Laney Penn

**Laney Penn** is a 13-year old red-haired girl who is the bassist of the band Grojband, and is one of the main characters of Meeting Grojband. Short in stature, but tall in ambition; Laney is the rock of this rock and roll band. This red-haired firecracker is the band's bassist, a singer and the self-proclaimed band manager. Which, in this band, means trying to make Corey’s latest idea come together as planned. She is voiced by Evelyn Lanto.

## Biography

Short in stature, but tall in ambition, Laney is the rock of this rock and roll band. This red-haired firecracker is the band's bassist and self-proclaimed band manager. She tends to be the brains behind all of their work and holds all of Grojband together. Laney's biggest secret is her crush on Corey Riffin. She sees him as a true star in the making and for whatever reasons thinks he'd never be into her. Sadly for her, Corey is usually calling her names like "Man" and "Dude" which makes her feel like Corey won't ever love her back. Her thick shield of sarcasm makes her feelings toward Corey painfully obvious to everyone but Corey. Laney takes a bum wrap for being the only girl in an otherwise all-boy rockband. Her friends Jackie and Eric know exactly how she feels, as they know she's a girl and they would never make fun of her. They are very nice to her and cheer her up whenever she's in a bad mood. Even though she can hang with the best of them, she has secret dreams of being treated like a lady. She openly mocks frilly girly-girl things, but her bedroom is a rainbowed shrine to unicorns, teen magazines and boy bands. This is another secret that she keeps hidden from everyone else, but it gets exposed occasionally. In the episode Good vs. Med-Evil she was mesmerized by all of the girly unicorns and ponies. She wishes that she could be treated more like someone who would want girly, frilly things, but unfortunately for her, she is constantly getting mistaken for being a guy by everybody, including even her own bandmates (except for Jackie and Eric) who should know better. Laney seems to be a real master of sarcasm and smart remarks, which she uses frequently around her friends.

## Appearance

Laney is a short, slim girl with a wide, oval-shaped head and bobbed red hair that goes down to just below her chin. She also has green eyes.

She wears a yellow hair clip and black eye-shadow that she has lightly painted on her eyelids and eyebrows. Laney also wears a green and black striped blouse that has short yellow sleeves. She wears red leggings that match the color of her hair and a pair of folded black leather boots to match the colors of her eye-shadow and blouse stripes.

## Personality

Laney is a cute, fiery redhead who has a strong, but sweet kind of personality. When she gets angry, she becomes rather hot-headed and a force to be reckoned with. Laney seems to be the only member of Grojband who has any common sense. She is always telling Corey that his ideas are bad and that he should listen to her before he goes and does them. However, Corey always ignores this and does it anyway. Laney always gets mad at Corey for it but she can't stay mad at him because of how much she loves him. Although Laney is the most intelligent and sane member of the band, she will be seen doing dumb things along with the rest of the band on many occasions. Overall, Laney truly does care for Grojband even though she doesn't express it all of the time. This is shown in Avant-Card, when Mayor Swellow orders Grojband to break up. Laney says that she can finally have a life of common sense and careful planning but doesn't know what to plan for, so she returns to Jackie's garage and an audio card recorded by her is discovered by the rest of Grojband and they all cry and reunite as a band. The card also reveals Laney sometimes 'mothers' the band a little.

Laney seems to have a mixed personality when it comes to femininity and masculinity or anything related to her gender for that matter. At some times, Laney is a tomboy who enjoys roughhousing with the boys and letting her wild side out and she doesn't take too kindly to gender stereotypes as seen in episodes such as Girls and Dolls. At other times, she is a full-blown girly girl who enjoys anything and everything frilly and girly as seen in episodes such as Good vs. Med-Evil. It seems as though she is more open about her masculine side and very secretive about her feminine side. Her room is all pink and covered in all things girly from streamers, to stuffed animals, to tea sets, to basically anything that's entirely pink. She sometimes goes into her room to daydream about being treated like a princess. She seems to be very embarrassed about this as she never lets anyone into her room to know about this. A drawback to her tomboyish side would be that everyone in her band calls her names such as "dude," "bro," "man," "fella," etc. This really annoys her and is possibly one of the reasons for her dreams of getting treated like a real princess. It is unknown if other people know that she's really a girl, but it is known for sure that the members of her band and Mayor Mellow are aware of this. The members of the band only address her by these names because she is a member of the band and a part of their group of best friends so they consider her to be "one of the guys." She also has a fondness for animals, especially dogs (except yappy ones), as shown in Good vs. Med-Evil where she falls in love with a shaggy dog, or Puppy Love where she adores Snuffy. However, in the episode Dream On (Part 2), Laney expressed hatred for yappy dogs when Dog Macy came chasing after her and she kicked her out into the distance quoting "I hate yappy dogs." She even loves Biteface the monster rat when it bites her face.

