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Victor Frankenstein
Voiced by: Charlie Tahan
A young scientist who brings his dog and best friend Sparky back to life.
- Badass Bookworm: Managed to bring the dead back to life.
- A Boy and His X: A Boy and His Dog. Which is the entire backbone of the plot. Merged with the backbone of bringing back to life a loved one.
- Brainy Brunette: Successfully able to resurrect his dead dog.
- Expy: Victor Frankenstein is a smaller Victor Van Dort.
- Guile Hero: Uses his brains to defeat the monsters during the climax, specifically by luring the sea monkeys into a tent full of popcorn (causing them to explode) and electrifying a puddle of beer to neutralize the giant turtle.
- Meaningful Name: His full name comes from a scientist who brought a dead body back to life.
- Nice Guy: A kind and friendly if aloof young man.
- Only Sane Man: Seems to share this role with Elsa among their class, if the knowing smile and look they exchange during Nassor's dramatic recital is any indication of their knowledge of their classmates eccentricities.
- Science Hero: Victor not only uses his vast knowledge of science to help revive Sparky, but also to stop the other kids' messed-up resurrections.
Sparky
Voiced by: Frank Welker
Victor's dog, whom he brings back to life.
- Action Pet: When he takes on the mutated Mr. Whiskers.
- Body Horror: Sparky's body has stitches, holes, and his tail comes off, but he's still a lovable dog.
- Heroic Dog: He is eternally loyal to Victor and risks his second life so he can rescue him from a burning windmill.
- Nice Guy: Sparky is a good boy. He is a lovable and sweet dog who is eternally loyal to Victor, even after death.
- Official Couple: Possibly with Persephone by the end.
- Papa Wolf: A near literal example. Sparky goes into the burning tower to save Victor.
- Secondary Character Title: He's "Frankenweenie", but the real protagonist is Victor.
- Undying Loyalty: No pun intended. To Victor to the extent he would rescue him from a burning windmill.
Edward and Susan Frankenstein
Voiced by: Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara, respectively
Victor's parents.
- Cute Bookworm: Susan is an avid reader.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Subverted. Edward appears to be this, given how he talks about how it's bad for Victor to just be alone all the time and not have any friends. However he actually does support Victor's filmmaking and love of science, he just wants to compromise and for Victor to take part in more social activities.
- Good Parents: They are encouraging, supportive, and understanding to their son, Victor.
- Happily Married: They have a loving and playful relationship.
- Housewife: Susan appears to take on the role of stereotypical cookie-cutter '50s housewife.
- Mama Bear: Along with her husband, she would have charged straight into a burning windmill to save Victor had the other adults not held her and her husband back.
- Nice Guy: Edward is a friendly and social, and likes to dispense roundabout advice to his son. Susan is a friendly, loving and supportive mother who encourages her son's scientific pursuits, even when her kitchen appliances end up in his attic lab.
- Papa Wolf: Along with his wife, he would have charged straight into a burning windmill to save Victor had the other adults not held him and his wife back.
Elsa van Helsing
Voiced by: Winona Ryder
A kind next-door neighbor, and one of Victor's classmates.
- Action Girl: Elsa has to protect Edgar from the were-rat and manages to hold her own until Victor is able to help her.
- Broken Bird: Downplayed. Elsa is described as somber and she's forced to live with her unlikable uncle, Mr. Burgermeister for a while. Her gothic style does imply, however, that some of it comes naturally.
- Girlish Pigtails: Averted. She has four pigtails, but doesn't appear to be very girly.
- Nice Girl: Comforted Victor after the death of Sparky.
- Perky Goth: Downplayed, since her personality is a bit on the shy side.
- Puppy Love: With Victor.
- Shrinking Violet: She's rather lonely, quiet, shy and a bit withdrawn. Admittedly, none of this makes her stand out much among the weird New Holland class she is attending.
Persephone
Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker
Elsa's pet poodle.
- Beehive Hairdo: After Sparky "sparks" her.
- Captain Ersatz: Of the Bride of Frankenstein as a canine version.
- Damsel in Distress: Gets kidnapped by Mr. Whiskers, prompting Victor, Sparky, and Elsa to chase him to the mill and setting off the climax.
- Official Couple: Possibly with Sparky in the end.
- Satellite Character: We only know that she's Elsa's pet poodle.
- Satellite Love Interest: Also serves as Sparky's love interest.
Toshiaki
Voiced by: James Hiroyuki Liao
Victor's rival-like former enemy and one of his classmates.
