If that's supposed to be the jellyfish's head, why does it look like a hat?
SpongeBob: Wow. I didn't know this [crown] was a hat.
(Cut to Kevin with a hole in his head where the crown used to be)
Kevin: It wasn't...
(Cut to Kevin with a hole in his head where the crown used to be)
Kevin: It wasn't...
In works of fiction that feature Funny Animals, Beast Men, Humanoid Aliens, or other similar non-human species, characters in these groups can run the gamut from Exposed Extraterrestrials to Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animals to Half Dressed Cartoon Animals to Barefoot Cartoon Animals to Fully Dressed Cartoon Animals. Among some of the species that do wear clothes, however, you may notice upon closer inspection that a character's "clothes" actually seem to grow from their bodies as appendages or other parts of their bodies.
For example, the White Gloves may actually be the color of the character's hands. If the character is a Plant Person, the "clothes" may be extra long leaves or flowers. If the characters are Fish People, the "clothes" may be fins. If the characters are Bird People, the "clothes" may be feathers or even an extra set of wings. Insectoid Aliens and other arthropoid creatures may feature "clothes" that are extensions of their exoskeletons. In rare cases, this can even occur with otherwise mundane humans, usually as the result of shapeshifting or some kind of freakish mutation.
Contrast with Fur Is Clothing, when seemingly unclothed animals remove their fur/feathers/scales/etc. as articles of clothing. Supertrope to Organic Bra and Crown-Shaped Head. See also Technically Naked Shapeshifter.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Iyo in Ayakashi Triangle, due to originating from negative thoughts, often grow to have not only human faces, but (body parts that look like) human articles of clothing. A spider-like iyo that Matsuri fought in the first chapter had a head that looked like a safety helmet, Soga is introduced exorcising one in a dress, and in a flashback both are shown fighting one with eyeglasses and a tie.
- The Beast Wars Neo episode "Attack! Randy" involves the Predacons holding the baby of a pair of mammalian aliens hostage. All three aliens have markings on their fur that resemble an appropriate article of clothing, with the father's marking resembling a necktie, the mother's resembling an apron and the baby's resembling a bib.
- Dragon Ball Super reveals that the title character of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman is not actually wearing tights, that's just his skin.
- The eponymous Squid Girl in Squid Girl has blue rings around her wrists and ankles. The ones around her ankles just seem to be attached to her shoes and are clothing. The ones around her wrist are apparently actually part of her body and she can use them to make herself super heavy or lighter than air.
Comic Books
- Batman '66: This continuity's version of Clayface, who is a mutated False-Face, is depicted with portions of his clay body forming facsimiles of a suit and tie in his debut story and in the Wonder Woman '77 crossover.
- Wonder Woman: (New 52) It's a bit unclear where Demeter's body stops and her dress begins, but the bodice is unquestionably part of her body.
Film — Animation
- The lawn ornaments' "hats" and "clothing" in Gnomeo & Juliet are apparently parts of their bodies. This is most noticeable during the scene where Tybalt smashes Benny's hat off his head and Benny is left with the cracked remnants of his hat.
- Mumble from Happy Feet has a bowtie-shaped spot on his neck.
- Captain Gutt from Ice Age: Continental Drift is an ape that seems to be Dressed to Plunder, wearing a tricorner hat and a cape — but it's actually just his long hair.
- Lady and the Tramp: The fur on the torso of the titular Cocker Spaniel looks somewhat like a skirt.
- Mune: Guardian of the Moon: Glim is a creature shaped like a pretty young girl, but like her father she's entirely made of wax. This includes the poofy-looking skirt around her hips.
- In Shark Tale, Ernie and Bernie the jellyfish are anthropomorphized in a way that their bell looks like a rasta cap, and their tentacles look like long hair. Similarly, Lola has a pair of fins growing from her head which look like long straight hair.
- In the Toy Story series, what appears to be Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, and the aliens' clothing is actually their "skin"! (Nothing has been confirmed for the other toys, however).
