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Feather Fingers: Difference between revisions
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This is usually the very first step in a character/series' [[Anthropomorphic Shift]]. It's just easier for animators to draw a character playing the drums or baking cookies using the body motions based off human references. It takes a hell of a lot of dedication to avert this trope, as it involves having to stop and really think about how the heck [[Bloom County|a penguin could possibly manipulate a tuba]].
See also [[Cartoony Eyes]], [[Toothy Bird]], [[Anatomy Anomaly]], and [[Invisible Anatomy]]. An extreme (and outright bizarre) variation is all those cartoon fish who are somehow able to [[Tailfin Walking|walk on their tailfins]]. There's also a more subtle variation where an animal will be given a few human-like features that their real-life equivalents tend to lack (think of all those [[Old Master|wise old]] [[Turtle Power|turtles]] [[Non
'''Note:''' This is such a [[Universal Trope]] that, instead of listing every single cartoon animal in the world, we will instead list notable exceptions and subversions.
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== Film ==
* The owls in ''[[Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of ga Hoole]]'' use their feet rather than their wings to manipulate objects.
* ''[[Kung Fu Panda (Animation)|Kung Fu Panda]]'' has mixed uses of this trope. Ducks and geese are able to use their feathers like fingers, but Crane (the, well, crane) has realistic wings and uses his feet and beak to move objects.
* The pigeons in ''[[Bolt (Disney)|Bolt]]'' surprisingly avert this. Even when gesturing, their wings still move like real wings, and they tend to investigate or manipulate objects with their beaks.
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* The Ythrians, a bird-like alien race from several [[Poul Anderson]] [[Technic History]] stories, look basically like huge birds of prey. They do not need to pick up anything with their wings however because their highly efficient respiratory system allows them to hover for long periods of time without getting tired, allowing them to use their feet to manipulate objects.
* [[Babar the Elephant]], of Jean de Brunhoff's stories, normally uses his trunk to manipulate things, much like an actual elephant would. However, Babar (and all the other elephants of Celesteville, for that matter) walk upright on two legs. This means that there are instances of them using their forelimbs like hands--even though their "hands" look identical to those of quadrupedal elephants, completely lacking in fingers. How this is done is a mystery. Additionally, because they seem capable of using both their forelimbs and trunks to manipulate things, elephants in Babar's world effectively have three limbs that can be used to hold and handle things.
** De Brunoff's later stories, as well as the TV and film tie-ins take this a step further. Quadrupeds living along side the elephants, such as Lord Rataxes and the other rhinoceroses have hands with fingers. Since Rataxes' troops are typically [[Card
== [[Live Action Television]] ==
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* In ''Peep and the Big Wide World'', most of the major characters don't even have visible forelimbs. So they hold things in their beaks (like actual birds). Chirp does have visible wings but she uses them mostly to gesticulate.
* ''[[I Am Not an Animal]]'' is a British animation about a bunch of superintelligent animals who are released from a research facility. The nominally smartest of them, a horse, is mortified that he can't put on his pants by himself now he's outside the research facility. He uses magnets on his hooves to hold knives and forks, and the sparrow somehow attaches plastic fingers on sticks to his wings to allow him to type and play keyboard.
* Probably the strangest example would be ''[[My Little Pony Tales]]''. The Ponies are not normally anthropomorphic or human-like in the least; aside from the fact that they talk, they are quadrupedal equines with hooves. And yet, in this series, they live in a human-like 1980s suburbia, and can carry and use objects that have obviously been designed for humans -- sometimes with their teeth (which wouldn't be ''so'' weird except for the fact that there don't seem to be any humans around), but most frequently just by just using their front hooves as if they were hands, and the objects either somehow sticking to them (like pencils or mugs) or just working without any apparent explanation (like guitars or keyboards), without even any attempt at a [[Hand Wave]]. (The original [[My Little Pony]] cartoons kept a couple of humans around for such things, so [[Feather Fingers|Hoof Fingers]] weren't necessary) [[
* In the current show ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|Friendship is Magic]]'', ponies need to use their mouths (or, for unicorns, their magic powers) for most things we use our hands for. Sometimes, however, the ponies give up and just manipulate or even inexplicably grasp things with their hooves. Pegasuses have also sometimes used their wings in a way that is closer to the trope name than it is to what wings could actually do. The general rule seems to be that the unexplained hoof-grasping is avoided unless it becomes too inconvenient to do so, with a preference for more creative solutions that at least work physically if not physiologically, like a [[Prehensile Tail]].
* Averted -- for the most part -- with the fish in ''[[Finding Nemo]]''. Not so much with Nigel the pelican. His primary feathers are fully rendered in extreme detail, so they are practically a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on how odd this looks.
* Somewhat related is one of the major criticisms directed at ''[[Happy Feet]]''. The result of using motion capture footage of humans to animate penguins tap-dancing [[Uncanny Valley|ends up very strange, due to the wildly different anatomy]].
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** But averted with the Warner Sibs in the few instances that they're standing on four legs. They not only retain their thumbs when they're on four legs, their hands still look like hands on the floor.
* Pooh and Tigger from ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' have [[Powerpuff Girl Hands]] with thumbs that appear when they grasp something or gesture.
* Thumbs sometimes appear on the paws of [[Pluto the Pup]], [[Figaro]], and other "[[Nearly
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Animal Anthropomorphism Tropes]]
[[Category:Feather Fingers]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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