Disney Villains


 * Disney-Villains-Logo.jpgThis article is about the Disney Villains franchise. For a full list of villains in all Disney productions, see List of Disney Villains.

Similar to the Disney Princesses, the Disney Villains have their own franchise. The franchise consists of Disney's most well-known and beloved villains. While the Princess franchise is Disney's most popular, the Villains franchise has the most characters.

Members
Over its more than 80 year history, Disney has brought to life more than 125 different villains from films, sequels, television, video games, books and even the Disney Parks. Although many different evil characters and enemies have been created, not all of them are official members of the Disney Villains franchise. Conversely, some of the "villains" that are marketed aren't even villains at all, since they are not really evil but still cause trouble to the protagonists ("villain" and "antagonist" are not the same thing). For general antagonists, please see the gallery page of this article or the category box at the bottom of this article.

Primary members
Note: Often cited as the most popular of the villains, these villains are seen in most, if not all, current Disney villain related productions, merchandise, etc.
 * Maleficent (redeemed in Film Maleficent)
 * The Evil Queen
 * Cruella De Vil
 * Ursula
 * Captain Hook
 * Jafar
 * Chernabog
 * Hades
 * Scar
 * The Queen of Hearts
 * Doctor Facilier

Recurring members
Note: Villains that appear in a handful of material, but not as much as the main. Despite this, however, these villains also have a widespread of popularity. This group also includes henchmen, who have been featured frequently alongside their respective superiors in material centering or featuring the franchise.
 * Gaston
 * Pete
 * Lady Tremaine
 * Shere Khan
 * Claude Frollo
 * Yzma
 * Big Bad Wolf
 * Si and Am
 * Mr. Smee
 * Shenzi, Banzai and Ed
 * Pain and Panic
 * Iago (redeemed)
 * Lucifer
 * Kaa
 * Flotsam and Jetsam
 * Diablo

Other members
Note: Some of these villains have been considered some of the greatest Disney Villains of all time by fans and critics alike, but have rarely appeared in material centering the franchise.
 * Mother Gothel
 * Shan Yu
 * King Candy
 * Sour Bill (redeemed)
 * Oogie Boogie
 * Governor Ratcliffe
 * Anastasia Tremaine (redeemed)
 * Drizella Tremaine
 * Madam Mim
 * Madame Medusa
 * Horned King
 * Prince John
 * Sir Hiss
 * Sheriff of Nottingham
 * Honest John and Gideon
 * Stromboli
 * The Coachman
 * Monstro
 * Man
 * Percival C. McLeach
 * The Headless Horseman
 * Ratigan
 * Clayton
 * Lawrence
 * Fates
 * Mortimer Mouse
 * Alameda Slim
 * The Ringmaster (redeemed)
 * Pink Elephants
 * Heffalumps and Woozles
 * Magica De Spell
 * Lyle Tiberius Rourke
 * Captain Gantu (redeemed)
 * Dr. Hämsterviel
 * Jumba Jookiba (redeemed)
 * John Silver (redeemed)
 * The Lonesome Ghost
 * Edgar Balthazar
 * Brer Fox
 * Brer Bear
 * Hitchhiking Ghosts
 * Queen Narissa
 * Constantine
 * Michael "Goob" Yagoobian (redeemed)
 * Kronk (redeemed)

Disney's Divas of Darkness
Disney's Divas of Darkness (also shortened to Disney Divas, DDD, or Disney's Bad Girls) is a sub-franchise consisting of the most recognizable female Disney Villains. It can be seen as a counterpart to the Disney Princess franchise because it too targets a girl audience but with evil characters instead.

Official Members

 * The Evil Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
 * Lady Tremaine (Cinderella) (occasionally)
 * The Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland)
 * Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)
 * Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmatians)
 * Mad Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone) (occasionally)
 * Madame Medusa (The Rescuers) (occasionally)
 * Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
 * Yzma (The Emperor's New Groove) (occasionally)
 * Gothel (Tangled) (occasionally)

Disney's Sinister Cats
Disney's Sinister Cats is a lesser known sub-franchise consisting of felines. It should be noted that several of its members weren't the main antagonists of their respective films, while at least one member (the Cheshire Cat) isn't even evil. This franchise is also known as Disney Cats, but it should be noted that the franchise does not include feline protagonists like Oliver or Thomas O'Malley under this banner.

