Ridiculously Alive Undead

Fiction has all sorts of undead beings lurking around, the most common being vampires, zombies, and ghosts. Being biologically dead, you wouldn't expect them to follow the same laws of biology as humans, but this trope is when they do.

They might be able to eat and drink human food without it going through them (even if they don't need to), sleep, go to the bathroom (in what could be an inversion of Nobody Poops), procreate (perhaps resulting in a Dhampyr if it's a vampire), or catch a disease.

This is usually unexplained (after all, the very existence of the undead is often a mystery) but is often Played for Laughs. As such, the character in question may be a Silly Spook. This behaviour is commonly seen in Friendly Zombies who have been given humanising traits.

Compare Ridiculously Human Robot for the robot equivalent, and No Biochemical Barriers for the alien equivalent. Also compare Our Zombies Are Different and Hot as Hell. Contrast Technically-Living Zombie, for when someone is living, but seems very much like an undead person, and The Needless, which is when a character (who may be undead) doesn't have biological needs. Can overlap with Toilet Humour if it involves using the bathroom, burping, or farting.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Monster Cereals: Five of the six monsters (Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, Fruity Yummy Mummy, and Carmella Creeper) are undead creatures. Despite this, they still shill and eat their trademark cereals and are often seen sleeping.

Anime & Manga

• Normally, undead in The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time are mindless creatures that want to kill all living beings, but thanks to Vandalieu and his [Death Charm] attribute, undead of all sorts regain their sanity and memories from when they were alive, and act accordingly.
• Ayumu Aikawa, the protagonist of Is This A Zombie?, was revived by a necromancer after he was killed, but other than drying up like a prune when under the sunlight, he looks and acts just as he did when alive.
• The zombies in Monster Musume are a varied bunch depending on their stages of wear and tear (they rot if not preserved and can't heal, so injuries stay forever leaving them as Frankenstein-esque patchworks in extreme cases), but the "freshest" undead are basically indistinguishable from normal humans: one of them, Yuuhi had no clue that she had died and risen again until Ms. Smith examined her and realized she had no pulse. In basically all cases of undead, they retain their human personalities, can eat, need sleep, and retain at least some measure of feeling; Zombina can't feel pain, but can feel pleasure.
• My Lovely Ghost Kana: Kana can eat and drink despite not needing to, and can even make herself substantial enough to have sex with her (living) boyfriend Daikichi.
• One Piece: Brook, thanks to the Yomi Yomi no Mi (Revive-Revive Fruit), is a living skeleton who can get bruised despite lacking skin, and when asked by Luffy, he confirms that he is capable of pooping. He also eats despite lacking a stomach, is shown frequently to be a Dirty Old Man, and like every other Devil Fruit user, he is weak to seawater.
• Yo-kai Watch: Yo-Kai are ghosts who are often seen eating. Jibanyan the cat-based Yo-Kai in particular loves eating chocolate bars, which are poisonous to cats, but then Jibanyan is technically already dead anyway. Hungramps can make anyone, including his fellow Yo-Kai, hungry. Cheeksqueek's debut episode reveals that Yo-Kai can fart (though Whisper tries to deny this at first) and Fidgephant's debut shows that they can use the bathroom when Fidgephant uses his Potty Emergency-inducing powers on Roughraff and later Manjimutt.
• Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs: Aside from having supernatural powers (floating, telekinesis, altering her clothes at will), Yuuna is more like an invisible human than a ghost. She eats, drinks and sleeps, and even the way she's "bound" to a location is much looser than for other ghosts. She can leave the titular hot sprints whenever she pleases; she's only bound to sleep in a specific room at the resort (and will end up back in her room if she falls asleep elsewhere). Eventually Yuuna even finds out that it's possible for her to get pregnant, if her partner is a man with sufficiently high spiritual power.
• Zombie Land Saga: The members of Franchouchou, once they reawaken their personalities and memories, are shown to still be able to eat, sleep, and feel pain.

