Disney Villains is a Walt Disney Company franchise, based on animated fictional characters who have been featured as part of the Disney character line-up. Some of these villain characters have appeared in sequels, video games, comic books, stage productions, or live-action adaptations of the original films.

Official list of Villains used in the franchise marketing[link]

This list of characters are those featured in Disney productions and merchandise as "official" villains. While other characters may also have been named as villains in their own stories, they have not been included as part of the Disney Villains marketing franchise.^[1]

Merchandising[link]

• Villain merchandise is available at the Villains in Vogue in Sunset Blvd, a store dedicated to the Disney Villains at Disney's Hollywood Studios. This first store was so successful that the Disneyland Villain Shop was opened afterwards in 1991.^[6]
• USAopoly has released a number of products featuring Disney Villains. Among them are a Monopoly-based board game called "My Disney Villains Monopoly" where the players decide which of 30 villains can appear on each space on the board (characters that appear in the game that are not part of the official Villain list include the Beagle Boys, The Hydra, Pain and Panic, Mad Hatter, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Lucifer (cinderella cat); a checkers game;^[7] and a collector's card game set.^[8]
• Several books dedicated to Disney Villains have been released. Among them are Disney Villains: The Top Secret Files by Jeff Kurtti, Disney's The Villains Collection: Stories from the Films by Todd Strasser, Disney's Villains: A Pop-Up Book by Walt Disney Company, and Disney Villains: The Essential Guide and Disney Villains (Ultimate Sticker Books) by DK Publishing. There are also books to color like Disney Villains: All the Rage and Disney Villains Giant Book to Color ~ Diabolical Deeds!
• An online Disney trivia game called "Who Wants to be a Villionaire", released in October 2001, is loosely based on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and features several villains as hosts, asking questions about the film in which they are featured. The "Phone-a-Friend" feature is renamed "Phone-a-Fiend" and will connect the player to Cruella de Vil.^[9][10]
• There is sub-franchise derived from Disney Villains entitled "Disney's Divas of Darkness" (shortened as "Disney Divas", and also called "DDD"). The official line-up so far includes Maleficent]], the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil, Ursula and the Queen of Hearts.^[11]

Live events[link]

Several characters from the Disney Villains franchise make appearances at Disney's Hollywood Studios in the daily Disney Stars and Motor Cars Parade, and in Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade. Each parade features a float dedicated to villains: SpectroMagic (a Chernabog float),^[12] and Parade of Dreams (an Ursula float).^[13] The villains are also meetable characters at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

A 1999 exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum entitled "The Disney Villains" included displays featuring Disney's official villains, along with other villainous characters such as Ronno from Bambi, Clayton from Tarzan, and Br'er Bear|Br'er Fox from Song of the South.^[14]

[edit] Fantasmic!

Disney Villains play a vital role in the night time show Fantasmic!, performed at the Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios theme parks.^[15] In the shows, the Evil Queen decides it is time to finish off Mickey Mouse once and for all, and invokes other villains to help her.

[edit] Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

Disney Villains appear in Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, a Halloween-themed event held annually during the months of September and October at the Magic Kingdom theme park of the Walt Disney World Resort and at Disneyland Paris Resort. A stage show and meet-and-greet with the villains led by Dr. Facilier (and prior to 2011 by Maleficent) titled "The Disney Villains Mix and Mingle" is held on the Cinderella Castle Forecourt Stage. Among those to visit are the Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and the Evil Queen among others.^[16] During the fireworks show HalloWishes some villains arrive to the celebration, starting with Ursula "plopping in" on the party and adding her own musical mix to the festivities. Jafar and Oogie Boogie (from The Nightmare Before Christmas) soon follow, and arriving last is Maleficent showing the audience how Halloween should really be celebrated.

[edit] Dream Along with Mickey

In the Dream Along with Mickey stage show at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, the Disney Villains appear onstage to threaten Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. Maleficent states that since people no longer believe in dreams, it is the perfect time for her to return to power and make the Magic Kingdom "the Place Where Nightmares Come True" - a play on the Disney parks' slogan of "the Place Where Dreams Come True." She is also accompanied by Captain Hook and his sidekick Smee.

