Follow TV Tropes

Following

Cuteness Proximity

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cat_proximity.png

"Odd. Their intelligence drops in the presence of poros."
Vel'Koz, League of Legends

The closer a character is to something cute, the more likely Cuteness Overload will happen. Get close enough and, if the character has any susceptibility to Cuteness Overload at all, it is certain to happen.

You have a character who's a normal, perfectly sensible, maybe even slightly uptight person. Then they are presented with a puppy/kitten/baby/whatever, and they suddenly turn into a tower of jelly, going "Whosa cutie? Whosa cutie? You are, you are, yes you are. Da cute widdle thing you are, you... (devolves into gibberish)".

Dignity goes flying out the window. Often strikes The Comically Serious, helping to make them seem Not So Above It All. Also a good way to show that a badass character is a big softie at heart.

Sometimes, Cuteness Proximity leads to a desire to take the subject of cuteness home And Call Him "George"... Well, maybe not George... If someone tries to take advantage of this to get a date, the trope's called Animal Chick Magnet.

Definitely Truth in Television. See also Cute Kitten, Precious Puppy, Bunnies for Cuteness, and High Koala-ty Cuteness. When the animal is far more dangerous than cute but gets someone squeeing anyway, that person may be a Fluffy Tamer; when nobody squees then someone might end up saying "Nice Kitty..." instead. Also, this can go horribly wrong if Cub Cues Protective Parent. Compare Delicious Distraction. See Distracted by the Sexy for the sexy, human variant.


Example subpages

Other examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes: In Season 6 episode 28, Big M. uses three of his cutest monsters so that they can exploit their adorable charm on the Planet Guling inhabitants and pin the blame on their crimes on Careful S., the one person immune to their cuteness.
  • In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Mighty Little Defenders episode 3, Wolffy, who has been transformed into a puppy, attempts to exploit his cuteness factor to convince the goats to let him follow them around, as he intends to work as a spy for the other wolves by joining the goats' team. The goats simply ask the dog not to follow them, though, assuming it needs to go home.

    Comic Books 
  • In The Eternals, one of the driving factors behind Sprite's Face–Heel Turn was the fact that his inability to physically age meant that he was stuck with the appearance of a cute preteen for millennia, and was treated accordingly by all the other Eternals. It got old really fast.
  • In Gold Digger, the ancient civilization of dragons tend to be sharply divided on their opinion of humans. Some find the idea of a civilization of little, vermin-sized mammals disgusting; but at least as many dragons, if not more, find us adorable, seeing us sentient mammals essentially as a race of little bunny people. This is why so many of them choose to shape-shift into human form; so they can secretly have fun hanging out with us in our cute little bunny village "cities."
    • This happens to a fair few characters in the series, really. Brianna thinks squirrels with anti-personnel rifles are just the cutest things ever, and Brittany goes full squee for any time Tiffy does or wears something cute, especially in Tiffy's infant years, but the worst offender is Ayane "Mistress" Anno. She loves EVERYTHING cute, to the point of fetishization. She sleeps with giant plushies and loves all manner of baby animals, even if they do get scared of her "cursed, fear-inducing eyes." One GD-Tangent side comic has her take in a kitten with abnormally large and scary claws since she feels a kinship with it as someone who tries to be cute but is cursed to look scary.
  • The Unbelievable Gwenpool: Gwen's pet, Jeff the Land Shark, who is... astoundingly cute for a baby abomination of nature (it helps that he acts like a puppy). Enough that Elsa Bloodstone of all people immediately declares that she'll obliterate anyone who threatens him. Heck, he even wears down Quentin Quire, which takes some doing.
  • Lockjaw of The Inhumans basically looks like a monstrous pug the size of a VW Beetle. When he shows up in New Jersey, most everyone freaks and runs away... apart from Kamala Khan, who thinks he looks absolutely adorable, and coos over him like most people would with a normal puppy.
  • The Mall (2018): Lena discovers she's inherited a pet store in the Golden Palm Mall from her recently-deceased father, Gino Cardini. When she sees it, she's immediately enamored with the puppies at the store.
  • Robin (1993): Tim, who has a reputation for being quite serious in comparison to the previous Robins, has a habit of talking to "kitties" he comes across on patrol as long as he has the time to.
  • She-Hulk: In one issue, the title character visits a prison where supervillains are shrunk down before they are incarcerated. She starts cooing when she sees the tiny Wrecking Crew.
    She-Hulk: Who's the cutest little Wrecking Crew? You are! Yes you are!
  • Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Newcomer Nautica has this reaction when she meets a cat. Said cat happens to be Ravage.
  • Lobo: Lobo, of all people. He's a violent, psychopathic mercenary for hire. However, he absolutely adores a species of space dolphins.
  • X-Man: Nate Grey, an Artificial Human created as a Living Weapon, was decanted by his creator when he was physically about six to check his progress and given Technobabble clothing to wear in the meantime. This clothing just so happened to resemble an adorable set of pyjamas, and little Nate had enormous blue eyes. The effect was so startling that his creator was briefly stunned by how cute he was, using one of his machines to replicate a toy bear that Nate took a shine to before putting him back under. His creator? None other than Mister Sinister.
  • In Vol. 2 of Turma da Mônica e Garfield: O Lápis Mágico, Monica and her friends all fawn over Nermal and find him cute, much to Garfield's annoyance.

    Comic Strips 
  • Baby Blues:
    • In one of the early Sunday strips, Daryl and Zoe are passing by a fat construction worker, who's yelling over the noise of a jackhammer and swearing like a sailor... Until he spots Zoe in her little stroller, undergoes a complete personality shift, and coos to her like a mother. In Daryl's words to her, "How do you do that??"
    • An early story arc revolves around Daryl suddenly finding himself unable to stop using baby talk. Wanda digs up a baby book which explains that this condition is commonly brought on by babies' cuteness and recommends "exposure to the baby during peak non-cute periods" as the cure.
    Daryl: Wot's dat 'posed to mean?
    Wanda: It means you get the night shift, Tweety Bird.
  • An entire Bloom County story arc consisted of Oliver making contact with a race of aliens planning to enslave much of Earth's human populace. Now they may have had flying saucers with lasers and the like on them, but their biggest advantage by far over the humans was that all of them took on the shape of puppies with big innocent eyes. Said arc was making a serious political statement about how Oliver North was handled with kid gloves at a Congressional hearing.
  • Bo from BoNanas once asked his roommate to put him on a leash as they went outside, trying to make a message on how wrong it was for him to be constrained as a mere "cute" animal. Naturally, once they begin their stroll, every stranger they encounter can't help but gush and baby talk him. "... Well, you are cute." "It's my curse."
  • Sedine from InSecurity just can NOT resist anything adorable, be it kitties or kids.
  • Of all the characters in Retail, Stuart was this when Marla visited the mall with her new baby.
  • Garfield spends a strip being bothered by a passing woman this way, wanders away in the next strip deciding the next person to talk Baby Talk to him "gets his clock cleaned", and ends up face-to-face with an unbalanced-looking man — piercings, Hell-Bent for Leather — delivering a similar, "Why, hehwo widdle puddy tat!" Besides a look of surprise, his own reaction is not recorded. (This made it into a short in the Animated Adaptation.)
    • Another strip had the talking scale going "AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW" at the sight of Nermal.
  • Sherman's Lagoon: This strip has Megan telling Sherman to bring home a sea lion for dinner. Sherman has a difficult time capturing one because of how cute sea lions are. Megan, meanwhile, finds them cute too but still goes after one.

