A Bug's Life/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Characters from A Bug's Life include:

The ants

Flik

Voiced by: Dave Foley

The Hero of the film, and a socially awkward Gadgeteer Genius of an ant who sets out to find warrior bugs to protect his colony after one of his inventions accidentally destroys the food they were supposed to give to their grasshopper tormentors.

  • Adaptational Badass: He's not much of a fighter, and his Crowning Moment of Awesome is standing up to Hopper and delivering a Rousing Speech/Reason You Suck Speech after being brutally beaten for his defiance. Even killing Hopper has him luring him to a bird's nest so it can finish the job. In the video game adaptation, however, he is a fighter, and dishes out a can of whoopass on Hopper and his gang.
  • Adorkable: He's a genius inventor, a total klutz, and an endearing Nice Guy who is very hard to hate.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: He's already something of a pariah since many of the ants are annoyed with him tinkering with his inventions instead of helping with the Offering. Accidentally destroying it with one of his inventions right before the grasshoppers arrive definitely doesn't help his case.
  • Badass Bookworm: Becomes this during his stand against Hopper.
  • Bamboo Technology: His inventions are all made from twigs and grass.
  • Batman Gambit: At the end of the film, he defeats Hopper by luring him to the nest belonging to the bird that inspired the "fake bird" plan to begin with, and tricks him into thinking that the very real bird that shows up is just another one of his tricks. When Hopper realizes that he's been had, it's too late for him to escape.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He's a very nice guy, but that doesn't stop him from being the one to kill Hopper. And it's not a quick death, either.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Towards Dot, who he protects from Hopper's wrath even before his character development kicks into gear.
  • Bring Help Back: After being responsible for Hopper cracking down on the ant colony, he leaves on a quest to recruit warrior bugs that will fight off the grasshoppers and make them leave the ants alone for good.
  • Butt Monkey: Things very rarely go well for him, and he often makes a fool of himself by screwing things up. However, he's still determined to do the right thing, no matter how bleak things may look.
  • Character Development: Goes from being the misfit of the colony to the hero of the film. He also becomes a lot braver, and goes from being too cowardly to fess up to Hopper about accidentally destroying the grasshoppers' offering (and thus leaving Atta to take the blame for it) to immediately stepping up and admitting that he created the fake bird used to scare him off after it falls apart, and sparing Atta the vicious beatdown that shortly follows.
  • Country Mouse: Is very out of place when he visits the bug city, and constantly annoys the rougher, meaner locals with his clumsy behavior.
  • Determinator: Wants to gain his colony's approval so darn badly.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: He's this to Princess Atta for most of the movie, but she eventually warms up to him.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Not that he's appreciated for it (at first), but Flik's got a real knack for inventing, and creates a number of gadgets that make harvesting grain a lot easier. He also creates a fake bird to scare Hopper with, and it comes this close to working. Unfortunately, it was so convincing that PT Flea mistakes it for a real one and sets it on fire.
  • The Hero: The film's main character.
  • Heroic BSOD: After he gets banished from the colony. He gets better with help from Dot and the circus bugs.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: With Dot, a little girl, mainly because she's the only ant in the colony who admires and looks up to Flik.
  • The Klutz: To lethal extremes. While he's clumsy in general, it's his rogue invention accidentally dumping the offering into the river that puts the colony in danger of being wiped out by the grasshoppers.
  • The Millstone: Is this for most of the film until he takes a level in badass.
  • Nice Guy: You'd be hard-pressed to find a friendlier ant than him.
  • Oh Crap: He tends to freak out when things go wrong, especially when he accidentally destroys the Offering and realizes that the "warrior bugs" he hired aren't actually warriors.
  • Somewhere an Entomologist Is Crying: He's a male worker ant (and one of many seen in the film) despite all worker ants being female in real life.
  • Took a Level In Badass: Despite being given a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by Thumper, he gives Hopper a Reason You Suck Speech and inspires the rest of the colony to stand up to the grasshoppers.

Atta

Voiced by: Julia Louis-Dreyfus

The ant colony's princess, and the current queen's heir apparent. A bit of a Nervous Wreck thanks to the pressure that comes from being the future queen, as well as having to keep Hopper and his gang placated.

