Mr. Centipede

Mr. Centipede is one of the deuteragonists and one of the major characters in James and the Giant Peach. His speaking voice was done by Richard Dreyfuss and Jeff Bennett did his singing voice.

Personality
Mr. Centipede is a giant talking centipede, and the love interest of Miss Spider. He is like a father figure to James. He was once an ordinary centipede but became life size when James' peach became giant. He reigns from Brooklyn, speaking with a heavy Brooklyn accent, has a dozen arms and smokes a cigar. He is very loud, rude and a common annoyance to his insect comrades. He often butted heads with Mr. Grasshopper, as he was always condescending towards him and always liked playing jokes on the Earthworm.

Role in the film
In the film, he breaks the peach's stem, making it break and rolling it to the ocean. When James tells the bugs he wants to go to New York, Centipede was overjoyed and named several great things about the city. Figuring out how to get there, he volunteers to lead them there, saying he has traveled all over the world, though he never really did. When James decided to capture seagulls and fly to the city, they are attacked by a mechanical shark, who almost eats Centipede. Several days later, Centipede accidently steers them off course, and they end up far north in the freezing cold. Grasshopper decides to stage a mutiny to which Centipede admits he lied about everything and is punched for it. Feeling guilty, he jumps in the water, hoping to find a compass in one of the sunken ships below. Miss Spider and James jump in, trying to find him.

Centipede found a ship and also found its captain guarding a compass, who was a spitting image of Jack Skellington. The captain suddenly came alive and captured Centipede. The Skeleton pirates were about to execute him when Miss Spider and James jumped in and fought them off. They got away, but the captain jumped up and recaptured Mr. Centipede, pulling him down, and Centipede was left fighting off the pirates. He survived and successfully fought them off as he reached the surface with the captain's sword and hat. Miss Spider accepted her love for him, and he and Grasshopper became good friends at last and they sailed towards New York.

When they reached the city, The Rhino, James' true fear, appeared before them and separated James from the bugs. The bugs arrived to help James escape from his cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge, and prove he was telling the truth about the peach, about them and everything. Centipede joyfully teased them and with Miss Spider, wrapped them up in her web string. When all the kids ate the peach, its seed was turned into a home and Centipede and the bugs lived there with James. In the credits, a newspaper headline shows Centipede running for Mayor of New York, promising the moon and more.