RandomMe
Walrus Toy Store owner
Had this idea yesterday and I'm recovering from the April Fool's ruckus (merpeople rule!), so I had this idea, a near-exhaustive list of merpeople in Canadian and American animated series (yes, I know that other regions have featured merpeople but that would take longer to finish, besides, H2O: Mermaid Adventures doesn't count because it was handled by the French). Speaking as someone who loves merpeople (and loves drawing them), I have one thing to say: I'll probably start the list here and maybe port it to a Google document later. I'm also limiting my list to television and movies derived from television properties, so no standalone movies will be included. Some of these examples aren't even listed anywhere on the web.
Any additions and/or corrections are welcome.
CLASSIC THEATRICAL CARTOONS
Any additions and/or corrections are welcome.
CLASSIC THEATRICAL CARTOONS
- Tom and Jerry: The Cat and the Mermouse. Where Jerry is a mermouse. That's that.
- Looney Tunes: there was a (probably post-1948) cartoon where Bugs Bunny was a merrabbit in one scene. I also recall seeing (in a YTP in 2007) some fat merman king but I highly doubt it.
- Silly Symphonies etc.:
- One of the Three Little Pigs shorts had the Bad Wolf dressed as a mermaid. Probably the first merwolf?
- King Neptune was a human in the 1933 short, but his daughters were mermaids.
- Popeye:
- The only mermaids I saw were in the Al Brodax shorts made in the early 60s for television syndication. First was in some kind of fairground episode where there was a hypnotizing mermaid with a teal tail that was attacting Popeye, to which Olive Oyl called for "drastic action".
- For a few seconds, a merman Bluto known to be Brother Neptune appeared in Golden-Type Fleece.
- Merrie Melodies: Sport Chumpions has a professional swimmer that is revealed to be a mermaid winning the trophy.
- MLP: FiM's 2017 theatrical movie featured sea ponies that look more like merponies. They used to be hippocamps.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes:
- A merman creature with a seashell bra appears in Chez Beezy.
- Heloise appears in mermaid form two times, with a red tail and a blue tail. A few fan theories speculate that she is actually a mermaid, but that was never proven canon.
- PAW Patrol: a few episodes (I don't watch the show) feature merpups.
- Wishfart: The comic book store girl (Tsuni) is a mermaid. Although the underwater world is run by an amphibian being, there are merpeople living in it. In an episode Daz the leprechain is invited to a party and he has to become a merleprechaun in order to get there.
- Pirate Express: Although the show (by the looks of it) was made in Australia, the series somehow had Teletoon involved. Newt is an amphibian, so are Poseidon and one-time character Triton (portrayed as fat and lazy). I know that a few merpeople appear in a handful of episodes. One time two merparents (with clothes in their tails) appeared.
- Gerald McBoing Boing: The 2005 series that ran on Tickle-U in the USA had story segments. One such segment (20,000 Boings Under the Sea) had Janine as a pink-tailed mermaid in danger.
- Super Why: There was an episode adapting The Little Mermaid and the only mermaid that appears in the episode is the titular, shy mermaid.
- George of the Jungle 2007: One of the last few episodes where George tries to discover his inner self features his friends as entities that make up parts of the jungle. One such entity is Jerry Rivers (portrayed by his cousin Larry) who technically looks like a merman but doesn't have the fins. He claims to work for all bodies of water in the jungle.
- Ricky Sprocket: In The Drink features The Mermazing Mer-Boy, when in reality it's nothing but a misnomer and it's technically closer to Aquaman.
- Little Bear: A mermaid appears in a few episodes and only the bear can see her.
- Class of the Titans had Poseidon as a merman, but in the Titanomachy he had legs.
- Two mermaids appear in Grojband.
- Supernoobs had one of the characters befrending a mermaid. The episode ends with the mermaid asking her father to partake in human activities, to which he responded with "over my dead half-fish body". We only get to see the merman king's upper half so we don't know what color his tail is.
- The first time a mermaid oficially appeared in the Total Drama series is in Total Dramarama, where Leshawna becomes a mermaid in A Fish Called Leshawna.
- About a ton of companies made their adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid to cash in on Disney's blockbuster in the 1990s, as usual, emphasis is given to the central mermaid while the king has more secondary roles than in the Disney adaptation.
