There are stereotyped object colors that are highly prevalent in fiction but do not reflect Real Life color variations. They have become embedded in popular consciousness through sheer repetition, and sometimes Editorial Synesthesia, to the point that exceptions just seem odd.
Sub-Trope of Reality Is Unrealistic. The color version of The Coconut Effect. Often overlaps with Stock Food Depictions.
Super-Trope to
- Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls
- Fire Is Red
- Green Gators
- Red Boxing Gloves
- Red Live Lobster
- Water Is Blue
- White Bunny
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Gakuen Babysitters: In the anime adaptation, Kotaro has an orange tiger face on his sweater.
- Pretty Cure:
- Fresh Pretty Cure!: The three lead Cures' outfits pertain to the fruit they're associated with; Cure Peach is pink, Cure Berry is blue, and Cure Pine (pineapple) is yellow.
- HeartCatch Pretty Cure!: The Cures' colour-coding pertains to what their Cure themes are; Cure Blossom (flowers) is pink, Cure Marine (water) is blue, Cure Sunshine is gold, and Cure Moonlight is purple.
- Go! Princess Pretty Cure: The Cures' colour-coding matches up with their lead theme; Cure Flora (flowers) is pink, Cure Mermaid (water) is blue, Cure Twinkle (stars) is yellow, and Cure Scarlet (fire) is red.
- KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode: Ichika's lead motif is red strawberries.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure: Cure Etoile, who has a star theme, has the theme colour of yellow.
- Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: In Episode 23, Minori visits a garden with bright red tomatoes.
- Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: Episode 3 opens with Yui munching on a bright orange carrot.
- Soaring Sky! PreCure: Cure Sky's main colour is indeed sky blue.
- Wonderful Pretty Cure!: In Episode 19, Yuki has a fantasy of collecting a pile of gold coins.
- You and Idol Pretty Cure♪: Purirun hatches out of a pink peach.
- Sailor Moon: Usagi/Sailor Moon has a Flower Motif of red roses.
- Tokyo Mew Mew: Some of the Mew Mews' themes include green lettuce (Mew Lettuce) and yellow custard (Mew Pudding).
Films - Animation
- Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses: Some of the flowers the princesses wear on their dresses are in their stock colours, such as Courtney's blue forget-me-not and Delia's yellow sunflower.
- Brave: One of Merida's Establishing Character Moments is chomping down on a bright red apple.
- Cinderella (1950): Cinderella's coach is made from a big orange pumpkin.
- Home (2015): The three Slushious tanks that fuel Tip's car are coloured to match their specific flavour; purple grapes for Grape Escape, orange tangerines for Tangerine Twist, and green limes for Busta Lime.
- KPop Demon Hunters: During a flashback to Rumi's childhood, a small stack of red apples can be seen on her mother's grave.
- Lilo & Stitch (2002): When hula dancing, Lilo wears a skirt and crown made of green leaves.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): A recurring gag is Ariel's fascination with forks, which are always silver.
- Sleeping Beauty (1959): While in her deep sleep, Aurora holds a red rose.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Wicked Queen's famous poison apple is bright red; the only red one in her basket, at that.
Literature
- In Hogfather, this is discussed when Susan and the Oh God end up in the Tooth Fairy's country, which resembles a child's drawing. Susan realizes what it is because (among other simplifications) the water in the creek is blue, the treetrunks are plain brown, and the apples are bright red... even though creeks are usually transparent, treetrunks have a whole range of colors from brown to grey to green, and only some apples are red. But children draw brown treetrunks, blue water, and red apples, because that's what they "know" they're supposed to be.
- Rainbow Magic:
- Fern the Green Fairy's fairy dust is made of green leaves.
- Storm the Lightning Fairy's fairy dust is made of yellow lightning bolts.
- Cherry the Cake Fairy's fairy dust is made of, naturally, red cherries.
- The Jewel Fairies have some stock colours for their gemstones; Scarlett the Garnet Fairy has red, Emily the Emerald Fairy is green, Amy the Amethyst Fairy is purple, Sophie the Sapphire Fairy is blue, and Lucy the Diamond Fairy is white.
- The Petal Fairies also use stock colours; Pippa the Poppy Fairy is red, Charlie the Sunflower Fairy is yellow, and Danielle the Daisy Fairy is white.
- The Music Fairies: Fiona the Flute Fairy has a silver flute, Maya the Harp Fairy has a golden harp, Victoria the Violin Fairy has a brown violin, and Sadie the Saxophone Fairy has a golden sax.
- Stephanie the Starfish Fairy's pet starfish, Spike, is pink.
- Taylor the Talent Show Fairy's fairy fust is made up of gold stars.
