“Flash is the fastest sloth working at the DMV—the Department of Mammal Vehicles.”
―Nick Wilde to Judy Hopps
Personality[]
Given that he is a sloth, Flash moves, talks, and responds slowly. Despite this, Nick claims that he was the fastest sloth at the DMV.
Despite his slowness, Flash is quite friendly, polite, gentle, social, and speaks quite professionally, which makes him sound more intelligent than he looks.
Flash's outgoing and easygoing attitude gets him acquainted as he speaks to them in a casual and friendly (yet literally slow) way, as he's well acquainted with Nick Wilde.
Flash is helpful when it comes to the DMV and does it professionally, as shown when he willingly helps Judy identify a license plate.
Flash can be easily distracted, as Nick interrupts Flash's work to tell him a joke.
Flash enjoys jokes and finds them hilarious. This can hinder his professionalism as he even goes so far as to retell them to his co-worker, Priscilla.
When Judy Hopps needs to run a plate to find the missing Mr. Otterton, she blackmails Nick Wilde to do so as she's unable to complete the task herself, on account of being new to the city. To annoy and waste her time, Nick takes her to Flash and sadistically prolongs the meeting by telling a joke, to which Flash takes a while to react.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that Flash also has a liking for street racing, driving a fast and fancy sports car, before he is finally caught by Judy and Nick, the latter now the former's partner.
During the end credits, he and Priscilla are seen dancing in a slow manner at Gazelle's concert.
In "Dinner Rush", Flash and Priscilla go together to a restaurant where they are served by a waitress named Sam, who tries to finish her shift quickly to arrive in time to Gazelle's concert. However, this is made difficult due to Flash and Priscilla's slowness, resulting in many other customers getting angry and Sam almost getting fired, but they calm down when it's revealed Flash invited Priscilla to propose to her, which she happily accepts, which surprised and moved Sam and the customers, with her congratulating the newly engaged couple and asking them to take their time, but Flash reveals that he and Priscilla also had tickets to Gazelle 's concert, much to Sam's delight, to which Flash offered to take her alongside them to the concert in his sports car (where they are approached by Nick and Judy as shown in the movie), much to Sam's shock, who says she would rather walk to the concert.
Other appearances[]
In promotion for the film, a puppet version of Flash appeared in a video where he visited the El Capitan theater to watch Zootopia. The puppet was both voiced and controlled by Persi.[3]
An emoticon version of Flash appeared in the Zootopia entry of the As Told by Emoji short series. His first scene was a joking reference to the occasionally long loading times of smartphones. He also appears after the credits, prolonging the arrival of the "The End" banner.
Flash made his cameo appearance in Moana as a sloth monster in Lalotai who approached Moana before being blasted by a water geyser to the surface.
Flash uses a touch-screen computer because a sloth would never be fast enough to be able to double-click with a mouse.
Flash and Nick went to high school together and were both members of the track team.[6] It was there that Flash got his nickname due to his love of drag racing.
Ironically, Flash's license plate is "FST NML" ("fast animal" minus the vowels).
In a Korean trailer, Flash drives a race car because he cannot get off the subway.
Flash owns a white mug that says "You Want it When?"
At one point in the film's development, Flash and Priscilla were going to be a married couple.[7]. However, this is likely going to come true as in "Dinner Rush" Flash proposed to Priscilla and they are currently engaged.
In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, he is called "Flecha", which translates as "arrow".
This name was also given for Dash from The Incredibles.
According to the Zootopia: The Essential Guide, one of Flash's hobbies is watching trees grow.
Flash suddenly turning into a speed freak isn't an out-of-character moment. In real life, three-toed sloths, presumably what Flash is supposed to be, can actually be fast if angry or excited, meaning Flash is quicker once he raced in his car. Even if that's not the case, Flash is riding a race car, which is meant to be fast, and once Flash rides it, he has problems reacting to slow down his car.
It is presumed that Flash and his DMV co-workers were all designed to be sloths because of the unpleasant ordeal of going through the "process" at a DMV since employees there make visitors stand in line for such a long time and make them write out so much paperwork that it's not very helpful at all.