t would be a bit of an understatement to say that Disney has left an indelible mark
on animation throughout their hundred-year history. Over that time, they’ve given us
countless wonderful stories, worlds, and of course, characters! But, to truly appreciate
the amazing characters they’ve created, you have to acknowledge the not-so-good ones,
too. Disney has created many iconic characters, but they’ve also created more than a few that
we really wish they didn’t. Perhaps they were annoying, or maybe they weren’t interesting
to watch. Whatever the reason, today, we’ll be making our way through the magic kingdom,
and deciding once and for all which Disney characters are the worst of them all!
I’m Caleb with WickedBinge, and this is The Worst Disney Characters (And Why They Suck)
Starting this list off, let’s talk about Mertle Edmonds from Lilo and Stitch! One of the many
students in the hula class Lilo attends, Mertle is more or less a direct foil to Lilo. While
Lilo is friendly and caring, Mertle is bossy and selfish. Ok, so she’s an antagonistic character,
but so are many of the more popular characters in the Disney canon. What about her makes her
so especially bad? In our eyes, Mertle is so annoying and unlikable because she feels real
in a way most Disney antagonists don’t. There’s no fantastical or magical element to her character,
she’s just an average everyday bully, and we’ve all had a few experiences with people like her,
have we not? Also not helping her reputation is that she’s one of the few characters in the
film who is shown to have absolutely no positive traits. Characters like
Stitch and Jumba might not start as heroic characters, but they eventually morph into
more positive beings by the end of the film. Even Captain Gantu, the main villain of the movie, is
more of a situational villain than a traditional, mustache-twirling one. The same cannot be said for
Mertle. She starts out unpleasant and is still that way at the end of the movie. The reason
Mertle isn’t higher on this list? Simply put, it’s because she’s supposed to be that way. Mertle is
at no point intended to be a character we as the audience enjoy, and due to that, we think it’s
a little unfair to give her a high position on this list. Still, in terms of Disney foes,
Mertle is nasty as they come, and the easiest to hate, securing her the first spot on this list!
In sixth place, we have Gurgi from The Black Cauldron! Gurgi is a little troll
creature who becomes part of the main ensemble in this film during their perilous adventure.
Now, Disney sidekicks have a bit of a reputation for being annoying and
superfluous additions to the movies, and while we will argue otherwise, in the case of Gurgi,
those detractors couldn’t be any more correct! Gurgi may not be the worst sidekick on our list,
but he’s probably the most annoying. His strange, high-pitched voice and knack for referring
to himself in the third person seem rather reminiscent of Gollum from Lord of the Rings,
a much more compelling fantasy story if you ask us. And trust us, the voice gets very grating,
very fast! Beyond his voice, his character is just plain unlikeable. He’s a thief who steals things
like food from others, and he’s also incredibly cowardly. It’s a combination that just serves to
make his character all the more unbearable. As the sidekick character, Gurgi is also the
usual source of comic relief in the film. In most other Disney movies, he’d be annoying, but he’d
at least fit the tone of the film. Black Cauldron, however, is one of Disney’s darkest films to date,
which makes all the comedic scenes featuring him feel jarring. Overall, Gurgi might just
be the poster boy for annoying Disney sidekicks. He’s obnoxious and serves little purpose for the
majority of the movie, leading to one of Disney’s worst sidekicks in their entire film catalog.
Up next, we have Maggie from Home on the Range! Once a show cow, Maggie now lives on a peaceful
farm, where she often butts heads with the posh. Mrs. Calloway. Like Gurgi, Maggie would probably
be tolerable if she was the sidekick in another Disney movie, but that’s the problem right there.
Instead of being a sidekick, Maggie is our main hero. Maggie has one of the more flat
personalities when it comes to protagonists in the Disney canon. She’s a character out of her
element who loves fun and doesn’t like to play by the rules of her new home. It’s a character
archetype that’s been done time and time again in animated movies, and much better as well.
Her feuding with Calloway, the main source of conflict regarding her character in the film,
also comes off as a pretty uninteresting retread. It’s little more than the character who loves
fun versus the character who follows the rules, another classic cartoon cliche. And, of course,
Maggie is every bit as annoying as someone like Gurgi is. We’re being pretty harsh to Maggie,
so that kind of begs the question: why is she so relatively low on the list? Well, it’s because
she’s from Home on the Range. Not only is it one of the more disliked films in Disney’s catalog,
but when people do mention the things they enjoy about it, how often are the characters
among those things? Trust us when we say that the other characters aren’t any more enjoyable! It’s
only more noticeable with Maggie because she’s the character we follow the most. The main character
or not, however, this is one face we don’t think we can put up with for a second longer!
