Interspecies Romance/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Lucky dog...

Examples of Interspecies Romances in Western Animation include:

  • In My Life as a Teenage Robot, there's Sheldon's Dogged Nice Guy crush on Robot Girl Jenny Wakeman. Word of God says that if the show hadn't been cancelled, they would have actually become an Official Couple.
    • The fact that she's a robot doesn't stop Jenny from having romantic feelings for human men. Nor does it stop fans from writing fanfics about Jenny becoming a couple with Brad (though some of these stories do use the idea of Jenny becoming human...).
    • In fact Brad also had a robotic love interest in a couple of episodes. Along with Sheldon's one episode crush on a disguised Vexus.
  • In Alfred J Kwak, the titular character's nemesis, Dolf, is the son of a crow - who, judging from his only apparition in the very first episode, was quite narrow-minded - and a blackbird, an inheritance which is ashamed of, to the point of self-loathing; he even paints his orange beak black.
    • It's also a somewhat interesting fact that Dolf's character is based on Adolf Hitler.
  • Elisa and Goliath of Gargoyles. Complete with plenty of angst about it, especially when a magic spell briefly turns them into the same species.
    • Demona and Macbeth are another Interspecies Romance, albeit gone horribly sour. Nevertheless, they remain practically married after being Cursed with Awesome by some of the Fair Folk. ("Forever and eternal bound / And each the other's pain resound...")
  • The Chip/Gadget/Dale love triangle in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers: Two chipmunks fighting for the affection of a mouse. One episode involves a young Squirrel with a crush on Chip, and in another Dale hooks up with a Bat.
  • On the Transformers Generation 1 front, you have the episode, "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide." Three guesses what it's about. Has a healthy dose of Belligerent Sexual Tension to boot!
    • From the same season, "Sea Change" paired the Autobot Seaspray with an alien humanoid woman whose people guarded a magical spring that let any living thing that entered it assume any shape it wanted to.
    • The Transformers wiki has a list. It comes up more often that it, strictly speaking, should. Unless, of course, there's a writer with a fetish.
  • BoJack Horseman is a cartoon where Funny Animals live among humans, so relations like this are common. The protagonist (an anthropomorphic horse) often dates Princess Carolyn (a Persian cat) and dates human women frequently. Oddly, he has yet to be seen dating his own species.
  • So far Ben 10 has seen a marriage between a cousin of Ben's and a sludge-like shapeshifting alien, and a visit from Grandpa Max's Green-Skinned Space Babe from his days with The Men in Black, in addition to obvious romantic attraction between a mostly humanoid four-armed alien and a floating tentacled brain.
    • The sequel series Ben 10 Alien Force is built on the premise of multiple Half Human Hybrids whose parents are all aliens who fell in love with humans and went native.
      • Don't forget that two of the main characters who are both Half Human Hybrids of different species are in a relationship.
      • Don't forget Grampa Max and Grandma Verdona. Also Sunny, cousin of Ben and Gwen (who is the same species as their grandmother) and her boyfreind.
  • In Futurama, there have been numerous interspecies pairings. Leela and Zap were mutant plus human. Kif and Amy were alien plus human. In "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela and Alkazar were mutant plus shapeshifting-alien. In "I Dated a Robot", Fry and Lucy Liu were human plus robotic clone ("metal fever"), Then there's Bender and the real Lucy Liu (robot/human head) and Bender/Planet Express Ship.
    • And to top it off, Yiyo and the entire Universe (Naughty Tentacles thing/billions of organics of every variety).
    • The latest season adds the robot + human love affair of Bender + Amy to the mix in order to make an unsubtle point about the current same-sex marriage debate. The episode also showcases a quick flurry of other improbable pairings, up to and including horse + ghost.
  • The Nickelodeon cartoon Catscratch has Gordon, a cat, in love with his neighbor, Kimberly. (He calls her "Human Kimberly". Guess what species SHE is.) Making things worse, Kimberly is eight years old and while Gordon's age is never specifically mentioned.