  • Big Sister Instinct: While she often nags and scolds her, Atta loves Dot and will do everything she can to protect her little sister. By the end of the film, that includes putting herself between her and a furious Hopper.
  • Character Development: Starts the film a neurotic, panicky mess, and ends it as a confident leader worthy of her mother's crown. This is best seen in her interactions with Hopper: like Flik, she's terrified of him at first and desperately tries to convince him that she isn't to blame for the lack of an Offering. But by the end, she's willing to take the fall and accept the blame when Flik's fake bird plan fails, and helps him kill Hopper after the ants finally fight back against their grasshopper tormenters.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: She is rather dismissive towards Flik and his ideas on improving the harvest in the beginning of the film. But she warms up to him over the course of the film.
  • Deuteragonist: She shares the spotlight with Flik, and the movie gives equal focus to their personal struggles and character development.
  • Disappeared Dad: There's no telling what happened to her and Dot's dad, since he never appears in the movie.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Naturally, the Love Interest of a heroic ant protagonist would be the princess of his colony. She and her sister Dot are also the first Pixar-created Disney princesses.
  • Hartman Hips: Has very curvy hips, but that's to be expected from an anthropomorphic ant.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: While she's certainly very mean to Flik at first, it's hard not to think of him as an annoyance when his inventions constantly cause trouble (namely accidentally dropping a heavy grain stalk on her and endangering the entire colony by destroying the grasshoppers' food).
  • Love Interest: To Flik, who's got a huge and painfully obvious crush on her. Judging by the kiss she gives him and the way she holds his hand at the end, she comes to reciprocate his feelings.
  • Nervous Wreck: She's a very neurotic worrywart. But it's hard to blame her seeing as how her colony has been bullied into submission by a gang of grasshoppers led by an insane, hot-tempered sociopath who would kill each and every one of them the second they stopped being useful to him.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Downplayed in the sense that she doesn't outright have a pair of breasts, but she has a curved chest meant to look like a bosom.
  • Not Afraid of You Anymore: Inspired by Flik courageously standing up to Hopper, she follows his example and stares down the bug who's been tormenting her the entire movie and throwing his philosophy about the "circle of life" back in his face.
  • Not So Different: This is what brings her and Flik together. Despite being so hard on him, she realizes that they both feel a ton of pressure from the rest of the colony, and fear that everyone's constantly watching and waiting for them to screw up.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: She fully backs Flik once she realizes that he actually has a plan to get rid of the grasshoppers. And on top of that, she gets over her fear of Hopper and finally starts fighting back against him.
  • Tsundere: A rather mild example, it's clear she sees Flik as something of an annoyance at the beginning but doesn't get too extreme about it.

Dot

Voiced by: Hayden Panettiere

Princess Atta's adorable younger sister. She's Flik's only friend among his fellow ants, and is determined to learn how to fly despite her mother and older sister's warnings.

  • Arch Enemy: Thumper, Hopper's pet psychopathic attack dog is this to her. He's introduced by Hopper threatening to feed her to him, and he goes on to antagonize her for the rest of the movie.
  • The Cutie: She is adorable.
  • Die or Fly: After spending most of the film trying and failing to fly, she pulls it off after falling off a cliff to her death while being chased by Thumper.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: "Come on, wings. Fly, fly!"
  • Intergenerational Friendship: With Flik, an adult. He's nothing but friendly and helpful towards her, while she knows how to cheer him up in return.
  • Kid Appeal Character: A very headstrong, plucky little kid who children in the audience can likely relate to.
  • Plucky Girl: She's brave for a kid her age, and ends up learning to fly from sheer force of will.
  • Spanner in the Works: She overheard the grasshoppers' plan to squish the queen and flew back to the circus wagon to get Flik and company to return to save the colony.
  • Youthful Freckles: She's only kid among the main characters, and is also the only ant with any freckles.

The grasshoppers

Hopper

Voiced by: Kevin Spacey

The film's Big Bad, and a murderous, tyrannical grasshopper who forces the ants to give him and his gang food during every winter, or suffer the consequences.

