Here is a listing of the characters featured in the Warner Bros. series Histeria! Some of them pretty much personify some of their tropes.
Father Time
The host of the show, who knows historical dates down to the second and wear watches from his shoulder to his wrist. Voiced by Frank Welker.
- Ambiguously Brown: His skin is dark, making his ethnicity ambiguous.
- Cool Old Guy: He brings several children along with him through the past to educate them about history.
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: The above quote. Sometimes he switches it and says "the place..." first.
- Mister Exposition: He explains everything about the eras of history he and the other characters visit.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: In some sketches, he plays characters as imitations of Bill Cosby.
Big Fat Baby
Father Time's sidekick, and the reason why Histeria! was considered a Gross-Out Show. He is an egg-shaped parody of Baby New Year with a very nasty habit of crapping his diaper. Voiced by Luke Ruegger (brother of Nathan and Cody Ruegger; son of Tom Ruegger)
- Bring My Brown Pants: Regularly poops in his diaper.
- Cephalothorax: Comes off as this due to being egg-shaped and having no neck.
- Fartillery: The Kid Chorus uses him as this in "Big Fat Baby Theatre".
- Improbable Infant Survival: Seriously, look at what he can survive in The History of Poland sketch.
- Phrase Catcher: A historical figure will ask when was the last time somebody changed his diaper. One of the kids will say, "remember (famous historical event)? Before that."
- Running Gag: The kids request help changing Big Fat Baby's diaper, claiming the last time he had a clean diaper was before something that happened a long time ago.
Miss Information
A ditzy but attractive tour guide who sometimes makes mistakes with the information she gives out. Voiced by Laraine Newman.
- Brainless Beauty: She's quite a looker, but not very bright.
- Catchphrase: (to tour group) "Stay together, people. We're walkin'... we're walkin'..."
- Dumb Blonde: She has blonde hair and often gets her historical facts wrong.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Her appealing looks whenever she appears causes other characters to point out that they find her attractive, especially in her beach outfit with her midriff and legs exposed.
- Meaningful Name: True to her name, she's mistaken about certain things and has to be corrected by other characters.
- "Miss X" Pun: Miss Information is supposed to be an informative tour guide, but she's dumb as bricks and often gives out wrong facts.
- Punny Name: Her name is a play on misinformation.
World's Oldest Woman
- Abhorrent Admirer: As Cleopatra (and herself occasionally)
- Dirty Old Woman: Hits on Bill Straitman whenever he interviews her and has dated every male world leader in history
- Early-Bird Cameo: An early version of the character actually appeared in a Chicken Boo sketch on Animaniacs.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": She's only ever known as the World's Oldest Woman.
- Expy: She is essentially a human version of Slappy Squirrel. Her theme song is even set to the same melody of Slappy's theme.
- Fan Disservice: Her portrayals of Lady Godiva and Cleopatra in "A Tribute to Tyrants". The former actually follows the famous legend of Lady Godiva protesting against her husband Leofric's tax by riding horseback in the nude, while the latter has two occasions where she's in the tub and wants her back to be scrubbed by either Julius Caesar or Mark Antony.
- Really 700 Years Old: She looks like your normal senior citizen, but is actually as old as time itself (she claims to have dated every man in history, starting with Adam in the Garden of Eden).
Loud Kiddington
A mischievous brown-haired boy who likes to make his statements clear by shouting them in the loudest volume possible. Voiced by Cody Ruegger (brother of Nathan and Luke Ruegger; son of Tom Ruegger)
- Animated Actors: The episode "The Teddy Roosevelt Show" reveals he is also a writer for the show.
- Brats with Slingshots: He is shown using a slingshot in "Histeria! Goes to the Moon".
- Character Catchphrase: Often yells "What a grouch!" whenever someone is being extremely rude to him.
- Honest John's Dealership: One episode was about him running dealerships of various historical things, like vacations in Pompeii.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Based on his voice actor, Cody Ruegger, who according to his dad Tom, "tended to be the loudest kid on Earth".
