Funny Animals have differing levels of clothing, sometimes even between different characters in the same work. You've got your Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animals, who are basically naked except for one or two token items. There are also Half Dressed Cartoon Animals, who wear a shirt or pants, but not both. There are even Fully Dressed Cartoon Animals who have complete outfits. And then there's the subject of this article—cartoon animals who go barefoot (or bare-pawed, if you want to get technical), but are otherwise fully clothed by human standards.

As the number of examples demonstrates, this is a common trope in works featuring Funny Animals. Here are some possible reasons:

  • The trope may be Justified by the characters having hooves, large claws, or oddly-shaped hind paws which it would be difficult for shoes to accommodate.
  • The trope may also be Justified by the characters being from a culture where shoes aren't seen as a social requirement, such as with JRR Tolkien's Hobbits, or are from a civilization that Does Not Like Shoes.
  • There's another possible explanation for this, more or less based in Rule of Perception: Generally, anthropomorphic animals (especially of the Petting Zoo People variety) have essentially human anatomy except for their heads, tails, and (in most cases) feet, so keeping all three of those elements exposed emphasizes their animal qualities and prevents them from appearing too human. (It's not unreasonable to think, for example, that long pants made for animal-people would have long sleeves to accommodate their tails as well, but strangely, almost nobody ever depicts such a thing.)

Spats without shoes or socks count as this trope because they do not cover the soles of the feet.

The One Who Wears Shoes is about aversions of this trope, especially Civilized Animals and Funny Animals who use footwear when going barefoot is normal for the setting.

A lot of Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animals and Half Dressed Cartoon Animals also happen to be barefoot, so to keep things cleaner, this page only covers those who are otherwise properly-dressed.

Most of these characters have Humanlike Foot Anatomy.

Subtrope of Appropriate Animal Attire.

Examples of Barefoot Cartoon Animal include:

Advertising and Consumer Products

  • Elsie the Borden Cow.
  • The Boubin Bear for Boubin Automotive Service. His wardrobe includes a hat, vest, and jeans, but no shoes (or shirt). He holds his jeans up and tips his hat while saying "It's the bear facts, folks!"
  • The live-action chimp office workers from the mid 2000s CareerBuilder.com commercial package were dressed in business wear with the absence of shoes.
  • Peter Panda from the classic Child World toy store.
  • Coco the Monkey from Cocoa Krispies cereal.
  • Chip the Wolf from Cookie Crisp cereal initially had a red jacket and blue slacks.
  • Dannon's Danimals yogurt featured a snowboarding polar bear and a surfer alligator. Although, the Danimals XL wildcat was the one who wore shoes, at least one commercial featured him barefoot in board shorts.
  • During a short time in the mid-to-late '80s, Purina Fit & Trim dog food featured a cartoon basset hound in exercise clothes, jogging in place.
  • Fruit Brute the werewolf from the self-titled cereal line had a t-shirt to go with his striped overalls at one time.
  • Birdie the Early Bird, one of the McDonald's characters, wears only overalls and goggles.
  • Mo the Bovine from MooTown Snacks.
  • Unilever's Heartbrand line of assorted ice cream bars features as one of its mascots a barefoot toon lion named Max (aka The Paddle Pop Lion), who initially wore a safari shirt and khaki shorts. Max has made appearances on the Miko Motta Max brand ice cream in France as well as the Streets Paddle Pop brand in Australia and New Zealand.
  • The original Racin' Rat from the self-titled Tyco RC toy car line.
  • Although he usually didn't have a costume, Sambo's Restaurant mascot The Tiger was featured in a sports coat and light color trousers on some of their Tiger Club spots.
  • Classic 7Up talking bird mascot Fresh Up Freddie had several costumes that applied to this trope.
  • Sometimes, the Trix Rabbit's disguise will include a full set of clothes, but no shoes.
  • Local Cleveland radio station WMMS-FM had a vulture mascot that wore a t-shirt and blue jeans. He was known only as The Buzzard.


