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"Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Be bloody terrified.
After all, you've just entered the household of the Happy Talking Spiders."
— From a Walkthrough for Exile III

Many cartoons have them — some animation companies have made their entire core casts out of them. Very simply, these are animals who talk.

The term "talking animal" is typically used to describe any animal character that talks, whether it be a Nearly Normal Animal or a Funny Animal, but there are so many examples of animal characters that talk, this page will only cover characters that aren't:

  • A Nearly Normal Animal, which can converse with other members of its own species or even members of other non-human species, but not with humans.
  • A Civilized Animal that shows some human mannerisms, but otherwise occupy their species' natural role.
  • A Funny Animal who has many human mannerisms, making them practically a human aside from being an animal.

This page will only include characters that, despite their ability to speak, are still animals in almost every other way, particularly when it comes to instincts, priorities and motivations. They very rarely wear clothes, and they are often vocally proud of the fact they aren't human. They may even choose to talk to no one but a single human, who typically finds this very disturbing. They may even break the Fourth Wall and talk only to the viewer.

A good comparison: Ralph the mouse (from The Mouse and the Motorcycle) is a Civilized Animal; he lives in a mousehole, dodges cats, and runs around naked (save for his fur), yet he enjoys motorcycles and regularly talks to the human boy Keith. Mickey Mouse is an example of Funny Animal; he lives in a house, drives a car, wears clothing, and sprays his garden with pesticides (think about that for a second). They can easily hold down a conversation with any human member of the cast. They are a lot better at it than the Speech-Impaired Animal. It's not like every human Speaks Fluent Animal either; the animals themselves are able to talk and that's just the way it is.

Another good comparison: The animal characters in Tarzan are Nearly Normal Animals; they can talk to each other but not to normal humans. The animal characters in The Jungle Book are Talking Animals; they are able to talk to other human characters besides Mowgli.

Like many Speech Impaired Animals and Nearly Normal Animals, many Talking Animals lack hands and walk on all fours, negating the possibility of performing many human tasks and behaviors. A few examples are bipedal if their species is flexible enough. However, when required by a joke, the Talking Animal can sometimes act like the more anthropomorphic Civilized Animal or Funny Animal.

Since these are otherwise normal animals who are able to talk, the issues of Furry Confusion don't usually come up. The issue of What Measure Is A Nonhuman, however, is far more likely to affect a Talking Animal than a Funny Animal. That said, Talking Animals are likely to voice just what they think about humans...

The Fairy Tale is more likely to feature a talking animal than a fairy. (Although they do often turn out to be humans under a curse. Or even ghosts.)

Polly Wants a Microphone is a specific sub-trope for when in fiction, most animals can’t talk, but parrots can talk instead of just mimicking human speech.

Lots of verbal jokes involve talking animals, with the humour usually deriving from a trait of that animal or a pun based on the word for the animal. A common subversion of these jokes is to replace the punchline with something along the lines of "Holy crap, a talking horse!" See also Not in Front of the Parrot!.

Fun fact: As ridiculous as it sounds, there are some books like Charlotte's Web that were banned in some areas of the U.S. because they had talking animals in them.

Many Weasel Mascots, Non Human Sidekicks, and Team Pets are Talking Animals. Talking birds are a separate subtrope. Compare Intellectual Animal, Sapient Steed, and Uplifted Animal. For the next step "up" in the latter, see Partially Civilized Animal, Civilized Animal, and Mouse World. See also Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism.

Don't expect the problem of the animal's vastly different (or completely absent) vocal tract to be explained.

Compare Animal Talk. Contrast Pantomime Animal.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • GEICO Insurance:
    • Many of their commercials have a talking gecko with a British (or possibly Australian) accent, who also serves as a mascot for GEICO.
    • And their newest mascot is Maxwell the Pig, who raises all sorts of issues, like when Max tells the stewardess on the flight they're on that he has an app for his phone from GEICO that allows him to do things like pay his bill or file a claim, she says she'll believe that when pigs fly. Max turns to one of the other passengers and says, "Did she just say what I think she said?"
  • A 2000s commercial for Connect Four has a group of animals watching a boy and girl playing the game and bragging them to do it again.
  • A Rozerem commercial has a talking beaver sitting next to Abraham Lincoln at the table.
  • There is also a commercial for Tidy Cats with talking cats.
  • Inverted in one of ESPN's Winter X Games XV commercials of 2011, in which two mule deer are "talking" with subtitles.
  • Played straight and played with in a series of commercials for Budweiser. First there were those three frogs "Bud." "Weis." "Er."), then along came two chameleons, one of which wanted to replace the frogs. To that end, the chameleon hired a ferret who was The Unintelligible.
  • In one U.S. anti-drug Public Service Announcement, a young girl's dog talks to her and asks her to give up marijuana. The narm results from the fact that if your dog is talking to you than either, A.) You have some serious mental health issues, or B.) That's not marijuana you took, but LSD. In either case, marijuana is not the problem.
  • For some time, the Mexican phone company Telmex showcased commercials featuring a talking Jack Russel Terrier called Otto, explaining that due to the promotions made by the company, he had to learn to speak like a human to (unsuccessfully) get their attention again. Then, he started to evolve into a character of its own after a few more commercials.
  • This ad for McCoy's "Man Crisps" has a dog exclaim "Never in all my life!" when one guy suggests they ask for directions when lost.
  • Food Lion, a grocery chain in the southeastern United States, has as its mascot a life-size, CGI, talking lion.
  • The Jay Bush and Duke ads for Bush's Baked Beans (and associated products such as Bush's Grillin' Beans) feature Duke, a talking dog with a singular agenda to try to sell the secret family recipe for the beans for big bucks and a seemingly endless well of devious ideas as to how to go about doing this. One of the earliest, however, depicts Jay as being shocked when Duke utters the phrase "Roll that beautiful bean footage."
  • Claude the Cat: With the occasional exception, Claude is basically a regular cat who can talk.

    Animation 
  • Boonie Bears: Besides Briar and Bramble, who are borderline Civilized Animals capable of doing human things, pretty much the only human characteristic the animals of the woods express are talking. The circus animals are Partially Civilized however.

