Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal



""You know, Donald Duck never wore pants, but when he comes out of the shower, he puts a towel around his waist. I mean, what's that about?""

- Chandler, Friends

While characters having inexplicable collars is an animation cheat, one might think a character who wears a full outfit might be easier to draw.

But if your characters are Funny Animals, you are bound to run the gamut of animals until you hit unfamiliar ones. A full outfit has a high chance of obscuring what species a character is, so you're bound to find just enough clothing to make it quirky to that character without covering up the most basic cues, with the major exception of White Gloves. Characters with distinctive tails might not get pants, and ducks are rarely given shoes. Some Half-dressed cartoon animals wear shoes, but others do not.

Half-dressed cartoon animals often, but not exclusively, come in two variants,


 * Pantless or Bare-bottomed: wears a shirt, coat, vest, or some other kind of top, but no pants, shorts, or overalls, or a skirt and very rarely with any underwear on. This also refers to characters wearing dresses or skirts (even long ones) with shirts but without underwear. This variant is more common in male animals than in female animals.
 * Shirtless or Bare-chested: wears pants, shorts, overalls (which often border on fully dressed), or a skirt, but without a shirt or any other kind of top. Some characters wearing skirts without shirts are not wearing any underwear. This variant is a lot more common for female characters than the pantless variant. Overlaps with Walking Shirtless Scene.

Very importantly, this does not mean a character without an outfit is automatically regarded as "naked". Most animal characters from The Golden Age of Animation wore no clothes whatsoever, but acted denuded only when random comic violence rendered them featherless or furless, with their underlying bare skin (and occasional Goofy Print Underwear) revealed. Hence, feathers and fur have long been grandfathered in as an acceptable animal analogue for clothing. Strangely, if a half-dressed character loses their shirt they will suddenly realize their crotch is exposed.

In general, they generally won't wear any footwear as it has the issue of not communicating the "animal" part of their name/species and also being something more limited to the more human Petting Zoo People type of cartoon animal.

Female characters are likely to be depicted wearing a skirt, but that's mostly a gender clue. So it's a good thing that most of them lack primary and secondary sexual characteristics anyway.

A form of Lampshade Hanging involves having the character wrap a towel around themselves (which kinda makes sense, as wet fur/hair is as form-fitting as a wet T-shirt). Sometimes further Lampshaded by having the towel fall off.

See also Pantsless Males Fully Dressed Females. Related to Barefoot Cartoon Animal. Subtrope of Appropriate Animal Attire.

Oddly enough, this is something of a Truth in Television: people who dress their pets in costumes, or just to protect them from extreme cold, tend to leave off pants so the animal can relieve itself without making a mess.

Advertising

 * If you go to a AMC/Cinemark/Regal (most of the US) movie theater, you will see an campaign backed by Sprint reminding people to turn off their phones, with the tagline "It takes a lot of phone calls to make a movie. And only one to ruin it." In one particular ad in this campaign, the topic of the calls between the moviemakers and the creators is whether a cartoon hedgehog should be wearing pants. The aforementioned "only one to ruin it" moment comes when the animators, fed up with the time consuming project and senseless bickering, put pants on the hedgehog...and leave the fly down.
 * The Waffle Wiffer, the 1960s Aunt Jemimah frozen waffles mascot, sported a red turtleneck sweater and boots.
 * Chester Cheetah from Cheetos only wears sunglasses and shoes.
 * Sonny the Cuckoo Bird for Cocoa Puffs cereal had a striped sweatshirt.
 * Chip the Cookie Dog for Cookie Crisp cereal sported a turtleneck and burglar mask.
 * Sydney the Dunkaroos kangaroo had a safari hat, T-shirt and vest.
 * Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes cereal sports only a neckerchief. His son, Tony Jr., had a neckerchief and ball cap.
 * Fruit Brute the werewolf from the self-titled cereal line had multicolor striped overalls.
 * Sugar Bear of Golden Crisp cereal has a sky blue T-shirt. He initially had a green sweater in the late 1960s.
 * Buzz the Honey Bee for Honey Nut Cheerios has a yellow and gold T-shirt and white shoes.
 * Dig 'Em the Frog from Honey Smacks cereal has a baseball cap, T-shirt and sneakers.
 * A 2010 ad campaign for Kia Motors features rapping, half-dressed hamsters.
 * B.J. Penguin, one 1/2 of the original mascot duo of Kid Cuisine frozen foods, sported a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of red hi-tops. His friend, The Chef, was a fully-dressed polar bear in a white chef's costume and hat. The current mascot, K.C. Penguin, also wears red hi-tops as his regular wardrobe as well.
 * Mr Peanut wears only accessories: top hat, monocle, white gloves, shoes, and spats.
 * The Nesquik Bunny sports a red medallion with a big blue N. It was initially a big blue Q when it was known as Nestle Quik prior to the late 1990s.
 * Rory Raccoon of Post Sugar Sparkled Flakes had a Sherlock hat, bowtie and sport coat.
 * The Trix Rabbit's array of disguises usually applies to this trope.
 * Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl of the United States Forest Service were both shirtless forest mascots. Smokey has his signature ranger's hat and blue jeans, while Woodsy initially started out with his matching green hat and pants. Woodsy later added a white shirt and loafers to his ensemble.

