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Residents of the Big Blue House
In General
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Tutter is a blue mouse, Pip and Pop are purple otters, Ojo is a red bear cub, and Treelo is a white, blue and green lemur.
- Black Bead Eyes: Bear, Ojo, Pip, and Pop have black eyes.
- Vague Age: We know that Bear is an adult and the other residents are kids, but beyond that we have no clue about their exact ages.
Bear
Performed by: Noel MacNealOther languages
The titular Bear in the big blue house, a very warm-hearted and easygoing bear.- Beary Friendly: One of the most triumphant examples. He's a bear and one of the most amicable characters.
- Big Eater: Downplayed, but he enjoys his cheese drawer and he says that the meals are his favourite parts of the day in "Call it a Day".
- Big Fun: He's a large bear who's just as fun loving as the kids he lives with.
- Character Catchphrase: "What's that smell?! Oh, it's you! You know, you smell like X today. Or maybe you smell this good all the time."
- Deadpan Snarker: In a gentle, friendly way; he often shows a dry sense of humor, which is played up in his appearances on The Hollywood Squares.
- A Dog Named "Dog": A bear named Bear.
- Friend to All Children: He's very good with kids, which helps in a houseful of kids.
- Funny Animal: He walks around upright and can talk.
- Gentle Giant: He's enormous and very gentle.
- Inconsistent Coloring: He is a light golden brown in the show itself, but he tends to look orange in promotional photos and merchandise (even the show's logo features an orange bear head). He's been referred to in-universe as both brown and orange in different episodes.
- Nice Guy: He never gets angry and is just so warm and friendly he's incapable of saying no to anybody. While he isn't an Extreme Doormat, and can be firm with the kids when need be, he always remains collected while doing so.
- The Nose Knows: Has a strong sense of smell.
- Parental Substitute: He's a father figure to all the others who live in or frequently visit the Big Blue House.
- Stock Animal Diet: He loves honey and berries like most fictional (and real life) bears.
- Trademark Favorite Food: He loves berries, particularly his triple-berry pie. Also, cooked and buttered string beans.
Tutter
Performed by: Peter Linz
A blue mouse who loves cheese and has a tendency to worry and fret.- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: A blue mouse.
- Character Catchphrase:
- "Thank you, Bear!"
- "It may be little to a big old bear like you, but to a mouse..."
- "A mouse has to do things for himself in this world."
- "Oh, hickory dickory!"
- Civilised Animal: He uses the bathroom, talks, and eats from plates, yet he also lives in a mouse hole and eats cheese and bran.
- Department of Redundancy Department: He tends to talk in a repetitive way with sentences like "This is a sentence, [character], a sentence."
- Expy: Of Boober Fraggle, being a small and nervous Neat Freak.
- Large Ham: Despite being the smallest main character on the show, he can be this. For example, there's his freak-out in the episode "Friends For Life"...Tutter: How many times — HOW MANY TIMES do I have to say it, Treelo?! I! AM NOT! A SNOW BEAR! I! AM A MOUSE! TUTTER THE MOUSE!
- Mouse Hole: Lives in a hole in the wall.
- Neat Freak: Tutter strives to tidy up anything he can. He even gets a song about it called "Why Can't the Dirt Just Leave Me Alone?".
- Nervous Wreck: Tutter often tends to be somewhat more tightly wound than the other characters, often getting upset or worked up over minor things and having to be reminded by Bear to calm down and breathe, or to take quiet time. When he first learns that he's going to school, he ends up getting so worked up over it that Bear and his new teacher have to correct the false assumptions he's built up over it. When he actually gets to school, Bear has to remain outside the school building for quite a while before he becomes comfortable enough for Bear to leave.
- Nice Mice: He is very friendly towards Bear and the other residents of the Big Blue House.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Listening to Tutter's voice, particularly during the first few episodes, he sounds an awful lot like Spike Jones of Spike Jones and The City Slickers (specifically, the voice he used for "All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth").
- No Indoor Voice: He often yells when he's annoyed due to being high strung.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: He lets out high pitched screams, including when he was scared by his own shadow.
