No-Neck Chump

"Who ya calling chump?"

"Eddy is a no-neck chump!"

— Anonymous Vandal, Ed, Edd n Eddy (the Trope Namer)

A guy or gal with no visible neck whatsoever. They all seem to have their heads directly attached to their shoulders. Most no-neck chumps are on the short side, and second place goes to hulking figures. No-neck chumps of average height are rare.

A lot of cartoon characters fall under this trope, but there might be an almost equal amount with extremely skinny necks. Like The Noseless, this might just be part of the art style. A lot of time it's that way for characters that are drawn as having a head that is just a circle on a body.

This might be possible with a character being so fat that his neck is as thick as his head, but be careful with naming real life people that fall under this though...

Note that this is different from a Cephalothorax or a Waddling Head, who basically is just a head with arms and legs. A No-Neck Chump has a "normal" body, minus a neck. Related to Ring Around the Collar. Contrast Long Neck, and Tiny-Headed Behemoth, both of which have huge necks (both length wise and width wise respectively).

---

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Pipimi and Popuko of Pop Team Epic count under this. Popuko is the straighter example of the two, having the height and invisible neck typical of most trope qualifiers. Pipimi on the other hand has no visible separation of neck and head, being either one long face or a stylistic representation of her being tall. However, she still gets used for neck gags (such as her Lesser Dog parody).
• While the characters of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are known for outrageous fashions, they tend to have normal enough bodies unless they're vampires or are otherwise supernatural. Part 5, Golden Wind, has a few exceptions, however.
  • Pesci's head inexplicably has the shape of a carrot or daikon radish rising from between his shoulders, complete with green hair, leaving no distinction between his head and what you would expect to be his neck. He's seen as the chump of his squad as well.
  • Carne just seems to have no neck at all.
  • Polpo is not only so morbidly obese that he has an extra chin instead of a neck, he's outright Ambiguously Human.

Asian Animation

• A few of the monsters in Happy Heroes, such as Sick Monster and Fish Monster, have no discernable neck.
• Lamput: None of the scientists at the lab have visible necks, with their heads seemingly melded with their bodies.

Comic Books

• Very unusually for a dragon, the version of the Norse mythological dragon Fafnir in Jack Kirby's The Mighty Thor is basically neckless.
• Common in Rob Liefeld comics — see: Badrock.
• Nightwing foe Meathead was grossly overweight and had no visible neck even before he gained superpowers. Now his body has the consistency of ground meat and is unchanging, so he will never have a neck.

Comic Strips

• No-Neck, Ralph's friend and coworker from Drabble, physically suits his nickname (which is in fact the only name anyone calls him).

Film — Animated

• Russell from Up still has some baby fat on him, giving him a chubby, thick neck.
• The characters of The Angry Birds Movie were turned from Waddling Heads to full-bodied characters with no visible necks.

Film — Live-Action

• Jabba the Hutt from the Star Wars films, or any Hutt in particular, mainly because their kind is made up of obese, slug-like creatures.
• The Criminologist ("That man has no neck!") from The Rocky Horror Picture Show lacks a visible neck.
  • "What diabolical chicken kicked your forehead, shat on your tie, and pecked out your neck?!"

Literature

• While characters with visible necks do appear in Anpanman and its adaptations, the recurring cast is primarily made of characters with large heads on normal bodies.
• According to Dave Barry Slept Here, Henry Kissinger has "no morals or neck."
• Vernon Dursley of Harry Potter is very often described as having no neck, especially to contrast him with his wife, who has too much neck.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: Sontarans fit this description — more easily seen with Strax as a butler where he isn't wearing the high necked armour typical of the species.
• When Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan of the 4077th M*A*S*H mentions to a visiting Colonel that she's engaged to one Donald Penobscott, the Colonel recognizes the name. "Penobscott? One eyebrow, no neck?" Houlihan burbles, "That's him."

Radio

• In The Goon Show, Seagoon is sentenced to death for swimming in a canal.
  Seagoon: This is ridiculous, you can't hang me!
  Clerk: He's right, you know, he hasn't got a neck.

Stand-Up Comedy

• Steve Martin has a joke about this, in his "Wild And Crazy Guy" persona.
  I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks. When I take her to a restaurant, every head turns.....except hers - because she has no neck! Hhahahahahah!!
• Michael Richards also had a joke about going to the gym, and talked about a body builder who had bulked up so much that he had no neck.
  And he had no neck, the neck was gone. That's what flipped me, man.

