Gabby's Dollhouse - TV Tropes (2024)

Gabby Gabby!

Full Name: Gabby Gabby
Played/Voiced by: Laila Lockhart
Species: Human

The Protagonist and owner of the titular dollhouse. An extremely kind, patient and sympathetic 12 years old human girl, with the mysterious ability to shrink in size and change the structure of her hair.

• All-Loving Hero: Gabby is a very kind, patient and forgiving heroine, not seeming to have a single bad bone in her entire body and always encouraging those around her to do their best. Compared to her feline companions, she never has moments where she gets frustrated and is always quick to try to lighten the mood when this happens to others.
• Animal-Eared Headband: She is almost always seen wearing a magical cat ear tiara, which closely resembles Pandy's ears, which she uses to shrink herself into the Dollhouse and activate the powers she has when she gets tiny.
• Animal Lover: Although she has a special affinity for cats, she loves all types of animals and can befriend all species.
• Animal Motifs: Cats. They're Gabby's favorite animals, which might be easy to tell with all the feline-themed items she owns.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: Gabby uses a special incantation when using her cat ears to shrink:

  Gabby: A pinch on my left, pinch-pinch on my right, grab Pandy's hand and hold on tight!

• Character Catchphrase: “[Pronoun] can't do that, yet!” Usually when something doesn't work out at first.
• Cheery Pink: Pink is her Color Motif, and she is almost always seen wearing a pink cardigan or some variation on her uniform that closely matches her bubbly All-Loving Heroine personality.
• The Determinator: Her Character Catchphrase is “[Pronoun] can't do that, yet!”, and yet is her favorite word for good reason. Gabby never gives up, no matter how impossible or complicated the situation seems and she considers making mistakes as a quality rather than a defect, as mistakes help us learn and try new ways of doing something.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: To say that Gabby loves cats would be an understatement, her passion for them literally shapes her life, which is the main reason most things in both the Dollhouse and her room have a feline theme.
• Mysterious Past: Although she is the protagonist, we don't know much about Gabby's life outside of the Dollhouse and most of her outside information, such as mentions of her family, are quite vague, if not almost completely unknown.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: She's the pink girl to CatRat's blue boy.
• Quirky Curls: An African-American girl with quirky and magical curly hair.
• Magic Hair: A variation. Using the magical cat headband she can change the structure of her hair to whatever is convenient at the moment.
• Token Human: The only human in the entire series, interacting with cats, hybrids or even other animals, but never with other people.

Pandy

Full Name: Pandy Paws
Voiced By: Tucker Chandler (Season 1-CatRat’s KittyFish), Logan Bailey (The Mermaid Christmas Cruise onwards)
Species: Gabby Cat/Panda Plush Hybrid

Pandy Paws is Gabby's stuffed animal and best friend who is part panda and part cat. He loves cuddles and has a snuggly demeanor, but don't let your guard down because he's always ready for a HUG ATTACK! Pandy is the only one of the Gabby Cats not to live in the Dollhouse, living in Gabby's room with her and Floyd (albeit in an inanimate state).

• Big Eater: Pandy, with a sprinkle of Obsessed with Food and The Snack Is More Interesting depending on the availability of food. He occasionally gets caught snacking, although the others never really chide him for it. It should be noted that, despite his preoccupation, he does not normally let it get in his way
• Furry Reminder: Of the "toy reminder" type. Pandy often says things which comment more on his status as a stuffed animal rather than a cat.
• The Glomp: Pandy, when revealing himself from his hiding spot in the doll house, always reveals himself with a "hug attack" that he leaps at towards Gabby with. Gabby reverses this on his birthday, ambushing him instead.
• Living Toy: Technically all Gabby Cats are living toys, but Pandy is a special example, as his hybrid is a teddy bear.
• Odd Name Out: Pandy is the only member of the main cast to not have a name that is a pun on the word cat or words associated with cats, with his name being a pun on pandas instead.

