But sometimes animals also sit on chairs, don't they?
JUST KIDDING
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
It's not actually about Funny Animals. It's about what we've now termed Petting-Zoo People and the idea that even if they're completely dressed otherwise, they don't wear shoes. Not all Petting-Zoo People go barefoot, but it is common. The page image on Petting-Zoo People has one in boots.
edited 14th Nov '10 3:34:18 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Well the examples are mixed with funny animals and petting zoo people and I think that works towards my point: the important parts of the clothing are those which help distinguish how seriously or how humanised we take the animals. It's happily mixed in the examples because it really doesn't matter.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I agree that there is a slight tendency for animal characters who are more strongly anthropomorphised to wear shoes. A solid trope is not about slight tendencies.
My point is more that the trope isn't "Animals don't wear shoes." It's "Anthropomorphic characters will be completely dressed otherwise, but inexplicably barefoot." If the character isn't wearing any other clothes, then they're a bad example and should be cut.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick I think that is properly a sentence in another trope's description and not its own article.
a Barefoot Funny Animal is otherwise fully clothed by human standards. edited 14th Nov '10 4:14:57 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Some nights I rule the world...
Oddly enough, this one was inspired by The One Who Wears Shoes. I felt that this one was pretty much an over-specified version of Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal, but I felt the one who wrote this page had a good enough point.
So yeah, as it says in the description, this is for characters who are otherwise fully clothed. I've tried my best to trim examples that don't meet that criteria and even tried to set someone straight on the discussion page.
I've also been trying to cut examples where the characters just happen to have their shoes off for one scene, or because it overlaps completely with Does Not Like Shoes.
"If you're out here why do I miss you so much?"
Only Sane Fox
Maybe we should rename this to fit in with the new taxonomy? I'll go make an addition to the Petting-Zoo People page to mention this trope.
Accidental mistakes are forgivable, intentional ones are not.
Well, it can apparently apply to both, so it really just needs a redirect.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Grand Poobah of Crimestrikers
As the creator of the Barefoot Funny Animals, I should probably weigh in.
1. Shimaspawn and The Gunheart, thank you for your support. You've both done a great job of explaining what I was trying to describe with the trope. However, maybe the current name isn't precise enough. Maybe I should change the trope name to Barefoot Petting Zoo People, or at least use it as a redirect.
2. Let me try some further clarification by using three Tale Spin characters as examples...
Imagine a scene featuring Baloo, Rebecca Cunningham and Don Karnage together. Don Karnage is fully clothed, complete with boots, so he's The One Who Wears Shoes. Rebecca wears pants but not shoes, so she's a Barefoot Funny Animal. And Baloo doesn't wear shoes or pants, so he's a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal. How's that?
"But... nobody told me I needed a signature!"
I all ready added Barefoot Petting Zoo People as a redirect. I do agree with your distinctions though. It's very much a costume trope.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
I question the value of this as a trope. The fact that many Petting-Zoo People go without shoes but are otherwise clothed could easily be mentioned in the description of Petting-Zoo People. It doesn't seem to possess enough meaning to justify its own page or example list. The only use I see is to keep Does Not Like Shoes from being overcrowded with examples of animal-people.
Some nights I rule the world...
Not really. When you get right down to it, it's actually kind of odd. I mean, Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal tends to have the excuse of certain body types just not being compatible with clothes. But then I look at say, Geronimo Stilton, and wonder why the illustrator went to all the trouble of depicting each and every character as being fully dressed, but neglecting to draw footwear.
It's definitely a trope. A widespread one, but it's hardly People Sit In Chairs.
"If you're out here why do I miss you so much?"
Some nights I rule the world...
So, it's been four days now. Think we should just close this?
"If you're out here why do I miss you so much?"
It's not a trope. There's no meaning to it — some cartoon animals have shoes, some don't, but it doesn't carry any particular significance. It's like having a trope for whether they wear mustaches or not. If you want to say that they often don't have shoes, put that on the Funny Animals page or wherever, but I don't see how it's a trope in and of itself.
Cutlist, basically. This isn't a trope. You could divide it up by the color of their fur and it would mean exactly the same thing.
Some nights I rule the world...
Which is funny, since we have Badass Mustache and Amazing Technicolor Wildlife.
Frankly, I think shimaspawn and Mark Lungo have already done a good job arguing in favor of the page.
"If you're out here why do I miss you so much?"
