Rascally Raccoon

Even foxes aren't cunning enough for him.

Raccoons' cute masked faces have led to countless fictional depictions as sly, thieving (though usually cute and cuddly) tricksters. Due to Added Alliterative Appeal, most fictional raccoons are usually described as "rascals" (this word was used so often, it even became their Stock Animal Name!). Usually Rascally Raccoons are depicted as just playful, mischievous, maybe a bit disobedient — though portrayal as literal thieves or kleptomaniacs isn't rare, either. Furthermore, unlike other predators like foxes, raccoons are often depicted as streetwise, even while being willing to use their cute looks for their advantage, considering they are notorious as one of the largest mammals who prefer living in cities.

Note: This trope is not a list of all raccoons in fiction. Nor is it a list of all raccoons named "Rascal" (such examples should go into Stock Animal Name). Only raccoons with "rascally" personality apply here.

A subtrope of Animal Stereotypes. Compare Cunning Like a Fox. For the Japanese raccoon dog that tends to get a similar treatment in fiction, see Tanuki. In some Western localizations, the Tanuki may be mistaken for a Rascally Raccoon. See Rascally Rabbit, Sneaky Spider, and Those Wily Coyotes for other animals typically used as a "trickster" in fiction, and Screwball Squirrel and Mischief-Making Monkey for animals stereotyped as troublemakers.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One Sears Optical commercial had a woman telling her cat to come back into her house, but ended up having a raccoon enter her house instead. Cue the raccoon being revealed to be very sick and biting her in her sleep.
• This Wendy's ad stars three raccoons who steal an SUV and drive it to the local Wendy's to get food.

Anime & Manga

• Kemono Friends: Raccoon is a subversion, she may jump too fast to conclusions and is a little hotheaded, but she's not really mischievous.
• Mitarai Mami of Tamamo-chan’s a Fox! is initially taken for a tanuki when she's introduced because she's a bushy-tailed shapeshifter who constantly plays pranks on Tama-chan. Closer examination of her tail shows her to be a raccoon.

Comic Strips

• Over the Hedge: R.J. the Raccoon, a lazy Con Artist raccoon who likes to ransack human homes.

Fan Works

• In the Punch-Out!! fanfic Bump in the Night, a raccoon is making strange noises in the woods at night, and later attempts to attack Aran Ryan.

Films — Animation

• Jack-Jack gets into a fight against a raccoon about halfway in Incredibles 2.
• Lapitch The Little Shoemaker has Melvin, a raccoon who works as a thief under the Big Bad Dirty Rat. His mother is concerned about her son's behavior and hopes he will get back on the right path. Eventually he does give up his life of crime.
• In Onward, unicorns are the fantasy world' equivalent of raccoons.
• Over the Hedge: R.J., a lazy and thieving raccoon seeking to get the other woodland animals to help him rob a human town of all its food while planning on running off with the entire heist. He does have a redeeming motive, as he needs to pay off a massive food debt to a bear who will kill him if he doesn't pay up... although he got into that debt when he destroyed the bear's food store when trying to steal it.
• Meeko, from Pocahontas. He repeatedly steals food from anyone at any opportunity, although the hapless victim is generally Percy. It's gotten so bad that Percy is never shown eating more than a bite of food on-screen.
• Dingo Pictures has Wabuu, the cheeky raccoon. He hops like a kangaroo and likes to pull practical jokes on other animals. He started off as an Expy of Meeko for Dingo's own Pocahontas movie, but was later given his own movie to star in, as well as a prominent role in Countryside Bears, a minor role in Animal Soccer World, and a brief cameo in The Bremen Town-Musicians.
• Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night: Scalawag. He starts off seeming like another subversion of the playful mischievous raccoon actually being a lying, cheating scoundrel, until he realizes the error of his ways, has a moment of heroic fortitude where he stands by Pinocchio, and gets to redeem himself, being only a Loveable Rogue after all.
• Robin Hood (1973): While the raccoons are probably honest townsfolk arrested for not paying extortionate taxes, the scene where they are running in striped prison uniforms with bags of gold deliberately invokes this trope.