- Academic Athlete: Highly intelligent and a good baseball player; at one point Weird Girl mentions he pitched a perfect game.
- Asian and Nerdy: Very intelligent for his age - he fully understands Victor's calculations, which could be why his experiment is so 'successful'. A bit too successful.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Slips into this.
- Brains and Brawn: The Brains to Bob's Brawn.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Among his many, many inconsiderate moments throughout the film, it is the sight of the empty shell of his pet tortoise Shelly that finally makes him put his camera away.
- Expy: Various major Japanese characters from Godzilla and other kaiju movies (general form) and Jim Renshaw, the Night Porter from David Lynch's The Elephant Man (personality.)
- Faux Affably Evil: He presents himself as well-mannered and a helpful friend to others like Bob, but is really just as much of a Jerkass as Nassor is.
- Not So Above It All: Despite being much of a Jerkass to Victor, he is fully aware that Victor held enough knowledge to bring Sparky back to life, which he uses himself to revive Shelly; he willingly pleaded for Victor's help after Shelly has grown out of control.Toshiaki: Victor, I need your help! (points to a giant Shelly) My problem bigger.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Implied by his last scene, where he realizes that he brought a once beloved pet of his back to life only for it to die again...purely for a science experiment and the reward it would get him.
- Token Minority: He and Nassor are the only major non-white characters in the story.
Nassor
Voiced by: Martin Short
Victor's other main scientific rival.
- The Comically Serious: He is so darn melodramatic and exaggerated about everything, that he ends up being hilarious in a pompous sort of way. He turns a class discussion about the New Holland golf course into a soliloquy worthy of an Edgar Allan Poe inspired film by Roger Corman.
- The Cynic: He takes a darker, more doomsday view of life than the other kids in New Holland. Nassor is instantly skeptical of the rumors surrounding Victor's experiments with electricity.
- Jerkass: Indifferent, bleak, power hungry, and dark.
- Karloff Kopy: His appearance, voice and mannerisms are all inspired by Boris Karloff, particularly his roles in Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932).
- Large Ham: Especially after Colossus is reanimated.
- Perpetual Frowner: Nassor never seems to smile and keeps a gloomy attitude no matter what happens.
- Token Minority: Nassor is an Arabic name, which makes sense given his Egyptian heritage. He and Tokiashi are the only major non-white characters in the story.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Nassor is comedically turned into a living mummy by stumbling into some ribbons while trying to run from Shelly, Toshaki's undead Kaiju turtle, and then falling into a Russian Nesting Doll Case which closes on him and becomes his makeshift coffin. The audience doesn't see him after that and his fate is unknown. He could potentially be Buried Alive.
Forever.
Edgar "E" Gore
Voiced by: Atticus Shaffer
A hunch-backed child and one of Victor's classmates. He's the first to know of Victor's success in bringing Sparky back to life.
- Creepy Child: Next to Weird Girl, he is perhaps the creepiest of Victor's classmates, having a hunched back and voice mannerisms like Peter Lorre.
- Creepy Long Fingers: His left hand is deformed, giving him extra long digits.
- The Igor: Defied; he's not friends with Victor at all, and blackmails Vic into showing him the resurrection experiment. About the only thing about him that fits is that he's disfigured and has a weird voice.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Edgar only wants to make a couple of smart friends. Unfortunately the equally lonely Victor doesn't share that need.
- Lorre Lookalike: His design and voice patterns were inspired by Peter Lorre.
- Perpetual Smiler: His mouth is perpetually stretched into a wide grin, even when he's nervous.
- Saying Too Much: It is his need for acceptance that leads him to give too much information to the other students that makes him by extension accidentally give more than he intended.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If Edgar had just had kept his mouth shut about Victor reviving Sparky, then the town wouldn't have had the monster epidemic.
Weird Girl
Voiced by: Catherine O'Hara
An eccentric girl who is one of Victor's classmates and obsessed with the psychic predictions of her cat, Mr. Whiskers - which do actually seem to be correct.
- All There in the Manual: Per the filmmakers, her actual name is Anne Chambers, which is the name of a character played by Sofia Coppola in the original short, though she is never addressed as such in the film; what's more, the advertising lists her only as "Weird Girl."
- Creepy Child: She delivers ominous pronouncements in a monotone voice with an unnerving stare.
- Oracular Urchin: A superstitious parody who rambles all the time about her cat's prophetic powers. Needless to say, she doesn't fit in well with the other kids in New Holland, especially when she delivers her ominous pronouncements in a monotone voice with an unnerving stare, about them.