    Films — Animation 
  • Bolt:
    • After Mittens teaches Bolt the "Dog Face", they never go hungry. Mittens also tries to invoke this herself in the ensuing montage.
      Random Human: BEAT IT, STUPID CAT! [throws frying pan]
    • This also occurs when one of the actors playing Dr. Calico's henchmen picks up Rhino.
      Henchman: Oh, you're so cute, your little whiskers! Oh, I used to have a hamster like you when I was a kid!
  • In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Flint uses what basically amounts to LOLCats to distract Sam. It is effective enough to keep her entranced for hours on end.
  • This was Dory in Finding Nemo when she came in contact with a small jellyfish, which she promptly named "Squishy." She weaponizes this trope in Finding Dory by having a bunch of sea otters stand in the middle of the highway and cuddle each other.
  • The How to Train Your Dragon short "Gift of the Night Fury" features a scene where an egg that is Made of Explodium goes off and shoots out an adorable baby dragon. All of the Viking kids present save Astrid gather around it to coo, not giving a thought to the eggs being a) explosive and b) distributed around town.
  • In Kronk's New Groove, Yzma turns herself into a pink bunny to distract the angry citizens who were going to make her Empress, but just found out that her "youth potion" is a lie. It actually works for a moment... and then she gets snatched up and carried off by a bird.
  • In Penguins of Madagascar, Corporal goes into gushing mode when he sees penguins.
  • Shrek:
  • In Storks, you can tell the Big Bad because they aren't affected by the cuteness of the baby. Every other antagonist in the film is so smitten with the baby they want to raise it themselves, while the Big Bad just wants to get rid of it.
  • Subverted via sarcasm in TMNT (2007) when Raph comes across the Jersey Devil.
    Raphael: Oooh, ain't you cute? You want a butt-kickin' little fella? Yes, you do, you do! C'mon, I'm gotta drop kick you to hurty-town.
  • In Turning Red:
    • Most characters who see Meilin's panda form find it absolutely adorable, which Meilin and her friends exploit to gather money for the upcoming 4*Town concert.
    • Weaponized, so to speak, by Meilin's parents when she claims she has gotten her emotion-fueled transformations under control. After photos of a clear-cut forest, a caged orangutan, and her placing second in a Grade 2 spelling bee fail to set her off, her father (with all due drama, and then some) sets before her... The Kitten Box. It actually comes close to cracking her, and later on Ming brags about how easily Meilin passed every trigger test "Even...the Kitten Box!" to her family's amazement, indicating that this is a typical test of panda control.
  • The circumspect English bobby at the start of Yellow Submarine, on his hands and knees trying to entice a cat. He stands up and acts very serious when Ringo shows up.

    Films — Live Action 
  • The grey bunny seen in Cool World attempts to attract the cops by crying cutely to report in Holli's goons cheating with the bunny while gambling. When the bunny notices this, he/she quickly goes aggressive by telling them to rip their faces off and finishes with an adorable "Pretty Please" causing the police to chase after them.
  • Captain Marvel (2019) has Nick Fury suddenly and repeatedly break down in cooing over a friendly cat as it happily accepts pets from him. When the cat turns out to be a flerken, a rare and dangerous alien species that can swallow people whole, he discovers you Do Not Taunt Cthulhu after Goose responds to him cooing over it again by clawing his face, causing Fury to lose an eye, in response using a bowdlerized version of "motherfucker". This makes Fury's assertion in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that "the last time I trusted somebody, I lost an eye", Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • Plot-relevant in We Are What We Are when the police station receptionist is so distracted by Doc's dog that she doesn't notice him stealing a handgun.
  • Diana falls victim to this in Wonder Woman (2017) after arriving in London. Her thought process is, approximately, "Okay, we're headed to talk to Steve's boss, then we're going to the front lines of the war, then I can defeat Ares and save mank — GREAT HERA, A BABY!" She starts to run over to see the baby up-close before Steve drags her away. Justified, since Diana's never seen a baby before, and in fact has never left Themiscyra before now — she's going through a bit of sensory overload.

    Literature 
  • French writer and journalist Robert Beauvais provided a humorous study of the language used by dog-owners, which he dubbed "le kiskose chien-chien" ("the doggy-doggy whatchaspeak"), in Le Français kiskose (1975).
  • An entry in Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul features the author (a new cat owner) fearing she's become "one of those people" who use baby talk on their pets. Naturally, she succumbs to it in the end.
  • Discworld:
    • Lord Vetinari's usually very reserved aunt Lady Roberta Meserole does this whenever her lapcat is around — as does Vetinari with his own dog to a lesser extent. When we see teenage Vetinari (i.e. before he gets the dog), he finds his aunt's devotion to her cat extremely irritating. He also thinks that if she's going to have a pet, it should be a long-haired white cat which she could stroke in a sinister way, not a mangy old street tom with irregular flatulence.
    • Nanny Ogg as well. She does this with babies (many of which, in Lancre at least, are her descendants), being described as making noises previously known only to cats on seeing them, and with her evil one-eyed demon cat Greebo.
    • Due to male and female dwarfs looking alike, Sam Vimes observes in Thud! that despite all the little tells he's learned to recognise, he's still not entirely sure how many of each he employs... until his infant son is brought to the Watch House, and half of them can't help but fawn over him.
    • Even Granny Weatherwax's hard outer shell softens around the kitten she named You. She places her on her head, under her hat; she claims it's to keep her head warm, but really, is anyone buying that?
  • In The Dresden Files, the current Archive is a human girl (nicknamed Ivy by Harry) with magical access to everything ever recorded by humanity, as well as the combined memories of all previous Archives. She is articulate, mature and scarily powerful, and when she states that if Dresden backs out of his duel she'll take it personally and kill him, Dresden realizes she is fully capable of doing so without breaking a sweat. But when Dresden's cat Mister suddenly appears, she shouts "KITTY!" and starts playing with him, making you realize she's still a 7-year-old girl. Her bodyguard (a Half-Human Hybrid Sociopathic Hero Combat Pragmatist with a thing for explosions)'s reaction to this: "Now that's just creepy." Mister is the size of a small tiger and isn't above pushing Harry around, but he seems to quite like Ivy. Maybe a little of this goes both ways. The next time we see her, Dresden immediately knows where she's going to be at the meeting place (an Aquarium) after she's vanished from where she was supposed to be sitting — the otter pens. As he explains to Kincaid, "She's a kid. Kids love cute."
  • The title character of Franny K. Stein adores baby spiders, which her dog Igor uses to convince her to reconsider destroying the television set she made for him to watch in Frantastic Voyage.
  • When Tash and Zak find a baby in Galaxy of Fear, they don't dissolve too far into baby talk, but they do say sillier things than usual.
  • The Hammer (2022): While Chloe is naturally inclined to be kind to everyone, she has a particular love for cute, weak-looking things. Tiny wonders if this is why she stopped to give him her ring when he was starving on the streets of Invader.
  • Harry Potter: Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown have this reaction to both the Hippogriffs in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the Unicorn foals in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Alpha Bitch Pansy Parkinson also has to try really hard to conceal how much she likes them. Ginny and a gaggle of female customers in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince also swoon over the Pygmy Puffs in Fred and George's joke shop. Two female students have this reaction seeing Pigwidgeon, Ron's tiny owl, much to Ron's annoyance.
  • In the short story "Hell in a Handbasket", any demon who comes across the baby in the story is forced to do this, whether it being intentional (Vassago), to being physically unable to harm the child and forced to talk in baby talk (Harpy).
  • Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain has supervillain E-Claire whose power lets her fog the minds of almost everyone around her with cuteness to make them less willing to fight.
  • In the Rainbow Magic, Kirsty squees upon seeing a baby penguin hatch and says it's the most adorable thing she's ever seen.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire. Prince Oberyn lampshades this trope when telling Tyrion Lannister of how his sister Elia responded to seeing him as a baby, in deliberate contrast to how Tyrion's own sister Cersei reacted, twisting Tyrion's penis and accusing him of killing their mother.
  • Spy School: In Spy School Goes North, Ben and Erica can’t help notice the adorableness of various seal and otter families in a fjord that they are fleeing through, and work hard to make sure that they don’t cause the heat-seeking torpedoes that are fired at them to hurt any of those animals.
  • In They Are Smol, it turns out that nearly every sapient alien in the galaxy has this reaction around humans, but the favor is generally not returned since every sapient alien has some feature that triggers some flavor of instinctive terror.
  • Played for Nightmare Fuel in The War Against the Chtorr (written by David Gerrold, creator of the tribbles). A scientist points out a form of Chtorran life called the meep, which when placed with a mother rabbit will induce her to abandon her young and allow the meeps to nurse her to death. At the time the protagonist is studying another form of Chtorran life; endearing floppy-eared creatures called bunnydogs. Noting the cuteness response most people have towards them, he suggests that the bunnydogs are meant to be the human-equivalent for meeps.
  • At the end of the Warrior Cats novel Crookedstar's Promise, the jerkass egomaniac Beetlenose comes flying out of the Nursery, squeeing about how cute Crookedstar's daughter Silverkit is. Keep in mind that he's a very nasty cat, and even he found her cute.
  • Wearing the Cape: Hope mentions several times that she has this reaction to Bengal tigers. She's Nigh-Invulnerable, so she has no reason to be afraid of them, leaving them as nothing but adorable cats big enough to cuddle with.
  • Wings of Fire:
    • The RainWing tribe sets some ground rules for their new refugees/war captives: they can eat anything in the rainforest except for sloths. Sloths are cute, and a lot of RainWings keep them as pets.
    • Humans ("scavengers") are considered cute by dragons, although their dangerous nature makes them a bit of an acquired taste: Sunny doesn't understand the appeal until she sees a tame scavenger take out a tiny sketchbook and draw her portrait.
  • Zones of Thought:
    • In A Fire Upon the Deep, Ravna has this response to some butterfly-like aliens with enormous eyes until she discovers they're out to Kill All Humans.
      Blueshell: Those were Aprahanti. Just the look of them fills you with dread, does it not?
    • In A Deepness in the Sky, humans are this for giant spiders. You see, spider babies and children have two eyes on top of their heads, like humans do, but when they get older those eyes merge together and form a single sensory organ. The instinctual reaction to find us cute is so strong that even jaded military personnel finds it hard to resist human charm, despite the fact that humans have bombed spiders at that point in the story.