    Anime & Manga 
  • After God: Nyababa is an artificial cat with human intelligence who acts as a spy and Mission Control.
  • Arabian Nights: Adventures of Sinbad: Shera, though justified since she's a mynah bird. Apparently, the fact that she is actually a cursed human being also contributes to her high intelligence and talking skills.
  • Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin: The various pets have the ability to talk, due to the properties of a mystical stone. If the stones in question are destroyed, the ability is lost, and they revert back to normal.
  • Day Break Illusion has a talking crow and a talking cat named Laplace and Schrodinger respectively.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: The setting has the Kasugaigarasu, the messenger crows, which serves as the main line of communication among the demon slayers; the crows have been taught how to talk through unspecified methods, at first some crows are shown to only be able to speak to a certain level, as in they seem slightly speech impaired, but later more experienced crows are shown talking fully coherent like a human being.
  • Digimon: From dinosaurs to wolves to birds to beetles, almost every Digimon is shown having the capacity for speech, if not the volition.
  • Dragon Ball: In early arcs, there were talking animals in nature on an apparently random basis, as well as Funny Animals in civilization. Dinosaurs, especially, were often able to talk. This feature gradually dwindled out as the series grew and the nature of its humor changed, with Master Roshi's sea turtle being the only non-anthropomorphic talking animal to be a recurring character.
  • Fairy Tail: Happy and Charle are two talking cats. More accurately, they are part of a race of talking, cat-like creatures called Exceed, who hatch from eggs and use magic to grow wings and fly.
  • Gokusen: Fuji, Yankumi's dog, is a slight subversion of this trope — he runs through an internal monologue and has surprisingly human thought processes, but he's actually making strange dog sounds and the other characters in the show don't understand him. He also walks upright and wears a jacket. Nobody notices this.
  • Hana the Fox Girl: Tsugumori is a talking dog. His little sister Hana is a fox that can take human form. Though when she's in fox form she falls into this trope, as does Haru Sakamoto when she's in snake form.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya: Shamisen, Kyon's cat, for a short time. Of course, normal cats don't talk, and this is all Haruhi's fault. Shamisen is something of a philosopher, and his first few words toy with the trope. When the gang expresses their surprise that he can talk, he brings up the possibility that he is merely articulating noises that correspond to human speech without understanding them. Kyon points out that by that line of reasoning, there is also a chance that every human conversation that ever occurs is a complete coincidence.
  • Hayate the Combat Butler: Tama, who can only aspire to the importance of being a mascot. He only talks to Hayate, and is only occasionally bipedal.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers: Canada's bear Kumajiro and Iceland's puffin can talk. When the Nekotalia strips happened, all the nation cats can talk and at one point, Japaneko talked to his master Japan, causing Japan to react with shock.
  • Hime-chan's Ribbon: Animals in the Magical Kingdom can talk, such as having birds as messengers.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: The climax leaves Coco Jumbo the tortoise as this. Silver Chariot Requiem causes every human and animal in Rome to "Freaky Friday" Flip with nearby beings, and the soul of Jean-Pierre Polnareff ended up in Coco Jumbo's body after his own was killed. Somehow, he is able to speak when other human souls swapped into animal bodies are shown not to be, and when tortoises lack vocal cords and lips.
  • Kimba the White Lion: The cast is composed of these.
  • Kyouran Kazoku Nikki: Teika Midarezaki is a talking lion. He's very proud of this.
  • March Comes in Like a Lion: Akari's cats are given lines of "dialogue" that tell the reader what they're asking of their owners and what they are thinking- usually them asking or thinking about what's for dinner. However, they're not actually talking to the humans. What they're saying isn't actually acknowledged as an audible line of dialogue.
  • Mars Daybreak: Clara (a cat) and Poipoider (a porpoise). Poipoider's ability to speak stems from translators built into the Powered Armor he uses to walk on land, but Clara is able to understand him even outside of it.
  • Mori no Ando: The entire cast, considering they know which words humans would use and what words animals would use.
  • My Hero Academia: Principal Nezu's High Spec quirk gives him tremendous IQ, despite being a mouse-like creature. It's unclear, though, whether his speech capacity was a result of that or whatever happened to him when he was a test subject.
  • Naruto has multiple talking animals, such as toads, dogs, and giant slug just to name a few. Most but not all of them are summons.
  • Nichijou: Sakamoto can talk, but only when he wears his special bandanna. One episode he lost it to a crow, and that crow ends up talking.
  • Omamori Himari: The title character can appear as a talking cat, though she usually prefers to appear as a human or Cat Girl.
  • One Piece:
    • Chopper is a reindeer that can not only talk to humans, but other animals as well. This is thanks to the Devil Fruit he ate, the Human-Human Fruit, which gives him human-level intelligence and the ability to talk to them (As for the other animals, Animal Talk is in effect here).
    • Pappug is a starfish who learned to talk because of a pun related to the pronunciation of "I'm a human" (hito desu) and "starfish" (hitode).
    • The Mink tribe are an entire species of talking animals, with varying animalistic features. Notable among them are Bepo, a polar bear in Trafalgar Law's crew, and Pekoms, a lion in Big Mom's crew; both of them were introduced long before their tribe was properly shown onscreen, leaving much mystery as to why they could walk and talk until then.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Meowth of the Team Rocket trio. The anime shows through flashbacks just how hard it was for him to learn to say something other than "Meowth", which other members of his species say. One could consider Meowth some manner of prodigy, as he is also capable of translating "Pokémon" to human language from species of Pokémon other than his own. This mastery of human speech also came at a cost, though: he can't really learn any new moves (not even Pay Day, Meowth's signature move) apart from ones that involve scratching or perhaps biting.
    • Apart from Meowth, very few other Pokemon are capable of using human speech and even then, most of those use telepathy. These telepathic Pokemon also mostly appear in the movies (usually as the stars of their movies). Only a select handful of other Pokemon that are capable of talking have appeared in the anime proper. These include a Gastly (physically talking), a Lapras (Telepathy), a Lucario (telepathy), Slowking (talking), a Ralts (telepathy), and Pikachu (talking, but only once in the 20th film, though this could have just been in Ash's imagination).
    • All Pokemon can understand each other. So it isn't anything special on Meowth's part when he translates from Pokemon to human language because, as a Pokemon, he automatically understands what any other Pokemon is saying, regardless of speciesnote . It is shown many times, for example, one Pokemon of one species trying to convince another Pokemon of a different species that these humans are friends and those humans are bad and things like that.
    • Only a few human characters are perplexed that Team Rocket's Meowth can speak. Most of them get over it while a few decide on trying to capture him due to his ability to speak.
    • In Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Ash gains the Rotom Dex, which is a Pokédex that is powered by a Rotom. It's able to talk and converse with the other characters but much like Meowth, it never battles like a Pokémon. It's actually a subversion as the speaking capabilities comes from the Pokédex and any Rotom that enters it can talk.
    • In the Pokémon Adventures manga, there are also Pokemon who can talk. However, this seems to apply only to few Legendary/Mythical Pokemon, through telepathy.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Kyuubei sort of counts. He actually communicates via Telepathy, but is still perfectly fluent in Japanese, and understands human speech just fine. Pity this doesn't also apply to his morals.
  • Sailor Moon: Luna, Artemis and Diana. In Sailor Moon S: The Movie) Luna becomes human through magic.
    • This is slightly different in the original manga. While the first time Luna is changed into a human is presented in the same way as it is on screen, later it is established that all three of the feline characters can take on human form at times of great crisis, because they are actually aliens. A villain from their home planet is presented as being a Human Alien at all times. Why the trio is limited to times of crisis is unknown. Or why only they have the Crescent marks on their forehead that when damaged turns them into ordinary cats. Or why Diana keeps her tail in human form but her parents don't.
  • Shirokuma Cafe: The many animals in the cast. It's not outright explained why animals can talk in their world, but from various scenes from the anime and manga, it can be pieced together that only animals that have been integrated into human society can talk, implying they must be taught how.
  • Tokyo ESP has Pelico. A female pelican who got telepathic powers. Although Pelico fights on heroes' side, she still has the typical behavior of a pelican. She likes to eat fish and is looking for a partner.
  • To Your Eternity: Once the shapeshifting being Fushi/Immo learns to speak, he can do so in his animal forms as well as he can in human forms.
  • Wild Fangs: Gido is a sentient talking furball.
  • Wolf's Rain: Generally, the eponymous wolves can be considered this. Not only can they speak telepathically, they use illusions to disguise themselves as humans. When they fight, the illusions are understandably dropped, and they are very clearly wolves.
  • Wowser and Ratso Catso.
  • The animal-gods of Princess Mononoke can speak through telepathy. Definitely not played for laughs, since they are very dignified and massive Dire Beasts. The wolf-goddess Moro and the boar-god Okkoto are the size of elephants.
  • Nyandestar from Yu-Gi-Oh! GO RUSH!! is a talking cat with a star-shaped marking on her head. She is partnered with a human named Manabu Sogetsu within an organization called MIK.

    Comic Books 
  • Shazam!: Captain Marvel's buddy, Talky Tawny the Tiger. In the Golden Age, he was an Uplifted Animal, and he often leaned more towards Funny Animal. More modern interpretations, when they include him at all, instead present him as some sort of magical spirit or eldritch entity who just chooses to take the form of a tiger.
  • Detective Chimp in The DCU can actually communicate with all animals, but according to him humans are the best conversationalists. His old friend Rex the Wonderdog has the same ability; they both gained it as a side-effect of drinking from the fountain of youth. Strangely, both of them were impressive and intelligent before drinking from the fountain; all it did was make communication easier for them.
  • Magic Trixie: Magic Trixie's Animal Companion is a talking cat named Scratches.
  • The Snow Cat Prince: The seven cat princes who rule the land of Nordan speak English.
  • The German comic Werner has talking grebes (in Eiskalt!) and bears (in Normal ja!) for the purpose of loads of puns. At least the grebes interact with humans, such as the ones who buy a car just to drive it into a lake, or the ones who try to sell their collected grebe jokes to Werner for his next book but demand an outrageously high price including license fees and whatnot.
  • Fables has talking animals of all sorts, courtesy of human stories and imagination.
  • Cubitus: Cubitus the dog and Sénéchal the cat both talk. They walk upright,yet still behave like normal animals from time to time.
  • Tintin: Snowy appears to talk with other animals and even Tintin in his earliest appearances, but it's never clear whether Tintin actually understands what he says? After Captain Haddock is introduced in the series Snowy talks less and less. In fact, the entire concept of Snowy's talking is so weird in the realistic atmosphere of Tintin's stories that in the animated adaptations Snowy is always portrayed as a normal barking dog.
  • Lucky Luke: Ratanplan and Jolly Jumper talk, but it is made clear that humans are unable to understand them.
  • Jommeke: Jommeke's parrot, Flip, can talk. He is still a normal animal but is able to conversate fluently with humans.
  • Urbanus: Amedee the fly, Nabuko Donosor the dog and Wieske the pig are all able to talk.
  • Tom Poes: All animals are able to talk.
  • Angel Love, being set in New York City, has talking cockroaches.
  • The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael: In the afterlife beyond the river there are talking animals of substandard intelligence. Ichabod joins up with a particularly snarky horse.
  • Animosity takes place in a world where the animals of the world all suddenly become sapient and able to talk one day. The main characters are a bloodhound named Sandor and his human Jesse, who are caught in a conflict between the crumbling U.S. government and the "Animilitary" rebelling against the human race.
  • Black Magick: Issue #9 reveals that Rowan's black cat Hawthorne is able to speak telepathically. Prior to this Hawthorne had shown no sign of being anything other than an ordinary cat.
  • Little Mouse Gets Ready: The book stars a talking mouse. His mother shows up at the end. She also talks.
  • The Lost Boy: Plenty of inhabitants of The Kingdom in the woods are talking animals. Some of the most prominent examples include Buglings like Baron Tick, or allies like the squirrels of the Pettibone family.
  • The Adventures of Peter Wheat: The comic is set in a wheat field holding a kingdom of Lilliputians, bug people, and small animals. Being a mid-20th century cartoon, the animals could all speak English to prevent a language barrier.

    Comic Strips 
  • In an odd case, Snoopy from Peanuts is a Talking Animal who doesn't (usually) talk. Despite this, he's certainly one of the most verbose and eloquent of the characters, verbalizing his thoughts via balloons. His pal Woodstock might surpass him except that we don't know what Woodstock says exactly. Though despite said eloquence, he can't write to save his life.
  • The same applies to Garfield. In one book, Garfield and the other animals in his hometown break their rule against using speech to warn their owners about a natural disaster that is quickly approaching.
  • Chip Dunham's Overboard has several of these characters. One of these, a dog named Raymond, speaks out loud (presumably in intelligible English), walks on his hind legs, and wears a fedora hat. Another dog, Louie, walks on all fours, thinks "out loud" via thought balloons, and wears no clothing. Several mice and rabbit characters also appear more or less regularly.
  • In Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes is only animated when alone with Calvin, as a general rule, yet seems to live quite an independent life from Calvin, chasing critters in the forest and reading comic books with interest. Hobbes is very often the more sensible, the more sane, and the more eloquent of the title duo, though he does have his moments of primal savagery (which he works off by attacking Calvin whenever he comes home from school, or having Calvin throw a slice of jellied toast for him to "catch").
  • In Get Fuzzy, pretty much every animal character seems to have this ability.
  • Most of the Pearls Before Swine cast regulars are talking animals, while most one-time characters are humans. They have no trouble treating the talking animals like people. Lampshaded in a certain strip introducing "Chuckie, the non-anthropomorphic sheep", who can't speak in English and can only communicate in "baaahs" like a normal sheep can.
  • Gorgon from Barnaby, who rambles on, tells shaggy dog stories, and eventually has to be bribed into shutting up.
  • In a strip of The Far Side, a scientist invents a canine-to-English translator, only to discover that every bark simply translates to the word "hey". A large portion of the series contains talking animals, though Gary Larson jumps back and forth between animals that live and act like humans, or are normal animals/pets that can talk, sometimes to humans or just other animals. The majority being Cows.
  • In the German comic Rudi, apparently ants and slugs not only are this, but are also organized like a dictatorship and actively planning to bring down human society. Especially, eat all their food. In other words, not only Humans Are Bastards in this comic.
  • Nero: Occasionally talking animals appear in the series.
  • Paulus de Boskabouter: All animals can talk, or rather, Paulus the wood gnome Speaks Fluent Animal.
  • Jan, Jans en de Kinderen: The family cats and dogs are all able to talk, but humans can apparently not understand what they are saying.
  • Rasmus Klump: All animals talk in this comic strip.
  • Pooch Café: Dogs and their owners can communicate, with each other and with other people. Nobody thinks this is unusual.
  • Citizen Dog: All animals talk in this world, and no one bats an eyelid. Fergus the dog and Cuddles the cat converse with each other and with humans without any problems.

