With the release of Pixar’s new movie Hoppers, in which a girl uses modern technology to plant her consciousness into a robot beaver, we’re taking a look at some of the best beavers throughout animation history.
It’s a good thing that Hoppers came along, because I feel that beavers have been underrepresented in animation, with the exception of the ‘90s Nicktoon The Angry Beavers. Creator Mitch Schauer explained that he selected Norbert and Daggett’s species because he “went through a list of animals and thought that beavers were the most absurd. All they ever do is chew down trees and build dams. They never bother anyone. I made them angry beavers because at the time there were animated characters like the Care Bears, Chip and Dale, and Strawberry Shortcake, all this soft, safe stuff… I like to buck trends, so the opposite thing was to have characters that were angry.”
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
There aren’t any beavers who starred in their own series of shorts during the Golden Age of Animation, although most studios produced at least one beaver-themed cartoon (including Mintz’s The House That Jack Built, Lantz’s Nutty Pine Cabin, Famous Studios’ The Old Mill Scream) and some studios made several, like MGM (The Bear and the Beavers, Busybody Bear) and Terrytoons (Lazy Little Beaver, Beaver Trouble). Disney made one of the earliest beaver cartoons, Busy Little Beavers (1931), and later pitted Donald Duck against a couple of beavers in Old Sequoia (1945). The two tree-chomping rodents in the latter short bear a striking resemblance to Chip ‘n’ Dale, who had already appeared as undifferentiated chipmunks in Private Pluto (1943) but wouldn’t get their names and personalities until Chip an’ Dale (1947).
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
As far as I’m aware, the only beaver from the Golden Age to appear more than once is Buck Beaver, a carnival barker conman who shows up in a couple of cartoons from the Walter Lantz studio and had a long life in comic books. In Dick Lundy’s Scrappy Birthday (1949), the character is voiced by radio comic Eddie Marr, best known for his appearances on The Kay Kyser Show as a quick-talking snake oil pitchman. His catchphrase, “I’ll tell ya what I’m going to do,” is oft-quoted in old cartoons. Buck doesn’t get to do much, but I wish he had been used more often; his design is fun, and he makes a good instigator of chaos.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
My favorite beaver cartoon is Chuck Jones’ The Eager Beaver (1946), starring a sprightly little guy with a compulsive need to chop down every tree he comes into contact with. Eager Beaver is just so appealingly drawn, and the way he snaps from one pose to the next—in perfect rhythm with Carl Stalling’s score, might I add—is delightfully manic. I’m not sure he could’ve sustained a series, but the film is a terrifically zippy little one-shot.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
One of the better-known animated beavers comes from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp (1955). Musical satirist Stan Freberg provided the voice, speaking his lines with a whistle near his mouth to create the character’s unique lisp. The beaver’s design and speech patterns would later be repurposed for Gopher in the Winnie the Pooh films. Little-known animator George Kreisl handles the tricky scene of the beaver toppling down a hill.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
Moving into the TV era, it’s surprising that even given all of the animal-related shows produced by Hanna-Barbera and the like, beavers rarely seemed to cross their radar; Sawtooth, a minor Wacky Races character who rides the Buzzwagon, is one of the very few. At least Rankin-Bass gave big parts to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in their forgotten TV special The Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1966). The characters’ jerky movements are a lot of fun, and I always love the practical effects animation in these old stop-motion specials, like using what appears to be cellophane to create splashes of water.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
And in terms of TV commercials, Bucky Beaver starred in a series of ads for Ipana toothpaste, fighting against the villainous Mr. Decay. These spots were designed by Tom Oreb at Disney’s short-lived commercial division in the mid-1950s. Bucky’s biggest claim to fame nowadays is that Jan of the Pink Ladies sings along to his “brusha brusha” theme song in the 1978 musical film Grease.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
Venturing outside of the United States, we have Vašík, a crotchety beaver inventor who plans to flood the Earth in an act of revenge on mankind. Vašík appears in 1972’s “And Don’t Call Me Vašík,” an entry in Bretislav Pojar’s wonderfully creative Czech stop-motion series Who Threw That, Gentlemen?
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
Speaking of stop-motion, if you watch a lot of Soviet puppet animation from the 1970s—and who doesn’t?—you’ll see a lot of great beaver designs that are fun to look at even when you can’t tell what the characters are saying. Here are a few that I’m fond of:
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
One beaver character that seems like he could’ve lasted beyond one appearance is the deadpan tree-eater in the Roger Rabbit short Trail Mix-Up (1993), directed by Barry Cook. His design has a pleasantly goofy Tex Avery quality to it, and his wooden expression (no pun intended) makes a nice contrast to the hysterical slapstick mania happening all around him.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
The Angry Beavers might be the only cartoon series centered on beavers, but the creatures have occasionally been used as regular supporting players on preschool shows (Franklin, PB&J Otter, PAW Patrol) and even a few adult series (Happy Tree Friends). Usually, they’re depicted as friendly, although Oonski the Great from Breadwinners and Squint Eatswood from New Looney Tunes are quite nasty, and Boss Beaver from Timon & Pumbaa is an intimidating jerk who makes other people do his work for him. One thing to look out for when watching ‘90s TV cartoons is that they were often outsourced to multiple different studios, so the caliber of animation could vary noticeably depending on which team was behind a given episode. The work by Disney Animation Australia in this Timon & Pumbaa episode, “Oregon Astray,” looks almost feature quality.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
The body-swapping plot of Hoppers is certainly off the beaten track, but it’s far from the first oddball premise involving beavers to show up in a cartoon. In Pinky and the Brain, the Brain builds a beaver communication device to enlist their help in taking over the world by flooding it. In I Am Weasel, evil surfer dudes hold beavers at saw-point to force them to mass-produce surfboards with their teeth. In Johnny Bravo, an outlaw named Slimy Pierre assembles an army of beavers to overthrow Canada. In Courage the Cowardly Dog, a beaver defies his construction worker father by becoming a jazz musician, and he ultimately destroys a dam by slapping his tail in rhythm. And let’s not forget the Tooth Beavers in the Ren & Stimpy episode “Ren’s Toothache.” This scene always makes me cringe.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
And although Hoppers might be the first animated feature based around beavers, the dam seems to have burst lately, to coin a phrase, and more beaver characters have been flooding into CGI movies like Sing and The Wild Robot. Conspiracy theorist Nibbles Maplestick was also a show-stealer in last year’s smash hit Zootopia 2.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
And for something a little more indie, there’s The King and the Beaver (2010), in which a king enlists a beaver to help him build his castle. This was a group project from the Gobelins school in France, and it’s a great little parable about greed. It also contains some stunning effects, which are impressively detailed while remaining exaggerated in a manner that would only be possible to achieve with hand-drawn animation.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026
Who are your favorite animated beavers? Let us know in the comments below. And as a final bonus, here’s a clip from the live-action but heavily cartoon-inspired comedy masterpiece Hundreds of Beavers, directed by Mike Cheslik. If you’re a fan of classic cartoons and you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.
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— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) March 6, 2026