Animaniacs Main Character Index
The Warner Siblings | Pinky and the Brain | Slappy Squirrel | Goodfeathers | Rita and Runt | Buttons and Mindy | Other Supporting Characters
The Warner Siblings | Pinky and the Brain | Slappy Squirrel | Goodfeathers | Rita and Runt | Buttons and Mindy | Other Supporting Characters
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Major Characters
Slappy Squirrel
"I'm Slappy Squirrel, and I'm so old my blood is solid."
Voiced by: Sherri Stoner (English), Hisako Kyoda (Japanese), Isabel Vara (Latin American Spanish)
A cranky squirrel who was once a Looney Tunes star (In-Universe, that is).
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Slappy wears only a hat (and also a scarf and gloves in Wakko's Wish).
- Alliterative Name: Slappy Squirrel.
- Alter Kocker: Her accent has traces of this. Also, see below.
- Ambiguously Jewish:Skippy: Could you tell me why there's a bird living on my head?
Slappy: A bird? I thought that was a new yarmulke. - Animated Actors: A retired animated actor, pushing the usual gags up a level. She frequently gossips with fellow retirees, complains about how toothless cartoons these days have become, and pokes gentle fun at her nephew for failing to realize that he's an animated character himself.
- Character Catchphrase: "Now that's comedy!"
- Chaste Toons: She lives with her young nephew, Skippy. How he came to live with her is never explained, but this is probably intentional, considering the number of other cartoon tropes the show satirized.
- Con Man: Female example.Slappy: Have I ever lied to you?
Skippy: You said Keno was legal in Burbank; you said Magilla Gorilla was a woman; you said -
Slappy: Awright, awright, enough already. - Cool Aunt: A loving aunt for Skippy and a Cool Old Lady.
- Cool Old Lady: She's a peach! Just don't get on her list.
- Deadpan Snarker: Just as blunt and snarky as she is cranky.
- Disproportionate Retribution: She doesn't need a reason to unleash an episode's worth of cartoon violence on someone, so much as she needs an excuse. One of the most notorious cases, however, would be in "I Got Yer Can", where she tormented Candie Chipmunk just because Slappy put her empty soda can in Candie's trash can and Candie told her to take it out. Slappy herself seems to acknowledge this but does it anyway just because she finds it funny.Slappy: If I were a better person, I'd ignore her and go on with my life... But I'm not. [laughs smugly]
- Do Wrong, Right: When a discarded soda can sparks an escalating petty battle of wits between Slappy and her neighbor, Candie Chipmunk, finally culminating in her nemesis' psychotic breakdown. Suddenly Skippy drops an anvil on her because "anvils are funny," at which the intervening Slappy is not amused, insisting that Candie's final humiliation needs to be related to the plot.
- Drives Like Crazy: Little Old Slappy from Pasadena shows this to the Nth degree, with Slappy driving a souped-up Dodge Viper to Jan and Dean's Little Old Lady from Pasadena. It results in her being surrounded by police ready to arrest her for speeding and being a public nuisance.
- Expy: Reportedly, the creators wanted to use Screwy Squirrel for the role, but were unable to obtain the rights, so they gave him a Gender Flip.
- The Gambling Addict: In one story from the comics, she played the role of superhero's sidekick because she blew her pension on keno.
- Genre Savvy: By her own admission, she's seen and done every trick in the book.
- Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: She's the resourceful Grumpy to her nephew Skippy's Gleeful. It's even lampshaded in the theme song.Slappy: Enough with the singing already!
- Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: She often complains about the scripts she's given, but she still reluctantly performs to get paid and add her comedic stylings to her appearances.
- Interspecies Romance: Defied Trope. When Slappy was a child she had a Precocious Crush on a human bodybuilder, but he snubbed her. Even when she grew up to be attractive, he still snubbed her. As she grew older, she developed a bitter obsession for wasting her younger innocent days on thinking he was anything but the "no-good heartless half-witted yutz" that he was.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Played for Laughs in the Buttermilk ad
, where she's given an exaggerated hourglass figure, which was based on an early design for Minerva Mink. Otherwise, whenever we see Slappy in her prime (usually in flashbacks or showing her old cartoons playing), she doesn't look much different than her present-day self, other than lacking Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes and being more energetic and enthusiastic. - Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Don't let her crankiness fool you, she DOES have a soft side (it just takes a bit of digging to find it).