    Fairy Tales 
  • "The Goose Girl"'s horse Falada talks — even after its head is chopped off.
  • The Grateful Beasts all talk.
  • In "The Fire-Bird, the Horse of Power, and the Princess Vasilissa", the archer's horse is constantly giving him sage advice and comforting words.
  • In "Jesper Who Herded the Hares", the King of the Ants asks Paul to help its army fight the beetles.
  • Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree is a relative of Snow White in which the Evil Matriarch learns she is no longer Fairest of Them All from a talking fish.
  • "The Death of Koschei the Deathless": Not only can Koschei's horse talk but also he is adept at hammy boasts:
    Koschei was out hunting; as he returned home late in the afternoon his good horse stumbled under him. What is the matter with you, you old nag? he demanded. What made you stumble? Have you scented some misfortune? The horse answered: Prince Ivan has come and carried off Maria Morevna.
    But can we overtake them? Kashchey asked.
    You could sow your wheat, wait for it to grow, you could harvest it and thresh it, grind it into flour, bake bread from it in five ovens, and eat the bread, and only then set out in pursuit. And even so we would overtake them.
  • "Morozko": The family's little dog is constantly repeating the old woman's daughter will die, and her loathed stepdaughter will live and become rich, earning the woman's ire.
  • In "Mother Holle", a rooster cries out when both the protagonist and her stepsister return home.
    "Cock-a-doodle-doo,
    Our golden girl is here anew."
  • In "Prince Ivan, the Witch Baby, and the Little Sister of the Sun", a mouse warns Prince Ivan that he must run away because his sister is preparing to kill him.
    The Prince sat down and strummed away on the lute.
    Then there crept a mouse out of a hole, and said to him in a human voice:
    "Save yourself, Prince. Run away quick! your sister has gone to sharpen her teeth."
  • In Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "The Turnip Princess", a bear tells the prince how to break an enchantment and find a beautiful bride.
  • "The Enchanted Quill": The crow is constantly giving the characters advice and instructions.
  • "Kolobok": The titular character bumps into a rabbit, a wolf, a bear and a fox, all of them capable of speaking human language.
  • The "Puss in Boots" is one of the more well known fairy-tales involving a talking animal as the main character. There is no explanation of why the titular cat is perfectly able to speak human languaje, but in some of the earliest versions of a similar tale, an equivalent character turned out to be a fairy in disguise.
  • "Follow Me, Jodel!": A toad approaches Jodel to tell him how he can win his father's challenges.

    Fan Works 
  • A Backwards Grin: At the end of Chapter 16, Mawile reasons that she can invoke this trope due to being in the anime 'verse, which means that there's a precedent in Meowth from Team Rocket. Chapter 17, however, shows that the process is excruciatingly slow and difficult.
  • Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Sherman is a hamster that used to be a pet at a university and is an Insufferable Genius. This is lampshaded:
    Sherman: (on Underdog) I'm just not in the mood to see another movie about talking animals.
    Socrates: Hypocrite.
  • In The Captain of the Virtual Console, a talking Haunter is seen in chapter 9.
  • Casey Steele: Casey's familiar can appear as a talking spider monkey.
  • A Certain Droll Hivemind: As said in "Entry 15", after Yui, the Character Narrator, has seen such a work of animated fiction:
    "Well, I bet this one eats a lot! Look how fat he is," Abe Eiko agreed, zooming in to take another shot. "Awesome! Come on, fatty catty? How many baby birds did you eat today?"
    The cat, being a cat, did not answer. Cats cannot talk, except in works of fiction.
  • In Ginny Weasley: Double Life, Milikan is a snake who is fully capable of talking to humans without the need for Parseltongue.
  • Hard Being Pure: Dr. Evans is a talking rat taking his job as a doctor quite seriously.
  • Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead: Werebeasts can speak like normal humans in their animal forms.
  • The RWBY Loops turns Zwei into one, with a refined and aristocratic British accent. A minor running gag is a nonlooper encountering this and asking You Can Talk?? to which the reply is a Blunt "Yes" and then moving on with the conversation.
  • This Bites!: Thanks to Soundbite's voice-granting powers and the ability to communicate with other animals (being a snail and all), he can make any mostly land-based animal (sea creatures have a different dialect) the crew comes across this... usually with very humorous results.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Disney Animated Canon has more examples that you can shake a stick at. At many times it tries to maintain a semi-realism with animals not talking to humans.
    • For example, it would seem logical that mermaids would be able to communicate with other living beings in the ocean or that a human raised by animals would understand the animal language. A couple of unusual exceptions to this rule were used in Cinderella where Cinderella and the mice were able to communicate with each other in English without real explanation for it and in The Rescuers films, where children were able to communicate with multiple species of animals (often donning clothing).
    • The animals in The Jungle Book (1967), though Louie the orangutan and the monkeys are Partially Civilized Animals. They're capable of thinking strategically and throwing parties, but predators still eat other animals, and Shere Kahn has an irrational fear of fire. In the sequel, they talk to other human characters besides Mowgli.
    • Sebastian, Flounder, Flotsam, Jetsam, and many of the other marine animals from The Little Mermaid. They talk to Ariel and Sebastian talks to Eric at one point. They also sing in the background when Ariel and Sebastian are in the boat.
    • At the end of The Rescuers, when Penny is being interviewed by the TV reporter, she tells him that she talks to Bernard and Bianca. The reporter is surprised. It can be chalked up to that in their world, kids can understand/communicate with animals, but adults can't. Also, the array of wild animals Cody could talk to in The Rescuers Down Under: kangaroos, wombats, mice, lizards...
    • Though, oddly, Pocahontas averts this. Native Americans being one with the spirits of nature, this is one of the rare cases where it would make at least a little sense.
  • Donkey, the Three Little Pigs, the Three Blind Mice, and the Big Bad Wolf from Shrek, all talk.
  • Up features dogs with special collars that translate their thoughts into speech. Said thoughts are... not that deep. They're honestly- SQUIRREL! -what one would expect from hyperactive dogs...
  • Prince Charming thinks that he is going nuts when he sees the talking mice and sentient bluebirds in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time.
  • In Penguins of Madagascar, Dave the Octopus can speak to humans in the guise of Dr. Brine.
  • Max, Feathertop's Non-Human Sidekick in The Scarecrow. Justified as he was in the scarecrow's pocket when Miss Bee Bee brought him to life.
  • Strange Magic: Despite being a film about fairies, elves and goblins, the only example is a love potioned frog who sings "Only Fools Rush In" by Elvis Presley.
  • The TV Movie Annabelle's Wish uses this, with a number of rules - for one thing, they can only speak on Christmas Day because because Santa Claus is the one who grants them the ability. And, as shown by Annabelle, it's possible to give up the ability permanently in order to give it to a human.
  • Golden Films tends to use this trope.
  • All of the animals from Roadside Romeo behave and speak like humans, to the point where the film's antagonist is a mobster who collects "money" from street gangs. But they're all still feral creatures, and the humans who do appear in the film treat them like common stray animals.
  • The titular Lion of Lion of Oz can speak, but only when he's in Oz.
  • Leo: The animals can talk, but do not want people to know this, because they risk being "sent to a scientist or something". Leo breaks this rule in order to help the students with their problems.
  • Nearly every animal, including the title character herself in the Christmas special Olive, the Other Reindeer. Most are just treated like average people.
  • The large cast of animals from Animals United speak as clearly as the humans do. Except for the Leopard, for some reason.
  • Storks: In this case, talking storks and wolves, though there are plenty others throughout the movie. The penguins oddly only speak Simlish.
  • All Dogs Go to Heaven 2: unlike the previous film, where they were limited to Animal Talk, the sequel turns Charlie and Itchy into talking animals who can openly speak with humans. Justified since they are both angels now. Charlie later uses a miracle given to him by Annabelle to turn Sasha, who is still a normal dog, into a talking animal as well.
  • With the exception of Scrat the squirrel, all animals in Ice Age are anatomically correct prehistoric animals that can talk. Nevertheless they only interact with a human once and is in the first movie, and is a toddler (but seems to understand them). Zigzagged since it's possible he just Speaks Fluent Animal.
  • Globehunters: An Around The World In 80 Days Adventure: The protagonists of the film are a female cheetah, a male gorilla, and a male parrot.
  • Barnyard (along with Back at the Barnyard) combines this with Civilized Animal (or Partially Civilized Animal). Almost all the animals shown in both the movie and the TV-series seem to have human-level intelligence and can talk just like any regular human would (and a lot of the animals can walk on two legs), but only do so when no humans are around to witness them.
    • In the TV-series, Otis and the gang will sometimes disguise themselves as humans in certain events, and are at risk of being exposed by their Hysterical Woman Nosy Neighbor, Mrs. Beady.
  • Brave: The witch's crow can talk (sassily), and is implied to be her familiar.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The eponymous Jackie of Tommy And The Cool Mule.
  • The agents in the Disney movie G-Force talk, though they use a device to translate animal speech. Though they are at first led to believe that they are genetically engineered to have higher intelligence and special skills, they discover that they are actually ordinary animals with special training. This implies that all animals can speak with a translator.
  • Enchanted: Subverted. Sure, all the animals in fairy-tale land Andalasia can talk (and sing), but once Pip the Chipmunk is transported to the real world, he becomes a Speech-Impaired Animal, and instead communicates mostly using equally-improbable gesticulating, miming and (more probable) chipmunk sounds.
  • Paulie is interesting in that, while the titular parrot can speak, he is the only one of his kind that can.
  • Baxter is narrated by a murderous pit bull who longs for a proper master.
  • George of the Jungle brings us an overlapped with Civilized Animal and Intellectual Animal example. A talking gorilla named Ape.
  • The Scribbler: At different points, the main character is convinced that both a bulldog and the elevator in her high-rise are speaking to her. However, since she's a recovering psychiatric patient, even she's pretty sure she's just hallucinating.
  • Golden Winter has all of the dogs (and one cat) talking. There's no inter-species communication, but the dogs can apparently understand human speech.
  • The Francis the Talking Mule series is a 1950's film series about a talking mule. It spawned seven movies.
  • Spy Hard: When Dick Steele and his horse are about to fall off the roof of a hotel building, the horse makes a very human "Whoah!" after Steele does the same.
  • Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes. Absolutely not Played for Laughs here, it's Hulk Speak plus No Indoor Voice which is Played for Drama (and very often for awesome - like Caesar shouting "NOOOOOO!" in response to the obligatory "Get your stinkin' paw off me, ya damn dirty ape!" line, which reportedly made audiences go from roaring in laughter to dead silent in shock.)
  • Paws has PC, a dog who can talk using a modified translation software. At first he just sounds like a robot until Zac reprograms it to make him sound like Billy Connolly.