Comic Books
"Sultan: A spy you said? Maybe. He doesn't look like us and he is oddly dressed as well.
 * The Bone characters in Bone are usually half dressed: Fone usually wears boots or nothing at all; Phoney wears a t-shirt with a star, and Smiley wears a vest (yet is embarrassed to be seen naked). Whatever the Bones are, however... eh, let's just say they qualify as "mammals" and leave it at that.
 * The Fox and The Crow. While the Crow sports only a bowler hat, Fauntleroy Fox wears a white collar, a blue bowtie, blue trousers and yellow gloves. He also has a matching straw hat when on the town.
 * Sam and Max is an interesting example. Sam is fully clothed at all times (but goes barefoot) while Max is totally naked. A few jokes have been made about this, such as where Max keeps his gun (for the record, it's none of your damned business).
 * In the original comic books, Howard the Duck was a Donald lookalike, lack of trousers and all. However, the George Lucas film version wore pants.
 * At some point, Disney actually threatened legal action against the likeness of Howard the Duck; Marvel comics responded by having all future depictions of Howard appear wearing pants.
 * A story in the HTD black and white magazine contained a Lampshade Hanging with a twist of Take That, as a failed animator turned haberdasher forces Howard to start wearing pants. The guy let him keep his human girlfriend, though.
 * Lampshaded by Howard at least once. "My lawyers tell me I have always been wearing these pants."
 * There was an earlier story where Howard's enemy Doctor Bong transformed Howard into a human. The funniest part was seeing Howard brooding while sitting on a bed, his bare human butt clearly visible and his coat coming down to mid-rib level.
 * Interestingly, in Marvel Zombies Vs. Evil Dead, if you didn't know better you'd swear someone took the pupils out of Donald Duck's eyes. The Zombie Howard has white feathers (as opposed to yellow) and wasn't wearing pants.
 * Speaking of Marvel Zombies, it appears "My lawyers tell me I've always worn pants" is a Running Gag these days - he gives the line to Jackie when she questions his existence in Marvel Zombies 5.
 * Swedish children's comic Bamse has an interesting case of this, as the older the character's design is the more "nude" they tend to be. Most characters wear some form of clothing, but the amount varies from a simply bow-tie to full clothes. One exception, Wolf, remains completely naked but that's probably due to the Grandfather Clause. Skalman walks around naked half the time too, since his only article of clothing is a hat, and he generally only wears it outdoors.
 * Lampshaded in one comic between a Sultan and Lille Skutt, after Lille Skutt is accused of being a spy.

Lille Skutt: Are all of you crazy? First my friends was captured by the knights. They thought we were oddly dressed. And now YOU think I'm oddly dressed, even though I'm not wearing any clothes at all!!!

(Beat)

Lille Skutt: Except for my bowtie of course."


 * Ink Pen plays with this slightly with its various Animated Animal Actors Hamhock and Bixby are completely buff while Ralston Rabbit only wears a bowtie and white gloves and is considered indecent without them. Fritz on the other hand is so uptight that he wears a white shirt and tie with black pants every single day. This was a problem when he worked as a stunt double for other cartoon dogs like Marmaduke or Scooby Doo were he would wear a furry dog suit because he refused to do "nude scenes".
 * Played with in one Calvin and Hobbes strip, which has Hobbes dressing up as Calvin in the hope that Calvin's mum would mistake Hobbes for Calvin. It doesn't work, which according to Calvin is because Hobbes didn't put on any pants.
 * Fritz the Cat.
 * In comics and picture books based on The Sooty Show, Sooty usually wears red shorts with braces. (He doesn't in the show itself.)
 * The Nibblers from the Anthology Comic The Beano this trope is mocked in the Beano Annual 2009 when the Nibblers meet the Ratz.
 * Evolved over the course of Archie Comic's Sonic the Hedgehog. Early on, most characters wore partial clothing ranging from nearly fully dressed (Antoine only lacks pants) to nothing but shoes (Sonic, of course). Over time, more characters were added and often featured with more complete outfits.
 * This can lead to some jarring comparisons if a reader starts the series late. A long-term reader won't find Sonic in just shoes odd next to say, Mina Mongoose, who wears a full set of clothes because Sonic has just always been that way. To a new reader, it looks like half the cast are rather... exhibitionist.
 * Olivier Bommel in Tom Poes wears nothing but a coat, no pants.

Film

 * Back when Star Wars: A New Hope was in production, there were executives worried about Chewbacca not wearing pants.
 * This was rather hilariously lampshaded in the third Robot Chicken Star Wars Special when Han Solo met Chewbacca's family for the first time, and they were all fully clothed. "You mean you've been naked all this time?!"
 * The Phantom Menace suggests droids view their outer coverings as clothing with C-3PO embarrassed about being "naked".
 * Halfway through Alvinandthe Chipmunks, the chipmunks start to wear just sweaters/sweatshirts, though Simon wears glasses.

Internet Puppet Shows

 * Referenced in the Funday Pawpet Show Theme Song - "Pawpets, Pawpets/We will sing and dance/Pawpets, Pawpets/We're not wearing pants"

Literature

 * Possibly subverted in Redwall; on one occasion the Big Bad Badrang cuts a random minion's belt when he finds himself in need of a piece of cord, and everyone sniggers when said minion's kilt drops off. On two occasions, prisoners have suffered a Shameful Strip, which presumably wouldn't matter if they didn't consider clothing important in some way. In contrast, the cartoon show followed this trope; as well as most of the characters only wearing shirts, it showed Skalrag wearing variously only a cloak or nothing at all, and unusually depicted the female character Trefoil with an unclothed lower half as well.
 * Now, to be fair, a kilt is a kilt. They have more things in common with habits and (naturally enough) skirts than with trousers.
 * In the chapter-heading illustrations of Garry Kilworth's Welkin Weasels series, Montegu Sylver appears fully clothed including shoes, though he is apparently wearing nothing but a cloak on the cover illustration and is described in the text as not needing anything more than a cloak since he has fur. Scruff and Maudlin wear only jackets and hats. Bryony Bludd wears a full skirt which would not look out of place in the Victorian era the books are based on except for the fact that she is apparently topless except for a very large neck-bow. Mayor Jeremy Poynt fits the "jacket and hat" rule, with the addition of spats - but no shoes.
 * Not exactly animal, but so much worse, in Narnia we have a Faun that is completely naked, except by a scarf.
 * His fur is long enough to cover his privates? (And no, NOT pubic hair.) This is how the movie's show him.
 * Some of the mice from the Angelina Ballerina series books and first cartoon series.