Tropes Shared by the main Gabby Cats

• Cats Are Magic: They're all cats, half cats, or have cat themes in Gabby's case, and they're all magical on different levels.
• Living Toys: All of the cats that reside in the dollhouse, along with Pandy Paws, are inanimate toys when Gabby is at her regular size. Whenever she shrinks down to go to the dollhouse, they come to life.
  • Exaggerated with Pandy. He's half teddy panda bear and half cat.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: A lot of the cats are a blend of cats and an inanimate object:
  • Pandy Paws is a mix of a cat plushie and a panda plushie.
  • Cakey Cat is half cat, half cupcake.
  • MerCat is half cat, half mermaid.
  • Kitty Fairy is half cat, half fairy.
  • Pillow Cat is half cat, half pillow.
  • Carlita is half cat, half racecar.
  • Baby Box and her family are half cardboard creation, half cat.
• Pawprint Stamping: Each of Gabby's cats has their own distinctive pawprint as a personal symbol
  • Pandy has a hot pink heart with 3 circles on top.
  • CatRat has a short downwards triangle with 3 long upwards triangles on top.
  • MerCat has a teal seashell with 3 stars on top.
  • DJ Catnip has a purple CD/disc with a play button, a pause button symbol, and a stop button symbol on top
  • Carlita has a large black pawprint with two straight lines at the ends and two irregular lines in the center to simulate a tire mark.
  • Pillow Cat has a pink circle and three purple buttons to simulate smaller fingers.
  • Cakey has a large pink sprinkle and three fingers made of cyan, blue and purple drops that are described as sticky.
  • Baby Box has a large rectangle and three smaller squares, all made of pink paper.
  • Kitty Fairy has a flower in the middle with three ovals above it.

Baby Box

Full Name: Baby Box Cat
Voiced by: Maggie Lowe
Species: Gabby Cat/Box Hybrid

Baby Box is the youngest member of the Box Cat family, which as the name suggests is a hybrid family of cat and cardboard boxes. Whenever there’s a problem, this resourceful cat can always be counted on to create or invent just the thing to save the day with the power of crafts!

While she’s not the only member of the family living in the house, she is oddly the only one considered a main Gabby Cat.

• The Baby of the Bunch: She is the youngest of the main Gabby's Cats, being literally a baby, and used to be the youngest in her family.
• Bamboo Technology: Baby Box's shtick is arts and crafts, so her more complex builds tend to be little more than cardboard and paper covered in marker and blinking lights. However, these same builds achieve their purpose without proper structure or a power source, such as a burping machine for Itty Bitty Blossom or a hiccup machine for Gabby (which, when it fails, is revealed to simply be a decorated cardboard box with precisely one internal item which looks like a bar of metal; how the whole thing was vibrating is not apparent).
• Non-Standard Character Design: She is animated in a limited way compared to the other characters, with the intention being to make her similar to a stop-motion character.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: She is the pink girl to the blue boys who are her older brothers.

Cakey

Full Name: Cakey Cat
Voiced By: Juliet Donenfeld
Species: Gabby Cat/Cupcake Hybrid

Half kitty, half cupcake, Cakey Cat is the easily-excitable cupcake in the kitchen! Spunky yet sensitive, Cakey can go from super happy to really worried in the blink of an eye. Keep an eye out for his sprinkles, cause they’ll let you know exactly what he’s feeling.

• Acrofatic: A little chubbier than the other Gabby Cats, but still quite capable of jumping frequently and performing impressive acrobatics.
• Chubby Chef: He has a chubby body like a cake, and he is the chef of the house.
• Living Food: He's half Cupcake and half cat.
• Prone to Tears: Most visible in the early seasons, where Cakey was prone to crying sprinkles over the slightest problems. This decreases over time.
• Sweet Baker: He is a baker, his territory in the Dollhouse is the kitchen, he is quite sweet in both personality and flavor.
• Tasty Tears: Cakey's tears are made up of sprinkles, something Pandy enjoys eating. He admits though that Cakey's "sprinkle party" sprinkles, the ones he releases when he's happy, are tastier, however.

