History Main / RealisticSpeciesCartoonySpecies

* Despite not featuring any humans, the main animal characters in ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' are drawn as being far more cartoony than the background animals, as best demonstrated if one compared Timon's design with those of the meerkats seen briefly at the very beginning of the movie. Averted during the song ''I Just Can't Wait to be King'', where ''all'' the animals are cartoony and sporting stylized designs.

* ''Film/TomandJerry2021'' features live-action humans and [[RogerRabbitEffect animated animals]].

* Filmation takes this far specifically for their 80s action series.

** The humans are cartoony, but the animals in later seasons are realistic. Dogs, cats, and cattle are still cartoony however.

** Stampy the elephan is actually semi-realistic, unlike most of the other animals and the humans.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', most of the characters are cartoonish, animated anthropomorphic sea-creatures. Patchy the pirate, and his friends, are live action humans (and a mermaid)--save for his pet parrot, who is a marionette.
** The episode "Pressure" has Spongebob and his friends go on land, they appear as live-action puppets outside the water.

** According to "Feral Friends", the underwater animal characters can become realistic, but only if exposed to Neptune's Moon. It has no effect on the jellyfish whatsoever, and Neptune’s Sun has this effect on Sandy, but changes Potty’s species outright, with him remaining a puppet. (Implying the character is a puppet in universe)

* In WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest, the humans and nearly all the animals are drawn quite realistically for a SaturdayMorningCartoon, with the single exception of the PluckyComicRelief dog Bandit, yet somehow it works. WordOfGod is that Bandit's more cartoonish appearance is the direct result of ExecutiveMeddling.
* After Jonny Quest other HB and Ruby Spears shows had more realistic human and animal designs like Space Ghost, Scooby Doo, Harlem Globetrotters and other knockoffs. Excluding the team pet and a few others. Also the humans may have black bead eyes in some of them.
* Filmation takes this far specifically for their 80s Action series.

** From the beginning the producers established a rule that animals would behave as they do in real life, although that rule has gotten a little looser in later seasons.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongebobSquarepantsMovie'' has cartoonish animated anthropomorphic sea-creatures. All humans [[spoiler:(Creator/DavidHasselhoff and the scuba diver/shopkeeper)]] are live action. [[spoiler:The scenes outside of water have live-action backgrounds, and the sea creatures are live action when they dry and die.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Turbo}}'', the crows and beetles as they are photorealistic and more realistic than the humans, who are semi-realisticl, while the snails are cartoonier than the humans.

* ''Franchise/AnimalCrossing'': Both the human player characters and anthropomorphic animals are very cartoony, while non-sapient animals like the collectible fish and invertebrates are realistic.

** According to "Feral Friends", the underwater animal characters can become realistic, but only if exposed to Neptune's Moon.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'', the humans are realistic whereas the Chipmunks and the Chipettes are cartoony. However, animals other than the Chipmunks and Chipettes are realistic.

* Aside from [[BigBad Dr. Eggman]], humans in the ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' series from ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' to ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' (pictured above) were rendered as anime or realistic styled, compared to the very cartoony FunnyAnimals. ''Sonic '06'' upped the realism of the humans and even gave Eggman a more realistic design. Due to negative fan response, Eggman reverted to his previous design in the next game ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', where the humans are made to look like Creator/{{Pixar}} characters.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', {{Funny Animal}}s are cartoony while non-sapient animals look realistic. This even extends to original characters that underwent AdaptationalNonsapience for the show, such as Tootsie, [[WesternAnimation/TheWuzzles Rhinokey, Butterbear]], and Poe. When humans make an appearance in "Quack Pack!", they are just as cartoony as the FunnyAnimal cast other than having five-fingered hands.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', {{Funny Animal}}s are cartoony while non-sapient animals look realistic. When humans make an appearance in "Quack Pack!", they are just as cartoony as the FunnyAnimal cast other than having five-fingered hands.

* In ''Anime/FutariWaPrettyCure'', one of the main character's has a dog that is much more realistic looking than her.

* ''Webcomic/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' spoofs this by showing a realistic rabbit in a town of clothes-wearing {{Funny Animal}}s who is promptly busted for public indecency.

* In WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest, the humans and nearly all the animals are drawn quite realistically for a SaturdayMorningCartoon, with the single exception of the ComicRelief dog Bandit, yet somehow it works. WordOfGod is that Bandit's more cartoonish appearance is the direct result of ExecutiveMeddling.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'' has cartoony fish, birds, and dogs, but relatively realistic humans.

For inversions of this trope, this may be because it is easy for humans to recognize a character as a human even when the appearance is simplified, while they need to see more detail to know exactly what type of animal a character is. This is most commonly found in manga and anime, where the audience is supposed to relate only to the cartoony... MANGA/ANIME-ish! humans with big eyes, small mouths, and pointy noses, which conforms to the principle of creating cartoony-looking characters for maximum relatability and projectability noted in Creator/ScottMcCloud's ''ComicBook/UnderstandingComics''. Animals just look like real animals most of the time, even in stories where the animal characters have a more prominent role that doesn't overshadow the human ones.

The human audience will generally better recognize the appearance of humans than other (real world) animal species, which could explain either form of this trope. If the wild animals look unrealistic, then most of the audience won't notice because they don't remember exactly what that species really looks like. The humans may also look more detailed to diversify their appearance. For inversions of this trope, this may be because it is easy for humans to recognize a character as a human even when the appearance is simplified, while they need to see more detail to know exactly what type of animal a character is.

* In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' people are drawn in a very cartoony style while animals (except for Hobbes) are almost always drawn in a very realistic style.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'': Monstro the whale, the tuna he eats, and the moths are semirealistic, but Cleo and the other fish shown, [[FurryConfusion Figaro and]] [[AdultsAreMoreAnthropomorphic Gideon the cats]], Honest John the fox, the [[BalefulPolymorph boys turned into donkeys]], and Jiminy Cricket (who is also an InformedSpecies) are cartoony. The Blue Fairy (basically a woman with wings in appearance) is realistic and [[{{Rotoscoping}} Rotoscoped]] so as to look ethereal, but the humans (Geppetto, Stromboli, Coachman, Lampwick, Pinocchio as a real boy) are cartoony to almost semirealistic. The Blue Fairy as a dove is also realistic. Pinocchio as a puppet is cartoony with FourFingeredHands.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', most of the characters are cartoonish animated anthropomorphic sea-creatures. Patchy the pirate, and his friends, are live action humans (and a mermaid)--save for his pet parrot, who is a puppet.
** The episode "Pressure" has Spongebob and his friends go on land, they appear as live action puppets outside the water.
** Mermaid Man and Baracle Boy are the only cartoony humans in the show.

* ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears'': The bears and other animals are drawn in a simple, graphic style, while the humans, although still cartoony, are more detailed and realistically proportioned.