History Literature / DoctorDolittle

''Doctor Dolittle'' is a book series written by Creator/HughLofting with a total of 12 books; the first, ''The Story of Doctor Dolittle'', was published 1920. ''The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle'' won the second UsefulNotes/NewberyMedal.

* CantGetInTroubleForNuthin: In ''Doctor Dolittle's Return'', Dr. Dolittle tries in vain to get himself thrown into jail, so that he can write his book in peace and quiet. When he finally succeeds, the animals break him out and he has to start over again.

* CatsAreMean: The moon cats hold themselves apart from Otho Bludge's ideal society. This is also why a cat had never been part of the Dolittle household until Itty accompanied them back from the moon.

* GiantFlyer: Jamara Bumblelily, the moth large enough to double as an interplanetary spaceship, introduced in ''Doctor Dolittle's Garden'' (though his name is not given until ''Doctor Dolittle in the Moon'').

* {{Omniglot}}: He spends a lot of time learning animal languages.

* PollyWantsAMicrophone: Polynesia the parrot is the only animal in the series who speaks fluent English, and is the one who taught both Doctor Dolittle, and later on Tommy Stubbins, to speak animal languages.

* ''[[Literature/TheStoryOfDoctorDolittle The Story of Doctor Dolittle]]''
* ''[[Literature/TheVoyagesOfDoctorDolittle The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesPostOffice Doctor Dolittle's Post Office]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesCircus Doctor Dolittle's Circus]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesZoo Doctor Dolittle's Zoo]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesCaravan Doctor Dolittle's Caravan]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesGarden Doctor Dolittle's Garden]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittleInTheMoon Doctor Dolittle in the Moon]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesReturn Doctor Dolittle's Return]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittleAndTheSecretLake Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittleAndTheGreenCanary Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary]]''
* ''[[Literature/DoctorDolittlesPuddlebyAdventures Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures]]''

* DecisionDarts: "Stab a globe/atlas randomly with a pencil" is the good doctor's #1 technique for deciding where to go, as first seen in ''The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle''. It's even how he ended up on the moon.

* GiantFlyer: Jamara Bumblelily, the moth large enough to double as an interplanetary spaceship, introduced in ''Doctor Dolittle in the Moon''.

* InterplanetaryVoyage: In ''Doctor Dolittle in the Moon'', the Doctor flies to the moon on the back of a giant moth.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Prince Bumpo's family. Stubbins, Dr. Dolittle's assistant, is quite surprised in ''The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle'' to learn there is more to being a king than sitting on a throne and being bowed to several times a day.

* WorthlessYellowRocks: As seen in ''Doctor Dolittle's Caravan'', to an unfortunate badger who happens to chew through a lot of it, gold is just something that gets unpleasantly stuck in your teeth.

* BeastlyBloodsports: ''Doctor Dolittle's Circus''. During his journey on the English countryside, Doctor Dolittle repeatedly tries to get an old acquaintance, Sir William Peabody, to stop his weekly fox hunt. In the end, he saves a fox family from being hunted and shows them how to escape the hunting dogs by confusing their sense of smell using eucalyptus essence. The idea catches on among the foxes of the county, and the Doctor equips them all with the necessary eucalyptus essence, until Sir William has to stop the fox hunt because he never catches any foxes anymore.

* BlackSheep: Sarah Dolittle (the good Doctor's sister) views her brother as the black sheep of the family because he's gone from a respectable doctor to an eccentric who talks to animals. When she reappears in ''Doctor Dolittle's Circus'', she insists on him using an alias while running the titular circus so he won't embarrass her by associating her name with that of a "circus showman".

* CarnivoreConfusion: It's a little strange to read about the doctor eating sausages and such when Gub Gub the pig is a main character.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: The crocodile from the first book stayed in Africa at the end and, unlike Polynesia and Chee-Chee (who also stayed, but later rejoined the Doctor), is never mentioned again in any of the later books.

* CoolBoat: (after a fashion) The Great Glass Sea Snail.

** However, when he first meets Long Arrow, the only language they share is Eagle, despite both of them being bona fide geniuses and the Doctor being very well-traveled, so that's what they speak with each other at first.
* DecisionDarts: "Stab a globe/atlas randomly with a pencil" is the good doctor's #1 technique for deciding where to go. It's even how he ended up on the moon.

* EekAMouse: A smaller African kingdom is warred upon by a bigger, expansionist one, whose crack troops are Amazons. The White Mouse who lives in Dolittle's pocket points out that while they are fearsome warriors, the Amazons are still women, and gather a force of local mice who scares them away.

* GiantFlyer: Jamara Bumblelily, the moth large enough to double as an interplanetary spaceship.
* GluttonousPig: Gub-Gub, who's [[BigEater always hungry]] and wanting to eat. He even got his own book on the subject, ''Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopaedia of Food In Twenty Volumes''.

* HeroicDog: Jip was once awarded a solid gold dog collar for saving a man's life.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: The Doctor can fall into this from time to time especially in the case of Alexander Blossom.
* TheIdealist: John Dolittle is very much this with both good ideas like the Retired Cab and Wagon Horses Association and impractical schemes such as the Animal's Bank.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Between Doctor Dolittle and Tommy Stubbins, who is ten years old when they first meet. Also between Tommy and Bumpo, who is at least old enough to be studying at Oxford.

