Tailfin Walking: Difference between revisions

{{quote box|[[File:jabberjaw330_9372jabberjaw330 9372.jpg|link=Jabberjaw (Animation)|right]]}}

One trope that catches animators when portraying fish, or cetacean (whale, dolphin and porpoise) and pinniped (walrus, seal) characters in cartoons is to have them walk on their tailfins (or tail flukes if a cetacean or back feet if a pinniped) when on land. This makes even less sense than a cow with a prehensile tail - cow tails are relatively rigid, but prehensile tails are viable, whereas tailfins just aren't meant to support an animal's weight - but it's easier to show a fish walking on its tailfins than on its pelvic fins.

{{examples|Examples:}}

* Subverted with ''[[Fish Police (Comic Bookcomics)|Fish Police]]''. While the characters are in the upright, fins-at-bottom position of most humanoid fish characters, they seem to float more than walk.

* The fish character in the Disney live action [[Alice in Wonderland (Filmfilm)|Alice in Wonderland]] by Tim Burton.

* Fish from ''[[Chicken Little (Disney)|Chicken Little]]''.

* Mentioned in ''[[The Lorax (Literature)|The Lorax]]'' when the Humming-Fish are sent away:

{{quote| "They'll walk on their fins and get woefully weary."}}

* Averted in ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' - mermaids don't walk while on land, they hover. (You can see some "magic sparkles" around Irenes's tail when she's moving.)

* Kenny and the other fish characters in ''[[Kenny the Shark (Animation)|Kenny the Shark]]'' walk on their tailfins on land.

* In one of ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]''' [[Treehouse of Horror]] episodes, the dolphins who took over the earth walked on their tail flukes when on land.

* In the Dr. Blowhole episode of ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar (Animation)|The Penguins of Madagascar]]'', the main villain, Dr Blowhole, stands on his tail flukes and moves around on a scooter.

* [[Jabberjaw (Animation)|Jabberjaw]], as seen in the page pic.

* Misterjaw in the 90-minute ''[[The Pink Panther (Animationanimation)|The Pink Panther]]'' show

* Pearl, the whale character from ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]''.

* ''[[Animalympics (Animation)|Animalympics]]'' has the dolphin Mark Spritz and the orca Ono Nono stand and walk on their flukes.

* The water-fearing mermaid in ''[[American Dragon Jake Long (Animation)|American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' was guilty of this on occasion. Averted with the older mermaid who was Jake's principal, who hid her tail by using a wheelchair.

* The fish in ''[[Fish Hooks (Animation)|Fish Hooks]]'' all stand and walk this way. And yes, their tails look absolutely ''nothing'' like actual fish tails at all!

* Narwhal on ''[[Almost Naked Animals (Animation)|Almost Naked Animals]]''.

* Sally the fish on ''[[Scaredy Squirrel (Animation)|Scaredy Squirrel]]'' plays this straight, although she also averts [[Feather Fingers|Fin Fingers]].

* One episode of ''[[Arthur (Animationanimation)|Arthur]]'' featured an [[Imagine Spot]] where Buster Baxter envisions himself as a fish-based supervillain who lives inside a space station shaped like a giant crab, and plans to take over the world by hypnotizing fish so that they do this to "eat land people."

[[Category:TropeWalking Tropes]]