Live-Action TV
"The monkey's the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes, you know that? ... So, I'm wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, "Hey, man, where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity!" And you know the monkey's just, "I mock you with my monkey pants!" And there's a big coup in the zoo."
 * The male animatronic characters in Dinosaurs didn't wear pants. Females wore dresses sometimes, but if they were dressed as if they would wear pants they went bottomless too. This was pointed out one episode in which they showed Earl wearing a pair of pants because of censorship happening all over the show.
 * This was lampshaded, during the Very Special Episode no less, when Robbie, while high on "happy plant", collapsed in a fit of hilarity upon realizing that none of them wore pants.
 * Who can forget Humphrey B. Bear? The strange thing about any discussion involving him, of course is that people point out his lack of pants. Never mind that he's a bear wearing a (rather stylish) boater and waistcoat - which it has to be said, is not something bears are known for. Oh no. A bear not wearing pants? Disgraceful!
 * Mystery Science Theater 3000 once addressed this phenomenon during a '50s educational short in which a Porky Pig figurine could be briefly glimpsed atop a desk. Tom Servo: "Get Porky some pants!"
 * This was sometimes done with the robots as well. In one episode, Crow becomes a stripper, dances around in a little gold bikini, and then proceeds to remove it. Mike is completely disgusted, but Servo points out how illogical this reaction is considering that Crow generally wears nothing at all.
 * Lampshaded by Oz in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode What's My Line:


 * That entire conversation was improvised.
 * The Elder Scrolls : Oblivion has a find-it-if-you're-lucky Shout Out to this, via the randomly generated, +25 Agility 'Monkey Pants'. The merchant even tells you you'll look dignified.
 * The Muppets: Kermit usually wears nothing but his collar, and will cover himself up if it's taken off. Fozzie Bear only wears a hat and tie, which was once the basis for one of his routines. ("Good grief, the comedian's a bear!" "No he's a-not! He's a-wearin' a neck-a-tie!") Rizzo the Rat wears a jacket and hat but no pants, as does Pepe the Prawn. Of course, most of them are never seen from the waist down, so it's usually a moot point.
 * In The Great Muppet Caper Fozzie and Kermit play twins. Nobody recognizes them as such until Fozzie removes his hat. Later on Kermit is sitting alone and a passerby mistakes him for a bear. Someone else corrects him; "Bears wear hats."
 * Alien Gordon Shumway from ALF wore shirts on occasion. He's usually not shown from the waist down, but this trope is considered plausible based on his wardrobe in the animated series of the same name.
 * Barney the Dinosaur is occasionally portrayed like this.

Manga

 * Played with in Alice In Sexland. Cheshire is a catgirl covered in fur who only wears a collar, which would usually qualify for this trope. However, due to the type of story this is, you can see everything.

Newspaper Comics

 * Opus the penguin of Bloom County has a red bowtie.
 * Gaylord Buzzard from Broom Hildawears thick, horn-rimmed glasses, spats and (sometimes) a fez for reading.
 * Over the Hedge plays with this trope. Verne's shell does act as clothes for him, leaving him without it either naked to be confronted by the Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol or to take part in a limbo contest (for example), or with tighty-whitey undershorts. That does not, however, preclude his wearing clothes over it, usually full suits that include pants, shirt, and shoes. RJ's fur is more of an all-purpose covering, although he also wears clothes over it, most notably a parka when preparing for winter and a pair of undies and a robe when getting ready for a nude scene.
 * Most of the cast of critters from Pogo.
 * Shoe, from the self-titled series, is a purple martin bird that wears sneakers and socks. Perfesser Cosmo Fishhawk wears a shirt, sweater and shoes. He also has a sportscoat.
 * Ziggy until December 2009. After that he wore Long Pants.
 * Snoopy from Peanuts as "Joe Cool": sweater with his name on it and sunglasses.
 * Dutch newspaper comic Fokke & Sukke cranks this up to eleven by not only not having both Fokke (a humanoid duck) and Sukke (a humanoid rooster) walk around with no pants, but also explicitly showing their (human) penises, with which they are very preoccupied. In case they do wear pants, they will have [[http://strips.a20.net/2006.04.02/Fokke

Video Games

 * The characters in the Sly Cooper video games are a pastiche of cartoon Talking Animals. Most of the male characters are habitually pantsless; however, almost all the female characters have pants or a skirt with an appropriate tail-hole as needed. The exception is The Contessa from Sly 2, but she's a spider-centaur-thing with no humanoid legs.
 * In a behind-the-scenes unlockable in Sly 2, one developer comments that Sly is "a universe in pants-less-ness."
 * The Panda King is shirtless.
 * In the Jak and Daxter series, Daxter is transformed into a Talking Animal as the first game opens, and spends three out of four games complaining about how much he misses pants. He does get some by the end of the third game, choosing them over returning to a humanoid form.
 * Well, he was in a relationship with Tess, and have you seen his human form?
 * Additionally/alternatively, it's likely because
 * In Nintendo's social simulator video game Animal Crossing, most animals wear shirts but go without pants. (Humans do wear shorts.) Different species wear shirts of different lengths, and male characters of some species wear relatively long shirts, which some players confuse with cross-dressing. But interestingly enough, clothes are one size fits all: take a shirt off one character and put it on another character, and it magically fits.
 * Somewhat hilariously and scarily Lampshaded in one animal-to-animal conversation in Wild World, where jock archtypes comment to nice archtypes that he split his pants doing squats. The nice animal begins to find this hilarious just before realising and commenting on the fact they don't wear pants.
 * The Donkey Kong family is another pretty interesting example. The big guy himself wears nothing but a tie, Diddy settles for a shirt and hat, but some of the other members of the family, such as the other 3 main character in Donkey Kong 64 are more or less fully clothed.
 * Even some of the Kremlings that Donkey Kong fights wear pants and no shirt (although that may simply tie into the pirate motif that K. Rool's empire inconsistently follows).
 * Bubsy the Bobcat wore a shirt and no pants. Various promotional materials for the game made a point of mentioning this.
 * Bubsy's nephew Terrence, introduced in the second game and also appearing in the animated adaptation of the game, also had the pantsless look. Additionally, Bubsy's best friend/unwilling sidekick Arnold the Armadillo is completely nude.
 * Some of the non-human characters in the Super Mario series fall under this:
 * Bowser never wears clothing except for one occasion in Super Paper Mario where he is seen in a white tuxedo briefly, minus the pants.
 * The official artwork of the shell-less Koopa Troopas for Super Mario World shows them with a shirt and no pants. Later on in the series, they are shown with a shirt and shorts. Clothed or not, they all wear shoes and it matches the color of their shells.
 * However, the Paper Mario series seems to imply that shells are effectively the same as clothing for Koopas, so make of that what you will.
 * Crash Bandicoot has shoes, gloves and pants but lacks a shirt.
 * The Mimigas from Cave Story generally don't wear pants. This even includes Sue and Itoh, two humans who were magically transformed into Mimigas.
 * Several characters from the Jump Start series of CD-ROMs. Frankie Dog wears a red sweater and collar; Keisha Koala wears an art jacket, beret and sandals; Hopsalot Rabbit sports only a T-shirt; and Casey Cat has a T-shirt and backwards cap.
 * Banjo never wears a shirt, but is never seen without his orange cargo shorts and blue backpack. Additionally, all his transformations keep the shorts and backpack. Yes, this is probably the only series where you will see a washing machine with shorts. Interestingly enough, his sister Tooty is fully clothed, his friend Bottles wears only a vest, and his companion Kazooie wears nothing at all.
 * Katt/Rinpoo from Breath of Fire II walks around the whole time wearing a purple top and leggings, but no pants, with no visible reaction from anyone on her state of...erm, undress.
 * The main characters of Super Monkey Ball are of both types: Aiai and Gongon are of the pantless variety, and Baby and Meemee of the Shirtless variety.

