Formally-Named Pet

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"When Dr. Evil gets angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset. And when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people die! "

How do you show that your pet is special? When you want to go above and beyond a normal pet name, a formal title is the easiest way to add some sophistication. He's not just Fluffernutter, he's Mister Fluffernutter! You can usually expect such a pet to be a little lap dog or a pampered kitty. However, they may occasionally be horrible giant scary monsters, so beware.

Often overlaps with Mister Muffykins. The Right-Hand-Cat is often a Formally-Named Pet. Likewise in pet-related cases of Consulting Mister Puppet. How Not to Write A Novel mentions this as something that is overdone.

Examples of Formally-Named Pet include:

Advertising

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Films -- Live-Action

Literature

  • Harry Potter: Filch has a pet cat, Mrs. Norris.
  • In the Discworld book Making Money, Topsy Lavish (née Turvy)'s dog and eventual chairman of the bank is named Mr. Fusspot.
  • Peter S. Beagle's Tamsin features a cat simply named Mister Cat.
  • From T. S. Eliot Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (and thus also from Cats), the magical Mr. Mistoffelees (the only one of all the cats in the book/musical to be named that way).
  • In The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden's cat is named simply Mister.
  • Pippi Longstocking has her little monkey, Mr. Nilsson.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, Tommen has kittens named Ser Pounce and Lady Whiskers (and another named Boots).

Live-Action TV

  • On The Dick Van Dyke Show, Sally's cat is named Mr. Henderson.
    • In one episode Alan Brady gets Rob to work on a play he's in that's written by a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Truman Capote. "Capote" has a pet German Shepard named Mr. Ben which he takes everywhere and consults for advice.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Willow and Tara get a cat and name it "Miss Kitty Fantastico". The cat later disappears without mention. It's brought up later, when Dawn implies in a quick aside that the cat was killed in a household cross-bow accident.
    • Drusilla's dog is "Ms. Sunshine."
  • Mr. Muggles, the Pomeranian from Heroes.
  • The Drew Carey Show: Drew and Lewis bribe Oswald into voting to sell Buzz Beer by giving him a bunny. Oswald immediately names it Commander Bun-Bun and starts to act like a Diabolical Mastermind with a Right-Hand-Cat.
  • Brittany on Glee has a cat named Lord Tubbington.
  • Sex and the City: Carrie's book reading is interrupted by the appearance of one Mr. Winkle, a real celebrity dog, who has a book of his own, which he's signing (by putting his paw print on it).
  • When Leonard is considering getting a cat in The Big Bang Theory, one of the names he's thinking about is "Colonel Fuzzyboots".
  • My Name Is Earl: Darnell's turtle is named Mr. Turtle.
    • In one episode Joy & Darnell - an interracial couple - interact with a reverse-color interracial couple, Liberty & Ray-Ray. Liberty is Joy's half sister. Ray-Ray has a bearded dragon (a type of lizard) he calls Mr. Bearded Dragon.
  • In Friends, Mr Heckles pretends he has a cat named Mister Bob Buttons.
    • Rachel bought a hairless cat she named "Mrs. Whiskerson" because she can't call her "Fluffy".
  • On Degrassi, Fiona's ex-girlfriend has a cat named Mr. Tuxedo-Pants.
  • On Psych, Shawn's cat's name is Chairman Meow.
  • In Jessie, Ravi's pet water monitor lizard is named "Mr. Kipling".

New Media

  • In Conquering the Horizon, back on earth Evelyn had a tarantula named Mr. Bubbles. Turned out Mr. Bubbles was a girl, but Evelyn didn't rename Mr. Bubbles. When she ended up on another planet, she quickly bonded with a local alien animal, failing to learn her lesson the first time, named the creature of unknown gender Mr. Mooshi.

Video Games

Web Comics

  • In Chapel Chronicles, Chapel's pet hedgehog is named Sir Rupert Tennyson Bollingsworth the First
  • In Eerie Cuties an ancient vampire queen had a kitty named Mr. Boodles.
  • Pokémon: Jarad has a pet Gyarados named Mr. Fish in Manly Guys Doing Manly Things.
  • Housepets has at least 10 cats called Mr Bigglesworth, due to their owner being a Crazy Cat Lady. They all look the same, though they're not related and some are female. They occasionally mess with other pets who don't know there's more than one.
  • John in Homestuck names Rose's mutant cat Dr. Meowgon Spengler, not knowing that she has already named him Vodka Mutini.
  • Mr. Scruffy, Lord Shojo's cat in Order of the Stick. He gained a canine Evil Counterpart within the Linear Guild with Sir Scraggly.
    • There's also Mr. Stiffly, the Monster in the Darkness' name for O-Chul. He counts because he got the name while the MITD was using his paralyzed body like a stuffed animal for his make-believe tea party.
  • Sluggy Freelance: After surviving a horrible explosion, Bun-Bun temporarily loses his memory and is adopted by a family that renames him Mr. Fuzbutt.
  • Raven's cat in El Goonish Shive refers to himself as Mr. Fuzzball although according to Raven his name is actually Max.
  • At one point, Helen from Narbonic tries to control the insane, super-intelligent gerbils she's created with an adorable kitten named Sir Pounce after eating several gerbils, he gets strapped to a bomb, blown up, and sent to Hell.
  • Nick's pet raccoon in Samurai Princess is named Mr. Fluffycuddles.

Web Original

  • TVTV 's Expy of Frankenstein's Monster has "Mr. Stiffy", a very, very dead cat.
  • In one episode of Commodore HUSTLE, "Rarelywinter", Kathleen suggests naming a defeated dragon, "Sir Burns-A-Lot". Graham translates this to Jer as, "Kathleen can't think of anything either."

Western Animation