Many cartoon characters only have 4 fingers and wear gloves. Why?

The practice of giving cartoons one less finger began as a way to save time and simplify the work of animators.

If you’ve ever seen cartoons, you may have noticed something peculiar: lots of characters. they only have four fingers and many wear gloves. From Mickey Mouse to The Simpsons, this phenomenon is almost universal in the history of animation. But why does this happen?

The tradition dates back to the beginnings of animation. As John Canemaker, an animation historian and professor at New York University, explained to Vox, these choices were largely practical.

In the era of black and white films, animators faced challenges in making characters’ hands stand out from their bodies. Mickey Mouse, for example, didn’t start out with gloves. But in the 1929 cartoon, The Opry HouseMickey wore gloves as part of his costume, and the animators quickly realized that the gloves increased the visibility of your hands.

The Walt Disney Family Museum notes that the gloves became a permanent feature in subsequent cartoons, starting with When the Cat’s Awaylater that same year.

In addition to visibility, gloves simplified the animation process. Drawing gloves was faster than drawing detailed hands with fingers, especially when the characters were animated by hand. “When you’re animating 24 cartoons a second, dropping a finger makes a huge difference,” animator Jeff Marsh told .

Likewise, the reduction in the number of fingers from five to four was also a time saving measure. Walt Disney once commented that giving Mickey Mouse five fingers would have made his hands look like “a bunch of bananas.” By drawing just three fingers and a thumb, the animators reduced their workload while maintaining a visually appealing design.

The stylistic choice has remained even in modern animation, although not just for practical reasons. Cartoon characters often embody anthropomorphic animals, and giving them human-like hands with five fingers can seem disturbing or strange. For example, a cartoon deer with an opposable thumb may look strange or too human.

These stylistic and practical considerations also influenced the way divine characters were represented. N’The SimpsonsGod is initially drawn with a full set of fingers to distinguish him, although he amusingly returns to having three fingers and a thumb in the episode’s final scene.