Bedsheet Ghost (slang)

Bedsheet Ghost is a slang used on TV Tropes.

Uses

 * Adventure Time:
 * The episode "Heat Signature" features three stereotypical cartoon Bedsheet Ghosts who, in contrast to the usual portrayal, are genuinely dangerous due to their sadistic mischevous streak.
 * In "Too Young", Finn and Princess Bubblegum stage a 'prank' on Earl Lemongrab by dressing up as bedsheet ghosts, running up to Lemongrab and punching him in the stomach.
 * Albert the Fifth Musketeer has the episode "Ghost You Said?" where Milady does this to King Louis XIII claiming to be the ghost of his ancestor. This is actually one of the many plots by the Cardinal to take over the castle. Albert would later do the same thing to get King Louis to return. Near the end of episode all the musketeers dress up as ghosts to scare the Cardinal.
 * In one episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks has the chipmunks do this to a person claiming to be their uncle but was really using them to make money and pay off a debt.
 * Then in an episode of The Alvin Show, J.P. Lester is an actual bedsheet ghost haunting Chesley Estate.
 * In one episode of The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers, both Adi and Enk dress up like this to scare Xan. They get help from actual ghosts.
 * American Dragon: Jake Long has the episode "Halloween Bash", a For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself episode with a Muggle/Magical Being party. Two Normals show up, dressed as Bedsheet Ghosts, and are annoyed to see how many of the other "costumes" are so much better than theirs. Even after the Dragon Council removed Jake's "costume", they were still regarded as the lamest ones.
 * "We’ll just go as ghosts”, you said. “Nobody’ll wear a good costume”, you said!"

- Ghost Kid #1


 * In The Archie Show episode "Groovy Ghosts", Archie and his friends want to use an old abandoned house as a clubhouse, but Reggie tries to scare them away by making them think the house is haunted. Instead of wearing a sheet, Reggie attaches strings to a sheet to make it move around like a puppet. Archie plays it straight when he scares Reggie.
 * A Halloween Episode of Atomic Betty features Betty wearing a ghost costume while trying to film a movie.
 * The Berenstain Bears:
 * Done in the book "The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest" (which was also done as an episode of the 80s TV series, "Bust a Ghost"). Papa Bear decides to scare the Cub Scouts on an overnight forest camping trip by disguising as the "Ghost of the Forest" by wearing an old white sheet with two eyeholes cut in it. Scout Leader Jane overhears Papa's plan and decides to get back by crafting her own stick-and-leaves ghost face rigged with a flashlight, effectively scaring Papa and foiling his plan.
 * This is also Papa Bear's costume in "Trick or Treat" from the PBS series, with an added Jack-o'-lantern head. It actually manages to scare Brother and Sister Bear a bit... until he starts complaining that he can't see and starts bumbling around bumping into stuff.
 * Big City Greens: The episode "Feud Fight" has Cricket and Tilly get into a rivalry with Chip Whistler over who sell more vegetables. One of their ideas to drive away Chip's customers is Tilly disguising herself as a ghost which fools everyone despite Chip telling them she just a kid covered in a sheet.
 * In "Gloria's Cafe", Gloria opens up a cafe but she has to stop Officer Keys from closing it down as she doesn't have the proper paperwork for it. One of her attempts is trying to convice Keys the shop is haunted by having all the customers wear ghost costumes. Keys is fooled at first but soon realize its a trick as none of the ghosts are saying boo.
 * In "The Ghost of the Living Room" from Blue's Clues & You!, said ghost is one of the characters dressed as this. The identity of said character is the subject of the episode's game of Blue's Clues, with the answer turning out to be the kitten Periwinkle.
 * In a Halloween Episode of Creepschool, this is Victoria's Halloween costume. Unlike other examples featured on this page, Becoming the Costume is in effect causing her to gain the abilities of a ghost such as flying and intangibility.
 * One of Vlad's bad clones of Danny Phantom looks like a Bedsheet Ghost... because the sheet covers up its horrifying mutations (like the fact that it has no legs, muscle, or skin).
 * "Seriously, a bedsheet? [Reaches out for the bedsheet.] What do you got under there? [Removes bedsheet to reveal a ghost that only has the upper portion of a skeleton.]"

- Danny


 * Also, Danny tried pulling off the Bedsheet Ghost look during Fright Night. It didn't work out.
 * The same episode gave us this nice exchange:
 * "Nice costume, dude! Are those flaming bedsheets?"

