- Sulley: "I act scary, Mike. But most of the time, I'm terrified."
- Mike: "How come you never told me that before?"
- Sulley: "Because we weren't friends before."
- ―Sulley and Mike[src]
James P. Sullivan (better known by his nickname Sulley) is the main protagonist of Disney/Pixar's 2001 computer animated film Monsters, Inc. and the deuteragonist of its prequel Monsters University. He was the top scarer of the titular company who became best friends with Mike Wazowski at the titular college and would later become the CEO of the company after defeating Randall and Waternoose.
Monsters, Inc.[]
James P. Sullivan was a monster in Monstropolis, a city where the citizens were monsters. The city was going through an energy crisis, so to get energy monsters would go to the human would and scare children and collect their screams to provide energy. However, they thought children were toxic so they would do this without coming into physical contact with the child. For several years this went on, with Sullivan being the top scarer. Unknown to Sulley, one of the other scarers, Randall Boggs, wanted to be top scarer. During one scaring, the CDA was called when a sock became stuck to one monster. After the scaring, Sulley saw Randall sneaking into a room with canisters filled with childrens screams. After Randall left, a young girl sneaked into the monster world. Sullivan initially tried to bring her back to her room and then tried to hide her in a bag, but she escaped and was spotted. She was put on the newspapers, and the CDA was sent to find her. Sulley and Mike kept Boo hidden in their room so that nobody found her, and Sulley named her Boo.
Personality and description[]
Sulley is nice, outgoing, brave, intelligent, selfless, humble, even-tempered, confident, and caring. He appears to be popular among the other employees.
In the Monsters, Inc., though his job is to scare children, Sulley makes efforts to befriend Boo and then goes to extreme measures to protect her from Randall Boggs and trick Henry J. Waternoose III into confessing to attempting to kidnap children. It is Sulley who realizes that making children laugh is a far better way to produce energy than making them scream, thus solving Monstropolis energy crisis.
Sulley is also very loyal to Mike Wazowski, going so far as to lend him "odorant" and making reservations for him at an exclusive restaurant on Celia Mae's birthday. Sulley also tries to cover for Mike when he realizes he forgot to turn in his paperwork. In return, he relies on Mike to help him in his madcap efforts to keep Boo safe. When Mike protests, Sulley chooses to help Boo over appeasing Mike's pride; his choice is justified when Mike later changes his mind and comes to help him and Boo.
Sulley is a huge monster, measuring 7’8" and weighing 766 lbs according to both of his Scare Cards.
He physically resembles a humanoid bear, and his body is covered in light teal fur, with the stomach area’s fur being a light shade of blue. He also has purple polka dots, which are part of his fur’s colour scheme. It is not known what color Sulley’s skin is, but his palms imply that his skin is generally the same color as his fur.
On both sides of Sulley’s temple lay a pair of whitish beige, bull/wildebeest/cow/bison/water buffalo-like horns and floppy of navy blue sheep/bison/donkey/moose/zebra/rabbit/bull-like ears. and His limbs are muscular, and his two arms are significantly longer than his two legs. Sulley has four fingers on each hand, and three toes on each foot, with thick and sharp brown lion claws being present on all of his digits. He has a pair of blue eyes, with eyebrows of a darker teal to compliment them. Sulley’s mouth hides a set of large, sharp lion teeth. He also has a big dinosaur/tiger/lion-like tail a warthog/lion/bull-like tail tuft with a line of brownish spikes that starts from his stubby neck. Sulley is also one of the few monsters with a visible snout; in his case, it is a stretched out, bull-like snout with a similar colour to his eyebrows. It overall resembles the snout of a lion/bull/t-rex/lion.
While Sulley’s physical traits are overall the same between both films, he is noticeably thinner and shaggier in Monsters University, with a mullet-like cowlick on the top of his head.
List of appearances[]
- Monsters, Inc. (film)
- Monsters, Inc. (video game)
- Mike's New Car
- Monsters, Inc.: Laugh Factory
- Monsters, Inc. Scream Team
- Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena
- Disney Universe (as a costume)
- Monsters, Inc. Run
- Monsters University (film)
- Disney Infinity
- Party Central
- w:c:kingdomhearts:Kingdom Hearts 3
- Monsters at Work
Gallery[]
Click here to see more images of James P. Sullivan.
Trivia[]
- Sulley appears in the end credits of Cars as a giant monster truck. He is also seen in Tokyo Mater with a car version of Mike.
- Originally, Sulley was going to be a janitor and not a scarer in one early version of the Monsters, Inc.. This is referenced in Monsters University in a montage of Sulley and Mike's jobs climbing the ranks to become scarers, one of the jobs being a janitor.
- According to the original treatment from the DVD, Sulley's working name was Johnson and instead of being the best scarer as seen in the first film, he was a clumsy monster who was very bad at his job. Ultimately, this persona was instead given to Thaddeus Bile.
- In another early draft, one of his original names was Hob, and instead of working as a scarer, he actually worked for a TV show.
- One prototype drawing of Sulley showed him with brown fur, while another showed him wearing glasses, and a third showed him with tentacles. The reason for Sulley to be drawn with legs for his final design is due to the fact that the animators were afraid that the viewers would focus too much on the tentacles instead of his face had he be drawn with such.
- A drawing of Sulley appears on a wood carving in the Witch's house in the Pixar Animation Studios film Brave.
- In the Toy Story Toons short Partysaurus Rex, the toilet cover in the bathroom has the same design as Sulley's fur.
- Sulley is the first Pixar protagonist who doesn't have a love interest, followed by Remy and Merida.
- In the prequel, it is said that he is 18, so in the first film, he is probably 28.
- John Goodman, Sulley's voice actor, also voiced Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove, Baloo from The Jungle Book 2, and Eli "Big Daddy" La Bouff from The Princess and the Frog.
- Sulley's design was said to be based on that of a prehistoric giant ground sloth.
- Sulley has 5.5 million rendered hairs in Monsters University, 5 times as many as in Monsters, Inc.
- Physically, Sulley has 5,475,458 hairs on his body. He weighs 985 pounds.
- It is revealed in Monsters University that Sulley's father is actually named Bill Sullivan.
- At one point, they made Sulley wear glasses, which was a bad idea because it was hard to see the eye expressions of the character.
- In France, Sulley's name is spelled Sulli.
- Due to the fact that Monster's University came after Monsters Inc. by 12 years, Sully sounds 12 years older than his later self.
- His roar originated from the lion scene from the 1995 live-action film Jumanji. see at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztUiXjq5I00
- Before John Goodman was cast, wikipedia:Bill Murray was initially considered for the voice role of James P. "Sulley" Sullivan. He screen tested for the role and was interested, but when Pete Docter was unable to make contact with him, he took it as a "no". In addition to Murray, wikipedia:George Wendt, wikipedia:Steve Martin, wikipedia:Dan Aykroyd, and wikipedia:Robin Williams also auditioned for the role of Sulley.