Sixth Ranger / Western Animation

• Dinobot fills this role in Beast Wars as a disillusioned Predacon who joins the Maximals in the second episode.
• Rugrats started out with a main cast of Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica, with occasional appearances by Susie. About halfway through the show, Tommy gained a little brother, Dil, and Chuckie later got a stepsister, Kimi. Both were introduced in one of the movies: The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats in Paris respectively.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Season 1 started with a core cast of five engines (although James was only named a few episodes into the season). About halfway through, Percy was introduced. Poetically, like the Trope Namer pictured above, he's both green, and the 6th member of the team.
  • This also applied to Duncan and Rusty from the narrow gauge railway. Also, Emily is considered a sixth ranger to the main cast, from season 8 onwards.
• Winx Club:
  • Aisha is introduced in the 2nd season premiere and becomes the sixth fairy in the Club. She's on the good fairies' side from the start, and the biggest misgiving anyone has is Aisha feeling left out when Stella mentions "the five of us" in one episode.
  • Roxy is introduced in the third episode of season 4 and becomes the (occasional) seventh fairy in the Club. She was heavily◊ promoted◊ as the seventh Winx, so there was never any doubt about her joining the good guys, but it takes Roxy a few episodes to warm up to the fairies. In the thirteenth episode, she even tells off Bloom, saying "I don't want to be a fairy... I didn't ask for this."
  • Helia joins the Specialists in season 2. Nabu joins them at the end of season 3 and dies toward the end of season 4. Nex is introduced in season 6 and soon joins the other Specialists full-time.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Additional members of Team Avatar have an in-story justification of them filling the spot of Aang's bending teachers. Katara, the Waterbending teacher, is with him from the start (with Sokka essentially tagging along, though he later Took a Level in Badass), but the other two teachers come later:
  • Toph Beifong, the Earthbending teacher, joins the group near the middle of Book Two, turning Team Avatar from a trio into a Five-Man Band when she filled the empty The Big Guy spot as a Cute Bruiser. After a few episodes, she fits in pretty well despite the occasional argument with Katara. Since she appears in nearly every episode afterward, the fanbase don't see her as a Sixth Ranger anymore, but rather as a main member that joins late.
  • Zuko, the Firebending teacher, joins the group as the more archetypal Sixth Ranger shortly after the middle of Book Three (where he undergoes his Heel–Face Turn). Initially, there is much suspicion and distrust and at least one death threat from Katara, though he quickly manages to earn the team's trust.
  • The last one to join, Suki, averts the above reasoning since with Zuko's induction, there are no more teachers to search for and the team is complete. Instead, she is in as a combination of coincidence (between Zuko's induction and Suki's own, the Gaang actually take up seven people on board, including them, but a later conflict forces most to seek refuge elsewhere. Zuko and Suki are the only ones who remain behind with the Gaang) and because Sokka is on the team. Suki can be considered an 11th-Hour Ranger since she joins just three episodes before the four-part series finale.
• Code Lyoko:
  • The gang invites William to join the team in "Double Trouble", only for him to get turned evil half-way into the next episode, "Final Round", and not be freed until the end of Season 4, by which time the Warriors are about to destroy XANA for good. As of Season 5, Code Lyoko: Evolution, where it is revealed that XANA barely managed to survive, William plays the trope straight, albeit after a struggle to earn the position back.
  • Season 5 also introduces Laura, a Techno Wizard at least as skilled as Jérémie and Aelita, who forces her way into the team after sabotaging their Reset Button so that her Laser-Guided Amnesia wouldn't be complete. She doesn't appear regularly but proves helpful on occasion. Aelita, however, doesn't take it kindly to have a second "Mrs. Einstein" in the picture, and the conflict between those two never goes away. It finally ends with Laura turning into a Sixth Ranger Traitor, but it only lasts for the duration of a single episode, after which her memory is permanently erased of all things related to Lyoko.
