Mannequins are a category of Dolls designed to be life-sized and with articulated limb joints for posing, primarily used to display clothing being worn on a human figure in the place of actual human models. Naturally, as with any object designed to be a facsimile of human, many fiction writers like to make them actually animate entities, whether by design or by some other fantastical explanation.
When personified, living mannequins are often portrayed as walking symbols of fashion trends and commercialism, owing to their most common use as display models for clothing stores. Other times, they're played for their uncanny, unintentionally creepy aspect in appearing not quite human, which might result in them being played as an antagonistic character, but also might not. For the many examples of living mannequins that are actively hostile, see Murderous Mannequin.
A subtrope of Animate Inanimate Object, and the much bigger cousin of Living Toys.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Agent Provocateur ran an ad in 1995 in which a man passing by the store window gets turned on by a mannequin's pose and outfit. She comes to life and puts on a show for him until he pokes a hole in the glass with his junk, triggers the alarm, and has to run for it.
- In 2012, The Art Institutes created a commercial to showcase what heights students of theirs could reach. A mannequin wears a dress by Gustavo Cadile and tells about how it would've remained but a sketch if the designer had never studied the finer details of sewing or learned how to promote himself.
- Broadway Home Floral & Design ran a Christmas ad in 2007 in which a dress form becomes human after closing and plays around in the store. The commercial ends when she turns back into a dress form.
- In a Coca-Cola commercial from 1997, three male mannequins are standing in the store window while all kinds of events take place on the street, such as a car crash and a guy breathing fire. Being mannequins, they stay as they are until two kids drinking Coca-Cola walk by. Like weird goldfish, the mannequins press their mouths against the glass to get a sip of the drink.
- Find the One: The Fairy God Mother is a living dress form topped by a bob cut wig floating above the Triumph crown. She is dressed in a loosely fitted pink robe, possesses invisible arms, and gets things done with a Magic Wand and measuring tape. Her role in each commercial is to facilitate the discovery of the perfect bra among the many choices available.
- Under the slogan "Everything comes to life at Hudson's Bay", Hudson's Bay ran a commercial in 2018 in which a male mannequin in a small store gives in to his curiosity and visits the recently opened Hudson's Bay across the street. Inside, he meets a female mannequin and they have a blast together until he has to return to his own store the next morning. The store owner is confused as to why his mannequin has a lipstick print on his cheek.
- In the 1990s, the Irish National Dairy Council produced a commercial in which one child asks another how many bones a body's got. The life-sized posing doll sitting next to them gets up to sing to them how a child's body has more bones than an adult's and that bones need calcium.
- Lee ran an ad in 1981 for their Genuine Jeans. It follows two mannequins flirting Motor Mouth-style and ends with the female mannequin winking at the camera when she says they're "100% real".
- The 2004 Urban Legend ad by Levi's features a man who takes the last pair of jeans off a mannequin. The mannequin refuses to part with his jeans and stalks the man out of the store, through traffic, to his home. In the end, the man falls asleep on his couch and the mannequin enters, sight firmly fixed on his jeans.
- Mazda had a racy commercial in 2005 in which a man transports several female mannequins in his car to get them to his store. One of the mannequins gets excited from the car ride, gaining erect nipples and letting out a flirty giggle. An alternative version does away with the sexual aspect, but also with overt hints that the mannequin is alive.
- In 2003, Mercedes Benz ran two versions of the same commercial for the then-new W209 model. In the commercial, an entire street's worth of mannequins dressed in black tie fashion gather around the Mercedes Benz W209 display to admire the car. A poor streetsweeper alone at work sees them and they see him and he pretends to have seen nothing and carries on.
- Old Navy: The SuperModelquins: The SuperModelquins ad campaign centers on a dozen or so mannequins — Kelly, Michelle, Amy, Eva, Heather, Josh, Wesley, Christopher, Kimmy, Natalie, Rita, and Barker the dog, and the cast is sporadically joined by the non-SuperModelquin Enrique — who are alive. They act as celebrities with social media presence and the commercials depict them as sassing each other around while pointing out how affordable Old Navy is and poking fun at their own mannequin limitations and perks.
- Q100 radio ran an ad in 2001 in which a female and male mannequin come to life to dance when a nearby car blasts Q100.
- Skittles: In one of four teasers for the Super Bowl campaign of 2018, David Schwimmer is the ventriloquist dummy of a ventriloquist dummy. He is fed Skittles by the bigger ventriloquist dummy while wondering aloud if this is representative of the true commercial.
- Stayfree ran an ad in 2012 for the then-new Ultrathin version of their pads. The commercial laments how women don't have their full range of mobility if they don't wear the right pad and depicts them as mannequins at this time. Then one wears the new Ultrathin version and turns (back) into a normal human.
- Target in Australia ran an ad in 2012 in which all the mannequins in their stores come to life at night just to have fun. The watchman only notices their outfits are a little in disarray.
