List of fictional rodents

This List of fictional rodents is subsidiary to list of fictional animals and covers all rodents including beavers, mice, chipmunks, gophers, guinea pigs, marmots, moles, prairie dogs and porcupines plus the extinct prehistoric species (such as Rugosodon).

A print showing cats and mice from a 1501 German edition of Aesop's fables.

Rodents, particularly rats and mice, feature in literature, myth and legend. The North American Salish people have an epic tale in which the Beaver, rejected by Frog Woman, sings a rain-power song that results in a disastrous flood.^[1]

Mickey Mouse, the cheerful, anthropomorphic cartoon character, was a tremendous success for The Walt Disney Company in 1928.^[2] Mice feature in some of Beatrix Potter's small books, including The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910), The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (1918), and The Tailor of Gloucester (1903), which last was described by J. R. R. Tolkien as perhaps the nearest to his idea of a fairy story, the rest being "beast-fables".^[3] Among Aesop's Fables are The Frog and the Mouse and The Lion and the Mouse.^[4]

Literature

Character/s	Species	Author	Work	Notes
Ratty	Water Rat	Kenneth Graham	The Wind in the Willows
Templeton	Rat	E.B. White	Charlotte's Web
Ralph	Mouse	Beverly Cleary	The Mouse and the Motorcycle	Ralph appears in two additional books by Beverly Cleary: Runaway Ralph, and Ralph S. Mouse
Stuart Little	Mouse	E. B. White	Stuart Little	A realistic fantasy about a talking mouse born to two human parents in New York City, United States of America

Comics

Character/s	Species	Comic	Notes
Hammy	Squirrel	Over the Hedge	A hyperactive squirrel, Hammy is the least intelligent, though also the most lovable character in the strip, spouting random comments at random moments. His comments usually state an unusually short lecture on a topic of little interest to the other characters. The character started the strip as "Hammy," but the character was replaced by "Sammy."[5]
Princess Sally Acorn	Chipmunk	Sonic the Hedgehog	The co-leader of the Freedom Fighters alongside Sonic. She was created as a character for the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon, and then used in the comic as well. As Princess to the King he once overthrew, and now leader of a rebellion, Robotnik views her as a threat. She wishes to overthrow Robotnik and free her father from the void. A romantic relationship is often shown with Sonic, though often feelings towards other characters, such as Geoffrey St. John, and Monkey Kahn, have arisen as well.
Rat	Rat	Pearls Before Swine	Rat is a narcissistic, misanthropic rat, and is an antihero. He frequently breaks the fourth wall, as well as being aware of his existence as a fictional comic strip character. Because of this, Rat is often critical of the comic strip's style and artwork as well as the other characters in the strip and many other living things. Rat is an insensitive character in the strip, whose interactions with others are typically sarcastic, condescending, self-centered, insulting and sometimes violent.[6]

Folklore & mythology

Character/s	Origin	Notes
Pérez the Mouse	Ratoncito Pérez	A figure popular in Spanish and Hispanic American cultures, similar to the tooth fairy. Adapted into an animated film titled The Hairy Tooth Fairy.
Mouse	1001 Arabian Nights (Volume 3, 150) The Mouse and the Ichneumon
Mouse	1001 Arabian Nights (Volume 3, 151) The Flea and the Mouse
Mouse	1001 Arabian Nights (Volume 9, 901-902) The Mouse and the Cat
Mouse	Aesop's Fables The Lion and the Mouse
Mouse	Hickory Dickory Dock
Mouse	The Giant Turnip	Makes a difference in pulling out the firmly rooted vegetable
Rat	This Is the House That Jack Built	This is the Rat that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built
The Mouse King	The Nutcracker and the Mouse King	An evil seven-headed mouse king that seeks to destroy the Nutcracker.
Rat	Chinese zodiac	The first of the zodiac years.
Ratatosk	Norse Mythology	The squirrel that ferries insults up and down Yggdrasil, the world tree, between the Eagle at the top and the dragon Niðhogg down at the roots.

Film

Character/s	Species	Film	Notes
Hubert Flynn	Rat	Rat	A man who is transformed into a rat by unknown nature and his family tries to cope with the change.
Mouse	Mouse	Mouse Hunt	A smart mouse determined to stay in an old house and avoid the house owners who are trying to rid him in order to auction their property.
Mr Jingles	Mouse	The Green Mile	A mouse domesticated in a prison.

