Around the World with Willy Fog, an Anthropomorphic Animal Adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days, has several characters that were created especially for the series. The most prominent of these are Tico, Bully and Transfer, who are part of the main cast, which is therefore increased from four to seven characters.
Many of the minor and supporting characters in Arthur were created for the series and not found in the original children's books by Marc Brown. The most notable such character was George Lundgren, who became a main character after season 9.
Ethan Bennett, Chief Angel Rojas, the Kabuki Twins, Temblor, Rumor, and Scorn (but not Wrath, who was just very obscure) from The Batman. Ellen Yin may seem like this, but she is actually a Race Lift of Ellen Yindel, the obscure female police commissioner from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. There's also Smoke and Blaze, two female sidekicks of Mirror Master and Firefly respectively. However, Scorn became a Canon Immigrant, Rojas is basically a Hispaniccomposite of Gillian Loeb's personality and Harvey Bullock's build, and Ethan is a composite of Crispus Allen and Two-Face with Clayface's powers and codename.
Kru'll the Eternal, Music Meister, Equinox, Baby Face, Fun Haus, and Scream Queen were all created for the show. There were also a few supporting characters like Plastic Man's wife Ramona. However, Kru'll is composite of King Kull and Vandal Savage and Fun Haus is an expy of the Jack Nimball Toyman.
The Batmen of All Nations are featured in one episode, and while Knight, El Gaucho, Legionnaire, Musketeer, Ranger and Wingman all originated in the comics, there's also an unnamed black Batman from South Africa who did not appear in the source material. The same segment also introduced a group of international Jokers, all of whom were created for the show.
Blinky Bill: The main cast from the original books only included Blinky, Nutsy, Splodge, Wombo, and Blinky's parents. The 1990s animated series added several recognisable characters, such as Flap, Marcia and the Dingo family, none of which appeared in the books.
When Mattel rebooted Bob the Builder in 2015, the only characters retained from the original series were Bob himself, Wendy, Pilchard, Mr. Bentley, and the original five machine characters, though Farmer Pickles makes a surprise appearance in the final season. Every other character, despite occasional name reuses, is original to the reboot, though a large majority are expys of the original continuity's characters.
In Captain N: The Game Master, Kevin, Duke, and Princess Lana are not specific to any Nintendo games, Game Boy is a personification of the handheld console, and Mega Girl is introduced as an original character to Mega Man.
Speaking of Care Bears, there's Unlock the Magic's Dibble, the Team Pet of the cast who only speaks in coos and gibberish.
Eva Skinner/XANA and about ten other one-off characters are introduced in the Code Lyoko novels.
Conan the Adventurer introduces Astivus, Dong Hee, Dregs, Epimetrius, Falkenar, Gora, Greywolf, Jezmine, the Kari Dragon, Mesmira, Misha, Needle, Ram-Amon, Sasha, Skulkur, Snagg, Tarantia, Thunder, Torrinon, Windfang, Wrath-Amon, Yin-Doo, Zogar Sag, and Zula. Conan and the Young Warriors introduces Brynne, Draegen, Graak, Navah, and Sulinara.
Harry Grimoire, wizard in training and friend of Felicia, of the ill-fated Darkstalkers cartoon. While he looks like a total ripoff of Harry Potter, he does in fact pre-date Rowling's work. Also, there is Hairball, Sasquatch's nephew, who bravely fended off Demitri. Klaus, Victor's stout butler also qualifies. Terramon, the health inspector and Pyron's brother from the last episode. Dracula and Van Helsing may or may not count, as they are Public Domain Characters.
The kids in Defenders of the Earth, Rick Gordon, Lothar Junior, Jedda Walker (the Phantom canonically has twins called Heloise and Kit) and Kshin. The Phantom was also given an evil older brother called Kurt Walker.
Cheater Gunsmoke was the only criminal on The Dick Tracy Show who did not originate from the comic strip. Obviously there was not much the UPA studio could do with Gunsmoke as he appeared in only two episodes.
The subordinate officers (Joe Jitsu, Hemlock Homes, Go-Go Gomez, the Retouchables, Heap O'Calory) could also count as they were never in the comic strip either.
