Critters as cartoon characters and superheroes

Cafe Society
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If you’re like me you didn’t ever think much about the weirdness involved in having things like mice and rabbits and ducks and pigs as humanlike characters in old cartoons or especially as heroes like Mighty Mouse and Underdog.

Put yourself in the role of developer of a new cartoon, comic strip, animated movie or anything where you get to tamper with reality and have some animal or other lifeform become a noble character in a new venture.

What species has yet to be appropriated for the character?

Mice: Mickey, Minnie, Mighty, Jerry, name more

Ducks: Donald, Daffy, name more

Cats: Tom, Sylvester, name more

Possums: Pogo, name more

Dogs: Droopy, Spike, Snoopy, Underdog, name more

Skunks: Pepe Le Pew, name more

Alligators: Albert (in Pogo), name more

Name some other critters and identify their species.

What’s a species that has never been used before?

Harp seal? Millipede? Flea? Earwig? Gnat?

I might want to make my superhero out of a paramecium or an amoeba. Maybe a barnacle or krill or shrimp.

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Mice: From Disney. Morty and Ferdie. From DC comics funny animal books, Little Cheese of the Zoo Crew. From Warner Brothers, Speedy Gonzales.

Ducks: From Disney, too many to bother mentioning just in Ducktails and Darkwing Duck. From the Zoo Crew again, Rubber Duck. From Warner Brothers, Plucky Duck, and Duck (of Loonatics Unleashed).

Cats: From Disney, Pete (nemesis of Mickey and Goofy). From the Zoo Crew, Alley Kat Abra. From elsewhere, Garfield, Heathcliff, Stimpson J Cat. On the adult side, Omaha the Cat Dancer.

Dogs: Goofy is technically a dog. WB has Sam Sheepdog. And multiple bulldogs. Ren Hoek (chihuahia). From the Zoo Crew, we have Yankee Poodle.

Skunks: From WB, we also have Fifi LeFume (the Tiny Toons inheritor of Pepe’s role.)

Alligators: Wally Gator. One of the Mighty Mutanimals (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles allies) was an alligator. Wikipedia tells me his name is Leatherhead.

Just off the top of my head… Pete Puma, vultures out the wazoo, the Dodo bird, the Tasmanian Devil, Wile E Coyote, the Roadrunner (and their Tiny Toons equivalents), Tweety Bird (a canary), Woody Woodpecker, Woody’s walrus neighbour, various wolves (Big Bad Wolf, Ralph Wolf (friend and nemesis of Sam Sheepdog, all at once))… Rabbits - Bugs Bunny, Roger Rabbit, Captain Carrot (AKA Roger Rodney Rabbit of the Zoo Crew). Turtles - the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, McSnertle the Turtle (AKA the Terrific Watsit), Fastbak (of the Zoo Crew again). Fox and Crow (a pair of DC comics funny animal characters). Pigs - Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Peter Porker, the Amazing Spider-Ham, Pig Iron (of the Zoo Crew), Orson Pig, Miss Piggy (she was animated in Muppet Babies). Lanolin the Sheep. Mondo Gecko. Sandy Cheeks (Squirrel). Man Ray (several characters by that name - all rays, usually mantas). Mr Krabbs. Squidward Tentacles. Ray Fillet (also one of the Man Rays - he’s a manta ray, duh). Rocksteady (rhino), Bebop (warthog), countless foxes. Countless lions. Balloo the Bear. Louie the Chimpanzee. Sir Hiss (snake). Frogs - Kermit, Frogzilla. OK, I’m going to stop now. Even without racking my brain, this paragraph is insane, and if I actually gave it some thought, I could probably list hundreds without breaking a sweat. Or even leaving Disney and Warner Brothers, for that matter.

The Mr Hell Show had a seal (although I don’t know if he was a harp seal or some other species…it was unimportant) who was on a mission of vengeance against the people who clubbed his parents to death. (Unfortunately, he didn’t know who did it, so he went postal on pretty much anyone he encountered. ‘Eet wass yoooouuuu!’)

There’s a couple WB cartoons featuring a flea. (‘Food around the corner, food around the corner, food around the corner, for me!’)

You do pretty much have to go with something really odd to have something that hasn’t been done. And even then…you’re probably not going to be the first.

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Very nicely done, Tengu! Hard to top.