Carlita

Full Name: Carlita
Voiced By: Carla Tassara
Species: Gabby Cat/Racecar Hybrid

Meet Carlita, part racecar and part cat, she’s charismatic, outgoing, and very confident...as long as she’s doing things she already knows she’s good at. But when she’s asked to try something new, her fear of failure causes her to avoid it, bringing out more of her scaredy-cat side. No matter what though, she’s always up to race around with her friends on their next adventure!

• Animate Inanimate Object: She's half car and half cat.
• Lovable Jock: Her room is a sporty zone, she is athletic, determined and loves all types of games, and is quite kind and willing to help her friends when they need it.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She is the masculine girl to CatRat's feminine boy. Both are often paired together in the series. She is athletic, energetic and adventurous, while CatRat is sassy, ​​tired and dramatic.
• Out of Focus: Perhaps Gabby Cat (from the main cast) with less of a prominent role, acting mainly as a helper for the others.
• Portmanteau: Her name is a mixture of her voice actress's name and surname: CARLa TAsara
• Purple Is Powerful: She is purple and is an incredibly athletic girl who can shapeshift to become different types of transportation.

Catrat

Full Name: CatRat
Played By: Donovan Patton
Species: Gabby Cat

CatRat, the playful, squeezable, collector of all things shiny. Thanks to his delicate bone structure, there’s no space too small for him to squeeze in or out of. Which means you never know when he’s going to appear out of nowhere from somewhere inside the dollhouse! While he’s a but of a know-it-all and always thinks he has the answers to any problem that arises, he really does have a good heart, and can always make his friends laugh.

• Cartoon Creature: While most cats have their hybrids being quite visible, it is unclear what kind of cat Catrat is supposed to be.
• Casting Gag: His voice actor has previous experience as a theater kid who enjoys acting as a villain, uses Offscreen Teleportation and play scavenger hunt games involving findung clues.
• Cats Are Snarkers: CatRat is dry and snide towards the others, and is a bit of a know-it-all, but he has a nice heart deep down.
• Cat Folk: While all Gabby Cats count as Cat Folk, CatRat is the one who acts more humanoid compared to the others who normally act like their other half would.
• Cats Hate Water: Getting wet is one of the biggest things that CatRat detests.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Weirdly Subverted. He is inconvenient, bad-tempered and a little selfish, but his friends seem unable to hold any kind of resentment against him. Although MerCat is quick to yell at him when he does something wrong.
• Good Needs Evil:The justification for his behavior. While he's not actually a bad person, he explains his inconvenient behavior as being a need, because every hero story needs a villain, and he is better at being a villain than a hero.
• Hero with an F in Good: Even in times when CatRat is well intentioned he is still prone to creating problems, because he is terrible at being good. Fortunately his friends are quite patient with him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although he is selfish, rather arrogant, self-centered and generally an inconvenience to anyone close to him, CatRat is truly not a bad cat. Whenever his schemes get out of control or he believes he has genuinely put someone in danger he becomes nervous, as he has no intention of genuinely hurting other people.
• Lovable Rogue: CatRat is sneaky, likes to take things that don't belong to him, and is generally a bad-tempered trickster, but his personality makes him impossible to hate.
• Meaningful Name: CatRat's design features a scrawny body and long, skinny tail. He appears to live within the dollhouse's walls, getting around through various hidden holes in each room. He also has stereotypical features such as his Jerkass personality, greed, and cowardice, although these are largely downplayed in that he can also be quite decent and even nice in certain situations.
• Necessarily Evil: He is not actually evil, but believes himself to be a necessary evil. His life philosophy is that every hero story needs a villain, and he is better at being a villain than a hero.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: CatRat behaves as one during the Beach Episode, halting the group's fun by shouting "beach situation" just so he can enforce a list of rules. It mostly comes across as nit-picky (must wear a bathing suit and apply sunscreen), but he shows he's also trying to help the group have fun by enforcing a "rule" about being required to take a picture as a keepsake.
• Playful Cat Smile: While all of the Gabby Cats have cat smiles (because they are, well, cats) CatRat is the only one who plays this trope as his default expression is a mischievous cat smile,
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: He gets nicer as the series goes on, but never loses his mischievous inconvenient side.
• Scary Teeth: His image in the "Gabby Cat of the Day" segment (which is almost identical to the image on this character page) reveals that he has teeth that are very pointy and different from those of a regular cat.
• The Sneaky Guy: CatRat is frighteningly flexible and can fit through any crack or space even if there is no logical way for a passage to exist in that location.
• Spell My Name with a "The": Often refers to himself as "The CatRat.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Although he never loses his sarcastic and opportunistic personality, in the first season he was much more selfish and malicious, although he had a Hidden Heart of Gold. From the second season onwards his heart of gold is much more visible, and he is much less likely to be (intentionally) inconvenient for the group.