• Codename: Kids Next Door subverted the Sixth Ranger without creating a Sixth Ranger Traitor with Tommy Gilligan. Notably, after the episode where he almost becomes a Sixth Ranger, he becomes an outright parody of the Sixth Ranger trope. He dresses in a ridiculous cape and fedora, attempts to make dramatic entries, tries to be mysterious (when everybody is well aware he's the Annoying Younger Sibling of The Smart Guy) and refers to himself as "The Tommy."
  • Numbuh 6, a quite literal Sixth Ranger, is joined in a couple episodes, being...a cyborg skunk named Bradley.
• Terra in the animated version of Teen Titans (2003) (until it was revealed she was a spy for Slade).
• Danny Phantom: The Power Trio group is composed of Danny, Sam, and Tucker, then upgrades to include a fourth member in their Team Phantom with Jazz a little ways into Season 2, though she played Secret Secret-Keeper for almost the entire series before that.
• X-Men: Evolution: Rogue pulls a Heel–Face Turn and joins the X-Men after she realizes Mystique tricked her into joining the Brotherhood and thinking the X-Men wanted to kill her. Also, Iceman becomes this after Spyke is Put on a Bus when he can no longer control his mutation and moves underground with the Morlocks.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: After Catra makes a Heel-Face Turn around the end of the series, she officially becomes the fourth member of the Best Friends Squad.
• Young Justice (2010) has several examples:
  • First comes Artemis, the sixth member of the team, who joins in the sixth episode.
  • Then Zatanna joins in the seventeenth episode after being a Recurring Character.
  • Finally, Rocket joins the group just in time for the season finale.
  • Bumblebee, Mal Duncan, Wonder Girl, Lagoon Boy, Beast Boy, Robin III, Batgirl, Blue Beetle, Impulse, and Arsenal all join the team during the second season.
• There's a whole slew of Sixth Rangers in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Black Panther and Hawkeye don't join until several episodes into the first season, and then Ms. Marvel and the Vision join the group in the second season.
• ReBoot had Mouse as a Sixth Ranger, especially with how she didn't get along with Dot. After a few appearances her skills became invaluable to the team, and she filled in The Smart Guy role. In the fourth season, a much more traditional Sixth Ranger joins: former villain Hexadecimal.
• Subverted in an episode of Chaotic, when a character joins the main characters possessing all the traditional fifth ranger qualities,^note Even filling the vacant Heart slot in the Five-Man Band, but later leaves after gaining fame from becoming the first person to scan a M'arrillian.
• Blinky Bill: Shifty Dingo in the second season after the dingo family performed their Heel–Face Turn. He also qualifies as The Smart Guy of the team, probably due to being the weakest and most timid of the males.
• Street Sharks, featured Moby Lick, a whale.
• Transformers: Animated has two sixth rangers. The first and more conventional one is Jazz, who joins at the end of the episode before the finale, and the second is Sari, who is upgraded from Tagalong Kid. Gets weapons and armor installed and everything.
  • This has been a running theme throughout the whole series with Starscream in Transformers: Armada and Skyfire in The Transformers as two examples.
  • Smokescreen, Wheeljack, and Ultra Magnus all fill this role in different ways in Transformers: Prime.
• In the first few episodes of 6teen, Caitlin tries to earn her way into the group, but later fits right in.
• In the dinosaur-flavoured Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-style cartoon Extreme Dinosaurs, the team originally consists of four dinosaurs - T-Bone the t-rex, Spike the triceratops, Bullzeye the pterodactyl, and Stegz the...yeah. In the latter half of the series, they are sent to an alternate dimension and bring back the ankylosaur Hardrock to become their fifth ranger. Except he's barely mentioned or acknowledged even after then. Hmmm.