    Music 
  • Played for Laughs when Girls Aloud invited a special guest over on their Christmas special. The girls got so excited to meet Paul O'Grady's dog that Nadine took him right out of Paul's arms when the two showed up at the door. An offended Paul then takes the dog away from them and threatens to give their Christmas presents to the Sugababes.
  • French singer Richard Gotainer wrote a whole song — "Le Youki" — in baby talk, precisely to mock this habit of dog owners. You can find the clip there (and you probably don't need to understand French to get the gist of it). Warning: Catchy (and slightly NSFW too).
  • In the Psychostick song "We Ran Out of CD Space", various strange scenarios are posited, including the following example of this trope:
    What if your room was filled with lots and lots of puppy dogs?
    You would be like "Aww, look at the puppy dogs! Awwwwww, come 'ere! Come 'ere!
    Awwwww! Whatcha doin' little guy? Whatcha doin'? Ooh whatcha wookie-wookie!
    Who's the puppy dog? You're the puppy dog! Who's the puppy dog? Little puppy doggies!"
  • Eminem's daughter Hailie often induces this in his lyrics, played for incredibly Black Comedy in "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" where he raps in gushing baby talk while trying to dispose of her mother's murdered corpse.

    Music Videos 
  • This happens in the music video for Cimorelli and Matty B's cover of Don't Call Me Baby when all the girls but Dani squee about seeing Matty B.

    Podcasts 
  • Both times that a puppy has appeared on the Co-Optional Podcast it has reduced Dodger's vocabulary to gushing about it.
  • In the Welcome to Night Vale episode "Visitor", Cecil degenerates into this in pretty short order when a small creature he can't identify finds its way into the studio. Most of the first half of the podcast is him gushing over how adorable it is when he is usually far calmer and more collected. He goes into Cuteness Overload when it makes noise or touches him. Then it bites him...
  • The Letters Page, the Sentinels of the Multiverse lore podcast, has a sort of Running Gag where they'll regularly get messages asking about the Animalverse. During the episode discussing the Operative, The Dragon to two different significant villains, they get one asking about "the Otterative" and Christopher Badell is almost incoherent at the thought of what the Otterative must look like for at least twenty seconds.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Lucy the Bulldog. She was the pet of Triple H, and he walks on screen, picks her up above his head, and says something along the lines of "Schnuzzywuzzywoofle". Funnier than it sounds. Woulda been even funnier if Lucy hadn't been upstaging the guy HHH was theoretically feuding with, Chris Jericho.
  • Pepper. Al Snow, he who carried around a mannequin head named Head, had lost Head. He found a little chihuahua to replace him. Al brings the dog out for one of his matches and leaves him in the care of announcer Jim Ross. Ross quickly became more interested in the dog than the match and was very displeased with how much the loud crowd scared the dog. Pepper was almost immediately thereafter retired from television — by being kidnapped, cooked and fed to poor Al by the Big Bossman.
  • Happened again with Rene Dupree's poodle, Fifi. Ross would talk about how terrified the dog was (Dupree being a heel) but whenever the camera was on her, she'd be stood on her hind legs, happily being fed popcorn by fans.
  • Jillian Hall claimed Jim Cornette had this reaction whenever he saw her, describing her as "terminally cute".
  • Hayley Shadows is here to kill your favorite wrestlers and drink in your hatred...but if you bring one of your pets to the show and let her hold it she'll be your best friend!
  • Karlee Pérez had such a reaction when faced with Space Monkey at Absolute Intense Wrestling's Hell On Earth XII. However, her reaction was less hug and pet than attempt to mount and grope, to his horror.
  • Alexa Bliss in her face incarnation inspired this reaction from Renee Young. As soon as Alexa appeared on the stage blowing a stream of glitter, Renee Squeed that she looked just like a cute little fairy.
  • Lance Storm once described Kairi Sane as being like a "human puppy."

    Roleplay 
  • In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, Hyeon adopts a grey squirrel that he dubs Kwang. Kwang is shown to be very effective at drawing out the softer side of otherwise unapproachable characters; Hyeon's abrasive ex-girlfriend cuddles up with him, and shy, anti-social Josephine sets sight on him and immediately wants to give him a hug. Carlie even manages to miss an announcement that there's bombs spread throughout her school because she's so distracted with how cute Kwang is.