## Relationships

### Corey Riffin

Corey and Laney are best friends. In their relationship, Laney is usually questioning Corey and his crazy plans to get lyrics for a new song. She is always trying to warn him about all the things that could go wrong. However Corey never listens to her, and Laney is always getting dragged into doing these things with him. In the end, his plans somehow, actually end up working and Laney is always very proud of Corey for doing this. Laney also has a big crush on Corey that nobody knows about, especially him. She seems to get love-struck when she and Corey make physical contact. Laney is too nervous to tell Corey her secret feelings for him so that they won't be able to start an actual relationship with each other. Laney is always showing signs of her love for him and dropping little hints to tell him that she loves him, but Corey generally remains oblivious to this. All of this seems to change in Gnome Alone, where the two end up accidentally kissing each other and they both appear to really enjoy it.

### Kon Kujira

Out of all the members of Grojband, Kon appears to be the one who Laney finds most difficult to tolerate. She is constantly annoyed by his lack of intelligence, disgusting habits, and weird antics he gets into with his brother. But overall the two are still friends. Laney seems to have total control over Kon because she is stronger than him despite being a girl. Kon is scared of Laney because she always hurts him, but this is only because Kon is mistaking her for a guy all the time and this is how she lets off anger for it. Sometimes, Laney doesn't even need to attack him to make him scream in fear. She is so scary that all she needs to do is look at him, which she sometimes does with a cold stare.

### Kin Kujira

Overall Laney and Kin appear to be friends, but Kin's immature quirky habits often annoy her. Similar to Laney's relationship to Kon, Kin is scared by the way she was treating him and Kon when they made her angry because they didn't know she's a girl so instead they treated her like one of the guys. Laney is usually questioning Kin and his inventions for being so crazy and ridiculous, but when they do succeed she is just as easily impressed by them. However, she's better friends with him than Kon, as they've been shown singing together happily. Kin and Laney are both smart in different ways. In Speed-Demons it's revealed Laney funds Kin's projects by paying him two dollars a day.

### Jackie Matthews

Laney and Jackie have a very good relationship with each other. They are both the only girls in the band, and seem to get along really well. Jackie understands how Laney feels about being mistaken for a boy, and always tries to cheer her up. The two are best described as "gal pals".

### Eric Winans

Although Laney can get annoyed by Eric's energy and enthusiasm, the two seem to get along really well. Since Eric knows Laney's a girl, he tries to defend Laney by telling the boys of Grojband to quit messing with her. Laney seems to tolerate him a lot better since not only is he Jackie's best friend, he is also the most friendliest, too.

### Tracy Matthews

Unlike The other members of Grojband (especially Corey), Laney takes Tracy very seriously because she is constantly trying to destroy the band her younger sister manages, Grojband. She hates how Tracy calls and mistakes her as a boy (especially in the episode A Hiking Hazard) and insults the others, especially Jackie, her younger sister. Out of all the members of Grojband (other than Corey), Laney holds the most antagonism towards her and is the only one who isn't afraid of her at all.

### The Newmans

Laney hates the Newmans along with Jackie, Eric, Corey, Kin, and Kon. She especially hates how The Newmans act very hostile towards Eric, especially Carrie. She hates Carrie's snobby attitude and always tells Carrie to stop treating Eric horribly, which she refuses. However, she shows the biggest rivalry with her genderbent doppelganger, Lenny Nepp. The episode the best exposed Laney's loathing for Lenny was the episode "Let the Games Begin!" where Laney was shown to strongly hate Lenny with a burning passion, as she attacked him in the curling competition with flames in her eyes and she mercilessly rammed into his curling Rock. Lenny was so scared of her, that he jumped off of his rock before she could even come close to hitting it. In the episode "Short Fuse," Laney and Lenny became friends for a while. Their friendship quickly became very deep and trusting and it got to the point where they both admitted their crushes on Corey and Carrie to each other and they had a conversation about them. They got along really well but then became rivals again at the end of the episode.