DJ Catnip

Name: Daniel James "DJ" Catnip
Voiced By: Eduardo Franco
Species: Elastic Cat (?) / Gabby Cat

The hoodie-wearing DJ Catnip is the group’s music specialist. From jamming on instruments to mixing up beats, Catnip uses music to help everyone find their groove, get out of troublesome situations (when the need arises), and just make sure his friends have a cat-tastic time!

• Aerith and Bob: Among so many cats named after objects, slang or puns, his full name, Daniel James, is quite common in comparison.
• Cartoon Creature: Like CatRat it is not clear exactly what type of cat DJ Catnip is supposed to be, his paws function in a similar way to those of a mollusk, he can fly in a similar way to a helicopter by rotating his arms and can stretch almost freely.
• Cool Big Bro: Although he's not actually anyone's big brother, DJ Catnip tends to act like a big brother figure to the younger kitties of the house.
• Cute Little Fangs: He's always shown with a fang on his mouth. In "DJ Catnip Gets His Groove Back", Gabby refers to DJ Catnip's fang as "his favorite tooth" (This seem to imply he has more teeth and those are hidden).
• In the Hood: DJ Catnip is always seen with the hood of his hoodie up, so up to date, what he looks like with his hood down remains unknown
• Instant Flight: Just Add Spinning!: He is seen being able to fly in "Kitty Fairy Gets Sick" via rotating his legs like helicopter rotors, his cousin, DJ Comet is seen doing this in "Mission to Caturn" in the Cat of the Day segment. (Thus, is safe to say only elastic kitties know and master this technique).
• Limited Wardrobe: DJ Catnip wears his signature hoodie in pretty much every single episode (with an occassional accessory depending on the episode). But in the season 5 halloween episode, he has a different colored hoodie, and in the animation shorts, he wears different outfit, albeit hooded outfit (thus, we might never know how DJ Catnip looks like with his hood down)
• Mellow Fellow: He is quite calm, speaks friendly most of the time and rarely losing his soft demeanor.
• Morality Pet: Downplayed for CatRat. All the Gabby cats and Gabby herself can be considered CatRat's morality pets, but DJ Catnip is the one who CatRat shows his gentle side most often.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Inverted. He's the pink boy to MerCat Blue girl.
• Real Men Wear Pink: A literal example, he is the most traditionally masculine cat in the Dollhouse and wears a magenta hood at all times.
• Rubber Man: DJ Catnip has elastic legs and tail that can stretch to grab instruments or to activate his DJ console from outside his DJ booth.

Kitty Fairy

Name: Kitty Fairy
Played By: Tara Strong
Species: Gabby Cat/Fairy Hybrid

Meet Kitty Fairy, the tiny cat with wings who lives in the Fairy Tail Garden. Very gentle and nurturing, Kitty Fairy likes to keep a caring eye on all of her dollhouse friends. Always the kitty-with-a-plan, she crumbles when things don’t go as expected, but luckily with her Garden Magic, she always helps set things back in order!

• Caring Gardener: She's the house's gardener, and treats the Dollhouse's plants like her own children (it helps that most of them are sentient).
• Cats Are Magic: Kitty Fairy is a half-fairy kitty with nature magic that allows her to help the garden grow.
• Flower Motifs: Tulips, although she is a fairy her appearance is designed to simulate tulips and even her tail is shaped like one.
• Odd Name Out: Of the Dollhouse Gabby Cats she is the only one to not have the syllable "Ca" in her name.

