Non-Human Sidekick

We're sorry, the position of annoying talking animal has already been taken!

—Donkey, Shrek 2

Odder than even an Odd Couple, one of these guys isn't human! They might be an ordinary animal who's just a bit smarter than average, some form of Talking Animal, a Robot Buddy, a space alien, or even stranger, a normally inanimate object gifted with sentience or even locomotion (and sometimes not even that). Particularly useful when it comes to going for help, stealing keys when the Big Bad has you locked up, or throwing the OFF switch on the Conveyor Belt O' Doom once he leaves the room.

In webcomics it often takes the form of the Snarky Non-Human Sidekick. May be a Bond Creature.

This primarily applies if the sidekick is distinctly different from its buddy. Pinky from Pinky and The Brain is decidedly nonhuman, and the Brain's sidekick, but since the Brain is a mouse himself there's no real difference.

Compare and contrast with Amusing Alien and Token Non-Human.

Examples of Non-Human Sidekick include:

Advertising

  • Many years ago, Dr. Pepper did a series of commercials set "after the Cola Wars", with a human hero and his diminutive alien sidekick. In one of them, the duo walk into a bar, and the female bartender greats them with "Well, hello stranger.. and stranger yet!"


Anime and Manga


Comic Books

  • Truly bizarre comic book example: Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol introduced Danny the Street, a sentient transvestite boulevard. "How," you may ask, "can a living street be a transvestite?" Think pink lace curtains in the windows of hardware stores.
    • Note that on a bizarreness scale of 1-10 calibrated for Grant Morrison, this is running into the... Sevens or so.
  • Avenger, the improbably intelligent golden eagle from Birdman.
  • Rufferto in Groo the Wanderer
  • Ampersand, Yorick's Capuchin monkey in Y: The Last Man.
  • Redwing, partner to Marvel Comics hero the Falcon.
  • The hero Squirrel Girl also has had two animal sidekicks, squirrels Monkey Joe and Tippy Toe
  • A super villain, the Red Ghost, was active alongside three superpowered apes.
  • The second Major Mapleleaf gained his powers from his sidekick, a horse named Thunder.
  • Tintin has his dog Snowy.
  • Spirou has a pet squirrel with excactly the same role as Tintins Snowy. And the Marsupilami in earlier books.
  • Krypto, the Super-Dog, Superman's Silver Age Kryptonian pet, who has apparently made a recent comeback. He was later joined by Supergirl's pets, Streaky the Super-Cat, Beppo the Super-Monkey, and Comet the Super-Horse (also Kara sometimes-boyfriend in his centaur form). Together, they formed the Legion of Super-Pets.
    • Don't forget Ace, the Bat-Hound.
  • Lockjaw from the Inhumans group from Marvel Comics. Noteable for his status changing. He goes from being a supersmart intelligent teleporting canine the size of a small car to...a sentient being trapped in large-dog form. Which is horrifying considering how noble the Inhumans are supposed to be. Oddly, not only do the writers play with this fact as if they can't look him up in the reference books, so do the characters.
  • Lockheed, Kitty Pryde's pet miniature dragon, from the X-Men.
    • The X-Men had a stranger version with the character Maggot, who was accompanied by Eany and Meany, a pair of matter eating slugs....which were his mutated intestines.
  • Gyro Gearloose's sentient-lightbulb "Helper" from Disney comics.
  • In Elf Quest the Wolfriders have their wolves, and the Chosen Eight from the Gliders of Blue Mountain have their giant hawks. The Preservers could also be considered non-elf sidekicks, however annoying. A borderline example in recent episodes is Dart of the Wolfriders, whose wolf Kimo is actually a shapeshifting elf, and also his boyfriend.
  • Skink, Ethan's sidekick in Scion.
  • Giselle's pet squit in Mystic.
  • Carson the Muskrat from Dork Tower.
  • Kevin from Sin City had an unnamed pet wolf.
  • Often used in the Anthology Comic The Beano most well known with the pairing of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. But is also used with other characters such as Calamity James and his pet Alexander Lemming.
  • Chameleon Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes had Proty (best described as a shape-shifting blob of Silly Putty).


