1. Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar
Probably the most famous of the less famous Walt Disney characters, Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar go back to the stretch of brainstorming that produced Mickey Mouse. Created by Ub Iwerks—an old friend from Disney's Kansas City days who began the 1930s as Disney's chief animator, then became a rival, then ended the decade once again in Disney's employ—the characters were backgrounded when Disney determined that they lacked the mouse's star power. But they popped up in Mickey Mouse cartoons throughout the 1930s, and even overcame their interspecies barriers and fell in love.
Like a lot of the characters covered here, Clarabelle and Horace owe their relative obscurity in large part to Disney—the company, not the man—which is reluctant about keeping its history in the public eye. Where Warner Bros., MGM, and other cartoon studios have seen their shorts run ad infinitum on cable, Disney cartoons are seen much less frequently, and then only selectively. Since 2001, the terrific (though too quickly out of circulation) Walt Disney Treasures DVD series has reversed this trend, reminding viewers why Mickey Mouse became famous in the first place, and reviving some of his less famous, albeit decidedly funnier, friends.
2. Alice
In-house Disney historians say "It all started with a mouse," but had Walt Disney's original dream been fulfilled, his empire would've been built on the back of a little girl named Alice. The "Alice Comedies" series began in 1923 and blended live-action and animation, as the heroine disappeared into a cartoon wonderland, aided by a cat named Julius (who looked suspiciously like Felix). Winsor McCay and the Fleischer brothers pioneered the concept of inserting human characters into animated landscapes, but amid the polish Disney put on the concept, he held onto a sense of childlike delight in making a drawing come to life. The Alice shorts are simplistic, but they retain the natural wonder of handicraft.
3. Oswald The Lucky Rabbit
The Alice shorts gave way to the pure cartoon world of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit in 1927. Produced by Disney and his studio for Universal, the series became a popular success. But when Disney asked for more money, Universal balked. Because he didn't own the character, Disney had little recourse but to suck it up or finish his contract and try his luck elsewhere. He opted for the latter, leaving Oswald in others' hands. Universal kept the series going through the '30s, where Oswald worked in the shadow of his more popular successor, Mickey. The family resemblance is tough to deny, however.
4. Perri
Disney released an official straight-to-DVD sequel to Bambi in 2006, but the real follow-up arguably came in 1957 with Perri, a feature-length "true-life fantasy" that used documentary nature footage to tell a story based on a novel by Bambi author Felix Salten. Perri is a full-blown Disney movie, complete with a cloying song ("Together Time," a paean to mating season) and fantasy interludes that have our hero imagining the predators that are stalking him at night. And as for that hero? That plucky squirrel named Perri? No straight-to-DVD sequels for him, poor creature. Not even any doe-eyed stuffed dolls and bed sheets. Life is hard for the non-animated in the Disney kingdom.
5. José Carioca & Panchito Pistoles
In the early '40s, the U.S. State Department urged Hollywood—often with blank checks in hand—to make films that would improve relations between North, Central, and South America, in order to keep trade flowing during a critical period of World War II. Disney Studios responded with two feature films, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros, which served as animated travelogues, touting the wonders of our neighbors to the south. Donald Duck played the accidental tour guide, joined in the first film by Brazilian parrot José Carioca and in the second by Mexican rooster Panchito Pistoles. The movies have a mixed reputation, and between José's cigar-smoking and Panchito's gun-toting, both characters have proved too politically incorrect to stay in the Disneyverse's inner circle. But they haven't disappeared, either. Both pop up in Disney comic books from time to time, and on the Disney Channel series House Of Mouse. And visitors to Epcot will see the two birds hanging around their countries' respective pavilions, shaking hands with children who don't understand why Donald looks so weird.
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