Stella (Over The Hedge)

**Stella** is a skunk character and the tetartagonist of the 2006 animated movie Dreamworks's *Over the Hedge,* a film adaption loosely based on the comic strip of the same name.

## **Biography**

Stella is a striped skunk with luminous green eyes and a small pink nose. She used to have white stripes and white hair on her head, but some of her hair was trimmed off when she was disguised as a cat, as part of the heist on Gladys Sharp's home, giving her the more iconic look in the movie promotions and posters.

Not much is known about Stella's past, other than the fact that she has disliked the fact that she is a skunk for quite some time. Due to this, her search for a mate has been unsuccessful and she is quite aggressive whenever the subject is brought up to her. But she seems to have a long-standing family relationship with Verne, Hammy, and the other forest animals.

After winter hibernation was over and spring began, it was time for her and the others to get up and start foraging for food, but when the other animals refused to get out of the log under Verne's command, she made them get out by threatening to let out her gas that has been holding all winter and then after that jokingly claims to Verne that her ability to "clear a room" is a known fact.

Later, Stella has a chat with Penny the hedgehog, who asks her when is she going to find a man. Of course, she did not take this to lightly, sarcastically telling her to call her when they find a man who has no sense of smell.

The animals were beginning to forage, however they realized things are different when Hammy notices a big green flora hedge wall that seems to be endless (to which they temporarily call it Steve). Verne went to go check it out, but then he falls through the hedge, causing Stella to threaten to spray it, thinking it ate him, until Verne reveals he simply tripped. After a painful and humiliating chain of events later, Verne returns to tell the forest animals that half of the woods are gone. Stella questions what they are going to do for food, but then she, Verne, and the others meet a raccoon named RJ.

RJ takes them though the hedge to show them the suburban lifestyle of this new land, called Suburbia and its human inhabitants who own it. While it has a lot of food and other things to offer, they however soon notice the hostile side of humans, who see forest animals and rodents as trespassing pests, when being chased off by the president of the Homeowners Association, Gladys Sharp for rummaging through her trash cans, souring their first impression of Suburbia.

But after RJ and Hammy pull a successful heist of stealing cookies from girl scouts, Stella helps RJ and the other animals in other heists, one involving hiding in a birthday cake and bursting out, scaring off all of the humans and presenting her rear end at them as a spraying warning as they flee. After a few successful heists, Gladys calls in Dwayne the Verminator, a professional exterminator, prompting Verne to attempt to return the stolen food so they don't get into conflict with the humans, but only losing it in a massive explosion when he and RJ get chased by a dog. Stella calls out Verne's habit of using his "tail tingling" as an act of jealousy towards RJ, resulting in Verne calling everyone stupid, hurting their feelings. RJ helps her and the others reconcile with him.

Moments later at night, after Verne and RJ make up, RJ comes up with a plan to steal all of the goodies they had lost, all of which are in Gladys' house. The first step of the plan is to get past Gladys' pet cat Tiger. Stella is the key player to this part of the heist, receiving a makeover, and getting her rear corked up to block her skunk gas, so she can be disguised as a cat to distract him. Even though it almost failed when Stella tells Tiger off after insulting her filth, he admires her boldness. As they talked with each other about their lives, the animals raid the house, and steal the food they need during the conversation.

But things go wrong. During the next morning, Gladys wakes up and notices RJ, Verne, and the others. Stella steps in to uncork her butt and let off a big burst of green gas which covers the entire house, disorientating and disgust Gladys, but Tiger was unphased, as he has no sense of smell, endearing him to Stella. Dwayne burst in to try to capture Stella and her friends. Tiger pushes her out of the way, getting himself caught instead. But she and the others also end up caught, save for RJ who escapes with the food. As they are taken away, RJ has a change of heart and pushes the wagon of food in front of the van, knocking the Verminator unconscious. Stella is unforgiving and threatens to gas him so hard his grandchildren will stink, until Verne convinces them he means well.

However, Vincent the Bear, whom RJ was trying to pay back, appears and, enraged at RJ losing the food again, attacks the animals until he is caught by balloons and taken to the air by them. The van lands into Gladys house, where she, the Verminator, and Vincent, who had escaped the balloons, attack.

During the fight, all three villains land into Gladys backyard and into one of the Verminator's traps, frying them and trapping them in a cage. Afterwards, Vincent is taken to the Rocky Mountains, while Gladys and the Verminator are arrested for use of illegal traps. Tiger escapes into the wild that he likes, and from what is shown, has now become Stella's boyfriend. She and the other animals then accept RJ as a member of their family.

Stella continues helping out in the heists with Hammy, RJ, and Verne, in the Over the Hedge videogame, where her gas attacks come in good use when fighting off enemies. She also uses it to blast golf balls in the Over the Hedge Gameboy game, Hammy goes Nuts.

Stella, along with other original characters in the movie, never made an appearance in the comic series as the rights to them belong to DreamWorks.

## **Personality**

Stella is a spunky, tomboyish street-smart skunk who sometimes tends to be sassy, short-tempered, and quite bossy. But she also cares for her family of forest friends and will not hesitate to protect them and disorient foes with her gaseous spray. She sometimes gives off warnings, showing her butt, or making fart-based sounding threats. She is shown to have a mischievous side in the video games, such as saying she would spray a whole suburban block, make roller coasters scarier by loading it with skunk spray, or burping at cave entrance and hearing it echo. She also seems to know how bad her spray smells, in a idle animation where she looks at her weapon, puts it near her butt, gases it, holds it up to sniff at it, and then recoils in disgust and fans her nose, sometimes gasping or saying "Dang!" or "What the heck!?".

In the beginning of the movie, she was self-conscious about being a skunk and took offense to someone bringing up the "finding a man" subject or calling her "filth". But that all changed when she met a house cat named Tiger with no sense of smell and getting a sleeker appearance, making her more confident in herself.

## **Farting Ability**

Stella sprays a noxious room clearing yellowish green gas that can disorient humans and other enemies. While this is only shown once in the movie and the end credits. Stella makes further use of it in the 2 GBA games and the Multi-console Over the hedge Video Games (PS2, GBA, Xbox, and PC) where it plays out as her signature attack. Her ultimate is where she gases the area around her, she uses it in her charged melee attacks, and performs double jumps by spraying in mid-air. She uses her Tail and Gas attack to blast golf balls in the Hammy Goes Nuts GBA game.

## **Farting Highlights**

Stella mostly held in her gas all through winter hibernation and in most of the heists in the movie, until the heist at Gladys' house, to which she let it all out to produce a powerful blast of gas that stunk up the whole house. This also blew the cork out of her rear end.

Her gas attack is also shown to be powerful enough to blast away a golf ball in the Hammy Goes Nuts GBA game.