http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatCloudLooksLike

Godzilla . The clouds honor him.

Lucy: If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formation...What do you think you see, Linus?

Linus: Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras

Lucy: Uh huh...That's very good... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?

Charlie Brown: Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind. Peanuts , see a video clip from A Boy Named Charlie Brown with this scene here : If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formation...What do you think you see, Linus?: Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean ....That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor...and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen...I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side....: Uh huh...That's very good... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?: Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

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Basically looking at clouds and what shape they resemble. Often done in Real Life, but fiction will of course play around with it. Sometimes the cloud will literally look like the thing, for one. The official term for this is "pareidolia".

Sometimes, just to be funny, someone will say "It looks like mashed potatoes / a marshmallow / an airborne agglomeration of moisture!" Another common joke is for the character to say it looks like some kind of airborne object (i.e. an airplane, a bird, a Giant Flyer, or a spaceship) only for the audience to then see that it's exactly that.

Compare Does This Remind You of Anything?, Watching the Sunset, Inkblot Test, and Stargazing Scene.

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Examples:

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Anime and Manga

This is how Shute and Captain start to bond in SD Gundam Force. Shute: That cloud looks like you!

Captain: Am I really that fat?

Shute: Don't worry; the sky adds ten pounds.

In "Vol 11: Clay" of Ga-Ra-Ku-Ta or Mr. Stain on Junk Alley, a series of CGI anime shorts, Mr. Stain does this alongside a clay duplicate of himself, seeing a train, a horse, a whale, a car, an elephant, and his strange cat, Palvan, that the clay duplicate has replaced. Rain from the clouds then washes away the clay, bringing back the cat and then Mr. Stain imagines seeing himself in the clouds.

On Suzy's Zoo: Daisuki! Witzy, Witzy, Ellie Funt and Boof imagine a cloud story in the sky in "Picture Book of Clouds."

In episode 11b of Jewelpet Sunshine, the Jewelpets of Plum Class all have a science class outside. Peridot sees a cloud in the sky whose shape her of a big fish, and Sapphie responds saying it's called a whale.

Comic Books

In a one-page Smurfs gag, the characters look at the various cloud formations in the sky and are able to recognize what each of them resemble...except for the last, which takes on the form of continental Europe.

One of Sergio Aragonés' margin doodles in MAD depicted some boys looking at the clouds and pointing out what they looked like, one of the boys being embarrassed because he sees a cloud that looks like a pair of breasts.

Fanfiction

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Films — Animated

In Up, it happens in the montage with Ellie and Carl. When they're thinking about having a baby, all clouds start to look like babies to them.

Variation: Shrek 2 has Donkey mentioning "that bush that looks like Shirley Bassey".

In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Kiara and Kovu look at the constellations, a scene reminiscent of that in the first movie with Timon, Pumbaa, and Simba. This is how Kiara first gets a feel for how it is for those in exile.

Films — Live-Action

Literature

During a rather entertaining Quidditch match in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Luna Lovegood (filling in as commentator) was not interested in such "mundane" things as the score, and kept trying to draw the crowd's attention away from the game to "interestingly shaped" clouds.

The children in The Candymakers do this. One boy has dyslexia, and wishes that doing this was taught in school instead of reading.

The picture book It looked like spilt milk is all about this.

In The Dragon Hoard: Jasleth, faced with a group of men with hostile intent, attempts to distract them by engaging them in a conversation about the shape of a cloud. It doesn't work.

In Pug & Doug, a picture book about an Odd Couple of two anthropomorphic dogs, Doug does this. Pug doesn't, because he's short on imagination.

In the Stella and Sam picture book Read Me a Story, Stella, Stella reads to Sam a poem which says "...White puffy cloud rabbits are running by, Like clouds in a grass-green sky, Looking for carrots to bake a pie..." Sam then points out a cloud in the sky which looks like a rabbit. Stella asks if it's looking for a carrot and Sam says "Yes."

In The Light Fantastic, Rincewind invokes this following his first encounter with trolls, when trying to explain how rocks that sort of looked like people suddenly came into focus as people made of rock.

Live-Action TV

An episode of Popular Mechanics For Kids had the male and female hosts looking at clouds. The female saw a variety of shapes, but the male always responded with "Cotton ball". When pushed on this, he said he saw "A shirt. Made of cotton, and all wadded up into a ball".

Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Imaginary Friend": Data : I believe what you are seeing is the effect of the fluid dynamic processes inherent in the large-scale motion of rarefied gas.

Guinan : No, no. First it was a fish, and now it's a Mentonian sailing ship.

Data : Where?

Guinan : Right there. Don't you see the two swirls coming together to form the mast?

Data : I do not see it. It is interesting that people try to find meaningful patterns in things that are essentially random. I have noticed that the images they perceive sometimes suggest what they are thinking about at that particular moment. (pause) : I believe what you are seeing is the effect of the fluid dynamic processes inherent in the large-scale motion of rarefied gas.: No, no. First it was a fish, and now it's a Mentonian sailing ship.: Where?: Right there. Don't you see the two swirls coming together to form the mast?: I do not see it. It is interesting that people try to find meaningful patterns in things that are essentially random. I have noticed that the images they perceive sometimes suggest what they are thinking about at that particular moment. (pause) Besides, it is clearly a bunny rabbit

Star Trek: The Original Series episode "This Side of Paradise". Spock (affected by mind-altering spores) and his girlfriend Leila Kalomi are looking at clouds. Spock : That one looks like a dragon. You see the tail and the dorsal spines? Leila : I've never seen a dragon. Spock : I have. On Berengaria Seven. But I've never stopped to look at clouds before.