Anime & Manga
- In "Wind Hole" of Osamu Tezuka's The Crater, the unnamed protagonist is in love with the mannequin Yukari. His best friend, roommate, and rival, Kazuo, hates the thing and takes the protagonist and Yukari into a wind hole to discuss the matter. The two men come to blows and the mannequin falls into a ravine. Kazuo, after a moment of contemplation, quietly takes care of the protagonist so that they can find a way out, at one point noting he's been wanting to spend some time together like this. At the hospital, the protagonist is attended to first and when the nurse returns for Kazuo, he falls apart into Yukari's broken parts.
- In Mannequin no Hatsukoi by Michiko Murakami, a mannequin falls in love with a customer whose relationship has just been stranded. She comes to life to be with him and, after some initial weirdness, he accepts her company. While he's asleep, the mannequin notices the remnants of his relationship and resolves to try to fix it despite her own feelings. She manages to reunite the two lovers and, in tears but also happy, takes her leave.
- During the bakaneko arc of Mononoke all characters that aren't of interest to the mononoke are depicted as mannequins. They talk as humans do, but aren't shown moving and when knocked over lay stiff as a mannequin instead of crumpled like a human. The characters of interest do not see the mannequins as anything other than human. The mannequins can be considered symbolic of the human, a modern girl, who became the bakaneko.
- Starting Episode 2 of Phantom in the Twilight, the ghost Wayne King takes possession of a mannequin to interact with other corporal beings. He could pass for a human if only his limbs wouldn't come off as easily as they do.
- In Chapter 172, "Mannequa and Coaty", of RIN-NE a coat is stalked by the mannequin that once wore it in the store window. Rinne brings it to life to get the deets on the mannequin, Mannequa, and uses the coat, Coaty, to lay a trap. As it turns out, Mannequa isn't resentful of Coaty moving on while she has ended up on scrapheap, but she has come to tell her old friend something she didn't consider important while she was the only one to wear Coaty: there's a pin stuck in its collar that could prick Coaty's wearer. The two embrace, upon which Mannequa passes on.
Comic Books
- Batman: In Batman (1940) #236, "Wail of the Ghost Bride!", Batman comes to the aid of either the ghost of Corrine Hellbane, a wealthy woman who fell overboard during her honeymoon 41 years ago, or of his hallucinations of her. Her husband, Alex March, was suspected of having pushed her for her money, but nothing could be proven. Whether a true ghost or Batman's overactive imagination, he sees her bridal image everywhere, notably in the form of a mannequin in a bridal store. Even more notable, Batman hears the mannequin warn him of danger behind him and when the thug attacking him breaks the window, the mannequin falls on top of him as if to protect Batman.
- Brother Power the Geek: Brother Power is a living tailor's dummy who's also a super civilian possessing immense strength and agility. He began existence as a normal tailor's dummy, of cloth held up by metal wires, that was left behind when the store closed down. Hippies made the abandoned store their home. One day, they are attacked by bikers and one hippie places his wet and bloody clothes on the dummy to prevent them from shrinking while drying. He also spills some oil on the dummy in the process. All of these ingredients allow a bolt of lightning to bring the dummy to life some time thereafter. His first act is to save the hippies from another attack, for which they name him Brother Power. "The Geek" is a title referring to his pseudo-humanity and he doesn't like to be called that. Brother Power is a proponent of the hippie philosophy (but not necessarily lifestyle) and doesn't actively seek out wrongs to right, but he also never walks away when someone needs help, even if helping comes with risks.
- "Dugan and the Dummy" (Journey into Mystery #18): Dugan is a Trimble's Department Store worker known for his aggression towards male mannequins and his obsession with a female one he calls Isabella. One day, he starts a fight with a male mannequin in full view of a crowd outside the store window, and in front of that very same crowd is stabbed by the mannequin. The police dismiss the witness statements as nonsense, but they have no explanation as to why Dugan's corpse itself is a mannequin.
- "Halloween Scene" (Scary Tales #7): A woman is locked in a store with a werewolf. When the werewolf corners the woman in the window display, she falls over, alerting two watchmen. As it turns out, the woman and the werewolf are both mannequins and part of a Halloween display. For the entirety of Halloween night, they've been enacting the same scenario over and over with no memory or knowledge of what they truly are. Each time it ends with the woman mannequin falling over and starts with the watchmen restoring the display and will so until midnight.
- "Who's the Dummy?" (Mysterious Adventures #25): The painted wooden manikins in Stacey's Department Store awaken after closing to live the good life. One night, a store employee named Laura works late and discovers the manikins. They capture her and while the elders decide her fate, Laura befriends Paul, the manikin in charge of guarding her. The elders' verdict, eventually, is that Laura needs to die to protect their secret. Paul helps Laura escape, sacrificing himself in the process. She tearfully retrieves his twisted and broken body the next day to the confusion of the onlookers.