• 1980s Jonny Quest added two extra members to the initial five-character ensemble; Hardrock, an ancient stone man who became the team's second bodyguard; and Jesse Bradshaw, a Distaff Counterpart to Jonny. Hardrock joined the group during an early episode and was featured prominently for more than half of the series, but Jessie only appeared in one episode before the series was canceled. Jessie would later appear as a regular character in future incarnations of the franchise, where she would be retconned into "Jessie Bannon" (Race's daughter), but Hardrock never returned following the 80s version.
• Drawn Together has two subversions: Sid from "Drawn Together Babies" and Excludie from "Lost In Parking Space" (the first part) are both presented as ninth housemates (and Remember the New Guy? characters at that), but Sid sleeps on his stomach and got sudden infant death syndrome, and Excludie was excluded from everything, even the episodes prior to his only appearance. 'Steve from Long Island' acts like this as well, only appearing in two episodes seemingly only to balance out whatever bizarre faction split the contestants had created at the time.
• South Park: Butters Stotch. He's been around as a background character since the show's beginning, and gradually increased in prominence, but ascended to protagonist status during Season Six. Unlike other instances of this trope, all five leads are rarely seen together since the boys are not a genuine Five-Man Band, but Butters has had almost as many character-centric A-Plots as Stan and Kyle by this point in the series, and will oftentimes pair off with one of the boys for an adventure ("My Future Self 'n Me," "Super Fun Time," "Sexual Healing," "Going Native", etc.) as their foil.
  • The boys even had an audition to see who would be Kenny's replacement after he was Killed Off for Real; Tweek was the initial winner but the writers found Butters' innocence an endearing foil to the rougher boys, and that he had more potential for Character Development.
• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Though he was technically an Ambassador, Zozo was in a surprising amount of episodes, often acting as an auxiliary, non-powered Ranger. He was even addressed as "Ranger Zozo" several times, implying he was at least an honorary, if not full, Ranger in his own right. His fellow ambassador, Waldo, was in fewer episodes, and more a Non-Action Guy - but was still capable of self-defense. The show tried to make Buzzwang into a "fifth Ranger," but he wound up being The Scrappy instead.
• In Futurama Kif Kroker is the team's Sixth Ranger, having come late to the main Planet Express ensemble by means of dating Amy. Cubert (Prof. Farnsworth's clone/son), Nibbler (originally the Team Pet, but eventually reveals his intelligence and is promoted to a proper member of the team), and Scruffy the janitor fill this role as well.
• The Land Before Time TV Series had two, Chomper, the baby Sharptooth from the second film, and Ruby, a 'Fast Runner' who was entrusted with Chomper's safety by his parents. Both came to live in the valley to escape the series Big Bad Red Claw.
• John Thunder and Rex Charger from Centurions.
• Spiral Zone had four Sixth Rangers, two each for the heroic Zone Riders (Ned Tucker and Ben Davis) and the evil Black Widows (Crook and Rawmeat).
• Rambo: The Force of Freedom added two new heroes (Chief and T.D. Jackson) and three new villains (Dr. Hyde, X-Ray and Snake Bite) in later episodes.
• Recess:
  • Gus became the sixth ranger to the other main five characters, and a rare example by joining in the second episode.^note Which is actually the second of two shorts of the first broadcast.
  • Later on, Cornchip Girl became an unofficial seventh ranger to the main gang in the later seasons.
• Mike and Penny's Popples on Popples might count. They came in halfway through the series, and seemed to hang out with them most of the time.
• In Season 2 of Shirt Tales, Kip Kangaroo is introduced as the sixth member.
• Garfield and Friends: Aloysius Pig is this to the U.S. Acres gang, according to Mark Evanier. He was even supposed to show up in a fourth episode, but it was later canned due to the show being Screwed by the Network.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the Equestria Girls movie, Twilight Sparkle has Sunset Shimmer join her group of human friends at the end of the movie, though she isn't seen fulfilling the role until the sequel, where she and DJ PON-3 play important roles in defeating the Dazzlings. The third film, removes Twilight to have Sunset become the leader of the Rainbooms from that point on, with a new sixth ranger in the form of the human world's Twilight joining the group at the end of the movie. Both characters also fit the foe-becomes-friend formula, though the former more so.