Web Animation
"Strong Bad: You've gotta be kiddin' me! I'm the only one that wears any pants!?"
 * Homestar Runner does not seem to wear any pants, but he does wear a shirt, shoes (that look exactly like his feet, but with blue soles stuck to them) and a propellor cap (he calls it his "buzzer"). Also, Marzipan's ancestor, Old-Timey Marzipan, seems to wear a skirt... but it's actually her body. Strong Bad lampshaded this on one occasion.


 * In one Strong Bad E-Mail, Homestar claims that he always wears long white pants. Strong Bad also lampshades the apparent "soles stuck to the bottom of his feet".
 * Whenever Homestar is shown shirtless, his entire torso is censored via Pixellation. (Except for one bit of fan fiction drawn by Strong Bad, where Homestar is just wearing a fig leaf.)
 * It gets even weirder when Strong Sad, who doesn't seem to wear any pants (or anything for that matter), is somewhat concerned about buying his favorite underwear back from an online auction.
 * Coach Z seems to be naked, but on a few occasions it's implied that he's actually wearing a green jumpsuit. That he never removes or washes.
 * The Annoying Thing/Crazy Frog is often depicted with only a leather jacket, helmet, and goggles. This is a bit of a subversion in that unlike almost all others the Crazy Frog has visible naughty bits.
 * Eventually the Crazy Frog commercials had a black censor bar.

Webcomics
"Cecil: "Omigosh! He's right! I feel so dirty!""
 * Sabrina, from the furry webcomic Sabrina Online, Lampshades this by revealing that Sabrina's ostensibly naked lower body is in fact covered with stretch-pants that match her skunk fur pattern. Her roommate, Amy, borrows some when she puts on weight during pregnancy.
 * Prior to the creation of the comic, Amy (who at the time was the creator's main character) was depicted wearing only a skirt. Yes, she had breasts, but they were somewhat vaguely defined and noticeably fuzzy, suggesting the traditional "they don't need clothes because the fur covers it" explanation.
 * This also occurred later on with Sabrina's boyfriend, who was a bit shocked to find that Sabrina was buying underwear.
 * This gets turned Up to Eleven in a short animation featuring Amy jogging to her job... while forgetting something.
 * Ozy from Ozy and Millie generally wears a vest and a top hat, but no pants. Ms. Sokowitz and Avery have outfits that lack pants as well. Millie and Felicia do not wear shirts, and Millie has plenty of scenes entirely unclothed.
 * This is something of an odd example--it regularly draws comment, suggesting that Ozy and Avery is expected to wear pants, yet nobody ever treats it as if his exceptional nudity is a problem. Other characters his age also go around without a full complement of clothing with no comment. As is usually the case with this trope, calling attention to the fact is mostly based on the Rule of Funny.
 * Max and Cecil from Loserz usually go naked, but for a water fight, they wear trunks. This is lampshaded in this strip:

""I don't need your standard-issue loincloth, I've been walking around without pants this entire time! It's called a genital sheath, look it up. Hey, while you're at it, look up 'hemipenes', because you can suck BOTH of my-""
 * There were advertisements for Ctrl Alt Del shirts with Zeke, resident robot, exclaiming that "Wearing a shirt only draws attention to my complete lack of pants!"
 * The Fartmutant from Powerjeff, while not an animal, follows this trope. The shirt seems arbitrary seeing as how he spent the first few issues completely naked (but still PG)
 * Maybe the characters aren't actually animals, but no one in Flying Man and Friends wears anything. At all.
 * The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob repeatedly lampshades the fact that Molly's fur lets her get away with nudity. Her sister Galatea prefers to wear clothing, though.
 * Sequential Art has half-dressed squirrel girls for the most part, once they're reminded that they don't need to be the Innocent Fanservice Girl squad. Kat and Pip are both fully clothed (unusual for a penguin).
 * Kevin and Kell usually avoids this for mammals and insects; they're expected to be fully dressed. Birds tend to be nude, although a 'bridesmaid dress' worn at an avian wedding looked more like a bird costume.
 * Some of the anthropomorphic animal characters in Exterminatus Now are fully dressed up in trousers or skirts, shirts, ties, shoes, boots, coats or trenchcoats, while others wear only a trenchcoat, or only a hat, or a sash plus boots and nothing else. At one point, one of the (pants-wearing) characters even comments on his (pantless) colleague's lack of trousers, who tells him to get lost. Of course, most of the characters have fur, or if they're turtles or mantis-people they lack outward sexual characteristics anyway. Clothing seem to be pretty much optional and just a fashion statement. No-one seems to be completely undressed, however.
 * Bob and other characters in Horndog.
 * In Fite, most of the characters are fully clothed (except for a few understandable Walking Shirtless Scenes), but the Mutali Chief wears only a vest. None of the other Mutali wear any clothes or even walk upright, placing them lower on the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism than everyone else.
 * Ever noticed this isn't applied to everyone in the same story? Hence "DrunkTales" parody by Caldwell Tanner.
 * Horatio Porque from Frog Raccoon Strawberry never wears pants, and when Strawberry puts on any kind of clothing, it is usually over her frog costume.
 * Like real lizards, the Lizard Folk in Order of the Stick have everything sheathed internally and thus don't require clothes.