  • Affably Evil/Faux Affably Evil: When he's in a good mood, he's willing to act like a perfect gentleman. He almost comes off as friendly at times... but it doesn't take long for something to piss him off and bring back his usual Jerkass behavior.
  • Ax Crazy: Hopper is a violent nutcase hiding behind a thin veneer of civility. Almost no one is safe around this guy, because all you need to do to provoke him into violence is to say the wrong thing or annoy him at the wrong time. He never hurts his brother Molt (that badly, at least), but that's only because he made a promise to their mom that he clearly regrets making: he tells him to his face that he'd gladly kill him if it weren't for that.
  • Bad Boss: While he's willing to act the part of a Benevolent Boss for pragmatic reasons, he can and will kill his men if he senses dissent among his ranks. Plus, there's his treatment of poor Molt.
  • Big Bad: Of the movie.
  • Big Brother Bully: To Molt. Despite being his brother, he views him as a useless annoyance and doesn't even bother trying to hide his disdain for him.
  • Complete Monster: Probably Pixar's most evil villain.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: A mother bird grabs him and feeds him to her chicks, i.e, he gets EATEN ALIVE. Him screaming the entire time only makes it worse.
  • Eaten Alive: By baby birds. It'd be horrifying if he didn't have it coming to him.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: His only real redeeming quality, but even that's up for debate. He says that promising his mother on her deathbed not to kill Molt is the only reason he has not done so despite it being clear that he wants nothing more than to break that promise. While this could be a genuine show of a dutiful son's love for his mother, this could instead be more of a matter of simply keeping a promise to stay true to the grasshoppers' sense of honor. Seeing as how he fears the ants rebelling against him, it'd be pragmatic to ensure that his own grasshoppers don't have reason to turn on him as well.
  • Evil Is Hammy: He knows how to give a hell of a speech, and is very prone to theatrics otherwise.
  • For the Evulz: This is why he forces the ants to pick food for him. He doesn't like eating it, but he enjoys having an entire colony of useful servants to crush under his heel.
  • Freudian Excuse: Averted ruthlessly. Unlike other Pixar villains, Hopper has no known "reason" behind his twisted acts.
  • Genius Bruiser: He can easily beat down most anybody else in the film, but he's still hardly dumb. He knows that if all the ants stood up the grasshoppers that since they're far more numerous, the ants would easily push them away, and does everything he can to browbeat them into submission so they'll never realize this.
  • I Gave My Word: See Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas.
  • Jerkass: Good God. The amount of times Hopper acts truly civil to anyone with no ulterior motive can be counted on one hand. Otherwise, he's a domineering, violent asshole who kills his own men to make a point, beats them up for annoying him, terrorizes innocent people for fun, and is overall nasty and snappish to almost everyone he interacts with.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Cruel as it may have been to crush three of his guys under a deluge of grain, it helps get his point across to the rest of his gang that they need to keep the pressure on the ants and blackmail them into giving them food that the grasshoppers don't need (and that Hopper doesn't even like) because it ensures that they'll have a nation of slaves to do their bidding for them. Otherwise, they'll realize that they outnumber their masters and fight back.
  • Karmic Death: It's only natural that after spending the film's runtime terrorizing the ants for their food, that he'd become food for creatures far bigger and scarier than him.
  • Kick the Dog: A number of times.
    • While it's natural that he'd be angry over the lack of an Offering, he takes a lot of obvious pleasure out of belittling and humiliating Atta in front of her subjects. He also tries to feed her little sister to Thumper before Flik intervenes.
    • His interactions with Molt may as well be a borderline literal example, since his brother is as happy-go-lucky and goofy as a big, friendly golden retriever. He's nothing but rude and hateful towards him, and outright tells him that he'd kill him if he didn't promise their mother not to.
    • When he wants to teach a lesson about the potential threat the ants pose to the grasshoppers, he kills three of his men by burying them alive in a flood of grain after harmlessly throwing a few kernals at them.
      • Pet the Dog The one decent thing he does in the entire film is stay true to his promise of not killing or harming his brother, Molt. It's out of honor rather than compassion, but still counts for something.
  • Killed Off for Real: Doesn't survive the climax of the film.
  • Obviously Evil: He's got a gigantic scar running down his face, a prominently-displayed set of fangs, a spikier-looking carapace than the other grasshoppers, and he's voiced by the guy who played John Doe and Frank Underwood. Naturally, he's the Big Bad.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Used to truly frightening effect during his establishing scene.