Fan Works

Film

  • Star Wars: Han Solo and Chewbacca. R2-D2 and C-3PO also work for the group as a whole.
  • A Boy and His Dog features the titular boy and dog duo, which shares a telepathic bond.
  • Beast Master. Seeing as his best friends are a tiger, a hawk, two ferrets and so forth, Non-Human Sidekick sums up the entire concept of the movies and the show.
  • Stanley Ipkiss's dog Milo in The Mask.
  • Possibly subverted in Ladyhawke, a story of two cursed lovers, a man who is a wolf by night and a woman who is a hawk by day.
  • Dog in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
  • The monkey in Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome - does help him out in two occasions
  • Mr. Shoop's dog Wondermutt in the rather silly '80s Mark Harmon vehicle "Summer School" Wondermutt has (and loses), his own NHC, a severed Raggedy Andy doll head called Bob.
  • Roger plays a natural sidekick to Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.


Literature

  • A number of these occur in the Tamora Pierce Tortall series.
    • Alanna and Faithful, a black cat who is quite possibly a God avatar. Has Purple Eyes.
    • Daine - very justified in this case, as Daine is can speak to animals. Her two closest non-human partners are Cloud, her pony, and Kitten, a baby dragon. A partial list of her other companions includes the cat, badger, and platypus gods, cats, dragons, Stormwings, basilisks, a marmoset, wolves, hyenas, bats, various birds, a squirrel, a ferret, and a massive array of undead dinosaurs. Note that Daine also spent a considerable amount of time living with wolves. Usually she only has a few of these at a time.
    • Kel makes it a point to always be very kind to both animals and non-noble humans, something not always approved of in her time and has an array of animal friends unmatched by any character other than Daine; interestingly, there Kel actually has more recurring animal friends than Daine has. She rescues a massive temperamental horse going for the slaughter, temporarily fosters a very hostile baby griffin at great personal risk, adopts a flock of sparrows, and has a dog who has accounted for a number of deaths in battle.
    • Aly takes this to the next level, as she ends up marrying a crow who could turn into a man, Nawat.
    • Bekah Cooper has a cat hinted to be pretty blatantly the same cat that Alanna possesses - though Bekah lived a number of generations before Alanna.
  • Conrad had Bortan, a mutated armoured dog for a pet (not really a sidekick as he's not there till th end of the book), in ...And Call Me Conrad
  • In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, first Twoflower and then Rincewind are followed about by the trusty Luggage, one of the best animated objects ever.
    • Additionally, Death of the same series has the Death of Rats, a dark-robed rat skeleton that preforms the function of death for small rodents, and his horse Binky.
    • It may be stretching the definition, but Tiffany Aching's loyal Nac Mac Feegles may also count.
    • Greebo in the witch novels certainly does (except when Humanity Ensues). There's also Errol the swamp dragon in Guards Guards, who briefly becomes the Watch mascot.
    • Keith in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents has the titular Maurice (a cat) and the educated rodents. Although Maurice would insist that the "stupid-looking kid" is his sidekick.
  • Loiosh, the snarky dragonet familiar of the title character in the Taltos novels.
  • Toto from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. One could also make a case for the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion, in spite of their otherwise human characteristics.
    • The Scarecrow definitely qualifies, as an inanimate object brought to life. Cowardly Lion is also a legit example, being a sentient feline in the original. He is later joined by the Hungry Tiger, who in a rather startling bit of kiddy-fantasy noir openly longs to 'eat fat babies', but can't because he has a conscience.