Marty Party !

Full Name: Marty Party
Played/Voiced by: Darren Criss
Species: Gabby Cat/Party cat

• Pungeon Master: He really likes to make puns with several different themes, but especially with the word "party”.
• Vibrant Orange: He is an orange cat and is the feline incarnation of the party concept, with contagious joy and a gigantic heart.

Mercat

Full Name: MerCat
Played By: Secunda Wood
Species: Gabby Cat/Mermaid Hybrid

MerCat believes there’s nothing more important than feeling good, looking good, and doing good. As the resident scientist, she can always be found in the bathroom and in the middle of a “spa science” experiment trying to find a cure or solution.

• Bathtub Mermaid: MerCat having the bathroom as her domain in the dollhouse, often is in the bathtub as her main source of water. She's able to survive without water, but this is normally her introduction spot whenever she is needed.
• Big Sister Instinct: Although she is not related do Cakey (one of the youngest gabby cats) her first instinct upon seeing Cat Rat falling from a dangerous height was to try to cover Cakey vision of the situation so he wouldn't have to see the presumably horrific scene that would happen when he hit the ground.
• A Dog Named "Dog": She is a mix between Merfolk and Catfolk and her name is MerCat.
• Only Sane Woman: Of the Dollhouse members she is the least patient for CatRat's rude behavior, although she still forgives him easily.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: She is a cross between a talking cat and a mermaid.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Inverted. She's the blue girl to DJ Catnip pink boy.
• The Smart Gal: She is a talented chemist and is always ready to use science to help others.
• Token Aquatic Race: From the Dollhouse, she is the only one whose species is focused on water terrain.
• True Blue Femininity: She is the most traditionally feminine girl in the Dollhouse, and has blue fur.
• Water Is Air: She is a mermaid and is the Dollhouse's aquatic teammate, but inexplicably, can fly when out of water.

Pillow Cat

Full Name: Pillow Cat
Played By: Sainty Nelsen
Species: Gaby Cat/Pillow Hybrid

Pillow Cat is the homebody cat that is content to lie around all day. She’s often found sleeping in the bedroom, which is exactly where she stays when it’s time for a story! There, she and her friends watch as their stories and dreams come alive right before their eyes. But, even if she prefers to stay in her comfort zone, Pillow Cat is always willing to go along with whatever adventure her friends have planned.

• Animate Inanimate Object: She's half cat and half pillow.
• Sleepyhead: Pillow Cat, fitting her nature as part pillow and having the bedroom as her living area, is often seen asleep.
• The Storyteller: Her role in Dollhouse. Pillowcat loves reading stories and even more so making up stories on the spot. If you need someone to come up with a script, Pillowcat is the right cat.

Mama Box

Name: Mama Box Cat
Voiced by: Tara Strong
Species: Gabby Cat/Box Hybrid

Baby Box's Mother

• Advertised Extra: She appears a lot in the first promotional content, being the only secondary one on the official DreamWorks Animation page, and even being included in the main Gabby Cats instead of her daughter in some images, but typically she is stuck with secondary roles, commonly involving her daughter.
• Animate Inanimate Object: She is a box cat.

The Box Brothers

Name: N\A
Voiced by: Jude Schwartz
Species: Gabby Cat/Box Hybrid

Baby Box's older brothers.

• Ascended Extra: Although they never became main characters, their personalities were greatly developed in later seasons compared to the first few episodes where they mainly acted as background characters.
• Blue Boy, Pink Girl: Three blue boys for their little sister who is a pink girl.

Name: Cat-A-Vator
Voiced by: N/A
Species: Gabby Cat/Elevator Hybrid

The Dollhouse's Sentient elevator.

• Animate Inanimate Object: She's a sentient elevator.
• The Voiceless: Unlike the other Dollhouse Gabby Cats, she never speaks even though she is as sentient as the others are. She finally speaks in the season ten episode "Marty, the Party Cat".