- Tucker


 * In one episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter's goldfish dies and comes back as a ghost to haunt him. When trying to hunt the ghost using ghost equipment, Dee Dee appears wearing a sheet, causing Dexter to mistake her for a ghost and attack her. When he asks her what she is doing, Dee Dee says she wanted to scare the ghost by dressing up as a ghost.
 * Duckman has a surprise cameo from the last person you would expect pulling this. Homer Simpson.
 * The ghosts in Eek! The Cat's Halloween Episode are of this variety. Although the ghost that Eek befriends is more like a party balloon.
 * Felix the Cat has encountered a few of these over the years;
 * In a classic-era short, Felix the Ghost Breaker, Felix is haunted by a ghost that looks like this, and then has to save a farmer from it. It turns out to just be a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, as the ghost is just a travelling salesman in disguise.
 * In the Joe Oriolo era episode "Ghostly Concert", Felix is trapped on a haunted ship, where its revealed Professor is commanding a legion of these kind of ghosts to go after him.
 * In another Oriolo-era episode, "Redbeard the Pirate", Professor and Rock Bottom dress up as one to scare Felix away from Redbeard the Pirate's gold. Felix quickly catches on to the disguise when he realizes the "ghost" has two heads and four legs. Later on, they open the treasure chest, which releases the real Redbeard's Ghost (who also looks like a bedsheet ghost), who scares Professor and Rock Bottom away.
 * Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is not a ghost, he's an imaginary friend, but his body shape definitely makes him look like this trope. This was pointed out on two occasions: in the pilot he ended up having the place of the ghost in a Pac-Man homage while the first season finale has him go pale white from a cold and be mistaken for a ghost.
 * In "Go Goo Go", Goo is wearing a bedsheet with two eye holes as her Halloween costume.
 * In one episode of the animated version of Fraggle Rock, Wimbley suffers from an illness that can only be cured by scaring him. The rest of the family wear ghost costumes to try and scare him but it doesn't work.
 * Futurama: Bender is dressed as one in "The Cryonic Woman".
 * Garfield's Halloween Adventure featured the "laugh at the bedsheet ghost, oh no there's nothing under the sheet!" scenario, as well as a few variations where other monsters dressed up as bedsheet ghosts.
 * In Season 4 episode 27 of Happy Heroes, Little M. goes around the city wearing a cheap ghost costume to scare people as part of Big M.'s evil plan to take over Planet Xing.
 * One episode of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi has the girls trying to visit their managers in a hospital but the nurse won't let them through due to being past visiting hours. The girls proceed to sneak in anyways and are chased by the nurse. They lure her into a laundry room and proceed to scare her away doing this trope.
 * If You Give a Mouse a Cookie:
 * All of the "ghosts" seen in the Halloween Episode "If You Give a Mouse a Pumpkin" are this. In particular, Cat has eight ghost decorations for his Halloween Spooktacular event and Moose dresses up in this costume for Halloween.
 * In "The Haunted Toolshed," Mouse, Dog, Henry and Esme Louise all believe that there's a ghost in the toolshed, even though it's actually just Moose playing music and otherwise making racket. They finally decide to confront the ghost, but figure the ghost for sure will see them coming. They therefore all dress up as bedsheet ghosts and make ghostly moaning noises to disguise themselves.
 * An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes had Beezy being haunted by one. Its sheet is eventually removed, revealing a body of pizza crusts.
 * A Halloween episode in King of the Hill when the church outlaws Trick or Treating and Hank and his neighbors rally up to bring Halloween back. Bill comes as a ghost, but he accidentally tore his sheet, but it instantly becomes a toga.
 * Kipper the Dog has a ghost visit him that looks like this. Kipper would cover himself in a bedsheet in order to teach him how to be scary.
 * One of the Master Builders in The LEGO Movie is a Lego ghost mentioned below, and so is Vitruvius when he dies and becomes Ghost Vitruvius.