- Mad Libs Catchphrase: "Y'know, you remind me of a very young (insert classic cartoon character here)."
- Maiden Aunt: She doesn't seem to be married or have any children besides her nephew Skippy.
- Mama Bear: Slappy gets very pissed if you harm Skippy.
- Medium Awareness: Slappy beats the Warners here:Skippy: But that was in a cartoon! This is real life!
Slappy: *Aside Glance* Don't tell him, he might crack. - Money, Dear Boy: In-universe. In Issue #30 of the Animaniacs comic, Slappy agreed to play a superhero's sidekick because she blew her pension on keno.
- Never Mess with Granny: A very extreme example. She knows where you live, she has a rocket launcher, and she makes Madea look like a wimp.Slappy: Now here's today's lesson, Skippy: if you wanna go on national TV and shred someone's career to pieces, you have the right. But if you do that, remember: don't go listin' your home address in the phone book.
- Old Master: Of classic cartoon gags, no one ever gets one over on her. She often turns classic cartoon traps back on the one who set them up.
- Parental Bonus: A lot of her subtle jokes about menopause, which of course always go right over Skippy's (
and the target audience's) head.- This also goes for the relatively obscure film industry references.
- Psycho for Hire: Other characters have occasionally recruited her to cause mayhem on a specific target. The Warners hired her to get rid of their Sound of Music-inspired nanny, and God Himself tasked Slappy with guarding the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden so the serpent couldn't tempt Adam and Eve.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Slappy's Leitmotif is Dvorak's "Humoresque".
- Retired Badass: The premise behind her segments is that she's a veteran from The Golden Age of Animation, and as a result, is wise to the tricks that cartoon villains pull. (Most of her enemies are from that era too, and bother her out of an obsession for revenge, but they aren't nearly as smart.)
- By the time of Animaniacs (2020), Slappy has officially retired to Pensacola, Florida and retains the same personality she’s had in the previous decades. Too bad her hordes of fans are actively protesting for her return, much to her annoyance.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: She's a squirrel who is about the same height as a short human.
- Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Slappy is the Rude Hero to her nephew Skippy's Nice Sidekick.
- Screwball Squirrel: She's a mean-spirited squirrel who was The Prankster when she was younger, and still has a zany sense of humor.
Word of God has it that she's meant to be an Expy of the original Screwy Squirrel character, only Gender Flipped. - Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: She is sort of a G-rated version of this.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A Running Gag on her show is whenever Skippy brings her exciting news she always interprets it as a male Real Life celebrity finally asking for her phone number. The fact that she's old and the men flee in terror doesn't discourage her any.
- So Proud of You: In "Bully for Skippy", she wipes away a tear of joy when Skippy announces his desire to get revenge on Duke the bully by shouting "Let's get ready to rumble!"
- Species Surname: She is a squirrel.
- Trauma Button: The fact that she's been single all her life. One entire afternoon of talk show hosts talking endlessly about people getting married causes her to have a nervous breakdown.
- The Unfettered: Exploited by the Warners in "The Sound of Warners"; since their moral code prevented them from fighting back against the nanny because she wasn't actually trying to hurt them, merely being annoying, they hire Slappy, who has no such restraints, to get rid of her for them.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: She is an inversion of this. The gag behind Slappy isn't really that she's a fallen starlet seeking to regain her fame — it's that she's a retired slapstick comedy star whose old antagonists don't seem to have let go as well as she has, only now, she's not only smarter than her opponents, she's old, grumpy, sarcastic and arthritic, so not only is great harm befalling her geriatric rivals, it's gotten easier with practice and she enjoys it more.
- You Remind Me of X: One of her running gags.Y'know, you remind me of a very mature Jonny Quest.You remind me of a very young Scrappy-Doo.You remind me of a bad accident at Benihana.Y'know, you remind me of a very young Dr. Pepper, before the nose job.
Skippy Squirrel
Voiced by: Nathan Ruegger (English), Mayumi Tanaka (Japanese), Ivette Harting (Latin American Spanish)
Slappy's adolescent nephew who thinks of her with great admiration and respect.
- Alliterative Name: Skippy Squirrel.