- Karmic Trickster: If he sees someone doing evil to anyone, even his friends, he will subject the culprit with hilarious poetic justice. The Cree Indians, for instance, refused to leave the land and continued to hunt buffaloes, so Loud caused the buffaloes to charge at them, causing them to finally leave.
- Meaningful Name: As his first name would suggest, he constantly shouts his dialogue.
- No Indoor Voice: Loud is, to quote the main page for this show, "more like 'Halfway across Manhattan Voice'". He even provides the image for this trope's Western Animation section.
- Running Gag: He likes to keep watch of things, silently muttering "See it, see it..." when it's visible and screaming "DON'T SEE IT!! DON'T SEE IT!!" when it disappears.
- Tagalong Kid: To the Super Writers.
- Volumetric Mouth: He talks like this.
Froggo
A short blond kid so named for his deep, frog-like voice. Voiced by Nathan Ruegger (brother of Cody and Luke Ruegger; son of Tom Ruegger)
- Big Eater: He's got a huge appetite. Even the sketch concerning the Romans' vomitorium has him so hungry, he could throw up twice implying he's a stickler for food. Just make sure turnips aren't among the dishes.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Often asks for some things...because he's a genius in making stuff and he's gonna do it ASAP.
- Innocent Prodigy: He's very intelligent, but just as immature as the other children.
- Large Ham: When the Wright Brothers can't provide him with the tools he needs, his displeasure is over-the-top and melodramatic.
- Meaningful Name: His voice sounds like a frog croaking.
- Only One Name: He has no surname.
- Picky Eater: "A turnip? Yick! Now I'm really sick!"
- Vocal Dissonance: He's a preteen kid with a voice that sounds like it should belong to a bullfrog the size of an ox.
Charity Bazaar
A melancholic blonde girl who almost always seem to be in a glum mood (except when singing). Voiced by Laraine Newman
- Character Catchphrase: "I'm not happy".
- The Eeyore: She's always melancholic.
- Friend to All Living Things: Seen in "When America Was Young" where the animals come around her. She's also fond of them in return, to the point of trying to stop a hunter from destroying their habitats, only leaving when he bribes her with a cookie.Charity: I will not let you devastate this innocent creature's home! I would rather die than let you ruin this land!
- Ignoring by Singing: She does this in the Rosa Parks sketch in "Heroes of Truth and Justice", because trying to stop Loud from singing "99 Bottles of Root Beer on the Wall" at the top of his lungs only causes him to forget where he was and start over.Loud Kiddington: ♫ You take one down, pass it around; 27 bottles of Root Beer on the wall! 27 bottles of Root Beer on the wall, 27 bottles of Root Beer! ♫
Charity: [covering her ears] La-la-la-la-la, I'm not listening! - Little Miss Snarker: Often makes serious, wry, and sometimes hilarious lines in a monotonic tone of voice. It's most prominent when she recounts the history of Poland.
- Punny Name: A play on "charity bazaar".
Aka Pella
- Cassandra Truth: During the Yalta Conference, her warnings about Stalin not keeping his hands off the Eastern Bloc go unheeded.
- Character Catchphrase: "What's the dilly-o with that?"
- Punny Name: Her name is a play on a capella, a term referring to a song sung without the addition of musical instruments.
- Sassy Black Woman: A downplayed version of the typical examples. She got the tomboyish, cheeky attitude with the occasional snark, but is overall rather amiable, sociable and not overtly overbearing.
Pepper Mills
- Character Catch Phrase: "Ripoffski!" and "Gypola!" (which she sometimes says after getting autographs). She also says "Yuckosis!" when she sees someone doing something disgusting.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Can't get any nuttier if she confuses every historical figure she encounters with pop culture figures.
- Genki Girl: She's downright excitable most of the time.
- Gender Flip: In one promo that proposed 'Hers'teria,' Pepper swaps various male-sounding suffixes with female ones, such as Thomas "JefferDAUGHTER" (as opposed to "Jefferson"), the "fronteersWOmen" (as opposed to "frontiersmen"), and viQUEENS (as opposed to vikings).
