History Main / MalfunctionMalady

* When the eponymous [[{{Telepathy}} telepath]] from ''Anime/KotouraSan'' comes down with a cold, it turns out that her ability to read people's minds is also blocked as a result. Notably, her boyfriend [[ChivalrousPervert Manabe]] finds out that he is able to fantasize about her as much as he likes without her knowing for once, but quickly comes to realize that [[TheGadfly it is no fun for him]] ''unless'' [[DirtyMindReading she can see and react to these thoughts]]. Once Kotoura recovers from her illness, her telepathy follows suit.
* Negi from ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' creates gusts of wind when he {{sneeze|OfDoom}}s. Said Wind seeks out and strikes [[ClothingDamage girls' clothing]] like a heat-seeking missile.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/EsperMami'' had the eponymous teenager's telekinetic powers disassemble items when she sneezed--thankfully she was lifting a truck, not a person, when she discovered this. Her teleportation also gets wonky when she's drunk.
* When the eponymous [[{{Telepathy}} telepath]] from ''Anime/KotouraSan'' came down with a cold, it turned out that her ability to read peoples' minds was also blocked as a result. Notably, her boyfriend [[ChivalrousPervert Manabe]] found out that he was able to fantasise about her as much as he liked without her knowing for once, but quickly came to realise that [[TheGadfly it was no fun for him]] ''unless'' [[DirtyMindReading she could see and react to these thoughts]]. Once Kotoura recovered from her illness, her telepathy followed suit.

* Having a cold or the flu can cause ComicBook/SpiderMan's 'spider-sense' to go on the fritz.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Film — Animated]]
* In the short film "WesternAnimation/FrozenFever", [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 Elsa]] wakes up with a cold and little snowman creatures called Snowgies appear everytime she sneezes and the more Elsa sneezes, more Snowgies appear.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The TARDIS is prone to this, from giving its passengers a battery of incomprehensible warnings in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E3TheEdgeOfDestruction "The Edge of Destruction"]] to suffering from Huon particle-induced indigestion in [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]].

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* [[StreetFighter "Hello, Ryu !"]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1CklEefRFM "Heddo, Ken!"]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddparents'', Cosmo's Phygigly Gland (which controls a fairy's transforming powers) starts acting up, necessitating a transplant from Cosmo's EvilTwin Anti-Cosmo.
** A much earlier episode had Cosmo catching the "Fairy Flu", which caused him to randomly lose control over his powers every time he sneezed (one sneeze summoned a merry go round, another transported the house to the moon, etc.). For [[RuleOfFunny some reason]], feeding him lots of sauerkraut cured him.
* It's either an inversion of this trope or CursedWithAwesome, but every time Glitter the sidekick fairy sneezed in ''WesternAnimation/KiddVideo'', she temporarily gained super strength.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans''

* It was used as a gag in ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' that when Kurt had a cold he would teleport everytime he sneezed.
* Yin in ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'' came down with the [=WooFoo=] Flu which caused inanimate objects to come to life. She was the AnnoyingPatient for her brother Yang. Until he came down with it, and put Yo in the position of caretaker to the sick sibs.

* In the short film "WesternAnimation/FrozenFever", [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 Elsa]] wakes up with a cold and little snowman-like creatures called Snowgies appear everytime she sneezes.

* In the short film "WesternAnimation/FrozenFever", the basic premise is that [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 Elsa]] has this happen to her when she gets a cold.

* In ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'', when Raven becomes ill with the flu, she reads people's minds.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': In ''Discworld/TheLastContinent'', The Librarian at Unseen University catches a cold and turns into something new every time he sneezes, thanks to his "morphic field" being weakened by his original transformation from a human into an orangutan.

* Ultra Man of the ''[[Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse Global Guardians]]'' caught the flu, and during a sneeze nearly burned down a building with his heat vision. He also lost track of how much of his SuperStrength to use while sick, and was constantly crushing objects or shattering them in his hands.

** In "Centennial Charmed", Paige gets a cold and accidentally teleports whenever she sneezes.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': Clark Kent discovers his super breath when he catches a cold, sneezes, and blows the barn door off its hinges and across the entire county, almost decapitating Lois. Much of the episode is spent trying to come up with believable reasons why the Kent barn door appeared in the middle of nowhere.
* ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}},'' "Plato's Stepchildren": One of the Platonians (or whatever they were called) was sick, and since they had telekinetic powers, that made furniture fly around as if there was a hurricane. Dr. [=McCoy=] cured him, and they showed their gratitude by forcing the Starfleet officers to star in a [[KissingUnderTheInfluence sadistic puppet show]].