  • Jake/Rose on American Dragon: Jake Long (dragon/human... okay, shapeshifting-dragon-with-a-human-form/dragon slayer).
  • You'd be hard pressed to find anyone on the Legion of Super Heroes cartoon who isn't doing this, since they're all from different planets. (e.g. Bouncing Boy from Earth and Triplicate Girl from Cargg) In fact, the only pairing this troper can remember that wasn't interspecies were Lightning Lad's parents, who had about three seconds of screen time in the whole series.
  • Brian (an anthropomorphic dog) of Family Guy has had a few human girlfriends, and has even had sex with some of them. This is portrayed as perfectly normal in the show's universe.
    • So normal in fact, that Brian acts ashamed when he is attracted to other (non-anthropomorphic) dogs.
    • There was even an episode where he married Lois after Peter was presumed dead. Seriously. Crazy part is, EVERY member of the family (Lois and Brian included) seemed far healthier, productive, competent, and lucid than they ever were when she was married to Peter.
    • In another episode, his gay cousin Jasper is poised to marry his human partner. The entire episode is a commentary on the legality (or lack thereof) of same-sex marriage; the fact that one is an animal is not even brought up. It isn't odd if you take into account that, in an earlier episode of the same season, it's revealed that Brian married Lois when they thought that Peter died in the sea.
    • On a side note, Brian had a child with a human woman in a season 6 episode.
    • "Hey...I f*cked your dad."
    • Lampshaded at least once. Brian asks a girl out at a party, and she throws her drink in his face exclaiming, "Ew, you're a dog!"
    • A Manatee Gag shows Noah confronting an elephant and a penguin who fell in love and reproduced an elephant/penguin hybrid. The father was the elephant, by the way.
    • When Brian actually does have sex with another dog, said dog apparently also had sex with Ted Turner.
  • Recent episodes of American Dad had Hayley paired with Reginald, who is a koala (actually, a koala with his brain switched with a homeless guy's by the C.I.A.).
    • The next season has Hayley going back to Jeff and marrying him.
  • Pinky and The Brain: Pinky's recurring Love Interest is Pharfignewton, a horse. This Squicks Brain (who is only interested in other mice) considerably. When Brain creates a clone (known as "Romy") who gets infected with Pinky's DNA, Romy eventually starts dating a human woman, which Brain protests as well.
    • There was also one episode where Pinky fell in love with a seal. It's also worth mentioning that the one time Pinky was ever kissed by a female mouse, he ran away screaming.
    • Brain's recurring love interest, Billie, is also courted by a hamster named Snowball.
    • Pinky also once fell in love with a pig on in the only half-hour Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain episode.
  • Animaniacs; Minerva - a mink - seems at least open to dating outside her species. In "Meet Minerva" she flirts with Newt - a dachshund - and is later seen dating him in "Gunga-Dot". In "Moon Over Minerva" it is implied she wanted to date Wilford - a wolf - the next time the moon was full, after knowing he turns into a hunky werewolf on those nights.
  • This has happened in Danny Phantom with a ghost prince desiring a human bride, though most of any ghost/human romance is between several human girls and the main character who's a ghostly Half-Human Hybrid. Everybody likes to ignore the idea that the majority of them are undead. The main character is is only half undead, however the hell that works. One quarter dead?
    • Freakshow and his henchwoman Lydia also deserve a mention.
    • Word of God has said that ghosts are a species of their own, rather than all being people who have died. Though at least some of them are.
  • Krazy Kat is besotten with Ignatz Mouse. Officer Bull Pupp would really prefer less mouse in that.
  • The next-to-ur example: Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar in Disney cartoons and comics. Early on, the two are romantic to the point of being engaged (comics, 1932). Later, they're back to being a dating couple, with Clarabelle occasionally seeing Goofy as well ? in one recent comic book story ("With Friends Like These," 2006), clearly doing so to make Horace jealous, though innocent Goofy misreads the situation as platonic and doesn't realize how his friend is using him.