- "The Black Dungeon" (Mystic #2): The kind-hearted Helga takes in the malformed Otto, forever earning his loyalty. Otto is murdered trying to save Helga from her abusive groom, after which Helga's only happiness comes from one of her husband's old tailor's dummies, which looks remarkably like Otto. The abuse escalates into a murder attempt and Otto's spirit possesses the tailor's dummy to save Helga. Helga happily spends the rest of her life with the dummy as a companion, knowing it watches over her.
- "A Rag - A Bone and a Hank of Hair! (1952)": An old tailor's dummy is taken out of storage for short use and then dumped in the corner of its owner's apartment. Near the window, it gathers all kinds of substances: dust, mud, rain, soot, rust, and oil. The summer sun brews life into this concoction, but it's a life easily extinguished without warmth. In winter, it instinctively goes looking for a source of heat when the apartment's radiator stops working and wraps itself tightly around its owner's body, which is the only warm thing in the room. He suffocates and the dummy dies thereafter because corpses don't produce warmth.
- Sue the Magic Manikin, also known as Sacony Sue, is a 1950s promotional character for Sacony that has two comics to her name. In the first, A Heart for Sue the Magic Manikin, Sue is given a heart by the manikin maker Peppo, so she can walk and talk like a human. She usually fulfills her duties as a mannequin in the store window, but in The Woodland Adventures of Sue the Magic Manikin she takes a vacation.
- "The Wax People!" (Strange Tales #93): The planet Xaccus's population are the wax people and some are employed as mannequins.
- Superman: In Superman (1987) #11, "The Name Game", Mr. Mxyzptlk, in the identity of Ben DeRoy, brings a mannequin to life to spite Lois Lane. And not wanting to be a thief, he turns Lois into a mannequin to take the place of the now-living one. Once Superman shows up, the mannequin no longer is of use to Mxyzptlk and he undoes her life.
- Suske en Wiske: The album "Beminde Barabas"note deals with Barabas's Love at First Sight encounter with Lotje, whom he met in his youth when a natural time distortion temporarily brought him to the 17th Century. Lotje is turned into a dress form with flowers for a head and floating hands by a local evil enchantress because her Number Two's love for Lotje is unrequited. Lotje also becomes immortal and is imprisoned until she's freed in modern day. Her return triggers long-buried heartbreak in Barabas, prompting his friends to travel back in time to get a cure for Lotje's state from the enchantress. In the end, Lotje regains her human form and gets some minutes alone with Barabas before she, no longer immortal, passes on to the spirit realm.
- "The Hide-Out" (Suspense #14): A thief is puzzled to find a party going on at the furniture department inside Gracy's Department Store, but he lets himself be welcomed. The partygoers give him a stamp so that the watchman will ignore him and he gets to pick a suit of his choosing on the sixth floor. He's having a great time until at dawn the party dissolves and he freezes near the windows, having become a mannequin just like his new friends.
See Also
【英単語】kilobyteを徹底解説！意味、使い方、例文、読み方Eastern Animation
- In Club of the Discarded, a group of discarded mannequins stored in an old building live a quiet family life. Then their owners return, put them in the trash, and bring in a newer set of discarded mannequins. The new mannequins are loud party animals and when the old group returns to reclaim their home it takes mere seconds for a brawl to break out. The end result is that the heavily damaged mannequins repair themselves with each other's parts and other junk lying around, thus fusing the two groups and allowing peaceful coexistence to return to the building.
Fan Works
- In Night of the Mannequins
, Gaz sneaks into the mall the night before the Game Slave 3 comes out in stores so she can be first in line to buy one. It's the Harvest Moon that night, which causes the store mannequins to come to life, attack her, and transform her into a still-conscious but completely immobile mannequin. She is placed in a window display in the Burning Topic store across from the Game Shack, where she has to watch everyone buying their Game Slave 3s. - In A Month of Sundays (a side-story in the universe of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades) Shotaro is transformed into one of these by the eldritch serpent Damballa, who turns him and two other Riders into Living Toys to aid Damballa's experiment with the human condition so he can improve his ability to resurrect or clone his family. While he starts off as Damballa's brainwashed doll due to his forced personality change, both he and his serpentine master eventually return to the side of good; though in Shotaro's case, his soul's far too weak to regain all of his humanity like the other Riders, forcing him to live with both his fractured psyche and his mannequin body.
Films — Live-Action
- Throughout Confessions of a Shopaholic, Rebecca Bloomwood imagines mannequins coming to life and communicating with her, sometimes with words, sometimes with gestures. They always try to get her to buy something, but not aggressively so. When Rebecca finally learns not to buy everything that catches her fancy, she imagines the mannequins clapping for her.
