- “This is our only chance to set things right, and when I do...my family will finally be able to come home.”
- ―Gary explaining his plight to help his family to Judy.
Gary De'Snake is the tritagonist in Disney's 2025 animated feature film Zootopia 2. He is a venomous pit viper who is determined to reintegrate reptiles into Zootopia.
Background
Personality
Despite Zootopia originally seeing Gary as a threat, he is a sweet and caring viper, who expresses that he never intended to hurt anyone when he first met Judy Hopps. He is extremely talkative and has an optimistic attitude, trying to encourage or console anyone who is at their lowest. Gary is also very selfless in that he is willing to risk his life and the future of Zootopia to bring his family and all reptiles back into the city.
Physical appearance
Gary De'Snake has a combination of different attributes from various kinds of snakes to make him unique. He is a pit viper, characterized by the two heat sensitive pits behind his nostrils. Specifically, he is based on a Sunda Island pit viper (Trimeresurus insularis), a species of snake known for its vibrant coloration, with cerulean blue scales covering his body, bulbous yellow eyes with black vertical slit pupils, long white fangs (with the left one broken off following a confrontation during which he accidentally poisoned Bogo), and a red forked tongue in his noticeably wide jaw. Sunda Island pit vipers are typically green or yellow; the blue variant is extremely rare, resulting from a recessive gene that removes yellow pigment and causes the scale structure to reflect only blue light. He lacks the red tail of the real-life Sunda Island pit viper. Additionally, he is 10 meters long—approximately 33 feet in length when rounded up—making him far larger than any species of real-life venomous snake (the largest being the king cobra at 19.2 feet), and reaching a length rivaling that of the reticulated python.
Gary has a plethora of keeled scales visible on his body; he specifically has 448 head scales, 160 stomach scales, and 2,392 scales along his back. His model gives him the appearance of having two tongues for two different functions; one is a humanoid tongue for when he speaks, and his forked tongue is for when he needs to hiss.[2]
Compared to other animals in Zootopia, he is the only character not to wear clothing or accessories of any sort, if one does not account for the animals found in the naturalist club. Sometimes he wears a bright orange fanny pack, which can be seen when racing through Marsh Market. In concept art, Gary is shown to be wearing a red-hooded jacket with white drawstrings just beneath his neck, and he decorated his tail with googly eyes and a mini yellow hoodie.
Appearances
Zootopia 2
Gary is pursued by a mysterious, Grim Reaper-like hooded figure that is threatening him. Nick and Judy are assigned to the case, chasing Gary so they can put him in custody, and find out who the hooded figure is and why he's menacing Gary.
Zootopia: Better Zoogether!
Gary De'Snake appears at the end of the show singing "We Are Zoonited" with the rest of the cast members.
Gallery
Trivia
- Gary is the first reptile and snake to appear in the Zootopia franchise in any capacity, not counting Pascal's cameo in the first film inside of Chief Bogo's office.
- Gary also shares his name with one of the two wolves working at the Cliffside Asylum in the first film.
- Gary makes a surprise Easter egg as one of the woven tapestries in the end credits of Moana 2, thus making a reference to Zootopia 2 being Disney's next film after that one.
- The filmmakers opted to make Gary blue because it was the least common color that appeared among mammals, and therefore would be the most visually distinct and help emphasize how out of place he is in a city full of mammals.[3]
- Unlike most portrayals of pit vipers in animation, Gary's loreal pits – a set of organs that can sense heat and create thermal images – are visible behind and slightly lower than his nostrils.
- Gary made some appearances as decorations and was advertised in Shanghai Disneyland's Chinese New Year event in celebration of the Year of the Snake (2025).
- Ke Huy Quan's characters usually tend to have fanny packs, such as Waymond Wang from Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and Data from The Goonies. Gary's fanny pack pays homage to this detail.
- Gary's family all have names that rhyme with his first name, save for his great-grandmother, Agnes. His relatives and ancestors are named Barry, Mary, Larry, Carrie, Cherry, Teri, and Sari.
- Despite most of the promotional material showing Gary being part of a trio with Judy and Nick, he primarily bonds with Judy, and Nick doesn't properly meet him until the climax of the movie.
References
- ↑ Schreur, Brandon (August 10, 2024). "Zootopia 2 Adds Ke Huy Quan to Cast, Character Revealed". Comingsoon.net.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Breitbart, Ben (September 29, 2025). "'Sequels, Snakes, and Shanghai: Expanding the World of Zootopia with "Zootopia 2"". Laughing Place.
- ↑ Radish, Christina (September 29, 2025). "'Zootopia 2' Directors Know Everyone Has Opinions About Nick and Judy: "It's Just Undeniable Chemistry"". Collider.
External links
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