    Theatre 
  • "The Second Shepherds' Play", a 1500s Middle English play written by an unknown so-called Wakefield Master, features the Three Shepherds addressing the baby Jesus in this manner, initially praising him for being their God and savior, then praising him for being a (modern English translation:) "little tiny moppet". The Other Wiki summarizes it best:
    They each address the Child in turn, beginning by praising His authority and His creation of all things in tones of reverence and awe, but each comically shifting mid-speech to cooing, gushing baby talk, since they are addressing an adorable baby

    Video Games 
  • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey: The "Judgement of Atlantis" DLC has the Eagle Bearer doing this with Ros, a dog found around Elysium. Less so when Ros suddenly goes through a growth-spurt, gains two extra heads and the ability to breath fire...
  • BlazBlue:
    • Noel Vermillion is a somewhat incompetent but serious-minded officer for the NOL, the government which rules the world. But when put in close proximity to a panda, well, this happens.
    • Litchi tends to get a little too friendly when she's drunk. Put a girl near her and this and this and even this happens. In fact, Noel's example above is also a result of this.
    • Makoto also suffers from chronic Cuteness Proximity. Put cute kid Carl next to her and this happens.
    • Makoto's also on the receiving end of this trope in Arcade mode. Post-combat commentary from Ragna, Noel, Platinum, and Taokaka all show how irresistible her tail is to them.
    • Also, in one episode of Teach Me, Miss Litchi!:
      Makoto: Hey, look who's here, it's Tao! Aren't you just adorable? Yes, you are, yes you are!
      Taokaka: Furry tail girl! Your tail is so fluffy today too! Furry furry furry furry furry ooooh...
      Litchi: You two are like animals.
      Noel: [heart symbol] ... Aaaaah...
    • The funniest example is a young Ragna descending into this upon meeting the Legendary Hero Jubei. This was before he became the pissed-off Good Is Not Nice Anti-Hero we know today, but still...
      Ragna: You're a kitty! A big fluffy kitty!
    • Speaking of Jubei, and if Nine's gag reel in Centralfiction is anything to go by, listening to her husband's voice is enough to make her melt.
    • In Cross Tag Battle, Jubei has to verbally push Kanji away from him after their fights, but that's because Kanji is overcome by an overriding desire to pet him.
  • In Bug Fables, Leif is obsessed with everything cute, and has an extremely strong desire to get the team a Team Pet. When the team encounters an NPC who will rent them a "Bed Bug" (a pillbug in pajamas who grants a one-time full heal), Leif even says that they need to rent it as often as possible so no one else can have it. When the party does eventually get a Team Pet — a Chomper — Leif is positively giddy.
  • In Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Queen Drosera gushes over how adorable Pizza is when the latter enters her cave.
  • In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, Riona giggles and comments on how cute Rachel's cat form is when she first sees her.
  • Johnny Silverhand seems enamored by Nibbles, the cat V can adopt in Cyberpunk 2077. When it appears for the first time he will call V to look at it. After they bring it to their apartment, Johnny will kneel down next to the basket V made into its bed and stare at it until you leave.
  • Princess Sapphire from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice has a thing for anything "cutesy". Like, for example, Raspberyl. One instance in the main story had a teddy bear out in the middle of Team Mao's path. Almaz rushes out ahead of Sapphire to pick up the bear, only to get jabbed by the trap inside and subsequently cursed to die. The trap had her name on it, he knew it, and he went to intercept it anyway.
  • NPC banter in Dragon Age: Origins has Leliana teasing big stoic Sten.
    Leliana: I saw you playing with that kitten and dangling string for it.
    Sten: I was helping it train.
    Leliana: I knew it, you're just a big softie.
    Sten: Stop saying that.
    Leliana: Softie!
    Sten: I hate humans.
    • And of course, Liliana's reaction to her pet Nug Schmooples. For reference, a nug is what you get if you manage to interbreed a rabbit and a mole-rat. And is about half the size of a Mabari.
    • This actually becomes a bit of a Running Gag if Sten and Leliana are both in the party. Another brilliant example is her catching Sten picking flowers (for medicinal purposes).
    • And from the Awakening expansion, you can get a kitten as an inventory item. Click it, and Anders the mage coos "Whooo's a pretty kitty?" and similar bits of cuteness overload.
    • Sera from Dragon Age: Inquisition will delight in calling a Female Dwarven Inquisitor "adorable", "squeezy-cute" and other endearing names.
  • In Far Cry 6, Chorizo is a dachshund puppy that you can recruit as an ally whose special ability is to distract enemy soldiers with his cuteness, allowing you to either sneak past them or to stealth-kill them.
  • Fate/Grand Order: During the 2017 Dead Heat Summer Race event, James Moriarty, master criminal, instantly melts when he meets Frankenstein and joins her in the race so that he can be her father. Whenever he starts acting up, all she has to do is call him "Papa" and he falls back in line.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Terra from Final Fantasy VI seems to undergo a total personality shift from her normally timid self whenever she's within hugging distance of a Moogle. This, naturally, was brought up in the Dissidia Final Fantasy games.
    • Final Fantasy VII:
      • On Mt. Corel, there's a nest of adorable baby birds. Cloud remains clinical, Yuffie's more interested in the treasure under the nest, and Red XIII assumes they're lunch — but Aeris and Tifa fall to pieces and Barret's rendered basically speechless.
      • After witnessing Scary Black Man Barret dressed in a ridiculous sailor uniform while in disguise on the ship, the player can either have Cloud tell him off or tell him that he looks adorable. Choosing to tell him he looks adorable results in you later finding him in the inn dancing around in front of the bathroom mirror for himself and talking about how he'll be wearing it when he goes to see his little daughter.
      • Mideel features an adorable baby white Chocobo that a woman is keeping as a pet. The player can talk to it, upon which the player character will suggest feeding it Greens. Depending on whether Cloud, Tifa, or Cid is in charge of the party at the time, you can then be treated to a gruff chain-smoking astronaut or a magically enhanced, too-cool-for-school BFS-swinger giggling at it, calling it cutesy pet names like 'shorty' and 'peewee' and tickling it.
    • In Final Fantasy XV, Prompto melts down around cute Chocobos. Seeing one give Noct a hug reduces him to "oh em gee".
  • One of the more amusing scenes in Golden Sun: The Lost Age has the dread pirate Briggs begging his terrifying grandmother to defend him from Felix & Co... by way of a nonsensical argument starring his own son. Who isn't even there. And she still cracks and summons a giant salamander to battle, because she just can't disappoint her baby great-grandson...
  • In the Jak and Daxter series, Daxter seems to have this effect on Tess, and it later gets upgraded to Sickeningly Sweethearts.
  • League of Legends: Vel'Koz Lampshades this trope when played on the map Howling Abyss. The Howling Abyss is the home of the delightfully adorable Poros, whose appearance causes Vel'Koz to utter the quote on the top of the page.
  • The Master Swordsman from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask seems to find Link adorable when he wears the bunny hood, but he quickly composes himself and tells him to take it off because it might get dirty in the dojo.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: Ryder may do this with a small furry creature which has stowed away on the Tempest, even trying to keep it (if the player choses to). If they've romanced someone by that point, they'll note it's only the second cutest thing they've ever seen.
  • An audio tape from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker features Paz coming across a group of MSF mercenaries gushing over a kitten. In contrast, Paz is disgusted that a group of tough soldiers are acting like schoolgirls over a cute kitten.
  • Outright weaponized in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain with special cat/dog plushies that stun anyone who stares at them too long with cuteness. They're not actual animals because then you'd have to shoot them to wake the soldiers up.
  • The kyonshÄ« sister from Onmyoji has a rather… annoying habit of mofu-mofu-ing any cute animals in the vicinity, Kohaku included. Her victims are often annoyed at first but eventually soften from the petting.
  • In Planescape: Torment the protagonist can find a small model of a modron (a cube-shaped creature) with articulated limbs that move — essentially an action figure. One dialogue branch regarding the "toy" has your large, heavily-scarred, tattooed and scary protagonist devolve into an excited little child detailing the adventures of "cube hero". At least one of your sidekicks finds it deeply annoying, after which the protagonist and the action figure "agree" that he's a jerk.
    Morte: I'm gonna smash that Modron cube to bits.
    Nameless One: Did you hear anything, cube hero? Neither did I!
  • In Puyo Puyo, we have Schezo, a rather serious but misunderstood Dark Wizard. If you put Dongurigaeru within walking distance of him... he absolutely melts and wants to take it home.
  • The many mini-games of Rhythm Heaven have brief descriptions informing the player of what to expect in-game they're about to play. In Megamix, however, it is apparent that the person responsible for titling the mini-games suffered this when faced with kittens in a musical number:
    Title: Kitties!
    Description: "THEY'RE SO CUTE YOU GUYS!"
  • Rune Factory 4 seems to like these. Both Arthur and Forte have a serious weakness for cute things, though Forte attempts to hide it.
    • If you're dating someone, particularly one of the more reserved characters, the player can often get them to say something uncharacteristically sentimental and they'll blame it on you being too cute and distracting.
  • Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space: In "Moai Better Blues", Max keeps incessantly gushing over Baby Jimmy Hoffa.
  • In Super Mario Odyssey, one of the Lochladies from the Lake Kingdom loves Cheep Cheeps, and will reward you if you bring her one.
    Lochlady: CLOSE-RANGE CUTENESS! I can hardly stand the adorability!
  • Super Robot Wars Judgment has Bonta-kun, a mecha that was already cute in its source canon. And, while it's a surprisingly decent if not outstanding combat unit, its defining trait is causing many villain characters from other series to find it adorable. In fact, its ability to induce Cuteness Proximity is so pronounced it can even affect Rau Le Creuset. Heck, it can affect the resolve of even the Anti-Spiral.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
  • Tales Series:
    • Tear Grants of Tales of the Abyss did this, although to a slightly lesser extent: She didn't completely lose her dignity, but cute things at first were the only indicators of her softer side. She shows it more in the anime adaption.
    • Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology has her do this on... Eugene Gallardo, claiming him to be big, fluffy and cute.
    • Presea (and, to a lesser extent, Regal) from Tales of Symphonia seems to have a great fondness for poking paw pads.
  • Them's Fightin' Herds: The normally moody and snarky Oleander will sometimes gasp and react with glee upon seeing one of Pom’s puppies during their battle intro, before quickly trying to come off as serious and ready for battle.
  • Touka from Utawarerumono, melts when the weasel... rabbit... Nidoran thing that lives with Aruru gets near and does a poor job disguising it.
  • In the Valkyria Chronicles downloadable side mission "Edy's Detachment", it's revealed that the normally distant and aloof sniper Marina Wulfstan chokes up in the presence of puppies.
    Edy: What about the time Marina went running off after that puppy?
    Marina: ...So cute...
    • She also became distracted by bunnies in the field when she was trying to give her mission briefing in the sniper bonus mission.
  • Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey: Even animals aren't immune to this trope — if a sheep is clicked on, Wishbone will say "Aww, look at the cute sheep!"
  • World of Warcraft's Mylune is a dryad with a rather... bubbly personality. She can't so much as talk about "the wee animals" without devolving into baby talk and incoherent squealing. It's difficult for the fans to not have this reaction to Mylune herself.
  • Melia from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has a tendency to break her very formal attitude and posh speech when she's alongside Riki, the Nopon party member. It's called out in a few instances by other team members.
    Riki: Riki try reaaaally hard! You see?
    Melia: Of course you sweet thing! Who's a good boy?
    Shulk: Uhh... Melia, are you feeling OK?
    • A sidequest in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 reveals that Captain Nopopon, a legendary Nopon treasure hunter, consciously played up the Ridiculously Cute Critter act to invoke this trope in the other races, by fluffing up his fur to look cuter and adopting an unusual speaking pattern. It ended up working so well that, over time, it became a standard for Nopon culture!
    • In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Ouroboros see a baby for the first time. While all of them find the baby cute, the normally stoic Taion ends up laughing with joy. In a sidequest, Riku and Manana end up jealous of a Pipito that the rest of Ouroboros deem cute.