    Jokes 
  • Check jokes under the subtrope Not in Front of the Parrot!.
  • A guy has a talking dog. He brings it to a talent scout. "This dog can speak English," he claims to the unimpressed agent. "Okay, Sport," the guys says to the dog, "what’s on the top of a house?" "Roof!" the dog replies. "Oh, come on..." the talent agent responds. "All dogs go ‘roof’." "No, wait," the guy says. He asks the dog "what does sandpaper feel like?" "Rough!" the dog answers. The talent agent gives a condescending blank stare. He is losing his patience. "No, hang on," the guy says. "This one will amaze you. " He turns and asks the dog: "Who, in your opinion, was the greatest baseball player of all time?" "Ruth!" goes the dog. And the talent scout, having seen enough, boots them out of his office onto the street. And the dog turns to the guy and says "Maybe I shoulda said DiMaggio?"
  • A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. The snail says "Please, sir... it's cold out here. Could I please come in and warm my shell by your fire?" The guy picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. One year later, there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail yells "What the hell was that all about?"
  • A guy has a parrot that can sing and speak beautifully. He takes it to the synagogue on Rosh Hashonah and makes a wager that the bird can conduct the High Holiday service better than the temple's cantor. When the big moment comes, though, the parrot is silent. The guy is outraged. He takes the bird home and is about to kill it when the bird finally speaks: "Schmuck! Think of the odds we'll get on Yom Kippur!"
  • A grasshopper hops into a bar and up onto a bar stool. "Hey," says the bartender, "We have a drink named after you!" The grasshopper says "You have a drink named 'Maurice'?"
  • A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender if he could get a free beer if he can show him something unbelievable. The bartender agrees. The man puts a hamster and a frog on the bar and all of a sudden the frog starts singing a Broadway medley. A man at the end of the bar says, "That's amazing, I'll give you $1,000 for the frog!" The man agreed and the guy paid $1000 and left with the frog. The bartender said he could have gotten much more for the frog, but the man says, "Frogs are easy to come by — the hamster's a ventriloquist."
  • A man wishing to make a bet on horse racing visits the stables to inspect the horses, then one horse behind his back tells him "Bet on me! I'll win this race!", to which the man exclaims "WHAAAATTTT....!?", the horse laughs and says "What? Are you surprised that I can talk?" and the man replies "No, I'm surprised that you think you'll be the winner."