- Speaking of which, the HBO (Family) series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child had an East Asian retelling of the story. The kingdom where the titular mermaid is seems to be off the Korean coast while the princes are Chinese and Japanese. This is evident in the names of the characters.
- Sabrina: The Animated Series: In Wiccan of the Sea, Sabrina becomes a mermaid and Salem becomes a "cat-fish" (or mercat rather).
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog had merhogs in an episode (The Little Merhog), they were led by a queen here (Merna).
- She-Ra had Mermista. She also appeared in the recent streaming revival.
- Princess Gwenevere (aka Starla) and the Jewel Riders had an episode where the main characters were briefly mermaids.
- The Super Mario television series by DIC had a reverse mermaid (Holly Mackerel) in one of them and a mermaid/mertoad society of non-merfolk led by a traditional merman.
- Bobby's World had a parody of Under the Sea where Boddy was a fish and his uncle was a merman.
- The Space Kidettes has an episode featuring a space mermaid.
- A Laff-A-Lympics episode has Cindy as merbear for a game (Mermaid Rescue).
- The Smurfs had those mercreatures ported over from the comics. The most notable of which is Marina, whose upper half resembles a Smurf in shape (she has green skin) - is she a mersmurf? There is also a merman (mersmurf?) king, King Aquarius.
- The Snorks had occasional merpeople. The Littlest Mermaid had Serena. A Sign of the Tides had King Neptune - portrayed as a traditional merman king with a trident and everything - who took a page out of his Greek counterpart Poseidon and had a conch shell to turn the tides.
- Tom and Jerry Kids had a female mermouse in an episode that acted as Jerry's love interest.
- Animaniacs: In Jokahontas, Dot was a mermaid for a few seconds.
- Elmyra in Tiny Toon Adventures was a mermaid in a dream sequence.
- Xiaolin Showdown has a mermaid called Dyris who is evil on land and beautiful underwater.
- Bubble Guppies. Although the show is called that, the main characters are actually merkids. A vast majority of the smaller characters are sea creatures but as I said, merkids are more prevalent.
- There's a mermaid in Team Umizoomi.
- Dora the Explorer had an entire episode in 2007 devoted to a mermaid kingdom threatened by pollution. From what I know, mermaids occasionally returned in later seasons, and the cleaning song from this special also appeared in a clip show episode of sorts.
- Santiago of the Seas has a mermaid named Lorelai who is one of the main characters.
- In Little Charmers, the main character becomes a mermaid in an episode.
- Another misnomer - the Oh Yeah! Cartons short Harold and the Merman doesn't feature a merman, rather a fish trying to imitate Ethel Merman.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Neptune's Spatula: the first apprearance of King Neptune. In subsequent seasons we discover that all merpeople in the SpongeBob lore are green or blue-skinned.
- Because of a firewall that was resolved a few years ago between the producers of the movie and the TV show, the King Neptune of the movie differs from that of the television series. He also has a daughter called Mindy, and she was never seen or heard of again.
- A short story in season 4 (or was it 5?) had King Neptune appearing simply because of a rhyme, he appeared as he was in Neptune's Spatula for the reasons above mentioned (and remained as such in subsequent episodes). He also made smaller appearances.
- Clash of Triton: We get to see the TV series Neptune's somewhat limited family of his wife (Amphitrite) and possible only son (Triton) who because of his personality got stuck in a floating island and when he was set free by SpongeBob he starts wreaking havoc in Bikini Bottom. A bonus segment that ran before the episode in on demand services had his backstory, where his mother was a mermaid who threw him to the river so that Neptune would gain his powers.
- Neptune's next big episode was Trident Trouble where Neptune's trident and SpongeBob's spatula switch places. Amphitrite reappears in this episode for a few seconds, so I guess Amphitrite is canon.
- High Sea Diving: He reappears as the true King Neptune, defeating the fake one (Old Man Jenkins) in the process.
- Another merman king (King Poseidon) appears in Sponge on the Run.
- Blackjack has what I believe to be the first non-Neptune mermaid, as what I believe is a mermaid's tail appears in a photo in the episode. Minnie Mermaid in SpongeBob's House Party/Party Pooper Pants doesn't count because she is a live-action character.
