Kim Possible (character)

Kimberly Ann Possible is a fictional character from the Disney Channel animated television series Kim Possible (2002–2007). She was created by series creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, and appears in all 87 of the show's episodes. Kim is an ambitious high school student who freelances as a world-renowned crime-fighter, while balancing her personal life, schoolwork, and complications associated with coming of age. She was voiced by actress Christy Carlson Romano who, having been a teenager herself at the time, related to the character.

Inspired by the lack of strong female leads in children's animation at the time, Schooley and McCorkle conceived Kim as a teenage girl who can achieve anything, wanting their daughters to have their own childhood hero reminiscent of James Bond. To help the character appeal to both girls and boys, they decided to reverse traditional gender roles by making Kim a capable action hero and her male best friend, Ron Stoppable, her comedic sidekick, but humanized her by keeping her non-superpowered with challenges in her personal life. The character's design evolved during early development of the series, from resembling a video game heroine or bombshell to a younger, more realistic interpretation of a teenage girl.

Kim has been positively received by critics, who described her as a strong role model and compared her to previous crime-fighting television heroines, notably Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has also been praised by feminist critics, who commended her for defying gender norms and challenging negative stereotypes associated with cheerleaders and teenage girls. The character's popularity and impact have been cited as influences on subsequent female-led animated shows.

In addition to two television films, Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time (2003) and Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama (2005), the character's likeness has been used in a variety of tie-in merchandise, toys, and a video game series. Actress Sadie Stanley played the character in the 2019 live-action television film adaption.

Kim Possible fights crime alongside her best friend and sidekick Ron Stoppable, aided by his pet naked mole-rat Rufus and 10 year-old computer genius Wade. She lives in the fictional town of Middleton, USA with her parents James and Ann, who work as a rocket scientist and neurosurgeon respectively, and her younger brothers, identical twins Jim and Tim. Kim goes on missions to save the world from danger at the hands of various supervillains and evil geniuses. Her most consistent adversaries are mad scientist Dr. Drakken and his sidekick Shego, the latter of whom is a former superheroine who can generate powerful energy blasts from her hands, and serves as her main combatant and threat.

Kim becomes a crime-fighter unintentionally. In search of odd jobs, she builds her own website to promote her babysitting and lawn mowing services, promoting the slogan "I can do anything". When a wealthy entrepreneur becomes trapped by his own laser security system and, due to a typo, contacts Kim Possible instead of the for-profit crime-fighting organization Team Impossible, Kim rushes to his aid and uses her gymnastic skills to disable the device. As news of Kim's heroics spread and her demand increases, she finally decides to pursue it as a freelance career. Although hardly a typical teenager, Kim insists she is a "basic average girl" and therefore must cope with usual adolescent affairs, such as maintaining good grades in school, pleasing her parents, learning to drive, dating and relationships, and attending cheerleading practice. She is a member of her high school's cheer squad, and has a long-standing rivalry with Bonnie Rockwaller, a classmate and fellow cheerleader.

Because Kim is too young to legally drive for most of the series, she relies on favors from friends – typically clients she has helped – for transportation to distant missions. Eventually, Kim inherits her own car from her father. Meanwhile, Jim and Tim are enrolled at Middleton High School, having skipped several grades due to their genius-level intellect, much to Kim's chagrin. However, Kim eventually relents and insists that her brothers continue attending the same school as her, threatening to leave the school if they do.

According to longtime writing partners Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, the idea for Kim Possible originated from "out of the blue" after they realized there were few animated television shows starring strong female leads. Both McCorkle and Schooley had written on the male-led animated series Aladdin and Hercules for several years but longed to develop an original project, and had recently discovered that young people were yearning for programs depicting "ordinary kids in extraordinary circumstances". Thus, Schooley and McCorkle conceived Kim as a "girl who can do anything". Unlike other shows being produced by Disney Television Animation at the time, Kim Possible offered the writers a first-time opportunity to create an entirely new character "from scratch", which Schooley found refreshing compared to writing for pre-existing characters. McCorkle recalled that some fans of the show are surprised to learn that Kim's creators are men because of how accurately they captured a teenage girl.