Zzzzzzzzzz
It's a costume trope that is specific to anthropomorphised animals. That doesn't make it less of a trope. It just makes it a trope specific to one genre.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Which is funny, since we have Badass Mustache and Amazing Technicolor Wildlife."List of characters with mustaches" is not a trope, just like "List of funny animals with / without shoes" is not a trope, or "list of characters with hats" wouldn't be a trope. "Certain sorts of mustaches are used to indicate badassness" is a trope. "Hats are sometimes used to indicate wealth" would be a trope (if it were true). "Bare feet are used to indicate poverty" would be a trope.
Costume tropes require that the costume be used to convey something about the character — "men with vests" is not a trope, because the vest conveys nothing. "Badass vest" (where the vest is used to accentuate someone's badassery) would be a trope.
"Here's a list of funny animals with shoes" (or without shoes) isn't a trope. If you just want to say "funny animals are usually drawn without shoes", why can't that simply be mentioned in the Funny Animal listing?
Is this page going to collect a listing of every Funny Animal who wears shoes (or who doesn't wear shoes?) Is it going to be listed on works pages ("this show has a funny animal with shoes in it")? I don't see those things as being good. A list of tropes for a work should tell you what the work says — tropes are the shorthand that an author uses to tell their story. "This work has a guy who wears a vest in it" or "this trope has a funny animal that wears shoes in it" doesn't tell you anything.
What does it mean for a funny animal to have no shoes (or for them to have shoes?) Answering that question is essential to making this a trope and not just an arbitrary list.
edited 20th Nov '10 8:06:14 PM by Aquillion
Grand Poobah of Crimestrikers
Sheesh, all this controversy over such a trivial topic. Talk about Serious Business!
To Aquillon: In response to your statement "What does it mean for a funny animal to have no shoes (or for them to have shoes?) Answering that question is essential to making this a trope and not just an arbitrary list", I think this excellent paragraph from the page (a paragraph I did not write, BTW) covers it:
"There's another possible explanation for this, more or less based in Rule of Perception: Generally, anthropomorphic animals have essentially human anatomy except for their heads, tails, and (in most cases) feet, so keeping all three of those elements exposed emphasizes their animal qualities and prevents them from appearing too human. (It's not unreasonable to think, for example, that long pants made for animal people would have long sleeves for the tails as well, yet no work has ever depicted them this way.)"
I'd also like to say that, even if you believe this trope has no reason to exist, there's even less reason to take it down. It's harmless. If you don't like it, I recommend ignoring it.
edited 9th Dec '10 12:50:05 PM by MarkLungo
"But... nobody told me I needed a signature!"
Only Sane Fox
I honestly can't find any sufficient argument for removing this trope. I say, leave it.
Accidental mistakes are forgivable, intentional ones are not.
World's Toughest Milkman
I was initially on the fence, but this argument seems reasonably convincing.
This crowner's been up since November and has long since gone stale. Can someone remove it, particularly since it's not gone anywhere?
edited 6th May '11 7:56:59 PM by Twentington
Well, I'll be...
Crown Description:
Merge Barefoot Funny Animals into Half Dressed Cartoon Animal? Pros:- Appears to be The Same But More Specific of Half Dressed Cartoon Animal since both trope pages describe the same narrative use (garments being selectively omitted from an animal character so the character appears more animal-like) and differ only in that one specifies what is not worn (shoes).
- Out of a sample of 70 wicks, most also/already referred to a Half Dressed Cartoon Animal.
- Half Dressed Cartoon Animal already contains a note about how these characters commonly do not wear shoes, regardless of what else they are wearing.
- Applies to not just Funny Animals but also Petting Zoo People, which we consider a distinct trope.
- If we reach an unwieldy number of examples, we can soft-split, since the tropes can easily share a description.
- Barefoot Funny Animals has the larger number of examples.
- Barefoot Funny Animals appears to be a distinct trope in that it clearly delineates that it is only about otherwise-fully-clothed shoeless animals, while Half Dressed Cartoon Animal is about partially clothed animals omitting those that are fully dressed but shoeless.
- Half Dressed Cartoon Animal and Barefoot Funny Animal trope pages are both pretty long already.
The discussion title is a bit of an exaggeration, there are some who do wear shoes but that's the oddity- there's a trope about how a funny animal wearing shoes are odd which implies my point: being barefoot is just a regular part, though technically optional, of the expression of the Funny Animal trope and being barefoot give us no other information. It fails the three tests of trope distinction... two of which i've forgotten but at least one of which says that you want the trope to have its own independent impact.
Basically: animals don't wear shoes!