 * Female dragons from Dragon City have all their naughty bits under their tails, so they normally run around naked, but when Erin joined the Dragoness Scouts, she and the other dragonesses had to wear green vests...and only green vests. Erin makes a comment that wearing the vest makes her feel naked.
 * Male dragons only wear shorts most of the time.
 * Kimbo from 1930 Nightmare Theatre is a textbook example, usually only wearing a shirt and nothing else. However, it's both lampshaded and subverted in this strip. (NSFW) Also, him and the other funny animals in the comic can apparently sport Sudden Genitalia when needed, and it's lampshaded more than once.
 * Very few characters in The Packrat are fully clothed, even most of the females and cameo celebrities aren't.

Western Animation - Disney

 * Mickey Mouse's classic look has red shorts with gold buttons, but no shirt. And note that it's only his "classic" look where he counts as this. Every other outfit Disney's put him in has a shirt.
 * When Goofy first appeared (as Dippy Dawg), he wore only a hat, vest and shoes (along with the prerequisite White Gloves). Of course, he eventually became fully clothed after being given a more human-like appearance at the start of the color film era.
 * Most of the Disney duck characters are both pantsless and unshod, but Scrooge McDuck wears spats on top of his webbed feet.
 * Ditto most of the duck characters in Darkwing Duck (which was explicitly set in the same world). Including Gosalyn, unusually, although not including Morgana. Morgana was more humanoid, though.
 * Exceptions to the shoeless duck rule include Mrs. Beakley of Duck Tales, Gosalyn Mallard of Darkwing Duck, and Launchpad McQuack, who appeared in both.
 * Launchpad and Mrs. Beakley were also exceptions to the pantsless duck rule, normally appearing fully clothed, although Launchpad on a couple occasions dressed in the costume of Darkwing Duck, an outfit that included neither pants nor shoes.
 * Although a typical pantsless duck, Darkwing was at times bizarrely shown to have boxer shorts beneath his costume, which was way too short to cover such a garment.
 * Another pantsed duck would be Quackerjack, with his jester outfit.
 * Daisy Duck was another exception to the shoeless duck rule. (And the cast of the animated Mighty Ducks series were always fully dressed, but they inhabited a more realistic universe. Well, as realistic as a universe with giant anthropomorphic hockey-playing ducks and villainous alien dinosaurs voiced by Tim Curry can be.)
 * The normally bottomless Donald Duck nephews Huey, Duey, and Louie were given shorts when they were redesigned as preteens for Quack Pack.
 * There is an urban legend about Donald Duck being banned in Finland, because he does not wear pants.
 * The legend is probably based on the few angry letters that the Finnish Donald Duck magazine received decades ago on the subject, and responded by publishing a picture of a ridiculous-looking duck with pants, which largely killed the issue. Many Finns find this legend amusing, in that the nudity taboo is far weaker in Finland than it ever has been in America, and there have been several comics in the country's national newspaper which have on occasion showed naked characters with visible but non-pronounced genitals, leading to no reprecussions.
 * There's also the fact that Donald Duck is the most popular fictional character of them all in Finland. That would be an even bigger achievement were he banned.
 * Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle Cow featured designs which had skirts and underbloomers, but not necessarily shirts.
 * Minnie's earliest cartoons (Steamboat Willie period, 1928-29) had her wearing a bra over her naked chest, but from late 1929 she went completely topless.
 * The decision seems to have been made to treat Mickey's and Minnie's black fur as an item of clothing itself. In The Grocery Boy Minnie momentarily pulls back the fur on her chest, showing us that she keeps her powder puff underneath!
 * Daisy Duck is rare among female characters, as her bottom half is normally uncovered.
 * Before the Moral Guardians noticed and became offended, many of the female cow characters would walk around with bare udders, but eventually the artists were forced to give them skirts.
 * Abu the monkey from Aladdin only wears an open vest and a hat.
 * Roquefort the mouse from The Aristocats is usually naked, but is occasionally seen wearing a hat and coat at times.
 * In Bonkers Bonkers D. Bobcat and most of the other anthromorphic male cartoon animals wear only shirts, while female cartoon animals wear skirts or dresses.
 * Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers lampshaded this trope: In the Body Swap episode "A Fly in the Ointment", the usually jumpsuit-clad Gadget is bodyswapped with the pantsless Dale. Upon noticing "her" "nudity", Gadget immediately fashions a makeshift skirt from a Dixie cup which "she" wears for the rest of the episode.
 * Timothy Q. Mouse and the crows from Dumbo are pantless, but the stork is more or less fully dressed.
 * Hyacinth Hippo from the "Dance Of The Hours" segment of Fantasia.
 * Agent Wendy Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch.
 * Both and Roz from Monsters Inc..
 * Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb only wears a hat, if anything at all.
 * Many of the from Pinocchio.
 * Bernard the mouse from The Rescuers. Miss Bianca is either an example of this trope or an Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animal.
 * The anthropomorphic cast of Disney's Robin Hood film follows the bottomless male/fully-clothed female rule. Possibly because a medieval tunic/jerkin with no trousers looks a lot less risque than a medieval peasant blouse/corset with no skirt.
 * In "Vowel Play," the "skywriting" episode of Disney's Tale Spin, the normally pantsless Baloo's shirt comes off as well, resulting in a naked Baloo (wearing only a hat). Rebecca Cunningham, his Barefoot Cartoon Animal female boss, proceeds to berate him... but only for his spelling errors.
 * In a later episode, "My Fair Baloo", an episode in which all the attendees at a formal ball strip off their outer garments to sew them into a giant hot-air balloon in order to fly the massive airplane that had served as the site of their dance home, Baloo has on an undershirt.
 * That doesn't even cover the half of it, so to speak. The tuxedo that Rebecca rented for Baloo originally had a pair of pants before he puts it on.
 * Another Tale Spin episode ("Plunder and Lighting", the Pilot) featured Rebecca being repulsed by dirty socks on Baloo's bedroom floor. One has to wonder where these socks came from, considering Baloo, as well as most of the rest of the show's cast, went barefoot. (Rule of Funny probably explains it.)
 * Donald's friend José Carioca was a Half Dressed Cartoon Animal, with a hat, suit, gloves and no pants, but his comic book series loses the gloves and gives him a pair of blue pants that are slightly torn at the bottom in a way that makes it look like they just painted his lower body blue. This appears to have been done not because they find the idea of a pantsless character offensive, but so that his design implements all the colours of the Brazilian flag, not just the Green and Yellow.
 * Back when Toon Disney first hit the air, this trope was lampshaded in one of their commercials called "The No Pants Dance".
 * Roger Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit wears red overalls, and a blue and yellow bowtie. Only one of the weasels wears pants, and for some reason he hikes them right up to his chest. (Possibly because weasels have low waistlines and short limbs, so this is the only way he can reach the pockets.)
 * The Disney version of Winnie the Pooh wears a shirt with no bottoms. It should be noted that in the original book illustrations, Pooh only wore the shirt during winter, going au naturel otherwise.
 * Some of the marine animals from Fish Hooks.
 * Abby Mallard from Chicken Little.
 * The Beast from Beauty and The Beast actually starts out as one, wearing only tattered pants and a long, purple cape. When he starts to become more polite, he becomes a Barefoot Cartoon Animal.
 * Both Fifer and Fiddler Pig from Three Little Pigs.

Western Animation - Other
"Reporter: Who are you wearing?
 * There is a humorous trailer in recent movies (asking people to turn off their cell phones) dealing with a development team for the fictional CGI movie Happy the Hedgehog. Executive Meddling forces the designers to put shorts on him. Their response? Add the shorts, but keep the fly unzipped.
 * That's Peter and Bobby Farrelly, by the way. Who would totally do that.
 * A Boomerang short plays with this where a bunch of cartoon characters can't buy anything at a store because of "No shirt, no shoes, no service." So Quick Draw McGraw, who is wearing horse shoes, takes Fred Flintstone's shirt and asks to buy clothing for the rest of the toons, the shopkeeper responds, you need pants too. Quickdraw's usual outfit consisted of a red hat, a blue bandana, and a gunbelt; El Kabong wore a black hat, a bandana-style mask and a cape, and Baba Looey wore a yellow sombrero and yellow bandana.
 * The cast of Almost Naked Animals wears only underwear (their fur having been shaved off).
 * Characters like Porky Pig and Donald Duck usually wear a towel around their waist after showering, despite neither wearing pants. Word of God states that it's basically because Donald is "human" and therefore would have a human reaction to it.
 * In a lot of the older Donald Duck cartoons, Donald's modesty is played like a fourth wall joke; he walks around without pants all of the time, but whenever his shirt gets removed he immediately covers his crotch.
 * Lampshaded on The Looney Tunes Show episode "Jailbird and Jailbunny" when people keep pointing out that Porky Pig has no pants, and Porky seems embarrassed enough to buy a pair. Funny how they never notice that Bugs and Daffy are completely nude.
 * For cartoon turtles, the creature's shell is usually treated as an outer garment (which often leads to an embarrassing unshelling), even in Franklin, a series of books and cartoons that usually avoids such cartoonish tropes. Exceptions include the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as Braker Turtle, a rather minor character in the eighties series The Get Along Gang, who was fully-clothed like the other animal characters in his world.
 * The Seville brothers of The Alvin Show and Alvin and The Chipmunks didn't wear pants because (until the 2007 franchise reboot) their turtleneck shirts were long enough to reach their ankles.
 * The Chipettes are a different story altogether. In the 1980s cartoon they were always fully dressed. Early promotional material for Alvinandthe Chipmunks: The Squeakquel seemed to suggest they were going to wear skirts over their naked lower halves. In the final film the girls wear shirts, and skirts that obviously don't reach that far down, and it seems like the Chipettes make only a half-assed attempt at being fully clothed as it leaves their butts visibly unclothed. So, first they are fully clothed, then implied to be half-naked, then go obviously half-naked...
 * Where to begin on Animaniacs? Yakko wears pants but no shirt. Wakko wears a shirt, but no pants. Dot wears a skirt and bloomers but no shirt. Walter Wolf wears overalls, a hat, and yellow gloves. Rita, Skippy, Slappy (she only wears a hat), Pinky and the Brain prance around in the nude with pride, but if Minerva Mink ever did the censors would be up in arms!
 * At one point Slappy's shown lifting her fur, doing a sexy leg reveal. Walter Wolf does this once as well, with the same results.
 * In Wakkos Wish, Skippy is wearing a shirt without pants.
 * Yakko Warner wears tan pants with a black belt and White Gloves.
 * Wilford B. Wolf wears pants, glasses, and a bowtie,... but in Fabio-esque form, he wears torn shorts and a bowtie.
 * Walter Wolf wears overalls, a hat, and yellow gloves.
 * In contrast to Walter Wolf, his female nemesis Slappy is usually seen wearing nothing but her hat. This troper remembers her being fully clothed in "Hurray for Slappy" and "Macadamia Nut" (sans the shoes, that is), but otherwise if Slappy decides to wear clothes (in episodes like "I Got Yer Can", "Critical Condition", "No Face Like Home", "Mighty Wakko at the Bat", "Soccer Coach Slappy" and "Sunshine Squirrels") Slappy wears a shirt and no pants.
 * In The Backyardigans, Pablo's regular garb consists of nothing but a blue and yellow propeller beanie and a blue bowtie. Tyrone wears an orange and blue striped sweater with no pants, yet is still often seen with his hands in his pockets for some weird reason. The other three members of the cast (no other characters are ever seen, heard or even mentioned) are pretty well covered with Tasha being the only one of the children who wears shoes.
 * Bee Movie lampshades this trope.

Barry: Calvin Klein, and I'm not wearing pants."

"Cleveland: He's not interested!
 * Not only are the male bees pantsless, but the female bees are that way as well. Apparently they don't make pants with sting holes.
 * On Birdz, most of the adults are fully dressed, but the children (of both sexes) wear only shirts. An exception is Mr. Nuthatch, who wears only a jacket.
 * Calvin and The Colonel from the self-titled series.
 * Most of the cast of Camp Lazlo are half-dressed.A notable exception is the episode where Edward goes around pantsing everyone, where suddenly everyone is wearing pants. The fact that Edward himself gets pantsed in the ending scene is spoiled by the fact that he himself wasn't wearing pants until that scene.
 * In Chowder, the title character is apparently wearing pants, he's just so fat that his poncho/shirt mostly covers his shorts when he wears it. However, the animation isn't very consistent, and he'll occasionally be shown wearing nothing else under it.
 * Also, Shnitzel tends to wear nothing but an apron and underpants a good percent of the time.
 * Lampshaded on the "Once Upon a Tyne in NYC" episode of The Cleveland Show as Cleveland rescues Tim the Bear from a gay bar.

Gay Barfly: Then why did he walk into a gay bar without pants on?!?

Cleveland: Cartoon bears NEVER wear pants!"

"Spike: Come on, you guys! Let me in!
 * In "You're the Best Man, Cleveland Brown," everyone goes to a strip club and Tim just finds the most out-of-the-way corner to get drunk...because a strip club is a bad place to be when you don't wear pants.
 * Tim's wife is also half-dressed (she wears a dress without underwear), but their son is fully dressed but without shoes.
 * The Red Guy from Cow and Chicken is a savage parody of this trope.
 * Family Guy's Peter Griffin once dressed as Donald Duck for Halloween. Guess how that turned out...
 * Stewie Griffin shows up half-dressed once too.
 * The Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Adoptaclypse Now" had a brief scene where it's pointed out that most imaginary friends are nude... and then Mr. Herriman freaks out over not wearing pants. He proceed to hop around in too-big pants for a good duration of the episode.
 * Fritz and other characters in Fritz the Cat and its sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat.
 * Though Bender from Futurama isn't an animal, he goes around naked most of the time. He will, however, occasionally become modest and wear a towel or some other form of covering as the situation requires, like when he and Fry were relaxing in a steam-filled room.
 * Another Futurama example: Kif kroker runs around in the tunic-cum-uniform without pants that Zap Brannigan imposed on the Earth military, but while Zap and all the humans are carefully covered, Kif's underwear frequently shows, between his lackey role, alien anatomy and ability to climb walls like a gecko. One bizarre way this is used is when he peels off his skin with his uniform (and precious amber gris) on it, revealing a new naked skin below, that is somehow wearing underwear.
 * This gets even stranger when you realize that Kif's species reproduces through any skin contact, meaning he would not realistically have or need genitals.
 * Nibbler wears a cape, and sometimes diapers.
 * In Filmations Ghostbusters, Tracy the gorilla sports only a fedora and khaki shorts.
 * In Happy Tree Friends, most of the characters wear no clothes, but Pop does wear a smoking jacket and Cub wears a diaper, and Flippy wears an army jacket and cap but no pants. Lumpy apparently doesn't wear anything either, but in one episode he was seen wearing a towel and ironing a shirt and pants the exact same colour as his body, his nipples and butt were visible, and Giggles screamed when he opened the door to see her and his towel blew away. Disco Bear is the only fully clothed friend as he wears a disco suit.
 * Various animal characters from Hoodwinked including the Big Bad Wolf, Boingo the bunny and Twitchy the squirrel. The Wolf initially wore a blue hoodie in the first movie, and later added pants to his wardrobe for the sequel.
 * Po, Tai Lung, and Master Monkey from Kung Fu Panda all wear shorts, but no shirt. as does Master Crane.
 * Leo Lionheart, the main character of MGM's The Lionhearts series, wore just a sweater. His dad, Grandpa Lionheart, wears a sports jacket.
 * Tweety Bird was pink in his early appearances, depicted as a naked newborn chick. Warner censors said that it was unacceptable, and there was talk of putting pants on him. Instead, animators went with yellow feathers, and made him a canary. He did wear a small sailor's cap for a while, but he soon lost it.
 * Tweety's counterpart on Tiny Toon Adventures, Sweetie Bird, seems to have reverted to pink, though it seems to be pink feathers.
 * The female gorilla from the Looney Tunes cartoon "Apes of Wrath" wears a pink skirt that looks just like Dot Warner's skirt.
 * Subverted in the road runner episode "War and Pieces." Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner (who never wears anything but a crash helmet) builds a longbow device which rips the fur and skin off his legs. Underneath, he's wearing polka dot boxers.
 * Heavily played with in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, where clothing of any sort is a formal item for ponies, and as such runs the gamut from minimal to deeply covering. In Canterlot in particular, it seems that almost everyone wears some clothing, which makes sense since it seems to be populated by upper-crust folk.
 * Lampshaded in "The Best Night Ever" when the ponies are getting ready for the Grand Galloping Gala:

Rainbow Dash: Sure thing, Spike!

Rarity: Heavens, no! We're getting dressed!

Applejack: Dressed? Uh, beg pardon, Rarity, but, uh... we don't normally wear clothes.

Rarity: (groans, opens the door) Sorry, Spike. Some of us do have standards."