    • There are also many relationships between ducks and frex geese. Closer than most of the other examples on this page, but still different species.
    • There are geese within the McDuck family tree as well. Donald's cousin Gladstone Gander for instance is the son of a goose and a duck.
  • The Simpsons
    • A Halloween Episode has a The Island of Doctor Moreau spoof where the characters are turned into animals. After Marge is turned into a puma, she goes tell Homer about it... and since the lights are off, they both have sex. Homer only realizes the changes seeing how scratched he got.
    • At the end of the episode, Homer gets turned into a Walrus and is shown massaging Marge with his tusk... Yes.
    • In a more recent episode featuring a beached whale, the episode ends with Homer saying the whale will get a hot new octopus wife, and that he hears "there's a whalapus on the way!" Marge suggests drawing this. Three guesses what the background images for the credits are.
    • In the episode "Days of Future's Future", Bart has become rather promiscuous, and has dated or slept with more than one alien, mutant, or robot female. His ex-wife is currently dating an alien who looks like a humanoid xenomorph (who talks with an obvious American accent, oddly).
  • Gravity Falls; it is legal for people to marry woodpeckers in the eponymous town, and in the "Summerween" episode, somebody did. And this is just one of the many silly laws imposed by the town's eccentric founder.
  • Eva, the human heroine of Oban Star Racers, gets a crush on the handsome alien prince Aikka. By the end of the series, it's puppy love.
  • The Backyardigans: Pratically all pairings, considered they're all of different species. Bonus points go to any pairing with Uniqua, who we don't even know the species of.
  • Classic Looney Tunes typically have Pepe Le Pew trying some unintended interspecies romance when he pursues... um, any cat with a white stripe painted on it (Penelope Pussyfoot is the usual victim). (Then, in a sticker book, he shuns a skunk with her stripes painted over!). In rare moments, the roles would get reversed with hilarious results. Tiny Toons had Fifi La Fume (Skunkius sexius, when she came in on a Coyote-Road Runner Calamity-Little Beeper story) continue the tradition.
    • Parodied in World of Warcraft with vanity pets. If one player has Stinker, the skunk, out and another has the Black Tabby out, Stinker will start projecting hearts and chase the tabby around the room for a good few seconds before slinking back over to his master (wherein the heart over his head tragically breaks in half). This repeats endlessly every few seconds until someone puts one of them away.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures also occasionally set Fifi and Hampton (a pig) up on dates.
    • One episode paired Babs Bunny and (human) Montana Max, although they were not quite themselves at the time and Buster, in trying to keep Babs from walking down the aisle, makes the point that Max isn't her type, not even her species.
    • Can't forget Dizzy (his generation's Taz) and his three human girlfriends. An extra level of squick is added when you consider that Dizzy is a kid and the women are... well, women.
    • What about Bugs Bunny (when he dresses in drag) and Elmer Fudd (or Yosemite Sam in Hare Trimmed and From Hare to Eternity)?
    • Any time Bugs sings in praise of the "Genie with the light brown hare."
  • A romantic subplot of Madagascar 2 involves Melman the Giraffe attempting to admit his feelings towards Gloria the Hippo.
    • Also, a penguin marrying a dashboard hula girl. Ser'sly.
      • And the spin-off TV show "The Penguins of Madagascar" has Rico in love with a vaguely Barbie-like doll
      • Also in the spin off where Marlene the sea otter briefly holds a relationship with a squirrel due to a pairing mix-up.
  • There are hints of something more than friendship between Vinnie and Charley in Biker Mice From Mars. One episode also has Greasepit fall in love with Charley for a short time. Another episode has a whole line of women swooning over Modo; while they could arguably be reacting to his suave act, at least one calls him cute. Yet another episode has Modo falling for a bird-woman of some sort.
    • The second series also has Vinnie finding female cat-women attractive and openly flirting with them.
  • The 1936 Silly Symphony Elmer Elephant is about an elephant whose girlfriend is a tiger. 'Nuff said.