* The ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10164715/11/Childish "Childish"]] has a chapter where Elsa gets a cold and every time she sneezes she coats everything within several feet in snow. Later in the fanfic she and Anna have a pillow fight and this happens again when a feather tickles her nose.

* The fan-video WeirdCrossover between ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'', ''WesternAnimation/DocMcStuffins'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82j_8I9Yi7k The Incredibles Get Sick]]'', has the Incredibles all coughing, sneezing, and (with the exception of Violet) sleeping a lot but with no fevers, and it affects all of their powers: Mr Incredible and Dash have lost theirs, Elastigirl's are out-of-control, Violet can't make force-fields and she can go invisible but can't turn visible again, and Jack-Jack is stuck as a demon. Some unknown electricity-like substance cures them.

* In the short film ''Disney/FrozenFever'', the basic premise is that [[Disney/{{Frozen}} Elsa]] has this happen to her when she gets a cold.

** The plan ultimately turns on the Predacons when Rhinox gets sick of being an AnnoyingPatient and decides to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_8gH6UG6qbw#t=230s inflict himself on them]]... [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments much to Megatron's misfortune]].

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime ]]

[[folder: Fan Fiction ]]

[[folder: Film]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* In ''Discworld/TheLastContinent'', The Librarian at Unseen University catches a cold and turns into something new every time he sneezes, thanks to his "morphic field" being weakened by his original transformation from a human into an orangutan.

** Similarly, it's commonly believed in the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' universe that female mages can't cast spells while pregnant. [[SubvertedTrope The brother of a very sorceress pointed out that he knew several people who put this to the test and didn't live to admit that they were wrong.]]

* In ''[[Literature/YoungWizards So You Want To Be A Wizard?]]'', Nita and Kit unintentionally transport [[SomeCallMeTim Fred]] the sentient white hole to them. White holes emit stuff - usually energy. Most of his mass and energy is stored in a [[{{Hammerspace}} temporal-spatial pocket]] so that he can travel at all, and the act of traveling has made him a bit woozy - it gives him a bad case of the hiccups. When he hiccups, he emits stuff. And by stuff...good luck trying to explain the Learjet that just appeared in the middle of the field.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* The TARDIS is prone to this in ''Series/DoctorWho'', from giving its passengers a battery of incomprehensible warnings in "The Edge of Destruction" to suffering from Huon particle-induced indigestion in "The Runaway Bride."

* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': The immune system deficiency created by the promicin inhibitor causes the abilities of the affected 4400s to stop working. In "Lockdown", Shawn is unable to heal a blind woman named Olivia Cohen. In "The Fifth Page", Maia tells him that she can't use her ability to see the future to find a solution. In the same episode, Alana is unable to distinguish between the real world and the world that she created for herself and Tom in "Life Interrupted".

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* The ''{{Movie/Frozen}}'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10164715/11/Childish "Childish"]] has a chapter where Elsa gets a cold and every time she sneezes she coats everything within several feet in snow. Later in the fanfic she and Anna have a pillow fight and this happens again when a feather tickles her nose.
* The ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}'' fanfic [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/158726 "SWIMMING WITH SHARKS"]] points out the potential for such with [[BlindSeer Terezi]]'s abilities. She normally perceives the world synaesthetically, via smell and taste... But in the fanfic, she gets a cold, effectively making her blind and entirely debilitated.
* The fan-video WeirdCrossover between ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'', ''WesternAnimation/DocMcStuffins'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82j_8I9Yi7k The Incredibles Get Sick]]'', has the Incredibles all coughing, sneezing, and (with the exception of Violet) sleeping a lot but with no fevers, and it affects all of their powers: Mr Incredible and Dash have lost theirs, Elastigirl's are out-of-control, Violet can't make force-fields and she can go invisible but can't turn visible again, and Jack-Jack is stuck as a demon. Some unknown electricity-like substance cures them.

** in ''Flower Power'', Mega Man develops an allergy and involuntarily switches forms while sneezing. It also causes him to speak in rhyme.
** when Mega Man absorbs an enemy's powers, he also absorbs some of their personality. External factors sometimes cause him to switch to that personality and start unwittingly using those powers, even when not transformed.

* ''WesternAnimation/MegaManFullyCharged'': in ''Flower Power'', Mega Man develops an allergy and involuntarily switches forms while sneezing. It also causes him to speak in rhyme.

* ''WesternAnimation/MegaManFullyCharged'': in 'Flower Power', Mega Man develops an allergy and involuntarily switches forms while sneezing. It also causes him to rhyme.

