List of Invader Zim characters

Action figures of some of Invader Zim's main characters. From left to right, Zim, GIR, Almighty-Tallest Purple, Ms. Bitters and Dib.

This is a list of characters from the animated Nickelodeon TV series Invader Zim. The recurring cast includes long-term Nickelodeon voice actors Richard Steven Horvitz and Rodger Bumpass, as well as actors from live-action television such as Kevin McDonald (The Kids in the Hall) and John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation). The creator and writer of Invader Zim, Jhonen Vasquez, also voices parts in the show.

Main characters

Zim

Zim

Zim is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz in the series and Billy West in the pilot. He is an incompetent Irken invader who is overzealous, impulsive, and convinced of his own greatness. He dreams of regaining his leaders' trust by taking part in Operation Impending Doom II (his own incompetence led to the failure of Operation Impending Doom I), the Irken plot to conquer the universe and enslave all races. He is assigned to Earth, a planet which the Almighty Tallest believe has little to no chance of existing. However, against all odds, Zim makes it to Earth and establishes a base on a fake mission of conquest. Because of his stature, Zim disguises himself as a human child using a wig to cover his antennae and contact lenses to make his eyes look normal.

Despite his tendency to vociferously malign humans as a species, constantly shouting at everyone that they "LIE!" whenever things do not go his way, his undisguised green skin, a severe allergy to balogna and water, his refusal to eat human food, multiple failures in his disguise, and an occasionally blatant disregard for his own cover, no one realizes that Zim is an alien—with the exception of Dib and Gaz, although the other children in his class say that he's a little weird. Even though he has no friends, and physically harms other kids when they attempt to befriend him, they will always defend him when Dib calls him an alien. He is equipped with a PAK, a backpack-like piece of equipment with (among other gadgets) long, retractable arms that enable him to move about quickly and climb almost any obstacle. Zim constantly schemes to enslave or destroy mankind, and despite his access to potent Irken technology, his plans, frequently based on misconceptions, are never successful. He serves as the main protagonist of the series but is sometimes depicted as the antagonist when facing off against his rival Dib. He usually goes over the top with his various and ridiculous plans and they all end blowing up in his face, often quite literally, such as in episode "Walk for your lives", "Zim Eats Waffles" and "GIR goes crazy, and stuff".

GIR

GIR is voiced by Riki Simmons. He is a malfunctioning Irken SIR (Standard-issue Information Retrieval) Unit who was assigned to Zim in the series. He was built by The Almighty Tallest out of SIR unit remains and whatever they could find in the trash and their pockets, passing him off to Zim as a "top-secret" and "advanced model". His name is a self-applied moniker that is never explained in the show. When GIR does comply, the cyan-colored parts of his body (most notably, his eyes, shoulders, and belly) glow red like normal SIRs. He has shown glimpses of intelligence and logic, as he did in the episode Walk For Your Lives and, Bad Rubber Piggy, although Zim views this as disobedience, as they usually involve poking holes in his plans. He disguises himself in public by wearing a green dog suit which fools most humans, despite looking and acting nothing like an earth dog.

GIR is the most friendliest character from the show. This is partly due to the fact that he has no sense of who's a friend and who's an enemy. However, it also be made known that GIR rarely understands situations, but when he does it's normally very important and is often used as a clue for the viewer(s)on what's going to happen. These cules normally have to due with Zim's crazy antics or unwillingness to listen to GIR. Whenever, Zim does hear GIR's predictions on such topics (which is even rarer than GIR understanding the situation at hand), he ignores them as they tend to poke holes in his plans. Dispite GIR rarely ever understanding the results of really bad situations, GIR still has shown more of an awareness of the very possible outcome than Zim does.