Official Members

 * Lucifer (Cinderella)
 * Si and Am (Lady and the Tramp)
 * Shere Khan (The Jungle Book)
 * Felicia (The Great Mouse Detective)
 * Scar (The Lion King)
 * Cheshire Cat (Alice in Wonderland)

Leaders
In all crossover appearances featuring the villains, a specific villain would act as the ringleader. The leaders have varied over the years, and is usually chosen through power.
 * Maleficent - The most frequent and quintessential leader of the Disney Villains. She led the villains in several park attractions, promotional material, the Kingdom Hearts series, and second-in-command of the Kingdom Keepers novels.
 * Pete - The leader of the villains in the House of Mouse episode "Pete's House of Villains" and second-in-command in the Kingdom Hearts Series.
 * The Evil Queen - Led the villains in Fantasmic!, former Walt Disney World show Cinderella's Surprise Party and One Man's Dream II: The Magic Lives On!. She has also served as the centerpiece in various forms of merchandise and marketing.
 * Jafar - Jafar was the leader in the direct-to-video film Mickey's House of Villains.
 * Chernabog - Led the villains in the Kingdom Keepers novels, as well as being the centerpiece of several Disney villain related merchandise and promotional material.
 * Hades - In recent years for the Disney theme parks, Hades has become the "Master of Ceremonies" for the villains in a few cases. He serves as the ringleader in the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom attraction, the central villain in the Disney Cruise Line show, Villains Tonight!, and the host of Disney's Limited Time Magic event in 2013, Unleash the Villains.  This would be reprised in 2014 for Villains Unleashed.
 * Captain Hook - Led the villains in the Disneyland Paris show Disney Dreams! and the second-in-command in Mickey's House of Villains.

Merchandise
Their most famous piece of merchandise is the Disney Villain Snow globe that was released in 1998. This snowglobe served as the model for the Villain's float in the Dreams Come True Parade in the Magic Kingdom. Most of these villains are featured in the Kingdom Hearts series. Maleficent is their leader in this series. Most of them are also featured in Fantasmic! Here, The Queen is their leader and Maleficent is their greatest weapon. Although the Cheshire Cat is a villain, he befriends Alice. Also, the villains have a Monopoly-like game called "My Disney Villains Monopoly".

In the fall of 2012, the Disney store had released the Disney Villains Designer Collection. The collection featured dolls, notebooks, fashion, mugs, and more featuring artwork of Maleficent, The Evil Queen, Ursula, The Queen of Hearts, Cruella De Vil, and Mother Gothel as runway models.

Other forms of merchandise includes pins, books, apparel, and toys.

Disney Villains slipcover series
Beginning on June 2nd in the UK, several Disney villains were featured in a new series of Blu-rays featuring villain-specific cover art and metallic slipcovers.

Television specials
In the Disney's Scary Tales (1981) episode special as part of The Wonderful World of Disney. your host Hans Conried voice of The Evil Queen's Magic Mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) with Disney Villains in eight segments including Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Edgar Balthazar the Bulter from The Aristocats, Willie the Giant from Mickey and the Beanstalk, Kaa and Shere Khan from The Jungle Book, The Wicked Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cruella de Vil from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Madame Medusa from The Rescuers and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.

Mickey's House of Villains
The Disney Villains guest star in this House of Mouse with Jafar as the leader. He and the rest of the villiains overthrow Mickey Mouse and locks all the heroes in the closet and kick Mickey and friends out forcing them to fight to get the club back.

Disney's Villains' Revenge
In this computer game, Captain Hook, The Wicked Queen, The Queen of Hearts and The Ringmaster change their respective stories to their own advantage.

