The Wire

Paw Patrol’s New Character is Neither a Boy Nor a Girl – Yikes!

September 20, 2023

In a recent episode of Paw Patrol, a character named River was welcomed into the Rubble &Crew gang, which is largely made up of animals.

The new character is a skateboarder with a passion for photography who moves to the town, which just happens to be next door to where Paw Patrol is based. In their first episode, River helps the team photograph an upcoming shooting star, even going so far as to build an observatory.

It’s difficult to tell what River’s identity is, which is similar to real people. The episode doesn’t contain any actual mentions of River’s identity or pronouns, but it became clear that River is non-binary once the episode’s writer posted about it on social media.

This was on an Instagram post made the episode’s writer, Lindz Amer:

“If you’re in the mood for a Saturday Morning Cartoon then YOU SHOULD WATCH MY EPISODE OF RUBBLE & CREW!!

It’s officially out in the world and that means I can talk about it!! I got to write an episode of Rubble & Crew (the construction spin off series from the Paw Patrol franchise) 👷🚧🔨

They brought me on to consult on the first nonbinary character—meet River!!—for the PP universe and write their episode, talk about a bucket list item.

I wanted to write a nonbinary character that was aspirational and incredibly cool, someone for the pups (and kids at home) to look up to. They found an awesome non-binary actor to voice River and I’m so so happy about how it turned out. Swipe to peep River’s 🏳️‍⚧️ kicks! 👟

Gotta get that pic! 😉🛹📸💫

Big shout outs to @kaybeezeey & to @miaresella for the referral!!

#saturdaymorningcartoons #rubbleandcrew #gottagetthatpic #lgbtrepresentation”

They also posted on Instagram that the production crew behind Rubble & Crew “brought me on to consult on the first nonbinary character,” which they called “a bucket list item.”

Amer also explained that “I wanted to write a nonbinary character that was aspirational and incredibly cool, someone for the pups (and kids at home) to look up to.”