The other day, I received a Humphrey the Bear pin in the mail. Of the big three—the big six, really—Goofy, but I’m not entirely interested in any of the major characters from the Disney shorts. Over Mickey, the Jiminy Cricket “I’m No Fool” shorts. Over Donald, Professor Ludwig Von Drake. Over Goofy, Humphrey the Bear. I was also recently given a wax melt warmer that featured three Disney villains, and while I’m quite happy with Ursula and Maleficent, I’d definitely pick Dr. Facilier over the Wicked Queen from Snow White.
Disney has a wealth of such characters. This is without even going fully deep dive and saying, “Well, I prefer ‘The Old Mill,’ actually”—though “The Old Mill” is far better than quite a lot of other Disney shorts. This is occasional recurring characters or figures in animated films who don’t get quite the play of others. Or, in my case—and the original intention of this column, which sometimes wanders far afield—the live action films that no one talks about. This was one of our hopes of the Vault, for those of us who are deep Disney fans. We wanted our beloved characters. But “Humphrey the Bear” returns no Disney+ search result in their character search.
Obviously Disney is going to hype the heck out of the Mouse. But of course. On the other hand, why not put a little more focus on the idea that everyone is someone’s favourite character? I can’t be the only person who would express joy and delight over a Humphrey pin. No matter how obscure the character, someone loves them. There is someone who would love a pin of Clarice, a female chipmunk who was the love interest in a single Chip ‘n’ Dale short in 1952.
Imagine with me a minute if we’d actually do more work with the more obscure stuff. I love the How To cartoons, of course, but what I’d really be interested in is an “I’m No Fool on the Internet” short. “Get a Horse” succeeded in part because it brought back Horace Horsecollar. Heck, make Clarice a recurring character on the new Rescue Rangers show. I can think of several places she’d be interesting—she could be on the team, a sometime ally, a femme fatale villain. But do something with her and you make someone extremely happy.
What’s more, if you incorporate the older more obscure stuff into the newer releases, you’d increase interest in the older stuff. If you have Ludwig Von Drake explain how NFTs work or some such, you’d get interest in watching him explain the Wonderful World of Color. As for Humphrey, he’s just legitimately funny. Funnier, bluntly, than about 75% of Mickey’s own cartoons. Especially the ones from the Bing Crosby era.
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