- In Willy the Sparrow, Cipur, the elderly male sparrow seems to be wearing a bow tie, but it's actually his black throat patch that has an unusual shape.
- Some of the penguins on Surf's Up have longer feathers on their legs that suggest swim trunks and body markings that suggest clothing patterns, such as a flower print for Big Z.
Film — Live-Action
- The Pale Woman from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) has a dress that fades directly into her skin, and even has veins if you look closely.
Literature
- In Keys to the Kingdom, the more humanoid Nithlings will occasionally form with body parts that resemble clothes.
Live-Action TV
- The Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child" features a virus created as a result of an extraterrestrial medical probe that landed in the middle of World War II mistaking a dead gas mask-wearing child for a healthy specimen of his species. The virus causes its victims to, among other transformations, grow their own gas masks over their heads.
Video Games
- Bug Fables: Befitting for a pop star, Mothiva's fur growths resemble the tank top, short shorts and long stockings, with her wings bearing the resemblance to a fur coat.
- Complimenting Lancer when fighting him in Deltarune will mention that Kris can't tell this about him.
- The sylvari in Guild Wars 2, being plant people, have the option of growing leaves out of their bodies to use as armor. Game-mechanically it's still armor that can be equipped and unequipped, and they're capable of wearing regular armor instead.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The Deku Scrubs have clothing-like features along these lines. For example, the Deku King
◊ has a big round crown made of huge leaves, while the Deku Princess◊ has an elaborate dress made of leaves and flowers as well as earrings that seem to be seed pods.
- The Zora often have their fins grow into clothing-like appendages:
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Queen Rutela of the Zora has a long and elaborate skirt that seems to be made up of leg fins. Queen Oren from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds has the same feature.
- All Zora in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (for example, Mipha◊) have skirts and epaulets that are actually fins located on their hips and shoulders, respectively.
- Fi in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword mixes this with Armless Biped. She seemingly wears a cloak that covers her arms, but there are no arms visible underneath the cloak. The implication is that the cloak really is her arms.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The Deku Scrubs have clothing-like features along these lines. For example, the Deku King
- Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2: Zig-zagged with Mob Cob, a walking corn husk. His body is black with pinstripe markings and has a leaf heavily resembling a necktie, giving him the appearance of a Badass in a Nice Suit. On the other hand, the fedora he wears to complete the "mobster" look appears to be an actual hat.
- Certain Pokémon appear to wear accessories that are actually natural parts of them.
- Machoke and Machamp's wrestling briefs are actually part of their skin. However, their belt is clothing.
- Delibird's food-filled "bag" is actually a tail with a marsupial-like pouch.
- Murkrow's head looks like a witch's hat, but it's actually just the plumage of feathers.
- Bellossom's grass hula skirt are actually natural leaves attached to its body.
- Gardevoir's "dress" is naturally a part of it.
- During the production of Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the Pokémon Company explained to the film's producers their stance that all "clothes" a Pokémon appears to be wearing is actually part of its body. Sawk, a Fighting-Type Pokémon who appears to be wearing a gi, was supposed to appear in the film but had to be taken out because the film makers couldn't figure out how to make his "clothes" look like part of its flesh.
- Hatenna's "hat" is actually its antenna.
- Sylveon's bow-ties and ribbons are actually sensitive feelers.
- Possible in Spore due to large amount of body parts and colorization to be given to your creature.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Although The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! once showed Toad taking off his mushroom cap like a hat, Nintendo has since clarified it's actually part of his head, hence Toads wear headwear over it.
- The mermaid-like Lochladies from Super Mario Odyssey have scales and fins in the shape of a dress.
- Them's Fightin' Herds:
- Velvet's "floof" (the fluff surrounding her neck and chest) is intentionally designed to look and be treated like a fancy fur collar or feather boa.
- Captain Bravura has long fur going down to her back hooves which resembles the back of a dress or pirate coat.
- The Trader of Stories: The treemen's "clothes" are actually leaves that grow in the manner of a dress or bikini.
