History Main / ShrunkenOrgan

* In a notorious case in France, a mildly-retarded but functional man was discovered to be lacking large areas of his brain, due to a slowly-advancing case of hydrocephalus. Much of what should have been white matter and basal nuclei was nothing but cerebrospinal fluid, yet enough of his cerebral cortex had remained intact to allow his continued awareness and reason.

* In an episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken I.M. Weasel]]'', Weasel and Baboon get in an accident which causes their brains to fall out. Weasel has a huge brain and Baboon has a tiny brain, both disproportionate to their respective head. Understandably, [[FreakyFridayFlip the doctors get them mixed up]].

** Homer apparently has a significantly smaller than average brain. This enables him to resist blows to the head more easily than normal people (also helps that he has a significantly thicker than average skull), which had great effect in his brief career as a professional boxer.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': The boys go to Afghanistan and Cartman ends up in a tussle with UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden, during which Cartman pulls Bin Laden's pants down to show...nothing. Cartman pulls out several magnifying glasses until he finally gets enough magnification to show Bin Laden's very tiny penis, which is implied as the reason why he blew up the World Trade Center.

* In the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon "WesternAnimation/BuckarooBugs", his opponent Red Hot Rider (an incredibly stupid cowboy) is implied to have a very small brain. Every time he gives an affirmative nod a small rattling sound is heard inside his head.

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* A series of Burger King commercials had two young Middle Eastern men on a date in a Burger King with two [[BrainlessBeauty attractive and friendly but bubbleheaded American girls]] ("So you're from the Middle East? Isn't that like the capital of Arabia or somewhere?"). As one of the girls is listening in awe to her date the camera zooms in to her eye to show what is going on in her brain, which appears to be roughly the size of a pea. The original commercial can be seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzJjYz44JAk here]] with the next two in the series [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6UcE5AE7no here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCWjX7QDifM here]].

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-->'''Iago''': Jeez! What're you tryin' to do, gimme a heart attack?\\
'''Genie''': [''appears as a doctor''] Aha! You ''do'' have a heart! [''poofs up an X-ray over Iago, revealing a tiny heart in his ribs''] [-An itty bitty one-], but it ''is'' there.

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* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': In the TitleSequence, Pinky and the Brain walk behind an X-ray machine. Brain's skull has meshing gears, while Pinky's has a peanut. In [[Recap/PinkyAndTheBrainS3E2 "Pinky and The Brain... and Larry"]], Larry's PromotionToOpeningTitles reveals that he has bones in his hair.

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* ''Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'': The eponymous Grinch is portrayed as having a heart that is far too small to feel love properly.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': The boys go to Afganistan and Cartman ends up in a tussle with Osama Bin Laden, during which Cartman pulls Bin Laden's pants down to show...nothing. Cartman pulls out several magnifying glasses until he finally gets enough magnification to show Bin Laden's very tiny penis, which is implied as the reason why he blew up the World Trade Center.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' sees Squidward break his "laugh box" (an organ he thought he made up), which had to be removed. The doctor remarks that it's the most dried-up, underused laugh box he's ever seen; it's in a jar the size of a salt shaker. Inversely, Spongebob has a laugh box so ''big'' that he was able to donate half of it to Squidward while still retaining the capacity to do some laughing of his own.
* In the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon "WesternAnimation/BuckarooBugs" his opponent Red Hot Rider an incredibly stupid cowboy is implied to have a very small brain, every time he gives an affirmative nod a small rattling sound is heard inside his head.

'''Not under any circumstances''' [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant to be mistaken for]] TeenyWeenie.

* When a person lacks the ability to use one of their senses, the brain area controlling that sense shrinks. It's most common with people born with these conditions, since the areas never get a chance to develop as normal. In a blind person, it will be the visual centers, in a deaf person the auditory centers, ect.

As this trope greatly exaggerates real body parts, it is a natural subtrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' tends to use this, particularly on one book cover.

** Homer apparently has a significantly smaller than average brain[[note]]though maybe not as small as the page picture; that'd be unrealistic even for ''The Simpsons'', and it is not [[DependingOnTheWriter (usually)]] the reason for Homer's stupidity.[[/note]]. This enables him to resist blows to the head more easily than normal people (also helps that he has a significantly thicker than average skull), which had great effect in his brief career as a professional boxer.

[[quoteright:350:[[Disney/AladdinTheReturnOfJafar https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/return_jafar_disneyscreencapscom_346119.jpg]]]]

* In ''Disney/AladdinTheReturnOfJafar'', Genie tries to get Iago to make Aladdin and Jasmine reconcile; one attempt is startling the parrot resulting in this exchange:

In comedic works it is common to sum up behavioral problems or character flaws as being the direct result of some greatly underdeveloped organ in a character's body. Maybe said character [[Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas has a heart that is too small]] and thus cannot properly love or maybe their brain resembles the size of a golf ball and thus lacks normal intelligence. Of course, having an organ this small in RealLife would [[YouFailBiologyForever cause serious complications for most of these characters]], so this trope is very often PlayedForLaughs.

That being said, there are numerous examples of this trope being played seriously as well, typically in the MedicalDrama or SoapOpera realm. While cases of super-small organs in those works are still [[YouFailBiologyForever factually inaccurate]], they are at least portrayed in a semi-realistic sense. For example, this trope could be invoked by a character born with some form of congenital heart defect where their heart is too small and will cause their death unless a replacement is found.

As this trope greatly exaggerates real body parts, it is a natural subtrope of YouFailBiologyForever.

* ''Film/TheAmazingColossalMan'': The eponymous character had a heart that didn't grow as fast as the rest of him, which led to him having constant chest pains. A scientist claimed this was because the [[YouFailBiologyForever human heart was one giant cell]].

'''Not under any circumstances''' [[IThoughtItMeant to be mistaken for]] TeenyWeenie.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', Dexter decides to put a genius-level brain (...[[NightmareFuel we don't know whose]]) in his sister Dee Dee's head. He needed a pair of tweezers to remove her old one.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' episode "Operation S.P.R.O.U.T." when the gang enter Numbuh Four's body to remove a brussel sprout he'd eaten that was making him sick, at one point they enter his brain which is the size of a pea, of course this was after {{Flanderization}} [[TookALevelInDumbass had taken it's toll on his intelligence]].

'''Genie''' [''appears as a doctor'']: Aha! You ''do'' have a heart! [''poofs up an X-ray over Iago revealing a tiny heart in his ribs''] [-An itty bitty one-], but it ''is'' there.

* In the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon "Buckaroo Bugs" his opponent Red Hot Rider an incredibly stupid cowboy is implied to have a very small brain, every time he gives an affirmative nod a small rattling sound is heard inside his head.

* ''{{Garfield}}'' likes to use this with dogs, particularly Odie.

[[caption-width-right:350:"An itty bitty heart, but it ''is'' there!]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/TheAmazingColossalMan'': The eponymous character had a heart that didn't grow as fast as the rest of him, which led to him having constant chest pains. A scientist claimed this was because the [[YouFailBiologyForever human heart was one giant cell]].
* In ''Film/OsmosisJones'', the kid who does the project on oyster filtration (which he just started the morning of the science fair) is mentioned by Ms. Boyd as having a brain the size of a tangerine.

* In ''Disney/AladdinTheReturnOfJafar'', Genie tries to get Iago to make Al and Jasmine reconcile; one attempt is startling the parrot resulting in this exchange

'''Genie''' [''appears as a doctor'']: Aha! You ''do'' have a heart!\\
[''poofs up an X-ray over Iago revealing a tiny heart in his ribs'']\\
'''Genie''': [-An itty bitty one-], but it ''is'' there.