After leaving their home country of Switzerland in favor of a new life in America during the late 1960s, their clothing consists of blue overalls emblazoned with Gru's logo, black rubber gloves, shoes, and goggles.

While shown as somewhat absent-minded and having very mischievous streaks, they also possess exceptional engineering abilities, being able to design and construct spaceships and playthings for Gru's adopted daughters, particularly the youngest, Agnes.

The Minions have been regularly featured in cross-promotions for other Comcast/NBCUniversal properties, including Universal theme parks, NBC primetime TV series, and an Xfinity remote control.

In "Inside Family Guy", which aired on October 23, 2016, Peter Griffin gets to take part in his true passion of weaving sexually explicit tapestries featuring the Minions.

In "Bri, Robot" which aired on February 10, 2019, Peter gives Brian Griffin a DVD copy of Minions 3 for his birthday in which Gru has been replaced by Harvey Weinstein.

In October of that year, they removed it due to safety concerns that resulted from people stopping their cars to take photos although villagers have campaigned to get the sign put back up in another location.

Three statues of Minions appear in Mortal Engines (2018), in which they are assumed to be idols of "ancient deities" from the time before the emergence of traction cities.

[18][19] In Brazil, Minions were used as a reference to nickname the most devoted followers of politician Jair Bolsonaro, called by supporters of the left, in an ironic and offensive tone, "bolsominions".

In an April 2016 article on the Extra news website,[20] journalist Felipe Pena compared Bolsonaro supporters to the Minions, saying that "they follow the leader, whom they call myth, and vent narcissistic repression by attacking the differences of groups they elect as rivals".

Since then, the term has been widely used by the population in Brazilian and international media, across multiple languages, appearing in BBC,[21] The Guardian,[22] and Open Democracy[23] articles.