### Kelsey and Alyssa

Laney's relationship with the groupies doesn't seem to be as strong and friendly as their relationship with the rest of the band. Laney is the band member who the groupies obsess over the least and they probably couldn't care less about her, as seen in the episode Holofame. Kelsey and Alyssa built a shrine to Grojband after their presumed "death", and there were pictures of every member of the band except for Laney. Laney also seems to express a small but burning dislike for the groupies as seen in Graveyard Shift when Allie complimented Laney on her "costume", which was just her normal clothing. In response, Laney started to rage, turning into a fire monster and blasting them into an army of zombies. Despite this, Kate and Allie still express fandom for Laney in some episodes though, and Laney still expresses worry for their wellbeing. In Fair Weather Fans, the two kidnapped Laney and held her hostage in their replica of the garage, along with the rest of the band. Additionally, Allie directly complimented Laney on her clothing in Graveyard Shift. Laney also worries for Kate and Allie in Saxophone Home, when she asked if the groupies were sure they wanted to carry all of the heavy climbing gear up the mountain for them, to which the groupies replied that they wanted to help the band in any way possible.

## Trivia

* It is a running gag in the show for people to address Laney as though she were a boy. For instance: Corey will constantly address her as "dude," "man," or "bro." Some characters in the show know that Laney is really a girl, but some characters legitimately believe that she is a boy.
* Laney was originally going to be the drummer of Grojband as seen in a 2003 article about upcoming FoxBox shows. However, starting in early 2004, Laney started becoming the bassist of Grojband. This is especially noticeable, as in the pilot, she is already seen playing her bass guitar.
* Laney's personality is based on that of Watt's from the movie "Some Kind of Wonderful" and Nami's from the anime "One Piece", another 4Kids show.
* Laney is voiced by Evelyn Lanto, who also voices Mitsuki from Kappa Mikey, Hild from Ah! My Goddess, Ellen's Mom from Ellen's Acres and Kucchipatchi and Ms. Perfect from Let's Go! Tamagotchi. Evelyn Lanto is also credited as Carrie Keranen, who is credited for voicing Alya Cesaire from Miraculous Ladybug and L'Arachel from Fire Emblem. Evelyn Lanto's voice for Laney is the same voice she uses for L'Arachel in Fire Emblem.
* Laney is shown to be multi-talented on instruments and can play every instrument.
	+ In the episodes Creature Feature and The Birds and the Queen Bees, she is seen playing the violin.
	+ In Correction Protection, she is seen playing the tuba.
	+ In Lounge Gizzards, she is seen playing the double bass.
	+ In the episode Blast from the Past, she is seen playing the keytar.
	+ In the episodes The Bad Seed and Good vs. Med-Evil, she is seen playing the panpipes.
	+ In the episode Girls and Dolls, she is also shown to have a strong voice as she took up the position as the temporary lead vocalist.
	+ Additionally, she knows how to beatbox, seen in Itch Perfect.
* Laney has very short hair that only goes down to just below her chin. However, she has been seen wearing her hair in hairstyles that would only be possible if she had longer hair.
	+ In the episode Correction Protection, Laney is seen wearing her hair in braids that went down to her shoulders.
	+ In the episode The Birds and the Queen Bees, she is seen wearing a bunch of her hair in buns on the sides of her head with curls hanging from them.
	+ In the episode Straight Ahead, Laney is wearing her hair in a tall, spiky mohawk.
	+ In the episode Take the Cake, Laney's hair gets wet, looking longer than usual.
* Whenever Grojband dresses up, Laney typically changes her outfit the least, keeping her main attire and only donning a hat or hairstyle change.
* She is the only member of Grojband to not have any siblings, although it was unofficially confirmed that she has a sister.
* Her favorite food is ketchup chips.
* In the episode Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble, Laney appears to be stronger than what her size suggests, as she's able to easily lift up Tracy and carry her over to a manhole.
* Laney can often be seen reading a book at the beginning of some episodes.
* In a 2-minute video of one of the shorts that were made for Meeting Grojband's 4Kids website, it is revealed Laney wakes up with curly hair.
* She is the member of Grojband with the most hairstyle changes and plays the most instruments.
* Laney's position in the band could be a reference to Kim Gordon, the former bassist of Sonic Youth. They both are the only girl in their bands, both play the bass guitar, have a crush on the band's leader (Thurston Moore in Kim's Case and Corey in Laney's case), and sometimes take vocal duties.

## Gallery

Meeting Grojband: Laney Penn's Profile.pngLaney Penn playing her bass guitar.