Four Fingered Discount-Western Animation’s obsession with this style of hand design

Whenever you watch a cartoon, you notice that these Cartoon Characters, regardless if it’s hand-drawn, puppet-rigged, or even CGI, they often have a maximum of four fingers on each hand.

They consist of the thumb, index, middle, and pinky fingers.

So where’s the ring finger?

It’s not there. The middle finger is often interchangeable with the ring finger whenever there’s a cartoon character wearing their wedding ring.

So what’s the gist of these characters that are often drawn with four fingers instead of the more realistic five we have?

It’s simple:

Some artists find it difficult to draw all five fingers on each hand and keep the drawing professionally drawn and on-model.

It's also a process of simplification and that if you want efficiency in drawing those hands on your characters, you will have to sacrifice a single digit of a finger in order to meet that deadline.

Usually, this design philosophy was mostly used almost only on Cartoon Animals since animating human characters believably and realistic was next to impossible without resorting to rotoscoping.

But somewhere down the line, it was decided that once it was possible to animate a cartoony human character, they too should get the four finger treatment.

One of the earliest Human Characters with four fingers but professional construction were the Seven Dwarves from DISNEY's SNOW WHITE 

Though I'm limiting my choice to both DOC and GRUMPY.

And Elmer Fudd from THE LOONEY TUNES.

Yes I'm using Fat Elmer from the early 40s because ARTHUR Q BRYAN.

Most often in the earliest days of cartoons, Four Fingered Animals often are drawn wearing their signature white gloves because it's often a reminder on how they started originally.

In the earliest of days, all the cartoons were in BLACK AND WHITE and because of the general lack of color, the characters, especially if their cel paints are literal black, need to have definition on their finger digits so gloves were almost the only way to have these character's fingers read on the screen.

Of course, some characters who's skin.... or fur are colored white, they just have the gloves because either it's mandated or it's an aesthetic.

Such as Goopy Geer below.....

WHO I REMIND YOU, ACTUALLY PREDATES GOOFY BY A MONTH.

Once the cartoons started using Color, this created a minor conundrum.

Should the gloves be ditched? Or should they be retained?

Many of these early Characters like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, among the likes have all retained their gloves because it's their signature apparel. 

And yes, the gloves have a thing to do with the four fingers on these characters.

But years later, especially with Hanna-Barbera and Television animation, new characters came and because of the novelty of Color Television becoming Affordable for the home, these newer characters don't need their gloves anymore....

Of course, Yogi doesn't need gloves to hide his paw prints due to all the fur he has.

Wilma's caught Fred Flintstone RED-HANDED stealing all that food without his work gloves.

Oh wait, Fred doesn't even wear gloves.

Even when Teaching, George Jetson doesn't need work gloves to cover his hands from Chalk

And then many cartoonists, especially after the CREATOR-DRIVEN BOOM that started in late 1989, decided that that's the limit for the budget in character creation in terms of how many fingers on each hand you can have.

I've mentioned this before but I can't stand abide to draw four fingers on characters..... but that's only for my own characters that I've designed.

If I'm drawing existing cartoon characters, I can let that slide but not my own characters.

I'm not the only Cartoonist who rebels against the Four Finger Rule for Cartoon Characters.

In fact, before I was born, there were several cartoonists and their works that subvert the Four Finger Rule.

Among them are the works of Mike Judge.

BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD

King of the Hill

DOUG(Both Nickelodeon and Disney)

is another example of a show that refuses to follow the four finger rule on the hands of their human characters regardless of literal color for their skin tone.

NICE HAND SEPERATION CHALKY.

The only exception to this NO FOUR FINGER RULE in DOUG is the title character's DOG Porkchop.

KNOCK IT OFF ABNORMAL... I NEED THE REAL PORKCHOP.

Oh I see why Mr. Abnormal was here. Looks like Porkchop was out in the cold again.....

And yes, the Porkchop images are from my DOUG NICK SERIES AMAZON DVD.

In fact, with the exception of the GUY GRAHAM image, 

All my DOUG photos were taken from my DOUG NICK SERIES AMAZON DVD.

RICK AND MORTY is another show that despite the ADVENTURE TIME influence in the art, still prefers to have it's RIGS with five fingers on each hand.

Compared to Fairly OddParents, 

DANNY PHANTOM is another show that subverts the FOUR FINGER RULE by having the characters with Five Fingers on their hands.

Nice Subversion from BUTCH HARTMAN.

When compared to THE SIMPSONS and FUTURAMA, 

DISENCHANTMENT remains Matt Groening's only show to date where Human characters are required to have FIVE FINGERS on their hands.

Except for Elves and Mini Demons where they have either 4 or 3 fingers.

Think ELFO and LUCI

Despite the obvious 2010s CALARTS style aesthetic for AMPHIBIA, whoever was responsible for the art direction made it so human characters like ANNE BOONCHUY should have five fingers on each hand.

Just like with Porkchop from DOUG, the frog characters can keep their four fingers on their hands.

The reason I bring up the examples of Cartoons where characters have Five Fingers on each hand like they should is because if I use anime examples, that would not be a fair contest because Japanese anime always have characters with Five Fingers on each hand anyway....

Speaking about that, Four Fingers is considered taboo in Japan due to an issue with the MEAT PACKING SUBCLASS, aka Burakumin, in Feudal Japan, especially when it came to the labor accidents.

The other issue has something to do with the YAKUZA.

I hear stories about losing a finger via amputation if debts weren't paid off.

Also, I heard that the number 4 is considered UNLUCKY in JAPAN.

But yeah, the Meat Packing accidents are true, according to the developers of  the 1997 PS1 game ODDWORLD: ABE'S ODDYSEE in their tell-all book about the FRANCHISE.

Also from said developers, It's stated that DISNEY pays $5 million a year to pressure groups in JAPAN in order for Mickey Mouse to retain his four fingers and still have merchandise in there.

Otherwise, his hands would be different in localized games starring the character

or better yet

KINGDOM HEARTS.

You learn something everyday.