 * On Little Einsteins, the Little Einsteins are troubled by a growing number of these throughout "A Little Einsteins Halloween" and are convinced they want to take their trick-or-treat candy. It turns out they aren't ghosts at all, just instruments that have been covered in bedsheets with drawn-on eyes.
 * Used in various episodes of The Little Lulu Show. Either by Lulu or Tubby and his friends.
 * On Little Princess, this is the King's costume in "I Want to Dress Up." The Queen grumbles that she hopes it's not one of the good bedsheets.
 * In Llama Llama Trick or Treat, Officer Flamingo scares the kids as one of these. Well, all of them except Euclid, who isn't scared of ghosts, because "Scientifically speaking, they aren't solid matter."
 * In Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes short "Claws for Alarm", Sylvester is frightened by a bunch of mice in a Totem Pole Trench disguised as one of these.
 * The Looney Tunes Show: Bugs disguises himself as a bedsheet ghost in an attempt to scare Sam out of his house in "Fish and Visitors".
 * Maggie and the Ferocious Beast: "Three Little Ghosts" has Maggie and her friends disguised as ghosts trying to scare each other.
 * A French animated show called Les Malheurs de Sophie (The Trouble with Sophie) has a episode where a boy disguised as a ghost tries to steal vegetables from a garden. Later Sophie and her friends wear bedsheets over their heads while chasing each other around.
 * Another Merrie Melodies short, "Ghost Wanted", has the little ghost apparently wearing a full "onesie" suit with a trap-door flap, one he can take off and change if necessary; which he does, leaving him fully invisible for a few seconds.
 * One episode of Mister Go has Mister Go watching a ghost movie, and decides to disguise as a ghost to scare people. A police officer spots him and pulls the same stunt on him.
 * There is a floating bedsheet ghost who is a teacher in Monster High: Haunted.
 * In "Frisky, Fluttery Ghost" from Mouse And Mole, Mole misinterprets Mouse's comment that there is "crispy, buttery toast" waiting for him as "frisky, fluttery ghost," then gets scared by thinking that a sheet which Mouse is hanging on a clothesline is one of these.
 * The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Look Before You Sleep". Twilight Sparkle tells a Ghost Story about a headless horse and finishes by putting a white bedsheet over her head. Despite the sheet not covering the rest of her body, Rarity and Applejack are immediately fooled.
 * In the Scare Master episode, A trio of such ghosts pursue the ponies (and Spike) inside the corn maze. It's later revealed those were Fluttershy's bird friends in disguise.
 * A variation appears in the stop motion short: Pinkie Pie vs. the Flowers. After Pinkie Pie crashes into a flower display created by Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash the three of them are covered in flowers and appear to look like ghosts to Pinkie.
 * The New Adventures of Madeline featured an episode where Madeline and her friends entered a haunted castle where some of the girls dress up as ghosts for a Halloween party.
 * In the Noonbory and the Super 7 episode "The Gury Monster", Totobory dresses as one of these to scare the Gurys away from Noonbory's house.
 * When Pac-Man chomps the ghosts in Hanna-Barbera's Animated Adaptation, they get new ghost suits in the appropriate colors out of Mezmaron's closet.
 * The PAW Patrol episode "Pups Save a Ghost" featured a mysterious canine ghost dressed in a bed sheet prowling about the Lookout, doing things like taking treats, digging holes, and leaving Pup Pup Boogie on. Rocky devises a trap to catch the ghost, baited with a cookie and set up to drop a sheet on the ghost when he fell for it. Unfortunately, the trap gets triggered, and Ryder is covered in the sheet, making the pups briefly think he's the ghost, then a victim of the ghost. The "ghost" is then revealed to be Marshall sleepwalking around under a bedsheet, which is foreshadowed by the ghost having Marshall's shape.
 * On PB&J Otter, this is Baby Butter's costume in "A Hoohaw Halloween." This type of decoration is also seen throughout the episode.
 * Peanuts: This is Charlie Brown's favorite Halloween costume in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Of course, being Charlie Brown, he naturally botches said costume with too many eye holes, as Linus did in the actual comic strip.
 * Oddly enough, these holes are all rendered as black dots of ghostly nothingness rather than simply showing whatever part of him or his regular clothes that's underneath. Presumably because this was easier to animate.