- Layla the Candyfloss Fairy is themed all around pink candyfloss (cotton candy for you Americans).
Toys
- Lalaloopsy:
- Sometimes seen with the characters' pets; Pillow has a white sheep, Rosy has a brown bear, Candy has a black cat, etc.
- In the Lalaloopsy Babies line, Bea has a red apple hat.
- Living Dead Dolls: Elisa comes with a bloody red rose.
- Monster High: Deuce Gorgon's hair is made up of green snakes, as is tradition for Medusa and her descendants.
- Wacky Packages: Corn Butts, a parody of Corn Nuts, which features a yellow corn cob with a butt on the bag.
Video Games
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons: The fruits that grow from trees include red apples, pink peaches, and yellow bananas.
- ANNO: Mutationem: The corn juice is depicted as being full-colored yellow.
- Bugsnax: Several snax take on the default colour of the food they represent. For instance, Strabby is primarily red (though white ones exist in the game, known in the real world as pineberries), Rootle (carrot) is orange, and Pineantula is yellow.
- Danganronpa:
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Black electronics are most commonly seen, notably on Chihiro and Hifumi's character illustrations.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Like Chihiro and Hifumi before her, Chiaki's character illustration features her surrounded by black electronics.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: Korekiyo's Flower Motif is the red rose, the most common colour for roses in media.
- Minecraft: Some items the player can collect include orange carrots, brown loaves of bread, red apples, yellow dandelions, and more.
- Pokémon:
- In general, element types tend to be associated with the stock colour of their element; Fire-type is red, Water-type is blue, Grass-type is green, etc.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Sprigatito the floral-themed Grass-type is green, Quaxly the Water-type duck has blue hair, and Fuecoco the Fire-type crocodile is red.
- Stardew Valley: Mostly seen with the crops, which include red apples, red cherries, pink peaches, orange pumpkins, yellow corn, green beans, and more.
- The title character of Wild Woody is a pencil and so his body is yellow.
- Yo-kai Watch:
- Yo-kai Watch 1: Some items Nate/Katie can obtain are white rice balls, orange carrots, green cucumbers, white milk bottles, and more.
- Yo-kai Watch 3: Among the new collectibles is a yellow corn cob.
Web Animation
- Animated Inanimate Battle:
- Bone and Coconut, anthropomorphized objects, are milk-white and brown in color respectively.
- Jelly and Raisin have purple color schemes since both are grape-based objects.
- The Annoying Orange: Most apples seen on the show, mainly Little Apple, are red. Other colour apples are only seen on occasion, such as Granny Smith in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Apples".
- Battle for Dream Island features, among others, a green leaf, a pink flower, an orange fireball, a bronze coin, and a silver needle in its cast.
- Inanimate Insanity: Like BFDI, this series features several object characters with stock colours, including a silver coin, a yellow lightbulb, a red apple, a yellow block of cheese, etc.
- In Object Terror, Grape is purple, a common color for grapes in media.
Western Animation
- Blue's Clues & You!: The living fire truck, Fiery Truck, is bright red.
- Bluey: "Butterflies" has Bingo become fascinated by a red ladybug.
- Fireman Sam: Sam's famous fire engine Jupiter is painted a deep red.
- My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony Tales: Clover's cutie mark is a green clover.
- My Little Pony (G3): Defied and discussed in "The Princess Promenade"; Pinkie Pie argues to Minty that she shouldn't put green flowers on their float for the parade, since flowers are pink. Minty retorts that Pinkie Pie put pink trees on her side, when trees are green. It should be noted that green flowers and pink trees do indeed exist in real life (chrysanthemums and cherry trees, for instance).
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Applejack's cutie mark is three red apples.
- Postman Pat: Whenever sheep are seen, they always have white wool.
- Rob the Robot: In "Colour Confusion", a painter robot whose glasses are gunked up with paint colours objects in strange colours, including golden strawberries and grapes, pink bees, and blue bananas. Interestingly, Orbit claims at one point that grapes aren't red, yellow, or blue, when grapes can be all of those coloursnote Crimson grapes are red, Bronx grapes are yellow, riber grapes are blue.
- The Save-Ums!: Some of the Save-Ums friends include Raymundo the red ant, Tony the red crab, and Winston the blue whale.
- The Simpsons: In "Lemon of Troy", Bart embarks in an expedition. When he and his companion reached Shelbyville, they marvel at how much like Springfield it is, except for small details. Milhouse in particular is spooked by the fact that the fire hydrants are yellow instead of red.
- Strawberry Shortcake usually ties this to Color-Coded Characters: Strawberry Shortcake gets red and pink, Blueberry Muffin gets blue, Lemon Meringue gets yellow, Orange Blossom gets orange, etc.