- Stock Animal Diet: Like a typical fictional mouse, he likes cheese. In fact, he's had a recurring dream about being a king and demanding more cheese.
- Suddenly Shouting: He does a lot of yelling, sometimes at the end of his sentences.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Cheese is one of his defining favorite snacks, being a mouse and all.
- Vague Age: His age is a mystery: He has his own mouse hole, which is kind of like living alone, but then again it's connected to the rest of the house. He has his own First Day of School Episode, which logically puts him at around five or six, but maybe mice start their education as adults. And in "When You've Got to Go", he has to learn about not procrastinating with bathroom breaks, yet is able to play checkers, which is a relatively sophisticated game, competently. On the more kiddish side, he sleeps with a stuffed toy, spends a lot of his time playing with kids, and relies on Bear for many things, despite his claim that a mouse has to do things for himself (though part of that may be because he's a mouse in a houseful of larger animals).
Treelo
Performed by: Tyler BunchOther languages
An excitable young lemur who enjoys swinging from vines.His Self-Demonstrating Article can be found here
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Green with some white and blue in there. How many lemurs do you know that share his color scheme?
- Art Evolution: In Season 3, his puppet was updated to have functional eyelids, which make him more expressive.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Easily the most childish of the kids, being unaware of some concepts like snow, and having trouble speaking in full sentences.
- Character Catchphrase: Oddly enough, his catchphrase is his own name.
- Character Tics: When he feels silly, he'll laugh while covering his face with one hand. He also occasionally does this in response to other characters being silly.
- Cheerful Child: He's energetic, bouncy, and loves to climb and swing.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Doesn't know what snow is, thinks a tomato is his friend, and likes to say his name among other things.
- Cuddle Bug: He loves to hug and tickle.
- Deteriorates Into Gibberish: A running gag where he talks so fast he starts blabbing nonsensically.
- Drop-In Character: In some cases, literally; of the kids, he's the most likely to enter a scene by entering the Big Blue House itself, usually either by swinging in from the window or just diving into the room from offscreen.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: Bear always seems to understand what Treelo is saying even though about half the time it's gibberish and even the other children can't understand it. The closed-captioning on the Disney+ releases also tends to present as if he's speaking perfect English, seemingly whatever point the captioner thinks he's trying to get across based on context clues and what actually is intelligible.
- Keet: He's very active and upbeat.
- Meaningful Name: He likes to climb, and swing from, trees, and he has "tree" right in his name.
- Motor Mouth: He speaks in fast gibberish when she's excited.
- Third-Person Person: He usually speaks in the third-person.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Bananas (or "bananananas", if you will), to the point where he tries to make them the only food on a picnic.
- The Unintelligible: While he can talk normally (though even this can be hard to understand), he sometimes descends into a rapid-fire and definitely unintelligible babble that closed-captioning sometimes transcribes as being "Treelo-ese".
- You No Take Candle: He sometimes speaks in primitive grammar.
Ojo
Performed by: Vicki EibnerOther languages
A bear cub with a strong imagination.- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: She pronounces Tutter's name "Tut-ter".
- Afraid of Needles: In one episode she hides in her room to avoid getting a shot until Bear helps her through it by singing a song about how they're over quickly.
- Age-Appropriate Angst: She's often seen getting sad about normal kiddie things, like wanting to be older/bigger and learning to use the toilet.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: She's a red-orange bear.
- Beary Friendly: Not as much as Bear, but still very friendly.
- Character Catchphrase: "No, no, no, no, no, Bear. This isn't X. This is (whatever thing she's imagining at the moment)."
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She's almost always seen with her stuffed "snow bear".
- Ms. Imagination: Every episode she's pretending something new.
- Not a Morning Person: "Morning Glory" shows that she can be a bit cranky first thing in the morning and needs time to wake up.
- The Smurfette Principle: She's the only girl in the main cast.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's One of the Boys, but that doesn't stop her obsession with tea parties. Best exemplified in "You Go, Ojo!" with her dinosaur tea party.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Honey and berries, just like Bear.