Dilbert featured Loud Howard, originally a throwaway gag from the comic strip but promoted to side character in the TV show.
Double Dragon (1993) introduces Blaster, the Eldest Dragon, Jawbreaker, Kona, Marika, Megabyte, Samantha, Shadow Khan, the Shadow Master, Sickle, Trigger Happy, and Vortex. The Shadow Warriors are based on the gang from the games, though here the members are different.
DuckTales (1987) primarily based off the Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge comics, had Launchpad McQuack, Mrs. Beakly, Duckworth (Scrooge's butler is always some stock character in the comics), Gizmo-Duck, Bubba Duck, and Doofus Drake. There was also Webbigail Vanderquack, who was an expy of Daisy Duck's nieces from the comics.
DuckTales (2017) continues this trend by introducing new characters such as Lena (although she's later revealed to be an Expy of Minima de Spell, making her a Canon Character All Along) and Mark Beaks.
The Dumb and Dumber animated series introduces Kitty the pet Beaver.
The Earthworm Jim cartoon has Evil the Cat's minion Henchrat and Jim's evil copy Evil Jim. They became Canon Immigrants in the Game Boy Color game Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy.
Erica Wang, an ace student and sort-of Cool Big Sis to the other kids.
While Jessica Gordon is not a Canon Foreigner, her Girl Posse, the Sophies, are. The Sophies are both Satellite Characters, though Jessica seems to prefer one over the othernote literally; she favours Sophie One over Other Sophie.
For The Fairly OddParents!, the Copper Cranium and the Gilded Arches show up only in the Crimson Chin webtoon. Arches later appeared in a video game. King Oberon, Queen Titania, and the Shadow only appear in the video game Shadow Showdown.
In The Freak Brothers, everyone besides the Freak Brothers themselves and their cat is a character created solely for the show.
The Garbage Pail Kids Cartoon, an Animated Adaptation of the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, featured a lot of Garbage Pail Kids that didn't exist in the original trading cards, most of them appearing as bit characters in the movie parody segments. Two notable examples are Louie Litter the sentient trash can and wrecked airplane Bombed Bill, who both appeared in the episode "Honest Abe Has a Close Shave".
Harvey Street Kids has Pinkeye, Fredo, Bobby the Elder, Zoe, Maria, Stu, Frufru, The Bow, Emil and Chevron, even though they weren't seen in the original Harvey Comics.
Heroes On Hot Wheels was actually based on a French comic book called Michel Vaillant. The characters of Frank (Michel's younger brother), Hanna (Frank's photographer girlfriend), Quincy (Team Vaillante's mechanic) and Fox (one of Team Leader's racers) were not in the original comics.
The animated Hilda series introduced several characters that never appeared in the graphic novels, including Kaisa the Librarian, Victoria Van Gale, Lindworm, the Lost Clan, and others.
Most of the cast of Hit-Monkey, including Akiko, Haruka, Shinji, Ito and the Bansai Master. In fact, the only existing Marvel characters to appear are the title character, Bryce, Lady Bullseye, Yuki, Fat Cobra and Silver Samurai.
The Incredible Hulk (1982) featured two major characters who were created for the show and never appeared in the comics: Rick Jones' girlfriend Rita and her father Rio.
James Bond Jr. introduces James Bond Jr, The Chameleon, Dr. Derange, Goldie Finger, Gordo Leiter, Lily Mai, Trevor Noseworthy IV, Walker D. Plank, and the organization S.C.U.M.
Most of the villains in Krypto the Superdog, since Krypto didn't have much of a Rogues Gallery in the comics, and Superman villains aren't generally pet owners (unlike Batman villains, so Bat-Hound stories got to feature Catwoman's Isis or Joker's hyenas). Stretch-O-Mutt and Streaky's nephew Squeaky are also original. And while most of the Dog Stars are based on the Space Canine Patrol Agency in the comics (yes really), their leader Brainy Barker is unique to the series.