Video Games

• Crash Bandicoot: The games were made this way as a design-choice to render fewer polygons on screen.
• Various Pokémon fall under this trope, especially small, cute Pokemon such Pichu, Pikachu, and Raichu.
• Friday Night Funkin' has so many featured characters with no necks that it's easier to count the characters that do have one. Daddy Dearest, Mommy Mearest, the Monster, and Senpai are all reasonably proportioned humanoid characters with visible necks. The people who do play it straight (Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Pico, Tankman, and Skid and Pump) are the usual bobbleheaded, Super-Deformed look Newgrounds expects of its characters.
• In Skylanders, the majority of trolls are designed with wide heads and stout bodies, thus with no visible neck.
• Almost every single character in Sonic the Hedgehog, mainly because their designs have an influence from classic cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse.
• Mario and Wario have short necks that are barely visible. However, in the Super Smash Bros. series, starting with Melee Mario's neck can be visibly seen, probably because his proportions are a little different than in his own series. It could just be that they have big heads, though.
• Pretty much every character in the Paper Mario series due to the art style where most people are short and squat.

Web Animation

• AstroLOLogy: Libra clearly has a proper body like most of the other characters rather than being a cephalothorax, but he doesn't have a visible neck and his head melds into his body.
• The Happy Tree Friends don't have visible necks, except for Lumpy, though this doesn't save them from suffering injuries to the neck/throat.
• Strong Bad is the only character in the main cast of Homestar Runner who has a distinct neck. Indeed, multiple characters have heads that overlap their bodies in a way that defies three-dimensional interpretation of any sort, and a others border on Cephalothorax territory.
• Monsterbox: The big red monster looks like his neck is between his shoulders.

Webcomics

• The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Rocko Sasquatch is a stereotypically "no-neck" huge muscular bruiser.
• Lackadaisy: Gracie Grombach is a towering muscled former jewel thief who gives Mordecai some trouble. When Nico is trying to take him down non-lethally he can't choke him out due to his lack of neck:
  Nico: I'd choke him out but I don' tink he got a neck. Hey, you got a neck?

Web Original

• In JonTron's review of plug-and-play consoles, he shows a box depicting a child who is unintentionally positioned as if he had no neck.
  "Perfect for children with no necks! [pretends to have no neck] FINALLY, A GAME SYSTEM FOR ME!"

