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Keef
Homeworld Earth
Gender Male
Hair Color Red
Eye Color Green
Red ("Bestest Friend" only)
Affiliation(s) None
Voice Actor Danny Cooksey (English)

Keef is a rejected boy that attends Skool and was once friends with Zim. He makes multiple appearances throughout the show and comics, and in the Netflix film Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, though usually in minor and background roles.

Appearance[]

Keef is a small boy with a tuft of red hair on his head. He has large emerald green eyes and pale skin. He wears a light blue shirt with a rainbow print, along with black shoes and dark cyan pants.

Personality[]

Zim Keef 1

Smiling, yet being kicked out.

While very kind, caring and friendly, Keef is overly attached and became obsessed with Zim after becoming his friend, and stalked the Irken to the point of even entering his house without permission, this can be because its more than likely that as he stated when he won the contest to be Zim's "best friend" that he never won anything before and the idea of being someone's friend was probably a dream come true for him as it is implied that he's not friends with the other rejects at Skool and simply seats with them at lunch.

Like most humans, he is rather oblivious and gullible, as seen when he failed to comprehend Zim's meaning behind the statement that Keef had "fulfilled his purpose" as his best friend. Moreover, Keef expressed no surprise at GIR's ability to speak, despite his apparent canine nature.

Zim Keef picture 1

Keef's obsession with Zim.

His fixation on Zim seems to know no bounds: When Zim attempted to avoid contact by feigning sickness, Keef decided to hold a surprise party in Zim's own house to cheer up his "best friend."

In a way, Keef was keeping his promise since he wanted to be the "best most loyal friend ever" something that proved to be a costly mistake as Zim's plan to get rid of him naturally nearly got Keef killed.

Role in Invader Zim[]

Character Keef

Keef cooking bacon for Zim.

In the episode "Bestest Friend", Keef actually served as a main character. He was used by Zim as a best friend (due to his physical absorbency of liquids, shock-resistance, and ability to come out all right after an unseen incident with a toy beaver and taxi) so that Zim appears normal to the other Skoolchildren. However, Zim grew tired of Keef following him everywhere and invading his privacy.

Ultimately, Keef's stalking proved to be a threat to Zim's mission, so he devised a plan to get rid of him; he handed him a package that contained robotic hands that ripped out his eyes and replaced them with robotic ones. After doing so, Zim hypnotized him so that the first living thing he would see with his new eyes he would believe to be Zim.

Zim The Squirrel 1

Keef's vision after his hypnosis.

Unfortunately for Keef, the first creature he saw happened to be a particularly territorial squirrel. Enraptured, Keef chased the squirrel onto Zim's roof, where it finally attacked him, causing him to fall from the roof and get caught in some sort of explosion. Keef is one of the few characters (along with Dib and Gaz) to fully acknowledge GIR's presence.

After "Bestest Friend", Keef served mainly as a background character. His most notable background appearance was in "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom", where a version of him was seen in the nightmare world with the other monsters, but looked exactly the same; this was because, as Jhonen jokingly stated in the DVD's commentary, "He was already scary enough to begin with".

It was planned in "Return of Keef" for him to make another appearance, but due to the cancellation, the episode was not complete. In this episode, Dib was going to use Keef to defeat Zim, but he failed. Even though this happened, Keef tried to get Zim and Dib to be friends (not knowing or perhaps caring that they hate each other).

Bestest Friend 3

Keef and Zim's "friendship"

Putting their differences aside, Zim and Dib were to pretend to be friends to get Keef to blow up from happiness after being splashed with Zim's latest experiment, emotional explosion solution.

They succeeded, but Nickelodeon's editorial team would've most likely objected against killing Keef (as they did with Jhonen's intentions to non-graphically kill Iggins), so he affirms that he is okay before fainting from the whole ordeal.

Keef in Comics

Keef in Issue 15

In this episode, Zim would have revealed that he was an alien in front of Keef, but it is unlikely that he really cared. He would then be the only other human who would've known this besides Dib, Gaz and Mr. Dwicky. This is also the episode in which Keef knows that Zim was being a jerk before ("If I make him happy, maybe he'll let me come near him again, without taking my organs out! Yay!").

Keef reappears in the comic series, usually appearing as a background character. His most prominent role is in Issue 15, as one of the students who shares their theory of what Ms. Bitters' origin might be. Specifically, he thinks that she's a member of a secret society of evil-doers, assigned to the skool to make children miserable. Since then, he's made background appearances in a few other issues.

Sightings[]





Facts of Doom[]

Keef pic for Zim WIKI

Keef's conductivity.

  • Keef is voiced by Danny Cooksey and by Isabel Martiñón in the Latin American dub.
  • Meef, the boyscout from "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars" is supposed to be Keef's younger brother.
  • Unlike most Earth children, Keef (rather mysteriously) only has three fingers, the same number as Irkens. This has caused some speculation that Keef may actually be an Irken who came to Earth earlier than Zim, although the more likely explanation for this is an animation error or that in the Invader Zim universe, some humans are born with three fingers as Moofy was another human child that was seen with three fingers.
  • Like Tak, he plays a major role in a single episode and afterwards only makes small cameos, yet is quite popular among the fandom.
  • He is very absorbent, as shown in "Bestest Friend", and also extremely conductive, shown in the same scene.
  • Keef is the only human who calls GIR by his name.
  • It is implied that Zim is the first friend he ever made.
  • According to the director's commentary for "Bestest Friend", Keef's character was inspired by a Nickelodeon employee named Heath (surname unknown) who kept "leeching onto Jhonen" while he was working on the original pilot.
    • However, unlike the character he inspired, Jhonen and Heath did eventually end up on good terms with each other.
  • During "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever", Keef is seen with blond hair, most likely an animation error.
  • Had the series continued, Keef would have learned that Zim is an alien but it's likely that he either wouldn't have cared or would forget that.
  • Keef shares the same name with Kif Kroker from Futurama, though they sound the same, they are spelled differently.
  • He was originally killed off at the end of "Bestest Friend", yet Nickelodeon didn't accept this and had Keef say "I'm okay!" after being blown up.
  • Although he is not a true villain due to being overly attached to Zim, Keef turns out to be more dangerous than Dib, the series main "antagonist", being the only person other than Dib and Gaz who knows Zim's true identity, as well as being the closest to unintentionally exposing it by inviting people to Zim's house without the Irken's permission.

See also[]

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