The Legend of Zelda (1989) animated series had several of these, including Zelda's father King Harkinian, the fairy Spryte, and every other character to appear who wasn't Link, Zelda, or Ganon.
While Spryte herself didn't become a Canon Immigrant, the idea of Link having a fairy companion began here, and has been seen in a few games.
The animated series of Lou! has Joss, Mina's mother, who didn't appear in the books and was only mentioned during her divorce. Her father Robert at least makes two speechless appearances in Volumes 2 and 3.
Francois (Esmeralda's brother), Dennis the monk and Angelica (Esmeralda and Francois' adoptive grandmother), in The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo.
In Mixels, various background Mixels are created from the show that do not originate in the toyline. Some notable ones include the Flexer teacher (the first female character in the series) and Booger, who ended up becoming the main character of the series finale.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): The series includes some new characters who do not originate from the comics, such as Lunella’s grandparents, her friend Casey, and some of the super villains such as Syphonator.
Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm introduced a red female ninja named Ruby. Though a red female ninja named Skarlet was eventually introduced in the video game canon, she has nothing in common with Ruby other than the basic color motif.
Skeeter from Muppet Babies (1984). While Skeeter has never appeared as a Muppet proper, she did appear in the "Muppet Teens" series of books, which was the Muppet Babies as teenagers. Oh, and as a grown-up in an issue of The Muppet Show Comic Book.
In a similar vein, Muppet Babies (2018) introduces Summer Penguin, who's among the circle of the show's titular characters.
The 2018 series also introduces Priscilla and Beep, Camilla's chick companions. Muppet chickens have always been white before, but Priscilla is yellow and Beep is brown.
Season 3 of the 2018 series introduces Fozzie's adopted baby sister Rozzie Bear.
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Special gives Wilbur three friends named Grande, Venti and Tall, when the source material had no named characters besides Wilbur and Grand-pah (who is Grand-mah in the animated special).
The animated special Olive, the Other Reindeer features many characters who weren't present in the original book. The most notable examples are Olive's owner Tim, the penguin Martini, and the Postman trying to stop Olive from saving Christmas.
Pinkalicious & Peterrific gave us characters like Rafael, Jasmine, and Lila, who weren't seen in the original Pinkalicious books.
In the Rainbow Magic movie, Lydia, her girl posse, and the snowmen were created for the movie.
Rambo: The Force of Freedom introduces The Force of Freedom organization and its members Chief, Kat, T.D. Jackson, and White Dragon, and the S.A.V.A.G.E. organization and its members Black Dragon, Gripper, Dr. Hyde, Mad Dog, Nomad, Snake Bite, General Warhawk, and X-Ray.
The first season of the Nelvana animated adaptation of Redwall notably strayed the furthest from its source material. Two whole episodes ("Cluny's Clowns" and "The Visitor") focused on events that did not take place in the books. In the first, a circus knifethrower mousemaid named Wild Ivy is introduced, and in the second, Farlo the dormouse spice seller and his wife Glendel visit Redwall Abbey. All were created specifically for the animated series.
The Groovie Goolies from Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies were Sabrina, the Teenage Witch spinoffs... but from her animated series, not the Archie Comicscomic book. The characters were owned by Filmation, and never appeared in Archie Comics (or comic books from any other company, for that matter.)
Similarly, the first two characters who appeared in the Filmation version of Archie were Spencer and Ophelia, who were never in the comic books.
The Geek, a female child companion to The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, was created for the kid-friendly cartoon series. She was, however, created by the creator of the original comic books, with a light dash of Executive Meddling: originally he created The Geek as a male character, intended to make the series more kid's-TV-friendly, but when the network suggested Max be made female, he opted to make The Geek female instead. (A much more acceptable compromise.)
Seven Little Monsters: Essentially every character aside from the seven monsters themselves didn't exist in the original book and were created for the animated series, with the ones that stand out the most being the monsters' Mama, their neighbor Mary and their pet cow Belinda.
The King of this trope would have to be Sonic the Hedgehog. With the exception of Sonic, Tails and Robotnik, the whole cast of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) is made up of Canon Foreigners. The most common ones were Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Rotor the Walrus, Antoine, Dulcy, Uncle Chuck, and Snively.