    • Likewise, Music Land, released a year earlier, has a saxophone in love with a violin (Interinstrument Romance?). Then, for added Squick, the saxophone's father ends up falling in love with the violin's mother.
  • An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog features a rabbit in an abusive relationship with a dog. There's also a lot of subtext between the rabbit and her cat friend.
    • In another episode, a goose god becomes infatuated with the human mortal Muriel, and later drops her in favor of a nonliving pickup truck.
  • Cat R. Waul/Tanya Mousekewitz, in an astonishingly emotional, romantic and frankly creepy scene from Fievel Goes West. There's also a surprisingly large amount of fan material for the couple.
  • John Stewart and Hawkgirl in Justice League.

The Flash: Internet Romances huh? Go figure.

    • Supergirl(Kryptonian) and Brainiac 5(Coluan). She opted to remain in the future in part because she fell for him.
  • Spongebob:
    • Spongebob, a sea sponge, apparently had a crush on Sandy, a squirrel, especially in the first season.
    • In one episode, Mr. Krabs mentions that Pearl takes after her mother by being a whale. He also dated Ms. Puffs (a pufferfish) in one episode, and a later episode shows they've been secretly dating for 16 years.
  • Little Bear's friendship with Emily, a human, is oddly romantic like, even for children (um, and cubs) their age.
    • Emily's birthday episode seems to be full of innocent romantic subtext between the two. Emily doesn't even say they will stay together forever as friends. She just states together forever.
    • They even pretend to get married in one episode.
  • The Teen Titans cartoon apparently loves this: The Official Couple of Robin and Starfire, the short-lived May-December Romance between Raven and Malchior, human Terra and shapeshifting Beast Boy, Kitten and Fang (we are not sure what exactly he is, but he has a giant spider for a head).
  • The least offensive thing South Park did with this trope was get a pig and an elephant to get it on!
    • In the same episode, the offspring of said pig and Mr. Garrison.
    • And who could forget "Douche and Turd", where PETA members are shown to be married to animals!
  • Whenever the Chipmunks and the Chipettes were not seeing each other, they show interest in humans. In fact, in The Chipmunk Adventure, the Chipettes end up in a harem because a young Egyptian prince fell in love with Brittany and wanted to marry her.
  • Descent into tribal loonydom, constant warfare and, to top it all off, countless male human inmates engaging in reproductive sex with the local canaries. Just some of the crazy shit that happens when the Warden isn't around to run Superjail
  • Happens several times (mainly to Jay) in the Men in Black animated series. The most serious relationship is between Kay and an alien cop (Kay's feelings for his long lost girlfriend prevent him from going to far).
  • In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Raphael shared some sparks with Mona Lisa, a human girl who got mutated into a lizard girl. People who came to like the pairing then became dissapointed when she turned out to be a Girl of the Week.
    • In the Archie comics version of TMNT, Raphael got into a serious relationship with Ninjara, a ninja fox-woman from a Hidden Race of fox-people, which lasted for a good period in the comic's run.
    • Also in the original animated series, Michelangelo had a thing going with a humanoid alien named Kala.
    • Don't forget Lotus Blossom, the lady ninja Leonardo got the hots for. If I remember right, she (and Kala) got two or three episodes as opposed to Mona Lisa's one. Donatello's the only one in the original cartoon who never got any.
      • Actually it was implied that Irma had more than a bit of a crush on Donatello. Heck, in one episode where Donatello actually stops Shredder's plans in Europe, both April and Irma reward him with a barrage of kisses and hugs. I kid you not. Believe me, Donatello got his fair share of action.
      • And it was heavily implied that he, out of the four, was the most infatuated with April (and firmly convinced that he was her favorite of the turtles).
        • Actually, Michaelangelo seemed to be most enamored by April and tried to get her attention the most, whenever Kala wasn't around.
      • In the first live-action film all of the Turtles are infatuated with April in the beginning. It's not like they have much of a choice as unlike the cartoon and comics the Turtles are just as rare as you'd expect four walking, talking, ninja fighing mutated turtles to be.