- Two children who daydream about the same superhero, Rem Lezar, join forces to make him real in Creating Rem Lezar. They do this by dressing a mannequin up as him and, once they sit down next to him, he does come to life, but only for a day unless they can find the Quixotic Medallion to keep Rem Lezar in the real world. They succeed and wake up next to the lifeless mannequin back where their adventure started, but the promise isn't broken. They now each have a piece of the medallion, the police officer that finds them looks suspiciously like Rem Lezar, and the spiritual Rem Lezar now can always visit them.
- In The Doll (also known as Vaxdockan), a lonely night watchman takes a liking to a mannequin and steals it to be his companion. At first, he knows she's a doll, but as time passes he imagines her coming to life. Their happiness sours when she grows to want more freedom and he refuses because he's afraid he'll lose her. Through circ*mstances, the other tenants find out about the mannequin partner and he tries to make amends by introducing her to them. She, however, keeps still as mannequins are wont to do. In anger, he smashes the "deceitful" figure, loads the pieces in a suitcase, and throws the suitcase in a river. His relief is short-lived, for when he gets home she's there all conjured up by his mental state. She coolly lets him know that she can't die as long as he doesn't.
- The second dream of Dreams That Money Can Buy is "The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart". It tells the tale of a stunning but vapid mannequin (possibly a robotic mannequin) named Julie, who rejects her literal One True Love because his want for affection messes with her flair. Two other mannequins help her get away from him, whereupon he dies.
- Ellis in Freedomland: The clothing department's mannequins come to life in Ellis's dream. Their only contribution to the plot is three female mannequins acting as training customers for Ellis to practice sales techniques on, but they do provide loads and loads of pointless Padding!
- After hitting her head in Holly's Holiday, Holly awakens to find the gorgeous male mannequin whose window she passes daily standing over her, alive and charming and all. She and the mannequin, Bo, start up a relationship in which he becomes increasingly more controlling. One thing he does is invite his parents, who used to be catalogue mannequins, over for a surprise visit and tell them all about his vision for the relationship. Upon realizing how unhappy she is, Holly breaks up with Bo and shortly after truly awakens from her blackout.
- The titular character of Mannequin is Ema "Emmy" Hesire, the spirit of an Ancient Egyptian woman who prayed to the gods to escape an arranged marriage and find love in another place and time. Throughout the centuries, Emmy serves as a spiritual muse to artists and she gets to inhabit the art made into her likeness as long as only the artist is around. Her latest match is Jonathan Switcher, who remakes her into a mannequin as an odd job that fulfills his artistic aspirations. The two grow close and Jonathan ends up risking his life to save her current body from being destroyed, thus gifting Emmy true love and allowing her to stay human permanently.
- The store clerk Philomena in A Mom For Christmas knows that the mannequins with faces are alive to some degree and works hard to save as many as she can when the store decides to replace them with faceless ones. One mannequin, Amy, gets a shot when the half-orphan Jessica wishes for a mother for Christmas Eve. Amy and Jessica get along great and Amy also develops a relationship with Jim, Jessica's father. Jessica wants Amy to stay forever, but Philomena can't grant that wish: it's Jessica and Jim who must hold on to Amy with their hands and hearts on Christmas Eve for her to stay. Of course, the ritual succeeds.
- Paranormal Prison: Late in the movie, the mannequin of Black Wolf comes to life and starts warping around the prison, scaring the crew. It ultimately chases them and locks them and Park Ranger Shtog in Mery Beth Flake's cell in Siberia (the solitary confinement building). The reason it did this was to get them to find the secret passageway Mary Beth Flake used to escape from the prison after she falsely accused Black Wolf of raping her.
- In the 1935 short Two Hearts in Wax Time, the department store employee Joe draws the ire of his colleagues by coming into work drunk for the umpteenth time. They play a trick on him where they convince him, in his drunken state, that the mannequins are real people. Once his shift is over and Joe walks down the street at night, he imagines all the mannequins in the store windows coming to life, playing around and singing for him.
- Six mannequins come to life in the store window at the beginning of the "All Over the World" segment of Xanadu. They join in on the antics of the rest of the segment.
Folklore
- One of the school ghosts in Japan that potentially resides in the art room is the dancing posing doll. There's usually multiple of them. The posing dolls are among the rare school ghosts that are never depicted as hostile, but they also barely ever are used because other art room ghosts are more popular.
Literature
- In the "The Dummy That Lived" by L. Frank Baum, a fairy named Tanko-Mankie pulls a cruel prank in which they bring a mannequin to life by breathing on her forehead and then leaving her without guidance just to see what chaos follows. The mannequin can talk, reason, and walk, but those are the only skills she has that separate her from a newborn. She wears clothes and accessories because she saw the women gawking at her do that but the clothes she picks don't match. She sits down at a cafe and orders coffee 'n' rolls because she sees another person do that, but the coffee burns her waxen and wooden body and she walks off without knowing she's supposed to pay. When a man raises his hat in greeting, she copies the greeting unaware of the gender association. Eventually, she's hit by a car and the huge hole in her head positively identifies her as a living dummy. She's taken to the police station, where Tanko-Mankie takes her life away the moment no one's looking.