- Hidden Depths: In spite of her tendency to mistake the historical figures she demands autographs from for famous pop culture icons, she is occasionally shown to know her facts about history and there are some episodes where she excitedly states her admiration towards a historical figure that she isn't mistaking for someone else.
- Historical Character Confusion: Has a habit of asking historical characters for their autograph, then realizing that she had mistaken them for someone else.
- I'm Your Biggest Fan: She wants the autograph of every historical figure she meets, though she always has no idea who they really are.
- Leitmotif: She is usually accompanied with a jazzy instrumental arrangement from her theme song.
- Loony Fan: Asks historical figures of their autographs and gets furious when she realizes too late that she's mistaken them for someone else.
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: "Heeey, you're not ___!" or "Wait a minute, you're not ___!"
- No Indoor Voice: Like Loud, Pepper is quite prone to yelling a lot, but mostly when she's excited about something (usually meeting a historical figure that she thinks is a pop cultural celebrity).
- Running Gag: She constantly asks historical celebrities for their autographs, only to find out they're not the pop cultural celebrity she mistook them for.
- Squee: She often ends her sentences with a loud, high-pitched squeal when she's excited.
Toast
A sunburned teenager who never seems to have a clue about what's going on around him, and never has any interest in the things his guest stars talk about. Voiced by Tress MacNeille.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He thinks that everything important has to revolve around surfing or rock music.
- Only One Name: He's only ever referred to as "Toast", and for that matter we're not even sure if Toast is his real name.
- Totally Radical: He appears to be an Expy of Bill & Ted (fittingly enough).
Cho-Cho
An obsessive Asian salesgirl who refuses to leave her customers alone until they have bought something from her. She is almost always accompanied by Lucky Bob. Voiced by Tress MacNeille.
- Dreadful Musician: While she's still pretty good at singing during the songs concerning historical things, her appearance in the Rosa Parks sketch has her...well, less singing and more yelping and squawking to Toast's rocking out.
- Leitmotif: "Chopsticks" can always be heard as background music whenever she speaks.... Eeeeyeah, that hasn't really aged well.
Lucky Bob
Cho-Cho's slow-witted sidekick who likes quoting Ed McMahon. The"Underground Railroad" sketch on the episode "General Sherman's Campsite" explains that Lucky Bob was once kicked in the head by wild donkeys (and is called "Lucky Bob" because that only happened to him once), which would explain why he's such a drooling pinhead. Voiced by Jeff Bennett.
- The Ditz: He's a complete dunce.
- Dumb Blonde: Gender-flipped, as he's a boy rather than a girl like the trope usually is.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A lot of his mannerisms were based on the late Ed McMahon.
- Write Who You Know: Lucky Bob is physically modeled after Tiny Toons staff member Dan McQ.
Pule Houser
- Big Eater: One sketch in "Heroes of Truth and Justice" had him sick from eating too much hot dog soup.
- Butt-Monkey: He gets hurt for comedic effect in just about every one of his appearances.
Susanna Susquahanna
- Childish Tooth Gap: Causes her speech impediment.
- Speech Impediment: She has a huge lisp (although not as big as Lucky Bob's), which gives her a hell of a time pronouncing her own name.
Mr. Smartypants
The smartest man in the world, but also so incredibly shy that he wears really tall pants with which to partially cover his face. Voiced by Rob Paulsen.
- Hammerspace: He can apparently store anything inside his pants.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": He often laughs whenever he says something that sounds inappropriate. One example is in "Inventors Hall of Fame, Part 1", where he chuckles every time Thomas Crapper's name is mentioned.
- Meaningful Name: "Smartypants" is a synonym for "know-it-all" and most of his body is covered by his pants.
- The Smart Guy: He is said to be the smartest guy in the world.