Comic Books

• In Preacher, and its TV adaptation, the vampire Cassidy has no fangs, eats human food (but with lots of rare steak), and drinks vast amounts of alcohol. The only traditional vampiric weakness he displays is that direct sunlight ignites him, and in the comic version he always wears shades due to, it's finally revealed, having red irises and very bloodshot whites.

Fan Works

• Played for Laughs in Difficulty Levels, a fic based on Heroes of the Storm. Raynor, Rehgar, Kerrigan, and Uther are all discussing their "Difficulty", and debating whether or not they'd sleep with Sylvanas, only to find the Banshee Queen in question walking away adjusting her trousers following an... encounter with the Elite Tauren Chieftain. Sylvanas just says, "I'm undead, not dead."
• My Immortal:
  • Ebony is a vampire but she still sleeps as often as a human and in one scene, she's shown eating cereal (albeit with blood instead of milk).
  • Draco is also a vampire, but in one scene, he's said to get an erection (or, as the narration puts it, an "eructation").
  • Zigzagged for the crying that the vampires do (a lot). Sometimes, they cry regular tears, but other times they cry out blood.

Films — Animation

• The Book of Life: Carmelo, who is a skeleton in the Land of the Remembered, loves to eat.
• Coco:
  • A clerk (who is a skeleton) from the Land of the Dead is shown to be allergic to Dante the dog. Miguel points out that Dante doesn't have any hair and the clerk quips that he doesn't even have a nose.
  • Throughout the movie, the living skeletons can also be seen eating and drinking food, often obtained as offerings from their families. However, it is still directly stated that there are no bathrooms in the Land of the Dead.
• Corpse Bride: Everyone in the Land of the Dead is either a walking skeleton or a zombie, yet they're still shown to eat and drink in the bar.
• Hotel Transylvania:
  • During the opening, Dracula (who is a vampire) changes his daughter Mavis's diaper, and Mavis later grows up into an adult vampire (albeit over the course of 118 years). It's also invoked at one point; Frank moves his detached lower body over to Murray the mummy and farts loudly to make it look like he did it.
  • Hotel Transylvania 2: Mavis the vampire becomes pregnant after she and Johnny get married, and she gives birth to Dennis the Dhampyr. During said pregnancy, she craves ice cream with anchovies.
  • Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation: Ericka hears that Dracula the vampire is allergic to garlic, so she tricks him into eating garlic-laced guacamole to kill him. All this does is make him break wind. Later, the same thing happens to Mavis (who is also a vampire).
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: At one point, Sally sends a basket of snacks up to Jack (a living skeleton) while he's working.
• ParaNorman: Discussed. When Norman, who can communicate with the undead, is translating a zombie's moans, Norman's father says, "Please don't tell me he needs to go to the bathroom".

Films — Live-Action

• Braindead (a.k.a. Dead Alive): After two of the zombies, Father McGruder and Mrs. McTavish, have sex, Mrs. McTavish gives birth to a zombie baby.
• Death Becomes Her: The immortality potion in the film essentially make you immortal by technically making you into a living zombie, since any major damage you take is permanent (like getting holes blown into your stomach) and has to be fixed with everyday items like tape and makeup if that happens. (The film never really dwells into specifics.) Yet, all who do can still drink and eat like normal.
• Under Wraps (1997): When Harold the mummy is awakened, he chases the gang until he comes across a bathroom. He goes inside to use it and the others hear him peeing.
  Gilbert: Man, that mummy had to go.
• Van Helsing: Played With in Dracula's case: his vampire brides are able to give birth, but the children are dead on arrival and need to be brought to life using electricity run through Frankenstein's Monster.

Literature

• Mr. Men: At the end of "Mr. Men: Adventure with Monsters", several Mr. Men and Little Misses enjoy tea and crumpets with monsters in a haunted house. Among the ones eating and drinking are a mummy, a vampire (who claims to have a Sweet Tooth), and a Frankenstein's Monster.
• My Weird School: In "Miss Mary is Scary!", the trope is discussed in the beginning when AJ believes that ghosts are using the bathroom because of the automatic sinks, toilets, and hand dryers. At the end of the book, this turns out to be true when AJ finds a ghost coming out of a stall in the men's room.
  AJ: I didn't know ghosts use the bathroom.
  Ghost: Now you know.
• Scream Team: In "The Vampire at Home Plate", J.D. the ghost yells that he's going to eat Karl and his friends. Patsy points out that he probably doesn't need to because he's already full, and then it's revealed that J.D. has a whole hamburger inside his see-through body.
• Geoph Essex's Lovely Assistant:
  • While the title character does continue to eat and drink, this trope is Averted at least twice, first with regard to menstruation:
    She politely refrained from pointing out that she hadn’t gotten her period since she'd died. Her cycle had always been a bit erratic anyway, but she had been slightly nervous for a week or two at the prospect of raising a tiny Keith Heckler — her meetings with Caravel had settled that question, though, when she discovered that she was, technically speaking, dead. Jenny was pretty sure the dead didn’t get pregnant any more than they menstruated.
  • ...and again later on the subject of bathrooms in general:
    She made a quick round trip through the bathroom to snatch her toothbrush, hairbrush, and a few other items, and shoved them into the backpack’s side pocket. The clean white toilet made her pause: she hadn't actually sat on a toilet in at least a week. To Jenny, bathrooms had become useful private spots with easy passage to Wonderland, rather than places to go to relieve herself. Since she now knew how to use her sword, bathrooms were even less relevant.
• In Night Flier, by Stephen King, a vampire uses a urinal. This is a massive shock to a human also in the restroom at the time, since the (rather bloody) urine is visible in a mirror, while the body producing it is not.
• Saintess Summons Skeletons: Alith is technically a ghost, having died on (some version of) Earth and then being summoned by Sofia. However, the System gives her a [Human form] skill that lets her become effectively human at will (so long as she's in an environment that the System can reach, and remains connected to the spiritual plane). She can eat and drink — although she doesn't actually need to — sleep, you name it. She can even be eaten, volunteering herself as emergency rations when she and Sofia are trapped in Zangdar for months. She still counts as undead, though, so skills like [Heal Undead] work on her.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel have a lot of these aspects applied to vampires. They need to drink blood, stay away from sunlight, and keep clear of holy objects, but otherwise are completely able to pass as human (unless they put on their Game Face).
  • Even though vampires no longer need to breathe oxygen, it doesn't seem to stop Spike from smoking as long as it looks cool.
  • Vampire eating habits are interesting. Being vampires requires them to drink blood to survive, but they are also apparently capable of eating normal human food. There is no real explanation as to how exactly that works from a biological perspective, so it's an exercise left to the viewer to puzzle out. It's also implied that human food isn't as enjoyable to vampires, as when Angel becomes human for a day, he immediately starts stuffing his face and talking about how good food tastes.
  • Similarly, the shows portray vampires as being able to drink alcohol and even get drunk. Spike likes hitting the sauce as much as he likes his cigarettes, and Harmony is shown drinking a martini at one point.
• Pushing Daisies: Any being Ned brings back to life appears to be no different from the way they were before they died, unless they sustained a gruesome injury or have significantly rotted. They can eat, drink, get hurt, etc. To the trained nose they smell of death, but that's about it. It is also unclear whether they age slowly or at all ^note  Ned's childhood dog still being alive over 20 years after he was brought back indicates they do not age normally, but since Ned rarely brings anyone back for more than one minute, it is never discussed. In fact, as discussed in "Pie-lette", Ned feels they should not qualify as "undead" at all:
  Ned: And "undead"? Nobody wants to be "un"-anything. Why begin a statement with a negative? It's like saying "I don't disagree." Just say you agree.
  Emerson: Are you comfortable with "living dead"?
  Ned: You're either living or you're dead. When you're living, you're alive. When you're dead, that's what you are. But when you're dead and then you're not, you're alive again. Can't we say "alive again"?
• Z Nation: A number of jokes involve the zombies, as rotten and brainless as they are, still being occasionally affected just as well as living beings by drugs (in "Zombie Road", Doc gets a zombie high with second-hand marijuana smoke to prevent being attacked) and meds (in "Murphy's Law" a bunch of zombies that ate a smuggler carrying Viagra are walking around with Raging Stiffies (off-screen)).

