Small Annoying Creature

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    Navi: "Hey! Listen! Get up! Get up! Get up getupgetupgetupgetup--"
    *Wack!*
    Link: "Dude! Seriously! Shut! Up!"

    —The Legend of Awesome

    A staple of '80s adventure cartoon shows, the Small Annoying Creature is a type of Sidekick. The Small Annoying Creature is there to be cute, provide comic asides and occasionally get into trouble and need rescuing. Often a "merchandising critter".[1] Sometimes it's crossed with the Non-Human Sidekick. It frequently has a Verbal Tic - and truly obnoxious nails-on-blackboard voice talent.

    There was a time when even the most straight-faced of animated adventure serials had a Small Annoying Creature to provide a bit of slapstick in the background.

    Saw a revival when C.G.I. became the norm for children's animation with a lot of films using them in advertising material.

    Note that this trope is for characters who are annoying to the other characters, not just to the audience.

    See also Weasel Mascot, Talking Animal, Cute but Cacophonic. If the Small Annoying Creature is a dog, it's a Mister Muffykins.

    Examples of Small Annoying Creature include:

    Anime and Manga

    • Momo, Fuu's small flying squirrel pet from Samurai Champloo is the former trope namer
    • Nono, "small robot you know, friend of" Ulysses 31.
    • The Ojama Trio in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX are supposed to irritate the hell out of people - such as Manjoume Chazz, to whom they're attached and who is absolutely horrified about it.
    • Giru from Dragon Ball GT.
    • EXCALIBUUUR! EXCALIBUUURRR! From the United Kingdom...
    • Most people feel that Puck from the Berserk manga would fit this trope pretty well.
    • Parodied in the Magical Project S installment of the Tenchi Muyo! multiverse. Magical Project S and the Pretty Sammy OVAs are the only installments of the franchise where Ryo-Okhi talks. After a few episodes, one quickly realizes why she doesn't talk in the other series. As Magical Project S and all of the Pretty Sammy series are a direct parody of Sailor Moon, Ryo-Okhi is supposed to be annoying.
    • Emusa in Transformers Zone.
    • The Tyke Bomb flying squirrel in Zettai Karen Children. Fortunately he's not around very much.
    • Guvava, Mylene Jenius's pet in Macross 7.
    • Aria Pokoteng, the president cat from Aria, arguably fits here. Many fans still accept or even enjoy his role in the manga, since he has no speaking role and generally doesn't divert too much attention from the main characters. His loud and obnoxious habit of chewing scenery in the anime puts quite a few viewers off though.
    • Kon from Bleach devolved into this as soon as they put him in a stuffed animal.
      • Strangely, he looses this trait every time he possesses Ichigo's body.
        • Chiefly because the intent is for him to do the fighting on Ichigo's behalf. Kon is some kind of renegade who isn't fully compliant to whatever arrangement souls like him are normally part of, which is why they keep him in a harmless stuffed toy while he's not in use (which is why he turns into this trope; he can't really fight, and thus has no meaningful contribution to anything).
    • Happosai from Ranma ½.
    • Angel-Gozen from Busou Renkin.
    • Averted with Tony Tony Chopper in One Piece. He is a small creature, but is far from annoying.
    • From Inuyasha, there's Shippou. He's small and he's annoying. However, he seems to be the Only Sane Man sometimes.


    Comic Books


    Films — Live-Action

    • Frank the Pug from the first and second Men In Black films


    Video Games

    • Most Moogles in general from the Final Fantasy games, when they become anything more than fluffy balls of cute:
    • Leonard's pact-partner the malicious fairy in Drakengard.
    • Mieu from Tales of the Abyss—as Lampshaded repeatedly by Luke, who constantly abuses the poor thing by stepping on it, kicking it or using it as an impromptu club, all because it pisses him off. And it's all played for comedy.
      • And referring to him as "Thing", because he can't figure out what sort of animal he is.
      • In the Japanese version, Luke calls him "butasaru," which means "pig monkey."
      • Admittedly, Luke is the only one who does this, and after his Important Haircut wherein he ceases to be Ambassador Asshat, he takes more kindly to Meiu and only goes back to his Jerkass ways when Meiu embarrasses him in front of Tear
    • Murfy from Rayman 2/3
    • World of Warcraft has dozens of "non-combat" pets you can buy or find. Most of them are innocuous, but you can shut off the audio for the ones that are annoying. However, when Lil' XT was first introduced it shared a sound file with the full-sized XT-002 Deconstructor from Ulduar; therefore the pet sounds cutoff didn't work. The week after its introduction there were dozens of them running around Dalaran screaming "I guess it doesn't bend that way!" and "I'm ready to play!" and you COULD NOT MAKE IT STOP. It was eventually hotfixed, but the scars remain...
      • There was also this floating voodoo mask that played a short "tribal" drum beat when you summoned it. The problem was, the beat looped forever and didn't go away once you "heard" it even if the pet was dismissed. What's even worse, you could summon and dismiss the pet multiple times to end up with dozens of layers of drum loops, not in sync at all!
    • Daxter fits much of this in the Jak and Daxter series. He spends the majority of the franchise complaining, insulting, getting abused, and uselessly resting on his partner's shoulder. He's obviously the comic relief, though as the franchise progresses, he gets more and more chance to actively help out his friends.
    • Bumble from Kinectimals, possibly.
    • Chu Chu from Xenogears, a mostly-serious giant robot RPG that inexplicably had a cute pink animal that enlarged to enormous size.
    • Teddie from Persona 4, as he is a living Hurricane of Puns.
    • Poshul from Chrono Cross, a hideous pink dog that acts like an autistic Scooby-Doo mixed with a racist 1940s Japanese stereotype.

    Actual Poshul quote: Me will use my Pwetty-Miwacle-Power-X! Me will do it, Sergeipoo!


    Webcomics


    Western Animation

    Frozone: And that rabbit is getting on my LAST nerve!

    Donkey: "I'm sorry, the position of Annoying Talking Animal has already been taken!"

    1. ↑ especially in 1990s Disney animated films
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