Zim and GIR's relationship differs and can be hard to describe. This being due to many important factors. The first of which would be Zim's often self-centered personality contrasting to GIR's upbeat, clueless and spacey personality. Also Zim has a deep need and love of the idea of pleasing his leaders and destorying or ruling all mankind while GIR could care less and often enjoys taking part in earth's cultures. Zim on the other hand perfers to distance himself from human culutre and human interaction in order to complete his mission. To add to these factors is another factor that GIR does not obey Zim at all which often ends with Zim shouting with fury at GIR. However, it should also be said that the two do at times show a bond where they care for one another. Even though Zim would not admit to it, he on rare occaion has even spoken with care for GIR like once in the Halloween episode where he hoped that GIR would be okay and could defend himself against the zombies. Even though Zim often calls GIR a horrible robot, he has at least once said that maybe he isn't such a horrible little minon after all, when they were fighting Dib in the episode Battle Of The Planets. GIR on the other hand shows his master a lot more care and will sometimes hug him. However, this standpoint changes in the episode GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff, after Zim puts GIR in duty mode with an obedience chip and places GIR on a dangerously high setting. This results in GIR becoming smart enough to question and later rebell against Zim. It also releves GIR's true feelings on being Zim's servant. When Zim asks him if he remembered being his servent, GIR answered and said that he didn't like it which would explain some of the other things that he says in the serise. For example when he was saying "Aahh!I wanted to expoled" in the epiosde Plague of Babies, when playing with the power amplifier (which Zim told him not to play with becuase of Zim having to worry less about the damage that a baby could do and worry more about the damgae GIR could do while attached to the amplifier and it sending out deadly waves of stupidness)or "Yea!!It burns!!" or "Yea!! We're doomed!!" as in Bad, Bad, Ruber Piggy. Another point that could be argued about the episode (GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff) is that in the episode GIR is more mature and has clearer thinking than in all of the other episodes and thus being so, is a far more threatening and more of a serious danger to Zim, but by the end of the episode is turned back by Zim to his old happy-go-lucky self.

Zim to a point also trusts GIR like with little jobs like gaurding the house or bringing the vootcrusier around to catch him in the episode Planet Jackers (which he did, but forgot to open the top- thus resulting in Zim landing face down on the top of the vootcrusier)or annoying Dib in the episode Battle of the Planets (the later of which he had some success with and even earned him a little praise from Zim-although Zim did not say the praise with GIR around).

GIR is also the only character to steal an on screen kiss on the lips. It happened in the episode Tak, The Hidouse New Girl when he and Gaz were trying to remote control Mimi so Mimi would make Tak's ship flip-out of control. GIR was attached to the computer which was attached to the remote that controlled Tak's ship. GIR would only agree to make the ship go crazy if Gaz danced with him and she had to, but she didn't like it. At the end of the dance GIR took Gaz's face in his little robot hands and kissed her on the lips. This resulted in Gaz running away and screaming.

Dib

Dib is voiced by Andy Berman. Dib is a young paranormal investigator and Zim's worst enemy. Dib spends his days studying the supernatural and trying to thwart Zim in his schemes to take over the world. Dib is generally hated by his classmates because they see his efforts to help them as annoying and crazy. His classmates also tend to bully him a lot, but Dib is determined to save them anyway.

Zim and Dib often fight due to the facts that one is trying to destory the planet and the other is trying to save it. While they are often portrayed as enemies, they have at least once been forced to work as reluctant teamates. They normally both hate each other with a passion and would like nothing better than to destory each other.Despite the both of them hating each other, they actually both need each other because Zim whishes to please his leaders and Dib whishes to gain respect from his peers and his dad. In an unfinished episode of the serise it is reveled that when eiather Zim or Dib becomes bored with their position in their battle and loses interest, than the other one is effected too and no longer has a drive.

Dib is extremely sensitive about the size of his head and usually overreacts when people point out its largeness, however there have been a few times when he started to acknowledged this factor such as in the episodes Gaz, Taster Of Pork and the halloween episode. As revealed in the Halloween episode, Dib's head is actually a portal that under very speical circumstances can be used between this world and the Supernatural world. He has a talkative nature and finds that he talks to himself frequently. Despite his loud, annoying nature, Dib is actually a very misunderstood genius and visionary and he knows it.

According to Jhonen Vasquez, had Invader Zim continued, there would've been a possibility that Dib and his sister Gaz are not even natural humans, and are instead male and female clones of their father Professor Membrane.