Anime and Manga

  • Most of the cat characters from Fairy Tail, notably Carla (until the Edolas Arc) and Queen Chagot.
  • Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics normally employed Talking Animals, but The Marriage of Mrs. Fox featured a whole town of anthropomorphic foxes (and one cat) that were fully clothed, except for a lack of shoes.
  • Common for Sanrio's Hello Kitty and Friends, though their feet tend to look more like little booties.
  • Some characters from Kaiketsu Zorori.
  • Blinky and Pinky from The Noozles, as well as the other koala characters.
  • Some characters from One Piece, most notably Tony Tony Chopper.
  • Several animal characters from Spank Good Morning Spank! when in costume.
  • King Kazma's second form in Summer Wars.


Comic Books


Film


Literature


Live Action TV


Newspaper Comics

  • Sgt. Snorkel's identically dressed pet dog Otto from Beetle Bailey.
  • Doc Rat and most of the supporting anthro characters in this self-titled Australian comic series.
  • Fritz the Dog from Ink Pen. Fritz is so uptight that he wears a dress shirt and tie with black pants every single day. This was a problem when he worked as a stunt double for other cartoon dogs like Marmaduke or Scooby Doo were he would wear a furry dog suit because he refused to do "nude scenes".
  • Most characters from Slylock Fox.


Theater


Video Games

  • Pestor the frog and some additional characters from Adrenalin Misfits, though most of them do not wear t-shirts. A few other characters such as Sabre (a timber wolf) and Blaizer (a salamander) wear open-toed boots.
  • Garr from Breath of Fire III. This is both because the Guardian's (species of which Garr is a member) anatomy includes massive feet and because they wanted to show off said anatomy.
  • A couple of mutant animals from the Crash Bandicoot series also has this such as Koala Kong and the Komodo Brothers. The rest tend to be fully clothed or naked.
  • The beast races in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the Khajiit and the Argonians, are unable to wear shoes because their feet are bigger and differently shaped. This also extends to helmets; they can't wear anything that covers their whole face. It then got subverted in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where they are able to do just that.
  • The cast of Fur Fighters.
  • Sveta from Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is this, even though she can still equip boots like any other character.
  • Lori Jackrabbit from Jazz Jackrabbit, plus Jazz himself when his outfit includes pants.
  • C.J. Frog from the JumpStart series of CD-ROMs. His usual outfit is a safari vest, khaki shorts and a fedora.
  • Rocket Raccoon's outfit in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 covers everything on his body except his head, his tail, and his hind paws.
  • Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank is this in his first game, as well as a Walking Shirtless Scene. All of his armor in the next few games featured boots, but in Size Matters he appeared in his original outfit again. When he next appeared in casual clothes (in Tools of Destruction), he was wearing boots again (as well as overalls).
  • Several versions of Reader Rabbit.
  • The cast of Rework the Dead: Evil.
  • Inverted with the Sonic the Hedgehog games, since most of the characters wear nothing but shoes and gloves. (Some of the characters, such as Ix, Charmy, and most females do wear actual clothes, but also have shoes and gloves.)
    • Played straight with every single player character in Sonics Schoolhouse, although due to the first-person viewpoint, you have to play two-player to realize this.
  • TY from Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is one of the few main characters in the series who doesn't wear shoes. He's also somehow capable of grinding on rails.


Webcomics

Conrad: I was on tour with a production of Barefoot in the Park.
Leona: What's so significant about being barefoot in the park?
Conrad: I have no idea, really. It's a pretty whacked-out play.

Swamp Fox: ". . . why do I even own socks?"

  • The cast of Work Sucks, except for Socks, who's named after the socks he always wears.
  • Several furry characters in The World Of Vicki Fox, including Vicki herself and Meredith Skunk.

Aussie: "You'll drag me in every shoe shop in the mall... to buy shoes you don't even wear!"


