Bubba the Rat is a Muppet character who first appeared in the movie Muppets from Space. He is performed by Bill Barretta.

Bubba is the tough-talking leader of the lab rats who Rizzo befriended in Muppets from Space. In the movie, Rizzo helps Bubba to escape, and later Bubba helps Rizzo to save his friend Gonzo.

He also appeared with Rizzo and the other rats in The Muppets' Wizard of Oz.

In American usage, bubba is a relationship nickname formed from brother and given to boys, especially eldest male siblings, to indicate their role in a family. For some boys and men, bubba is used so pervasively that it replaces the given name. The nickname may also be used outside the family by friends as a term of endearment.

Because of its association with the southern part of the United States, bubba is also often used outside the South as a pejorative to mean a person of low economic status and limited education. Bubba may also be taken to mean one who is a "good ol' boy." In the US Army and Marines, bubba can mean a lay soldier, similar to grunt but with connotations of endearment instead of derision (e.g., "Can you make that device easier to work with, 'cus every bubba is gonna have to use it.").

At times it may be used as a term of endearment (or in an insulting sense) for a person, especially a man, who is overweight or has a large body frame.^{[citation needed]} In popular culture and prison slang, it is often joked that new male prisoners will be obliged to share a cell with a large, physically powerful inmate called Bubba who will become forcibly sexually intimate with them.

The Rat may refer to:

Todd Alan Clem (born April 21, 1966) better known by his Legal name Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. He is the host of The Bubba the Love Sponge Show on one Cox Radio and one Beasley Broadcast Group station, as well as on RadioIO.

Bubba, a native of Warsaw, Indiana, began his radio career on Indiana State University's WISU-FM. Following school, one of his first paying gigs was at WGRD in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he worked evenings. The ever controversial Bubba was in trouble with WGRD almost from the start due to the sexual content of his show. Bubba also took shots against crosstown competitor WKLQ, in particular Danny Douglas who worked at WKLQ during the evening. Bubba went after Danny by calling him a homosexual on the air, at one point even claiming that Danny had AIDS. After Roger's Department Store canceled their account with WGRD, management at the station met with Bubba and explicitly told him what he couldn't say on the air. Bubba also apologized to Danny, but less than a week later Bubba began to disparage Danny on the air again. On December 20, 1988, a 13-year-old-girl listening to the show called Bubba to defend Danny. Bubba made sexual references to Danny and to the 13-year-old female caller. He was fired the next day. Bubba also enjoyed a short stay at Hot 102/WLUM-FM in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.