History Main / TypicalCartoonAnimalColors

Here's a list of ropes "Typical Cartoon Animal Colors" can refer to:

* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Animal colors that ''arent'' typical.

Many cartoon animals have coloration that's consistent across works, even by different animators, but which is not typical of them in RealLife. This has the effect of making identifying the animal as belonging to to a particular species easier for the audience: for instance, if a farmyard bird with webbed feet is white or grey, it's a goose; but if it's yellow, it's a duck. Likewise, if a small round-eared rodent sniffing around a pantry is white or brown, the audience knows that it's a mouse; if it's gray or black instead, it's a rat.

This trope can also be the result of TheCoconutEffect in action where realistic markings or colorings seem [[RealityIsUnrealistic off to the viewer]], but more often it's a case of ColorCodedForYourConvenience.

'''See Analysis.TypicalCartoonAnimalColors for more information.''' Compare and contrast AmazingTechnicolorWildlife, where animals are colored freely. BicolorCowsSolidColorBulls, GreenGators, RedLiveLobster and WhiteBunny are subtropes. StockObjectColors is a SuperTrope.
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:General examples]]
[[AC:{{Film}} -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'':
** RJ the raccoon is a solid dark brown, except for a white belly and black tail rings and a facial mask; real raccoons are usually light grey.
** Verne the turtle has a light green, mostly solid-colored body, with a brown shell.
** Hammy the squirrel is a russet brown color, with a white belly.

[[AC:Jokes]]
->Q: What's brown and yellow, brown and yellow, brown and yellow?
->A: A monkey rolling down a hill with a banana!

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* The picture book ''Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?'' features a brown bear, a red bird, a yellow duck, a green frog, a white dog, a black sheep, and a goldfish.

