Anthropomorphic Animal Adaptation

Yes, this was real.

A lot of books that were written by famous authors have an entirely human cast. However, when the story is adapted (mostly as an Animated Adaptation), some creators decide the best way to really jazz up the story is to replace the humans with Funny Animals or Beast Men. This is known as an Anthropomorphic Animal Adaptation.

Compare Adaptation Species Change. Can take place in a World of Funny Animals. See also Furry Lens.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Sherlock Hound is Sherlock Holmes with an entirely canine cast.
• Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds is The Three Musketeers with also an entirely canine cast, and other animals.
• Animal Treasure Island is a partial example. There are a few human children (notably Jim, the main character), but all the pirates are portrayed as animals.
• The animated film of Night on the Galactic Railroad makes the main characters anthropomorphic cats, although there are some human secondary characters.
  • Gisaburou Sugii did the same thing again with The Life of Guskou Budori, also based on a novel by Kenji Miyazawa.
  • Shoji Kawamori directed Spring and Chaos based on Miyazawa's life with everyone as anthropomorphic cats.
• The obscure direct-to-video anime series Mother Goose Songs & Rhyme (known as Mother Goose Video Workbook in Japan) adapts Mother Goose nursery rhymes and songs with cute anthropomorphic animals. The series was made by Triangle Staff and was released in Japan, United Kingdom, and American between 1988 and 1991. The series had a total of 12 volumes, with only the first three gaining an international release.
• In a similar way to Sherlock Hound, mentioned above, Studio Junio later released Montana Jones which takes inspiration from Indiana Jones, but featuring a cast of anthropomorphic felines.

Asian Animation

• The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf season Mr.Wolffy, Mr.Right! is an inversion. The original show is about Funny Animal goats and wolves, while Mr.Wolffy, Mr.Right! is about humanized versions of the wolves.

Comic Books

• Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham is Spider-Man as a pig. Also features various other animal-hero adaptations such as Deerdevil and Goose Rider.
  • Ultimate FF introduced Miles Morhames, the Ultimate Spider-Ham. His home universe is a parody of the Ultimate Marvel universe with animal superheroes.
• Marvel Apes which is the Marvel Universe...but everyone's an ape or otherwise some kind of non-human primate (Spider-Man for example, is a Spider Monkey).
• Not Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!, who were original characters, but the comic-within-a-comic Justa Lotta Animals, a Justice League of America pastiche featuring Supersquirrel, Wonder Wabbit, Batmouse, etc.
• Before there was Spider-Ham, Marvel had Webster Weaver, the Amazing Man-Spider, who appeared in a back-up strip in What If? called ''What If the Spider Had Been Bitten By a Radioactive Human?"
• The Muppet Classics comic miniseries following the example of Christmas Carol etc.: Muppet Peter Pan; Muppet Robin Hood; Muppet King Arthur; Muppet Snow White and Muppet Sherlock Holmes.
• Inverted by Tom King's Batman Meets Elmer Fudd, which has characters based on Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Sylvester, etc. but they're all human. (Other DC Meets Looney Tunes oneshots had the Funny Animals as is, with explanations ranging from Alternate Tooniverse to Uplifted Animal to none whatsoever).
• Invoked in Treaties, Trenches, Mud and Blood, the fourth book in the historical Graphic Novel series, Nathan Hales Hazardous Tales. When the Hangman initially finds the story of World War I too boring, Nathan Hale asks what would make the story more interesting, Hangman responds with "cute little animals with funny hats". Despite Hale's reluctance, the story of the Great War is told with talking animals representing each nation and their people involved, with such examples being Germany represented by the Eagle, England/the United Kingdom as a bulldog, and the United States of America as a bunny.