Where's? My? FOOD?!

  • Scary Teeth: Unlike most grasshoppers, he's got quite the pointy set of chompers. The only other fanged grasshopper is Thumper.
  • The Sociopath: He walks a very thin line between high-functioning psychopathy and low-functioning sociopathy. He's fairly smart and knows how to turn on the charm when it counts, but he's also an unhinged, violent lunatic who doesn't give a rat's ass about others and terrorizes an entire colony of ants for fun. As detailed under Ax Crazy, exactly one person is completely safe around him (his own brother), and that's only because he's honor-bound not to beat him to death for his stupidity.
  • Stupid Evil: In a sense. He certainly isn't dumb and is fairly smart about how he conducts his business. But as Molt points out, there's no real reason for him to force the ants to pick grain that he doesn't even like to eat. He knows that things will go horribly wrong if they realize that they outnumber the grasshoppers, but is such a sadistic asshole that he thinks that terrorizing them for fun is worth the risk of them rebelling so long as he mitigates that risk. Sure enough, all it takes is Flik making one hell of a Rousing Speech for all his carefully laid plans to be blown to hell.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Birds. Thanks to nearly being eaten alive by a blue jay, he's deathly afraid of them, and Flik's plan to free the ants from the grasshoppers' control hinges on being able to scare him off with a fake bird. It fails, but luckily for Flik and unluckily for Hopper, a very real bird takes care of him anyway.
  • Would Hurt a Child: When we say that potentially anyone's a target for his murderous fits of violence, we mean everyone. Him nearly feeding Dot to Thumper shows that not even kids are safe from him.

Thumper

Voiced by: Frank Welker

A snarling, feral lunatic, and Hopper's most dangerous minion.

  • Ax Crazy: He's so violent and unstable that he has to be kept on a leash to prevent him from mauling everyone in the vicinity to death.
  • The Brute: When Hopper wants someone roughed up, he sics Thumper on them. When has him attack Flick, he beats him so viciously that he nearly kills the poor guy.
    • The Dragon: Despite his lack of mental clarity, he seems just lucid enough to also serve as this.
  • Death by Adaptation: Unlike in the movie where Dim sends him running with his tail between his legs, the game has Flik kill him during the first boss fight.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: As unhinged as he is, even he's freaked out by the sight of Hopper killing a few of his men to kick off his speech about ants.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: In a sense, seeing as how he's a violent maniac who shares his name with a certain cute and cuddly bunny rabbit.
  • Furry Confusion: Despite being a grasshopper, he acts like a feral guard dog.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers a very painful-looking one to Flik on Hopper's orders. When he's done with him, he can barely stand or talk above a hoarse whisper.
  • Right-Hand Attack Dog: The only thing keeping him from being a literal example is his species. Otherwise, he acts like a pitbull worked up into a perpetual state of snarling, frothing rage, and in one amusing scene, actually begs Hopper for treats.
  • Scary Teeth: Just like Hopper, he's got a set of nasty-looking fangs.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He's among the grasshoppers who make a break for it when the ants fight back against Hopper. In his case, he's scared off when an attempt on Dot's life ends with him being intimidated by her buddy Dim.
  • Suddenly Voiced: In the outtakes, where David Lander portrays him as a perfectly friendly, slightly socially awkward guy.
  • The Unintelligible: He "speaks" by growling, yowling, and snarling at everyone.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Seems to really have it out for Dot. While he nearly eats her alive on Hopper's orders at the start of the film, he's perfectly willing to chase down and try to kill her on his own for the rest of the film.

Molt

Voiced by: Richard Kind

A surprisingly friendly, if dim-witted grasshopper, and Hopper's brother.