Films — Live-Action

• In Elf, while on the way to New York City to find his father, Buddy the elf finds it the hard way why hugging raccoons is a really bad idea.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Rocket is a greedy Bounty Hunter, and gets into a long talk with a Nova Corps officer about the definition of stealing if he wants something more than the owner. His sticky fingers are what get the team in big trouble come the sequel, swiping from their employers — a civilization that answers any insult to their pride with a death sentence.

Folklore and Mythology

• Azeban is a raccoon trickster spirit in Abenaki mythology that deceives animals and other beings for food or other services. Unlike animal tricksters in some other tribes, he is not depicted as dangerous or malevolent, just mischievous.

Literature

• Rascal is a 1963 book by Sterling North about a boy who raises a pet raccoon, but eventually has to release him after his sister asks him to. In fairness, the raccoon starts raiding fields and henhouses, and getting into trouble with other raccoons, and it was the mating season.
• The Adam Raccoon series of Christian children's books, written and illustrated by none other than Disney animator Glen Keane. According to one book's description, the series stars the "rascally, fun-loving Adam who wants to follow his King (a lion symbolizing Jesus), but finds it so easy to stray".
• Hank the Cowdog: Eddy the Rac, a cute little orphan raccoon. He's a nice kid, but him being The Trickster creeps up on him often.
• Avi has two children's books about a female raccoon named Amanda, including Keep Your Eye on Amanda!, in which she wants to be a professional thief but her brother doesn't, and Amanda Joins the Circus, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. This is an extremely rare example of the "rascal" stereotype applied to a female.
• Benjamin And Tulip by Rosemary Wells, has a raccoon named Tulip who loves causing trouble around Benjamin, such as by causing fights and making fun of him, for unknown reasons.
• The Last Dogs: Tiffany is a juvenile raccoon who likes to think of herself as a master thief and wants to be called the "Silver Bandit". She's also got quite the vivid imagination, claiming that she's seen bobcats and bears laying eggs.
• In Guardian Cats and the Lost Books of Alexandria, there's a group of traveling raccoons that annoy the Dead Cats Society. Most of them are not particularly smart, but they're quick-footed and brutish. The leader, Sting, is the brains of the group but he ends up manipulated by another raccoon, Lazer, who uses Sting's gang as a way of stealing the Book from Cicero. Lazer turns out to actually be Bait, a cat, using magic.
• Downplayed by Ranger Rick from the magazine of the same name. He was quick and cunning in older stories, but never resorted to outright crime. Averted in more recent issues, as he is portrayed as a generic Nice Guy.

Tabletop Games

• In Crimestrikers, G.T. Overley is a raccoon from Creaturia, a World of Funny Animals. She stole several cars as a teenager—"not to keep, just to drive!" After a stay in juvie she became a Reformed Criminal, went into law enforcement, and currently serves as the titular team's Badass Driver and Wrench Wench.
• In Dungeons & Dragons, the gnomish deity Baervan Wildwanderer has a raccoon sidekick named Chiktikka, who tends to act before he thinks and steals items.
• Pathfinder: Raccoons have a reputation for being thieving creatures, and are often chosen as Familiars by people with light fingers. They're also the sacred animals of Thamir Gixx, the halfling god of thieves, opportunists and greed, and often compete for shiny baubles with the equally thieving goblins, who refer to them as "grabby-cats".
• Shadowrun: Bandits are Awakened raccoons with opposable thumbs and a propensity for theft, especially of food and shiny objects. They're remarkably cunning for non-sapient animals, and are rumored to even be able to pick locks.