Fetch
Loud Kiddington's pet dog, so named for his love of fetching round objects. Voiced by Frank Welker.- Non-Human Sidekick: To Loud.
- Shout-Out: Resembles Hunter from Road Rovers (coincidentally, both this show and Road Rovers were on and off the air for about a year and were made by the same company), albeit a tad darker. Word of God said it was intentional!
- Talking Animal: He occasionally speaks, one instance being in "The Know-It-Alls" when he asks Rene Descartes to play fetch with him.
Chit Chatterson
An egotistical salesman with some sanity issues. Voiced by Billy West.
- Honest John's Dealership: He often appears offering his services to historical figures, only to inconvenience them.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: He is a parody of Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko character.
- Perpetual Smiler: He is constantly grinning.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Is completely unaware of how shoddy his services are.
Bill Straitman
As his name implies, he is the straight foil to the other comedic characters. Can often be seen interviewing The World's Oldest Woman about the many historical events and people she's seen/been with. Voiced by James Wickline.
- Meaningful Name: He is the straight man to the other characters.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Based on Carl Reiner, specifically his role with Mel Brooks in their "2,000 Year Old Man" routine.
Sammy Melman
A smarmy network executive. Voiced by Rob Paulsen.
- Small Name, Big Ego: He's frequently under the delusion that his ideas are better than everyone else's.
Lydia Karaoke
The resident network censor who sometimes objects to whatever antics the rest of the cast gets up to. Voiced by Nora Dunn.
- Butt-Monkey: Sometimes, she gets the worst treatment out of all the characters (particularly when she gets blasted by torpedos and discovers the real reason why "Damn the torpedoes" is an appropriate phrase, despite containing a word that's considered taboo on American children's TV).
- Executive Meddling : Whenever she interrupts a sketch over risque/gross/violent content. One episode had her interrupt Billy the Kid's kid show to complain that he's a violent criminal and his line asking the kids to get a six-shooter from yonder barn will lead to copycat incidents, then tells him that his kids' show can be salvaged if they make it appealing to the young female demographic, so she (briefly) turns him into a cowgirl.
- Media Watchdog, Moral Guardian, Political Overcorrectness: Her character and appearance on the show represents how network TV cartoons back in the mid-to-late 1990s were being subjected to censorship and Executive Meddling (and her comic abuse is basically the creators taking potshots at the powers that be).
- Think of the Censors!: Inverted; the main cast doesn't care if what they say or do is risqué, but Lydia does.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: She doesn't care if her actions interfere with historical accuracy or otherwise prevent the show from being entertaining. She will not tolerate any material that people would find inappropriate to include on a children's show.
Sarah Coopersmithfitzwarengoldenheimerstein
- Leitmotif: Always accompanied by Brahms's "Symphony No. 1 - Movement 4".
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Her segments often ended with her saying "And may all your X be Y!"
- Overly Long Name: Just look at her last name!
Nostradamus
A professed seer who claims to be able to "predictate" the future, but often gets it wrong. Voiced by Paul Rugg- Large Ham: For a seer, he's rather dramatic in his speech and actions, often because he's erratic and impatient.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Paul Rugg is using his Jerry Lewis-esque director voice from Animaniacs.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: He frequently says "predictiate" in place of "predict".
- Verbal Tic: He frequently says "Shaddap!" between every other word he says.
Molly Pitcher
A woman who supposedly carried water to cannon crews during the American Revolutionary War. It's said that when her husband, one of the cannon crewmen, was wounded during the Battle of Monmouth, she took his place at the guns. Now, she tends to show up whenever anyone in the series needs or talks about water (It's either her or Montezuma, and you don't want that!). Voiced by Tress MacNeille
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: She's portrayed as being like Martha Stewart.
- Running Gag: Appears whenever anyone needs or talks about water.
- Stepford Smiler: Always have a big toothy grin, even when she's loading and firing canons. The real Molly Pitcher reacted to being shot at close enough for her skirt to be ripped by a bullet with only some mild annoyance at having extra mending to do, so not far from the truth.