Trivia

 * Since The Great Mouse Detective, it has been a tradition that if a Disney movie is successful at the box office, then the hero/ine will be marked predominantly; but if the movie flops, then the villain will be marketed instead. This may have been due to the disastrous box office failure of The Black Cauldron.
 * Almost all Disney Villains wear mostly red, black and purple. By contrast, white, blue and gold are the traditional "good" colors.
 * Most villains appear to have either green, yellow or black (no iris) eyes.
 * Green eyes were considered to be a sign of either magic, evil and/or witchcraft during the Middle Ages, yellow eyes are often common in animals but not humans, and villains' eyes are generally smaller than those of heroic characters.
 * Occasionally, there are villains with blue eyes (Gaston), brown eyes (Jafar), gray eyes (Ursula, Mother Gothel), or violet/purple eyes (Vanessa, Doctor "The Shadow Man" Facilier).
 * Conversely, some heroic characters like Esmeralda and Rapunzel are depicted with green eyes. In fact, Esmeralda actually started the green-eyed protagonist trend.
 * Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and Hans from Frozen are currently the youngest Disney Villains to date, with Hans being 23 and Gaston being around his mid-20s.
 * Hans and Gaston bear many similarities to each other:
 * Both are handsome but are revealed to be quite cruel and manipulative.
 * Both aren't initially shown to be evil.
 * Both tried to kill a person important to the Disney Princess whom they considered a monster (for Belle, it was Prince Adam in his beast form, and for Princess Anna, it was her sister, Elsa).
 * Both make themselves appear as a hero to others and use this to manipulate people into following them and in turn make the cursed royals appear to be monsters.
 * Both wanted to marry the female leads, but primarily for selfish reasons--Gaston because he just wants a "little wife" that will obey and serve him, and Hans because he wants to conquer Arendelle.
 * Anna's first impressions of Hans were also similar to those of the Bimbettes towards Gaston, but her last impression (in which she calls him cold-hearted) is very similar to that of when Belle called Gaston a monster.
 * Ironically, Elsa's views on Hans were the opposite: She at first distrusted Hans similar to how Belle largely distrusted Gaston throughout her film, but by the end she ended up trusting Hans (due to Hans appearing merciful and understanding towards her) and being betrayed, similar to the Bimbettes' reactions if they were present at the lynch mob.
 * Unlike Gaston, Hans never openly boasts his plan in public.
 * Scar from The Lion King and Hades from Hercules are currently the only Disney Villains to be related to the main protagonist of the movie (Scar is Simba's uncle and Hades is Herc's uncle).
 * The Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Lady Tremaine from Cinderella don't count because they aren't biologically related to the protagonists of their respective films.
 * Ursula from The Little Mermaid was originally intended to be Ariel's aunt, Belle was originally going to have an aunt named Marguerite (Maurice's sister) as her film's antagonist, and Elsa from Frozen, the older sister of Anna, was originally intended to be the main antagonist until Hans was created.
 * Interestingly enough, Ursula actually has her own sister, named Morgana; and Hans has at least twelve older brothers.
 * In the novel Tarzan of the Apes, Clayton was Tarzan's biological cousin. It is questionable, if it's true in the Disney universe, as Tarzan's true name is never revealed.
 * Edgar Balthazar from The AristoCats seems to have more morality than most Disney Villains. When he was getting rid of Duchess and her kittens, he could've just killed them, but he chose to abandon them in the woods.
 * Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas is the only Disney Villain to be based on an actual person.
 * Hades is presumably the oldest of the Disney Villains, being an immortal god. Mother Gothel from Tangled, while she's not immortal, is presumably the oldest human Disney Villain.
 * Gaston and Judge Claude Frollo are the first and second male Disney Villains to have an obsession with the female lead of their respective films (Belle for Gaston and Esmeralda for Frollo).
 * Alameda Slim from Home on the Range is the only villain of the Post-Renaissance era to have his own song.
 * Maleficent's currently the only Disney Villain who serves as the main protagonist of their own feature film.
 * King Candy is the only Disney Villain whose appearance was designed to specifically resemble a Disney protagonist, that being the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Also, despite being credited as one of Disney's funniest villains, he's also one of Disney's darkest villains.
 * Captain Hook is the only villain to be a part in the Disney Adventurers line-up.
 * Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog is the fourth Disney character to have violet or purple eyes, the first three being Princess Aurora, Vanessa and Megara (all of whom are women), the second villain after Vanessa, and the only male character to have violet or purple eyes.
 * He's the first black Disney Villain.
 * He's the first Disney Villain to not have a big introduction into the film, as he first appears in the opening song in a casual way.
 * He's the fourth Disney Villain to be French or be of French origin.
 * Hans is the first Disney Villain to be a love interest to a Disney Hero/Heroine. However, it might not count, since Hans never really loved Princess Anna in the first place, and Anna's interest in Hans was more like a naive infatuation than actual love.