Coming up next is the newest character on our list, Sisu from Raya and the Last Dragon! The
titular last dragon, she possesses water abilities, and was one of the
many dragons that protected Raya’s home. On the surface, Sisu sounds like a really interesting
character in this film. While Raya has trouble trusting others and is usually pretty serious,
Sisu is naive and fun-loving. This leads to the two clashing throughout the film,
eventually culminating in Raya learning an important lesson. The problem with Sisu comes
primarily from how this is all depicted. While she’s supposed to be adventurous and outgoing,
she’s another side character who is more irritating than anything else. She ultimately
doesn’t feel that much different from other modern Disney sidekicks, despite her intriguing
backstory and abilities. In addition to that, Sisu is saddled with one of the weaker character
designs we’ll look at on this list. When you think “water dragon”, you’d probably imagine a character
design for the ages. Unfortunately, Sisu barely even looks like a dragon, and her appearance
doesn’t hint at her water powers whatsoever beyond a blue color scheme. Awkwafina’s vocal
performance also leaves a lot to be desired, becoming one of the more egregious examples
of celebrity voice acting in recent years. While Sisu plays a pivotal role both in the story of the
film and in the evolution of Raya’s character, her actual character is one of the weakest in
this most recent era of Disney films. Between her grating personality, boring design, and typical
role as the sidekick character, it’s no wonder fans weren’t wishing for more of this dragon!
In third place, we look at not one character, but a whole trio! Who else could it be other
than The Gargoyles from Hunchback of Notre Dame? When it comes to the topic of “despised Disney
characters”, it’s almost always just a matter of time before someone brings these fellows
up. Consisting of Victor, Hugo, and Laverne, the gargoyles are the closest thing Quasimodo
has had to a friend for much of his life. They are also the main source of comic relief in the film,
which is the main problem we and most others have with their characters. If there was ever a Disney
movie that absolutely did not need to have a goofy side character, it’s this one. Hunchback is quite
possibly Disney’s darkest film, as it touches on themes and topics that Disney hasn’t covered
before or since. All that maturity gets thrown out the window whenever these three start talking,
however. What makes it worse is that the film itself is really good. Whereas previous characters
like Maggie and Gurgi were relegated to some of the weaker entries in Disney’s filmography,
the Gargoyles are featured in one of their most underrated films. So not only are they
annoying on their own merits, but every scene with them kills the movie in a way we don’t
think any other Disney sidekick has done. Every time they show up, you just want the scene to
finish up so the actual movie can continue. Even Disney themselves seem to have thought
these characters didn’t fit the movie, as they contribute little to the plot until the climax
of the movie. In conclusion, the Gargoyles may just be the most infamous example of Disney’s
obsession with annoying sidekick characters. And did you have to give them a musical number?
Second up, while we said the Gargoyles might be the textbook definition of the obnoxious
side character, this next one more than beats them at their own game. From Treasure Planet,
it’s the navigator robot B.E.N.! A robot who became stranded on the legendary treasure planet,
B.E.N. plays a very short role in the movie, but it’s an excruciatingly painful one at that. B.E.N.
screams almost every line of dialogue he says, and his personality is annoyingly eccentric. He sticks
out like a sore thumb in the film’s cast for a few reasons. For one, his goofier personality
feels at odds with the film's more serious tone. While it’s still a family-friendly Disney film,
Treasure Planet is a lot more subdued with its humor when compared to other Disney films of
that era. B.E.N. is far too cartoony for a film that’s trying its hardest to be an adventurous
space opera. The second reason he sticks out is because of how unoriginal he comes off
as. Treasure Planet is a Disney film bursting with creativity and uniqueness at every turn,
yet B.E.N.’s character is as generic as they come. There’s little that differentiates him from, say,
C-3PO in the Star Wars films, and it’s hard not to be reminded of him every time B.E.N. is on screen,
something you can’t say for the other characters in the movie. Really, he just feels like a
character shoehorned into the film because a Disney executive felt the movie needed a “funny
comic relief character”, which would certainly explain the shortness of his appearance in the
film. It’s not every day you get a character who can rival the Gargoyles in feeling out of place,
but BE.N. manages to do just that, so we have to give him this spot on our list. All in all,
this is one character who we really wish was left on the cutting room floor!
Finally, we’ve reached the very worst Disney character, and we don’t think there’s any
character more deserving of this title than Buck Cluck from Chicken Little! Buck is
Chicken Little’s father, and the two don’t particularly get along well following both
the death of his mother and Little’s status as a social outcast. While that sounds like
the beginning of a pretty cliche arc of a parent learning to be proud of their kid,
the way it happens in Chicken Little paints a picture of Buck Cluck being one of the most
detestable parents in Disney history. And when some Disney parents are, you know,
actual villains, that’s not a great look! Buck Cluck, like a lot of the citizens of Oakey Oaks,
thinks of Chicken Little as crazy, but he is far worse than any of them about it. You’d think he’d
be at least a little comforting considering it is his son we’re talking about, but Buck is a rather
uncaring dad. When his son wants to join the baseball team, he tells him not to. Not because
he’s worried for him, but because he’s worried for himself. He’s a very self-centered character,
which is also evident when he begins to celebrate his son only after winning a game. He only worries
about Chicken Little because he worries about what his actions will do to his standing in the
community. The main reason Buck Cluck gets this spot on our list, though, is because he’s supposed
to be one of the heroes in the film. While a lot of the sidekicks are annoying somewhat on purpose,
and while another character like Mertle was intended to be despicable, Buck is supposed to
be someone we should like by the end of the film. Sure, he learns his lesson when everything is said
and done, but the road to getting there paints him as an incredibly unlikeable and uncaring figure,
so why should we care how he turns out in the end? Buck Cluck is more than deserving of the infamy
he’s garnered over the years, and for that reason earns our title of the worst Disney character!
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our
ranking. And tell us what we should cover next. Remember to hit that notification
bell and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked.