Round Hippie Shades

♫Imagine all the people... wearing specs like these...♫

Tea shades are a type of sunglasses with perfectly round lenses. They are usually associated with John Lennon (leading to the alternate name "Lennon specs") and are most commonly worn by beatniks, hippies, granola girls, and (since they are uncommon and noticeable) unconventional but notable characters. They are often tinted red or amber in media but clear lenses crop up as well. Black tea shades can have another meaning - since they look like perfectly round holes in the wearer's head where the eyes should be, they make for particularly striking Sinister Shades.

A subtrope of Cool Shades. See also Triangle Shades.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Trigun: Main character Vash the Stampede wears a pair of yellow-tinted perfectly round sunglasses with zigzagging temples. While Vash isn't exactly a hippie, one of his catchphrases is "Love and Peace!" and he's a peace-loving Technical Pacifist wandering the wasteland trying to make the world better for those that he can.

Comic Books

• In one X-Men storyline (X-Men: Divided We Stand), the X-Men are tracking down a group of hippies. The latter have used Lady Mastermind's mind control powers to turn the Haight-Ashbury area back to the way it was in the '60s. Emma Frost mentally alters their clothing◊ to fit in. And Cyclops' visor turns into ruby-quartz tea shades.

Film—Animated

• In The 3 Little Pigs: The Movie, Wally, the pig who builds his house out of straw, wears a pair with yellow frames and red/purple lenses. But only on his head.
• In Disney's Hercules the god Hermes wears small Lennon-style shades. He's definitely one of the more laid-back gods. (He's voiced by Paul Shaffer, for many years the bandleader on Late Night with David Letterman, who also wears such glasses; the inclusion is an homage to the actor.)

Film—Live Action

• Blind Woman's Curse: Aozora has a whole weird thing going: no pants (only a loincloth), horrible body odor, and stylish tinted Lennon specs.
• Cool World has the doodle (cartoon) character Sparks, who wears a zoot suit with a white necktie and a '50s hairstyle, as well as dark tea shades obscuring his eyes. Unlike most denizens of the Cool World who are wacky, haywire, and kinetic, Sparks is sullen and cynical. He is also bitter that Holli Would has shifted her interest to the noid (real world) Jack Deebs. An occasional gloss bar across the circular lenses reveals fierce eyes with tiny pupils and no irises - especially when he's peeved, such as when he drops a dime on Holli getting jiggy with Jack.
• High School: The one student who plays at rebelling against authority (calling Northeast High a "garbage can" for failing to engage with social injustices) is appropriately wearing tinted Lennon-style specs.
• Woodstock: They were very much the fashion in 1969, especially among hippies and beatniks. Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin both wear them.

Literature

• Flawed: Bahee is introduced with rounded tea shades as part of his overall look. They help to underscore his personality as the peaceful-yet-eccentric scientist who spent time with an African tribe and encourages the group to praise each other. It's ultimately subverted as he is far more of a Jerkass than he's initially thought to be. Also, he lied to Lizzie, kicked her out of the compound, and then attempted to get Celestine taken away by the whistleblowers. This shows his true colors as a manipulative creep.

Live-Action TV

• Given that it's set in the '60s, it's very common to see tea shades on hippies in the '67-'70 version of Dragnet.
• The Cry of Mann: Eccentric Artist Jack initially just wears normal round glasses. As his work takes on a more abstract style and he begins to undergo Sanity Slippage, however, he drifts away from the old routine. And it is highlighted by his Significant Wardrobe Shift to darker colors and a more alternative style - including black circular glasses.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Kiriya Kujo, a medical examiner who became a Kamen Rider to investigate the Bugster Virus. He also has a pair of these in a deep burgundy color. He's certainly offbeat and unique, but becomes a loyal friend to Emu Hojo and helps out whenever he can.
• The Magicians (2016): In the episode "Magicians Anonymous", the Emperor of the Etheric Realm, who rules over a colorful, druggy, Mushroom Samba version of the real world. And is portrayed as a laidback Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist, stoner hippie-type wearing bright pink and round sunglasses.

