Big Bad Wolf (Disney)

DisneyChar
name =Big Bad Wolf


image caption =Disney's version of the Big Bad Wolf.
first appearance ="Three Little Pigs" (May 27, 1933)
Disney's House of Mouse
Mickey's House of Villains
created by =Larry White
voiced by =Billy Bletcher (classic shorts); Jim Cummings ("House of Mouse")
aliases =Zeke Midas Wolf (real name).
relatives =Li'l Bad Wolf, Three Little Wolves (sons); Grandpa Wolf (father); Grandmaw Wolf (mother); Izzy, Walter (nephews); Stef Wolf (brother)
pets =
friends =Br'er Bear; Br'er Fox.
rivals =The Three Little Pigs.

Zeke Wolf is a fictional character from Walt Disney's animation "Three Little Pigs", directed by Burt Gillett and first released on May 27, 1933. The Wolf's voice was provided by Billy Bletcher. As in the folktale, he was a cunning and threatening menace. This version had a taste for disguising himself, but both the audience and the Pigs could easily see through the Wolf's disguises. The short also introduced the Wolf's theme song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", written by Frank Churchill.

The short was so popular that Walt Disney produced several sequels, which also featured the Wolf as the villain. The first of them was named after him: "The Big Bad Wolf", also directed by Burt Gillett and first released on April 14, 1934. In the next of the sequels, "Three Little Wolves" (1936), he was accompanied by three just-as-carnivorous sons. (These three sons were later reduced to just one who, in contrast to his father, was full of goodness and charm and a friend of the three little pigs.) The final cartoon featuring the Three Little Pigs and the Wolf, "The Practical Pig", was released in 1939. With each successive short, the Wolf exhibits a fondness for dressing in drag, and even "seduces" Fiddler and Fifer Pigs (who become more and more clueless as to his disguises with each installment) with such disguises as "Goldilocks the Fairy Queen", Little Bo Peep, and a mermaid.

The Wolf also appeared in "Mickey's Polo Team", directed by David Dodd Hand and first released on January 4, 1936. The short featured a game of Polo between four of Disney's animated characters (one of whom was the Wolf) and four animated caricatures of noted film actors.

In 1936 Disney's Wolf came to Sunday newspaper comics, which were reformatted and reprinted in the monthly "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories" in 1941. They were popular enough there that a demand for new Wolf comics arose. From 1945, the original WDC&S series Li'l Bad Wolf nominally starred Big Bad's good little cub, but "Pop" repeatedly stole the spotlight. Carl Buettner, Gil Turner and Jack Bradbury were among the noted creators to work on the series in its early years, with Buettner giving Big Bad his proper name of Zeke (1946) and Turner supplying his middle name of Midas (1949).

In the comics, Big Bad generally wants his son to become a bad guy like himself; but, unlike the three little wolves who appeared in the shorts, the gentle Li'l Bad Wolf does not live up to his father's expectations. Indeed, Li'l Bad is friends with the Pigs, Thumper, and other forest characters whom the comics portray as Zeke's intended prey. Today, new Disney wolf comics continue to be created around the world.

In recent years the Big Bad Wolf has been a recurring character in "Disney's House of Mouse", where he is voiced by Jim Cummings. His first appearance on this show featured him as a jazz artist called Big Bad Wolf Daddy (a parody of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy), performing a swing version of his song with the Pigs as his backup band (they're under a contract that states he will eat them if they don't play for him). In this episode, his tendency to destroy houses by exhaling is shown to be an allergy-like reaction to the sight of a door. Later appearances on "House of Mouse", however, returned the Wolf to his more traditional role; one episode even featured a newly-made short starring the character, based on the aforementioned Li'l Bad Wolf comic stories.

Apart from TV appearances, Zeke Wolf was one of the villains in the direct-to-video Mickey's House of Villains; he also appeared in Mickey's Christmas Carol, dressed as a streetcorner Santa Claus, and in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. As a costumed figure, Zeke also appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts for meet-and-greets, parades and shows.

External links

*Internet Movie Database's [http://us.imdb.com/Name?Bletcher,%20Billy profile of William Bletcher] , his voice actor
* [http://users.cwnet.com/xephyr/rich/dzone/hoozoo/badwolf.html Zeke Wolf's HooZoo Profile]