    Visual Novels 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Missile the police dog gets lots of doting remarks if you have Phoenix present her to other people in the original game.
    • In Dual Destinies, the DLC case tasks Phoenix with defending an orca, Orla Shipley, in a murder charge. His new partner Athena falls to pieces over her and desperately tries to befriend Orla with fish.
    Athena: Orla's really pouring on the charm, huh!
  • C14 Dating: If Melissa chooses to watch a bunny video on a computer borrowed from Hendrik instead of letting him back on it once she's done with her e-mail, Hendrik notices and chases her away thanks to being in a worse mood than usual. He very briefly gets distracted by the bunny's cuteness in the middle of displacing Melissa.
  • Saber in Fate/stay night for lions and stuffed animals. Played for a joke initially and then used as fuel to tear her unemotional façade apart. It's what she would normally be and would like to be if she didn't have to be King Arthur and whatnot.
  • Rena Ryuuguu from Higurashi: When They Cry is like this to damn near anything she thinks is the least bit cute (whether it actually is or not), going so far as having a mindset that involves this phenomenon, often triggered with her catchphrase of "I want to take it home!" You do not want to be Rena's target when she's in I'm Taking Her Home with Me! mode — as Hanyuu can attest.
  • Nayuki from Kanon, any time she sees a cat.
  • Momoyo of Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! has strong reactions to any cute girl she happens upon. Chris is a little more controlled, but still has a weakness for cute things like teddy bears.
  • Tera from Marco & the Galaxy Dragon gives a delighted Squee when she encounters a herd of talking chibi unicorns.

    Web Animation 
  • AstroLOLogy: It's established in the prototype "Hugs" that Cancer can't resist hugging the first cute critter she sees. This happens to be in the case of a panda bear, leading to a bigger panda bear hugging her.
  • In Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse, Ken tends to faint every time he sees the litter of puppies that arrive at the dreamhouse in "Plethora of Puppies".
  • Camp Camp: Season 4 episode "Party Pooper" shows Max go completely starry-eyed over Missy.
    Max: That's the greatest thing I've EVER SEEN!
  • If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device:
    • The Emperor finds the Centurion impossibly cute and proceeds to have it seated on his lap because he considers it adorable. Notably, his reaction to it is the only time he's not in his default Sir Swears-a-Lot mode. It turns extremely awkward for him later, however, as he finds out it was Rogal Dorn inside, who still wants snuggles.
    • When Vulkan and Corvus Corax return and are recruiting troops for their crusade, they stop by Catachan. Upon encountering a deadly Catachan Barking Toad, a creature which explodes with such virulent toxic lethality that it can kill even a Primarch, Vulkan responds by bopping it on the noggin because it is so damned adorable. It promptly explodes, killing him, but Vulkan being Vulkan, he's back up in a couple of minutes, unharmed.
  • Moonkitti has Cloudkit in Fireheart Gets To Keep The Kitten He Found. Nobody in ThunderClan wants to keep Cloudkit... until they get a good look at his little face.
    Bluestar: We do not need more mouths to feed in ThunderClan- (Fireheart shows Cloudkit) - oh. Y'know, I hear Brindleface lost a kit...
    Brindleface: I dunno, I feel heartbroken- (Fireheart shows Cloudkit) - Give him to me!
  • Taken to extremes with Something Awful's Flash Tub cartoon, Ponuppy, the pony-puppy. His cuteness is so powerful that it drives a woman to go on a murderous rampage.
  • Plan 3: The Police chasing Stephen while he is cursed with bad luck get distracted by the random squirrel that attacked him then cuddled with Hosuh, giving the two a chance to hide.
  • RWBY:
    • Ruby and Yang get asked by their father to take care of the family's pet corgi Zwei while he's away on businessnote . Defrosting Ice Queen Weiss goes from indignant protests to gushing Baby Talk as soon as Zwei looks her in the eyes.
      Weiss: Are you telling me that this mangy... drooling... mutt is going to wiv with us foweva? Oh yes, he is! Yes, he is! Oh, isn't he adorable!
    • Yang and Weiss get hit with it again in a Volume 6 episode, delving into barely-intelligible Squee-ing upon meeting Jaune's nephew Adrian, an adorable toddler.
  • Turnabout Storm:
    • Played with when Fluttershy warms up to Phoenix after hearing his first name and assuming he's some sort of actual phoenix. Before knowing this she was quite intimidated by him.
    • Played straight with Apple Bloom and the Judge. The Judge thinks she's the cutest thing he's ever seen, and he becomes very protective of her while she's on the witness stand, causing a few problems for Phoenix.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 