  • On that note, while the second Ninja Turtles series did not feature any explicit romantic attachments for the turtles, it did feature its own interspecies romance between Cody Jones (a human) and Starlee Hambrath (blue-skinned alien cutie).
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars had a Twilek/Clone human pairing.
    • Ahsoka Tano is a Togruta and has a human love interest in ex-Separatist senator Lux Bonteri.
    • Greedo, a reptilian-insectoid-humanoid Rodian also seems to had a romantic relationship with one of Jabba's Twilek dancers.
    • Aurra Sing also had a relationship with Hondo Ohnaka sometime prior to the Clone Wars.
    • Also Ziro the Hutt and Sy Snootles had once a relationship, 'tho it's unclear if Ziro ever genuinly cared for Sy.
    • In gereral the show tends to put interspecies couples in the background every now-and-then.
  • If you think about it, many of the couples in Winx Club could count as this. The girls of the Winx Club are fairies, and the specialists are... human-looking aliens, or fairy and wizard in the case of Layla and Nabu. Near the end of season 4 we learn that Roxy's mother is Morgana, the queen of the fairies. In the last episode of season 4, Morgana reunites with her husband Klaus (a human).
  • In an episode of Rex the Runt, while the other characters are away at a relationship counselling camp, Vince romances, marries and even has a child with... a vacuum cleaner.
  • Rocko's Modern Life includes a marriage between a bespectacled turtle and a cat. The stork eventually brings them an egg that has to be incubated by their friend, a cow steer, and which hatches into four children: two bespectacled turtles, a cat, and a cow.
  • Drawn Together's Spanky Hamm, Captain Hero, and Wooldorf all had a Spin-The-Bottle/threeway make-out session in one episode, another episode had Toot marrying/having sex with Ling Ling's father, Xandir and Toot both kissed (and got turned on by) Ling Ling, a role-play episode implied that Wooldorf molested a human boy, Spanky had sex with a spider (and there were pig-headed spider babies), Spanky and Xandir gay-marry in one episode, another episode revealed Foxy had sex with Wooldorf once...the list goes one, guys, seriously.
    • And on, and on. Honourable mentions should also go to Captain Hero's (alien) sexual fixation on live-action cow.
  • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit at first averted this trope by being paired with a female rabbit whenever romance elements in his toons spring up. Then "Rival Romeos" introduced a cat named Ortensia to fill this role, thus playing the trope straight. In Epic Mickey, she and Ozzie has 420 bunny children together.
  • Tuff Puppy: One could argue that there's a bit of UST between agents Kitty Katswell and Dudley Puppy.
  • In Rocky and Bullwinkle's "Dudley Do-Right" segments, Nell Fenwick is in love with Dudley's horse, and it's implied that the horse is in love with her as well. Nothing ever seems to come of it, though.
  • Miss Martian's crush on Superboy (Martian and Kryptonian clone) in Young Justice. Also, not to mention Kid Flash's one-sided crush on Miss Martian (human and Martian).
    • The former eventually gets a Relationship Upgrade. It takes Superboy a while, but he eventually realizes that he cares for Miss Martian just as much as she cares for him. Cue Big Damn Kiss at the end of "Terrors".
  • In Word Girl, Becky, as the theme song states, is "from the planet Lexicon." So, regardless of whether she's put with Scoops or Tobey, (or anyone else for that matter,) it will always be alien/human.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Spike (a young dragon) has a one-sided crush on Rarity (a unicorn).
  • Mark Chang from Fairly Oddparents would really like for this to happen between him and Vicky.
    • Cosmo frequently shows attraction to humans and, in one episode, an alien.
    • In one episode, Foop (an anti-fairy) develops a crush on Vicky (a human).
  • In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Nergal, a Humanoid Abomination from the centre of the Earth, who comes complete with electric tentacles, falls in love with and marries Billy's Aunt Sis. They later have a child together, Nergal Jr.