- "The Great Shop Window Dummy Seeks and Finds Her Skin" by René Crevel manifests consumerism as the Great Shop Window Dummy (La Grande Mannequin). The mannequin is a cosmic horror-like entity of fluid appearance with her own cult and admirers.
- Ebenezer Sidney of "The Grey Automobile" is convinced the woman named Corrida el Basso, whom he is infatuated with, is a mannequin come to life that he saw shortly before a town over. It's not impossible she is, but it's more likely that Ebenezer isn't all there.
- There is a fleeting moment of this in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. St Mungo's Hospital is disguised as an abandoned department store "Purge and Dowse", whose front window contains chipped mannequins modelling fashions at least ten years out of date. Entry is gained by speaking to one of the mannequins, who beckons with a jointed finger.
- In "The Living Manikins", the manikins in Dribble's Department Store come to life due to an unexplained combination of electricity, light, and timing. They immediately set out to do whatever they want, disregarding the fact none of them is supposed to be alive and that things will get awkward when the store opens. The huntress enacts her display's scenario by hunting a stuffed fox on horseback throughout the store. The copper finally gets to be authoritative and use his nightstick. The drinking gentleman sets out to get something to drink instead of being stuck pretending to pour himself one. And so on. Hugo and Judy can't wrangle them despite their best attempts, so they resort to flipping the switch that seemingly brought the manikins to life in hopes it de-lives them. It works, and the manikins are left standing in whatever poses were their last.
- Thanks Truck-kun For Making Me A Trader: Unpowered golems that are shaped like human women, are basically, and used as, mannequins.
Live-Action TV
- Art Ninja: In "Day of the Dummy", Ricky accidentally brings a mannequin (who looks like his friend Ella) to life, and Hilarity Ensues as he has to keep her out of trouble as she understands nothing about the world.
- In the episode "Brum and the Shop Window Dummy" of Brum, Brum witnesses a woman steal an entire mannequin from the store window in order to get the dress the mannequin is wearing. Brum gives chase, collecting the various pieces the mannequin loses, and brings the pieces, dress, and thief back to the store. As the store owners and police officer gratefully wave Brum goodbye, the mannequin turns her head as her own way of saying thanks to the little car.
- The fantasy at the core of "House of Dolls" of Fantasy Island belongs to the window dresser Francis Elkins. He fancies the mannequin Courtney and wants her to be alive. Roarke invokes the myth of Pygmalion and gives Francis a talisman of Aphrodite to channel the goddess's life-granting power. Courtney's love matches Francis's, but she is woefully naive of the human experience. Among others, she tells other guests that she was born at Bloomingdale's, that she's six years old, and makes it sound like she has a disconcertingly active sex life. At a fashion show on the island, she finds three friends of hers on display: Mindy, Sally, and Sybil. Courtney uses the talisman to bring her friends to life too. Francis takes care of the lot of them, earning their affection when he promises he'll take them to his next job and not let them be thrown out in favor of the new, faceless models. Soon enough, the weekend ends, and the mannequins revert to a lifeless state. Francis is happy to have had even a short time with Courtney, and he's even happier when Roarke introduces him to Ms. Wilson, ostensibly the woman Courtney's form was modeled after.
- Doctor Who occasionally features the Autons, mannequins controlled by the Nestene Consciousness. Less lifelike ones often hide in plain sight as shop mannequins, but more advanced Autons can pass as people, occasionally serving as duplicates that act as sleeper agents.
- The imaginary friend that runs the bar in Happy! is a posing doll.
- The alien Allen Strange of The Journey of Allen Strange needs to blend in on Earth. To this end, he takes human form and brings a mannequin in a sports store to life so it can pose as his father. The mannequin is given the name Manfred Strange and throughout the series needs fine-tuning to properly act like a human.
- In the episode "Eve" of Journey to the Unknown, a delusional man falls in love with a mannequin, Eve, after all the women he tried to get with turned out to be not sophisticated enough for him. But the mannequin with her fine fashion sense and gentle smile is everything he could ever wish for. He accidentally kills the store owner when he saves Eve from being destroyed and goes on the run with her. Soon after, he's killed himself by two troublemakers who want to rape the woman he's with. They make a hasty retreat when they realize she's a mannequin, failing to notice she's shedding tears over her dead lover.
- In the episode "Barbi-Cute" of Love Spell, lightning brings a mannequin to life that had been used to play a cruel prank on the janitor Like. Luke takes her home with him and names her Barbi and the two fall in love during their time together.
- The mini-series Mannequin Girls is about three mannequins from the ladies' section on the third floor that get to unwind once midnight strikes and freeze on the spot when dawn comes. There's Mikiko, who's been around since the store opened and objects to being called an antique. There's Maimi, who's close to being too energetic to be a mannequin. And there's Anri, who's factory-fresh and a dreamer. They are sometimes unwantedly joined by Shota, a mannequin from the men's section on the fourth floor.