Villains Tonight[link]

The Disney Villains star as the main characters in the Disney Cruise lines' variety show, Villains Tonight. This musical stage production features Hades on a quest to get more evil in the Underworld by summoning up Disney's most powerful villains so he can keep his job. This show features Maleficent, Jafar, Doctor Facilier, the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, Scar, Yzma, Ursula, and Chernabog in a variety of comical situations while performing various musical numbers from their respective appearances. This show debuted on the Disney Magic cruise ship March 27, 2010.^[4]

Other media[link]

Television specials[link]

Characters from the franchise have been featured in television specials. The first, Our Unsung Villains, was aired in 1956 as part of Walt Disney Presents. In the special, Walt Disney himself hands duties over the Evil Queen and Magic Mirror, who hosts a show devoted to Disney Villains such as Big Bad Wolf, the Evil Queen and Captain Hook, along with Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. In 1977, there was an update to this show entitled Disney's Greatest Villains, that featured the Evil Queen and Captain Hook again, along with eight other characters from the franchise, plus Madam Mim and Willie the Giant. Segments from this special were featured in A Disney Halloween.

[edit] Disney's Villains' Revenge

Disney's Villains' Revenge is a video game which tells the story of how the Evil Queen, the Grimhlide Witch, Captain Hook, Queen of Hearts, and the Ringmaster from Dumbo change the story from the original movie to the way they wanted the story to end, with no "Happily Ever After".

[edit] Mickey's House of Villains

The Disney Villains star in Mickey's House of Villains, the 2002 film adaptation of the Disney Channel animated television series Disney's House of Mouse. Set during a Halloween party, Jafar, Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, Ursula and Hades take over the house with a musical number of "It's Our House Now", and all the other villains in the house join in. In the process, they trap all the heroes in the kitchen, throw Mickey and the others out into the street, and change the House's name to the "House of Villains". Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Minnie Mouse in turn try to return things to normal, but Captain James Hook keeps throwing them out. Afterwards, Mickey dresses in his famous sorcerer outfit from Fantasia and challenges Jafar to a magical duel using fireballs. Mickey's sorcerer hat is bounced off and there is very little time to put it back on, but then Aladdin saves the day by escaping the kitchen to the backstage room on the magic carpet and giving Daisy who gives Mickey the lamp to trap Jafar. Mickey sucks Jafar into the lamp, while the rest of the villains flee, restoring the house to normal.

[edit] Kingdom Hearts

In the Kingdom Hearts series of action role-playing games developed and published by Disney Interactive Studios and Square Enix, Disney Villains play a major role as they seek to harness the power of darkness within the Kingdom Hearts. Led by Maleficent, the villains are antagonists in different worlds, such as the Queen of Hearts of Wonderland, Hades of the Olympus Coliseum, Jafar of the city of Agrabah, Ursula of Atlantica, Captain Hook of Never Land, Chernabog of End of the World, Shan Yu of the Land of Dragons, Scar of the Pride Land, The Evil Queen of Dwarf Woodlands, and Lady Tremaine of Castle of Dreams. Pete appears as Maleficent & The Witch in Kingdom Hearts II. Other villains outside the official line-up that also make appearances include Clayton & Sabor of Deep Jungle, Oogie Boogie of Halloween Town, Captain Barbossa of Port Royal, the Master Control Program & Sark from Tron of Space Paranoids, Gantu of Deep Space, and Beagle Boys of Country of the Musketeers. Beast's Castle remains the only world in the series so far where its movie's villain Gaston does not appear at all.

[edit] The Kingdom Keepers

In The Kingdom Keepers, Disney Villains play the role of "Overtakers".

[edit] Once Upon a Halloween

In the film Once Upon a Halloween, on the night before Halloween, the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs plans to conquer Halloween, and asks her cauldron to show you several villains to which one of them helps her in her plan.

Commentary[link]

The majority of Disney's villain characters are regarded as being age 55 or older. A study from Brigham Young University reviewed seventy years of Disney films, and found that 42% of the 93 characters reviewed reinforced negative stereotypes of elderly people by portraying those characters as evil or sinister. The conclusion was that Disney was influencing children to have preconceived notions about all older adults.^[17]

Disney Villains proved their mark in cinematic history when the American Film Institute named The Queen as the 10th greatest movie villain of all time. Other Disney Villains on AFI's list were the Hunter from Bambi and Cruella de Vil.^[18] AFI did not rely on Disney's classification of who qualified as a villain, but used this definition instead:

a "villain" was defined as a character(s) whose wickedness of mind, selfishness of character and will to power are sometimes masked by beauty and nobility, while others may rage unmasked. They can be horribly evil or grandiosely funny, but are ultimately tragic.

Further reading[link]

• Thomas, Frank and Johnston, Ollie, The Disney Villain (1993) ISBN 1-56282-792-8, ISBN 978-1-56282-792-2

References[link]