Disney has created some of the most loveable and adored characters in the history of film. However, not every new character created by Walt Disney Animation has been as equally beloved. Sometimes, a character designed to be sweet or cute turns out to just be irritating as hell. Sometimes it's a minor annoyance, but frequently the comic relief sidekick is unfunny to the point of being infuriating. They can't all be Sebastian or Jiminy Cricket.
While Disney has some of our favorite cinematic sidekick characters, they also have a few we'd like to dropkick into the sun. So with that in mind, here are the 10 most annoying Disney sidekicks.
10. Mushu - Mulan
Mulan's dragon friend Mushu isn't the worst character ever, and taken on his own, he's not all that bad. However, while Eddie Murphy voiced the wise-cracking dragon in Mulan in 1998, he went on to voice Donkey in Shrek four separate times, with a character that came across essentially the same: not as a character at all, just Eddie Murphy being Eddie Murphy. Now, you can't watch Mushu without thinking of Donkey, and Donkey is annoying. So, by the associative property of voice acting, which is a thing I just made up, Mushu is annoying.
9. Tito - Oliver & Company
Cheech Marin has voiced a number of different characters in both Disney and Pixar animated movies over the years, and most of them are fine. However, his early work as Tito the chihuahua infatuated with Bette Midler's poodle in Oliver & Company is not one of the high points in his voice acting career. It doesn't help matters that the movie itself is more than a little rough, but Tito's combination of multiple stereotypes (the tiny guy who thinks he's tough, the Mexican hoodlum and the Don Juan) are just too much to deal with at once. It's enough to make you long for a Billy Joel music break.
8. Wilbur - The Rescuers Down Under
John Candy is a great actor and The Rescuers Down Under is a pretty good movie, but somehow the two just don't mix well. The character of Orville in the original Rescuers appeared solely as a means to get the lead characters to their destination, and then he leaves the movie, but in the sequel, Wilbur hangs around and becomes the film's comic relief. That would be fine if they didn't have to shoehorn it all in. None of it is relevant to the actual story, and thus it all takes time away that could have been used to flesh out the main plot. Every time the story jumps to Wilbur, it kills the rest of the action.
7. Terk - Tarzan
Most Disney sidekicks exist for comic relief purposes, and Terk is no different in Disney's Tarzan. However, what makes for a good sidekick is that they actually add more than simply jokes to the film. Terk does not. Also, the wise-cracking ape sounds all too much like a modern character when the rest of Tarzan is a period piece. The character just doesn't feel like she's in the same movie. Robin Williams is allowed to get away with that. Nobody else is. Rosie O'Donnell gets a lot of blame for this, and while (one assumes) she was only doing what she was asked, somebody should have asked her to try a different performance.
6. Phil - Hercules
Danny Devito is an actor who can be fantastic when given the right role. The role of Phil, the trainer of heroes in Hercules, was not one of those roles. We meet Phil lusting after nymphs in the creepiest way possible, which isn't the best way to introduce somebody you're supposed to care about. "Horndog sidekick" has certainly been done before, but this was not the movie for it. He's just not funny, which makes every joke cause you to grind your teeth in pain. There's a lot in Hercules that doesn't work, and fixing Phil wouldn't fix the entire movie, but it wouldn't have hurt.
5. B.E.N. - Treasure Planet
The best thing one can say about B.E.N. is that he doesn't appear until near the end of Treasure Planet, which means we luckily aren't forced to deal with him for very long. However, as soon as he arrives, he steals the movie, which was doing just fine without him. B.E.N. is a robot with cabin fever who has been breaking down, and is therefore more than a little off his rocker. Martin Short has a tendency to go a little over the top with his performances, and while sometimes that works, for this movie, it's too much. It needed to be dialed back a bit.
4. Zini - Dinosaur
Zini is a sidekick you probably don't remember if you ever saw him at all. Count yourselves lucky. Zini is the little mammalian buddy of Aladar, the main character in Disney's Dinosaur. Zini's deal is that he's incapable of finding a mate, which is not shocking, because it's hard to see why another creature would want to spend any significant time with the guy. He's more than a little creepy and nobody thinks he's as funny as he does. Zini is also one member of a larger family, and the rest of them aren't nearly as frustrating. Zini should have been sacrificed to the asteroid.
3.The Gargoyles - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
What makes the three gargoyles from The Hunchback of Notre Dame annoying is that every time they show up, they get in the way of an otherwise intriguing movie. It's true that without them, Hunchback would be almost devoid of any humor, but that wouldn't have been a bad thing here. Hunchback is a serious and dramatic film, and all tension and interest is killed whenever the three gargoyles come to life. Also, two of them are named Victor and Hugo, which is ridiculous, and the third is named Laverne, which makes no sense.
2. Koda
In many ways, Brother Bear isn't really about the native boy Kenai who is transformed into a bear, as it is about Koda, the cub that Kenai adopts after discovering he had accidentally killed Koda's mother. The entire story hinges on the audience liking Koda, as this information is the core of the story. If your heart doesn't break when Koda's does, the entire thing falls apart. Unfortunately, Koda utterly fails to be endearing. Instead, Koda is just that kid who never shuts up because he's so sure that everything he has to say is the most interesting thing you've ever heard. Whenever you meet one of those kids in real life, all you want is for them to shut up.
1.Gurgi - The Black Cauldron
What is there to say about Gurgi, the most frustrating character in one of Disney's most frustrating movies, The Black Cauldron? Take everything I just said about Koda, and amp it up to 11. Gurgi is such a blatant attempt to be cute that quite the opposite happens. His dialogue is terrible and difficult to understand, and while Gurgi does have a key role in the story, ultimately he's less a key player and more of a forced element. His sacrifice feels hollow even before it is nearly instantly reversed, making the entire thing pointless. Gurgi is pointless.