It's worth noting that the Freedom Fighters were originally based roughly off the small captive animals of the original games, even retaining their western names. However the concept was revamped before production and only a redesigned Sally Acorn (aka "Ricky") remained (though Rotor and Bunnie are arguably based off of Joe Sushi and Johnny Lightfoot respectively). Interestingly some of the Freedom Fighters (including the remodelled Sally for the show) cameoed in Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball and were intended to be playable characters in canned titles, making for a somewhat complex Canon Immigrant.
Mostly averted in The Spectacular Spider-Man as much as any adaptation probably can—the creators decided that every named character should be someone from Spider-Man canon, and more or less stuck to it, even with minor characters like Norman Osborn's assistant, the high school drama teacher, etc.
Spider-Man (1967) featured quite a few villains created for the animated series who never turned up in the comics. Among the most notable of such villains are Parafino, the Human Fly twins (no relation to the villain who debuted in the tenth issue of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual), and Dr. Matto Magneto (not to be confused with the archenemy of the X-Men).
Spider-Man (1981) gave J. Jonah Jameson a nephew named Mortimer, a relative he never had in the comics.
The series gave Iceman a half-sister named Aurora Dante, a.k.a. Lightray.
Norman Osborn's son Harry never appeared on the show, which gave him a niece named Mona Osborn instead.
Blade's mentor, Whistler, in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, where his two main functions are to exposit about Blade and vampires and to convince Blade to trust and cooperate with the other heroes. In fact, Whistler was created for the animated series and reused in the movie, and is an interesting example of a canon foreigner existing in two mediums without becoming a full Canon Immigrant (though he was referenced in the 2002 Marvel Encyclopedia). However, he's a composite of Jamal Afari (Blade's mentor) and "Bible" John Carik (looks and personality).
Stargate Infinity introduces several new alien races to the Stargate-verse, as well as an entirely different cast of characters from its parent show: Stargate SG-1.
Street Fighter introduces Escher, Lucinda, Mei Lei, Midori, Satin Hammer, Ryu's cousin Sachi, and Cammy's former MI-5 teammates, Burke, Rory and Celia.
3/4 of the characters from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World cartoons have never been (and likely will never be) seen in the games. Most notably Oogtar and every other caveman character inhabiting Dinosaur Land in Super Mario World, every character based off a movie or story in Super Show, and every single character from the 'real world/Earth' in the first two cartoons.
Tak and the Power of Juju (2007) featured a ton of characters who did not exist in the original videogameseries, the most notable ones including Jeera, Zaria, Keeko and the Pupununu Chief.
The Japanese Tamagotchi virtual pets got an American animated video in 1997 called Tamagotchi Video Adventures, which features a character named Cosmotchi. Cosmotchi was made specifically for this video and does not make any other appearances in the franchise.
Cassandra, the captain of the guard's daughter and Rapunzel's lady-in-waiting and friend before betraying her, did not appear in the first Tangled film, debuted in Tangled: Before Ever After, the hour-long pilot for Tangled: The Series. Other characters who debuted in the series including Varian and his father, as well as Eugene's friend Lance.
All four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons are the absolute kings of this trope, with dozens of these characters per series (a trend that continued for each added alternate adaptation made from the original comic book, as seen above). The most notable ones are Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady from the Fred Wolf cartoon, and Cody Jones, Agent Bishop, and Hun from the 4Kids series. Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady would become franchise staples, while Hun and Bishop would go on to appear in the original Mirage comics, the IDW comics and the 2012 series.
Rise is notable for the fact that the majority of its cast is made of Canon Foreigners, from major villains Baron Draxum and Big Mama to minor supporting characters like Mayhem and Sunita. Everyone who returns are the most pivotal characters in TMNT: the turtles themselves (obviously), Splinter, April O'Neil, the Foot Clan, Shredder, and the Krang. And two versions of Casey Jones.