Web Original

  • A great deal of anthro/furry artists on the web always draw their characters barefoot, even if they're otherwise dressed perfectly normally, and even in situations where going barefoot is inadvisable (like, say, in snow). Listing specific artists would likely quadruple the length of the list, however.
    • The trope is very rarely lampshaded, and often times not even noted; that is, it's not uncommon for a character's reference sheet to depict the character barefoot, even in multiple different costumes, but even if it goes into great detail about the character's wardrobe preferences, their preferred footwear (or preference to go barefoot) is never brought up.
  • '90s cult icon Elmo Aardvark usually appeared fully dressed with a red vest and necktie. He ditched the shoes for his appearance on the self-titled web series Elmo Aardvark: Outer Space Detective! in 2004.
  • Bethany and Bob from Game Dogs. This gets outright surreal in episode 8 when Jennifer mentions Bethany's shoes—after we just saw Bethany walk through the door barefoot. And the punchline is that they're out of style. Judging from Bethany's reaction to the remark ("Oh... I see what you did there"), Jennifer may have intended it as some sort of Stealth Insult.
  • Very common in fanworks based on Ruby Quest, which was a borderline Stick Figure Comic. A one-off reference to Ruby's "UNATTRACTIVELY LONG FOOT" would imply this may be canon.
  • Majority of the rabbit repertory company from Starz's 30-Second Bunnies parodies of movies.
  • Some characters from The Wuffers.