Television

Character/s	Species	Television show	Notes
Chuck Gopher	Gopher	Gophers!	The head of the Gopher family. Played by Lou Hirsch.
Gordon T. Gopher	Gopher	Gordon the Gopher	First appeared on presenting television shows in 1985-1987 with Phillip Schofield on the interstitial or in-vision continuity programme The Broom Cupboard. His main puppeteer was Paul Smith.
Hammy	Hamster	Tales of the Riverbank	Curious and kind and lives in an old boot on the Riverbank.
Rat-In-A-Hat	Rat	Bananas In Pyjamas	The shopkeeper of Cuddles Avenue.
Rattus P. Rattus	Rat	The Ferals	A puppet character. He is a black rat with Ochre eyes, a mischievous sense of humour, has a love of foul odors and wears a leather-jacket. He is the leader of the ferals.
Rizzo the Rat	Rat	The Muppet Show	A recurring character in the show and Gonzo's partner in films.
Roland Rat	Rat	Various	Popular British television puppet character.

Animation

Character	Species	Work	Notes
Mickey Mouse	Mouse	Mickey Mouse	A cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio.[7] Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves. He is one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world and is the mascot of The Walt Disney Company, the world's largest media conglomerate in terms of annual revenue. Mickey debuted in November 1928 in the animated cartoon Steamboat Willie after initially appearing in a test screening earlier that year. Mickey appeared primarily in short films, but also in a few feature-length films. Nine of Mickey's cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which, Lend a Paw, won the award in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Speedy Gonzales	Mouse	Looney Tunes	Speedy Gonzales (commonly shortened to just Speedy) is an anthropomorphic mouse in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He is portrayed as "The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico" with his major traits being the ability to run extremely fast and speaking with an exaggerated Mexican accent. He usually wears an oversized yellow sombrero, white shirt and trousers (Which is a common traditional outfit worn by men and boys of rural Mexican villages), and a red kerchief, similar to that of a reveler in the San Fermin festival.
Jerry	Mouse	Tom and Jerry	Jerry is a brown mouse from the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons.
Mighty Mouse	Mouse	Mighty Mouse	Mighty Mouse is an American animated anthropomorphic superhero mouse character created by the Terrytoons studio for 20th Century Fox.

Video games

Name	Type	Game	Notes
Conker	Squirrel	Diddy Kong Racing	Protagonist and main character in the Conker series. In the newer games, Conker is a greedy, heavy drinking, red squirrel. Conker, though highly materialistic, always approaches new characters with a positive outlook. In Conker's Pocket Tales, he rescues his girlfriend, Berri, from the Evil Acorn; the same version of Conker appears in Diddy Kong Racing, where he is a playable character and that game marks his first appearance. In The King of Fighters XIV for the Xbox 360, Conker decides to enter the tournament to stop the Violator.
Mappy	Mouse	Mappy	The game's main character itself is a mouse. Mappy runs on Namco Super Pac-Man hardware, modified to support horizontal scrolling. The name "Mappy" is likely derived from mappo, a Japanese slang term (slightly insulting) for a policeman.
Mr. Resetti	Mole	Animal Crossing	Mr. Resetti is a fictional character in the Animal Crossing series. He is a mole whose role in the series is to remind players to save before quitting the game, and to give a lecture if they do not.

Mascots & Others

Character/s	Species	Use	Notes
Chuck E. Cheese	Mouse	Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Restaurant	Formerly Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre and Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza. Originally a rat, but retconned into a mouse in 1997.
Digger	Gopher	NASCAR on Fox camera icon	Character is shown in the corner of the camera starting with the 2009 Daytona 500.
Kia Soul Hamsters	Hamsters	Kia Soul Video Commercials	A trio of hamsters who do various gimmicks to represent the KIA Soul car.
The Nutty Squirrels	Squirrels	Shirley, Squirrely and Melvin	A scat singing virtual band, formed the late 1950s with the song "Uh-Oh".
Charley Rattue	Rat	Fallibroome	A strange character.
Scouse	Mouse	Scouse the Mouse	A children's album, released in the UK in 1977, that featured the vocals of Ringo Starr and others.

References

1. Thompson, M. Terry; Egesdal, Steven M. (2008). Salish Myths and Legends: One People's Stories. University of Nebraska Press. p. 103. ISBN 0-8032-1764-1.
2. "Disney History". The Walt Disney Company. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
3. Tolkien, J. R. R. (2001). On Fairy-Stories. Tree and Leaf. HarperCollins. p. 16. ISBN 0-007-10504-5.
4. Gibbs, Laura (2002–2008). "Aesopica". MythFolklore.net. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
5. Fry, Michael; T. Lewis (14 May 2005), Over the Hedge, retrieved 9 October 2010 Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
6. http://www.jdblissblog.com/2006/11/stephan_pastis_.html
7. Kenworthy, John (2001). The Hand Behind the Mouse (Disney ed.). New York. pp. 53–54.