 * Most of the other kids' costumes are also bedsheet ghosts, with the exception of a few who wear masks on top of bedsheet-ghost outfits.
 * In the Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks cartoon "Ghost With the Most," Mr. Jinks thinks he's killed Dixie, who was playing possum after being hit with a fireplace shovel. Dixie implements the bedsheet ghost disguise and proceeds to haunt Jinks. At the conclusion when he finds out the truth, Jinks turns the tables and makes Pixie and Dixie think he committed suicide out of guilt. Jinks dresses up as a bedshhet ghost as well.
 * Phineas and Ferb had Carl dressed as a ghost during a montage in "Undercover Carl".
 * In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 94, Wilie and Wolffy dress in cheap ghost costumes to scare the goats in the woods after they inadvertently interfere with Wilie's bravery test.
 * Popples: In "Backyard Adventure", it is one of the Popples trying to scare the others.
 * In "Poppin' Pillow Talk", Bonnie wears a ghost costume to scare her brother for scaring her earlier.
 * Although the show was famous for its often creative and surreal depiction of ghosts, bedsheet ghosts do appear in two episodes of The Real Ghostbusters: "The Old College Spirit" and "The Haunting of Heck House", and are very creepy as usual.
 * High-Five Ghost and his family in Regular Show. Then it gets...odd when Mordecai and Rigby are turned into ghosts, and they just look like themselves, with a ghostly squiggle instead of legs.
 * A few examples from Rugrats...
 * In the first Halloween Episode "Candy Bar Creep Show," when the babies are hiding in Stu and Drew's makeshift haunted house among hearing Angelica and other trick-or-treaters about to enter, a sheet section of the tent falls onto Tommy, and the nearby electric fan that was blowing paper bats around gives the sheet-covered Tommy a more ghostly appearance. This manages to scare Angelica AND Grandpa Lou.
 * In "Toys in the Attic," Grandpa Boris is trying to find Tommy and Angelica wandering their attic, which they think is haunted. The wind blows the attic window open and sends a white sheet flying onto Grandpa Boris. Naturally, Tommy and Angelica think he is a ghost, and Boris blindly trying to get around with the sheet over him doesn't help much either.
 * Spoofed in the "Chanukah" special; as an attempt to try and defeat the "Meany of Chanukah," Phil suggests taking Tommy's white pillowcase and wearing it over his head to disguise as a ghost. It doesn't work, and Phil only ends up walking into a table leg.
 * An episode of Sabrina: The Animated Series featured a Yet Another Christmas Carol episode where Aunt Zelda as the Ghost of Christmas Present was dressed as one of these. Unfortunately for her the only sheet she could find was a blue-colored one with a pink flower pattern on it and according to Gem it belongs to her mother.
 * In Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!!, one of the earliest ghosts the gang encountered was The Phantom Of Vasquez Castle, who appeared as a Bedsheet Ghost. In reality, it was a magician named Bluestone The Great who used his illusionist skills to make it look like the Phantom could fly and walk through solid walls.
 * In the Simple Samosa episode "Dadi Ke Saath", Samosa tries to scare his friends by pretending to be a ghost, using this kind of costume when he does so. The trick is seen through by his friends pretty quickly.
 * In The Simpsons, In the first Treehouse of Horror, Homer returns from trick or treating as a ghost. Bart dresses as a ghost in two episodes, one in Treehouse of Horror XIX where it parodies It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while the other is shown in the episode No Loan Again, Naturally where he tries to scare Homer.
 * South Park:
 * In the episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood", the townsfolk wish to drive the rich people (who just happen to all be black) out of town, so they figure: what scares rich people? Ghosts. They then dress up as bedsheet ghosts and wind up looking like The Klan. Hilariously, the rich people also think they look like ghosts and flee the town because it's "hainted".
 * In "Pink Eye" from the first season, Principal Victoria sees Cartman dressed as Hitler and thinks a Bedsheet Ghost would be a less controversial costume. Er, not so much.
 * "Wow, Chef must be really scared of ghosts!"