  • Adaptational Villainy: In the game, Hopper sends him to kill Flik after the fake bird plan fails instead of Thumper, making him the second-to-last boss. He's not overly nasty about it, but he's still willing to go through with it all the same.
  • Affably Evil: While he's a part of the grasshoppers that are threatening them, he's surprisingly friendly to the ants. Unsurprisingly, he does a Heel Face Turn at the end of the movie.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: His foolishness pisses off Hopper so much that he wants nothing more than to beat him to death so he'll stop annoying him. Too bad for him that he promised his dying mother not to do exactly that.
  • Big Fun: Fairly girthy for a grasshopper, and even while Hopper is terrorizing people, he manages to be the life of the party.
  • Death by Adaptation: Like Thumper, he dies in the video game.
  • The Ditz: Not the sharpest tool in the shed, to put it lightly.
  • The Dragon: Molt certainly thinks he's this, since he's Hopper's brother and takes a shining to some of the grasshoppers calling him the "vice president of the gang". But Thumper fits the mold better by way of being Hopper's Right-Hand Attack Dog.
  • Dumbass Has a Point: While it takes some prompting from the other grasshoppers, he actually points out the biggest flaw in Hopper's plan.

Why go back to Ant Island at all? I mean, you don't even like grain!

  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While Hopper may hate his guts, Molt adores the guy. The only reason why he's a bad guy in the first place is because he just wants to help his big brother out.
  • Gentle Giant: He's probably the biggest grasshopper of the bunch, but also the friendliest.
  • Heel Face Turn: After Hopper's death, he joins PT's circus and is now very firmly a good guy.
  • Manchild: His demeanor is kind of a mix between someone's chatty uncle and an excitable 8 year old boy.
  • Meaningful Name: Molt periodically sheds flakes of skin throughout the movie. And it all culminates in him literally jumping out of his skin and leaving his "molt" behind when the ants finally rebel against the grasshopper.
  • Morality Chain: Hopper is literally bound to keep him alive and with him due to their dying mother's wishes and keeping within honorable grasshopper conduct. Clearly, Hopper wishes things could be different, as he possess no true sense of morality.
  • Motor Mouth: When he starts telling a funny story, he really gets into it and barely pauses to take a breath.
  • Nice Guy: He's very friendly despite his allegiance to Hopper, and really doesn't want to hurt the ants (he isn't above spooking them, though). He even warns them not to get on Hopper's bad side since it'll get them killed.
  • Punch Clock Villain: When the food's collected and the circus is performing, he happily claps and plays along, rather like a child.

"The circus, the circus, I love the circus!"

The circus bugs

P.T. Flea

Voiced by: John Ratzenberger

The circus' resident greedy, sleazy ringmaster.

  • Bad Boss: He's rude and belligerent towards his employees, and doesn't seem to actually pay them.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: What does this goofy skinflint do when he sees what appears to be a bird threatening his performers? He sets it on fire. Say what you will about him, but there's no denying that he's got some serious balls.
  • Hot-Blooded: He always seems to be in a state of rage or excitement. If he isn't, it doesn't take much to get him all wound up.
  • Jerkass: Very selfish and abrasive. However...
    • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's willing to help the ants fight Hopper, and is nearly moved to tears during Atta and Dot's coronation.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: There's no denying that's he's a Jerkass, but he shows his courage by heroically attacking what he thought was a real bird to save everyone.
  • Karma Houdini: Despite the fact that he changes his attitude in the end, he never really gets his comeuppance for some of the things he did in the film.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: His name, profession, and demeanor make it obvious that he's basically P.T. Barnum as a flea.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: And how! He manages to be this for two different characters: He turns the ants against Flick by accidentally blowing the "warrior bugs'" cover by revealing that they're circus performers and setting the fake bird on fire and pissing off Hopper when he realizes that he was tricked. However, he's also this to Hopper, since him burning the fake bird kicks off the chain of events that leads to the ants standing up to him, his men being chased off forever, and him getting killed by a real bird and her babies.

Heimlich

Voiced by: Joe Ranft

A fat German caterpillar who really wants to grow into a beautiful butterfly. He's a clown in PT's circus troupe.