- Badass Adorable: Considering that he knows martial arts. There's also his retaliation against Duke, the title character of "Bully for Skippy", by taking a page out of his aunt's book.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Skippy is much more forgiving than Slappy, but if you push him far enough, you'll learn that he's inherited his aunt's talents for slapstick revenge. Just ask his bully Duke...
- Break the Cutie: His emotional health is really put to the test in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" when his aunt Slappy becomes mentally unstable and he eventually gets taken away by child services. Fortunately, he recovers when Slappy goes back to normal and takes him back.
- Character Catchphrase: Prone to saying "Speeeeeeew!", usually to react to statements that gross him out.
- Character Development: In early episodes, he's a wide-eyed Genre Blind innocent, watching his aunt's antics in amazement, bawling inconsolably over the death of Bumbie's mom, and generally being Slappy's cute little Foil. As the series goes on, he inherits much more of his aunt's Genre Savvy and Deadpan Snarker tendencies and frequently serves as her Hypercompetent Sidekick. His gradually deepening voice (see below) highlights the shift.
- Cheerful Child: He is Slappy's sweet, cheerful and adorable nephew.
- Children Are Tender-Hearted: In "Bumbie's Mom", he cries over the death of Bumbie's mother and in Wakko's Wish, he's among the people who cry over Dot's Disney Death.
- Deadpan Snarker: Not to the extent that Slappy takes it, but he still gets in quite a few sarcasms as the show moves on.
- Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: He's the innocent Gleeful to his aunt Slappy's Grumpy.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: His voice actor couldn't keep in tune during the singing segments of Wakko's Wish. Lampshaded by Slappy saying that it was time for her nephew to get singing lessons.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: In Wakko's Wish, he wishes to have friends his own age so he doesn't always have to rely on his aunt Slappy. Not only is his wish granted in the end, but he also falls in love with a girl.
- Like Father, Like Son: In "Bully for Skippy", Skippy shows that he's learned a few things from his aunt's old cartoons.
- Nephewism: He does not appear to have any parents, and lives with his Aunt Slappy. According to Slappy's creator and voice actress, Skippy's folks are on sabbatical.
- Nice Guy: He's a good-natured young squirrel who cares deeply for his aunt.
- Ping Pong Naïveté: Depending on what the episode calls for, he's either nice and innocent or just as snarky and mischievous as Slappy.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: A cute squirrel.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: He's the size of a human child.
- Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Skippy is the Nice Sidekick to his aunt Slappy's Rude Hero.
- Species Surname: He's a squirrel.
- Took a Level in Smartass: He gains a little bit of a snarky edge as the show progresses.
- Vocal Evolution: Nathan Ruegger's voice had to be pitched up in later episodes as he was reaching puberty. It's particularly obvious in Wakko's Wish (he was about 15 by then).
Walter Wolf, Sid the Squid and Beanie the Brain-Dead Bison
Voiced by: Frank Welker (Walter Wolf, first appearance), Jess Harnell (Walter Wolf, later appearances), Jack Burns (Sid the Squid), Avery Schreiber (Beanie the Brain-Dead Bison)
Three of Slappy's old nemeses from her 1940s-era cartoons, who continually plot revenge on her, but still never succeed at doing her in.
Tropes that apply to two or all three of them:
- Alliterative Name: All their names are alliterations.
- Butt-Monkey: They're Slappy's Rogues Gallery. They pretty much exist to take abuse. Not that they don't invite it upon themselves...
- Early-Bird Cameo: In Slappy's debut episode, "Slappy Goes Walnuts," Walter's younger self appears as the villain in an old cartoon of hers on TV, while Sid and Beany get passing mentions. Their current selves made their debut thirteen episodes later.
- Evil Laugh Turned Coughing Fit: In episodes where the three of them team up, they often laugh maniacally together only for it to be interrupted by them coughing.
- Evil Old Folks: They're all just as old as (if not older than) Slappy. When they have an Evil Laugh, they finish by coughing.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Even if they weren't so hopelessly outclassed by Slappy, they are just so bumbling and incompetent that it's hard not to feel sorry for them.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: As Slappy always says, "Now this is just sad." Half the time Skippy is the one to recognize them first, and he's used to seeing them undisguised and young in his aunt's old cartoons.
- Run the Gauntlet: In most cartoons, they all attack Slappy one after another. Beanie always goes first, then Sid, and finally Walter. Naturally, Slappy doesn't have much trouble with them.
