Mole Miner

Moles, the denizens of the underground, digging their tunnels. Often Beneath the Earth and in miner attire, no doubt Tunnel Kings. Also included are gophers and other burrowing rodents. See also Mole Men, who are very similar to this trope, but more humanoid.

Not to be confused with The Mole. See also Drill Mole.

Tropes used in Mole Miner include:

Eastern European Animation

• Krtek or Krteček (meaning "mole" and "little mole" respectively), invented by the Czech animator Zdeněk Miler, is a cute little mole and is often seen with a shovel in his hands.

Film

• Speckles from G-Force, who turns out to be, yes, The Mole.
• In The Rescuers one of the swamp volunteers is a mole with a miner's cap.
• On The Lion King, a gopher delivers "news from the underground".

Literature

• All moles in the Redwall series are experts at tunneling.
• The mole who wants to marry Thumbelina.
• Moley from The Wind in the Willows. He likes nothing better than the cozy safety of his burrow.

Toys

• The Moles from Whack-A-Mole all wear the miner's helmets.

Video Games

• Monty Mole from Super Mario Bros..
  • Super Mario Bros 3 featured Rocky Wrenches, which resemble reptilian moles that threw wrenches at either Mario or Luigi.
• Another Monty Mole, who in fact even worked as a miner, was the titular character of a series of computer games by Gremlin Graphics.
• The citizens of Moleville in Super Mario RPG
• Mr. Resetti from the Animal Crossing games, a mole in a miner outfit who pesters the player every time they reset the game.
• The moles from the Legend of Spyro trilogy.
  • Earlier Spyro game, A Hero's Tail, had Blink the Mole, the Professor's nephew, who was a hyperactive, "fresh-air-a-phobic" sidekick with great digging abilities. The Professor himself isn't a mole miner, though; just a scientist who happened to be an anthropomorphic mole.
• A dungeon of Last Scenario, the "Possessed Mine", contains these as random encounters.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns: mole miners in the Mine World, who attack with pickaxes. Mole Miner Max is the boss of that world as well.
• He's supposed to be a groundhog, but Bonaparte from Suikoden II, despite being some kind of horrible monster, is effectively a mole with a glandular problem.
• Earthbound has friendly moles as well as evil ones.
• In Age of Wonders, (both first and second) giant moles are just animals, but they are domesticated by Dwarves to serve as both mounts and tunnel-diggers.
• Muddy Mole, the player character of Mole Mania.
• The Banjo-Kazooie series has Bottles and his soldiering brother Jamjar.

Western Animation

• There's Gopher in Disney's Winnie the Pooh.
• Cat Dog has a mole living under their house, who claims that everything that ends up underground belongs to him.
• The Goofy Gophers from Looney Tunes.
  • Bugs Bunny is also fond of tunneling, often taking the Wrong Turn At Albuquerque.
• A gopher often pesters Pluto in the Classic Disney Shorts. In one cartoon he uses Pluto's buried bones as support beams for his tunnels. In another, he ends up trapped inside Minnie's house and tunnels under the shag carpeting.
• Aristotle from Adventures from the Book of Virtues.