You'll Be Shocked By These Facts About Your Fave Animated Characters

2 weeks ago 10

Hello Kitty Is Not a Cat and We're Not OK

He lives successful a pineapple nether the sea. Absorbent and yellowish and porous is he. 

But portion SpongeBob SquarePants is, successful fact, precise overmuch a sponge that wears quadrate pants, each is not arsenic it seems successful Bikini Bottom. 

"When I created SpongeBob, I took a batch of originative license," Stephen Hillenburg admitted successful a 2005 video with French oceanographic explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau of dreaming up the beloved Nickelodeon series. "A main quality conscionable staying successful 1 spot that looks similar a blob isn't precise breathtaking to watch." 

Still, helium continued, "I ever deliberation of SpongeBob arsenic being a existent sponge, he's conscionable square." (Also his charming underwater municipality is inspired by a precise existent atoll successful the Pacific Ocean that the United States utilized to trial atomic weapons during the Cold War era.) 

As for SpongeBob's Krusty Krab coworker and grumpy adjacent doorway neighbour Squidward, well, contempt what the sanction mightiness suggest, he's not a squid. 

"I similar the octopus for this quality due to the fact that they person a ample bulbous head," writer, shaper and marine subject pedagogue Hillenburg explained successful the video. "And Squidward thinks he's an intellectual, truthful of people he's going to person a ample bulbous head." 

As for the information that helium lone has six limbs, noted Hillenburg, "It was truly conscionable simpler for animation to gully him with six legs alternatively of eight."

Mind blown? We get it. 

But if much nautical nonsense beryllium thing you wish, we're present to help. After learning that Hello Kitty isn't really a cat, nor is Goofy really a dog (though helium is a canine), we dove heavy into the Internet to uncover immoderate much shocking facts astir your favourite animated characters. 

WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Hello Kitty Isn't a Cat

Many fans were near purrrrrfectly confused aft this revelation.

“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” Jill Cook—an enforcement astatine Sanrio, the institution down the character—explained to Today July 18. “She’s really a small miss calved and raised successful the suburbs of London. She has a ma and dada and a duplicate sister Mimmy who’s besides her champion friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making caller friends.” 

While the quality whitethorn person amazed some, Cook wasn’t the archetypal to stock this insight. As a substance of fact, Christine R. Yano—a prof of anthropology who penned the publication Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty's Trek Across the Pacific—had besides antecedently confirmed that Hello Kitty isn’t a feline.

“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she told the Los Angeles Times successful 2014. “She’s a cartoon character. She is simply a small girl. She is simply a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s ne'er depicted connected each fours. She walks and sits similar a two-legged creature. She does person a favored feline of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”

Other amusive facts astir Hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, she is 5 apples tall, weighs 3 apples, was calved connected November 1 (making her a Scorpio) and dreams of being a pianist oregon poet. 

Noam Galai/WireImage

Goofy Isn't a Dog

Gawrsh! Did you cognize this fact? 

Bill Farmer, who's provided the dependable of Goofy for decades, explained wherefore the Disney quality tin speech portion Mickey Mouse's favored Pluto can't.


Goofy is "not a dog, but he's a canine," the dependable histrion said connected an August 2024 occurrence of Popcorn Podcast with Leigh Livingstone and Tim Iffland. "So it's benignant of similar a wolf is not a canine but it's a canine—same thing. Goofus canis, that's what helium is. Or, he's a MOG—he's a man-dog."


However, Pluto, helium added, is simply a "regular dog"—a humor hound arsenic it turns out.

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Squidward Isn't a Squid

You'll privation to get to the (bikini) bottommost of this discovery.

SpongeBob SquarePants' creator Stephen Hillenburg erstwhile revealed that Squidward Tentacles is really an octopus—not a squid.

"This is Squidward the Octopus, SpongeBob's grumpy next-door neighboor," helium shared successful the 2005 Case Of The Sponge 'Bob' video resurfaced by BuzzFeed. "I similar the octopus for this quality due to the fact that they person specified a large, bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he's an intelligence so, of course, he's going to person a large, bulbous head."

But if you're wondering however Squidward tin beryllium an octopus erstwhile helium has lone six legs alternatively of eight, Hillenburg had an reply for that, too—noting "it was truly conscionable easier for animation to gully him" with less tentacles.

Scott Gries/Getty Images

Blue From Blue's Clues Was Originally an Orange Cat

Break retired your useful dandy notebook and jot this 1 down.

"One of the things that cipher knows is that Blue was primitively a cat," the show's co-creator Angela Santomero said successful the 2006 peculiar Behind the Clues: 10 Years With Blue resurfaced by Mental Floss. "First his sanction was Mr. Orange and past we're like, 'Uh, possibly Mr. Blue.'"

But according to the special, Nickelodeon was already moving connected a bid astir a cat—leading animators to flip retired the archetypal thought and redesign Blue arsenic a dog.

Everett/Shutterstock

Doug Was Almost Named Brian

Now this truly isn’t funnie, er, funny.

But arsenic it turns out, Doug Funnie from the cartoon bid Doug was astir named Brian. As for what led to the change?

"I conscionable thought Brian was excessively fancy of a name," Doug creator Jim Jinkins told HuffPost TV successful 2014, "So, I geared it down, and started calling him Doug. If you deliberation astir what that sounds like, it sounds incredibly average, and that’s what I was trying to do: explicit from that constituent of view.”

© Walt Disney Pictures/Entertainment Pictures/ZUMAPRESS.com

Boo From Monsters, Inc. Isn’t Her Full Name

This information is truthful bully it’s scary. 

In Monsters, Inc.: An Augmented Reality Book, the sanction of Boo—the small miss who accidentally ends up successful Monstropolis and befriends monsters Mike and Sulley—is revealed to beryllium Mary Gibbs, according to BuzzFeed. And if the sanction sounds familiar, it’s due to the fact that it’s the real-life moniker of the histrion who provided the dependable of Boo. 

Need much proof? In the movie, there’s really a country wherever Boo is sorting done immoderate of her drawings and fans tin spot the sanction “Mary” scribbled astatine the apical of 1 of the pieces of paper.

Joseph Prezioso/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Minnie Mouse Has a Longer Moniker

Speaking of names, portion Mickey Mouse’s woman is often called Minnie Mouse, according to the BBC, it was revealed successful 1942 that her afloat sanction is really Minerva.

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