- Satellite Character: Beanie and Sid only ever appear as Walter's cohorts, while the latter got numerous solo outings.
- Species Surname: Their surnames also happen to be the kinds of animals they are.
- Terrible Trio: They are three villainous Funny Animals who team up against Slappy. Walter seems to be their de facto leader with Sid and Beanie as his sidekicks, though he's just as much of an incompetent loser as the other two.
Tropes that apply to Walter Wolf:
- Alter Kocker: He sounds like an elderly Jewish man.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Speaks with a Yiddish accent.
- Arch-Enemy: To Slappy, both in the past and the present, as he has the most appearances and is the most persistent in trying to get rid of her. Skippy even calls him Slappy's worst enemy.
- The Big Bad Wolf: He strongly resembles the various incarnations of the Big Bad Wolf from classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, as well as the Disney incarnation of the character, only much older.
- The Determinator: Even in his old age, he's still gung ho about getting payback on Slappy, no matter how many times he gets blown up and mangled.
- Evil Old Folks: According to "Justice for Slappy", Walter is a great-grandfather, as his grandson Stephen is an attorney who mentions having a kid of his own.
- Glasses of Aging: He doesn't wear glasses in Slappy's old cartoons, but his older self does.
- Green-Eyed Monster: As established in "Hurray for Slappy", his resentment for Slappy stems from being her constant punching bag in the old cartoons they starred in, while Slappy got all the glory.
- Grumpy Old Man: Referred to as "Beloved Curmudgeon Walter Wolf" in the episode "Rest in Pieces".
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: He wears overalls, a hat and glasses.
- Jerkass: He's always out to ruin Slappy's life, and even once faked his own death to try and turn everyone against her. Not that he has much luck with it.
Tropes that apply to Sid the Squid:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Glasses are all he wears.
- Funny Octopus: He's a squid who is an old-school cartoon villain constantly trying to get Slappy.
- Tentacled Terror: He's a squid and the arch-nemesis of Slappy Squirrel.
Tropes that apply to Beanie:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: He wears shoes and a beanie, but nothing else.
- The Ditz: As his moniker suggests, he's a downright moron.
- Minion with an F in Evil: While he still goes along with Walter and Sid in trying to destroy Slappy, he's frankly just too stupid to even act malicious, unlike his two cohorts. He probably wouldn't even bother to go after Slappy if the other two didn't push him.
- Political Overcorrectness: Beanie is occasionally referred to by the more PC term "the Cerebreally-Challenged Bison". Slappy, being who she is, sticks with "Brain-Dead".
- Simpleton Voice: He speaks with a typical dopey idiot voice similar to Junyer from the Looney Tunes version of "The Three Bears".
Minor and One Shot Characters
Candie Chipmunk
Voiced by: Gail Matthius
- Alliterative Name: At least when written down. Her given name and surname both begin with C.
- Butt-Monkey: She's put through hell by Slappy just for lecturing Slappy on dumping a can in her trash can instead of her own.
- Condescending Compassion: Skippy tricks her into taking back Slappy's pop can by dressing up as a Girl Scout and claiming to be selling "cookies" to help little squirrels be more like her. When she goes back inside, she gushes about how much she loves helping people who aren't as "perfect" as she is.
- Despair Event Horizon: Candie spends autumn and winter waiting for Slappy and Skippy to trick her into taking back Slappy's pop can. She's so on edge about it that in the spring she finally comes and begs Slappy to just give it to her. The cartoon ends with Candie taking the can home and treating it like a baby.
- Good Is Not Nice: She's a neat freak and rather conceited.
- Honor Before Reason: Had she just stopped giving the can back to Slappy, she wouldn't have been driven insane.
- Neat Freak: She won't even let Slappy throw away a can in her recycle bin.
- Sanity Slippage: After Slappy torments her, she becomes psychotic and lashes out on a pair of nuns and Santa Claus under the mistaken belief that they are Slappy and Skippy in disguise continuing their pranks to leave her stuck with Slappy's empty soda can.
- Sickeningly Sweet: Slappy expresses this when she walks by Candie's tree house. Candie has a sugary-sweet voice, wears an apron with hearts on the front and decorates her house with a lot of ribbons and hearts.
- Species Surname: She is a chipmunk and her last name is Chipmunk.
