIbbotson: A baby from an island full of supernatural beings is snatched by a perfectly normal human woman. She snatches the baby because she is unable to get pregnant - but later she does get pregnant. Which causes much confusion when the magical beings from the island want to snatch the child, now a boy of school age, back as soon as the magical pathway opens again.

* The bonus mode on ''VideoGame/IgglePop'' has the Zoogs capture baby Iggles and trapping them into bubbles.

* Kamek and his Toady minions from the ''YoshisIsland'' series; first they attacked the delivery stork in the first game (and Yoshi and such), then stole every child in the nearby town in the DS sequel while looking for the 'Star Children'.

* Free Country from "The Children's Crusade" arc that ran through the VertigoComics annuals in 1993-94.

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-918 SCP-918]], a horrible inversion of the DeliveryStork where storks ''steal'' newborn babies and... well, don't click and the link if you're squeamish.

* Subverted in Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus: the Baby Bandits actally steal adults and are just dressed like babies.

* Odd-Bob the clown from ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' episode "Day Of The Clown", who says he was the original Pied Piper of Hamelin. He makes children disappear in order to feed off the resulting fear of their parents.

* Odd-Bob the clown from ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' episode "Day Of The Clown", who says he was the original Pied Piper of Hamelin.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' had this with a rather frightening twist; the children were replaced by changelings, exact replicas of the real thing, but they sucked blood from their mothers and killed their fathers. The real children were kept in cages.

* In the second season of ''Anime/PrincessTutu'', it's revealed that Rue/Kraehe [[spoiler: is not The Raven's daughter. Instead she was kidnapped from her parents as baby by his crow henchmen and brought to him.]]