    Literature 
  • Blue Moose: The titular moose speaks both English and French and works as the head waiter at a restaurant, where he serves bowls of chowder on his antlers. He is not tame.
  • Book of Imaginary Beings: According to an African legend, all animals could talk until a man named Hochigan stole this gift from them. Descartes believed that all monkeys could talk but simply stayed silent so as to not be made to work, and an Argentine writer named Lugones claimed a chimp was taught to speak but died under the strain of this effort.
  • Paradise Rot: The Dog gains speech after he gets bitten by a zombie.
  • In Masques, the hero acquires a talking wolf companion. Who is later revealed to be a human mage who turned into a wolf to avoid prosecution. She herself is a shapeshifter, and can talk in animal form, which leads to hilarious situations like her shouting at the top of her voice while she's a mouse. It's implied to not be very loud.
  • Animals generally don't talk in Bellacrín y la Sombra, with one exception: Salanokatar, the bat who lives in the Inconvenient Woods. He talks backwards.
  • Mini the elephant from Diana Wynne Jones's The Merlin Conspiracy.
  • Fang, the Learned English Dog, from Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon. It also got a robot duck in it. Thomas Pynchon is a weird writer.
  • Discworld:
    • Gaspode the Wonder Dog... although he's sneaky about it, because everyone knows dogs can't talk.
    • Other Discworld examples include the eponymous characters from The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, the cat, mouse, duck and rabbit from Moving Pictures, the raven Quoth from the Susan/Death novels, Ponce da Quirm's parrot from Eric, and Cohen the Barbarian's horse from the short story "Troll Bridge". (The kangaroo from The Last Continent doesn't count, being a trickster-spirit in disguise.)
  • Grimya, from Louise Cooper's Indigo series, is a sentient mutant wolf who usually poses as the heroine's guard dog. She's telepathic (at least where the heroine is concerned), and can also speak out loud (albeit in a raspy growl, and with significant effort). When she's first introduced, she's ashamed of her abilities; her mother tried to kill her, and humans tend to mistake her for a demon.
  • One of the hallmarks of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Note that Talking Animals are specific creatures (in fact, the Beavers are Civilized Animals, and Reepicheep is more-or-less a Funny Animal) and are differentiated from ordinary, non-talking animals, which can still be eaten or used for labor.
  • Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place features a talking raven, though it's suggested that the raven is an ordinary raven and the unusual thing is that Jonathan Rebeck can understand it.
  • Edgar Allan Poe did this with his famous poem, The Raven. The titular raven speaks to the narrator, saying "nevermore".
  • In Peter S. Beagle's Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros, the rhinoceros talks. It also maintains that it is a unicorn.
  • The Cat in Coraline, which can speak in the Other Mother's World.
  • Charlotte's Web: The barn animals talk to each other. Fern eavesdrops on them. When she tells her mom about the animals' conversations, her mom thinks she has gone crazy and consults a therapist.
  • Played with in the works of S. J. Perelman; the narrator, a semi-fictionalized Author Avatar, occasionally had his pets "speak" in times of stress. Just one line, then they went silent. They might be stress-induced hallucinations.
  • The novels about "A Dog Called Himself" by Kenneth and Adrian Bird. Himself has been taught to speak by a cruel circus owner, and after escaping takes up with an Irish tinker with whom he has a series of adventures. The dog's unusual name comes from what the tinker exclaimed on hearing the dog speak: "It was as if himself were talking!"
  • Land of Oz: Every animal that makes the trip to Oz can talk there. Dorothy's dog Toto can as well, he's just quiet.
  • A Lion in the Meadow: The lion can talk, and mainly behaves like a real lion apart from eating only apples.
  • The Little Witch: The titular character has a raven familiar named Abraxas that can speak.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • In The Hobbit: Certain old ravens are able to speak the common language. When the old thrush, who has a language that can only be understood by certain humans, overhears Thorin explain this, it flies away and finds a raven to tell them news of Smaug's assault and death.
    • Beren and Lúthien: It's implied that Wargs and Werewolves can talk, as Draugluin says to Sauron "Huan is there!", and the giant wolf Carcharoth has no trouble talking to Beren and Lúthien (though, granted, they were shapeshifted at the time in wolf and vampire forms, respectively). Huan, the giant wolfhound, is also allowed speak human language only three times before dying. It is implied that they can talk because they are angelic spirits incarnated in animal bodies.
    • The Lord of the Rings: Eagles can talk all the time.
    • J. R. R. Tolkien's other works feature these as well, since they were often crafted as fairy tales for his children.
  • The Neverending Story: The animals can all talk. It's averted in the movie version, which makes the Swamp of Sadness scene, much much more tragic. As Artax gives a whole suicidal speech before drowning.
  • Apparently, from The Dresden Files, Mouse. Although not as traditionally meant. He can't speak English, due to the dog factor. But he can speak perfectly well to other dogs, and to fairies.
  • The Age of the Five: Mischief and other veez, although their ability to talk is rather limited.
  • In "Iron Shadows in the Moon", Conan the Barbarian and Olivia realize that things are bad from a talking parrot:
    Abruptly the bird spread its flaming wings and, soaring from its perch, cried out harshly: "Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!" and with a wild screech of horribly human laughter, rushed away through the trees to vanish in the opalescent shadows.
  • According to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the wizarding world contains a number of nonhuman creatures capable of speech to some degree, including centaurs, sphinxes, and merpeople.
  • Ralph Von Vau Vau is a genius mutant German Shepherd who appears in many of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories. He works in talk radio.
  • In The Cry of The Icemark there are giant talking snow leopards.
  • Stephen King's The Dark Tower features Zoltan the crow, who enjoys the poem "Beans, Beans the Musical Fruit", and Oy the billy-bumbler, who speaks mostly to Jake Chambers.
  • All of the prehistoric animals on Dinotopia have their own languages. Some of them even speak human languages.
  • In the Belgariad series, Polgara casts a spell to let the Emporer's bird speak, in order to convince him exactly who she is. The animals in general have their own languages that sorcerers can learn. Wolves in particular, seem to have human level intelligence, and one of them can understand human speech, and implies that she could speak it if she wanted to, but is worried about biting her tongue.
  • In If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, the eponymous mouse spends the entire book speaking to demand a variety of things.
  • Reynard the Fox: All animals are able to talk in this Mature Animal Story.
  • The Reynard Cycle: Tiecelin has a pet raven called Prophet that can speak. Though it only knows one word: "Doom."
  • Rats in Septimus Heap have the ability of talking. This leads to the establishment of the Message Rat Service.
  • While most mammals in the Spellsinger novels fit the Funny Animal trope, species with hooves (except for swine) retain their quadruped stance and belong under this one, as do the equally-handless cetaceans.
  • In Patricia A. McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, most of the creatures in Sybel's menagerie could talk at one time, but most have forgotten the languages of man, and speak only with magic now. The wise Boar Cyrin is the exception, who still speaks fluently.
  • In J. R. R. Tolkien's On Fairy-Stories, he distinguishes between the fairy tale proper and the beast fable, both of which used talking animals. In particular, fables where the beast is just a mask for a human, they are not fairy tales.
  • Anyone in Of Fear and Faith who isn’t a Beast Man is this, with Noble and Vatra being the most prominent examples.
  • A Fly Went By: All of the animals can speak, but otherwise behave according to their species.
  • In the Rainbow Magic series, there's Bertram the frog footman, and Doodle the rooster.
  • When The Robbers Came To Cardamom Town features a talking parrot and a talking camel. The former was taught by the man wh caught him in the American jungle, and the latter was taught by a dromedary. However, the robbers' lion and the dog can't speak.
  • Flight to the Lonesome Place: Marlowe—possibly. Only Anna Maria Rosalita and Luis Black know for sure and they aren't talking.
  • Tanith Lee:
    • In the parodic fairy tale The Dragon Hoard, pretty much all the animals talk.
    • In Prince On A White Horse, the white horse definitely can't talk, and will tell you so itself if you raise the subject.
  • Ursula Vernon:
    • Played with in The Raven and the Reindeer, a retelling of The Snow Queen. Gerta thinks she's met a talking raven, but it explains that actually it's just a raven and she's acquired a magical ability to understand the speech of birds. Later, she encounters a raft of magical otters who can talk in human speech because their mistress, the Snow Queen, felt it was beneath her to learn otter language. Near the end of the book, after Gerta loses the ability to understand raven speech, the raven admits that it can talk in human speech as well, but doesn't like to because it's difficult and hurts its throat.
    • Similarly in Summer in Orcus. Baba Yaga gives Summer a talking weasel as a traveling companion. It tells her not to expect magic or great wisdom from it, because it's a completely ordinary weasel; all weasels can talk, it says, it's just that humans aren't very good at listening.
  • Ratburger: Discussed when Zoe wants to have a cat who does voice impressions when she grows up.
  • "The Hare and the Pineapple": According to the first paragraph, in the olden days, all of the animals in "the forest" could speak English just like humans. Fruits and vegetables could also talk, apparently. Neither case is given an explanation.
  • Word of Mouse: Isaiah and his family can communicate with humans as a result of Animal Testing.
  • Discussed in Sam, Bangs & Moonshine where Sam imagines that Bangs the cat can talk.
  • Race to the Sun: Mr Yazzie, a horned toad, who is also Nizhoni's mentor. He may in fact be a spirit in the form of a horned toad, however. And then there are the heralds of the sacred mountains of the Navajo, who are huge talking birds.
  • In the original Tarzan, the Mangani apes that raise Tarzan are a "serious" example — something that could conceivably exist rather than something accepted because they're in a cartoon or something. They're a species that's advanced enough to have their own spoken language, but still look animal and spend their time sitting in trees and non-human stuff like that. There's also a scene highlighting how Tarzan's human intelligence is still more encompassing than theirs, as he's able to think about long-term consequences in a way they're not.
  • Letterland has Bouncing Ben (a bunny), Clever Cat, Dippy Duck, Eddie Elephant, Poor Peter (a puppy), Sammy Snake, and Zig Zag Zebra who can all talk.
  • Phantastes: After eating fairy food:
    This day I found plenty of food in the forest—strange nuts and fruits I had never seen before. I hesitated to eat them; but argued that, if I could live on the air of Fairy Land, I could live on its food also. I found my reasoning correct, and the result was better than I had hoped; for it not only satisfied my hunger, but operated in such a way upon my senses that I was brought into far more complete relationship with the things around me. The human forms appeared much more dense and defined; more tangibly visible, if I may say so. I seemed to know better which direction to choose when any doubt arose. I began to feel in some degree what the birds meant in their songs, though I could not express it in words, any more than you can some landscapes. At times, to my surprise, I found myself listening attentively, and as if it were no unusual thing with me, to a conversation between two squirrels or monkeys. The subjects were not very interesting, except as associated with the individual life and necessities of the little creatures: where the best nuts were to be found in the neighbourhood, and who could crack them best, or who had most laid up for the winter, and such like; only they never said where the store was. There was no great difference in kind between their talk and our ordinary human conversation. Some of the creatures I never heard speak at all, and believe they never do so, except under the impulse of some great excitement. The mice talked; but the hedgehogs seemed very phlegmatic; and though I met a couple of moles above ground several times, they never said a word to each other in my hearing.
  • The Toymaker's Apprentice: As it turns out, animalkind are capable of learning to speak each others' languages. In fact, some can even learn to speak human languages. Stefan overhearing a rat speaking to Christian that lets him in on the plot.
  • Bruce Coville's Book of...:
    • Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens: Lucky the dog in Brian and the Aliens, but only while Miglick the Veeblezanian is temporarily using his body.
    • Bruce Coville's Book of Spine Tinglers: The wish-granting snail in Those Three Wishes.
    • Bruce Coville's Book of Magic: The lizard in Wizard's Boy that serves Bellenmore; the Squonk that Phoebe meets in Byrd Song. And its babies.
  • Goblins in the Castle: Late in Goblins on the Prowl, when the giant toad of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle is captured by the evil wizard Helagon, he uses a spell to grant it the power of speech and demand to know where his true quarry is. He later takes it off again, but after Helagon is banished away, the second spell wears off and the toad regains its speech, which proves helpful in letting the group break the spell that turned it into a toad.
  • Alfonso from The Yellow Bag is a talking rooster. This isn't just Raquel's imagination, either, as he briefly speaks to her family in chapter 6.
  • King Crow: The crow is capable of human speech and talks to Cormac at length.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Ants in Your Pants: The cast of the show included Lickety Split, the talking monkey, and a trio of talking ants.
  • Mister Ed, of course, because no-one can talk to a horse, of course, unless it's the famous Mister Ed.
  • Denshi Sentai Denziman has IC the talking dog.
  • Muffy the mouse from Today's Special. Lived in a mousehole (although she upgrades it a bit later), but on speaking terms with the rest of the staff — the security system considered a disaster damaging her home a bad thing, for one.
  • Parodied in a series of That Mitchell and Webb Look sketches featuring a farmer who clearly thinks his horse is a talking animal, and makes numerous efforts to try and break the ice, only for the horse to 'snub' him each time. This tends to result in a very emotional tantrum on the part of the farmer very quickly. The horse, however, actually doesn't talk for the same reason that most horses outside of this trope don't talk.
  • Wishbone, from the show of the same name. Though in the stories he imagines himself in, no one sees his character as a dog.
  • Darwin the dolphin in SeaQuest DSV is able to talk due to a translation machine Lucas has built. That doesn't make him any easier to understand, though.
  • In the Disney Sitcom Dog with a Blog, The dog Stan can talk, but the kids are afraid to tell their parents, for fear of him being sent back to the shelter or worse.
  • In the Danger 5 universe, apparently its commonplace for dogs to talk. Even Nazi guard dogs.
  • Samson from Belgian children's series Samson En Gert is a talking dog.
  • The 1950's sitcom The People's Choice had a Basset Hound named Cleo who would provide snarky comments to the viewers. In addition it is made clear that the dog in series is fairly intelligent and is sometimes seen with human accessories such as glasses and a cigar.
  • Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch is a talking cat, although he was once human.
  • Vision On, a British series made for deaf children, featured a tortoise named Humphrey who spoke in speech bubbles.
  • In Switched, the parakeet that Ayumi finds in the first episode can do more than simply repeat what it's heard. This is because it is a human in a bird's body.
  • Supernatural: An episode features a supposedly senile lady who claims to be talking to the nursing home cat, but it turns out the cat can speak.
  • In Llan-ar-goll-en, only a few animals can talk, those being the main character, Ceri the Dog-tective, her cousin Caradog, Barti's pirate-cat Ianto, and reindeer Cadi and Carwyn. In Ceri's case, she has a tendency to roll her R's a lot, including one of her frequently used catchphrases ("Interrrrrresting!").

    Music 
  • "Pray For The Girls" from Heroes & Villains is from various POVs, including the Talking Dog.

    Myths & Religion 
  • The Bible:
    • Balaam's donkey was temporarily granted the ability to speak (he had beaten her three times because she was trying to avoid an angel placed in the way to prevent him from carrying out a mission of which God disapproved. The third time, God gave her the ability to explain herself).
    • The serpent in the Garden of Eden, who convinced Eve to eat the apple.
  • In mainstream Islam it is forbidden to kill or eat frogs. This comes from a Hadith in which Muhammad states that when frogs croak they are saying tasbeeh/praising God.
  • Hera temporarily gives Achilles' horse, Xanthos, the power of speech for a few minutes in The Iliad.
  • Older Than Dirt: A few ancient Egyptian stories have these; most are of the fable variety. It's not clear, on the other hand, just what the talking Serpent Lord of the island is in The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. The sailor certainly treats it as (the manifestation of) a deity.
  • The Voyage of Máel Dúin: Island no. 18 is discovered by the voyagers when they hear voices and the chanting of psalms, and follow the sound until they see a rock-like island full of talking birds. A little later they land on another small island where an immortal hermit lives with a swarm of birds which, he explains, are the souls of his relatives and descendants who have died back in Ireland. This suggests that all the talking birds are actually human souls awaiting the Last Judgement.

    Pinballs 
  • Congo has Amy, a gorilla who talks using a translator glove device. She gives callouts to the players.
    Amy: Player one catch ball.