Stinkbomb D. Bassett
Voiced by: Jonathan Winters
- Chaste Toons: Averted. He has a grandson.
- Fur Is Clothing: After his fur is eaten by termites he puts on a new fur suit. Which makes little sense seeing as he pointed out that he'd stopped itching.
- Old Dog: He is a dog who is apparently old enough to be a grandfather.
- Species Surname: He is a Bassett hound named Bassett.
Bumpo Bassett
Voiced by: Luke Ruegger
- Alliterative Name: His first and last names both begin with B.
- Cheerful Child: Just as much as Skippy.
- Running Gag: He wants to smell his grandfather, Stinkbomb.
- Species Surname: Like his grandfather, he is a Bassett hound whose last name is Bassett.
Doug the Dog
Voiced by: Frank Welker
- Bully Bulldog: He's a bulldog who tries to terrorize Slappy and Skippy.
- Dogs Hate Squirrels: Doug really despises Slappy.
- The Unintelligible: He has no real form of speech beside barks and grunts.
Lene Hisskill and Codger Eggbert
- Butt-Monkey: Slappy subjects them to a lot of slapstick injuries in retaliation to them panning her cartoons during a review of a Laserdisc collection of Looney Tunes shorts.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: They are parodies of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
Duke
Voiced by: Corey Burton
The squirrel who bullied Skippy in "Bully for Skippy".
- The Bully: He picks on children at Skippy's school, but mostly Skippy himself.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After Skippy and Slappy clobber him, he turns a new leaf and helps them get even with Skippy's guidance counselor and the chairman of the FTA.
- For the Evulz: The guidance counselor's advice (ignoring him, trying to befriend him, and trying to appeal to his sense of empathy) fails to curb his bullying, which makes Skippy realise that Duke has neither a Freudian Excuse nor even an explanation, and is an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. As a result, Slappy and Skippy simply blow up and beat him into submission until he stops.
- Gadgeteer Genius: He's a skilled enough engineer to easily put together the government problem-solver machine after it gave Slappy so much grief.
- Good Costume Switch: He wears a schoolboy uniform after Slappy and Skippy make him stop bullying.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: As a bully, all he wears is a leather jacket. When he wears a schoolboy uniform after he stops bullying Skippy, he becomes a Barefoot Cartoon Animal.
- Malicious Misnaming: One of the things he does as a bully is deliberately getting Skippy's name wrong.
- Simpleton Voice: He has a deep, dumb-sounding voice.
- Top-Heavy Guy: His upper body is huge when compared to his legs.
Daniel Boone
Voiced by: Jim Cummings
The self-proclaimed 'Best frontiersman that ever lived'. He appears in "Frontier Slappy" and tries to cut down Slappy's hometree to make a front door out of it.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first minute or so of the cartoon shows several swarms of bees running in terror from Daniel Boone chopping down their trees. The chorus comments on how Boone does this to make the bees cry.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Played for comedy.
- If I Can't Have You…: After many failed attempts to cut down Slappy's tree, he decides to just blow it up declaring that nobody is allowed to have it if he can't.
- Jerkass: He doesn't care if the trees he chops down are already occupied.Daniel Boone was a great big jerk
Yes, a stupid jerk - Mean Boss: He treats his oxen like dirt. Slappy unionizes them when he tries to make them pull down her tree.
- Mighty Lumberjack: Subverted, as he is easily outwitted by a squirrel.
- No Fourth Wall: He has a chorus singing about his attempts to cut down Slappy's tree. The chorus starts mocking him as his attempts to kill Slappy keep failing, resulting in him shouting at them to shut up and eventually firing them. The chorus has a Heel–Face Turn as they go to work for Slappy and sing her praises instead.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: He dresses as a woodpecker to try and chop Slappy's tree down right in front of her. The chorus points out how stupid the disguise is. Slappy isn't fooled, and she gets back at Boone by giving him some "woodpecker lunch", namely a plate of dead bugs, manure and rotten bark. He forces himself to eat it to keep up his disguise, and then runs away to lose his lunch "all over the trees and sky", as the chorus notes.
Vina Waleen
Voiced by: Tress MacNeille
The actress who played Bumbie's mother in the movie Bumbie the Dearest Deer.
- Glasses of Aging: She didn't wear glasses as a young actress, but she does as an old lady.