* In ''Series/{{Charmed}}'', witch pregnancy seems to result in a lot of unusual and uncontrolled magic effects, though this is explained more as the magical fetus messing with things than the mom's magic going haywire as a result of pregnancy.
** Another example occurs in "Centennial Charmed" when Paige gets a cold and accidentally teleports whenever she sneezes.

* In ''[[Literature/YoungWizards So You Want To Be A Wizard?]]'', Nita and Kit unintentionally transport [[SomeCallMeTim Fred]] the sentient white hole to them. White holes emit stuff - usualy energy. Most of his mass and energy is stored in a [[{{Hammerspace}} temporal-spatial pocket]] so that he can travel at all, and the act of traveling has made him a bit woozy - it gives him a bad case of the hiccups. When he hiccups, he emits stuff. And by stuff...good luck trying to explain the Learjet that just appeared in the middle of the field.

** A much earlier episode had Cosmo catching the "Fairy Flu", which caused him to randomly lose control over his powers every time he sneezed (one sneeze summoned a merry go round, another transported the house to the moon, etc.). For [[RuleOfFunny som
e reason]], feeding him lots of sauerkraut cured him.

* Negi from ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' creates gusts of wind when he {{sneeze|OfDoom}}s. Said Wind seeks out and strikes [[ClothingDamage girls' clothing]] like a heat-seeking missile.

* The ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}'' fanfic [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/158726 "SWIMMING WITH SHARKS"]] points out the potential for such with [[BlindSeer Terezi]]'s abilities. She normally perceives the world synaesthetically, via smell and taste... But in the fanfic, she gets a cold, effectively making her blind and entirely debilitated.

* In ''Discworld/TheLastContinent'', The Librarian at Unseen University catches a cold and turns into something new every time he sneezes, thanks to his "morphic field" being weakened by his original transformation from a human into an orangutan.
* The entire plot of ''Literature/TheExploitsOfEbenezum'' (and further sequels Literature/TheWanderingsOfWuntvor) by Craig Shaw Gardner revolves around this. Ebenezum, a talented hedge wizard, accidentally summons a demon and is somehow cursed by the Netherhells while sending him back. This causes him to develop an "allergy" to magic, interrupting every one of his spells with a thunderous sneeze. At first this is thought to be the work of said demon, but later even he proves unable to reverse it. So his bumbling apprentice Wuntvor has to help him get from one place to another looking for a cure. In case it wasn't obvious, this is a quite funny modern fantasy parody.

* In ''[[Literature/YoungWizards So You Want To Be A Wizard?]]'', Nita and Kit unintentionally transport [[SomeCallMeTim Fred]] the sentient white hole to them. White holes emit stuff - usualy energy. Most of his mass and energy is stored in a [[{{Hammerspace}} temporal-spatial pocket]] so that he can travel at all, and the act of traveling has made him a bit woozy - it gives him a bad case of the hiccups. When he hiccups, he emits stuff. And by stuff...good luck trying to explain the Learjet that just appeared in the middle of the field.

* ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'': The same thing happened with the witches and warlocks in Samantha Stevens' family. It happened to Samantha, Serena, and Aunt Clara on separate occasions.

* ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' used it at least twice. One was when Sabrina caught spellfluenza, which is a 24-hour sickness that causes one's powers to be transferred to the nearest person when one sneezes. Assuming they are the nearest person again during the next sneeze, the powers come back. Surprisingly, the person who got her powers was Ms. Quick. The other was when Hilda caught punitis, a disease in which everything she said resulted in a bad VisualPun occurring (for example, when she asked for some ice cream, a screaming disembodied eye appeared in the freezer).
* In ''Series/{{Charmed}}'', witch pregnancy seems to result in a lot of unusual and uncontrolled magic effects, though this is explained more as the magical fetus messing with things than the mom's magic going haywire as a result of pregnancy.
** Another example occurs in "Centennial Charmed" when Paige gets a cold and accidentally teleports whenever she sneezes.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': Clark Kent discovers his super breath when he catches a cold, sneezes, and blows the barn door off its hinges and across the entire county, almost decapitating Lois. Much of the episode is spent trying to come up with believable reasons why the Kent barn door appeared in the middle of nowhere.

* ''Series/{{Rentaghost}}'': Nadia Popov would teleport whenever she sneezed. As she suffered from allergies, this tended to happen quite a lot.
* ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'': When Jambi the Genie comes down with "Meka-Leka-Hi-Meka-Hiney-Itis" (read: genie burnout), his powers don't work ''at all'', and the magic rings that emanate from his turban come out slightly wibbly.
* The TARDIS is prone to this in ''Series/DoctorWho'', from giving its passengers a battery of incomprehensible warnings in "The Edge of Destruction" to suffering from Huon particle-induced indigestion in "The Runaway Bride."