    Podcasts 

    Puppet Shows 
  • Topo Gigio, the star of an Italian/Spanish puppet show, is a mouse that can talk and also can sing, and very well — he's often voiced by professional singers.
  • Die Liewe Heksie, a South African TV show, Lavinia the witch has a friend called Karel Kat, who is a smartly-dressed, well-spoken, human-sized cat capable of driving a smart car, flying a helicopter, and correcting Lavinia's frequent Malaprops. She also has a talking magical horse called Griet.
  • The Noddy Shop has a talking lobster named Johnny Crawfish that is Noah's pet. In addition, there are toy characters based on animals that also speak, like Bonita Flamingo, Sherman Turtle and Granny Duck.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In The Chronicles of Aeres, these were created by the God of Beasts Tolgamyr as a Flawed Prototype for what eventually became the Wilderkind. They are fully sapient, but have no interest in civilization and so remain extremely rare. They do often cooperate with their Wilderkind cousins in general and those willing to protect the forest in particular, regardless of their race.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Giant eagles and owls can speak in most editions, presumably as a Shout-Out to The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. Talking owls are magical beings that can not only talk, but speak at least seven languages. Also, raven familiars have speech as their unique ability, and the 3rd edition spell Awakening can convert normal animals into this trope.
    • Hsiao (giant, wise, spellcasting talking owls) from Mystara and Ravenkin (sapient, oversized ravens) from Ravenloft are both slightly obscure player character races in older editions of D&D.
  • Exalted: Wyld mutation, First Age genetic engineering programs and experiments by gods and Lunars have created numerous breeds of talking, sapient animals. They're generally quite rare, but in the nation of Halta they're common and treated as full citizens.
  • Golden Sky Stories: The player characters themselves, with the addition that they can shapeshift into human form.
  • GURPS Thaumatology: Alchemical Baroque features talking cats. They're not magical or anything; some cats in the "Known Lands" are just naturally sapient, to some extent, and a few of them can talk.
  • World Tree (RPG): While most primes are either anthropomorphic or fully fantasy creatures, the Sleeth are simply panthers that can talk.

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE has a few, such as Tahtorak, though his dialogue is mostly asking where the hell he is and how he got here. Krakha originally couldn't speak but learned how after she started copying the Toa Metru's forms and gained some of their memories, though it took her awhile to get it down right (before she could string together coherent sentences, the most she could do was take words she heard and rearrange them to get her meaning across, i.e. when she encountered Vakama while disguised as Nokama, she answered a question with "Not" rather than "No" because she hadn't yet heard anyone use the latter word in a sentence).
  • Most animals in the My Little Pony franchise are able to communicate with humans and humanoid beings.

    Video Games 
  • Dare to Dream: A lot of the characters in Tyler's imagination are seemingly-ordinary animals that talk, tying into the game's theme of Tyler growing out of the fixtures of his childhood, like cartoons with talking animals.
  • Forge Quest: You will encounter these in the game. For example, the town the Player Character hails from has Mr. Clucks (a chicken) and Solomon (an owl).
  • Blanca, from Shadow Hearts: Covenant, is a wolf who occasionally shows himself to be at least as smart as the main cast, plus a fair bit more savvy. Like Snoopy, he doesn't actually talk — except in a sidequest of his where he converses with other wolves.
  • Toy Odyssey: The Lost and Found has Buck the firefly, who serves as Brand's ally in the game.
  • Not just Exile III but most of Spiderweb Software's games feature feature giant talking spiders. Exile III (and its remake Avernum 3) also include giant talking cockroaches. In addition, ALL Spiderweb Software games include the Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders (GIFTS) Usually as an Easter Egg.
  • EXTRAPOWER: King Leo, a 200-year-old talking lion who owes his sentience to the flame princess. He's unique in the world of EXTRAPOWER: even when Giant Fist presents animals that the human characters know by name, they are perfectly normal animals who do not speak human language.
  • Linda the mutated lungfish and Mr. Pokeylope in Psychonauts. Since other local animals have psychic abilities, it's possible they're not the only ones.
  • There are a few in the Quest for Glory series of adventure games. There's Fenris, talking rat and familiar to the wizard Erasmus, a fox who gives you some advice in the first game, and Manu the monkey in the third game.
  • Loulou and Coucou from the Nancy Drew games Curse of Blackmoor Manor and Ransom of the Seven Ships, respectively.
  • Daxter and Pecker in the Jak and Daxter series, in addition to the rest of the Precursors.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, there's a Ferelden proverb claiming that "The mabari is clever enough to speak, and wise enough to know not to." No mabari ever actually speak in-game, but it's enough to make one wonder...
  • Go play a Sonic the Hedgehog game. Any one. Try to find an animal that doesn't talk.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Kaepora Gaebora from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. He is a wise and altruistic owl who gives Link advice throughout his childhood; sadly, he is excessively talkative and his information is mostly trivial, and so his honest endeavors to guide Link come across as useless babbling to most gamers, who usually mash the A button to get through the pages and pages of text. He has a way to punish the Button Mashers, though — he gives them an option to have him repeat himself or end the conversation, and the cursor always defaults to "Yes, I do want you to repeat".
    • There is another wise talking owl in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening as well as a whole village of talking animals.
    • Also in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess while in Wolf Form you can talk to pretty much any animal, your horse Epona in particular says barely anything aside from that she "hates Link's wolf form and wishes he'd turn back soon"
    • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past people cursed by the Dark Realm may turn into a talking animal, if they're lucky (compared to some of the freakishly disturbing transformations Link comes across)
  • In Fallen London, it seems that all sorts of animals can speak in the Neath. They like to collect secrets and will tell them to any human clever enough to catch them. The Labyrinth of Tigers is controlled by the tigers themselves, who speak (and smoke hookahs). Many of the pet descriptions contain quotes from the animal in question, which can include bats, lizards, ravens, dogs, and some significantly weirder beings. There are also talking and mechanically inclined rats, officially termed rattus faber, but more commonly and crudely called LBs. Ordinary rats exist as well, though there's no sign they can talk.
  • Reality-On-The-Norm: There are several animals like that living in or around the city, including a talking chicken and two sapient, telepathic foxes, as well as a brave little sheep.
  • Odin Sphere:
    • The dragons are all capable of human speech with the exception of Leventhan.
    • Compared to all other frogs seen in the game, the Frog that appears in Mercedes's story is more than capable of offering a few snarky quips. It makes sense seeing that the frog is really Ingway, who was cursed into that form.
  • Bravely Default has a talking fox that sells you items. You fight him alongside the Adventurer in a secret room of the Bonus Dungeon.
    • Said fox as well as his adventurer companion also appear in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light but you can only talk to him if you turn into an animal yourself. Speaking of which, turning into an animal is an intricate plot point and there are numerous animals you can communicate with.
  • Parkasaurus has a small cast of talking dinosaurs who give you missions and tutorials.
  • Pokémon:
    • In all the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, PokéPark Wii series, and all the Rumble games (except the first), the Pokemon can talk. Whether it was truly this trope or simply Translation Convention was ambiguous at first in PokéPark, but the sequels to both games drop hints that the Pokémon really were talking. In Pokémon Conquest, Arceus speaks with the player. And in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 it confirms that Zorua and Zoroark can transform into humans and integrate into human society with the humans none the wiser. The same can likely be assumed with Mew and Ditto.
    • The eponymous Detective Pikachu is a Pikachu who speaks with a deep masculine voice and is basically a Hardboiled Detective... except that he's a Pikachu.
    • In Pokémon Sun and Moon, a Rotom gains the ability to talk when it merges with the player's Pokédex, becoming a Fairy Companion. In the same game, some Pokémon are capable of forming coherent words and sentences, such as the Totem Gumshoos/Raticate saying "Buzzaff/Scram", Totem Mimikyu saying "Seeeee meee?!" and Tapu Koko proclaiming, "IT IS TIME" before you fight it. There is also the Mimikyu in the motel room that tells you it curses you.
    • In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Necrozma screams a single coherent word at Megalo Tower when it's in its Ultra Necrozma form: "Liight!" This is meant to symbolize its single-minded obsession with devouring any and all light it can find to soothe the pain it's felt since it received a Game-Breaking Injury so long ago.
  • Nine Elefants has a talking cat named Eustache. When the main character (the daughter of his owner) asks why he never revealed that talent before, he comments that he saved his prose for the hand that fed him.
  • Doggie Dash has Rocky the dog and Wendy the cat, who offer a hurricane of bad animal-themed puns while serving as narrators and guides.
  • Persona 5: Morgana is a talking cat, but with a twist: only people who have been inside of the Metaverse can understand him. Basically, this works on a similar principle as Gaspode the Wonder Dog from the Discworld series. Everybody knows that cats can't talk, so all a normal person hears is "Meow". But once you hear him talk in the Metaverse, and your brain accepts that you can hear him, you start to understand him in reality. This is inevitably followed by some variation of "Did that cat just talk?" every time the Phantom Thieves take on a new member. Proves to be much more important than you might think, as The Traitor gives themselves away due to a slip up over this little fact. Pancakes, anyone?
    Ryuji: The cat's talkin'? ... Why can you talk!? You're a cat!
    Morgana: How should I know?
    Ryuji: You hearin' this too...?
    Protagonist: Meow?
    Ryuji: This is no time to be joking around!
  • The raven from Mystery of Mortlake Mansion can speak, once he has consumed a suitable potion concocted by the protagonist. He even remarks that he was getting tired of "all that 'caw-caw' business".
  • The Elder Scrolls:
  • Elroy Goes Bugzerk:
    • A mockingbird taunts Elroy on one screen.
    • The technoloptera can talk by broadcasting radio waves.
  • The Heart Pumps Clay: The party member, Crow, a talking crow.
  • Unhappy Ever After has Ratter, a talking cat who's also from London, like Sophia.
  • Forget Me Not: My Organic Garden: Dead animals implanted with a magic organ, turn into this. And only dead animals can have one implanted. That leads one Creepy Child girl to kill her pet cat, and only then getting the explanation that they always Came Back Wrong due to having a new soul.
  • Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift: All of the forest animals, such as Chip the Squirrel.
  • All of the animals in The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge can talk, except the Hamsters of Doom, who just growl.
  • Uncle Albert's Adventures:
    • Tom can talk despite being a chameleon. It's never explained why.
    • Uncle Albert's Mysterious Island has a talking parrot called Kipling. He can still talk if you turn him into a frog.
  • In OFF, Pablo AKA The Judge is a talking cat and embodies many Animal Stereotypes of such. He is later revealed to have a brother named Valerie, but he is long since dead and his body is being controlled by Japhet, who is a talking bird.