    • Note that besides the Scarecrow, the Oz series also contains the Patchwork Girl (a large stuffed doll), Jack Pumpkinhead (a mannequin), the Glass Cat and the Sawhorse, all of which become sentient via the magical - and later outlawed - Powder of Life. There's also mention of accidents with a phonograph and a bearskin rug.
    • And it seems that every mundane animal (except Toto) that makes the trip to Oz ends up talking, such as Billina the hen, Jim the horse, Eureka the kitten, and the Wizard's piglets.
      • In Tik-Tok of Oz Dorothy finally realizes this; Toto then reveals that he can talk, he just doesn't much feel like it and prefers their dynamic with him remaining non-verbal.
  • Tock (a literal watchdog) and the Humbug (an oversized beetle) in The Phantom Tollbooth
  • The Stark kids' direwolves in A Song of Ice and Fire
  • Wolf, of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.
  • Grimya the telepathic mutant wolf from Louise Cooper's Indigo series.
  • Let's not forget Gurgi from the Prydain Chronicles. He's not human, but what he is exactly is never really clear.
  • Jame, the protagonist of P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath, is always accompanied by Jorin, an ounce (small hunting cat), to which she is psychically bound. Jorin, blind from birth, uses Jame's eyes to see, while Jame sometimes gets sensory impressions from Jorin's senses of smell and hearing. Jorin also warns Jame when he becomes aware of danger, though Jame sometimes ignores them to her detriment.
  • Mogget and the Disreputable Dog in Garth Nix's The Old Kingdom series.
  • Hedwig the owl, Crookshanks the cat, and (pre-Prisoner of Azkaban) Scabbers the rat in Harry Potter. Fawkes the pheonix, as well, is this for Dumbledore.
  • Gwin and Jink, Dustfinger's trained martins, in The Inkworld Trilogy.
  • Jordan and Ixil from Timothy Zahn's The Icarus Hunt.
  • This page has been around how long, and no one has mentioned Pip and Flinx yet?
  • Greyn from Secretof Dragonhome fits this very well as a wolf. Given Melayne's power to speak to animals, he also acts as a mentor towards the end of the book.
  • Horus and Jack from Matthew Reilly's Seven Ancient Wonders, Horus being a Perigrine Falcon.
  • Kazairl in the Shadowleague books.
  • Somewhat part of this trope, as the protagonist isn't really human, In Tale of the Body Thief, the vampire Lestat adopts a stray dog, not for food, keeps him as a pet.
  • In Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, pirate Jet Nebula has a faithful droid called Clunker as companion, who can't talk (or even beep R2-style) but can use a military sign language for communication.
  • Curdle the milk carton in Un Lun Dun.
  • Tobias and Ax in Animorphs
  • The cat Bastet in several of the early Amelia Peabody novels, even though these are mysteries, not fantasies. She is amazingly, though not quite supernaturally, intelligent and loyal. When she eventually dies at an advanced age, other cats show up — sometimes her descendants, sometimes just adopted strays — to continue the tradition, though only her daughter comes close to her calibre. By the way, the stories mostly take place in Egypt and the cat Bastet is _always_ referred to as "the cat Bastet," _never_ just "Bastet," as if even the very unsuperstitious Emersons wanted to be careful that she not be mistaken for any other Bastet.
  • In the Heralds of Valdemar series, the Companions (essentially avatars of the gods or souls of previous Heralds in horse form), Firecats (former Sons of the Sun reincarnated in cat form), and the Hawkbrother's bondbirds can function as sidekicks. Some Shin'a'in may consider their battlesteeds to be this.
  • In Steven Brust's Dragaera books, Vlad Taltos has a jhereg familiar Loiosh, who looks like a miniature wyvern and acts as a Servile Snarker.


Live Action TV


Recorded and Stand-up Comedy

  • Comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham and basically any of his puppet partners (IE: Walter, Peanut, Bubba J, Achmed, etc.). Made all the more hilarious in that one of the puppets, Peanut, points out several times that well-

Peanut: You're arguing with yourself....AND LOSING!

    • Jeff plays off this with Walter and Jose as well.


Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons (specifically 3rd edition) gave several character classes some variety of animal companion as a built in feature. And any class might acquire one with proper feat selection. In 4th edition, only the Ranger class retained the option.


Video Games

  • Clank, Ratchet's Robot Buddy from the Ratchet and Clank series. Of course, Ratchet ain't human either...
  • The nameless dog in Duck Hunt, who catches the ducks you shoot, not returning it to you (it probably ate it). And when you can't shoot any ducks, he'll laugh at you, as if mocking your 'stupidity'. Nevertheless, it remains one of the earliest, and still most hated video game character ever.
    • No wonder there's versions of the game where you can shoot the dog ...
    • This video probably contains the best Shoot The Damn Dog ever. Too bad it's only hack.
  • Wang Koh-San's pelican, Heoh-Heoh from Art of Fighting 3
  • Safiya's familiar the winged golem Kaji from the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion Mask of the Betrayer.
  • In Mass Effect 2, Tali named her combat drone. In context, this is a holographic ball of light a little bigger than a basketball that is temporarily summoned by engineers to attack enemies.
  • Mieu in Tales of the Abyss.
  • Hanpan in Wild ARMs.
  • Dogmeat, in the Fallout series.
    • Later, ED-E and Rex. Also, (technically) Fawkes, RL-3, Lily, Raul, and Charon. And maybe Jericho, judging by his comment about "growing a fourth arm."
  • In Age of Empires III, European explorers can get a dog to help them fight. Like the explorer himself, this dog cannot be permanently killed.
  • Dragon Quest 8 has one of these in the form of Munchie. He solves puzzles on his own and can even assist you in battle with the right items. Not bad for a mouse.
  • Samurai Shodown introduced Mamaha (Nakururu's falcon) and Poppy (Galford's dog). Later games added occasional others (Paku Paku, Cham Cham's monkey, for one). And then the last one let you play AS Poppy.
  • The dog of Fable 2. So much so it became a back of the box feature.
  • The Felynes in Monster Hunter, who for all intents and purposes are cats of human intelligence that can talk and stand on their hind legs. You can hire them as chefs, and as companions in battle. Although they're very talkative in the form of text, in-game they just sound like cats. This makes it a little jarring when your companion gets attacked by something (especially if you happen to be a fancier of cats), even though they can just burrow underground to recover from injury, while you don't get that luxury. Thankfully, Felynes bailing to heal in this manner don't count against your faint tally.
    • Felynes are town support NPCs at best in Tri, unlike the other games. Your ally this time around is instead a Shakalaka, a little humanoid that is never seen without a mask. This one answers to Cha-cha. For those of you who miss your Felynes, there's a False Felyne mask you can get for Cha-cha... if you don't mind a less-than-friendly fireworks display.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has Marche with Montblanc, Ritz with Shara, Mewt with Babus, and possibly, Doned with Nono and Cid with Ezel.
  • Your Creature in Black and White
  • Is Boo the sidekick of Minsc or is Minsc Boo's sidekick?
  • In World of Warcraft your characters can gain up to 150 different Non-Combat or Companion pets, most of which are miniature animals that follow your character around - cats, snakes, frogs and the like. Some are machines, tame miniature monsters, or meta-game characters such as a mini-Diablo. There are rewards for collecting as many as you can. As a reverse of the trope, one non-combat pet awarded for participation in a tournament is called the Argent Squire/Argent Gruntling - which is a human or orc (depending on your faction) who will carry a flag for you and, with an expensive upgrade, act as a store, bank or mailbox.
    • Also, the Hunter Class is basically built around this trope.
      • And Warlock.
  • Beneath a Steel Sky: Foster and Joey, the talking, sentient robot.
  • Dragon Age: Origins allows you to have a Mabari War Hound as one of your companions, whose default name is "Dog". A popular fan name is "Barkspawn", thanks to a certain webcomic.
    • I always name him Huan, but that's just me.
  • You acquire several non-human companions in Paper Mario, including friendly versions of the normally hostile Goomba, Koopa, Bob-omb, Boo and Lakitu.
    • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, you get an air spirit named Madam Flurrie who helps you when you fight the Three Shadow Sirens and get her necklace back, and a Shadow Siren named Vivian who had decided to go over the Moral Event Horizon and helps Mario when his identity was stolen by Dooplus. But she didn't know it was him before. When Mario squares off with Dooplus, she runs away for three turns, then does a Heel Face Turn to help Mario.
  • Archimedes in Suika plays this role for Ojou. That is, until he moves on to Chitose and sacrifices his life so she doesn't die during surgery.
  • Teddie in Persona 4
  • In Knights Of The Old Republic 2, Bao-Dur is always accompanied by a small flying orb with built-in laser. You yourself have the option of three robotic sidekicks, plus several alien ones.
  • In La Pucelle Tactics, your entire party lineup aside from plot-essential humans consist of monsters you've recruited in the field.