Gaz and Dib's relationship is often viewed as very strenuous and lukewarm (sometimes completely cold).This is mostly due to their almost completely opposite personalities and the to the fact that Gaz can just barely tolerate Dib because of his overly obsessive, highly annoying, overly talkative personality and his strange obessive interests and hobby to "flush-out" the paranormal. It could also be argued that Gaz could find Dib's antics to be very embrassing because his antics often lead to being publicized on TV (mostly on the show Mysterious Mysteries-where in one episode she even had to appear once and talk to the host of the show with Dib, Zim and GIR). In addition to this Gaz also often threatens Dib and often comes through on those threates. Oftentimes the threats and their consequences are very physical and harmful to Dib (or to anyone else who makes her angry). In turn, Dib often sees Gaz's personality and lack of love for the paranormal as negative and will sometimes respond to her reactions with an annoyed attitude. Unlike Gaz, Dib has a more positive out-look on most subjects and is much more friendlier.

However, in rare instances they do act civil like when arguing about who ate the last of the cereal or holding hands when crossing the street. It should also be known that Gaz (even though it's really rare) has let it slip, that she does have a little-bit of an interest in what her brother does. The only refference to this came in the Christmas episode when he was fixing Tak's ship. Dib, however takes no interest in what she does.

Dib's last name isn't the same as Professor Membrane's, and there is a possibility he doesn't have one, or he has forgotten it, as seen in "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom." Professor Membrane and Dib's relationship is more distant than that of the Professor and Gaz's. Dib and his father seem to like each and Dib wants so badly to make his father proud of him, but their relationship is astranged by these facts. The professor believes in and is strongly dictated to scientific research. That there's no such thing as the paranormal. He believes that Dib is insane. Also, Dib embarrasses him in front of his peers with his lunatic ideas and beliefs. Dispite their differences on their perspectives both father and son seem to want to help mankind and are more-alike than they think. Unlike Gaz, Dib actually looks a lot more like his dad, only much younger and much shorter.

Gaz

Gaz is voiced by Melissa Fahn. She is Dib's psychotic, antisocial, and apathetic younger sister, often described as "Dib's scary sister". She has a penchant for video games and a fixation with pizza, particularly from her favorite restaurant Bloaty's Pizza Hog (satirical of Chuck E. Cheese's). She also loves soda. If and when someone or something stands in the way of her getting those things, she will not hesitate to thrust them into "a nightmare world from which there is no awakening." She knows and admits that Zim is an alien, but does not care because she also knows he's too stupid to take over the world, making her quite possibly one of the smartest characters in the series.

In the series Gaz has eiather a lukewarm relationship with other people or a cold one. Like as mentioned before, her brother Dib is one of these people. The only acception to all of these people might be her very famouse father Professor Membrain. He seems to have a warm relationship with Gaz even though it's not shown all that often. Professor Membrain is very rarely ever home due to the world always needing his help. However, he does make it a point to once a year have a family night with his kids and spends Christmas with them. Whenever, he's home Gaz seems to prefer to spend time with her father over listening to her brother's constantly annoyingly enthusiasticly ongoingly crazed rants. She often does this by going down to his lab to talk with him. She has made it known to her father that Dib greatly irrates her and that just the sound of his voice alone, sends her into a deep rage. Other people who Gaz seems to strongly hate are Zim, a videogame-crazed boy named Iggins and her teacher Mr. Eliot (she seems to be embraced by Mr. Eliot). Gaz's relationship with Zim can be described as distant, cold and unfriendly as the two rarely interact with one another and whenever they do enteract they mostly say very mean oneliners. Zim also looks at Gaz as a very minor threat (however, he often overlooks or does not know her ability to easily defeat him). This could be due to the fact that he enteracts with Dib a lot more and knows Dib's reactions a lot better than Gaz's. However, it should also be made known that Zim thinks that Gaz is scary and even he (even as overly obessive and power crazed as he is) does not whish to provoke her wrath.