[[AC:Video Games]]
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In most of their appearances, Cuccos -- [[CallARabbitASmeerp chickens by another name]] -- are pure white with bright red combs and wattles.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': Cows are classic black-and-white spotted Holsteins.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'':
*** Common wolves have dark gray tails, backs, thighs and crowns, with creamy white faces, necks, feet and tail tips. Cold-footed wolves and coyotes are largely whiter and brown recolors of this pattern.
*** Honeyvore bears are dark brown, with the popular addition of a much paler tan muzzle.
*** Grassland foxes are bright orange, with dark legs and ears and white bellies, jaws and tail tips. Snowcoat foxes use the same model, with the orange parts recolored icy blue.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'':
** The original three color variants that cats appear in -- orange tabby, black-and-white tuxedo and Siamese -- are all very popular ways to depict cats in popular culture. The 1.14 update added a number of other classic colors, such as tabby and calico.
** This is predominant for the "livestock" animals as well:
*** Pigs are the classic shiny bright pink.
*** Sheep have white wool and brown faces and feet, with brown, gray and black sheep appearing as rare color variants. The player is free to subvert this if they so desire, as white sheep can be permanently dyed with any and all in-game color dyes.
*** Very rarely, naturally pink sheep can also spawn.
*** Cows have a quasi-Frisian brown-and-white splotched pattern.
*** Chickens are pristine white, with bright yellow beaks and feet and scarlet wattles.
*** Among the rabbits, brown and white are both common colors. So is black-and-white, despite these being theoretically wild animals instead of pets.
** Foxes spawned in taigas are bright orange with white tail tips, while foxes spawned in snowy taigas are the uniform white of arctic foxes.
** The five color variants for the parrots include a classic green parrot and others modeled on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_macaw hyacinth]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-and-yellow_macaw blue-and-yellow]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_macaw scarlet]] macaws. The fifth is based on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockatiel cockatiel]], a species of small gray parrot very common as a pet.
** Sea turtles are bright emerald green, despite the fact that few turtles, and certainly no sea turtles, are this color in real life.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': Blackwing the raven, Vaarsuvius's {{Familiar}}, has bright orange beak and legs that, while typical of cartoon corvids, make him resemble a male common blackbird more closely than anything else. Largely justified in this case -- being all-black would make him less visually interesting and, especially in the comic's deliberately simplistic art style, make his expressions harder to read.
* ''Webcomic/{{Sheldon}}'': Although it's hard to see in the black-and-white weekly strips, the colored Sunday strips show that Arthur is a standard cartoon yellow duck.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* The Bird Watcher's General Store's web article [[http://www.birdwatchersgeneralstore.com/YellowCrow.htm Real Crows Don't Have Yellow Beaks]] talks about why yellow beaked and yellow footed cartoon crows are so prevalent in cartoons and comics and how the yellow beaks and feet became a typical cartoon animal color for crows and ravens.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/JungleJunction'' features a red crab (Taxicrab), a green toad (Toadhog), a pink pig (Zooter), and a green crocodile (Crocker).
* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
** Tweety is yellow like a typical cartoon canary.
** Bugs Bunny is mostly light grey, with a white belly, cheeks and "slippers".
* ''WesternAnimation/WordWorld'' has a brown dog, a yellow duck, a pink pig, a green frog, a white sheep, and a brown bear.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Most cows are white with large black spots, in the manner of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holstein_Friesian_cattle Holstein cattle]] that's typical of cartoon cows. The rest are either white with large brown spots or solid brown.
** Pigs are typically bright pink; when multiple pigs are present at once, some will be tan, black or tan with large black spots.
** The rabbits are all solid white, brown, grey or black.
** Squirrels are a solid mid-brown, with light bellies.
** Almost all mice in the show are pure white, and occasionally light grey.
** Monkeys are brown, with grey hands and faces and tan bellies.
** Harry the bear is dark brown, with a tan belly and muzzle.
** Clementine the giraffe is dark yellow with brown spots.
** Sandra the wolf is dark grey on her back, head, nose and upper side of her tail and very light grey on her belly, muzzle, legs and underside of her tail.
** Most chickens are a clean, solid white; when multiple chickens appear in the same scene, some will be brown or golden-brown instead, but always a solid, unmarked color. They all have bright red combs, and canary yellow chicks.
** The ducks are the classic mallards, usually appearing in small family groups -- a grey-bodied male with a bright green head, a solid brown female and three or four yellow ducklings. Both males and females are drawn with bright yellow bills, although only male mallards have these in real life.
** The eagles are all uniformly bald eagles with gray bodies and white heads and tails.
** Tortoises and turtles, including Tank, one of the main characters' pets, are either uniformly deep green or have green heads and limbs with gray-green or brown shells, although green is a very uncommon color for tortoises in real life. Unlike other cartoon tortoises, but like real life tortoises, their shells are almost always prominently patterned with either spots or hexagonal markings.
** Crocodilians, including regular crocodiles, Pinkie's baby alligator Gummy, and monstrous creatures such as the Cipactli and cragadiles, are various shades of green. This discrepancy is especially obvious in a deliberate gag in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E12PinkiePride Pinkie Pride]]" when a scene cuts to Gummy as a real baby alligator in live-action, whose hide is a much duller hue than the animated Gummy's bright emerald green.
** Snakes are usually bright jade or emerald green, with lighter bellies. Sometimes they're dark yellow instead, but only when multiple snakes are present in a single shot. Cobras tend to be either black or a dark grayish-purple.
** When frogs appear, they're colored a bright leaf green.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Examples specific to certain works]]
[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'': The mice are all either tan or light brown-furred all over and have brick red noses, pink ears, and black, threadlike tails.
* Creator/{{Disney}}: All the weasels in ''WesternAnimation/ThePrinceAndThePauper'' and the [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad Disney adaptation of]] ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows'' are brown-furred with tan colored muzzles, either with or without tan colored chins. Some of them have tan fur on the undersides of their necks, some of them don't.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'': The rats all have pink noses, ears, tails, and paws, bluish, grayish, grayish green, brownish, or reddish brown fur, and lighter colored bellies.
* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'': The weasels have more variation in fur color, but they all have base colored fur (usually brown) with lighter colored muzzles with lighter colored chins (except Smartass, whose chin is left the base color of his fur), undersides of necks, chests, bellies, and soles of feet.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'': Frank is green, unlike real frilled lizards which are brown.
* ''WesternAnimation/HomeOnTheRange'': All the pigs are pink, with black ears and darker pink backs.
* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'': In both the movies and TV series, the ducks are all-white feathered with grey feathered areas around their eyes and yellow-orange bills and feet.