Web Animation

  • The Cheat from Homestar Runner.
    • Technically, Strong Bad is non-human but The Cheat still counts.


Web Comics

  • George, the huge-eyed larval bit of monster kibble who can only emit the noise 'Meep,' is Evi's sidekick in A Moment of Peace. And eventually the much more bashful Hulking Shyster joins him in this role.
  • While Krosp better fits into the Snarky Non-Human Sidekick trope, the Jager trio of Dimo, Maxim, and Oggie from Girl Genius fit into this trope, considering they're monstrous constructs who have an almost puppy-like devotion to Agatha to the point that they'll break into dangerous cities to aid her and/or look after anyone she considers an ally or friend.
    • And there are the dingbots.
  • Molly the Peanut Butter Monster in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob. Or, for that matter, her pet, Snookums the Tentacle Bunny.
  • Blackwing the raven, Vaarsuvius' familiar in Order of the Stick. Well, sort of—he only shows up, in V's own words, when Vaarsuvius acknowledges Blackwing's existence. Since V recently apologized for being such a terrible master and has been treating Blackwing with more respect, he could become a more straight example of this trope in the future, though.
  • Conrad the vampire and the unnamed zombie from Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name. Conrad's more whiny and the zombie's more stoic, so neither of them are really Snarky Non Human Sidekicks.
    • Now there's also Toni the werewolf and Veser the half-selkie.
  • Bob the Crab serves as the immoral foil to both the GM's workaholic personality, and Denise who is the voice of reason in the Las Vegas Tsunami of The Dugs.
  • Boo and Sushi from Springiette
  • Hugo the rat from Captn Crazy.
  • Wicked Awesome Adventure supplies each of the playable characters with one or more live teddyanimals that function as upgradeable sidekicks.
  • While the main characters of Goblins are not humans, but, well, goblins, Dies Horribly has a non-goblin sidekick: Klik. Maybe K'Seliss and Kin counts, too.
  • Mia from Unintentionally Pretentious has Aibo, her robotic guide dog and guardian, making it also her Angry Guard Dog, but with a manual Berserk Button.