    Web Animation 
  • In My Little Pony Meets, most of the Human characters will comment on this when they meet the Ponies.
  • Homestar Runner:
    • The Cheat is probably one of the smartest characters in the cast, but is a vaguely feline/rodent critter who is shaped like a wedge of cheese (or maybe an anvil) and speaks in an incomprehensible language of his own. The Cheat has little problem speaking English when making his own cartoons, doing pretty decent impressions of everyone in the show. (Pretty decent for a The Cheat. For a regular person, not so much.)
    • The Show Within a Show Cheat Commandoes features (supposedly) the same species as The Cheat who can speak fluent English.
  • Bee and Puppycat is an odd case. The title character speaks with the voice of a Vocaloid, and the result isn't technically speech, but singing (in an unknown language). However, the other characters can understand what Puppycat says. The viewer can't, but subtitles are provided.
    Bee: Hey, you talk! Kind of.
  • DSBT InsaniT: There are a couple examples of this. From the main cast, there is Frog, Snake, and Perry.
  • Dreamscape:
    • Will is a talking woodpecker.
    • Megalania is a talking...megalania.
  • The Grim: In the first episode, Gertrude comes across a fox that, after it takes the contents of her basket, brings her back a corked bottle and asks her to open it.

    Webcomics 
  • Beyond the End: Most creatures in the comic can talk, but most significantly are the amphiteres and ravens.
  • In Holiday Wars, Ground Hog's Day is personified as a talking animal, which can be seen in this episode.
  • In Koan of the Day, the guru is often seen talking to a tortoise, who usually criticizes his logic or mocks his pretension.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • Kiki and Bub-bun are halfway between this and Funny Animal. Both display the instincts of their respective species; for example, Kiki, being a ferret, is prone to hide shiny objects and mess behind the couch and Bun-bun, being a rabbit, is prone to chewing on things in his environment. However, both also often act like people, although in Bun-bun's case, it's a rather sociopathic person.
    • There is also Frog a high-ranking member of Hereti-Corp, Percy a cloned wolly mammoth, and Teddy Weddy who appeared briefly in early comics and later on was brought back as a host of a literature segment, although Frog and Percy are both cases of genetic modification.
  • Spark, Dominic Deegan's pet cat, has just about as much deadpan snark and dry wit as anyone else in the cast. It's apparently a mutation caused by high ambient magic.
  • Sniper Wolf's pet wolf, Berthold, from the Metal Gear Solid fan webcomic The Last Days of FOXHOUND doesn't actually speak, but is a telepath somewhat more intelligent than the human cast. He has spoken to Liquid, Octopus, and Raven and has a varying degree of disdain for any human who isn't Wolf. He got his brain fried after being electrocuted while trying to stop Gray Fox and seems to behave like a normal wolf towards the end of the comic as a result.
  • In The KA Mics the Penguins would qualify, although only other penguins, and the reader, can understand them.
  • Autumnside has a talking wolf, as well as a few talking pumpkins.
  • While no one knows exactly what Red XIII is in Ansem Retort, he's certainly treated as a pet, and he can speak telepathically. Oddly enough, the only ones that understand him are Diz and Xemnas.
  • Coleman, the tiny blue polar bear from Sore Thumbs, albeit with a speech impediment.
  • Woo from Sandra and Woo is a talking raccoon. All the animals, including Woo's friends Shadow (a fox) and Sid (a squirrel) speak the same language, but only Woo is able to communicate with humans. He's not talking to anyone but his owner Sandra, though, since he is afraid of ending up in a laboratory otherwise.
  • Kieri from Slightly Damned can speak while in the form of a snow bunny. It could be because she's an angel, it could be because it's a partly botched curse, or it could just be magic.
  • In The Order of the Stick, it was always known that Vaarsuvius' familiar Blackwing is capable of speech.note  If Vaarsuvius was shocked the first time the bird talked in common, it was because for a long time Blackwing refused to speak V's language, due to having previously held the elf in disdain.
  • Realmwalker has Surge, a magical water horse, and also Huginn and Muninn, 2 talking ravens.
  • Half of Zoophobia's cast are these. The animal inhabitants are all mystically gifted with the ability to walk and talk, whether they choose to acknowledge that fact or not.
  • Odin of Von Slayer is the heroine's talking Scottie dog, Scottish accent included.
  • Wizard/Sorcerer familiars can talk to people in Our Little Adventure. The two so far are Angelika's rat familiar Norveg, and Simonicus' (so far unnamed) cat familiar.
  • Krosp from Girl Genius, a sarcastic cat-based construct.
  • Nature of Nature's Art stars them nearly exclusively, with a few unspeaking humans and a perfectly mundane Cadillac filling out the rest of the cast where applicable.
  • Skin Horse Explained by the animals being the creations of mad scientists. In the Once & Future story ark Unity discovers that although the local animals aren't the talking to humans variety they have picked up the bureaucratic traits of the local Notaries in their own language and lives.
  • Wizard School has Goatsie, a talking goat who is Graham's familiar and is obsessed with eating shoes.
  • A horse in Thornsaddle can talk, but is rather rude when he chooses to do so.
  • A Beginner's Guide to the End of the Universe has animal sidekicks who cannot talk, but can communicate telepathically and are as intelligent as any human.
  • The Wolves from Roommates can talk, they are also pretty much the Savage Wolves from all fiction ever, so except for very special circumstances (like when their current ruler asked them offer a favor to the cast) this wont be noticed.
  • The Bug Pond features talking insects and arachnids.
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: In "Why A Gorilla?", McNinja runs into some hyenas that apparently can talk. Judy, being a local, claims that it's "just a mimic trick" and "they can't really talk," but it seems like an insufficient explanation given the short but appropriate things they say. McNinja is extremely freaked out by them.
  • The animal forms of the Beings in But I'm a Cat Person. Inconspicuous as long as they don't open their mouths (and aren't of too exotic a species).
  • Schlock Mercenary has Uplifted elephants, apes, monkeys,and polar bears shown; presumably, there are others, and the can all talk the local language(s). And occasionally complain about the instincts that were 'left in' by the Uplift Congress....
  • Almost the entire cast of Kukuburi, beginning with Mister Boojangles, who is a chameleon.
  • In Yokoka's Quest, most residents of Betel's Forest appear to be regular animals who can talk, though it's possible that some are only animals due to the barrier's magic. Elsewhere, the slug-otters bullying Tomo spoke Forest language but didn't show human-like behaviour beyond that. There are also civilized and funny talking animals, such as Yfa's family and Misha.
  • Spacetrawler has Bikke in book 2, who displays just enough human traits that he's not quite this trope, but the third book introduces Ruddock, a coyote who really is just a talking coyote. Not even the trickster kind, just the 'dumb as a sack of hammers' kind.

    Web Original 
  • Dusty from Sailor Nothing is another example of a talking cat helping out a magical girl. Although he can talk and can give people powers, he was initially just a normal cat.
  • Rufus, from Gaia Online/zOMG, is Ian's pet cat... who (for reasons that are never adequately explained) can actually talk. He's smart enough to run a store, but prolonged absence from his owner seems to have an 'adverse' effect on him. (He even starts using LOLSpeak instead of English.) Apparently he's from a 'long line' of talking cats that managed shops.
  • The eponymous Vatsy and Bruno are, respectively, a talking feline-like thing and a talking chimp.
  • Alexandria from Marble Witch is a talking crow, even though she was originally human. Others, like Strawberry and Cosyn are magical so talking is expected
  • SCP Foundation looked after SCP-1470, a fringed jumping spider with human-level intelligence also capable of telepathy, allowing him to speak with humans. However, in every other respect, he was a normal jumping spider... which included lifespan, and he died of natural causes after only three months. At first he thought the people he was talking to were other spiders like himself, and had something of a Freak Out when he realized he was actually speaking to those gigantic shapes moving outside his terrarium.
  • How to Hero discusses talking animals in its entry on pets and alien pets.

    Web Videos 
  • Fighting Leaf has a sidekick called Husky the Wolf who is a talking wolf puppet.
  • Talking Kitty Cat. The main star of this series is Sylvester, but he is also joined by a few other talking cats that his owner has.