    Web Videos 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara cooing over Linksano's Cybermat after it refuses to attack him.
  • Board James (and his co-host, "Motherfucker Mike") had this response when he first saw the Doggie Doo dog.
  • Channel Awesome:
  • CinemaSins claims as its arch-nemesis... a housecat named Wallace, who invokes this trope to distract his owner from making videos — first by being cute across the room, then moving closer and cuter until, eventually, the cat is lying on the computer keyboard demanding attention. "If you see Wallace out and about, DO NOT APPROACH THIS ANIMAL! He will stop you from nitpicking movies — and nobody has time for that sh**!"
  • Cr1TiKaL: Behold! Charlie's reaction to a kitten. His famously deadpan and monotone voice wavers and wanes and he treats the kitten like his firstborn.
  • A common feature of Dom Noble's bloopers is him being distracted by his two cats wanting attention.
  • Quite a few of the Let's Players own pets who like to vocalize or otherwise annoy their owners at an in-opportune time.
    • Lord Vega, for example, has had at least one terror-laden blind run of Silent Hill interrupted by his cat.
    • DeceasedCrab has had mixed reactions to his kitty peeking in on him during his recordings. From irritation ("Begone, kitty! I'm trying to Shadowrun!") to your basic "Aww, you're a good kitty". (And, of course, the one time he tried to get his cat to meow on cue, the cat refused to cooperate.)
    • Also when he and MadamLuna LP'ed Shadowgate Luna ended up cooing over a Sphinx.
    • Subverted in Let's Play Super Castlevania IV, where the apparent stimulus for Belmont killing Dracula was the death of his kitten, Fluffer Butter Waffle Nut. Naturally, the more the cat is discussed, the further into madness the speaker tends to descend...
    • HC Bailly tends to play a lot of games with cats in them. Perhaps the best example of this trope was in Let's Play Chrono Trigger when he started collecting cats and starting off several episodes with an excited "and we got another kitty! Yes! Yes!"
    • Frankomatic has his cat interrupt him during several inopportune moments during his LP's, most notably in Donkey Kong GB:
      There's a cat jabbing its claws into my leg; let's see if that helps my playing ability any! Please stop, Tommy. [drops off a platform in the game] Oh God! Clearly, it does not help my playing ability in the least! Do you see what you're doing to me, cat? Seriously, cut it out!
    • Chuggaaconroy has gotten distracted by his cats doing goofy or cute things in his Super Mario Sunshine LP.
    • A frequent guest on the Angriest Pat/Pat Stares At and Peach Saliva streams is their pet cat, Elmo. Despite Paige and Pat both being known for their acerbic personalities and vitriol towards each other and their friends, they both absolutely melt around Elmo and coo about how adorable, fluffy, and chubby he is.
    • Gronkh frequently parodies this in the interaction with his Minecraft dogs.
    • Chorocojo Roxy went into a coma due to Cuteness Proximity Overload at one point. This trope is her hat, the same way that being a gamer girl is Sammy's, being a rage-spewing badass is Misty's, being the Only Sane Man is Lady's, and being a sexy chick in a land full of rapey-rapeys is Roxy's cousin Foxy's.
    • Markiplier becomes fascinated by a tiny version of the boxes in an Amnesia custom story, dubbing it Tiny Box Tim. It's mentioned in another LP that he finds tiny versions of everyday objects adorable, such as baby shoes.
    • Steeler of Mario Party TV spends the entire Shell Cup video gushing over how cute Baby Luigi is.
    • The guys of Achievement Hunter are not immune to cooing over the cats, horses, tamed wolves, and baby animals in Minecraft. A baby horse making dying noises when it got trapped in a block was enough to get all six of them to rush over to save it.
    • The Hypocritical Gamer tends to like cute little girls, and he makes a lot of comments about how cute Namine and Eiko are.
    • This has been known to occur with raocow (a former cat-owner himself), most notably for the entirety of his playthrough of cat planet. In other games, if he considers a given enemy or creature to be cute enough, he'll generally try to avoid hurting them, even if he could otherwise benefit from it.
  • I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC: Occurs every single time Random Cat shows up on BlogTV.
  • Krimson Rogue of The Book Was Better has two cats who tend to disrupt his long form videos. Leia needs cuddles and attention. Ash, true to his full name of Ashtongue the Deathsworn, broke the book throne, yeeted himself into a wall and fell off the bed, prompting Krimson to stop recording at latter two incidents to go check on him. (he was fine)
  • Outside Xbox: the Outside Xtra side channel is noted for being consistently distracted by cute things, such as kittens, small and wide-eyed Pokemon, and so on. In this video even Jane — who is generally the Token Evil Teammate — gets distracted by them.
    • Ellen has this especially bad. She claims that her first time playing Pokémon Let's Go, Eevee! ended with her breaking down in tears because of the unbearable cuteness of the noises Eevee makes when you give it scritches.
    • More recently, the channel put out a compilation video of every time Ellen lost it while playing Stray. The official count is 124. In the first two hours of gameplay.
  • Simon Lane blurts out a high-pitched "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWW!" whenever he encounters something cute in a game, particularly in Minecraft mods and updates.
  • SMPLive: Despite his serious-business facade, Schlatt tends to have a major soft spot for anything that melts his heart - whether that be Ty giving him a gift, or Zach's silly doorbell that makes a noise that greatly amuses him.
  • The Talking Animals channel on YouTube has this video on the subject.
  • VG Myths: The kitten finding missions in Bowser's Fury bring out an...interesting side of Gamechamp.
    Gamechamp: "Finally, there are three shines locked behind...AWWWWW IT'S A KITTY! IT'S A CAT! Uh, uh, we can't get the kitty! 'Cuz the kitty goes away! But we gotta get a cat! We gotta murder Bowser! Murder Bowser cat! Cat ride on cat! It's two kitties! Ohhh...it's a high cat! We need to get a cat up, up on...for, for cat! Gotta move, gotta move cat, make a moving cat! We can ascend kitties! Happy cats!"
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
    • Marik, as shown in Episode 31:
      Marik: I shall defeat you and then conquer the world! Ahahahaha, Ahaha! Oh, hey, look, a bird! Isn't it just the cutest little guy? I mean, No! I-In my new world, all birds shall be enslaved! Especially this one, and he shall be named, Mr. Tweetums! For it is very evil! Ahahahahaha! Now be gone, Mr. Tweetums! I am trying to stalk my nemesis!
    • And later in Episode 43 even his evil alter ego, Melvin, is shown to have a soft spot for the bird.
      Melvin: I hate to burst your bubble but there's no-one in my head worth remembering... NO! Mr. Tweetums! I can't forget about him!