Western Animation

  • Teddy Ruxpin, Quellor and Tweeg from the main cast of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin.
  • Zummi, Gruffi and Grammi from Adventures of the Gummi Bears.
  • The cast from The Adventures Of T Rex, even in their Powered Armor.
  • Some characters from Alfred J Kwak, including Henk Mole, Krabnagel (aka Scratchypaws) and Dolf Crow in the main cast.
  • Gumball and his parents from The Amazing World of Gumball. Inverted with his adopted brother, Darwin.
  • The majority of the mice from An American Tail (the cats tend to be straight-up Half Dressed Cartoon Animals).
  • Minerva Mink and Howard Stern parody Howie Tern from Animaniacs.
  • The blue Aardvark from The Ant and the Aardvark has a matching blue t-shirt and shorts. Majority of the characters in this cartoon series are all solid colors, which also includes one's clothing or other costumes.
  • The cast of Around the World with Willy Fog.
    • There was a bit in Around the World in Eighty Days where Passepartout is put on trial for sacrilege, with his lost shoes as evidence. In Willy Fog, the incriminating item was changed to Rigadon's hat for this reason.
  • Nadine from Arthur.
  • Uniqua and Austin from The Backyardigans (applies occasionally to most of the characters' various costumes on select episodes.)
  • Most characters from The Barkleys.
  • Most of Barney Bear's costumes fall into this trope.
  • Charlie & Junior Beary from The Beary Family.
  • Everyone on The Bellflower Bunnies.
  • Benjamin The Elephant from the German cartoon series of the same name.
  • The Berenstain Bears.
  • The casts of the Australian cartoon Blinky Bill.
  • Bonkers, from the self-titled series, had several costumes that fall into this category.
  • Wacko Wolf (sp) from the Bozo the Clown cartoon show.
  • The Prairie People from Bravestarr.
  • Jessica and Tanner from The Bremen Avenue Experience.
  • Bunny of Bunny and Claude, the Funny Animal version of Bonnie and Clyde from the late 60s Looney Tunes.
  • Scoots and Groove from The Cattanooga Cats. This may be a case of barefoot = hillbilly typecasting instead, same for the Hillbilly Bears below.
  • Gadget from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. Her teammates, and most of the other furry characters, are Half Dressed Cartoon Animals.
  • Chuckie Chan and several supporting characters from Chop Socky Chooks.
  • Tim the Bear's son Raymond in The Cleveland Show.
  • Jean Bon from Courage the Cowardly Dog.
  • Courageous Cat and his sidekick Minute Mouse.
  • Most characters from Danger Rangers.
  • Wulf in Danny Phantom.
  • Annie from NASCAR's Digger And Friends series (not to be confused with Digger). Marbles initially had a gray and orange jumpsuit in the merchandising art, but wore just a gray and orange T-shirt when the animated shorts were produced.
  • Several of the dinosaur characters from Dinosaucers.
  • Driver Dan the lion from Driver Dans Story Train.
  • Peter Puppy in the Earthworm Jim cartoon, where he sports a shirt and some shorts, but no shoes; in the source game, however, he's completely nude.
  • Eckhart the mouse and several supporting characters from the self-titled Canadian series.
  • Brian Griffin of Family Guy typically doesn't wear clothes, but when he does, his outfits usually include a shirt and pants but no shoes.
  • Some background characters in Fantomcat.
  • Belfry, the batty Non-Human Sidekick of Filmations Ghostbusters, wears only a leotard. Interestingly, when we meet his siblings in the episode "Whither Why", they're all Fully Dressed Cartoon Animals.
  • Seven of the 9 Lives of Fraidy Cat have costumes that apply to this trope.
    • #2 Kitty Wizard; #3 Captain Kitt, a pirate; #4 Sir Walter Cat, a noble cat; #5 Billy the Kit, a cowboy; #6 Jasper Catdaver, an undertaker; #7 Captain Eddie Cattenbakker, a pilot; #8 Hep Cat, a cat in a zoot suit.
  • Gandy Goose's feline roommate Sourpuss from the classic Terrytoons series of shorts.
  • Gary the Rat from the self-titled series.
  • Bobo Haha, the talking monkey who is Generator Rex's Non-Human Sidekick.
  • As with the original books, almost all the characters from the Animated Adaptation of Geronimo Stilton.
  • Claude, the wiz kid numbat from Gumnutz: A Juicy Tale. Also borderlines on the preference of not wearing shoes, compared to the rest of the main cast.
  • Paw Rugg and Floral Rugg from The Hillbilly Bears.
  • Rhubarb and Musselmutt from The Houndcats. (The others don't wear pants.)
  • Some supporting characters from Jakers the Adventures of Piggley Winks, including Ferny Toro and Hector MacBadger.
  • Some characters from Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness, notably Hundun and Master Chao.
  • Wilford Wolf from Kwicky Koala.
  • Ironically, Lapitch Mouse from Lapitch The Little Shoemaker, switches in and out between this trope and Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal. Other supporting characters including the main villain Dirty Rat are a part of this trope as well.
  • Lana and Judy Lionheart from The Lionhearts.
  • Some characters from Little Mouse On The Prairie.
  • Tina, Speedy Gonzales and Lola Bunny (again) from The Looney Tunes Show.
  • Hamilton from Maggie and the Ferocious Beast.
  • Dylan the Rabbit from The Magic Roundabout.
  • Punkin Puss from The Magilla Gorilla Show.
  • Elizabeth from Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse.
  • Some characters from Max and Ruby.
  • Coco the Monkey from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
  • Kermit, Fozzie and Animal from Muppet Babies.
  • Some characters from My Gym Partners a Monkey. (Jake Spidermonkey is a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal.)