Pip and Pop
Performed by: Peter Linz (Pip) and Tyler Bunch (Pop)Other languages
Two purple otter cousins who love clams and swimming in the otter pond.- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Like Ojo, they pronounce Tutter's name "Tut-ter".
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: A pair of purple otters.
- Big Brother Instinct: Downplayed, whenever Tutter is upset, they'll always be there to help him feel better.
- The Dividual: Their different voices are the only way to tell them apart as they look exactly the same and have very similar personalities.
- Furry Reminder: They act a lot like humans but they like swimming like real otters.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: A very subtle example, Pop's eyes are slightly bigger than Pip's.
- Playful Otter: Both of 'em. They're nice, friendly otters.
- Signature Laugh: Pip has a high-pitched cackle.
- Those Two Guys: Always seen together.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Boy howdy, do they love clams.
Other Woodland Valley residents
Luna
Performed by: Lynne Thigpen (Voice), Peter Linz (Puppeteer)
The moon who Bear talks to at the end of every episode.- A Dog Named "Perro": Her name means "moon" in Spanish and Italian
- Character Catchphrase:
- "I would love to, Bear."
- "Hello, Bear!"
- "After all, I am the moon."
- Male Sun, Female Moon: She's the Female Moon to Ray's Male Sun.
- The Man in the Moon: She has a face.
- Meaningful Name: Her name, Luna, which means "moon."
- Stellar Name: She's named after the Latin word for "moon".
- Weird Moon: So weird that she can talk!
Ray
Performed by: Geoffrey Holder (Voice), Peter Linz (Puppeteer)
- Male Sun, Female Moon: He's the Male Sun to Luna's Female Moon.
- Meaningful Name: His name is Ray because suns have rays.
- The Face of the Sun: He has a face.
- Weird Sun: The sun can talk.
Shadow
Performed by: Tara Mooney (Voice), Peter Linz (Puppeteer)
A living shadow that tells Bear stories (sometimes partly in song), which are acted out by shadow puppets.- Catchphrase Insult: Commonly calls Bear "you big old bear" or "you silly old bear".
- Character Catchphrase: "When you need another story, just try and catch me!"
- A Dog Named "Dog": A shadow named Shadow.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Her stories, which tend to be poems, are often based on traditional fairy tales or Nursery Rhymes, but with various pop-culture references, or characters that are more hip or off-the-wall than their traditional fairy-tale counterparts.
- Invisibility: Shadow is able to turn invisible at will. Usually, Bear will hear her laughing while she's invisible, prompting him to sing a song to try to get her to appear.
- Living Shadow: Not only is Shadow one, but all of her stories are told as shadow plays.
- Oireland: She speaks with a noticeable Irish accent.
- Phrase Catcher: Bear will say, "That sounds like Shadow laughing!" and sing a song asking where she is whenever he hears her laugh.
- Signature Laugh: Is commonly heard chuckling before she appears.
- The Storyteller: Shadow loves to tell stories.
- The Trickster: She's got a mischievous streak, and especially enjoys appearing and disappearing at will.
Doc Hogg
Performed by: Tyler Bunch
A pig, who is a doctor and makes house calls.- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: He wears only a pair of glasses.
- The Medic: He's a medical doctor.
- Motor Mouth: He talks a lot. Often while other characters are talking.
- Species Surname: Played with. His last name is "Hogg", whereas the proper spelling of his species is "hog".
Jeremiah Tortoise
Performed by: Jim Kroupa
An elderly tortoise. He serves as the postman for Woodland Valley and also runs the general store. He is notorious for taking forever to deliver the mail.- Forgetful Jones: Jeremiah often forgets things and often stops in mid-sentence because he can't remember what it was that he was saying. Other times, he will repeat greet someone a second time after having just greeted them.
- Snail Mail: He is a tortoise who delivers the mail in Woodland Valley. You can see how this can go wrong. It's not unusual for stuff to take ages to arrive, and woe be those who get a wrong package because of his forgetfulness, forcing a redelivery.