Music

• John Lennon made these glasses a visual trademark from the late '60s all the way until his death in 1980, leading to this style of eyewear also being commonly known as "Lennon specs". Unlike most examples of this trope, though, Lennon wore both regular clear eyeglasses in this style as well as his more famous sunglasses.
• Tommy is based on The Who's hit album of the same name about a "deaf, dumb, and blind kid" that happens to be a phenomenon at pinball. How? Either by sense of smell or intuition, according to the lyrics, take your pick. The lobby card for this movie features the main character wearing circular-lensed opaque sunglasses. Also, his face is mirrored against (presumably) the top glass of a pinball table.

• Ozzy Osbourne is usually seen sporting a pair.

Video Games

• The recurring character Harvey from the Animal Crossing series is an Erudite Stoner sporting a distinct hippie vibe. This includes typical hippie clothes and, of course, large round glasses.
• In Dance Central 3, Angel sports a pair of yellow tinted glasses alongside the rest of a stereotypical 70s disco outfit. This is to help him "blend in" with the time period, since he's time traveled back to the 70s.
• In Chapter 2 of Deltarune, Spamton is shown wearing a multicolored variant, with one pink lens and one yellow lens, in a very poor attempt at impersonating Queen's head butler, Swatch. Kris can obtain these glasses from him as the Dealmaker armor item by fighting his "Spamton NEO" form on the normal route and winning through snapping his wires.
• Kingdom of Loathing: Hippies are depicted as wearing round glasses, with "round purple sunglasses" even being one of the pieces of the War Hippy Fatigues.
• Scribblenauts: The "Hippie" is one of the stock character types the player is able to summon, dressed in stereotypical '60s counter-culture clothing. And it includes round, yellow glasses.
• Gustafa in Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and the remake Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life has these, befitting his free hippie nature and musical side. The remake prettied him up, but made sure to keep the glasses—and you only see behind them from the side.

Visual Novels

• Ban from Spirit Hunter: NG has a pair of black spherical sunglasses that mark him as an unconventional, shady person.

Webcomics

• In Chapter 4 of Star Impact, Phoebe dons a pair, switching from the rectangular specs that she wore in the previous chapter.
• In El Goonish Shive, Victor Von Hip wears them contributing to his hippie look.

Web Original

• Atop the Fourth Wall: During a gag in his third review of The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Linkara reads Batman's rant about the rebellion and why they're fighting the government. In response, he dons some dark circle glasses and snaps in applause.

Preach on, you crazy hepcat.

• Beatrice the Golden Witch: In Beatrice's past life as Digibro, her iconic accessory was a pair of shades with perfectly round lenses. They gave her a certain counter-cultural "cool" vibe together with the beard and fit her gonzo style of journalism. She sure wasn't afraid to wear them in the dark either!
• In the third season of Cobra Kai, an amber variant would be shown on Granola Girl Moon during the car wash to raise money for Miguel's medical bills.
• Oreo from Sibylline Sounds wears a pair with pink lenses. They're really just for the look though, since he's not much of a hippie, and is more of a dork.
• The Mole from Happy Tree Friends wears these due to being blind rather than a hippie.

Western Animation

• Dexter's Laboratory: Mandark's hippie father Windbear has a design very reminiscent of John Lennon, right down to a tiny pair of round shades.
• Carl from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius wears circular shades when he channels John Lennon in the early episode where Jimmy forms a band. He also adopts the Liverpudlian accent and travels with a generically-Asian-looking "assistant." (It's a kid's show.)
• Phineas and Ferb: For a brief second in the song "History of Rock", Danny and the boys reference the '60s and Psychedelic Rock. Ferb temporarily gains a tie-dyed shirt and round, dark glasses. Then, during the Heavy Metal segment, Danny's the one who ends up with rounded glasses instead.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: The character only known as "Didgeridoo Player" is dressed in hippie garb, included rounded sunglasses. He's part of the marching band, but rather than march like the others, he just sits on the ground playing his instrument.

Real Life

• Subverted with Jimmy Savile. While he wore round red tinted sunglasses and had the eccentric personality one would normally associate with the stereotype, he was not exactly a hippie, being more of an eccentric philanthropist who just happened to wear round sunglasses. Furthermore, he was far from the peace loving man he portrayed himself as, fitting the Sinister Shades trope much better once his crimes were discovered.

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