After decades of fan theories, Velma Dinkley, the brainy crime-fighting heroine from the Scooby-Doo franchise, has finally come out as a lesbian. In the 2022 Scooby-Doo Halloween special, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, Velma falls in love with a girl, a costume designer named Coco Diablo, at first sight. Official acknowledgment of Velma’s sexuality was met with enthusiasm by many fans who had long treated her as a queer icon, and backlash from conservatives. But there’s more to come. Velma, an adult-themed Scooby-Doo spin-off telling the origin story of Velma will arrive in 2023 on HBO Max.

With Velma’s coming out, let’s take a look at other beloved LGBTQ+ cartoon characters.

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Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

     Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. mascot Bugs Bunny is animation’s first drag queen. Created in the late 1930s, one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world took every opportunity to wear women’s clothing. Later, Bugs Bunny’s hobby petered out, but he still remains a queer icon. American drag queen RuPaul raved about Bugs Bunny, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “As a kid I always dressed in everything… Bugs Bunny was my first introduction to drag!”

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune in Sailor Moon

     TV Asahi

The Japanese superheroine anime Sailor Moon, which ran from 1992 to 1997, is a groundbreaking television series for how it portrayed queer characters. There are multiple LGBTQ+ characters in the show. However, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are arguably the most beloved.

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are a lesbian couple, but the girls’ sweet and romantic relationship was censored when Sailor Moon originally aired in the US. This tells a lot about attitudes to LGBTQ+ in the 1990s. Thankfully, with the animation industry trying to be more inclusive, now LGBTQ+ characters may be found in many cartoons.

SpongeBob in SpongeBob SquarePants

     Nickelodeon

In 2020, Nickelodeon tweeted that the title character of SpongeBob SquarePants is a part of the LGBTQ+ community. While some fans thought that their favorite yellow anthropomorphic sea sponge who lives in a pineapple house is gay, it’s more likely that SpongeBob is asexual. The show’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, also once described SpongeBob as asexual — as real-life sea sponges are.

Mr. Ratburn in Arthur

     PBS

When the kids’ show Arthur debuted in 1996, probably no one expected that everybody’s favorite male teacher would marry a male character. It happened in the first episode of the 22nd season, Ratburn and the Special Someone, which premiered in 2019. Fans joined Arthur Read and his friends in being surprised with whom Mr. Ratburn walked hand in hand: a locale chocolate shop owner named Patrick. Many viewers were delighted with the touching portrayal of same-sex marriage.

Mitch in ParaNorman

     Focus Features

Mitch Downe, Neil’s 18-year-old brother in ParaNorman, is a school jock with a hugely muscular torso. Typical TV himbo. Also, he is the first openly gay character in a big mainstream animated film. “He’s not effeminate, he doesn’t lisp or do his nails – he’s almost the exact opposite of the old homosexual stereotype. Mitch is a great gay representation because he correctly represents that gay people are people, and they have facets, differences and don’t fit into a category”, Inclusive wrote.

Bubblegum and Marceline in Adventure Time

     HBO Max

It has taken ten candy-colored seasons for ‘Bubbline’ to become a canon. Adventure Time’s cutest relationship was hidden for almost the entire show – but fan-favorite characters Princess Bubblegum and Marceline the Vampire Queen confirm their love and kiss after defeating an enemy in the series finale, Come Along with Me. Later, Adventure Time’s special, Distant Lands, dives into Bubblegum’s and Marceline’s past, present, and future, showing the depth of their love.

Kent and Cole in Summer Camp Island

     Cartoon Network

In one of the episodes, the main characters of Cartoon Network’s feel-good show, Summer Camp Island, befriend Ghost the Boy who can’t remember who he is. Oscar and Hedgehog help the little ghost find his two adoptive fathers Kent and Cole. Kent and Cole are the second same-sex parents on Cartoon Network, besides lesbian moms in Clarence.

Todd in BoJack Horseman

     Netflix

The topic of the ‘invisible’ sexual orientation was first alluded to Netflix’s unexpectedly deep animated show BoJack Horseman, when the title character’s roommate Todd Chavez told his sort-of high school sweetheart, “I’m not gay. I mean, I don’t think I am. But I don’t think I’m straight, either. I don’t know what I am. I think I might be nothing”. Then, in his own spotlight episode, the third episode of Season 4, Todd officially comes out as asexual.

Fans, especially the viewers who identify themselves as asexual, were delighted, with one of them noting on Twitter, “I’m crying about Todd being openly asexual. I’ve never seen anyone like me in that respect normalized on TV”.

Ruby and Sapphire in Steven Universe

“I began explaining LGBTQ+ to my 8-year-old daughter and was pleasantly surprised to find out that she easily understood it because of Steven Universe. Yes, the cartoon helped make parenting easier”, wrote a mom from New Zealand on An Injustice. Steven Universe is truly boundary-breaking for the way it represents LGBTQ+ characters. Even before the show made LGBTQ+ history with an adorable same-sex marriage of Ruby and Sapphire, Steven Universe told kids about pansexuality, polyamory, the gender-neutral they/them pronouns, non-binary gender, and more.

Katie in The Mitchells vs. the Machines

A 17-year-old aspiring filmmaker named Katie Mitchell is the groundbreaking, first openly queer protagonist in an all-ages American animated movie. It was LGBTQ+ animator Lizzie Nichols who recognized queerness in Katie. The Mitchells vs. the Machines’ director Mike Rianda wrote on Twitter that he and the cartoon’s co-director Jeff Rowe talked to Nichols about how they could make Katie’s character feel honestly queer. Nichols answered, “Well my hair is blonde, my eyes are blue, and I like girls. It’s just part of who I am. Katie should be like that. It should just feel normal”.