Teen Titans (2003) had a metric ton of these, including Fixit, Tramm, See-More, Atlas, the Master of Games, Johnny Rancid, Fang, Overload, Steamroller, Kyd Wykkyd, Private H.I.V.E., Adonis, Kardiac, Professor Chang, Soto, Katarou and Val-Yor, as well as Brushogun, Nya-Nya, Saico-Tek, Mecha-Boi, Timoko, Deka-Mido and Scarface from the movie. There was also Kitten, who, while created for the show, was the daughter of existing C-list Batman villain Killer Moth. Most of the time the new characters were to act as supporting characters or the Monster of the Week. A small handful (Mas y Menos, Billy Numerous, Cinderblock, Silkie and Red X) managed to make it into the comics.
While Thomas & Friends remained accurate and faithful to The Railway Series for the first few seasons, as the show branched away from the books in season 4, characters original to the small screen began making their big debuts. By the time the original series concluded in 2021, only a fraction of the onscreen characters originated from the paper pages. The books have also had characters exclusive to their own continuity, as have various magazine stories and online videos. The trend continues in the continuity reboot of Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, which mixes characters from the original series with newcomers exclusive to the reboot.
The Mysterio used in the show is Francine Beck, the daughter of Quentin Beck, the original Mysterio. In the comics, Quentin never had any children.note He was later revealed to have created a Gynoid "daughter" named Misty Beck, but those issues were only written after the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon was off the air.
The Redstone and Darkhaven warrens — and their rabbit denizens — were created just for the Watership Down animated series, as they didn't appear in either the film or the book. And although there was a mouse character in the book, he was almost completely different personality-wise from Hannah in the series.
Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) has Dr. Sybil Zane, a scientist heavily involved in the Sentinel project, and Christy Nord, a young mutant being pursued by Weapon X. Christy is unique in that while she doesn't exist in the comics, her father, Maverick, is an actual comic character.
"This X-23 character is pretty popular among kids... we should bring her into comics." "Let's make her a child prostitute!" "BRILLIANT!"
Spyke is a sort of example. A character with similar powers named Spike appeared in X-Force, while a canonical cousin of Storm was introduced in Black Panther (a nephew wasn't possible since Storm was quite explicitly an only child). His name is David Evan Munroe (his middle name is a Shout-Out to Spyke, whose name was Evan), but it hasn't yet been established whether or not he's a mutant. Another Spyke Expy named Spike appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand.
Averted with Artemis; after much confusion by fans, she turned out to be an adaptation of Artemis Crock, the minor comics villainess Tigress. However, she did get her own version in the comics... before she got killed off five pages in.
A proper example would be the Terror Twins, Tommy and Tuppence, a pair of teen villains created for the show to help facilitate the episode where Conner and M'gann go undercover in prison. And, more generally, just to fill the gap of having teenage villains in a show about teenage superheroes.
The tie-in comic gives Robin three new relatives: a cousin and aunt who die along with his parents, and an uncle who survived, but was crippled and couldn't care for him. For bonus points, Word of God reveals that Robin is named after his uncle, who went by Rick — offering an explanation for why a show taking place "now" would feature a kid named Dick.
An interesting example is Green Beetle, B'arzz O'oom, who was created entirely out of a realization of Fridge Logic. In most DC products created after the 1960s or so, Martian Manhunter is the last (green) Martian, because Mars is an uninhabited planet in Real Life. However, before Mars was definitively known to be uninhabited, he was just another Martian who happened to be stranded on Earth. In order to keep Manhunter from being too similar to Superman (who is more famous and more famouslyThe Last of His Kind), YJ established that Mars was fully inhabited and Martian society is thriving. No big deal, right? Except that season two also established that the Reach, the hostile aliens trying to take over the planet, sent a Scarab like Blue Beetle's to every inhabited planet. So if this is true, then that means there must be a Scarab-user on Mars, and since both Martians and Scarab-users are individually winners of the Superpower Lottery, then won't that make for some interesting mayhem...? He's unique to Young Justice, because Young Justice is the only 'verse where both the Martians and the Reach are in a position to make his existence possible.
Zorro: The Chronicles: Ines and the twins' maternal grandmother Tainah, along with several other characters.