Can anybody name a character that was a:

Snake
Spider
Roach
Worm
Sloth
Tapir
Lemur
Ocelot
Badger
Parakeet

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earthworm Jim

“he’s really really tall”

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P.T. Flea in A Bug’s LIfe was a…well, you can probably guess. I don’t remember if anyone in that movie was specifically a millipede, but there was a caterpillar.

I think it might be cool to develop a series where every character is some endangered species - giant panda, right whale, Puerto Rican parrot, etc.

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Snake - Kaa, The Jungle Book
Spider - Miss Spider, James and the Giant Peach
Roach - numerous characters from the movie Joe’s Apartment
Worm - Earthworm Jim
Sloth - whoever that giant sloth was in Ice Age
Tapir - there’s a reference to an Elizabeth Tapir in the cartoon Talespin, but she’s never shown
Lemur - numerous sort-of lemurs in Dinosaur; real ones in Madagascar
Ocelot - can’t think of any, but lots of panthers, tigers, etc.
Badger - Friar Tuck in Disney’s Robin Hood
Parakeet - can’t think of any off the top of my head…

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Penguin-Chilly Willy (Walter Lantz)
Panda-Andy Panda (Walter Lantz)
Llama-Wally Llama (Animaniacs, WB)
Mice-Pinky and the Brain (WB)
Cats-Snagglepuss (Hanna-Barbara)

Really, wouldn’t it be easier just to consult Toonopedia?

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The Brando and Matthew Broderick movie The Freshman used the idea as a subplot, but I do like the notion of a bunch of endangered critters out saving humanity.

Next option: extinct species!

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Yikes! Neat link. Thanks.

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I’m surprised you missed the most famous squirrel of all, Rocket J. (aka Rocky). With added bonus of a Moose.

There was also a cartoon series in the '60s called Secret Squirrel, a spy.

Hamster: Penfold, along with Danger Mouse.
Another skunk, True Blue Ody Colony (sp?) from King Leonardo.

Plenty of rats in the Secret of NIMH

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Snake - Sir Hiss from Disney’s Robin Hood was at the end of my bigass list. You can be forgiven missing him…that was a long list.
Spider - I can see several in my mind’s eye, but I’m blanking on names and origins. >_<
Roach - Roboroach.
Badger - Redwall was animated, although I think only the first two books. Still that gives us two Badgers, Constance and…and…I can’t remember the name of the badger from Martin the Warrior, but there was one. It also gives us a whole lot more mice (Martin, Mathias, Cornflower, Columbine, and dozens more), some voles, multiple hares, rats, weasels, shrews, moles, hedgehogs, sparrows, an owl, another couple cats…oh, and another snake - Asmodeus.

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Also Hamtaro and friends.

And mentioning Danger Mouse reminds me of Count Duckula.

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If you want to cover the more obscure animals, try the cast list for “My Gym Partner is a Monkey”. I can’t stand the show, but its premise led me to check its Wikipedia entry.

I can’t name a tapir for you, Zeldar, but they list an “unnamed tapir” appearing in the show. There’s also a badger named “Lacey” and a goth sloth named “Duke”. Most of the critters seem to use their species for a last name.

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Spider = Charlotte (Charlotte’s Web)

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I’ve never noticed the show, but it looks like a jewel. I’ll take your word for it and avoid it some more. But thanks for the link. Some unexpected critters for sure.

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Duh! How could I forget? They’re running promos for CW on On Demand and I must have seen Charlotte a dozen times in the past few days. Maybe my arachnophobia helps account for my forgetfulness…

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:smack: Jeez, now I feel dumb. >> (I even have a villain in one of my RPG campaigns named Charlotte Webb… ><)

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Wind in the Willows: Mr. Mole, Mr. Toad, wasn’t there a Mr. Badger, as well?

Pogo: There was a character named Churchy LaFemme, who I think was a skunk, although I may be misremembering.

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It’s been too long ago that I read Pogo so my memory is pretty well shot on all the critters there. But wasn’t there some little bitty bug or worm or other smallish entity that was always offering pithy observations about whatever the bigger critters were discussing? MAD Magazine had Marginal Marvin (or some such) that served the same basic purpose. But Walt Kelly’s critter was always a high point to the strip whenever he (or she or it) appeared. Does anybody remember that little thing? If so, what was it?

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I’m only passingly familiar with Pogo, so I had to look it up.

Churchy LaFemme was a turtle. The skunk was Mam’selle Hepzibah.

Wikipedia entry for Pogo

The page does not mention the bugs.