Western Animation

• 2 Stupid Dogs: Most the characters, save for Little Dog and a few skinnier humans, simply have their head imposed just above shoulder level.
• Adventure Time: Jake's Shapeshifter Default Form doesn't have any clear distinction between his head and body; he'd be a full Cephalothorax if his facial features were a bit lower. The same goes for his parents and biological brother.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: Gumball's father Richard Watterson is large and overweight, with a fat neck that looks like it melded with his head.
• Animaniacs: Mr. Plotz, as lampshaded by Yakko; "He's got a good head on his shoulders! too bad he hasn't got a neck."
• Betty Boop's neck is always hidden under her head.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog has only a short, thick neck connecting his tiny body to his large head.
• Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory appears to have no neck at all. Rather than showing him as fat, it emphasizes his incredibly oversized head.
• The Trope Namer: The term "No Neck Chump" comes from the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Pick an Ed", where Eddy investigates the origin of a graffiti scrawling that says: "Eddy is a No Neck Chump!"
• This was a plot point in the Fanboy and Chum Chum episode "Fangboy", where Fanboy thought he was a vampire and wanted to bite Chum Chum's neck to make him one, too, but Chum Chum ordinarily doesn't have a neck. They go to Dr. Acula to get him a neck, and the one he gets is comically long.
• Lil' Gideon from Gravity Falls.
  "My sweet precious Mabel's trapped inside and I have the only key, wrapped around my...Well, I wouldn't call it "neck" exactly, a-around this little pocket of fat under my head."
• Gumby.
• Ram Man in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) has a design that lacks a neck, keeping him looking short and stocky like a battering ram. Even he isn't sure if he has a neck or not. Later more realistic designs give him one, however.
  Loos: Gee, Ram Man, where's your neck?
  Ram Man: Eh... I don't know. I think it's under my collar somewhere.
  Loos: How do you turn your head?
  Ram Man: Eh...well, eh, what I, what I do, it, eh, well you see what eh, well I kinda eh...I manage.
• Mickey Mouse: Mickey and Minnie Mouse barely have any necks, which is a common staple among cartoon characters.
• Mr. Bogus appears to not have a neck, which is made even more gratuitously in the original claymation shorts. Of course, this also applies to one of his enemies, Mole, as well as other denizens of Bogusland, including his cousins Brattus and Bogetta and his Aunt Bogunda.
• Spike from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic invariably falls between this or just having a really short neck.
• Aside from having no fingers, The Powerpuff Girls seem like their large heads are directly attached to their bodies.
• Stimpy, the fat cat from The Ren & Stimpy Show.
  • One episode saw the titular characters getting in trouble in an Old West town. The sheriff ordered them to hang, but the deputy reported that it didn't work out too well. Ren is so skinny that he blows in the breeze. Stimpy is so fat that they tried to get the noose around him, they couldn't find a neck.
• Rocko's Modern Life: The Bigheads (Rocko's neighbors) have no necks, although only the cantankerous Ed would qualify as a "chump".
  • The main characters on the Show Within a Show Meet the Fatheads (based on the Bigheads, and also created by their estranged daughter Rachel) definitively qualify as this.
• Any South Park character with a few exceptions such as Mr. Mackey, who has a very skinny, long neck.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob, though he's more of a borderline Cephalothorax.
  • Mr. Krabs and Plankton as well. Mrs. Puff and other Bikini Bottomites deserve an honorable mention too.
• Steven Universe:
  • The title character is short and pudgy enough to be drawn with no neck most of the time. In "So Many Birthdays", Steven is subject to Rapid Aging that makes him gain a visible neck as a teen (which is indeed present after the Time Skip in both the movie and Future miniseries), before losing it again as he reaches middle age. It is even lampshaded by Amethyst in "Steven's Birthday" after he used shapeshifting to pretend he got taller, and the crew themselves joke about it in one of the promo videos for the aforementioned movie.
    Amethyst: Dude, your neck!
    Steven: Oh, uh, what about it?
    Amethyst: You have one!
  • Many other characters with broad bodies and large chins likewise lack any visible neck, whether they're short (Sadie, Onion) or tall (Mr. Fryman, Bismuth). Oddly Sadie is suddenly drawn with a neck in Steven Universe: Future (outside of a brief shot in the first episode), which makes her look taller, even though she doesn't seem to have grown.
• Total Drama:
  • Owen is a tall, rotund boy whose head at cheek level makes a straight line down to his torso.
  • Staci is a chubby girl of medium height whose head at cheek level makes a slightly inwards-angled straight line down to her torso.
  • B is a tall, rotund boy whose head at cheek level makes a straight line down to his torso.
  • One of the Revenge of the Island interns is a short, rotund boy whose head at cheek level makes a straight line down to his torso.
  • Max is a short, pudgy boy whose head at cheek level makes a straight line down to his torso.
• Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race:
  • Tammy is a rotund girl of medium height whose head at cheek level makes a slightly inwards-angled straight line down to her torso.
  • Spud is a rotund boy of medium height whose head at cheek level makes a straight line down to his torso.

Real Life

• Owls generally have short necks, giving them this appearance. This is mostly an illusion due to how fluffy their feathers are; their necks are actually quite long, and famously flexible.
• Apes, particularly orangutans have much shorter necks than humans, making them look like this.
• Certain dog breeds, such as Bulldogs or Pugs, or extremely fluffy breeds like the Akita, Chow Chow or Samoyed look as if they have no necks. But it might just be the fact that they have thicker skin around their necks that make them appear that way.
• Some people in real life have this appearance due to having thick, short necks. The effect can be particularly enhanced by having extremely muscular shoulders.
• Some cat breeds like the British Shorthair can look like this.
• Female Rabbits can have dewlaps (the extra flap of skin under a rabbit's chin) that makes them appear as if they have their heads directly attached to their shoulders.
• Bison have this appearance, due to their large heads, thick fur, and the large muscular hump on their shoulders.
• Clive Anderson has been described as having no neck.
• Gary Busey doesn't appear to have a neck either.
• George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, vocalist of Cannibal Corpse, which probably helps him to bring up his unearthly growls.
• This is how former Chicago White Sox outfielder Walter "No-Neck" Williams got his nickname.
• There are endless jokes by NASCAR fans and drivers (including Newman himself) about Ryan Newman's distinct lack of a neck.

---