- In the intro sequence of That Girl, Ann playfully waves at a mannequin in a store window that looks just like her. The mannequin winks back.
- The mannequin Jeff from Today's Special owns a magic hat that makes him come to life when someone says "hocus pocus alimagocus". If it comes off his head, he turns back into a mannequin, and he can't leave the store either or he'll never be alive again.
- The Round the Twist episode "Know All" is an adaptation of the short story "Know All" by Paul Jennings. A mannequin is part of one of Tony's art pieces around the time that the Twists find a chest filled with costumes, which only much later they learn are from a circus of which all members have perished in an accident. Intrigued by the find, they each dress up and find themselves bestowed with the talents and characteristics of the original owners. For fun, they dress up their scarecrow in a clown's outfit. This causes it to come alive and, being empty beforehand, to strongly take to the love the clown had for the other clown. Tony, who's the Fortune Teller, arranges for the mannequin to be dressed up as the other clown to reunite the loves. As both the scarecrow and the mannequin steadily become human-like due to the costumes, they decide to join the circus.
- A segment of episodes 4050 and 4317 of Sesame Street is dedicated to two mannequins in a store window. One's male and the other female, but both are dandy-looking. They give a little performance in synchronized tap dancing.
- One sketch of The Sonny and Cher Show involves Cher and Farrah Fawcett in the roles of mannequins in a store window. They make dummy jokes, complain about the cold hands and uncouth humor of the maintenance crew, disparage the looks of the celebrities they're modeled after this month, and end up getting their heads switched.
- In the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The After Hours", the mannequins seem hostile at first, but it's revealed that the main character is a mannequin herself. She got to experience human life for one year and now she must return to her true state so that another mannequin can have her turn. The remake from The Twilight Zone (1985) has close to the same plot, but the mannequins are much creepier and the transformation back into a mannequin is much more painful-looking.
- In the Wizards of Waverly Place episode "Alex's Spring Fling", Alex brings a mannequin to life to make Riley jealous. She names the mannequin Manny Kin and her plan works until she has to return him to his dummy state; because Manny has developed feelings, she can no longer undo his liveliness. She tries to give him another partner by bringing Justin's rare Calico Woman doll to life (and making her human-sized), but Manny only has eyes for her. The problem resolves itself when Manny volunteers for a dunk tank and goes under because water undoes the magic.
Music
- "Plastic Mannequin Love" by Tay Kewei is about a mannequin who has become part of the plastic soup. She recalls a time when she was still in use and fell in love with a handsome mannequin in the shop across the street. Plastic is forever, so she's convinced she'll see them again one day when they join the soup.
- The song "Showroom Dummies" by Kraftwerk is about some dummies that come to life, break the glass in their display, and go to a dance club to dance.
Music Videos
- The music video of Chromeo's "Come Alive" sees David Macklovitch, Patrick Gemayel, and Toro y Moi as respectively a passerby, security guard, and janitor walk around a department store where various female mannequins come to life and dance along to the song. Despite the mannequins also dancing with the security guard, the ending suggests the mannequins weren't alive after all when the security guard catches the other two feeling up regular mannequins and throws them out.
- In the video for "Lovesongs (They Kill Me)" by Cinema Bizarre, the band is singing for an audience of mannequins. Towards the end, they either come to life or Strify merely imagines them doing so. They try to touch him, but he pushes them away.
- Sophie Ellis-Bextor is presented as a mannequin in a bridal store in "Get Over You". When her male partner is placed next to another bride mannequin by the store clerk, that qualifies as cheating. Sophie has the power to shatter glass and breaks out of the store display. She is joined in song and dance by the other bride mannequin and the many female mannequins on display in the shopping street, some of whom she also frees with her glass-breaking ability.
- The members of Girls' Generation are presented as mannequins in a window display in "Gee". After closing, they come to life to do as they please. They all have a crush on the window dresser. At dawn, they leave the store and the window dresser finds no trace of them but a lip print on his "employee of the month" photo.
- The background dancers of "We Close Our Eyes" by Go West are large posing dolls.
- Koda Kumi is presented as a mannequin inside a tailor's room in "Shake It Up". She comes to life at night at the behest of two puppet masters, who watch her through cameras and make her dance first for then with them.
- In 2011, Mariah Carey made a new version of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" with Justin Bieber. In the accompanying video, Mariah is a Christmas display mannequin who comes to life.
- In the video for "Busy" by Olly Murs, the lonely male protagonist builds himself a mannequin named Rose to keep him company. As he fully acts as if they are a couple and his friends politely play along with his fantasy, Rose eventually comes to life.
- In the video for "To Die For" by Sam Smith, the singer is a wigless mannequin head staring out of a window display. After a while, the singer is the only mannequin head left. A man walks by who smashes in the window and takes the singer with him.