    Western Animation 
  • Archer: Sterling does this several times over the course of the series. Mostly to Cheryl's pet ocelot Babou.
    Archer: Lana, he remembers me!
  • Beavis and Butt-Head: The duo has this reaction to a baby goat that appears in the music video to Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun".
  • Bob's Burgers: The smart-mouthed troublemaker Louise turns out to lose her composure very easily around cute baby animals. She even regularly visits a pet store with her mother just to cuddle with the puppies, and knows them all by name.
  • Centaurworld: In "Johnny Teatime's Be Best Competition: A Quest for the Sash", Horse temporarily zones out from her mission to find the next part of the key to gush about how cute Johnny Teatime is.
  • Clifford's Puppy Days: Clifford is extremely small, extremely cute, and tends to evoke this reaction, particularly in anyone seeing him for the first time.
  • Dan Vs.: Dan has this towards his cat Mr. Mumbles. She's so cute that Dan just can't get mad at her, even after she caused Chris to fall off the roof by launching him off with a catapult.
  • Doc McStuffins:
    • Several of the characters have a tendency to behave this way around cute toys, animals or babies, particularly Doc herself and Lambie. Though both are professionals and can put it aside to get to work.
    • In "Toy Hospital: Waddly's Huggy Overload", Waddly Penguin has a bad case of this and startles both a horse and puppy until Doc and the others show her the proper way to meet and play with pets.
  • Dora the Explorer: In "Swiper the Explorer", after another failed attempt at swiping from Dora and Boots, Swiper is about to retreat when he suddenly notices the lost baby fox and gushes over how cute he is, and even grows so fond of him that he temporarily abandons his antagonistic role to help Dora and Boots return him to his home.
  • The Flintstones: Whenever Fred Flintstone, normally a rough-around-the-edges Ralph Kramden-type, sees his daughter Pebbles, he goes all sweet and cute Bumbling Dad and starts to gush about his "little Pebbly-poo".
  • Happens in a Freakazoid! episode, only the animal is rabid. Freakazoid names him "Foamy".
  • Futurama:
    • Weaponized by the natives of Thuban 9, or as we call them, housecats. They intentionally utilize cuteness proximity to control the minds of the cast.
    • The Nibblonians are an ancient and powerful race, dating back to the beginning of the universe. Also the sworn opponents of the Brainspawn, who want to destroy the universe. Unfortunately, their cuteness means that no-one takes them seriously and people generally devolve into baby-talk around them. Not helped by their propensity for playing into this trope heavily (i.e. "Kitten-class starships").
      Fiona: The brains are weakening. Nibblonians to Nibble Stations. Prepare Cuddle Bug for deployment in 40 nibblets.
      Nibbler: [he sighs] ...Sometimes I fear we are cute.
      Fiona: Oh, niggle-shnoosh.
    • When someone devolves into baby talk around Nibblonians they tend to get rather irritated, though if Nibbler is any clue some actually develop a taste for that kind of treatment.
    • The mission to get honey from Space Bees in the episode "The Sting" would have gone without a hitch, had Leela not seen that baby queen bee and decided to take it with her (she had a good reason to, however).
      Leela: Aw, she's so cute! You adorable wittle, itty-bitty, fuzzy-wuzzy—
      Fry: Leela! Stop bonding and let's go! I got jelly in my underpants!
  • Grojband: Laney had this reaction to a feral rat and a big dog that licked her face.
  • Invader Zim tries to weaponize this trope by turning a hamster (the class pet) into a giant monster. It does work, as the military is too busy gushing to fight back... but "Ultra Peepi" won't follow Zim's commands.
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, this happens to Twinkles, a unicorn, to the point where even Heloise is affected. The catch is that Twinkles is an Omnicidal Maniac that makes repeated threats that no one takes seriously until he finally gives up and leaves.
  • In Episode 105 of Kaeloo, this happens to Mr. Cat (of all people) when he sees miniature versions of Kaeloo.
  • King of the Hill: Hank Hill has a mild case of this for his dog Ladybird. While an old dog, she is one of the few living things that the emotionally repressed Hank will show open and adoring affection and emotion for. Also his father Cotton, a gruff misogynist even more emotionally closed off than Hank, is similarly adoring of his baby boy Good Hank.
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Whenever Kipo Oak comes across a cute or fluffy animal she is overcome with the need to pet it. Even when she knows petting the baby Mega Bunnies is a bad idea she has to constantly remind herself not to pet them.
  • In an episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Gantu captures experiment 254 (which Lilo named Mr. Stenchy) from Lilo's house and tries to send it to Dr. Hamsterveil. But even he isn't immune to affection of its cuteness and decides to keep it himself. He eventually starts doting on the experiment, much to 625's envy.
  • The series of Chuck Jones cartoons with Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot, starting with Feed the Kitty, are fueled by this trope. Big, gruff bulldog Marc Anthony completely melts before adorable kitty Pussyfoot and becomes a staunch protector of the naïve kitten. Honestly, who wouldn't?
  • In The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, the dog in the episode "Rye Ruv Roo" does a back flip and K'Nuckles says "OOOH" in slow-motion.
    Cap'n K'nukles: You might have Flap and the rich lady under yer spell, but it's gonna take more than that if yer gonna impress me—
  • Molly of Denali: A picture Molly shows of a duck in "The Qyah Ice Classic" causes Tooey and Vera to go "Awwwww!"
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In her introductory scene, Fluttershy is a complete Shrinking Violet, her attempts to introduce herself growing more squeaky and whispered when Twilight Sparkle tries to press her for her name. That is until she catches sight of Twilight's baby dragon Spike. She opens up immediately and carries on a conversation with Spike all the way back into town, which Twilight had to interrupt once they reached her home.
    • This introduction is repeated almost word-for-word in the movie My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, where human Fluttershy is shy around human Twilight until she sees dog Spike.
    • As seen in the episode "Baby Cakes", Pinkie Pie's usual response to Cuteness Proximity is an urge to burst into song — even in the neonatal wing of the Ponyville hospital.
    • Sometimes averted by Rainbow Dash, who shows a remarkable resistance to the incredible cuteness of a cat offered to her by Fluttershy in the episode "May The Best Pet Win". She is still vulnerable to the cuteness of newborn foals and parasprites, though. She also can't resist giving her tortoise, Tank, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it nose rub before leaving on a trip.
    • The ponies are slow to realize the danger of the Parasprites in the episode "Swarm of the Century" because they're so caught up in how adorable they are. Fluttershy even starts the problem over again after the other four think it's over because she kept one. Even knowing the danger and that they breed asexually with a tiny gestation period and are pretty much adults at birth. Only Pinkie Pie is not fooled by their cuteness and spends the majority of the episode assembling instruments for a one-pony-band which will get rid of them.
  • The Owl House: The moment Luz first lays her eyes on King, she goes completely nuts, hugs him tightly and talks to him as if he was the world's most adorable pet... much to his horror. Luz is far from the only one to fall for his charm of a pomeranian with a fox tail and Cubone head looking baby demon, which he hates because it makes him feel helpless and noone takes him seriously.
  • In one episode of The Penguins of Madagascar, the penguins are tasked with hatching an egg. Most of them don't last very long before succumbing to their brooding instinct despite their leader's insistence that they think manly thoughts. Then again, they may have been doing just that — as Kowalski points out, "incubation is a guy thing for penguins". Cuteness Proximity comes up again in the episode "Cute-astrophe", when Private discovers how to turn his own cuteness up to 132%, which makes people faint on sight.
  • The Phineas and Ferb episode "Meapless in Seattle" features "cutonium", a substance which renders the drinker hypnotically, irresistibly cute, inducing effects of this kind in anyone who sees them. When Mitch drinks it, Meap warns everyone to cover their eyes. Phineas...doesn't, and he's basically incapacitated until Isabella snaps him out of it.
    Phineas: Aww! They're blasting away at each other with really cute death rays!
  • A Recess episode ends with Miss Finster, Principal Prickly and Ashley A adopting a stray kitten each and taking baby talk to them as they cuddle them excessively. Miss Finster had previously been established to have a fondness for cats — turning on the baby talk after Spinelli rescued a cat from a tree, and alluding to leaving saucers of milk out for strays.
  • In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, upon meeting Catra, Scorpia immediately yells "Kitty!" and picks her up. Catra's response is as expected.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Simpson Tide", when all the guys join the Navy and their sub is filling up with water, their thoughts go to their loved ones. In Moe's thought balloon, he's stroking his kitty and talking baby talk to it before angrily turning to the audience shouting, "What are YOU lookin' at!?"
    • Mr Burns attempts to invoke this, along with All Girls Like Ponies by bribing Lisa with a trio of cute ponies called Sugar Belle, Honeysuckle and Dew Drop. She is indeed charmed by them, but manages to resist the temptation and tries to get them to run... the ponies don't react too nicely to this.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • Puffy Fluffy's cute state in "A Pal for Gary". SpongeBob is so touched by such that he only pays attention to him and not Gary, and scolding him for not being nice to his "friend". Naturally, this comes from SpongeBob ignoring the seller's warning that the pet hates other pets, and he's too enticed by the pet's cuteness to even listen.
    • In "Spot Returns", this trope is demonstrated by Karen, of all people. She's so happy to see Spot's new puppies that she experiences an overload and spends most of the episode undergoing a system reboot. Once she's back online, she's quite pleased to see even more amoeba puppies.
  • Star Wars Resistance: In "Bibo", this is Neeku Vozo's reaction to seeing the titular character, a small sea creature that he immediately adopts as his new pet. Kaz and Synara, on the other hand, are squicked, in part due to Bibo's strong stench.
  • Steven Universe: In "Catch and Release", it's revealed that the villain Peridot is, in reality, only as tall as Steven and appears to be wearing footy pajamas. Upon learning this, rather than actually asking the question he freed her to ask, Steven is completely distracted by how adorable Tinydot is. A similar effect applied to the fandom, who rapidly created a meme about ignoring the big revelations in that episode to gush over the cuteness of "Smol Child". Peridot Hates Being Called Cute, and even has some cat-like habits like running away on all four or hissing when scared. Propensity for Cat Smile also comes in.
  • Sym-Bionic Titan: Lance is initially suspicious of the alien creature Ilana brings home, although he's taken in by how adorable it is (and tries naming it after a warrior from his home planet).
  • A challenge on Total Drama has the contestants have to carry napping, adorable babies through sound sensitive areas. Max, the very definition of Evil Is Hammy, is surprisingly vulnerable to the little babies, as he baby talks to his consistently and becomes all mushy. In the end, he even tries to keep the baby, having grown quite attached to it.
    Max: Stay evil, my mini minion!
  • Happens to Prowl, of all people, in Transformers: Animated. In one episode they get turned into humans — you couldn't see that coming, could you? At one point they end up eating in Burger Bot, and Prowl plays Peek-A-Boo with a baby. It's adorable, but it never really happened... bummer.
  • Ugly Americans. A werewolf was on trial for tearing a man's arm off, and there was very clear evidence of what he did. The werewolf had a giant baby as a lawyer though, whose only defence was taking a giant bowl of spaghetti and dumping it on his head like a baby does. The judge thought it was adorable and dismissed the charges.
  • On The Venture Brothers, a lot of cats pounce on Dr. Orpheus in one episode, leading him to giggle and say "They smell my cat!"
  • When The Weekenders find themselves at the mall's Petting Zoo, Carver tries to pretend he's not affected by all the cute animals...until he spots a bunny.
  • On Wild Animal Baby Explorers, the explorers often find the animals they explore to be cute, especially the baby ones, and want to pet them. They have to be reminded by Miss Sally or their fellow explorers that wild animals are, well, wild, and therefore shouldn't be touched, only observed.
  • In "Here's Ollie" on Wonder Pets!, the Wonder Pets surrender to this upon meeting bunny Ollie's little sister Omee, much to the dismay of Ollie, who feels he should always be the center of attention.
  • It is a weakness of WordGirl in one episode, in which a villain called "The Butcher" (who is just a guy obsessed with meat) owns a kitten and discover that whenever WordGirl gets close to the cute kitty, she gets distracted. Justified, since WordGirl is a little girl.
  • Work It Out Wombats!: In "Gift For a Fish," Zadie ends up cooing over how cute the baby fish are.