** Cockney sparrow, Cheapside is irreverent and rude, but a loyal ally.
** The Captain of the HMS ''Violet'' is rather hot tempered, but is genuinely grateful to the Doctor for helping with the capture of Jimmie Bones the slaver.
* JerkassHasAPoint: The Captain is rather understandably put out by the Doctor leaving his ship without running lights where the ''Violet'' crashes into it. In fairness to the Doctor he'd left much earlier in the day before it was dark.

** Circus manager Alexander Blossom gets away with a massive amount of money and leaves the Doctor with a mass of unpaid bills.
** Mendoza escapes any sort of prosecution for plotting to kill Luke and trying to get him tried for murder.

* NobleSavage: Long Arrow, the world's greatest naturalist.

** In ''Doctor Dolittle's Circus'', Justice of the Peace Sir William Peabody who after hearing the whole story of the Doctor's adventure with Sophie the seal after he's been imprisoned for presumably murdering his "wife", ensures the charges are dropped and releases him with a amused warning not go dropping off any more circus animals in his county.
** In ''The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle'', the Honorable Eustace Beauchamp Conckley who allows Lukeś dog Bob to testify in court after the Doctor proves he can talk to animals.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Prince Bumpo's family. Stubbins, Dr. Dolittle's assistant, is quite surprised to learn there is more to being a king than sitting on a throne and being bowed to several times a day.
* SapientAllAlong: All animals in the series are intelligent, and have languages (even, for instance, shellfish, whose languages he spends much of the second book specialising in).

* SignificantName: The good Doctor's name is interpreted as such by the people of Spider Monkey Island, who promptly rename him "Jong Thinkalot"

* TimeAbyss: In ''Dr. Dolittle's Post Office'', Doctor Dolittle encounters Mudface, the turtle who was a passenger on Noah's Ark.

* WorthlessYellowRocks: To an unfortunate badger who happens to chew through a lot of it, gold is just something that gets unpleasantly stuck in your teeth.

* BlackSheep: The good Doctor is this, from the point of view of his respectable sister Sarah.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: The crocodile from the first book is never mentioned again in any of the later books.
* CircusEpisode: In ''Doctor Dolittle's Circus'', Doctor Dolittle and his animal friends join a circus to make some money, taking advantage of his ability to talk to the animals to put together impressive performing-animal acts.

* TheIdealist: John Doolittle is very much this with both good ideas like the Retired Cab and Wagon Horses Association and impractical schemes such as the Animal's Bank.

* NotGoodWithPeople: Downplayed. While Doctor Dolittle is quite open about how he prefers animals to people, especially the so-called "respectable" people who put on airs and care more about appearances than kindness and compassion, he's quite polite and genial to almost everyone he meets, human or animal... but where animals almost universally adore him, people are a ''lot'' more divided in their opinions of him. Those who know him well, and those people he helps, view him as a truly great man, while the rest of the world looks on him as a silly, but harmless eccentric at best, or a no-good bohemian nuisance at worst.

* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Duck]]: Dab-Dab is often the only character with a modicum of common sense where money is concerned.

** In ''Doctor Doolitle's Circus'', Justice of the Peace Sir William Peabody who after hearing the whole story of the Doctor's adventure with Sophie the seal after he's been imprisoned for presumably murdering his "wife", ensures the charges are dropped and releases him with a amused warning not go dropping off any more circus animals in his county.

* {{Retcon}}: ''Doctor Doolitle's Circus'' changes several elements from the concluding chapter of ''The Story of Doctor Dolittle'' when expanding the CircusEpisode into a full book. The Doctor and his friend return to Puddleby at the start, the animals enjoy the circus life, and the Doctor travels with a circus rather than traveling between county fairs. Characters like Matthew Mugg and Cheapside are incorporated into the narrative as well.
* RousseauWasRight: John Doolittle firmly belives this, his animal friends are more dubious.

* TheIdealist: John Doolittle is very much this with both good idea like the Retired Cab and Wagon Horses Association and impractical schemes such as the Animal's Bank.

* TheIdealist: John Doolittle is very much this with impractical schemes such as the Animal's Bank.

** Polynesia the Parrot is prideful but always looks out for the Doctor's well being.

** Mendoza escapes any sort of prosecution for plotting to kill Luke.

* OnlySaneMan: Dab-Dab is often the only character with a modicum of common sense where money is concerned.

* WhatTheHellHero: Dab-Dab has had to call out the other animals in the household for their ItsAllOutMe attitudes from time to time.

The character has repeatedly appeared in radio and TV and a box office bomb musical, ''Film/DoctorDolittle'' starring Creator/RexHarrison, in 1967. An animated series by Creator/DepatieFrelengEnterprises aired in 1970, with Bob Holt voicing Doctor Dolittle. The books also inspired the ''Film/DrDolittle'' series starring Creator/EddieMurphy, about a modern-day doctor with an innate gift for talking to animals. A third adaptation simply titled ''Film/{{Dolittle}}'', starring Creator/RobertDowneyJr, was released in 2020.