- The music video for Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", the Theme Song for Mannequin, has Grace Slick as a window store mannequin that comes to life when the male band singer approaches her. She then takes him into other exhibits and the mannequins come to life: band members and other musicians. At the end of the music video, Grace Slick's character returns to her immobile posture and is soon joined by the male singer, who has been treated as a human character up until now, since he is a stand-in for Andrew McCarthy's character.
Tabletop Games
- Changeling: The Dreaming has the Mannikins of the Inanimae. The Inanimae are "wild fae" who represent elemental forces, and the Mannikins are Inanimae who have had their natural vessels shaped into humanoid form. Wooden mannequins are a classic, but statues or toys can also count.
- Similarly, Changeling: The Lost has the Manikin Kith of the Elemental Seeming, representing people who were reshaped by the Gentry to serve as statues, props, or idols. They retain a natural affinity for crafting as a result.
- Colette Du Bois of Malifaux provides her showgirls with faceless, magical, clockwork mannequins that act as dressmaking mannequins, assistants, and bodyguards.
Theatre
- In The Mannequins' Ball, mannequins get to have one ball per year to move about freely and even that is denied them if their stores or workshops stay open past their usual hours. As luck would have it, this year there's a strike going on, so many mannequins can make it to the ball this year. They mingle and share their fears of being thrown away as beauty standards change, share their frustration over having only one night for themselves, share their sorrow over missing parts, and so on. The party is disrupted when a human, the leader of the French Socialist Party, drops in in pursuit of a female mannequin he mistook for a pretty woman. His head is cut off with a giant pair of scissors to keep the mannequins' secret safe. A headless mannequin claims the head for himself and takes a chance to visit the humans' ball some blocks over. He's mistaken for the labor leader and bribed all night until the headless body of the real labor leader crashes the party to get his property back. Tired of humans, the mannequin gladly returns the head and leaps out of the window to escape.
Toys
- Spin Master's Off the Hook is a fashion doll line in which all the characters are mannequins. They spend daytime modeling in a store window and do whatever they want after closing hours. Several lines show that on occasion they also go out during the day.
Video Games
- The hero of the Drawn to Life series is a wooden mannequin brought to life (if not inhabited) by the Creator to save the world. While the hero is the same entity in both games, they do change mannequin bodies in between. This helps explain the new abilities in the second game.
- The protagonist of echochrome is a posing doll. By manipulating the camera, players have to guide it through mazes based on the works of M.C. Escher.
- There's a bug in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim regarding the wooden mannequins in the player's house. They are actually NPCs coded to not act on any script. However, sometimes the code not to act doesn't load fast enough and they walk off their pedestals before being frozen on the spot, wherever that may be in the house. It's also possible to make the code not load at all and thus for the mannequins to act like normal NPCs. Giving the bug more in-game credence, the mannequins are NPCs whose race is set to "mannequin" to give them their wooden appearance. Setrace in consolecommands allows the mannequins' race to be changed to any other and, for that matter, to turn any other NPCs into mannequins.
- Among the Animate Inanimate Object in Forgotton Anne are a dress form and a posing doll. The dress form is an incidental character that works as a receptionist at the Plant, while the posing doll is a major character. His name is Fig, he wears a wig, and instead of having his face on his head, he has it on his torso. He's the leader of the rebellion and morally sound enough to give even Anne a chance to learn the truth. In the true ending, he's the one who keeps her memory alive and a major actor in rebuilding the Forgotten Land.
- In the Half-Life 2 mod Nightmare House 2, there's a level with a lot of mannequins. They multiply and come closer when you do not look at them, but they do not attack. One is even implied to help you: there's a SWAT officer that knocks on a window from another room and gestures you where to go. When you get to the place where he was, there is just a mannequin.
- The Model and the Mannequin of the Scribblenauts series are white humanoid objects that can be brought to life. If so, they'll hop instead of walk.
- Mannequins in The Sims 2 are objects that are actually NPCs coded to have artificial white skin, no nipples, and to not act on any script. This skin can be applied to normal Sims through the debug mode. The living mannequins created this way are perfectly at home among the other monsters walking around in the game. If living mannequins are used to create hybrid offspring, the mannequin genes are dominant.
- Mimikin of Yo-kai Watch is a pale store mannequin wearing a red fundoshi. It's an ice-attribute Yo-kai of the Tough tribe and the Tsukumono tribe and its grand skill is imitating others or forcing the person he's possessing to imitate others.
Web Animation
- The Amazing Digital Circus: Mannequins can be seen in the background in many scenes, and some of the room doors have a picture of a mannequin on them. The inhabitants of the Candy Canyon Kingdom are also mannequins.
- going to the store and its sequels are nonsensical shorts that feature first one mannequin and later many moving around weirdly. The trilogy ends when they all funny-walk into the ocean.
- In "Life Is a Runway" of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks Shorts, Rarity looks into a store window with two mannequins inside and imagines them flanking her on the catwalk.