    Western Animation 
  • The Adventures of Dawdle the Donkey: Dawdle the titular donkey, and Rola the Polar Bear, are both capable of speech.
  • Droopy and Screwy Squirrel talk as do all animals in their world.
  • Kassai and Luk: Marana is a woman cursed by Togoum to turn into a gazelle by day. She is still able to speak while she's in gazelle form, though.
  • All animals in My Gym Partner's a Monkey.
  • The Magic Key: In one episode, the children encounter a Crazy Pet Lady whose pets are all inexplicably able to talk.
  • All animals in Marsupilami (except Maurice, who just grunts). Also, Marsupilami does speak (and does not only say "HOUBA!").
    Marsupilami: Maurice, Snap out of it! Say something! Speak to Me! (Mind struck his head as he tells the viewers) Oh, He can't talk? (To Maurice) Uh, How about a burp? (Maurice covers Marsupilami down with a faint and Marsupilami uses his tail as a crane to push Maurice back) MOVE IT, Maurice!!!
  • Stanley: The titular character's pets.
  • Most of the entire Looney Tunes cast of characters are Civilized Animals or Funny Animals, but there are a few Talking Animals as well.
    • Daffy Duck sometimes acts like a Talking Animal, especially in the earlier cartoons where he's being hunted by Porky Pig. His transition to a Funny Animal in later cartoons is probably due to Anthropomorphic Shift.
    • Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird are Talking Animals. Note, however, that while the audience can understand, Granny doesn't seem to know they can talk... so maybe it's just Animal Talk. Though The Looney Tunes Show makes this extra confusing as Granny cannot understand Sylvester and Tweety, yet Witch Lezah can. Could be that they can talk and Granny doesn't notice because she's senile.
    • Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner, although they rarely speak (However the former speaks eloquently when paired with Bugs). However, this only applies in the animation — in comics, the Road Runner can be as eloquent as any of the other characters.
    • Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, the Tunes' spiritual successors, also have talking animals.
  • Woody Woodpecker; his rivals Buzz Buzzard and Wally Walrus are more like Funny Animals.
  • Many of the characters in the Hanna-Barbera stable, but inverted with Woofer and Wimper from the studio's 1976 series Clue Club. These two dogs can talk to each other and other animals, just not to humans.
  • It could be argued that Brian in Family Guy is actually more human than most of the Griffin family, but he is a dog. When he visited his birthplace...
    Luke: Lots of dogs have been born here. Refresh my memory. Which one were you again?
    Brian: I was the one who could talk.
    Luke: Brian! Come on in!
  • In The Flintstones, dinosaurs and other primitive animals could talk in some episodes, but not in others. (This was likely Depending on the Writer.) Fred's pet Dino could talk fluently in his first appearance, but not afterwards.
  • American Dad!, in the same universe as Family Guy, has Klaus and Reginald. Klaus is a german olympic skiier whose brain was put into the body of a goldfish, and Reginald is a homeless man whose...brain was put into the body of a koala. Both are seen openly talking to/interacting with people outside the CIA/Smith family (Klaus interacts directly with Jeff, and Reginald and Hayley have gone out together in various public places), and neither are ever reacted to as an oddity.
  • Courage the Cowardly Dog:
    • Many animals in the show. And trees. And foot fungi.
    • Courage himself is a rather unusual case, who shifts between Speech-Impaired Animal and talking depending on the situation and who's listening. At one point even calling Murial, since he can't use full English around her in person.
  • In the 2003 series of Strawberry Shortcake, Custard (a cat) and Honey Pie Pony can talk, while the rest of the animals cannot. Also Papaya Parrot and Raven, although they're one-shot characters (but Raven appears again in the European-release-only second Strawberry Shortcake GBA game).
  • The Legend of Tarzan: Unlike the movie, in which it is not clear whether the animals keep their ability to talk a secret from everyone except Tarzan or if they really can't talk, this series has the animals talking to Jane and Professor Porter.
  • Zigzagged with Monroe in The Life and Times of Juniper Lee. He can talk (with a Scottish accent), but only other magical beings (who are Invisible to Normals) can understand him; muggles perceive his speech as ordinary barking. (June has commented that this is the only reason her friends love him so much, seeing as they can't hear his rudeness and general bad attitude.)
  • The Talking Dog was a Recurring Character in The Powerpuff Girls. Unfortunately, while he could talk, he tended to be a poor conversationalist, making a lot of blunt, abrasive, and even insulting remarks (whether intentional or not, it's hard to say). (In the appropriately-named episode "Shut the Pup Up" where he was featured exclusively and the Girls had to keep him as a guest, it didn't take them long to wish he'd just stop talking.)
  • Kim Possible: While Rufus mostly speaks in gibberish, he is capable of basic elocution for some of his favorite words, including Cheese. More disturbingly, he seems to know not only what Cheese is, but what the context is regarding asking about cheese. One can wonder if Rufus was ever accidentally hit with an intelligence ray of some sort.
    • He actually was hit by exactly that in one episode, though he spoke prior to it.
    • In A Sitch in Time, Rufus' descendants are shown to be muscular, articulate, hyperintelligent mole rats.
  • While it isn't clear if the animals in Christopher the Christmas Tree can talk to humans or only to each other, there is an owl who can't 'talk' and can only hoot.
  • Paco from Maya & Miguel, although it is unclear whether he understands English or not.
  • Johnny Test:
    • Dukey was a normal dog until he got experimented on by the Test Twins. Then, he can talk and seems to be smarter than Johnny. He hides the fact that he can talk from everyone except Johnny and the twins since 1) he will get experimented on by the Government and 2) Johnny and the Twins will get in a lot of trouble if their parents find out. Though their parents did find out at one point and realizing how useful he was around the house (Filing taxes, making coffee etc...) they were fine with it but because of certain events and status quo they lost their memories of that at the end of the the episode.
    • Also there are other talking animals in the series, such as Mr. Mittens, a cat used by the same experiment as Dukey but was evil and wanted to turn all humans into cats creating a Cat-topia. There was also a rabbit with the same experiment as well but was only appeared once at the end of an episode and was never mentioned or seen again. There is also a recurring talking mouse Montague who likes to think he's evil, but his plans only involve stealing cheese.
  • The Teen Titans encounter both talking alien dogs and talking card carrying gorillas. Also, velociraptors speak, but in their own language.
  • Teen Titans Go!: Beast Boy can talk in animal form, and takes full advantage of it.
  • The Simpsons: When Homer meets a coyote in a dream sequence:
    Homer: You know, I have been meaning to take a spiritual journey, and I would... (the coyote is chewing his pant leg) Hey! Knock it off! (kicks him)
    Coyote: (sheepishly) Sorry. I am a coyote.
    • And when he wakes up...
    Homer: Huh? Golf course? Did I dream that whole thing? Maybe the desert was just this sand trap. Oh, and I bet that crazy pyramid was just the pro shop. And that talking coyote was really just a talking dog.
    Dog: Hi, Homer. Find your soul-mate.
    Homer: Hey, wait a minute! There's no such thing as a talking dog!
    Dog: (barks)
    Homer: Damn straight!
  • Fish Tronaut: Almost the entire cast is made of talking animals, lead by the title character, followed by Zeek and other fishes, and all animals in the park. Humans are minority, there.
  • Scooby-Doo, on the whole, plays around this one. Don Messick's Scooby starts out with the overall intelligence (and, consequently, speaking skills) of a human child, making him the codifier for speech impaired animals. Even more unique is that he's the only member of his family portrayed as doing so; all of the other dogs speak with normal articulation, making them either Talking Animals (like Dum) or Funny Animals (like Scrappy). As the series goes on, through a combination of script-writing and Frank Welker's evolving performance, Scooby became a Talking Animal by now just speaking in a gruff tone: complex sentences and no "R" sounds.
    • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated:
      • This is more or less where Scooby begins the shift. Scooby has pretty much been upgraded from Speech-Impaired Animal; he has a lot more dialog and doesn't begin every word with an R sound.
    • Professor Pericles the parrot can also speak.
    • This continuity actually justifies this. All talking animals are the descendants of the Annuaki, extradimensional beings that took on animal bodies to interact with our world.
    • Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! also features a somewhat more articulate Scooby than in most series.
    • The Scooby-Doo franchise as a whole lampshades the trope by featuring Scooby (and a number of other animal characters such as Scrappy Doo) talk openly, but no one finds this unusual - even though a primary concept of the entire franchise is that the supernatural (usually) doesn't exist.
  • A few show up on Jimmy Two-Shoes, among alongside the occasional Funny Animals. However, they're usually just one-off jokes, meaning the animals of Miseryville only talk if Rule of Funny declares it to be so.
  • Newton, the newt from Ned's Newt, is usually a normal newt but transforms into a six-foot-tall blue humanoid freak whenever he eats some special "Zippo" food — and yes, he then gains the ability to talk. He's still a newt though, and this sometimes comes up.
  • The birds in the Disney animated shorts "Melody" and "Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom", which make up the Adventures in Music Duology.
  • Adventure Time has a lot of these. While most animals can talk, many still walk on four legs and do animal activities like living in trees and eating prey.
  • In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), Cringer/Battle Cat could talk. However, the producers of the 2002 version felt that keeping that trait would make their version play too young for their intended audience and besides, they had the skill and animation budget to make him expressive enough non-verbally.
  • All animals in Littlest Pet Shop (2012), due to a unexplained phenomenon in which a teenage girl developed the ability to understand animal speak.
  • Played with in Garfield and Friends. Technically the animal characters are supposed to be thinking and Jon's just supposed to be a really accurate guesser at what Garfield thinks. However he consistently guesses a little TOO well, often "hearing" his thoughts to the point of having a conversation, even "hearing" him "talk" from behind. Different moments (such as the tin pan alley revue episode and the Odie lecture) show Garfield being a talking animal whose lips don't move, while other times it's made clear that Garfield can't talk, such as when trying to answer the phone. Played straight in the U.S. Acres segments, however.
  • The Garfield Show plays this one weirdly. When animal characters "speak", their lips move, and like in most other media the human characters can understand them, but it's implied - and on occasion outright stated - that they're still just thinking.
  • All of the animals on Magic Adventures of Mumfie, as well as Scarecrow, are capable of speaking and acting like normal human beings.
  • Gravity Falls:
    • In one episode, Waddles the pig eats an intelligence enhancing mushroom and becomes a genius, building a speaking machine so he can communicate with others (he's voiced by Neil deGrasse Tyson) before going to invent all sorts of odd tech. He goes back to being a regular pig once he sees how unhappy Mable is due to Waddles not spending any time with her.
    • In an earlier episode, Waddles and Soos switch bodies due to an experimental rug. Soos is able to talk while a pig, as is anyone else in Waddles' body once the switching becomes a free for all.
  • Starlite from Rainbow Brite is the most magical horse in the universe so obviously he can speak.
  • "The Legend Of White Fang" played with this trope. Yes, White Fang did talk but only to other animals and the only human being who understood him was Magical Native American Raven-Moon who could either turn into a raven or use astral projection to possess a raven.
  • In Infinity Train, while traversing through the train cars, Tulip encounters the corgis of Corginia that can speak English. There are also the turtles of the "Incomplete Car" as well as a certain recurring cat.
  • King: Any animal that goes to Under gains the ability to talk. The most prominent example of this is Gus, Russel's dog, who gains a Scottish accent too since he's a Scottish terrier.
  • Patricia the platypus from Spliced. While all the Mix-and-Match Critters on the show are able to talk, thanks to being the creations of a Mad Scientist, Patricia was apparently already naturally able to speak, as she was already living on Keepaway Island when the Doctor showed up.
  • Los Trotamúsicos (a dog, a cat, a donkey and a rooster) not only can talk, they can sing too!
  • Meeow featured some talking animals and all anthropomorphic cats.'
  • All animals in the Brown Bag Films series, Im An Animal.
  • The title character of Martha Speaks is a dog who can speak when she eats alphabet soup.
  • Rintindumb: The title character is Rintindumb, a dog who can talk. Of course, it seems all animals can converse with each other in the world of the cartoon.
  • Massimo from Producing Parker, but only when it's just him and Parker. He CAN talk to anyone else besides her, it's just kept a secret from others.

Alternative Title(s): Talking Dog

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Iggy Arrives

The group is introduced to their sixth member. Jotaro isn't pleased with him.

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