  • Starlight Glimmer, the Big Bad of Season 5, does a Heel–Face Turn and joins the Mane Six in the Season 5 finale, with her Promotion to Opening Titles the following season and given a new place to live in the Friendship Castle.
  • Same happened with the younger group Cutie Mark Crusaders, with Apple Bloom's cousin, Babs Seeds and the griffon, Gabby.
  • Same happened with My Little Pony: Make Your Mark with Misty Brightdawn becomes this to the Mane 5 at the end of Chapter 4, althouth still stays at Opaline's side to act as a double agent, and later Comet joing, well, okay, seventh ranger technically, but once Sunny and her friends are about to leave Starlight Ridge, he suddenly decides to speak up about wanting to go back with them as he wants to be able to explore more of the world outside of his village now that Allura has been defeated, and he can be seen joining the others in the Brighthouse during the very last scene on the special.
• Happened in-universe on the Animaniacs Pinky and the Brain segment "Puppet Rulers", when on the Meany and Treacle show, two new characters called "Big Ears" (Pinky) and "Noodle Noggin" (Brain) joined the show.
• Scooby-Doo with the infamous Scrappy Doo, Scooby Dum and Flim Flam
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated jumps around with this. When Daphne temporarily leaves the group, Hot Dog Water/Marcie acts as this until she's kicked out when Daphne returns. For a little while, Nova sticks around with the group, but this also doesn't last.
• In the second season of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Dulcy the Dragon becomes part of the Freedom Fighters at the very start of the season, though we're not shown how exactly. A straighter example comes from Tails, who joins in at the tail end of the series.
• Normally, the Phineas and Ferb gang consists of the title characters, Isabella, Buford, and Baljeet. Irving is introduced in the second season as the president of the Phineas and Ferb fan club and is sometimes accepted as the sixth ranger.
• The series based on Dora's Explorer Girls, Dora and Friends: Into the City!, includes a new male character named Pablo.
• Kayo in Thunderbirds Are Go is this. Unlike her 1960s counterpart Tin-Tin, she has her own Thunderbird, called Thunderbird S (the S stands for shadow), which she receives at the end of the second episode.
• Played with via Stanford Pines of Gravity Falls fame. While he ostensibly wants to stop the impending apocalypse as much as anyone, slips into the role of the Big Good that he already sort of filled through his writings, and completes the Pines family's Four-Philosophy Ensemble as its Apathetic member, the circumstances of his arrival — along with the ensuing backstory reveal about his damaged relationship with his brother — end up disrupting the established team dynamics, causing more harm than good. By the end of the series, both Stans end up leaving Gravity Falls.
• Steven Universe:
  • Steven's best friend Connie Maheswaran. She starts as a friend who is interested in the Crystal Gems and their activities, but undergoes character development and begins taking combat lessons from Pearl in order to better help Steven. She's now a respected and important ally of the Crystal Gems who acts as a reserve member for missions.
  • Former villain Peridot who underwent a Heel–Face Turn after becoming close with Steven and the other Gems during the construction of the Gem Drill and learning the value of Earth.
  • Lapis Lazuli befriended Steven in her debut episode but didn't want to get close to the other Crystal Gems. She left Earth but was forced to return, and, not having any place to call home, she decided to stick around on Earth as an Aloof Ally of the Crystal Gems who lived with the previous character, and would later join the team officially.
  • It was implied that Bismuth would be a new character joining the team in the advertisements leading up to her appearance, but it's quickly revealed in the episode proper that she is a former member of the Crystal Gems, whose more lethal methods were at odds with the others. She later returns late in Season 5 and after undergoing her long-awaited Heel–Face Turn, becomes a reserve member of the Crystal Gems.
• Regular Show.