  • The Bait: Since he's a caterpillar, he's naturally used as bait for the bird that attacks the ants. He doesn't mind... until he accidentally gets stuck after getting its attention.
  • Big Eater: In one of his first scenes, he's distracted by some flies eating a piece of candy corn during his performance. He's also shown to be quite the emotional eater when he and his friends are unwinding after the Flaming Death act goes wrong.
  • Big Fun: Very fat, very jolly, and a very fun guy to be around.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: He does, in fact, become a beautiful butterfly at the end of the movie. A butterfly with very tiny wings, granted, but a butterfly all the same!
  • Funny Foreigner: Easily one of the movie's funniest characters, and it's partially because of his hamminess paired with his German accent.
  • Gratuitous German: Throws a few German words around here and there, most prominently when his live bait act goes wrong.

Help! I'm stuck! Pull me down! Schnell! Schnell! SCHNELL!

  • Large Ham: He gets really into his performances. His Little John act during the fight against the flies is a good example.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: When Hopper grabs Flik during the climax and flies off to kill him, he's eager to fly after him and save his friend.
  • Nice Guy: He's a real sweetheart of a caterpillar.

Francis

Voiced by: Denis Leary

A male ladybug with a chip on his shoulder over constantly being mistaken for a girl. He's another one of the circus' clowns.

  • Berserk Button: "SO! Being a ladybug automatically makes me a girl! Is that it, fly boy?! Huh?!"
  • Character Development: He starts off feeling very insecure about how girly he looks at the start of the movie, but by the end he's A-OK with being in touch with his feminine side. He's got his friendship with the Blueberry Scouts to thank for that.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Yeah, he's a ladybug, but he also looks like a woman, hence all the sleazy guys constantly making passes at him.
  • Fat and Skinny: The "fat" (or rather, round) to Slim's "skinny".
  • Friend to All Children: For a guy as crass as him, he actually gets along great with kids, and forms a close bond with the ants' Blueberry Scouts.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Very quick to anger, yet he's also great with kids and cares a lot about his friends.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Despite his feminine appearance, he's got a rough and tumble personality, as well as Denis Leary's very manly voice.
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Parodied and subverted. He has long eyelashes, full lips and a Beauty Mark.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Slim. Slim can and will make fun of him for his girly appearance, and he'll gladly hit him right back, but when they chips are down, they've always got each other's backs.
  • Vocal Dissonance: When you first see him, you're likely not expecting such a deep, growly, rough-sounding voice to come out of such a dainty, feminine bug's mouth.

Slim

Voiced by: David Hyde Pierce

A walking stick and an actor who often gets forced to play props in PT's shows, which he isn't exactly thrilled with. He's fairly pleasant otherwise, though.

"Swish swish. Clang clang."

  • Fat and Skinny: Not that Francis is necessarily "fat", but he is fairly round due to being a ladybug. Naturally, this means that he and the literally stick-thin Slim have this sort of dynamic going on.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: When his "role" is that of a weapon wielded by someone else.
  • Not So Above It All: Despite his disdain for his usual brand of roles, he's genuinely happy to let the ants use him as a limbo pole. And when he sees just how beaten down Flik is by his banishment from Ant Island, he lets himself be used as a literal "slap-stick" in order to cheer him up. He even has a genuine chuckle at his own expense!
  • Playing a Tree: Or flower, as shown during the troupe's introduction.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Francis, who he often bickers with and makes fun of. But no matter how often they exchange barbed words with each other, there's no love lost between the two.

Rosie

Voiced by: Bonnie Hunt

A black widow spider and the group's "lion" tamer during shows, as well as the resident Team Mom.

  • Dark Is Not Evil: While black widow spiders are very dangerous in real life, Rosie's as sweet as can be.
  • Dude Magnet: Is implied to be one, since she's seen talking about her twelfth husband's death with an ant during a party.
  • Nice Girl: Between her close bond with Dim, sunny demeanor, and friendliness towards just about everyone she meets, she's easily one of the nicest characters in the film.
  • Non-Mammalian Hair: The little black curve at the top of her head gives the illusion of an odd-looking hairstyle.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Just like Atta, she lacks breasts but still has a pronounced, curved bump on her chest that gives the illusion of a bust.
  • Platonic Life Partners: With Dim, the other half of her lion tamer act.
  • Spiders Are Scary: Averted! While she seems like a harsh, domineering animal tamer during her introductory scene, she's quickly revealed to be very sweet and motherly.
  • Team Mom: Very motherly towards the group, especially to the child-like Dim. When she accidentally hurts him during their performance, she immediately consoles him and tries to patch him up.
  • Woman in Black: Being a black widow spider, though she doesn't carry the usual characteristics.