Films — Animated

• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Robin Hood (1973) would be the Trope Codifier. For example, Robin Hood and Maid Marian are foxes, Little John is a bear, Prince John is a lion, the Sheriff of Nottingham is a wolf, etc.
    • Interestingly, the film began its life as an adaptation of the medieval tale of Reynard the Fox, which does feature anthropomorphic animals. However, the levels of Family-Unfriendly Violence, raunchy jokes, and Toilet Humor in the original stories made the material rather unsuitable for Disney's brand. The idea of medieval adventure featuring animals was eventually enlisted for the more family-friendly story of Robin Hood.
  • Oliver & Company is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist where Oliver is a kitten and Fagin's gang are dogs. However, in a rare case, the animals are non-anthropomorphic, and some characters (notably Fagin and Bill Sykes) remain humans.
  • The Lion King (1994) is loosely based on Hamlet, starring various nearly normal African animals (most prominently, lions).
• David Copperfield (1993) was a very loose animated adaptation of the original novel in which the Copperfield family and Murstone were cats, Peggoty was a hedgehog, Steerforth (Mealy) was a dog and Mr Micawber was a monkey.
• The 2000 animated Tom Sawyer, in which Tom and Becky are cats, Huck is a fox, etc.
• Treasure Planet is Treasure Island Recycled In Space. Some of the key characters (like the main character Jim and his mother) are still human, but the rest of the cast are different kind of aliens, many of whom look considerably animal-like. For example, Long John Silver looks like a large anthropomorphic bear/dog, Billy Bones is reptilian, Captain Amelia (a Gender Flipped version of Captain Smollett) is a cat-lady, Dr. Delbert Doppler (a Composite Character based on Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney) has distinctly canine features, and Scroop, the pirate who attacks Jim (based on various pirate characters), looks like something between a Giant Spider and a lobster.
• The Secret of Mulan is an adaptation of The Ballad of Mulan, where all the characters are insects or other small animals.
• Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss is Romeo and Juliet starring sea lions and other aquatic mammals.
• Lapitch The Little Shoemaker, based on the 1913 novel The Brave Adventures of Lapitch by Croatian author Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, features anthropomorphic animals. The title character is a mouse instead of the human boy from the original story.

Literature

• Basil of Baker Street (which was adapted into The Great Mouse Detective) is not a straightforward adaptation, as Basil lives in a mousehole near Sherlock Holmes, and considers the detective his mentor in-universe, but it fits.
• The Sherlock Hound novels by Brenda Sivers (unrelated to the anime of the same name, beyond the obvious).
• In the Welkin Weasels books, Sylver is very loosely Robin Hood, and his descendant Montegu Sylver is slightly less loosely Sherlock Holmes.
• The Muppets Meet the Classics: The Phantom of the Opera by "Gaston Leroux and" Eric Forrest Jackson, which features Christine as a pig, Raoul as a frog, Erik as ... a sort of dragony creature ... and so on.
• An illustrated version of The Emperor's New Clothes by Scott Gustafson depicts all the characters as dogs.
• If real people count, the Bunbury Tales picture books by David English, and subsequent animated series, was about a cricket team of anthropomorphic rabbits, which included lapine versions of notable cricketers of the 1980s with names like Ian Buntham (Ian Botham) and Viv Radish (Viv Richards). The Opposing Sports Team was the cats of Whiskertown, including Mike Catting (Mike Gatting) and Geoff Boycat (Geoff Boycott). One story even featured the ghost of the greatest rabbit cricketer of all time, W.G. Grass (W.G. Grace).

Live Action TV

• Inverted with Ida Makes A Movie, the pilot of The Kids of Degrassi Street, which was adapted from a book about anthropomorphic cats.

Puppet Shows

• Le Bébête Show was a satire show that caricatured French politicians of The '80s as anthropomorphic animals inspired by The Muppet Show.
• The Muppets films, since the characters are a Universal-Adaptor Cast:
  • In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, Toto is a prawn, the witches are pigs, Scarecrow is a frog, the Tin Man is a ... whatever ..., the Munchkins are rats and the Soldier with Green Whiskers is an eagle. (But the Cowardly Lion is a lion played by a bear.)
  • In The Muppet Christmas Carol Bob Cratchett and the Cratchett sons are frogs, Mrs Cratchett and the daughters are pigs, Fezziwig is a bear, and Scrooge's schoolmaster is an eagle.
  • In Muppet Treasure Island Captain Smollett is a frog, Squire Trelawney is a bear, Mister Arrow is an eagle, Ben Gunn is a Gender Flipped pig and Morgan is a goat.
  • Likewise, The Muppet Show did an episode-length adaptation of Alice in Wonderland where the Queen and King of Hearts are pigs, the Mad Hatter is a whatever, the Dormouse is a chicken, the Tin Woodsman is a bear, and the Wizard of Oz is a rat. (Things went a little off the rails.)
  • In Muppets Haunted Mansion, Madame Leota is a pig, the Hatbox Ghost is a bear, the Organist is a dog, one of the Duelists is an eagle, the Happy Haunts include frogs, a bear, a turkey and a weasel, and Constance Hatchaway's husbands include a pengiun and a monkey.
  • The Muppets Go To The Movies had multiple examples including Dr Frankenstein as a pig, Casablanca with a frog as Rick and a pig as Ilsa, Gone with the Wind with a pig as Scarlett, The Three Musketeers played by a pig, a whatever ... and ... an orange humanoid, The Wizard of Oz with a pig as Dorothy, and so on.
• The Adventures of Superpup, a pilot filmed on the old The Adventures of Superman sets. Superman et al. as dogs!
• Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes was a CBBC Sherlock Holmes pastiche starring Roland Rat as Holmes and Kevin the Gerbil as Watson.