  • Subverted with Thomas. He debuts in the show's fourth season as the park's new intern and, at first, appears as if he's going to fill the role of 8th ranger. However, he quickly devolves into background/recurring character and rarely got involved with the other guys' antics during his time at the park. Word of God says this was because "no one ever hangs out with the intern".
  • Benson serves as an in-universe example of this in the episode "Format Wars II", when he is revealed to be the fifth Disc-Master alongside Mordecai, Rigby, Hi Five Ghost, and Muscle Man.
  • After being a supporting character for a majority of the series, Eileen becomes the 8th ranger in the final season, as she ends up stranded in outer space with the Park Crew.
• In Littlest Pet Shop (2012) Shaping up to be this to the main pets. While a few of the guest pets have appeared in more than one episode, Buttercream is well on her way to becoming a Recurring Character.
• At the start of season 2 of Jem, two of these characters were introduced. When Shana temporarily left Jem and the Holograms to pursue her fashion designer career, her bandmates scouted for a new drummer. Raya won their contest and became their new drummer, with Shana taking up a new instrument. The Misfits tried (and failed) to outshine Jem's band by getting their own new member, Jetta who was a saxophonist but who usually played bass guitar. Raya never got any spotlight past her introduction episodes however Jetta became on par with the rest of the Misfits.
• Boo Boom! The Long Way Home has two of these who temporarily join the main group of 6 characters (thus technically making them 'seventh rangers'):
  • The first one is Mr. Rossellini, an elderly school teacher who joins the group in episode 7, along with his dog, until episode 10, when he hurts his ankle and is thus forced to stay behind at the castle of a friend to recover. He is not seen again afterwards, but he is mentioned occasionally.
  • The second one is Viola, a teenage Street Urchin who joins them from episode 8 'til episode 12. At first, she borders on a Sixth Ranger Traitor who is motivated by greed and not afraid to doublecross her friends if it benefits her, but she gets better. After meeting and falling in love with Mario, a member of the Italian resistance, Boo-Boom urges her to stay with him and his resistance group. Unlike Mr. Rossellini, she comes Back for the Finale in episode 25 to assist Boo-Boom in rescuing his parents.
• The eccentric artist Gusto Gummi in Adventures of the Gummi Bears, he’s not one of the original six Gummi Bears. He was discovered by accident as a shipwrecked in an Island in the middle of the Ocean and become later a recurring character, but do not appears in every episode only when it was plot-convenient. Of course, other surviving Gummi Bears are discovered in later seasons.
• Star Wars:
  • The final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars introduces Clone Force 99, a.k.a. The Bad Batch, a group of elite clone troopers with genetic mutations consisting of four members: Hunter, Crosshair, Tech, and Wrecker. Echo, who is revealed to have survived an explosion during the season three episode "Counter Attack", eventually decides to join the squad as the fifth ranger after the Battle of Anaxes.
  • The spin-off of The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, introduces Omega, a young female clone who befriends the squad and helps them on their journey. At first, it looks like she's going to join the team as the sixth ranger. While she does join the squad, once Admiral Tarkin enhances Crosshair's inhibitor chip, Crosshair turns against his squad and becomes Commander of the Elite Squad, thus leaving The Bad Batch with only five.
  • Star Wars Rebels introduces a motley group of rebels united aboard a freighter starship called the Ghost. The teams consists of five members: Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla, Chopper, Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, and Sabine Wren. In the premiere episode, Kanan takes in Ezra Bridger, a young con artist, as the sixth ranger to be trained as a Jedi.
• In Voltron: Legendary Defender, unlike the original series, Allura is the sixth hero of the team but doesn't fall into this trope as she's part of the team from the start, while Shiro is The Leader in season 1 and 2 until Keith takes over for season 3 before handing it back to Shiro in season 4. However, Team Voltron would have a true Sixth Ranger in season 4, when Pidge's brother Matt joins the team, given that he becomes literally the sixth hero as Keith joined the Blade of Marmora during the season.