[[AC:Literature]]
* ''Literature/GeronimoStilton'': Most of the mice are grey, light grey, reddish brown, brown, light brown, or orange with white foot soles, muzzles, front sides of their necks, chests, and bellies. Some of them have human-style head hair.

[[AC:Videogames]]
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': Generally, Pokémon are often ColorCodedForYourConvenience -- while there are a few exceptions, Water-type Pokémon tend to be blue or have prominent blue markings, Fire-types tend to be red or orange regardless of what animal they are based on, Poison-types are usually purple, Ice-types white or light blue, Grass-types green, and so on. In many cases, this results in animal-based designs associated with a specific type to be strongly associated with that color as well.
** There's a very strong tendency for frog-based Pokémon to be some shade of dark blue, light blue or teal. While this is largely due to most of them being Water-types -- the Poliwag, Tympole and Froakie lines are all solely or partly Water Pokémon -- Croagunk and Toxicroak are Poison/Fighting-types and still chiefly teal rather than Poison's purple. The chiefly green Politoed is the sole exception to this pattern, and even then Politoed's shiny form is also blue.
** Snake-based Pokémon, being largely Poison-types, are typically purple. Some exceptions are the [[GreenThumb Snivy line]], which are green, and [[DishingOutDirt Silicobra and Sandaconda]], which are a mix of tan and brown. Seviper is black and yellow, but has purple markings.
** Bat Pokémon gravitate towards blues and purples, a trend with only minor type associations -- Crobat's purple is the only one to match its Poison-type, but its preevolutions Zubat and Golbat are blue, as are the Psychic/Flying Woobat and Swoobat, while the Flying/Dragon Noibat is mostly light purple.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
** Most rabbits have base color (be it grey, cream, blue, pink, etc.) fur with white cheeks and muzzle, front sides of their necks, chests, bellies, undersides of their tails, and slipper-like hindfoot markings.
** Also, most skunks have base color (often black) fur with a white facial "mask", front sides of their necks, chest, and belly as well as the characteristic white stripe on their back and tail (with or without a base colored stripe in the middle).
** The mice in the WesternAnimation/SpeedyGonzales cartoons are all tan or light brown with black noses, black, tan, or light brown, threadlike tails, and black head hair. Some of them have light tan faces.
* Creator/{{Disney}}:
** Most of the ducks in the WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts, ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse, ''Franchise/DuckTales'', and ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' are all-white feathered with yellow-orange bills and feet, like pekin ducks. Two notable exceptions to the all-white duck rule are [[WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck Gosalyn]], who is light-yellow feathered all over, and [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017 Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera]], who has light brown feathers all over.
** In the ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse, mice such as Mickey and Minnie are all-black furred with peach-colored facial "masks" and black noses.
** In the WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts, Salty and all the other seals are all-black with a flesh-colored facial "mask" marking.
* WesternAnimation/TopCat is yellow with a white muzzle and Benny the Ball is [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife blue]] with a peach colored facial "mask", but most cats in Top Cat have unpatterned (that is, not tabby), base color (except black) fur with peach colored muzzles and nearly all of them have black noses.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': Squirrels are usually base colored (except black) with white or lighter colored white cheeks and muzzle, front sides of their necks, chest, belly, and undersides of their tails. Some of them have white or lighter colored areas around their eyes as well.
* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': Most mice are all-white furred with red noses and pink feet and tails.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': All platypi are [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife teal-furred with orange bills, feet, and tails]].
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Ponies are AmazingTechnicolorWildlife with any one color for the base color, any one or few colors for the mane and tail, and cutie marks that they earn. Oddly enough, the two donkeys (and one mule) we see are both brown with black manes and lack cutie marks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Exceptions, subversions, and aversions]]
[[AC:{{Comics}}]]
* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': The horses are of a wider variety than usual, and almost all colourations seen correspond to real colours. Jolly Jumper (white with yellow legs and mane) would be ''perlino'', and the occasional black, white-maned individuals ''silver dapple blacks'' for instance.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'': Tekno is a canary but she's not yellow. She's green, which is an actual canary color (though it looks more like yellow-green in real life).