 * Not to mention in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", when Rainbow Dash yanks the covers off Fluttershy, and Fluttershy immediately covers her non-existent breasts with her front hooves while blushing furiously.
 * A commonly-told joke among bronies is that Ponyville is a nudist colony.
 * The Mouse King from The Nutcracker Prince movie is considered this trope as he wears a cape, a crown and an armor plate.
 * Ludwig the bat from Pearlie wears a pair of glasses and a necktie.
 * Played with in The Pink Panther cartoons, where occasionally, the Panther would "undress" (typically just removing "socks" just before going to bed), only to look exactly the same.
 * The aliens from Planet 51.
 * While the male Aliens all wore only shirts (and no pants), the female aliens all wore shirts in addition to dresses and skirts. However, they still went barefoot. While this was supposed to indicate their society and thus their mode of dress was similar to America during the 1950's, it really just raised unpleasant speculation on the anatomical differences between the males and females.
 * In The Raccoons, all the males are nude or shirt-only. Melissa Raccoon wears only a shirt as well, which is somewhat strange as she actually has breasts. Lisa and Sophia are the only fully-dressed main character in the series.
 * In Rango, the main character's regular duds consist of a red tropical shirt. There are a few supporting characters including Wounded Bird and Waffles the horned toad that apply to this trope as well.
 * Most of the other (anthropomorphic) animals are either fully clothed or Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animals. Rango gets a new outfit that includes pants before too long and remains fully clothed for the rest of the movie.
 * Edmund from Rock a Doodle, upon being transformed into a cat by the evil Grand Duke of Owls, starts out naked when he is rescued by the other animals, but he immediately had to put on a shirt and a hat because everyone else was wearing clothing, and only he isn't.
 * In Rocko's Modern Life, most of the cast is fully clothed except for Rocko, Slippy the Slug, and the chameleon brothers, in Rocko and Slippy's cases they only wear shirts but sometimes if Rocko loses his he will gain a pair of underpants, and if it's for a formal occasion Rocko will wear pants, as for the Chameleon brothers they are naked and no one ever comments on this.
 * The Secret of NIMH - The film that launched a thousand furries. Pretty much every character. There is even a scene in the third act where Justin suggests to Mrs. Brisby that she remove her cape (the only thing she wears) so that it won't 'get caught on something.' The scene unintentionally turns Justin into a pervert in the eyes of some fans.
 * Three and Four from Seven Little Monsters. Although having just an oversized t-shirt as his regular wardrobe, Three dons a different costume pertainable to the plot of each episode, in which case a good 1/3 of his wardrobe applies to this trope. Four sports a yellow t-shirt and purple top hat.
 * In Space Goose, Space Goose and Ugly only wear a shirt (not counting Goose's space-helmet). Sally wears a dress and boots, while Joe wears a shirt and pants. Dr. Donkey wears a top hat, a monacle and a dinner jacket.
 * In SpongeBob SquarePants, Mr. Krabs and Spongebob are the only fully clothed males. While most females wear clothes, most of the males wear only shorts or bikinis, and Squidward only wears a shirt. This last is Lampshaded many times; in one example, Spongebob asks Squidward why he never wears pants, and at the end, he is seen wearing a pair; in another, he runs out of his house, wearing only bubbles over his private parts (with characters covering their eyes as he runs by), and at the end of the episode, Spongebob gives him his clothes to wear just before the last bubble, which is placed where his crotch would be, pops.
 * Plankton, on the other hand, is completely naked. This is pointed out in the episode where he switches lives with Mr. Krabs and is wearing his clothes, while Mr. Krabs goes around naked, to everyone's horror.
 * Dr. Viper from Swat Kats wears only a labcoat.
 * Buster Bunny, Plucky Duck, and Shirley the Loon from Tiny Toon Adventures. Occasionally, Babs Bunny was shirtless.
 * Hamton J. Pig is another debatable male example because he wears overalls, but not a shirt.
 * Tom and Jerry are usually naked, but are occasionally seen wearing shirts without pants in some cartoons. Jerry also sported a red bowtie on some of his appearances on television.
 * Also, Puggsy the dog, Frankie the flea, and the Singing Cat Gang from Tom and Jerry The Movie.
 * The "Silly Songs with Larry" segment in the Veggie Tales episode "Are You My Neighbour?" features Larry the Cucumber, fresh from a bath, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Repeated mention is made of how embarrassing it is for him to be meeting people in this state of undress -- even though he's actually better covered than usual, since like most of the Veggies he normally wears nothing at all.
 * Cindy Bear from Yogi Bear cartoons wears a blue skirt, a yellow scarf on her neck, and a flower in her hair. She wore a hat in the original 1961 cartoons and in a few of her later appearances as well.
 * Clothing was a major plot point in the short Boo Boo Runs Wild.
 * There are other Hanna Barbera characters beside Cindy Bear who are half-dressed, including:
 * Augie Doggie, Doggie Daddy's son (turtleneck)
 * Ding-A-Ling Wolf, Hokey Wolf's sidekick (bowler hat, short-sleeve shirt and vest)
 * Top Cat, Choo Choo, the Brain (No, not that Brain), and Benny the Ball from Top Cat.
 * Lippy the Lion (tattered vest and top hat)
 * Ricochet Rabbit (cowboy hat, gun belt and vest)
 * Peter Potamus and SoSo the monkey (Peter wears a safari jacket and pith helmet; SoSo years a backwards hat and blue shirt)
 * Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole (Secret wears a white trenchcat and a hat with eye holes; Morocco wears a fez and smoking jacket)
 * Maw and Shag Rugg from the Hillbilly Bears are half-dressed, but Floral Rugg borders on fully dressed, although she's a Barefoot Cartoon Animal. Paw Rugg also goes barefoot.
 * Muttley from Wacky Races and Dastardly & Muttley (pilot's helmet, goggles and scarf)
 * The Smurfs wear pants and hats but no shirt.
 * Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law had fun with this trope by portraying Secret Squirrel as a flasher (since he only wears a trenchcoat). Later episodes show him wearing boxers underneath after the court ruled against him.
 * Between the two title characters of Lenny and Sid, the former wears only a shirt, and the latter wears only overalls.

Real Life

 * In 1959, there was actually a group called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals or SINA, a hoax perpetrated by comedian Alan Abel until 1962. Buck Henry played its president, G. Clifford Prout, while Abel played the vice president, and its goal was to clothe all animals. One of its mottos was "A nude horse is a rude horse." Apparently, lots of people fell for it and tried to donate money for the cause.
 * That, or it just proves that Americans were too prudish for their own good health in the old days. May or may not apply today as well.
 * Many college mascots are animals clad only in a sweater bearing the school's initials.
 * Likewise, a good chunk of fursuiters either wear a shirt or shorts/pants. Sometimes the article of clothing is part of the costume, as in the costumer never bothered to make legs or a complete torso for it (both to keep costs down and make it less hot to wear), letting the clothing hide this fact.
 * As with the Trope page quote, Dutch comedian Harry Jekkers mentioned the fact that Donald Duck wears no trousers during one of his shows in the early nineties. In fact, he points out that a Duck, while walking as a normal human being, wears no pants. What follows is his outrage when he points out that when this same Duck is in his natural element -- swimming in water -- he suddenly starts wearing swimming trunks. Cue laughter from audience.