Gaz has an okay relationship with GIR and tolerates him better than Dib (although their relationship is only seen in two episodes- Tak the Hideous New Girl and Bloaty's Pizza Hog).Gaz is the only character in the TV show that's ever gotten an on screen kiss on the lips from GIR.

Secondary characters

Ms. Bitters

The Almighty Red and Purple

Professor Membrane

• Almighty Tallest (Kevin McDonald; Wally Wingert): Red and Purple are both the leaders of the Irken race. The Irken Empire has a hierarchal class structure, where shorter individuals are both figuratively and literally looked down upon. The tallest Irken born in a specific generation takes command of the Empire as "the Tallest", but since Red and Purple, the two current Tallest, are exactly the same height, they share equal (and high-supreme) power. They are not related, as it sometimes seems, which is proved in the unaired episode "The Trial." They often show an obssesion with snackfood and ridiculing Zim.
• Professor Membrane (Rodger Bumpass): Membrane is a scientist who hosts the popular television show Probing the Membrane of Science and is the father of Dib and Gaz. Membrane's scientific abilities are offset by incredibly poor parenting: his primary method of managing his children is by way of a floating digital projection screen-and his messages to them are often not only prerecorded, but woefully out of date. He has sometimes urged Dib to give up on the paranormal and focus on "real science". His scientific achievements can range from useful to bizarre, ranging from restoring power during a blackout to "SuperToast".
• Ms. Bitters (Lucille Bliss): Ms. Bitters is the teacher of Zim and Dib's class. She is a tall, slender, and elderly woman who is devoid of any compassionate emotion and having a very demonic hatred for life. She often slinks around to the sound of a rattlesnake and must wear a dark cloak when in the sun. Ms. Bitters, or at least a character highly resembling her, is also a teacher in creator Jhonen Vasquez's comic series Squee.

Recurring characters

• Tak (Olivia d'Abo): Tak is one of the seemingly rare female Irken invaders who has had many unfortunate encounters with Zim. One of them includes inadvertently trapping her in a building on Devastis, the Irken military training planet, therefore missing her chance to take the test to become one of the Irken Elite Soldiers (and an Invader). In "Tak: The Hideous New Girl", she comes to Earth, digiused as a human girl, and attempts to take over the Earth. However, her attempts were thwarted by Zim, GIR, Dib, and Gaz, who reluctantly worked together to defeat her. If the series ever continued, she would have been shown in a few more episodes.
• MiMi: MiMi is a SIR unit who was built for Tak on planet Dirt. Her disguise is also holographic, and is generated as a cat. Like GIR, she is easily distinguishable from other SIR units. She has no dialogue in the show. She is taken over with GIR's personality and is dismembered in the process. She thinks of GIR as arrogant.
• Piggy: Piggy is a live piggy that GIR has been seen having tea and watching movies with. GIR seems to have a fascination with piggies, because he also has a large collection of rubber piggies, which are thrown into a time machine by Zim to destroy Dib.
• Computer (Jhonen Vasquez): Zim's computer is normally seen talking with Zim. He is scattered around the house and base so Zim can talk to him whenever he needs to. The computer also seems to display defects, similar to GIR, in both that he lacks information on Earth and will occasionally change his voice tone to a much harsher version at usually completely unnecessary times and situation. In the episode "Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain" Computer's brain is replaced with GIR's.
• Minimoose (Jhonen Vasquez): Minimoose is a floating purple shape with distorted moose-like appendages (stubby legs, bloated eyes and antlers). Minimoose is introduced as Zim's other sidekick. Though it does not appear before The Most Horrible X-mas Ever, Zim proudly declares that Minimoose has been with him all along. This was to be followed by a series of pictures from past episodes with minimoose crudely pasted in, but that was scrapped for sake of time. Minimoose was to be introduced in the episode Nubs of Doom, which was scheduled to air before Most Horrible X-Mas. The episode established that Minimoose is an Irken superweapon which Zim does not know how to use. The series was cancelled before this episode could complete production, with Minimoose's origins left a mystery.
• Invader Skoodge (Ted Raimi): Skoodge is a successful and competent Irken Invader, but was assigned to planet Blorch, home of the slaughtering rat people, due to his shortness. He was the first Invader to successfully conquer a planet in Operation Impending Doom II, but is prejudiced against by the Almighty Tallest, who proceed to launch him into the planet as the first shot of the destruction. Somehow, he survived. When Zim says "But I thought the Tallest killed you" on Hobo 13, Skoodge replies "Yeah...But I'm okay now." Skoodge is very loyal to The Almighty Tallest, no matter how much they hate him. He was planned to be included in future episodes of the show, but it was canceled before the episodes could be finished.
• Bloaty (Rosearik Rikki Simmons): The owner and/or mascot of the Chuck E. Cheese-like restaurant, Bloaty's Pizza Hog. He is mostly seen in comercials. He was only seen out of his pig costume once, in the episode "Bloaty's Pizza Hog," and appearently has an eating disorder. He is an elderly, morbidly obese man, to the point of being fatter out of costume than in it. He is said to be depressed and hate his life, to the point of crying during one comercial.

