History Main / SnakeVersusMongoose

It's one of the most famous instances of AnimalJingoism out there. Mongooses[[note]]or is it mon''geese''?[[/note]] -- weasel-like carnivores belonging to the family Herpestidae -- are universally thought of as the mortal enemies of snakes. The snake can be one of many kinds, but it's usually a cobra, especially if the work is set in [[ArabianNightsDays the Middle East]] or [[MysticalIndia India]]. Cobras play a major role in the lore of both of these places, and mongooses were renowned for their ability to hunt and kill them while evading their venomous fangs. The mongoose is usually a generic variety, sometimes based on the Indian gray mongoose but often not looking terribly like any real species in cartoons. Also note that although meerkats are the most popular mongoose species, they are usually immune to this trope in popular culture.

It's one of the most famous instances of AnimalJingoism out there. Mongooses[[note]]or is it mon''geese''?[[/note]] -- weasel-like carnivores belonging to the family Herpestidae -- are universally thought of as the mortal enemies of snakes. The snake can be one of many kinds, but it's usually a cobra, especially if the work is set in [[ArabianNightsDays the Middle East]] or [[MysticalIndia India]]. Cobras play a major role in the lore of both of these places, and mongooses were renowned for their ability to hunt and kill them while evading their venomous fangs. The mongoose is usually a generic variety, sometimes based on the Indian gray mongoose but often not looking terribly like any real species in cartoons. Also note that although meerkats are the most popular mongoose species, they are usually immune to this trope.

It's one of the most famous instances of AnimalJingoism out there. Mongooses[[note]]or is it mon''geese''?[[/note]] -- weasel-like carnivores belonging to the family Herpestidae -- are universally thought of as the mortal enemies of snakes. The snake can be one of many kinds, but it's usually a cobra, especially if the work is set in [[ArabianNightsDays the Middle East]] or [[MysticalIndia India]]. Cobras play a major role in the lore of both of these places, and mongooses were renowned for their ability to hunt and kill them while evading their venomous fangs.

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder'': ends with a wizard's duel a la ''Sword in the Stone'' between King Graham and the evil wizard Mordack. When Mordack becomes a cobra Graham turns into a mongoose. The manual actually calls this spell Rikki Tiki Tavi after the Rudyard Kipling story. It also speculates that people who knew of the story told the creator of the moongoose spell, who named it after it. Take this with a grain of salt, as Word of God puts the series in Earth's past, not a parallel dimension in intermittent contact with our present.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
** In the episode "[[Recap/PokemonS1E20GhostOfMaidensPeak Ghost of Maiden's Peak]]", a Gastly transforms into a mongoose (as in, an ''actual'' real-world, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness non-superpowered mongoose]], and not a mongoose-like Pokémon, as Zangoose and Yungoos had yet to be created at the time) to scare Jessie's Ekans. The games would later take the trope to its obvious conclusion, as noted below and in the Video Games section.
** Jessie herself later acquires a Seviper, a snake Pokémon noted for its rivalry with the mongoose-based Zangoose, resulting in a minor RunningGag where Seviper would drop everything and disobey Jessie if there was a Zangoose around.
* ''Manga/YuruYuri'': The anime adaptation uses a mongoose and a snake to represent the rivalry between Sakurako and Himawari.
* ''Manga/LovePistols'': Subverted -- Shima, the mongoose, is in love with Aogiri, the viper.

* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': In one episode, Nanami is trying to ruin Anthy's reputation, and one of her plans is to hide a snake in Anthy's home and spread rumours that Anthy is the kind of girl who keeps snakes - her plan fails when Anthy's pet mongoose eats the snake.

* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': The Whizzer is a rather bizarre take on this trope. He was bitten by a snake and saved with an infusion of mongoose blood, which gave him SuperSpeed... somehow.

* ''ComicBook/GiJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel'': Destro has a sculpture of a mongoose and a cobra on his desk.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToasterToTheRescue'', Murgatroid the snake describes how Rob once saved him from a mongoose. [[MisplacedWildlife In the United States.]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* In ''[[Film/AustinPowers Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me]]'', Dr. Evil says, "Austin Powers... [[ArchEnemy he's the snake to my mongoose, or the mongoose to my snake]]. Either way it's bad. I don't know animals."
* While it doesn't depict an actual snake or mongoose, ''Film/SnakeAndMongoose'' is about one of the greatest rivalries in drag racing history, so it was definitely named in reference to this trope.

* Rikki-Tikki-Tavi from ''Literature/TheJungleBook'' is probably the TropeCodifier for modern audiences, establishing the mongoose and the snake as enemies in pop-consciousness.

* The ''Literature/{{Panchatantra}}'' plays this trope straight with a tragic ending, as [[spoiler:the mongoose saves a baby from a venomous snake, only to be killed by the baby's mother, who assumes the blood on its maw is the baby's]].
* Alluded to on a larger scale in ''Literature/ThePrioryOfTheOrangeTree'', where the dragon-fighting priory of the title employs [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumon_(medieval_zoology) ichneumons]], depicted here as mongooses [[HorseOfADifferentColour big enough to ride]] and natural serpent-killers.
* In the first book of the French-Canadian fantasy series ''Amos Daragon'', the titular teenage protagonist [[AChildShallLeadThem orders]] his army of knights to carry mongooses in cages, since they'll be going up against [[BasiliskAndCockatrice basilisks]]. The titular basilisks are slaughtered.