Video Games

• Downplayed with Raku in AFK Arena. He is nicknamed "The Rascal", is said to be a troublemaker by his childhood friend Pippa, and is rather rude with his victory animation, but other than that, his rascaliness borders on Informed Attribute. The most devious thing he's been seen doing was steal some fishbowls to set the fish inside free, and in practice, he ends up being the Straight Man to his traveling partner Princess Peggy.
• In Animal Crossing, there is Tom Nook, a shady salesman who is rumored to steal his goods and sell them to the player. He's a tanuki in the Japanese version. This has been downplayed more and more as the series has progressed, however, with his more recent portrayals being as an honest, benevolent contractor and businessman who only had a bad reputation. It doesn't help that the popular fan interpretation of Tom Nook saw him as a greedy landlord/mob boss, until the influx of new fans via New Horizons's release helped encourage Character Perception Evolution by highlighting his positive traits and resulted in Tom Nook becoming a much more liked character by the fanbase at large.
• In Bear & Breakfast, Took the Raccoon can be seen going crazy from raiding a garbage container at Timber Crossing. He also doesn't mind Hank giving him a rotting sandwich from under a bus because it's like what his mom makes for him.
  "You hang out with trash, you start to smell like garbage. Rich and appetizing!"
• In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, a raccoon in the Mysterious Woods will prevent you from progressing by changing the area the top of the screen leads to, and must be sprinkled with magic powder in order to proceed. Using the powder changes the raccoon back into its true form, Tarin, who was transformed after eating a mushroom.
• Pokémon Zigzagoon is clearly based on either the raccoon or the tanuki. Its special ability in the game is Pick Up, which randomly finds items buried in the grass, and it learns several moves related to stealing. (Its evolution Linoone is based more on a badger.)
• Scrabdackle: Trash Bandits are large, fast raccoon-people who apparently steal things, including Magic Bits. Blue gets the option to raid one of their hideouts in exchange for a golden star.
• Invoked in The Sims with El Bandito, an NPC raccoon. While it does not actually do any kind of stealing (only throwing trash out of the can, waking sleeping Sims in the process), the burglar Sting plays when he appears.
• The ringtail slimes in Slime Rancher 2 have striped tails and a brown colouration. They eat so much that they can very easily become Tarrs if they get close to the wrong kinds of plorts, and according to a research drone, they stole a rancher's entire batch of cookies.
• In Sly Cooper, the title character is descended from a line of master thief raccoons.
• A Tiny Sticker Tale: Rocky the raccoon is a troublemaker who likes to go around pulling pranks such as lifting a drawbridge so the player can't pass through.
• Trash Quest: The Player Character is a raccoon aboard a Space Station who wants to eat the trash on board. He's somehow smart enough to work a laser gun and a jet pack.

Web Animation

• Happy Tree Friends has Lifty and Shifty, a pair of kleptomaniac raccoon twins. Their numerous deaths are usually a direct result of their own burglary schemes going wrong.

Web Comics

• Pixie and Brutus: Randall the raccoon, seen in one strip, threatened Pixie into backing off when she tried to make friends. Brutus quickly scares the stripes off him. Randal may just be a full-blown Jerkass; we later find out he's been bullying Gentle Giant Hugo (of the related comic Lola and Mr. Wrinkles. Brutus helps set that straight too.
• 21st Century Fox: Amoral Attorney/hacker/thief Willie Nixon, naturally.
• Sandra and Woo: one of the main characters is Woo, a smart-mouthed raccoon who is sometimes prone to mischief and raiding fridges.
  • But strongly disagrees with being called "Rascal".
  • The raccoon goddess claims Lily will give birth to a Chosen One — and then, laughing, tells him not to believe what a Trickster says.
• Dinosaur Comics: T. rex has raccoons living next door to him. Utahraptor and Dromeciomimus both think they're cute and fit this trope, but T-Rex finds them terrifying.
• The Whiteboard: Roger, who only lacks the "scientist" part to be a fully-fledged Mad Scientist Gadgeteer Genius, and is prone to pranking others at the strip's main setting, a paintball shop.
• The Raccoon Family (drawn by Gene Catlow artist Albert Temple in his earlier works) The three youngster raccoons (Observant, Confident, and Active) qualify, but averted with their parents, Gruff and Patience.
• Housepets!: Falstaff and Truck. Being expys of Abbott and Costello, Falstaff qualifys more than Truck.