- In the elevator at Squilliam's House in House Fancy, a portrait of Squilliam as a mersquid/merman appears.
- The five TNOP (that's not our problem) mermaids from Welcome to the Bikini Bottom Triangle. They appear to collect objects from the "other" world. Once the items are returned to Bikini Bottom, Pearl befriends the mermaids.
- The leader of the group appeared for a few seconds in Mermaid Man Begins, in Mermaid Man's backstory. (Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are human characters)
- The Fairly OddParents:
- The first time we see merpeople is in Something's Fishy!, where Timmy, dissatisfied by his Wet Willy snorkeling kit, asks Cosmo and Wanda to have his powers, and without asking to be a merman, he becomes one (Timmy Turntrout). Without Cosmo's status as The Accursed One, Timmy stumbles upon Atlantis, inhabited by dwarf-eared merpeople led by King Greg (a fat merman with no family members). All merpeople seem to have a golden belt with a shell in it (Timmy's is a T because Timmy Turntrout). Only Timmy shows off his telepathic powers, and while King Greg isn't doing such, it's likely that he has the power too.
- Timmy the Barbarian has an island of mermaids that look like Trixie Tang.
- A brief scene in Fairly OddBaby, shortly before Poof's birth, depicts Wanda as a mermaid for a second.
- In the conclusion of Wishology, a Welcome to Neptune! sign features another merman king, alluding to the sterotypical King Neptune.
- Freaks and Greeks gives us Poseidon, depicted as a young adult in behavior, as a tan-skinned merman.
- In one of the sequels of Add-a-Dad (Planet of the Dads?), when Timmy wishes for clones of him for each dad, one of the dads is a merman king, green tailL, trident and everything.
- Dadlantis in the last season has Timmy becoming a mermaid (Tina), Atlantis being reduced to about fourteen merpeople with little to no infrastructure, and a new king (King Neptuna) who had a son, Gary. Tina was Gary's love interest. Chloe became a mermaid in this episode too.
- Voltron: Legendary Defender has an entire storyline involving the merworld. This also raised interest in seeing Lance as a merman (I don't need pants, I'm a mermaid!)
- The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show:
- In the second season (for TV purposes, for Netflix either the third or fourth) Poseidon is depicted as an aqua-skinned merman, he appears in the audience.
- The series finale features mermaids in a mud pond.
- The Adventures of Puss in Boots:
- A minor character is a take on the Feejee Mermaid, aptly named Feejee.
- Feejee has a boyfriend (later spouse) called Brad. The two give birth to a merbaby.
- Brad's parent is called Emperor Merman: The Emperor of Mermen.
- From what I recall, their revival of She-Ra had a bigger lore for Mermista.
- Dexter's Laboratory: Dee Dee bought a mermaid swimsuit and somehow became one in Ocean Commotion, at the end of the episode she was caught by Dexter's dad. Dee Dee as a mermaid from the same episode was later reused for an ad for the CN Amazone waterpark in Thailand
- Johnny Bravo: Moby Jerk is about a nasty, fat, green-tailed merman who is being hunted (the name is a reference to Moby Dick, but instead of a whale we have a merman). The episode ends with a mermaid who has the same behavior, Johnny then ends by swimming and trying to start a love interest with her.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: In a season 5 episode, Edd dresses up as a mermaid named Alanis in order to help Jimmy be a kid. Turns out he didn't believe in mermaids and unicorns.
- Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Ami was a mermaid in a comic.
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey had an episode where Jake was looking for an elusive mermonkey that ended up being a hoax.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: A mermaid appears towards the end of My So-Called Wife, she appears near the pool.
- The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack:
- There's a mermaid who relies on wishes. K'nuckles wastes them all and she dies and becomes a skymaid.
- A few episodes feature mermen. They are depicted as they were in aspects of mythology: unattractive and highly conflictive. In at least two episodes, K'nuckles criticizes the fact that they don't have legs.
- Poseidon appears in a couple of episodes. He's a rather large merman and has two mermaid daughters.