** In ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'', Teppic mentions during his assassin test that the inflatable mongoose produces a substance that counteracts some snake venoms.
* In The Familiars series by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, book 3, Circle of Heroes, involves the main characters venturing into the Abyssmal Canyon to gather a mongoose and a cobra, which they need for their quest. The mongooses and cobras live in different parts of the canyon and hate each other, each killing the other species on sight. It takes a while for the mongoose and cobra chosen for the quest to trust each other.

* Series/WayneAndShuster had a sketch where Johnny Wayne plays a detective who discovers that Frank Shuster's character is the villain. The villain tries to get away by wielding a snake as a weapon to ward off pursuers, but when he gets out of sight, Wayne's character is relaxed considering the villain is heading for the mongoose compound. Sure enough, the mongoose makes short work of the snake.

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder'': ends with a wizard's duel a la ''Sword in the Stone'' between King Graham and the evil wizard Mordack. When Mordack becomes a cobra Graham turns into a mongoose. The manual actually calls this spell Rikki Tiki Tavi after the Rudyard Kipling story. It also speculates that people who knew of the story told the creator of the moongoose spell, who named it after it. Take this with a grain of salt, as Word of God puts the series in Earth's past, not a parallel dimension in intermittent contact with our present.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyGymPartnersAMonkey'', there was an episode that lampshaded this trope. Slips the python befriends a mongoose but wonders how they can keep their friendship intact after learning from a documentary that they are supposed to be enemies.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/WildKratts'' features snakes and mongooses and shows a mongoose killing a snake, while [[{{Edutainment}} explaining]] the physiological mechanism that allows the mongoose to be [[NoSell immune]] to the snake's venom.

** In the episode "[[Recap/PokemonS1E20GhostOfMaidensPeak Ghost of Maiden's Peak]]", a Gastly transforms into a mongoose (as in, an ''actual'' real-world, non-superpowered mongoose, and not a mongoose-like Pokémon, as Zangoose and Yungoos had yet to be created at the time) to scare Jessie's Ekans. The games would later take the trope to its obvious conclusion, as noted below and in the Video Games section.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** In the episode "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak", a Gastly transforms into a mongoose (as in, an ''actual'' real-world, non-superpowered mongoose, and not a mongoose-like Pokémon, as Zangoose and Yungoos had yet to be created at the time) to scare Jessie's Ekans. The games would later take the trope to its obvious conclusion, as noted below and in the Video Games section.

* In ''Film/AustinPowersTheSpyWhoShaggedMe'', Dr. Evil says, "[[ArchEnemy Austin Powers]]... he's the snake to my mongoose, or the mongoose to my snake. Either way it's bad. I don't know animals."

* ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'' opens to a group of gamblers betting on a fight between a mongoose and a cobra.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' gives this a humorous spin with Habuko Mongoose, an old friend of Tsuyu Asui who has a snakelike head.

* ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'': Patsy (a mongoose girl) suggests she can track Jelly Cabin's missing snake because she's a mongoose. Though eventually she turns out to have been lying to impress her crush Lazlo.

It's one of the most famous instances of AnimalJingoism out there. Mongooses[[note]]or is it mon''geese''?[[/note]] -- weasel-like carnivores belonging to the family Herpestidae -- are universally thought of as the mortal enemies of snakes. The snake can be one of many kinds, but it's usually a cobra, especially if the work is set in [[ArabianNightsDays the Middle East]] or [[SimSimSalabim India]]. Cobras play a major role in the lore of both of these places, and mongooses were renowned for their ability to hunt and kill them while evading their venomous fangs.

* While it doesn't depict an actual snake or mongoose, ''Snake and Mongoose'' is about one of the greatest rivalries in drag racing history, so it was definitely named in reference to this trope.
* ''Fangs of the Cobra'' has a fight scene between a cobra and a mongoose staged ''onscreen'', with gory results. Being a Hong Kong film PETA really doesn't have a say about actual animal cruelty being depicted for entertainment.

** The page image is from the episode "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak", in which a Gastly transforms into a mongoose (as in, an ''actual'' real-world, non-superpowered mongoose, and not a mongoose-like Pokémon, as Zangoose and Yungoos had yet to be created at the time) to scare Jessie's Ekans. The games would later take the trope to its obvious conclusion, as noted below and in the Video Games section.

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Yungoos, where's your toupee?]]"]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/{{Pokemon}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mongoose_scares_snake_0.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Yungoos, where's your toupee?"]]

** The page image is from the episode "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak", in which a Gastly transforms into a mongoose (as in, an ''actual'' real-world, non-superpowered mongoose, and not a mongoose-like Pokémon, as Zangoose had yet to be created at the time) to scare Jessie's Ekans. The games would later take the trope to its obvious conclusion, as noted below and in the Video Games section.