* ''Webcomic/KarinDou4koma'': When allergy season hits, Tamaryu -- a dragon -- sneezes ''fire''.

* In ''Toys/MonsterHigh'', Frankie is shown to inadvertently release electricity when she sneezes. And Abbey releases a burst of frosty air that can freeze things with her sneezes. But topping them both is Operetta, whose voice can reach supersonic levels, meaning supersonic sneezes. One sneeze from her shatters several windows and sends a few unlucky students flying out the door.

* Yin in ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'' came down with the [=WooFoo=] Flu which caused inanimate objects to come to life. She was the AnnoyingPatient for her brother Yang. Until he came down with it, and put Yo in the position of caretaker to the sick sibs.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddparents'', Cosmo's Phygigly Gland (which controls a fairy's transforming powers) starts acting up, necessitating a transplant from Cosmo's EvilTwin Anti-Cosmo.
** A much earlier episode had Cosmo catching the "Fairy Flu", which caused him to randomly lose control over his powers every time he sneezed (one sneeze summoned a merry go round, another transported the house to the moon, etc.). For [[RuleOfFunny some reason]], feeding him lots of sauerkraut cured him.
* Genie in ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' also caught a cold that caused random objects to appear every time he sneezed, with the objects becoming more dangerous as the disease progressed.
* Katara the waterbender gets sick like any ordinary person, but airbender [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Aang's]] sneezes launch him ten feet into the air; though that may be Aang being playful.
* In ''{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', [[TheStarscream Tarantulas]] infects [[GeniusBruiser Rhinox]] with a virus that makes him hiccup destructive bolts of electricity in the first season episode, "The Low Road." The episode plays pretty straight to the trope, with the other Maximals alternately nursing their new AnnoyingPatient and running on a FetchQuest for the antivirus.
** The plan ultimately turns on the Predacons when Rhinox gets sick of being an AnnoyingPatient and decides to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_8gH6UG6qbw#t=230s inflict himself on them]]... [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments much to Megatron's misfortune]].
* It's either an inversion of this trope or CursedWithAwesome, but every time Glitter the sidekick fairy sneezed in ''WesternAnimation/KiddVideo'', she temporarily gained super strength.
* In one episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/CareBearsAdventuresInCareALot Adventures in Care-a-Lot]]'', Funshine got a case of Bubbles, which made him cough up bubbles every time he hiccuped and start floating away.
* Somewhat similar to the above example, in the [[YouMeanXmas Great Giving Day]] episode of ''WesternAnimation/CareBearsWelcomeToCareALot'', Tenderheart learns how to teleport to help Great Giving Bear deliver gifts. However, Tenderheart ends up getting the hiccups, which cause him to disappear and reappear in random places.
* In ''WesternAnimation/WhateverHappenedToRobotJones'', the title character is struck down by a computer virus in one episode, which presents itself similarly to a human cold (with Robot Jones sneezing oil everywhere).
* Underbite is a recurring villain from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRobotsInDisguise'' who gets stronger when he eats metal. Unfortunately, once, that metal was part of a [[PortalNetwork space bridge]]. He spent the episode randomly teleporting [[ContinuityCavalcade to past locations]] every time he hiccuped.

** The plan ultimately turns on the Predacons when Rhinox gets sick of being an AnnoyingPatient and decides to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_8gH6UG6qbw#t=230s inflict himself on them]]... [[CrowningMomentOfFunny much to Megatron's misfortune]].

* In ''WhateverHappenedToRobotJones'', the title character is struck down by a computer virus in one episode, which presents itself similarly to a human cold (with Robot Jones sneezing oil everywhere).

* In ''Franchise/MonsterHigh'', Frankie is shown to inadvertantly release electricity when she sneezes. And Abbey releases a burst of frosty air that can freeze things with her sneezes. But topping them both is Operetta, whose voice can reach supersonic levels, meaning supersonic sneezes. One sneeze from her shatters several windows and sends a few unlucky students flying out the door.

* Underbite is a recurring villain from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRobotsInDisguise'' who gets stronger when he eats metal. Unfortunately, once, that metal was part of a [[PortalNetwork space bridge]]. He spent the episode randomly teleporting [[ContinuityCavalcade to past locations]] every time he hiccuped.

See also: Plot allergy and HiccupHijinks.

See also: PlotAllergy

* In ''ThatsSoRaven'', when Raven becomes ill with the flu, she reads people's minds.

* ''PeeWeesPlayhouse'': When Jambi the Genie comes down with "Meka-Leka-Hi-Meka-Hiney-Itis" (read: genie burnout), his powers don't work ''at all'', and the magic rings that emanate from his turban come out slightly wibbly.