Web Animation
- Several of the characters in Homestar Runner have "clothes" that seem to be part of their body, at least since they're almost never seen without them and are frequently shown wearing other clothes over what is ostensibly their usual clothing. Is the green part of Coach Z's body supposed to be his skin or some sort of jumpsuit? Also, Homestar Runner's "pants", Strong Bad's "mask" and "boxing gloves", Marzipan's "dress", and so on, so forth. Notably, one email had Strong Bad remove his mask offscreen, and he reacted as if he was in immense pain before pulling it back on and swearing to never do so again.
Web Comics
- Paul Bunyan disease from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja causes people to sprout clothes as they grow into giants according to the alt text.
- Sluggy Freelance: The wings of one of Aylee's forms looks like a dress when not in use.
Web Original
- SCP Foundation:
- SCP-049 appears to be wearing the typical Plague Doctor outfit, but is actually part of his body. His "robe" and "gloves" are similar to a thick hide and his "mask" is a chitinous structure growing from the bones of his face.
- "The Staff" from SCP-3008, resemble fake IKEA employees and are described as being made entirely out of skin (or a skin-like material), implying their yellow and blue "uniforms" are also part of the creatures.
- SCP-049
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball:
- Teri is a crumbled paper cutout of a teddy bear. She doesn't wear actual clothing, but the shape of her body and the lines drawn on it resemble a buttoned-up collared dress with short sleeves.
- Gumball points out that it's unclear if Jamie's head is covered by hair or "a hat or a wig or some kind of a helmet". Whatever it is, there's bull horns sticking out the side.
- Classic Disney Shorts: Depending on the Artist, Daisy Duck may have ruffled feathers on her underside that suggest a lacy skirt.
- The Fairly OddParents! episode "Fish Out of Water" features some female fish with markings on their bodies that give them the appearance of wearing dresses.
- Played for Horror in the Gravity Falls episode "Weirdmageddon": An off-center shot from Ford's Wave-Motion Gun hits Bill Cipher's "hat", creating a gaping hole that exposes a mess of fleshy innards before regenerating.
- Jenny of My Life as a Teenage Robot is a robot that doesn't actually wear clothes, but the shape and color of her feet, waist, and chest resemble boots, a miniskirt, and crop top, respectively.
- Done as The Reveal of the SpongeBob SquarePants episode where SpongeBob tries to join a jellyfishing club. He idolizes a smug sea cucumber named Kevin who is the leader of the club. In the end, the other jellyfishers, tired of their leader's staunch refusal to let SpongeBob join, remove the hat from Kevin's head and place it on SpongeBob's to signal their acknowledgement of him as their new leader (though he turned it down afterwards), prompting SpongeBob to note that he was unaware the hat was a removable article of clothing. Cue a cut to a very pained-looking Kevin with a visible tear on top of his head stating that it wasn't.
- In Steven Universe, the Gems' "clothes" are actually part of the projections of their body. To "change" their clothes they have to shapeshift and when they regenerate after being injured, they gain a new outfit.
Real Life
- Some dog breeds are bred to for groomed to look like they are wearing articles of clothing.
- Poodles' coats are groomed to look like they are wearing either vests (lion cut) or jumpsuits/onesies (puppy cut).
- The fur on the torso of Scottish terriers and Cocker Spaniels is often groomed to look like a skirt or kilt.
- Low grade broken patterns on rabbits are called booted because they white feet that look like they are wearing boots. Some rabbits have white only on the front feet, looking like gloves.
- Cats:
- A certain white spotted pattern on cats is called a tuxedo because it looks like they are wearing a suit or tuxedo.
- White feet on cats are called mitts or socks because they look like they are wearing mittens or socks. There is even gene called white gloving that causes some of these mitts.
- Mask and mantle patterns make a cat look like they are wearing a mask and a cape.
- A cap and saddle pattern looks like it's wearing well... a cap and a saddle.
- Some bicolor patterned cats have colored areas on them that look like spats, fingerless gloves, glove holes, sock holes, and leg warmers.