    Real Life 
  • Simon Cowell:
    • On The X Factor and American Idol. He is actually a vegetarian and animal lover, and his meanness fades away whenever any auditionee brings their pet dog into the audition room. (If Paula Abdul is sitting next to him, the amount of time between when she starts to melt and he does can be measured in milliseconds — if that.)
    • Happened again to Simon during auditions for Britain's Got Talent when Connie Talbot (6 at the time) sang the most adorable rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and he damn near cried. (It helped that Talbot sang better than a lot of adults on the show.)
    • Whenever someone brings a dog, he usually ends up holding it in his lap. It's likely that there have been more than a few cunning contestants who have taken advantage of this.
  • Truth in Television: many people are quite fond of cute things. Let's face it; there's a reason why funny animal and child videos are some of the most viewed/highest rated on YouTube/Break/video-aggregator-site-of-choice.
  • Cute animals have been used to rehabilitate prisoners.
  • These cute tykes. Takes Children Are Innocent to a whole new level.
  • This video of two sea otters napping. While holding hands. Judging by the cooing in the background, everyone around is in dangerously close proximity.
  • This is a known phenomenon in the study of linguistics. It has been termed "motherese" (among others) but is known to happen to pretty much anyone holding a baby. There is a raft of theories as to why this happens. However, there are probably some exceptions, seeing as some people find babies the opposite of cute, though often they will do the same thing to a puppy or a kitten. Baby talking to pets is officially known as pet directed speech.
  • This little fellow, who in the opinion of the guy playing with him, "looks like a little monkey".
  • Kristen Bell is usually seen as a very smart and sensible girl. She also has a serious weak spot for sloths. So much so that when her husband was able to bring a sloth to her house for her birthday, she was moved to tears before she had even seen them. When she was on Ellen Degeneres's talk show, Ellen merely hinted that there was a sloth there, and it was enough to send her into tears all over again.
  • Whenever there's a child in a Doug Walker Q&A panel, you can be assured his normal eloquence will take a backseat to cooing over them.
  • "I'm not big on cats at all, traditionally," says David Tennant, over footage of him playing with a kitten and refusing to put it down. The comments on the video itself have shades of this, too. It's David Tennant holding a kitten!
  • It's been theorized that the reason puppies are so cute is to do with selective breeding. Humans were more likely to raise (and thus protect) dogs that evoked the same response as children. Therefore, those dogs were more likely to survive and breed. Or, alternatively, dogs with mental traits that made them better equipped to interact with humans (friendlier, less territorial, and less dominant) also tended to have physical traits that gave them an overall more puppy-like appearance because, in part, grown dogs both act and look more like puppies than grown wolves do. This also may have had something to do with cat domestication as well, although it's worth noting that housecats' wild ancestors are about as cute as domesticated cats. Yes they are! Oh, yes they are! However, they lack the distinctive "meow" vocalization of the domestic cat, which is known to drive humans mad with cuteness.
  • Nazis? Meet kitten. This picture is also the page image for Pet the Dog. A whole blog devoted to that exact concept.
  • Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) brought her newborn daughter, Maile, to the Senate floor to cast a vote. The result was predictable.
  • This video is supposed to be of Calvin Fan demonstrating his store's latest addition, Eitan's Tri-Cube; but try watching it without once being distracted by the antics of his cute 18-month-old daughter in the background.
  • HRH The Prince of Wales, to quote one commenter "greets the most important person in the room first". (This is entirely in character for His Royal Highness, who is well known as an animal lover.)
  • An Uber driver brings his one-month old puppy to work with him. Every one of his passengers immediately sees it and melts.


Alternative Title(s): Distracted By The Cutie

Top

Peridot's True Form

Without her limb attachments, Peridot is shown to be a lot cuter and less of a threat than before.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (5 votes)

Example of:

Main / CutenessProximity

Media sources:

Report