Western Animation

  • Appa and Momo from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Appa's a giant flying six-legged bison, and Momo's a flying lemur. They're animal companions with just slightly higher than normal intelligence.
  • Snarf from Thundercats and ThunderCats (2011)
  • Plank from Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
  • Shrek and Donkey.
  • Rufus, Ron's naked mole rat from Kim Possible.
  • Slimer on The Real Ghostbusters.
  • Most (if not all) of Disney's human heroes and heroines have a pantheon of these (besides a sub-array of generic Adorable Woodland Critters), notably:
    • The mice Gus and Jaq, who perform the aforementioned key-stealing chores so well in Cinderella that it's become the best-loved scene from that movie.
    • Sebastian the crab, Flounder the fish and Scuttle the seagull in The Little Mermaid. Not to mention Max the dog, though he inexplicably can't speak like the aforementioned three can.
    • The three Good Fairies, also Prince Phillip's horse, in Sleeping Beauty.
    • Mushu the guardian dragon (essentially the exact same Eddie Murphy character as Shrek's Donkey) and Cri-Kee the lucky cricket in Mulan. Also, in non-speaking roles, Khan the horse and Little Brother the dog.
    • The enchanted castle servants, led by Cogsworth the clock, Mrs Potts the teapot and Lumiere the candelabra, in Beauty and the Beast. Subverted at the end, as they are actually all humans under a magic spell. Played straight with Philippe the horse, however.
    • The Genie, Abu the monkey, Iago the parrot and the Carpet from Aladdin.
    • Gurgi in The Black Cauldron.
    • Achilles (the horse), Djali (the goat), Victor, Hugo, and Laverne (three gargoyles) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
    • Phil and Pegasus in Hercules.
    • In an example of Disney taking it too far, Meeko the raccoon in Pocahontas had his own sidekick, the hummingbird, Flit.
    • Bronx in the animated series Gargoyles is a subversion to this trope according to Word of God, being unable to speak and rarely showing any emotion or intellectual understanding. Within the show, it is eventually revealed that Bronx behaves no differently than any Muggle of his species. Fans generally agree, and don't like the suggestion of Bronx as a 'sidekick' in the sense of this trope.
    • Morph in Treasure Planet. Dr. Delbert Doppler and B.E.N. fit the bill as well.
    • Pinocchio's conscience Jiminy Cricket is considered by many to be not only the first Non Human Disney sidekick in a long line of many, but also the first wise cracking sidekick who used (what was at the time) modern humor and colloquialisms. To boot, he was also voiced by a radio star who many households at the time would've been able to distinguish: Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards. In this movie there's also Figaro and Cleo.
    • Double subversion in Ratatouille, in that, not only is the non human sidekick the protagonist, but he has his own small human sidekick (or psychotic delusion - you decide).
      • Remy generally considers the ghost of Gusteau to be a figment of his imagination; the ghost agrees. Truth be told, one might argue that Linguini is Remy's non-rodent sidekick.
    • Louis and Ray from The Princess and the Frog are sort of an odd example, considering the human protagonists are also in the form of frogs during the majority of the movie.
    • Subverted in The Emperors New Groove; Kuzco angers Bucky the squirrel, who then wakes up the local jaguar pack, and later tells Punch Clock Villain Kronk where to find him. Also inverted with Kuzco and Pacha themselves.
    • Baloo, Bagheera, and the vultures from The Jungle Book.
    • The Seven Dwarfs from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.
    • Archimedes the Owl from The Sword in the Stone.
    • The singing frogs, Carl the robot, and Tiny the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Meet the Robinsons.
    • The March Hare from Alice in Wonderland.
    • Dug and Kevin from Up.
    • Both Bernard and Bianca are considered sidekicks to the human children they helped in both The Rescuers films. Also the Albatross brothers, the Swamp folk, Evinrude the dragonfly, and Marahute the eagle.
    • Maximus the horse and Pascal the chameleon from Tangled.
    • Koda, Rutt, and Tuke from Brother Bear.
    • Sasha the bird, Sonja the duck, and Ivan the cat to Peter from Make Mine Music.
    • Gunpowder the horse to Ichabod Crane.
    • And then, there's also the sidekicks of the bad guys. Examples include:
    • Notable aversions: Both Atlantis the Lost Empire and The Incredibles, which have the least nonhuman characters (zero in all) of any animated Disney film.
  • Wow nobody wants to mention "Hanna-Barbera"'s LOVE of this trope? You couldn't HAVE a Hanna Barbera cartoon at one point in time WITHOUT a wacky/annoying non-human sidekick. Mr. Cool (Fonz and the Happy Days Gang), Godzooky (Godzilla animated series), Doing (Mork & Mindy cartoon), Sgt. Squealy (Laverne & Shirley in the Army), Dribbles (Harlem Globetrotters) and so on and so forth.
  • Villains get these too—see Rasputin's bat Bartok in Anastasia.
  • Faffy and, to a lesser extent, Twinkle the Marvel Horse in Dave the Barbarian.
  • Radarr, the blue-monkey creature from Storm Hawks, plays the role of co-pilot and constant companion to Aerrow, the leader of the heroic Storm Hawks.
  • Capt. HuggyFace in Word Girl.
  • Every DTV Barbie movie seem to have one.
  • Fetch, Loud Kiddington's dog on Histeria!
  • Bandit from Jonny Quest.
  • Custard in the 2002 Strawberry Shortcake series.
  • Blip from Space Ghost.
  • Brain from Inspector Gadget. Mad Cat had his moments as well; how often does the Evil Genius tell his pet cat to launch the missiles, anyway?
  • The television show Get Ed had no less than four examples of these, spread out evenly amongst the protagonists and antagonists. Series Big Bad Mr. Bedlam had a computer AI named Kora who tended to function as the system administrator for his evil empire (while also giving snarky comments on the side). Similarly his toaster apparently grew a skinny body to become the robot Crouch who tended to be somewhat less snarky and more of a suck-up but who nonetheless seemed to be the one who helped designed the vehicles for the evil mooks. One the good guys' side the title character wound up acquiring Torch for his flying surf board, a sentient navigational program that helps to keep Ed in the loop as to his surroundings. Perhaps oddest of all is Cloudcuckoolander Loogie's sidekick Dr. Pinch, a catfish puppet decked out in a doctor's outfit. While the idea that Loogie suffers from disassociative identity disorder can be used to explain Dr. Pinch's animated nature, this troper can't help but remember the episode where, in order to sneak into Bedlam's firewall protected Virtual Reality World after each one was locked out, the good guys wound up placing the VR interface on Pinch's head (read that, PINCH'S head, not Loogie's) and the puppet was able to enter the virtual world (as a puppet on BEDLAM'S arm no less) with his personality completely present. Even team brain Fizz wasn't able to come up with an explanation for this.
    • Also, there was one episode where Dr. Pinch got put on someone else's arm (Was one of the guys, can't remember which) and still had the same personality and voice.
  • In two of the Superfriends cartoon series from the 70's, there were non-human sidekicks belonging to the "junior" superheroes. First, there was Wonderdog, sidekick to Wendy and Marvin in the original cartoon series. Then there was Gleek the monkey, sidekick to Zan and Jayna, the wonder twins.
  • During The Fairly OddParents Wishology trilogy, Mark is actually declared Timmy's sidekick.
  • The Secret Saturdays - Zak has three - Komodo the komodo dragon, Fisk the gorilla-cat, and Zon the pteradactyl.
  • Liz from the Magic School Bus.
  • Altivo the warhorse from The Road to El Dorado.
  • Zeek to Fishtronaut .
  • Jake the dog from Adventure Time.
  • The eponymous Scooby-Doo.
  • Tom and Jerry themselves in Tom and Jerry: The Movie.
  • Making Fiends. Vendetta's sidekick is a giant hamster named Grudge.
    • Also, one episode in the webseries, she had replaced grudge with another in-human sidekick, named Rubella.
  • Invader Zim (who isn't human, but if the Doctor can be listed here, he can too) has his Robot Buddy GIR, and gains another - just before the series was cancelled - in Minimoose.
  • All three of Seth MacFarlane's animated series (Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show) feature a Non-Human Sidekick, who is also a Snarky Non-Human Sidekick most of the time. Family Guy has Brian, Peter's talking dog and best friend. American Dad has both Roger the alien and Klaus a goldfish with the brain of a German spy. And in The Cleveland Show, Cleveland's best friend is a bear.
  • Blue Falcon had Dynomutt.
  • Futurama: Fry has Bender; Zapp has Kif; Farnsworth has Zoidberg.
  • South Park's Mr. Garrison has Mr. Hat/Mr. Twig.
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