Chui, Kifaru n Lester/Characters

Chui
Chui (Jeannie Elias) is the strong, airheaded, dim-witted, and usually quite random lackey of the group who has very short hair. He has orange fur, and burnt orange with brown outlines. He is known to laugh a lot and is happy most of the time. Ed has amazing physical strength, which is humorously worked into many of the show's plots. His mind is a subculture grab-bag full of comics and scary dinosaur movies, which he often confuses with reality, and which leads him to speak in non sequiturs almost all the time. Ed (to the misfortune of many animals) is utterly at the mercy of his tyrannical older cousin Namiri and is an easy target of her manipulations, with Namiri threatening to tell his mother if he does not get his way.

Chui is kindhearted, good-natured, and has a positive attitude towards almost everything and everyone, even to those who are not accommodating to him. He cares about the welfare of the other two. He often sacrifices himself for his two best friends, the other young Serengeti animals, and even Namiri, for whom he cares deeply, though he treats him badly. He is absentminded and naive, making him the perfect candidate to help Lester with his scams, as Chui hardly ever questions them. Even so, Chui never feels abused by Lester.

Chui enjoys slugs, crickets, grubs, maggots, snails, comics and scary dinosaur movies. Much to the dismay of mysophobic Kifaru, he has poor personal hygiene, even to the point of being terrified of soap and liking the smell of stink bombs and sweaty boots. Though the trio were outcasts throughout the series, in the series' TV movie finale Chui, Kifaru n Lester's Big Picture Show, the three become friends with all the young Serengeti animals; even Namiri starts treating Chui nicely.

Creator Jeff DeGrandis explained Chui's inspiration saying, "Chui is...me, following his own path and slightly dysfunctional, a daydreamer who while animals are doing one thing, will be busy thinking of another." He also described Chui as "slow, living in his own world and he really doesn't fit in with the rest of the crowd," and explained that it was hard to decide who would voice him. Chui ended up being voiced by Jeannie Elias.

Kifaru
Kifaru (Sara Gilbert) is the smartest of the trio and the most polite, mature, curious, and considerate of the three. As a result, she is more socially accepted by the rest of the young animals than Chui and Lester, usually acting as a peacemaker or offering the rest of the young animals advice. Kifaru has a high IQ and is top of the class in most subjects at school, though she is the physically weakest of the trio and despises P.E. and other sporting activities. As the most creative of the trio, she is able to construct things like planes, rocket cars, and roller coasters with junk she comes across and enjoys doing so. She also is able to play pedal steel guitar, but does not like to do so often. She often speaks using complex words and struggles to speak normally in high anxiety situations. In the first season of the series, she was strangely given a mauvish hue. However, she was obverted to grey in the fifth and sixth seasons and a TV movie and her horns are white. She is the only one of the trio to be an only calf, and her parents leave sticky notes around her house as a means of communicating with him.

Like the other two, Kifaru's personality is largely based upon series creator Jeff DeGrandis, who has said "there's my Kifaru side, neurotic, analytical, must be organized. Also if Lester and Chui were not around, Kifaru would be happy with his own company, something that works for me too." DeGrandis has also explained that the habit of Kifaru's parents to communicate with him through sticky notes was based on a habit of his own parents.

Lester
Lester (Ashley Johnson) is the self-appointed leader of the trio. He is arrogant, self-centred, ignorant, loud-mouthed, immature, greedy, and hot-tempered. He loves money, ladybugs (which he likes to spend his ill-earned money on), dirty magazines, his room, and Rocky Puffs. Lester ordinarily comes up with the plans for scamming animals, but they usually backfire, much to his frustration. Lester will often, especially in the early seasons, slack off by suntanning or drinking water while his friends do all the work. His prized possessions include his magazines, king-sized bed, and disco ball. He also has a Barry White album and is a fan of Tom Jones. Lester sometimes boasts about his older brother and uses this to his advantage to gain respect. Like Tembo, Lester can be cruel and acerbic, with a tendency to tease his peers, but deep down, Lester only wants to be liked by everyone.