- Waif Prophet: Rail-thin kid who finds portents in her kitty's sandbox.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't see her again after Mr. Whiskers is mutated. Not even when said cat is killed. How did she cope his death? Did she get a new cat? Is she still friendly with Victor?
Bob
Voiced by: Robert Capron
An obese boy who is one of Victor's classmates.
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the last time Robert Capron played an overweight character who broke their arm.
- Brains and Brawn: The Brawn to Toshiaki's Brains.
- Fat Comic Relief: Bob is very obese, and one of the major sources of comic relief.
- Fat Idiot: Downplayed. Bob isn't quite stupid, but he is perhaps the most immature kid in Victor's class, having nowhere near the amount of scientific knowledge or drive that his classmates do. He also relies on his lab partner Toshiaki to do all the thinking for him. He's definitely overweight though.
- Made of Iron: Bob is pretty durable; he fell down a manhole a few weeks before and later falls off a roof, only suffering a broken arm in the latter incident.
- Momma's Boy: Loves his mother very much.
- Reused Character Design: He looks identical to a fat kid with black-and-white striped pajamas to whom Jack Skellington gives a monstrous toy in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Token Good Teammate: Compared to the company he keeps, he's actually a fairly nice but timid boy.
Mr. Rzykruski
Voiced by: Martin Landau
An eccentric but wise science teacher at Victor's school who speaks in a thick Eastern European accent. His teachings inspire Victor's effort to resurrect Sparky, and he acts as a mentor to Victor.
- Eccentric Mentor: Deconstructed. He encourages his students to be creative and eccentric when it comes to science. When one student (Bob) gets hurt while doing so, the parents ensure that he is sacked.
- Nice Guy: An eccentric teacher who genuinely wants to inspire his students to love science.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: His design was deliberately based off of beloved horror icon Vincent Price.
- Soviet Superscience: Invoked, everyone in his homeland is a scientist.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Has an eastern European accent and You No Take Candle speech pattern.
Mr. Whiskers
Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker
Weird Girl's pet cat who can apparently tell the future of people according to his owner.
- Bat Out of Hell: He accidentally fuses with a bat in the climax and as a result becomes extremely murderous.
- Body Horror: When Mr. Whiskers supernaturally fuses with a dead Vampire Bat he becomes a hideous, bloodthirsty mutant hybrid.
- Cats Are Mean: Averted for most of the film. He really becomes this after his transformation in the climax.
- Final Boss: Is the final antagonist that Victor and Sparky have to face before the nightmare is over.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: By a flaming rafter in the climax. Overlaps with Family-Unfriendly Death.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Mr. Whiskers sneaks onto the roof of Victor's house the day after Sparky is resurrected. Sparky is enticed to follow him out of the house causing all sorts of havoc. During this space of time Edgar recognizes Sparky, he pressures Victor into telling him about the experiment, Edgar tells Toshiaki and Nassor how Victor did it, they conduct their own experiments with dead animals, resulting in rampaging monsters... including a mutated combination of Mr. Whiskers and a bat.
Sea Monkeys
- Jerkass: The monsters with the clearest amount of sapience. Sapience here means having the mindset of a mindlessly destructive Psychopathic Manchild.
- "Pop!" Goes the Human: What happens to them if they consume salt.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Vulnerable to salt, which causes them to explode.
Bob Burgermeister
Voiced by: Martin Short
The town's grumpy, disagreeable mayor.
- Adipose Rex: He has a stout, portly body frame as Mayor of New Holland.
- Captain Ersatz: Of Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.
- Dirty Coward: When a crisis breaks out during Dutch Day, he abandons his niece in the carnage due to being scared by the Were-Rat.
- Knight Templar Uncle: He becomes this in the climax when leading the Angry Mob.
- Literal Metaphor: A Dutch uncle is someone who issues frank, harsh, or severe comments and criticism in order to educate, encourage, or admonish someone; he insists that his niece Elsa is to be the star of the New Holland Dutch Day festival.
- Meaningful Name: "Burgermeister" is German for "Mayor".
- Obliviously Evil: He's got an unpleasant personality and is the closest thing to an overarching villain in the film (aside from Mr. Whiskers), but his intentions are usually quite well-meaning from his perspective.
- Papa Wolf: Gets Mr. Rzykruski fired when Bob hurts himself trying out a jetpack he and Toshiaki built for the Science Fair. He also mistakenly believes that Sparky has endangered his niece in the climax, so he becomes the one to rile up and lead an Angry Mob against the dog.
