Why Do So Many Cartoon Characters Have Four Fingers?

Once you notice how many cartoon characters have four fingers, it‘s hard to ignore. The artistic choice originated with Disney and other early animation studios in the 1920s, and since then it‘s appeared in such programs asTom and Jerry, The Simpsons, and Spongebob Squarepants. So how did the feature become so common in cartoons?

The style is nearly as old as animation itself. Many early cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, had four fingers for aesthetic reasons. Animators used circles when sketching bodies, heads, and hands, and circular palms weren’t appealing with five fingers. Walt Disney reportedly explained that giving Mickey a full set of fingers would have made his hands look like a bunch of bananas.

According to Channel Frederator—the media network founded by Adventure Time and The Fairly Odd Parents executive producer Fred Seibert—another possible explanation is that many early cartoon characters were animals. Species like cats, rabbits, and dogs have paws with five digits, with one hidden farther up the limb. This may have influenced animators to stick with four fingers per hand even when drawing anthropomorphized versions of the animals.

Additionally, animators back then may have stopped at four fingers simply because it was less work. Traditional, hand-drawn animation was labor-intensive. Adding a fifth finger to every frame would eat up valuable time and money so studios were willing to sacrifice it. 

In that case, why stop at four fingers—why not draw three instead? For most human and animal characters, this would tip them into uncanny territory. Channel Frederator points out that three-fingered cartoons are often mutants or aliens. Think of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the aliens from Toy Story (1995). They all have three fingers to emphasize their otherworldly features; thus, the same amount of digits on a human, mouse, or rabbit would seem odd.

There’s more logic behind the four-finger character design than many assume. Today’s animators still adopt the artistic style for the sake of tradition and simplicity—and because it’s what many viewers expect after growing up with the aesthetic.

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