Your personal cases of Viewer Species Confusion

I noticed that Viewer Gender Confusion has a thread, so why not Viewer Species Confusion? I'll start with mine:

• I thought Jiminy Cricket was a Lilliputian that just had "Cricket" as a last name. I only realised he was a literal cricket when I watched a behind the scenes video. I knew there was a cricket in the book, and I knew Jiminy Cricket's name was a reference to that, but yeah, I didn't realise he was one.
• I didn't realise Pete was a cat. I don't remember what I thought he was, but I remember thinking, "Hold on — he's a CAT!?".
• I thought ET The Extraterrestrial was a walking skeleton (because I only saw a little bit of the movie when my parents were watching it, and it was in a dark scene where only his head and neck were visible).
• I thought Arthur Read and his family were mice (I don't know why, because they don't have pointy heads like the rats). I also didn't realise that the Frenskys and Crosswires were monkeys, and that Binky was a dog; I thought they were Cartoon Creatures.
• On the flip side, I thought the Warner siblings were dogs.
• I thought Pepé Le Pew was a cat, and then when I realised he was a skunk, I thought Penelope was also a skunk.

This is a very mild example, but the first time I watched the VeggieTales video "Moe and the Big Exit" (in my grandparents' spare room), I told my mom and/or Grami that there was a "plague of gophers" right before the singers sang that the animals appearing all over the place were prairie dogs.

When I saw Zootopia for the first time, I thought Clawhauser was a leopard or jaguar — he's a cheetah.

I thought Husk was a wolf and not a cat until I actually watched the show.

In my defense, he's basically dressed like Disney's Big Bad Wolf...

I used to think Squidward was an octopus instead of a squid as a child.

I don't blame myself for this tho mostly due to his Dub Name Change to "Octo" in the Dutch dub on Spongebob and I was child who didn't know much about biology.

I don't know if I was more surprised when I found out Tiramie was a dog or that he was male.

...no, you were right. Despite the name, Squidward is in fact an octopus.

The first time I heard about The Ren & Stimpy Show was their comic book series being mentioned in Disney Adventures magazine and it had a picture of the titular characters. I thought Ren was a rabbit instead of a Chihuahua.

I also thought that.

I remember thinking that Daxter of Jak and Daxter was a weasel.

Frankly, I don't see how you could think that. He's an Ottsel, completely distinct from a weasel. Definitely not just an orange weasel mixed with an otter.

Edited by king15 on Apr 1st 2024 at 12:22:32 PM

I mistook Shifu from Kung Fu Panda for a chinchilla since his coloring doesn't make him look anything like a red panda. My mom did the same thing.

Edited by Segal991 on Apr 2nd 2024 at 4:11:04 AM

My biggest case of Viewer Species Confusion involved Fantasia, the Disney movie— specifically, the "Rite of Spring" segment. For those of you who are unaware, this is the segment in the movie with the dinosaurs. Partway through it, there's a brief scene of a small predatory dinosaur◊ chasing an Archaeopteryx. My assumption for many years was that this was an Ornitholestes, which was famously portrayed◊ doing exactly that. But I eventually got a chance to read the segment's script, and it turns out this dinosaur is actually a Troodon, of all things.

Edited by Booplesnoot on Apr 2nd 2024 at 8:28:32 AM

Pretty sure I spent a good chunk of my childhood trying to figure out what kinds of animals the majority of characters from Arthur are, too.

One of my mom's friends thought Arthur was a dog, of all animals, and was confused since Arthur also owns a pet dog. He didn't believe me when I tried to explain that Arthur was an aardvark.

As a kid, I mistook Muffy for a hippo, mainly because she had buckteeth early on.

I thought Muffy and Francine were humans not monkeys and Binky was a potato man.

I actually thought Binky was a hippo.

I thought Roly Mo was a Fimble.

I thought Muffy and Francine from Arthur were Humans lol

Also, Pete is a cat?! I thought he was a big dog!

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 4th 2024 at 12:38:02 PM

I could never tell what kind of animal Rantanplan was due to his nose. I always assumed he was a made up creature but that wouldn’t suit a typical western setting. Even now that I know he’s a dog, his nose still bothers me.

The VeggieTales video I mentioned is the sequel to "The Ballad of Little Joe", of which I have a memory of someone else's confusion:

One time, at the house of my dad's friend, his kids were watching that video in the upper part of their split-level basement. I went down there while the characters were singing the second part of the "Oh Little Joe" song. There, the youngest child, who was very young at the time, was saying "Apple! Apple!" in reference to Bob the Tomato.

I thought that Uan, the puppet mascot from an Italian children's programming block called Bim Bum Bam, was a rabbit. He's actually a dog (specifically, a poodle).

I thought Tanuki Mario/Raccoon Mario was a squirrel as a kid. My parents tried to correct me, but I insisted he was Squirrel Mario. (I also called the coins "bananas" because I thought they looked like banana slices.)

When I was young, I thought that the polar bear in the pre-2004 Nelvana logos was a cow. (Note: Back then, I didn't see the theatrical variant of the 3rd logo that would have clearly been a polar bear to me.)