  • Several dream sequences featured in Arthur that take place in the future has Arthur Read (an aardvark) marrying Francine Frensky (a monkey).
  • Gumball (a cat) and Penny (a sentinent coconut with antlers) from The Amazing World of Gumball.
    • Also, Gumball's parents (a female cat and a male rabbit).
    • There's also Alan (a balloon) and Carmen (a cactus). That can not end well.
  • In one The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron special, Jimmy falls in love with an alien girl.
  • Duck Dodgers of Earth and Queen Tyr'ahnee of Mars were once engaged.
  • In Slacker Cats Buckley (a cat) wants a romantic relationship with his owner, Louise, but she keeps turning him down. Also he's had sex with good looking squirrels and big rats.
  • Chanticleer (a rooster) and Goldie (a pheasant) from Rock-a-Doodle.
  • Johnny Bravo once dated Carol, an antelope he picked up over the Internet. Her ex-boyfriend is a crab.
  • In Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, it's been shown that romance between different species is acceptable in there. Mantis stated to have dated a caterpillar, a married couple of a male duck and female pig showed up in one episode, and the show hinted at a possible romance between Po (a panda) and Song (a snow leopard). Not to mention all the hints of Po and Tigress shipping possibilities...
  • Betty Boop is good friends with anthropomorphised dog Bimbo, who clearly has a crush on her. Curiously, she started out as a dog too, but soon became a human.
  • In Krypto the Superdog, Bathound and Catwoman's cat Isis have a relationship similar to that of their respective owners.
  • Adventure Time:
    • Jake (A magic talking dog) and Lady Rainicorn (A weird, Korean speaking rainbow unicorn...thing)
    • Also invoked in one episode, when Jake demands a romantic story, Finn orders a duck and a fox to kiss.
    • LGBT example, Bubblegum and Marceline (vampire). Their feeling towards each other were hinted at in several episodes before "Come Along With Me" confirmed it.
  • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe:
    • The episode "The Return of Granamyr" had a dragon and a human girl, the dragon willing to become human (via a magical ritual) to be with her.
    • And let's not forget that Adam (and Adora)'s Hot Mom is a female astronaut from Earth that got stranded in Ethernia and then stayed since she fell in love with the humanoid Crown Prince Randor, Adam's father.
  • Creepie from Growing Up Creepie fell in love with Skipper because she believed (like his stage act at the circus) he was part human part spider. She looses most of her feelings for him when she discovers the truth.
  • Draculaura the vampire and Clawd the werewolf of Monster High.
  • Johnny Test: Johnny's dog Dukey used to date a sperm whale.
  • The 2010 Pound Puppies series hints this between one-time characters Cuddles P. Wigglebottom III (A dog) and Madam Pinkiepuss (A cat) in "The Prince and the Pupper." Further hints come in "Kennel Kittens Return", concerning Squirt and Fluffy.
  • Implied to have become the case between Judy Hopps (rabbit) and Nick Wilde (fox) in the last few lines of Disney's Zootopia:

Nick: You know you love me.
Judy: Do I? [Beat] Yes, yes I do.

  • In I Am Weasel the title character is a Funny Animal weasel, and he tends to date human women a lot; this is one of many reasons why I. R. Baboon is so jealous of him.
  • A truly weird example happens in Amphibia, where Joe (a giant bird that Marcie uses as a flying mount) and Bessie (a giant snail used by the Planters as a beast of burden) seem to really like each other. Honestly, the two aren't even in the same Phylum!
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks:
    • Ensign Mariner (human) tends to date outside her species often, and as of season 3 is going out with her former rival Ensign Jennifer Sh'reyan, an Andorian.
    • Lieutenant Shaxs (Bajoran) and Commander T'Ana (caitian); they try to use the Holodeck to keep their relationship secret, but the whole crew already seems to know, and do not want to know any details.
  • Harley Quinn had Nora (human) and Swamp Thing (formerly-human mutated Plant Person). Initially presented as a one-night fling, they are shown to still be dating in the Season Finale.
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