- Mannequins by Studio Cacti features two mannequins, 0436 and 0437, who get placed in store windows opposite each other. A fierce competition breaks out between the two of who can draw the biggest crowd. Just as they come to their senses that their competition is unhealthy, a third store down the street unveils their own brand-new mannequin. To 0436's and 0437's annoyance, the masses go wild with admiration.
Web Games
- Monica the Mannequin is a short Dating Sim in which a man who has no luck in love gets invited to a date by a mannequin whose window he passes almost daily. Depending on the dialogue chosen, Monica retreats back to her doll form and the man is thrown out of the restaurant for creeping out the other guests or she initiates a long-term relationship with the man.
Web Originals
- In the Christmas-themed short film The Secrets of Matilda's Vintage Closet by Atomic Age Pictures, three mannequins of Mathilda's Vintage Closet come to life to dress up and play around to the tune of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town".
- In the short film Still Life, a man drives into a town that appears to be inhabited only by mannequins. They don't move when he looks at them, but when he looks away the scene gets "updated". He hits a mannequin with his car and, terrified of his surroundings, runs off and seeks shelter inside a house. He encounters a family of mannequins there and in his agitated state, he smashes them to pieces. It's only when he freshens in the bathroom that he notices blood on them and normal human cops rush in to arrest the crazed murderer.
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: Invoked. In "God Rest Ye Merry Gentle-Mannequins", the Belchers meet Chet, a man who used to work at a clothing store and who thinks he's a mannequin come to life. He asks them to find his wife Nadine, an actual non-living mannequin.
- In the Columbia Cartoons short "Merry Mannequins", the two mannequins in the store window, Mary Mannequin and Dan Dummy, seek to get married after being shot by a Cupid mannequin. The rest of the department store, consisting of more mannequins, mannequin parts, and other living objects arrange a wedding ceremony for them. Just as the newlyweds are to enjoy their life together, the clock strikes five and everyone has to hurry back to their right places. One of the attending mannequins, who's made of wax, dies by falling atop a heater, and the newlyweds arrive back at the window with their clothes in tatters. The Cupid mannequin laughs, earning himself a kick right through the window.
- In the Goofy short How to Dance, George Geef gets a dress form to serve as his practice dancing partner. For the most part, it's a regular dress form, but she does get drunk after a cup of punch.
- During the song "La-La-La-La-Labia" of the episode "Clara's Dirty Little Secret" of Drawn Together, Clara hides from the mob by posing amidst mannequins in a store window. She gives herself away when she sneezes, but as the mob turns towards the window it's the mannequins that make a run for it. The mob opts to go after them, which allows Clara to escape.
- Family Guy: There are two instances of living mannequins.
- In "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", a parody of the intro sequence of That Girl puts Peter in the role of Ann. Like her, he playfully waves at a mannequin in a store window that looks just like him. The mannequin winks back and a frightened Peter runs straight into traffic.
- In "Hefty Shades of Gray", Chris remarks that he likes the look of a headless lingerie mannequin. In a Deleted Scene, it's revealed that Chris took the mannequin home with him to use as a sex doll. As a Cutaway Gag, it stares forlornly out of the window when Chris leaves on a date with Kristen. Thereafter, it resorts to looking up p*rn on Chris' laptop.
- There are two Merrie Melodies shorts that feature mannequins and one mannequin in particular as the title screen character. The shorts are "A Great Big Bunch of You" and "We're in the Money", with the latter potentially being a prequel to the former.
- In "A Great Big Bunch of You", a male mannequin just brought to the dump brightens up his lot by playing music. Other mannequins and dress forms as well as a bust and other discarded items join him.
- In "We're in the Money", many objects within the department store come to life at night when the guard goes home. Among them are several mannequins, of which one leads the final third of the nighttime merrimaking.
- While the Mane Five are sharing scary stories in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Scare Master", Rarity offers the tale of the mannequin that came to life at night to haunt the costumes. To Rainbow Dash's annoyance, that's the extent of the tale.
- In the Pickle and Peanut episode "Movie Camp Out", the mall's mannequin folk become active at night to drink from the fountain, eat trash and pizza, care for the auto-buffers, train standing still, be silent, and be fashionable. They explain to Pickle that eons ago their ancestors fled to the mall to evade taxes and ugly people; a story the veracity of which Pickle questions but doesn't pursue. Peanut steals the pizza vending machine to buy himself a good spot in line for Night Hog 3, provoking the mannequins into war against the nerdy moviegoers. Once they discover this is all about Night Hog 3, they reveal they already snuck into the theater to watch it, spoil the plot twist, and go in to watch it a second time as the angry nerds retreat.
- Xipe of "In Your Own Skin" of Victor and Valentino is a probably-god-definitely-fashion-designer. During the song "In Your Own Skin", his mannequins and outfits are his backup dancers.