Dim

Voiced by: Brad Garrett

A big, imposing rhinoceros beetle used as the "lion" for Rosie's lion tamer act. He's a lot friendlier than he looks, and is also quite childish and... well, dim.

  • Always a Bigger Fish: Specifically, he's the bigger fish to Thumper. All it takes is a single roar to send him running away, whimpering like a beaten dog.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Related to the above, he can and will scare the daylights out of you for threatening his friends.
  • The Big Guy: Much bigger and stronger than the bugs he travels with.
  • Cowardly Lion: He's surprisingly timid for such a big guy, but make no mistake: when it's do or die, he'll always stick up for his friends.
  • Dumb Muscle: Not really "stupid" so much as he is childish, but he still fits the bill.
  • Friend to All Children: Just like Francis, he takes a liking to the ant children almost immediately. It's not too surprising, considering that he's quite childish himself.
  • Gentle Giant: He can certainly act the part of a ferocious beast, but he's actually quite nice.
  • Manchild: He's a huge, powerful bug, but he's got the mind of a 5 year old. When he's first introduced, he starts crying like a little kid when Rosie accidentally whips his foot during their circus act, and complains about his "owie" when she tends to his wound.
  • Meaningful Name: Unsurprisingly, the guy called Dim isn't all that bright.
  • Nice Guy: Again, he's a very friendly beetle and is especially sweet towards children.
  • Third-Person Person: When he refers to himself, he always does so by name.
  • You No Take Candle: Talks in a very simplistic, inarticulate manner.

Manny and Gypsy

Voiced by: Jonathan Harris (Manny) and Madeline Kahn (Gypsy)

An elderly praying mantis and his gypsy moth wife. Manny's the troupe's magician, and Gypsy is his Lovely Assistant.

  • Cool Old Guy: Manny's quite lively for an old guy, and proves to be quite the showman while saving the ant queen and prepping for the "bird's" entrance.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Gypsy seems much more interested in her appearance than her husband walking into the walls. And it's not out a sense of vanity: her non-reaction seems to come from her being a bit of a space cadet.
  • Happily Married: They're practically joined at the hip, with Gypsy being quick to comfort Manny when things go wrong for them. Likewise, Manny can be seen holding her close when Hopper blows his top at the climax.
  • Interspecies Romance: A mantis and a moth, madly in love with one another.
  • The Klutz: Manny, who's very accident-prone. Walking directly into stage props is a recurring problem of his.
  • Large Ham: Manny. But what else would you expect from a stage magician, and one voiced by Jonathan Harris to boot?
  • Lovely Assistant: Gypsy, who puts her beauty to use as Manny's stage assistant.
  • May-December Romance: Unless Gypsy's older than she looks, she seems to be a good deal younger than her husband.
  • Non-Action Guy: Manny isn't much of a fighter, likely due to his old age.
  • Somewhere an Entomologist Is Crying: While Gypsy does look like a gypsy moth, her coloration is that of a male moth's. Female gypsy moths in real life are mostly white.

Tuck and Roll

Voiced by: Mike McShane

A duo of pillbug acrobats that are used as "human" cannonballs during their circus acts. They're quite the oddballs, to say the least.

  • Funny Foreigner: Their Hungarian-sounding gibberish and goofy behavior allow them do double duty (triple duty?) with Heimlich as the group's comic relief.
  • Keep It Foreign: They never learn a word of English, except... "You fired!" Word of God says they're Hungarian.
  • Shipper on Deck: Judging by their teasing reactions to Flik and Atta growing closer together, they seem to really like the idea of them becoming a couple.
  • Those Two Guys: Twins who are always in each other's company.
  • The Unintelligible: It's hard to tell what they're saying most of the time, since they mostly speak in faux-Hungarian.

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