Star Trek: Voyager The episode "The Haunting of Deck Twelve" provides this gem: Paris: Now, there's a creepy image. Reminds me of something out of Edgar Allan Poe.

Kim: Looks like a vampire bat. You can make out the wings, even the ears. What do you see, Tuvok?

Tuvok: Two Starfleet officers with juvenile imaginations.

Paris: Come on, Tuvok! Haven't you ever looked up at the clouds and seen an animal?

Tuvok: I will never understand the human need to find imagery in something as innocuous as a cloud. Now, there's a creepy image. Reminds me of something out of Edgar Allan Poe.Looks like a vampire bat. You can make out the wings, even the ears. What do you see, Tuvok?Come on, Tuvok! Haven't you ever looked up at the clouds and seen an animal?I will never understand the human need to find imagery in something as innocuous as a cloud. In "Scorpion", Captain Janeway enters the Leonardo da Vinci holoprogram and finds the great artist and inventor in his darkened study contemplating the shadows thrown on a wall by candlelight. When Janeway herself studies them, she gets a Eureka Moment that inspires her Deal with the Devil (an Enemy Mine alliance with the Borg Collective). Leonardo: What do you see?

Janeway: A wall with candlelight reflecting on it. Why? What do you see?

Leonardo: A flock of starlings... the leaves of an oak... a horse's tail.. a thief with a noose around his neck. [beat] And a wall with the candlelight reflecting on it. There are times, Catarina, when I find myself transfixed by a shadow on the wall, or the splashing of water against a stone. I stare at it, the hours pass, the world around me drops away, replaced by worlds being created and destroyed by my imagination. A way to focus the mind.

On The Golden Girls, Rose said she saw a cloud that looked just like a cotton ball. Another gag has Sophia saying she's going to hang out with the 'Cloud Society', which entails the group getting drunk and saying what they think the clouds look like.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A slight variation in the episode "Listening to Fear" with Willow and Tara on a roof at night, making up new names for constellations of stars.

On Wings, Joe and Brian are flying an astronaut who they hope to hire as a spokesperson for the airline, but they start to question his credibility when he looks out the plane's window and remarks, "That cloud looks like a giant boob!"

Music

The Meteorological Mix of Kate Bush's The Big Sky has several examples scattered throughout in different voices, mostly starting with the title of this trope. (From 'That cloud looks like Ireland' through 'That cloud looks like cumulus castelis' to 'This cloud should be removed immediately!'... Did we mention this was Kate Bush?)

Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit song Looking Out My Back Door is completely this trope. The singer is telling his audience everything he sees in the clouds and his backyard.

Newspaper Comics

Puppet Shows

"Bee-Friended" from The Book of Pooh opens with Pooh doing this and seeing a whole bunch of clouds that look like honey jars.

Theatre

Theme Parks

The opening sequence of Disney Theme Parks Magic Journeys (1982) has kids at play pondering the clouds. In the fantasy sequence that makes up most of the film, one of the kids has encounters with (among other things) the things he and his friends were "seeing" in them.

Video Games

In World of Warcraft, Watcher Tolwe serves on board the Orgrimmar-Thunder Bluff zeppelin, and spends his time "watchin'". Watcher Tolwe : Dat cloud look like da Warchief. He's been there through two Warchiefs, so he's seen clouds that look like Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream.

Mass Effect: Andromeda: One system in the Heleus Cluster is named after a famous krogan. The Tempest pilot Kallo is initially confused by this, until science officer Suvi points out the nebula that comprises it does look like a krogan's head. Kallo: I don't- Oooh, I see it!

Visual Novels

In Little Busters!, a scene involving this is important to the plot of Mio's route. Mio was really into pointing out all the different shapes, but her not-so-imaginary friend/little sister Midori wasn't, and eventually yelled that she couldn't see anything in them - they just looked like clouds. Mio was upset at the time because that was the first time she realised that she and Midori didn't see the world the same way, while to Midori this was evidence of the fact that she wasn't a real person at all, but just like a cloud herself, something that would eventually be whisked away by the wind - to her, it only made sense that someone like that couldn't see shapes in other clouds.

Webcomics

Web Original

At one point in Funny Business, Jeannette and Lucy pass the time by looking at clouds. Of course, Jeannette being what she is, the clouds actually become what they imagine them to be, leading to the two of them acting out a story of a knight rescuing a princess from an Evil Sorceror in the air. It ends disastrously when they start including objects that aren't made of water vapor.

In the first episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, the puppets indulge in a bit of this while practicing being creative. I can see a hat, I can see a cat

I can see a man with a baseball bat!

I can see a dog, I can see a frog

I can see a ladder leaning on a log!

Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "cartoon", during Strong Bad's attempt at a solo cartoon, he describes himself as looking up at either a bird or "a cloud that looked like a bird, y'know, like a bird-cloud." In "retirement", an Easter egg shows one of the "important documents" on the Lappy is a "Cloud Shape Spotting Log", including such entries as "michigan w/2 bites taken out of it", "oversized novelty comb", and "strong sad's ghost".



Western Animation