Minor characters

• Lard Nar (Fred Tatasciore): The leader of the Resisty, a group whose goal is to defy and ultimately bring down the Irken Empire. His only appearance is in Back Seat Drivers From Beyond The Stars. He is from the planet named Vort which has since been conquered by Invader Larb.
• Roboparents and Gnomes: Zim's helpers that guard his base and help make him seem more human. The Roboparents are poorly built and have an utter lack of normal parental behavior. The Roboparents frequently act inappropriately (for instance, Robo Dad once said "C'MON, son! Let's go play in the TOILET!") or attack visitors to Zim's house. The gnomes protect the exterior of Zim's house when people are in the yard, with the ability to shoot lasers from their eyes and once threw Dib from Zim's yard.
• Keef (Danny Cooksey): Keef is a clingy child that attends the Skool with Zim. He is seen to be overeager to have a friend in the second episode, "Bestest Friend", where Zim befriends him to appear normal. In the episode, Zim grows tired of Keef's constant presence, and when Keef's "surprise party" for Zim jeopardizes base security, he tricks him into thinking a squirrel was Zim. He was supposed to appear in "Return of Keef" but the animation was never finished because the show had been canceled. He (or someone identical) is seen in the background in numerous episodes, and has a few lines in "Lice".
• President Man (Jeffrey Jones): The President of the United States who appears in the series, with his most significant role being in "The Girl Who Cried Gnome". He is essentially a figurehead, being the incompetent fool he is. The stupid things he's done include leaving the coat hanger in his suit, giving up his power to "Santa", (who was really Zim in disguise) and trading the fate of a "crisis" for Ninja Star cookies, which he is exceedingly fond of.
• Nick (Jhonen Vasquez): Excessively happy human held captive by Zim for experimentation. His most notable feature is the enormous drill-like "happiness probe" in his head. He appears in "Zim Eats Waffles", "GIR Goes Crazy And Stuff" and "The Girl Who Cried Gnome".
• The Swollen Eyeball Network (various): A group (including Dib, known within the group as "Agent Mothman") who are determined to prove the paranormal.Some Agents are Agent Mothman (Dib's alias), Agent Darkbooty (Revealed to be a NASA janitor), Agent Tunaghost, Agent Disembodied-Head, and Agent Nessie. Found in episodes "Battle of the Planets", "Battle Dib", "Zim Eats Waffles" and "Gaz, Taster of Pork"
• Bill (Adam Paul): Moronic paranormal investigator who believes that ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster,and Bigfoot are fake, while cereal box characters such as Count Chocofang and Frankenchokey are real. Seen in "Career Day" and "The Sad, Sad Tale Of Chickenfoot".
• Mr. Elliot (Simon Scott Bullock): Gaz's teacher. Appears to have a positive outlook but is not revealed to have very much intelligence. Seen in "Gir Goes Crazy And Stuff", "Gaz, Taster of Pork", "Parent-Teacher Night", and was going to appear in the unfinished episode "Simon sez Doom".

See also

• List of Invader Zim episodes
• Invader Zim