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street: The Count is a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, yet he feels pain (as shown in an episode where he screams because a bee stung him) and one episode has him catch a type of flu that makes him faint.

Tabletop Games

• Vampire: The Masquerade: Vampires can expend blood points to temporarily ape being alive, including blushing, breathing naturally and functioning sexually. The higher your Humanity the cheaper this becomes, to the degree that high-Humanity (9 or 10) vampires can fall under this trope all the time as long as they remember to do it. A Quality is still needed to eat normally though.
• Vampire: The Requiem: The "Blush of Life" ability temporarily removes the Uncanny Valley effect associated with walking corpses and lets the vampire pass for human, including a pulse, body heat, eating without vomiting, and sexual functions.

Theatre

• In Jasper in Deadland, the corpses in Deadland all suffer from Ghost Amnesia, but apart from that they're just like normal humans. They drink bottled water, can smoke cigarettes and hookah, have cell phones with some sort of internet access, and even though they can't die, they still have functioning organs, as shown when Gretchen tears out her heart to use it for a transplant.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Vampirism is caused by a disease, so vampires can eat, drink, and sleep, are susceptible to drowning, and can have children. Unlike other undead, they're still considered humanoid for the purposes of Soul Trap effects.
• Friday Night Funkin' D-Sides: One of the character tidbits is that Pump loves cherries, implying that he still has tastebuds and/or needs to eat despite being a ghost.
• The inhabitants of the Land of the Dead in Grim Fandango retain the ability to eat, drink, sleep, and (one presumes) have sex, despite existing in the liminal space between their human death and their eternal destiny. They can even smoke without taking ill effects (since they're, y'know, dead).
• Living Books: In "Harry and the Haunted House", a ghost is seen drinking water at one point.
• Luigi's Mansion: There are some ghosts who have their share of human traits:
  • Mr. Luggs voraciously eats the spread of food in front of him.
  • Sue Pea promises not to wet the bed, indicating that ghosts use the bathroom. You can take advantage of this by spraying her sheets with water to trick her into thinking she had an accident.
• Moshi Monsters: While the ghosts don't need to sleep, they still eat and drink, and one mission has the ghost pirates having a burping contest.
• Pokémon: Ghost-type Pokémon are Pokémon meant to be based on ghosts, with some of them (such as Gengar, Phantump, and Yamask) even being stated to be once-living humans. Despite this, they are shown to be just as capable of breeding, eating, sleeping, and getting status conditions as any other Pokémon. They even seem to be capable of dying, with the ghost of a Mimikyu and the remains of a Trevenant being seen in the anime.
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: The crew of the Red Marley are undead pirates, but they often mention eating, drinking, smoking tobacco, and sleeping. Some of them can't swim, implying that breathing is necessary as well.
• The Sims:
  • Ghosts still have the same needs as living sims, including eating, sleeping, and using the bathroom. In The Sims 3, they could even reproduce.
  • Downplayed for zombies, who don't need to sleep or use the bathroom, but they do eat. Specifically, they eat plants.
  • Zigzagged with the Grim Reaper, who is a walking skeleton. Initially, female Sims were able to conceive a baby with him, but a later patch removed this ability. However, he still is occasionally seen using the toilet.
• Touhou Project: Yuyuko is a ghost but has no issue eating and loves doing so. The vampires Remilia and Flandre also regularly have their maid Sakuya craft them full-course meals, though it is known that their desserts have a substantial amount of blood mixed into them.

Visual Novels

• Monster Prom: All the undead characters in the game act just the same as every other monster. Brian/Green is a zombie, but as a playable character, he can do everything his living counterparts can. And Polly the ghost girl eats, sleeps, and does epic amounts of drugs (though she does take advantage of the fact that being dead means she can't overdose).

Web Comics

• Erma: Erma and her mother Emiko are technically ghosts, Onryo specifically. Despite this, both of them where born naturally, have grown and developed, and otherwise do all the things a living person does including eating and sleeping. Really, the only thing distinguishing them from a normal living human is the assortment of supernatural powers they both possess and their Undeathly Pallor.
• The Petri Dish: One strip had a zombie using the bathroom.

