Be honest for a second. Your very first crush wasn't a classmate or a pop star, was it? For a lot of us, it was a cartoon character. And not always a human one.
I'll go first: to this day, I think Mufasa from The Lion King is objectively handsome. No notes. If you've ever felt weirdly attached to a drawn character, this list is for you. Here are the animated crushes that lived rent-free in our childhood hearts.
Robin Hood
No fox on Earth has ever been sexier (sorry, every other cartoon fox). There was just something irresistible about him, roguish and boyish and effortlessly cool all at once. As a kid, I used to imagine I was Maid Marian and that the two of us would end up together.
Bulma
Bulma was my favorite female anime character, and it's easy to see why. She's beautiful, but she's also an engineer, an inventor and a genuinely brilliant scientist. She may not be a martial artist, but she always knows how to defend herself with the right gadget.
That blue hair is unforgettable, her style is bold, and despite everything she's not full of herself. What more could you want from the perfect woman?
Grabowski
Yes, he's a mouse. But Grabowski is macho personified. A total alpha who somehow knows how to do everything and simply refuses to lose. When the terrified mouse girl asks if he's hurt, he just dusts himself off and says, in that deep voice, "I never get hurt."
Where does James Bond stand next to Grabowski? Nowhere. I melted at that one line.
Kriszta from The Mézga Family
A slim, blonde teenager with a personality that jumps off the screen. That's the Mézga family's effortlessly cool daughter, Kriszta. Just when I thought this dream girl couldn't get any cooler, along came the episode where she plays in a rock band for the cows so they'll produce more milk.
I'm still humming those lyrics decades later. Some crushes never really fade.
Johnny Bravo
Nineties Saturday-morning TV gave us plenty of great cartoons, but my favorite was always Johnny Bravo. A slightly dim, endlessly vain muscle head who, deep down, still turns out to be a decent guy.
If you grew up glued to the screen, you might also love revisiting these nostalgic animated series that shaped a whole generation.
Betty from The Flintstones
Don't even try to tell me Barney's wife, Betty, wasn't a knockout. Fred's wife, Wilma, wasn't bad either, but she was never as warm and supportive. Betty was kind, modest and quietly lovely, and honestly prettier too, with that neat dark hair.
A sweet, gentle voice in the dub only added to her charm. Some characters just radiate a personality you can't help but adore.
Li Shang
I never blamed Mulan for not being able to resist this man. I walked out of the theater completely head over heels myself. Is it a problem that I was, ahem, very much a fan of his physique?
Some crushes are wholesome. Others are... a little more physical. This one was clearly the second kind.
Elastigirl
My dream milf is Helen Parr, otherwise known as Elastigirl: Bob Parr's wife and the very cool mom of Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack. As a kid, she represented everything a woman could be.
An incredible superhero who was exactly as tough and independent as she needed to be, while also being a devoted wife and a loving mother. The hairstyle was a touch conservative, but that fitted super-suit showed off her figure beautifully. She was the whole package.
Trent
Does anyone else remember Daria, the show that aired on MTV? The bespectacled main character had a friend named Trent Lane, a musician, and I wanted a guy exactly like him back then.
He was good-looking but not conceited, funny but never exhausting, and just so effortlessly cool that he's still the defining crush of my teenage years.
Gadget
My ten-year-old heart skipped a beat every Saturday when I waited for the cartoons, hoping to catch Chip 'n Dale and see my sexy little chipmunk crush. Gadget wasn't just cute, she was smart too. She could fix absolutely anything, and those big blue eyes... I was completely gone for her.
Is it normal to have a crush on a cartoon character?
Absolutely. Plenty of people remember their first crush being an animated character rather than a real person. It's a common and pretty harmless part of growing up.
Which cartoon crushes come up most often?
Classics like Robin Hood, Johnny Bravo, Li Shang and Elastigirl tend to top the list. Anime favorites like Bulma also earn a special place in many hearts.
Why do we get so attached to cartoon characters?
Often it's the personality as much as the looks. Characters who are confident, kind, funny or brilliant, like Bulma's brains or Trent's easygoing charm, stick with us long after childhood.
Can a cartoon crush stay with you into adulthood?
For many people, yes. As the article shows, some of these crushes are still fondly remembered decades later, complete with the songs and one-liners that first won us over.