Western Animation

• In the Atomic Betty episode "The Market", Penelope, grief-stricken after losing her pet cat, decides to keep a raccoon as a pet. She learns the hard way they don't make good pets when it destroys her things and attacks her.
• The Deputy Dawg Show: Ty Coon is one of Muskie Muskrat's partners in crime.
• The Dragon Prince: Ezran, who can talk to animals, is of the opinion that raccoons are mischievous and untrustworthy, citing as evidence the time a group of raccoons told him there was a treasure behind a waterfall in order to trick him into going through and getting soaked for nothing.
• Get Muggsy!: Carl Raccoon joins his opossum friend Tred in begging for food from humans.
• Jacob Two-Two: One episode focused on "The Mangler", a raccoon who got the name due to ravaging the family's trash cans every night. Jacob tried to tame him, but that backfired when Mangler took advantage of his situation to raid the house and, later, the grocery store with a small army of other raccoons.
• Linus the Lionhearted: Rory Raccoon was a heroic variant as he protected his corn crop from Cornelius Crow. He was the mascot for Post Toasties cereal.
• Mighty Mike: The central antagonists are Freddy and Mercury, a pair of wild raccoons who are constantly trying to break into Mike's house. Freddy is the mastermind of the duo, and is very cruel even to the tiny kitten, Fluffy. Mercury, meanwhile, is the Bumbling Sidekick and often just wants to join in on whatever Mike and co. are doing.
• Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart: Reggie fits this trope, partnering with Rufus to swindle Pure Heart Valley's citizens out of their belongings. Though he does this more out of not knowing any better rather than genuine malice.
• Milo Murphy's Law: The Recurring Raccoon, who pops up out of nowhere, swipes something from the characters, then leaves. He has no role in the show outside of Rule of Funny. He's even got his own jingle.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: The episode "Mask of the Raccoon" focuses on a French-accented raccoon named Ze Archer, who "borrows" from others and says that he intends to give the stuff away. When his cover is blown (he's not really French and his name is Archie, and he's keeping the stuff for himself), the penguins "encourage" him to help give to the less fortunate.
• The Raccoons: A subversion or aversion. Ralph and Melissa are very sensible characters. Bert has the trickster aspects, but is more a practical joker than a thief. They're usually trying to stop a crooked developer from stealing their forest home.
• Regular Show: Rigby, who often tries to reach his goals through lying and cheating. Though all too often he falls into the category of Chaotic Stupid.
• The Simpsons: In Smoke on the Daughter, a raccoon steals Homer’s homemade jerky and he plans to kill it, but softens upon seeing that the animal’s family life is so similar to his own, and even gives them the jerky freely. Homer later enlists his new friend to covertly steal cigarettes from the members of Lisa’s ballet class, with hilarious results for their next performance.
• Stuart Little: The Animated Series: In "The Great Outdoors", there's a pair of raccoons who are a villainous version of this trope. Not only do they try and steal The Littles' food but they also threatened Snowbell that they would pluck his fur for refusing to give them the food.
• Thunder Cats 2011: Tookit, although his seemingly harmless and amusing antics are a mask for something a lot more dark and manipulative.
• Timon & Pumbaa: "Yosemite Remedy" has the duo's belongs stolen by a raccoon thief named Thief (he repeatedly states it's pronounced "Thyfe").
• Total Drama: In the Total Drama Island episode "Wawanakwa Gone Wild!", part of the day's challenge had Duncan trying to catch a raccoon. Playing with the trope a bit, the raccoons he encounters aren't "rascally" in the usual sense–instead, they transform into the raccoon version of a humoungous mecha and chase Duncan off.
  • In the Total Drama: Revenge of the Island episode "Backstabbers Ahoy!", Chris uses the mutated raccoon to scare the campers out of the lodge in order to cut the breakfast time off. Lightning falls victim of the said raccoon and get thrown out of the lodge through the window.
• Trust Me, I'm a Genie: Ziggy is a purple raccoon who also happens to be a genie and he fits the rascally stereotype to a T.
• An episode of Wild Kratts featured raccoons as "the ninjas of the forest", with a family of raccoons making a mess of the Tortuga and scaring the daylights out of Jimmy.

Real Life

• Raccoons are notorious for using human urban areas to their maximum advantage.
  • For instance, this raccoon has found a handy use for transmission wires to get around residential areas, out of reach of any ground predator or human.
  • In a test of various locks for compost boxes, a raccoon, even though it had access to an unlocked box among the samples, chose the one with the newest lock for apparently the challenge of cracking it.

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