• Poof in The Fairly OddParents! in the sixth through eighth seasons. The ninth season introduced Sparky and the tenth introduced Chloe, causing Poof to get Put on a Bus due to having difficulty with too many characters to work with, though he returned in the episode "Certifiable Super Sitter". Sparky was put on a bus, though, due to him being The Scrappy.
• The Powerpuff Girls:
  • In the original series, the girls attempted to create a fourth sister with Bunny. It didn't turn out well.
  • On the 2016 reboot, Bliss was introduced as a Powerpuff Girl that was created before Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were. Her powers were still in beta so she consigned herself to patrolling outer space while making occasional visits to the girls. She's now an official member of a galactic task force.
• Teen Titans Go! had Bumblebee join the team as part of a summer-long event, though her addition wasn't permanent as she later leaves the team to become a solo superhero, with a card confirming she wouldn't be coming back.
• Dragon Tales started out with just Max and Emmy as the kids using the Dragon Scale to visit Dragon Land. Towards the end of the series, Enrique joined them on their adventures.
• Kid Cosmic: After being betrayed by his leader, Stuck Chuck pulls a Heel–Face Turn and becomes this to the heroes.
• Ollie the Bunny in Wonder Pets!. He debuted in the episode "Save the Skunk!" where he joined the team. Unlike other instances of this trope, all four leads are not seen very often together since Ollie is more of a Recurring Character rather than a genuine protagonist.
• American Dad! has Jeff Fischer join the Smith family when he married Hayley in the 100th episode. In the season 13 episode "Persona Assistant", Rogu is born as a spawn of Roger when Roger gets a tumor on his head and would become part of the Smith family and have his own episodes later on.
• Amphibia: In the second season, the main group of Anne Boonchuy and the Plantar family are joined by Marcy Wu, and in the third season, they're joined by Anne's parents.
• Midway through the second season of Gargoyles, Goliath, Elisa, and Bronx go to Avalon, where they discover that the eggs of Goliath's old clan have grown into young adults (time moves differently on Avalon.) Among the cast is Goliath and Demona's daughter, Angela. When the heroes leave, Angela tags along, and she eventually joins the main cast once they get back to New York.
• DuckTales (2017) has a character who had never before been seen in animation join the cast partway through: Donald's twin sister, and mother of the triplets, Della Duck.
• The Owl House: Hunter officially joins the Hexsquad after a Heel–Face Turn from discovering his backstory. Camila Noceda follows suit in Season 3, making it officially a group of 6.
• PAW Patrol with Everest, Tracker, The Mighty Twins (Tuck and Ella) and Rex who are only called out for particular missions.
• Xiaolin Chronicles begins with the already established Xiaolin team looking for a new monk. The one who joins the team is Ping-Pong, Omi's Identical Stranger and Hero-Worshipper. Willow was also considered for the role, but she turns out to be Shadow, Chase Young's minion.
• The Ghost and Molly McGee Oliver Chen becomes this as a part of Molly's friend circle with Libby and Scratch, now known as the "Ghostfriends," after he forsakes his ghost-hunting ways.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: T'Lyn was initially a one-off season 2 character but her unexpected fan popularity led to her becoming a major recurring character in season 4 where she becomes a fifth member of the "Lower Deckers" (though all 5 of them get promoted within S4’s first two episodes).
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: Jonny 2x4 and Plank, sometimes them serves as a fourths rangers to the Eds even when there are no scams involved, like in "Cool Hand Ed".
• “Western Animation/Ninjago”: Nya occasionally becomes this as the Steel Samurai in earlier seasons. Lloyd becomes the fifth ranger once it’s revealed that he is the chosen one. Nya eventually becomes the Water Ninja and is a much more permanent sixth ranger, while P.I.X.A.L. replaces Nya as the Steel Samurai and the occasionally appearing ranger. Skylor can also be seen as an infrequent ranger, only showing up when the season is about to be much more serious

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