Tabletop Games

• Critter-TEK, a licenced(!) funny animal parody of BattleTech. The Federated Suns become the Amphibian Suns, the Lyran Commonwealth becomes the Feline Commonwealth, and so on.

Video Games

• Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is an inversion - Monkey and Pigsy have changed from a monkey and a pig to humans, as is often the case with adaptations of Journey to the West.

Webcomics

• Furry comic Little Tales used to include an ongoing B-Side Comics adaptation of The Man Who Was Thursday.

Websites

• One of the classic Cracked photoplasties, titled Famous Movies That Would Be Better With Animal Actors have this as a subject. With a lot of hilariously appropriate entries, including casting an actual snake as Snake Plissken.

Western Animation

• M-U-S-H, a parody of M*A*S*H with animal characters during wartime. "MUSH" stands for Mangy, Unwanted, Shabby Heroes.
• In the original Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid shorts Bosko and Honey were stereotypical African-American characters. In the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Fields of Honey" they get changed into amorphous animal characters a la the Warner Siblings.
• Mickey's Christmas Carol took many characters from previous Disney animated features and shorts and placed them as the characters in Charles Dickens' original story. For example, Scrooge McDuck is Ebenezer Scrooge, Mickey Mouse is Bob Cratchett, Donald Duck is Fred, Goofy is Jacob Marley, etc.
• In a similar way, Disney did an animated OAV based on The Three Musketeers starring the studio's characters, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy as the leads.
• And Disney also made The Prince and the Pauper with Mickey, this time as the two twins.
• The Spanish and Japanese studios BRB Internacional & Nippon Animation produced three television shows based on literary classics with Funny Animal cast:
  • Around the World with Willy Fog: A Spanish cartoon (La vuelta al mundo de Willy Fog) is an adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Mr Fog is a lion, Rigadon (Passepartout in the novel) and Romy (Aouda) are cats, and Inspector Fix is a dog. There are also many original characters. Protagonists and sympathetic characters tend to be cats and Panthera Awesome, while antagonists are likely to be dogs, foxes or wolves. The sequel, Willy Fog 2, adapts Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with Professor Lidenbrock as a mole, Professor Aronnax as an owl, and Captain Nemo as a cat.
  • Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds: an adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas Novel 'The Three Musketeers'. The general story is pretty close to the original text, with the minor difference that most of the characters are dogs. Remembered for the crazy barking theme tune.
  • An adaptation of Sandokan in which the Tiger of Malaysia is an actual tiger.
• In Baggy Pants and the Nitwits, the Baggy Pants segment stars a feline Captain Ersatz of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character.
• Saban's Adventures of Oliver Twist is a mid-1990s animated television series. The main cast is anthropomorphic animals, although humans also appear in the series.
• The Legends of Treasure Island, while admittedly an In Name Only adaptation in most other areas as well, converts the novel's cast into Funny Animals.
• Animaniacs had one episode called Les Miseranimals which was an adaptation of the musical of Les Misérables starring Rita (cat) and Runt (dog).
• The Devil and Daniel Mouse, an animated television movie adaptation of The Devil and Daniel Webster
• The Oddball Couple is very loosely based on The Odd Couple, with a cat named Spiffy and a dog named Fleabag as the equivalents of Felix and Oscar.
• DC Nation's Farm League are animal versions of the Justice League of America. Unrelated to the Justa Lotta Animals, above.
• The Adventures of Don coyote and Sancho panda, the Hanna-Barbera series, took the two leads and turned them into the pun-based animals.
• Monster Tails (an animated section inside the live action show Wake Rattle And Roll) have animal versions of the classic Universal Horror monsters like Dracula's cat Catula, Frankenstein Monster's dog Frankenmutt, the Bride of Frankenstein's she-dog Elsa, Dr. Jekyll's dog Veenie, the Mummy's dog Mummfrey and the Creature from the Black Lagoon's gold fish.
• Partial example with Over the Garden Wall as is a kid's friendly adaptation of The Divine Comedy with Talking Animals, but also has human characters.
• Inverted with Victor & Hugo, who are basically Pierre and Gaston from Count Duckula, but as humans.
• As well as the literary adaptations above, BRB Internacional created the Real-Person Fic The Untouchables of Elliot Mouse, which is a loose adaptation of The Untouchables (specifically the film, with recognisable versions of Malone and Wallace) in which Elliot Ness and his team are mice, trying to stop feline cheese-smuggler Al Catone in the city of Cheesecago.
• Partial example with Jason And The Heroes Of Mount Olympus. All the humans and other mortal characters from ancient mythology such as the Gorgon sisters remain as they were, but the gods of Mount Olympus are depicted as anthropomorphic animals, with Jupiter as a chimpanzee, Mercury as a rabbit, Venus as a squirrel, Hercules as a lion and Mars as an elephant. Vulcan appears in one episode and is depicted as a wild boar.

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