Dinky Drivers
"Slink, take the pedals! Rex, you navigate! Hamm and Potato, operate the levers and knobs!"—Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story 2
A situation that regularly appears in works with miniature protagonists is to have them operate a car, airplane, spaceship, or other vehicle. Since the vehicle was built for larger, "regular"-sized people, this will require a team of the dimunitive characters working together to operate the numerous controls. Jury-rigged assistive devices made with Bamboo Technology or Noodle Implements might be used.
More often than not, Hilarity Ensues as the Dysfunctional Family or Ragtag Bunch of Misfits fail to coordinate their operations—they end up bickering with each other while their vehicle careens all over the place. If the characters wouldn't normally know how to operate the vehicle, Taught by Television or I Know Mortal Kombat may be invoked to explain how they suddenly acquired some driving skills.
Naturally, this typically involves Lilliputians, Living Toys or very Little People, though other character types may be used as the work demands.
Film
- In Toy Story 2, Buzz Lightyear's team of toys commandeer a Pizza Planet truck in pursuit of Al and Woody.
- Dreamworks' CGI Over the Hedge movie has the woodland creatures drive Dwayne's van after he gets knocked unconscious; three porcupine kids steer using skills acquired from video games.
"It's just like Auto Homicide 3!"
- Alvin, Simon and Theodore do this in the first Alvin and the Chipmunks CGI movie. Supposedly, Alvin can do this because he played a driving video game earlier in the movie.
- The Dalmatian Puppies do this to a London double-decker bus at the end of 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure.
Literature
- Occurs in each book of Terry Pratchett's Nomes Trilogy:
- In Truckers, the nomes steal a department store delivery truck to escape the store before it gets demolished. They learn how to drive after Angalo sneaks aboard a truck and watches the driver for nearly a week. Even so, they still make a mess of things and blow up the store in the process.
- In Diggers, Dorcas and Grimma lead the nomes to operate a JCB backhoe in an attempt to scare away the humans intruding on their stone quarry.
- Subverted in Wings; Angalo tries to temporarily pilot a Concorde jet for fun, but is stopped when The Thing (a navigation computer from their spaceship) takes control instead. The nomes also briefly consider "borrowing" the Space Shuttle...
- In the first Leven Thumps book, Clover (officially 12 inches in height) decides to, er, commandeer a motor vehicle in order to catch up to protagonists Leven and Winter. He eventually sets up a system to keep the pedals pushed while he hurtles along the street at breakneck pace. He's the only one on the road who finds it fun, for some reason...
- Occurs in the Dragonlance Legends trilogy of all things. Tasslehoff finds himself unable to operate the full size captain's chair that psychically controls the flying citadel, and has to enlist a nearby gully dwarf in order to do it. Gully dwarves being what they are...
Tasslehoff: Northwest! It's one direc- oh, never mind. Look, Rounce, you think north and I'll think west. That might work.
Web Comics
- In Sluggy Freelance, Bun-Bun occasionally steals Torg's car, with Kiki working the pedals. In this instance, Torg (human) accompanies them—and instead of driving normally, he has to work the pedals, with Kiki on the gear stick.
Western Animation
- Appears in The Penguins of Madagascar whenever the penguins commandeer a vehicle for their missions.
- The South Park episode "Towelie" has the kids steal a truck during their quest to recover their video game system.
Stan: "All right, that does it! Brake Angrily, Kenny!"
- In the Pinky and The Brain short "Opportunity Knox", Brain controls the steering wheel of a van with pulleys while Pinky operates the pedals.
- Another has an extension system for when the Brain rides a motorcycle.
- One time on The Simpsons, Bart was steering while Lisa and Milhouse were operating the gas and brake pedals, and they were doing it kinda randomly. Lisa would push the gas and then Milhouse would push the brake, Lather, rinse, repeat, all without any input from Bart. Milhouse took the opportunity to ask Lisa out.
- One episode of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers has the Rangers (rodent-sized rodents) trying to land a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of the space shuttle.
- Averted by the Ant Hill Mob on both Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. They have no problem operating vehicles scaled for humans of normal stature.