- Cartman


 * In "A View To a Mask" from Special Agent Oso, the boy that Oso is helping, Kevin, initially mistakes Oso for being dressed up as one of these when he lands in front of his doorway covered in his parachute. Admittedly, a very odd-looking one.
 * In the episode "Scaredy Pants", SpongeBob SquarePants tries to go as the Flying Dutchman and scare everybody, but his costume consists of a sheet and wooden clogs. Because of his square shape, everyone called him a "haunted mattress", so he asks Patrick to shave his head down to a round shape. He goes to the Halloween party and almost gets away with scaring all his friends, but he is found out eventually. Just then the real Flying Dutchman arrives and, insulted by such a pathetic impersonation, unmasks him. He takes one look at him and runs screaming into the night, followed by everyone else, and eventually Patrick. Seems SpongeBob has been sheared down until there was nothing left but his brain.
 * ""Don't worry! It grows back!""


 * In "Pranks a Lot", Spongebob and Patrick trick Sandy into thinking they're ghosts. They wear white bed sheets to make her think it's a cheap costume, but when she pulls them off there's nothing there. She freaks out and jumps into an escape pod to run back to Texas.
 * "The Ghost of Plankton" has Plankton do this after watching a horror movie. Unable to see where he is going he trips and falls to the ground.
 * The titular characters of The Spooks Of Bottle Bay.
 * Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "Hungry Larry", Star and Janna summon the eponymous spirit, who at first appears to be a shrimpy little bedsheet ghost with stubby arms and legs. He turns out to be much more dangerous than he appears, however.
 * The Strange Chores: Que in "Don't Trick or Tweet," even using it to scare Snorp. She is a real ghost, after all.
 * "My costume must have a fever because it is sick!"

- Que


 * She also considers doing this in "Unclog The Toilet" after an unsuccessful attempt to scare a monster.
 * Superman Theatrical Cartoons: In Jungle Drums, the Nazi army unit wears Bedsheet Ghost costumes as part of their God Guise that they're using to control a local African tribe. The similarities to the uniforms of the Ku Klux Klan are very much deliberate.
 * The Teen Titans Go! Halloween Episode has Starfire wearing a white bedsheet ghost costume after being turned into a little kid. Near the end, when she and the other Titans turn back to normal, the costume that she wears only covers her head and not her body.
 * In the ThunderCats (2011) episode "The Forest of Magi Oar", the Thunderkittens tease Cheetara when she reports feeling the presence of spirits, by playing at being ghosts under a tent canvas. While stumbling under it, they knock their heads together.
 * A Halloween Episode of Timmy Time has Timmy's friends do this to scare him.
 * In the Van Beuren Studios Tom and Jerry cartoon "Wot a Night", a group of them briefly pop up to scare Tom and Jerry, but they quickly fall through a trapdoor—just to wind up with a group of skeletons instead.
 * Bulkhead from Transformers: Animated had this as a Halloween costume, but, being a giant robot, the only "bedsheet" that fit turned out to be a fumigation tent.
 * In the Season 4 finale of The Venture Bros., Dean Venture attempts to dress as one of these as a "spooky" costume, because he's unable to find Goth clothing to impress Triana. The following events actually cause him to be confused for a Klan member.
 * In an episode of Victor and Valentino called "The Lonely Haunts Club", Pineapple dresses as a white bedsheet with two eyeholes cut out to spook Valentino, Victor and Charlene.
 * Victor did the same to scare the twins in his Haunted Corn Maze in "El Silbón", except backwards and has the arm holes cut out. This didn't turned out that he hoped when the twins fixed his costume and walked away, calling him "Mr. Ghost".
 * Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production has "Raising Your Spirits" which features Bugs being haunted by an invisible ghost. It makes itself visible by wearing one of Bug's blankets.
 * Dick Dastardly and Muttley disguise themselves as bedsheets ghosts in the Wacky Races episode "Creepy Trip To Lemon Twist" to scare the other racers out of competition. They think they scared Luke and Blubber Bear when it was two actual bedsheets ghosts behind them that scared them off.
 * What About Mimi?: In "Our Little Einstein", Mimi, along with her older brother Jason, does this to scare her little brother Bradley into going to a private school for gifted kids. This fails, however, due to the fact that Jason can't see where he is going while carrying Mimi, causing him to trip and make the sheet that they were wearing to fall off.
 * In "Save the Black Kitten" from Wonder Pets!, the "ghost" that scares the black kitten (and Tuck and Ming-Ming) is just a puppy that is this.
 * One episode of the Dutch cartoon The White Cowboy has a horde of these ghosts terrorizing Bullet Hole City. The worst thing the ghosts do is yelling boo towards the townsfolk, which utterly terrifies them.
 * The Wuzzles:
 * In "What's Up, Stox?" when they fail to raise enough money to buy real costumes, they settle for this.
 * In "Ghostrustlers", Croc's Mooks disguise themselves as a ghost to scare the wuzzles away. It didn't fool Bumblelion. Later on when real ghosts start to appear, Hoppopotamus covers herself in a sheet to lure a ghost into a trap. However she gets caught in the trap herself.
 * In the made-for-TV movie Yogi's Great Escape, Yogi dresses up as a Bedsheet Ghost to scare away the trapper who's after him. The trapper even lampshades this: "Here comes some uninvited laundry!" Later on, a real bedsheet-like ghost shows up, and of course gets Mistaken for an Imposter. The trapper pulls off the "bedsheet" to see who's underneath... and there is nothing there, except for a small point of light which vanishes, at which point the trapper is attacked by the now-invisible ghost which then proceeds to re-materialize another bedsheet around itself.