  • A few debatable cases in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Although the pony characters have hooves instead of feet, and despite the fact that they don't usually wear much in the way of clothes anyway, a couple of the various outfits and costumes they wear throughout the series either lack footwear entirely, or put footwear on the fore hooves (hand equivalents) while leaving the hind hooves (foot equivalents) unshod. Some examples of the latter scenario would be Applejack's boots and Rainbow Dash's gauntlet/slipper things in their respective Grand Galloping Gala costumes, as well as Rarity's slippers from her bathrobe outfit during her breakdown in "Suited For Success".
    • This choice actually makes sense since ponies don't normally wear clothes to begin with, outfits are usually worn for decorative reasons, and shoes complete the outfit. Also, being quadrupedal, their back hooves will be obstructed by the front hooves or their dresses, so it wouldn't make sense to put shoes on hooves that won't be seen by others.
    • Spike the dragon, who actually does have feet, is always barefoot, even in the few situations where he's otherwise wearing a full outfit (such as the getup he's tossed into in "The Ticket Master" or his bard outfit from "Hearth's Warming Eve").
  • Oakly the Beaver and Victor Vole from The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog.
  • Kind of hard to tell in the Russian cartoon Nu Pogodi. The presence of Wolf's claws and what might be paw pads seem to imply this is the case, but everyone's drawn as if they're wearing slippers. Later episodes make it a little clearer that this is the case.
  • The Mouse Queen from The Nutcracker Prince.
  • Some supporting characters from The Oddball Couple. (Fleabag is a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal while Spiffy and Goldie Hound are Fully Dressed Cartoon Animals.)
  • The anthro pig characters from Olivia.
  • Rat characters Scrag and Mr. Flea from Pearlie.
  • Some of the characters from Pecola.
    • The characters on the show are designed in an origami/cubed style. Though they have flat oval-shaped orbs for paws, those that are the same color as the character's hands and face are considered barefoot by default. The only exception are the penguin characters (who don't wear pants, by the way) that have webbed toes.
  • Bright Eyes and Nose Marie from Pound Puppies.
  • Huey, Dewey and Louie from Quack Pack.
  • Tubb from Great Britain's Rubbadubbers.
  • Salem from Sabrina the Animated Series when he's wearing his smoking jacket outfit.
  • Sammy the bear, Charlene the rabbit and Wiggy the dog from Sammy's Story Shop.
  • The Sandokan animated series. This one doesn't seem to have an exception.
  • Scaredy Squirrel from the the self-titled series. A few supporting characters, including series regular Paddy the ferret, were a part of this trope as well.
  • Three of the Schoolhouse Rock shorts featured funny animals that fit this trope: Lucky Seven Sampson (a white rabbit with a number 7 on his right foot), the pool hustler cat in Naughty Number Nine, and the worker ants in Busy Prepositions.
  • In The Secret Lives Of Waldo Kitty, majority of the supporting characters in the animated segments had costumes that applied to this trope.
  • One and Five from Seven Little Monsters. One wears a tank top, shorts and a ballcap while Five wears yellow overalls.
    • Although having just an oversized t-shirt as his regular wardrobe, Three dons a different costume pertainable to the plot of each episode, in which case a good 1/3 of his wardrobe applies to this trope.
  • Poochie from The Simpsons goes back and forth between this trope and Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal.
  • Many characters from another Australian cartoon, Skippy Adventures In Bushtown.
  • Some supporting characters from The Smokey Bear Show. The main character has a bottom, but no top.
  • The Space Cats.
  • Some of the humanoid animal beings known as the Beastials from Spider-Man Unlimited.
  • Lt. M'Ress from Star Trek: The Animated Series.
  • From Swat Kats: T-Bone and Razor in their pilot suits, as well as Dark Kat. Somewhat odd given that everyone else on the show wears shoes, including the main characters in their civilian attire.
  • Most of the animal cast from Sylvanian Families, as per their toyline.
  • Many Tale Spin characters, including Rebecca and Molly Cunningham, Wildcat and Shere Khan in the main cast.
  • Some of the supporting mutants from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987, such as Mona Lisa. (The Turtles themselves are Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animals.)
  • Some werewolf characters from Teen Wolf, including Grandma and Grandpa Howard in the main cast.
  • Practical Pig from Three Little Pigs.
  • The Space Penguins and a few other characters from Three Two One Penguins
  • Some characters from Thundercats
  • Babs Bunny, Hamton J. Pig, Roderick Rat (sometimes a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal) and Rhubella Rat from Tiny Toon Adventures.
  • Some characters from Toad Patrol.
  • Toot And Puddle.
  • Junkyard, the humanoid mutant dog from Toxic Crusaders.
  • Verminous Snaptrap, The Chameleon and several background characters, in Tuff Puppy.
  • Darwin, the monkey sidekick from The Wild Thornberrys.
  • The majority of the main cast and several background characters in Wild West Cowboys of Moo Mesa.
  • Wally Walrus and Buzz Buzzard from The Woody Woodpecker Show.
  • Captain Huggy Face from Word Girl.
  • Young Snagglepuss and Boo Boo from Yo Yogi!! Snag wears a letterman jacket, shades and blue jeans while Boo Boo wears a blue ball cap, a yellow-and-red T-shirt and white shorts with his signature bow tie.
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