Common archetypes in kids' shows

February 2026

When life gives you lemons preschoolers who love watching TV, you gotta make lemonade collect and analyze data on common archetypes these shows use. And one archetype these shows really love is having three main characters: a leader, a brain, and a funny guy.

PJ Masks

Catboy

Leader

Owlette

Brain

Gekko

Funny

Let's start off with the weak cases first. Catboy is definitely a leader, but Owlette isn't super brain-y and Gekko isn't super funny, so you might still be skeptical. Stick with me here though; it gets better.

The pattern appears over and over again because it works for two big reasons.

1 In story terms, it's interesting to watch our leader, our protagonist, chart the middle ground between the steady brain on one shoulder and the chaotic funny guy on the other.

2 In writing terms, having these three archetypes also makes it easy to write the story. Is the story stuck in one place? Have the brain come up with new information or an invention. ("Harry, I found a face-changing spell.") Is the story getting boring? Have the funny guy say something. ("Totally awesome! Totally awesome! Totally awesome!")

I feel like a lot of literary analysis focuses on 1 story terms, talking about how the characters interact with each other and what it all means.

But characters don't appear out of thin air. Someone has to write them. And it's more interesting for me to think about how these shows get 2 written. Especially when it comes to kids shows, the writers are writing dozens of episodes a year, for an audience with an attention span of ten minutes, where the story must first and foremost create merchandising opportunities. I can't blame them for resorting to archetypes.

And leader-brain-funny aren't the only archetypes they resort to. Other popular character archetypes include the Wild One (think, Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street) or the Timid One (think, Bingo from Bluey). I especially like this latter one, because of all these archetypes, this is the most realistic. I don't think preschoolers show a lot of leadership or (intentional) humor, but they do frequently feel nervous in new situations.

And as the casts get even larger, the writers give up on personality archetypes entirely, and resort to giving every character a single interest. Paw Patrol, with a main cast of six dogs and an extended cast of six million dogs, does this with a firepoliceconstructionair rescuerecyclingwaterfirepoliceconstructionair rescuerecyclingwaterfire dog. Gabby's Dollhouse, with a main cast of nine-ish cats, has a bathroomkitchengardenbedroommusicsciencecraftbathroomkitchengardenbedroommusicsciencecraftbathroom cat. All these characters have no specific personality apart from being generically cheery, but they absolutely can be relied on to refer to their single interest in every other sentence.