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'': Subverted with the geese, pigs, and rabbits in that they come in at least a few colors other than white, or pink in the pigs' case.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'': The lobster in "Under the Sea" is colored blue. [[TruthInTelevision Blue lobsters exist]], though they're a darker blue than that cartoon lobster. It's a rare mutation.
* ''WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat'': The crows have black beaks and legs.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'': Almost averted with the cubs. Early concept art shows them with the rosettes real-life lion cubs have, but in the final product they lack them except for newborn Simba.
* ''Film/AnimalFarm'': Most of the pigs in the animated adaptation are pink, but Napoleon is black with a lighter "saddle". In the book, he's a Berkshire (which are usually black with pink facial markings) and specifically stated to be the only pig of that breed on the farm.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'': Pua the pig is white with grey spots.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''VideoGame/BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg'': Notably averted with the crows, as their beak and feet color matches the all-black plumage in the same manner as RealLife crows.
* ''VideoGame/LuigisMansionSeries'': Averted in the [[VideoGame/LuigisMansion first]] and [[VideoGame/LuigisMansion3 third]] games where they appear with fully-black plumage, beak and claws, although in the [[VideoGame/LuigisMansionDarkMoon second]] game, their feathers are dark purple instead. Also, the latter two games feature [[GoldIsYellow Gold Crows]] that can be hoovered up for more money.
* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'': Averted with the crows in Twilight Town who all have black beaks, feet and feathers.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Creator/HannaBarbera:
** WesternAnimation/HuckleberryHound is blue. According to Joe Barbera, the idea originated from an old folk song, "Ol' Blue, you good dog, you."
** WesternAnimation/TheGreatGrapeApe is [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife purple]], instead of the brown of many cartoon gorillas. Then again, he is called the Great ''Grape'' Ape.
* The ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' canary, Sweetie, subverts this by being [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife pink feathered all over]]. Which was also [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Tweetie's]] color in very early cartoons.
* ''WesternAnimation/SuperWhy'': The goose in one episode is gray-feathered all over instead of having the all-white plumage that most cartoon geese have.
* In ''Staflik a Spagetka'', there's a crow with a yellow beak, but this is subverted in that the crow is blue instead of black.
* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': The two crows Jose and Miguel, from "The Crows From Tacos" and "Crows' Feat", have, in a bit of an odd case, black feet and yellow beaks.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeckleAndJeckle'': Magpies, save for the [[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-billed_Magpie yellow billed magpie]], usually have black beaks. Heck and Jeckle have yellow beaks.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Santa's Little Helper is a light brown rather than grey that's usually given to greyhounds. In RealLife brown greyhounds are exceedingly rare and almost always have white on them, though other non-grey greyhound colors are quite common.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard'': Kion has rosettes, which lion cubs in fiction usually lack. He's [[NonstandardCharacterDesign the only cub]] in the franchise to have these thus far.
* ''WesternAnimation/TimonAndPumbaa'': Boss Beaver has yellow teeth like a real-life beaver.

[[AC:WebComics]]
* Rak Wraithraiser from ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' is a rare example of a cartoon alligator who ''isn't'' green-- he's brown, like a real alligator.
[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'': Sebastian is the classic bright red crab standard to cartoons.