- The mermen take a central role in Low Tidings, where they (in groups of 6 to 8) all sack the bad kids. Poseidon also intervenes in the episode and even talks to the group of mermen.
- The series finale, Fish Out of Water, shows more aspects of their life. Candy is too strong for them and consuming too much causes the fish flu. In the first half of the episode, Flapjack and K'nuckles become merpeople as a side effect of consuming 1000 Pieces of Candy more than once. The mermen also seem to be healthy and athletic. A merman version of the doctor also appears.
- Adventure Time had mermaids with waterfalls for hair (Did the mermaid sea a movie?)
- The Amazing World of Gumball: The season 4 episode The Roots had Gumball dressed as a mermaid (mercat) with a seashell bra and tail matching Ariel's color scheme of both.
- PPG 2016 had Blossom and Buttercup as mermaids in separate episodes. There is also a merman king (I guess) in an episode but we can't see his entire body, just his head.
- Craig of the Creek had an androgynous merkid. Some believe that the character was actually dressed up as such. We don't exactly know the status at 100%.
- Probably their first television mermaid appeared in Adventures of the Gummi Bears (Aquarianne), two years before The Little Mermaid was released.
- A King Triton statue appeared in an episode of Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers at the time of The Little Mermaid's release.
- The Little Mermaid. Strictly speaking of television, the series was a prime example of trying to make good lore for a merworld, including characters that were exclusive to the series, and even a cameo of Hans Christian Andersen!
- Ariel and King Triton appeared in House of Mouse.
- Jake and the Neverland Pirates has a few merpeople, including what looks like a mermaid queen, some king called Poseidon and a black merboy, Finn.
- Sofia the First:
- Apparently in some of Disney Junior's royalty-themed series, Atlantica has competition! In The Floating Palace we get introduced to a queen-led Merroway Cove, Sofia becomes a mermaid and even Ariel makes a guest appearance!
- Mermaids appear in subsequent seasons and I think in its related series Elena of Avalor.
- The DuckTales concept introduces Mervana, inhabited by merducks.
- A hallucination sequence in one of the 2013 Mickey Mouse shorts depicted Donald with little oxygen seeing Minnie and Daisy as mermaids.
- American Dragon: Jake Long had a few characters who are handicapped just to hide their real identities: they are merpeople. The most notable example is Dolores Derceto.
- Phineas and Ferb had its own creatures like the Klimpaloon, but no mermaids. The only time Phineas and friends saw something like it was in Atlantis where there was a statue of Poseidon, who was a merman. In a Take Two with Phineas and Ferb interview, Phineas said that he never saw any mermaid in his life.
- A float in an episode of the first season of Fish Hooks resembles a mermaid.
- Gravity Falls introduced us to Mabel's love, Mermando, a one-timer from the episode The Deep End.
- In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, in order to grant immortality, Star had to eat mermaid's flesh.
- Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero had the episode Chicken or Fish? where the main characters suddenly become merpeople upon visiting an Atlantis of some sort.
- A mermaid appears in Pickle and Peanut.
- Futurama had The Deep South where Atlanta became its own city-state that later sank. Fry's love interest is Umbriel and the plan is foiled because of the so-called "mermaid problem".
- Family Guy:
- In the aftermath of Stewie supposedly "killing" Lois, she tells that she was saved by a merman, and later rectifies that he was actually a reverse merman which just confused her.
- Partial Terms of Endearment (initially banned from broadcast in the USA) had a cutaway that depicted Peter making love with a mermaid and witnessing problems similar to the ones Fry encountered with Umbriel.
- In 420, there's a cutaway where Peter (as a merman) "sings" the opening theme of The Rockford Files, luring sailors to death.
- The Simpsons:
- When Homer drives the Elec-Taurus in Beyond Blunderdome, the car is sent underwater and zaps a group of merpeople.
- In Tales from the Public Domain, the Oddyseus segment (D'Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) had Horatio McCallister as merman Poseidon, who forces Oddyseus to blow to the Island of Sirens (Patty and Selma).
- In The Wife Aquatic, Homer and the crew of a boat in Barnacle Bay are saved by mermaids in a hallucination sequence, only to be revealed that they were rescued by a Japanese fighting ship.
- The Clamphitheatre had a mermaid when it was shown to the public.
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