Web Animation

• Kureiji Ollie from hololive is a Revenant Zombie. She was brought back to life for reasons that have never been fully elaborated, and she can detach her limbs at will. That said, she still needs to eat, go to the bathroom, and attend to any other normal bodily functions. As with every other idol, she occasionally needs to go to an "idol meeting" (bathroom break).

Websites

• Neopets:
  • Turning your pet into a zombie or a ghost only changes its appearance, so the pet will still get hungry and will still be able to catch diseases.
  • One Random Event has the ghost of King Coltzan having Kikoughela (a type of throat disease that Neopets can get).

Web Videos

• CinemaSins: Mocked in the Hotel Transylvania review when Jeremy quips that no one was wondering if vampires can defecate when Dracula is changing baby Mavis.
• Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party: Lenore — and other returned spirits like her — appears no different from a living being. In fact, Charlotte repeatedly forgets that Lenore is already dead. She is capable of drinking alcohol and cooking soup, among other things, though she also has some typical ghostly powers, such as going incorporeal, making things appear, and being immune to toxins. She also indicates that it takes time and energy for a ghost to become corporeal (so she mostly uses it to drink).
• Smosh: Discussed and defied in "Twilight: New Moon Deleted Scenes 1". Bella asks Edward if vampires defecate, to which he responds that they don't. Bella is confused because Everyone Poops says that everybody does that.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Marceline the Vampire Queen voraciously feasts on the food that Jake brings along in "Checkmate". Additionally, in "Marceline's Closet", she uses the bathroom while Finn and Jake are hiding in her closet.
• Casper's Scare School: At the start of "Fang Decay", various students are seen doing the Potty Dance because Thatch is taking a long time to brush his teeth in the bathroom due to his toothache. Casper the ghost and Ra the mummy are among those standing in line.
• Count Duckula: Due to being resurrected with a ritual where ketchup was used instead of blood, Duckula is a Vegetarian Vampire who only eats vegetables.
• DuckTales: Drakeula the vampire from "Ducky Horror Picture Show" survives on apples.
• Family Guy: Death (who is The Grim Reaper) can drink coffee, as shown in "Death Lives". In "Wasted Talent", he also ends up getting completely drunk at a frat house.
• The Ghost And Molly Mcgee: Despite being a ghost, Scratch sleeps (a lot), eats (a lot), and somehow is even allergic to carob.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Grim is seen eating several times and gets sick in "Night of the Living Grim". Billy and Mandy are surprised that the grim reaper can get sick. "Waking Nightmare" also has a gag where Grim thinks he sat on a whoopie cushion and is implied to have actually farted, in spite of the earlier episode "Duck!" having him make it very clear that he is incapable of flatulence due to being a skeleton who lacks the required organs to do so.
• Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater: In "Catula", the titular Catula (played by Catnip) goes around stealing the townspeople's milk cartons with the intent to drink from them.
• Hotel Transylvania: The Series: It's mentioned in "Buggin' Out" that Mavis the vampire breaks wind in her coffin when she's alone. In "Casket If You Can", she has to use the bathroom quite badly after she guzzles a lot of blood.
• Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures: The ghosts in the Nether World don't appear to sleep, but they are often shown eating (there's even a chef named Ogle), and one ghost farts in "Stand by Your Pac-Man". In "No Pets Allowed... Especially Monsters! Part 2", Inky mentions that ghosts can use the bathroom. Cylindria is quite disgusted to hear about this.
• The Real Ghostbusters: Slimer is a ghost, yet in "Ghostworld", he somehow catches a cold off Egon. It's also shown that Slimer can use the bathroom when he suffers from bathroom emergencies in "Camping It Up" and "Guess What's Coming to Dinner", and in "The Boogeyman is Back", he sleeps and later claims to be thirsty.
• Tutenstein: In "The Awakening", Tut (the titular mummy) makes a mad dash for the bathroom after he's brought back from the dead.
• Ugly Americans: Randall the zombie does not sleep, so he just eats ice cream all night long.

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