The Bimbettes

Claudia, Laura, and Paula, or The Bimbettes, are a trio of exceedingly ditzy, beautiful blonde women who fawn over Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. They wear red, yellow, and green dresses respectively.

Background
The Bimbettes, whose real names are Claudia (red dress), Laura (yellow dress) and Paula (green dress), are triplet sisters presumably working as waitresses at a local tavern in the unnamed French village that is the home of Belle. Like most of the young women of the village, they are infatuated with Gaston, but he has no interest in marrying any of them because he wants the most beautiful girl in town as his wife. Like Gaston, they only like someone just because of how cute or dreamy they look, never by their personality. Although they are not smart, they have had moments of cleverness, a notable instance being when one of the Bimbettes realistically disguised herself as Belle, anticipating that Gaston would want to choose Belle at a wife auction, not letting up the disguise until after she won Gaston during the auction.

Personality
In regards to personality, from what we see of them in both the film and musical play, collectively the Bimbettes act like the fan-girls of any cute, attractive Hollywood celebrity, or schoolgirls that are infatuated with the cute boy in class. They think Belle is crazy for not admiring Gaston as much as they do. They also get upset very easily too. Additionally, like most of the women in the village, they are also exceedingly ditzy, which is what sets them and said women apart from a woman like Belle, who spends most of her time reading and studying rather than shopping and looking pretty for men. This is one of the girls' positive qualities as well, as it has endeared them to quite the huge fan-base in recent years.

Beauty and the Beast
They first appear in the introduction song of the film, where they are remarking on how Gaston's dreamy, cute and a strong brute. They are so busy singing about how much they love Gaston that they accidentally squirt water on LeFou (as they are getting water (presumably for making beer in the tavern) and don't realize it. Afterwards, they, while witnessing Belle rejecting Gaston's advances, state how Belle is crazy because of the way she deals with Gaston. They are also devastated when Gaston decides to marry Belle, as they are seen crying and sobbing uncontrollably when he is announcing that he will propose to Belle, although they later comforted him at the Tavern after his plan to marry her backfired with him falling into mud. During "Gaston", the three Bimbettes are sitting on a bench and Gaston picks the Bench with them up and shows off his muscles to the Bimbettes and then throws their bench back down onto LeFou. They were apparently also in support of Gaston's plan to blackmail Belle, but despite this were not present at the Lynch Mob that congregated at Belle's house to evict Maurice to the Asylum. The Bimbettes aren't seen throughout the rest of the film after this, nor do we see their reaction to Gaston's death. However, the coloring book reveals that they were invited to Belle and Adam's wedding, where they compete to catch Belle's bouquet, suggesting that they have let go of Gaston.

Comics
In a comic released by Marvel in 1994, three years after the release of the movie, one of the Bimbettes (Claudia) managed to realistically disguise herself as Belle to get to Gaston during a wife auction (Gaston naturally wanting Belle). It works for a few moments, but the other two Bimbettes notice the ruse and rip her disguise away. To complete her disguise, she grabs a book, but hides it from Gaston because he hates the idea of women reading. Afterwards, they are seen sitting on a bench in the tavern, once again swooning over Gaston.

Beauty and the Beast (musical)
In the Musical, their roles are the same, although they are given more dialogue, Gaston pays more attention to them, and their role is expanded slightly. It is also implied that Gaston might still see them after he marries Belle when they are upset that he's marrying Belle. They are referred to as the Silly Girls in the musical (because the term "bimbette" is often considered offensive), and there can be more than three of them if a director chooses to cast more girls. However, in the original Broadway musical, similar to in the original film, they do not appear during "The Mob Song", but can appear if a director chooses to expand their role further. Additionally, some school productions of the musical have Silly Girls of different races.

House of Mouse
The Bimbettes appear several times in the show as cameo characters, all voiced by Kath Soucie. In the episode "Big Bad Wolf Daddy", Gaston seems to be annoyed with them singing a song with Zeke Wolf, even if he ignored them in the movie. They also acted as groupies for Donald Duck in the episode "Three Caballeros", when the duck became The Duck Formerly Known as Donald--they called Donald "super-duper duck-a-riffic".

Disney Parks
The Bimbettes also make an appearance at the parks, but they currently only appear in the stage show (during the opening scenes only) and unfortunately are not meetable characters in spite of Gaston recently appearing at Walt Disney World in Florida. This is likely due to them not being the most important characters in the movie, even though they have a pretty good fan-base of both male and female fans. Occasionally in some performances of the stage show, one of the Bimbettes is dark-skinned (pictured at right). This is likely an "understudy Bimbette" in case one of the actresses playing them can't be on stage. Despite the fact that they seemingly work as waitresses at the tavern in the movie, they aren't present at the theme park equivalent. The girls, however, were meetable at Disneyland Paris at one point, but were at some point dropped from the character roster.

Their role in the stage show is the same as in the movie, but with a difference - at one point, during the Gaston number, they faint on the floor with a thud, something they only did in Belle.

Trivia

 * At one point in the movie Claudia has Belle's/Vanessa's hairstyle, Laura has Jasmine's, and Paula has Ariel's. However, at the end of the reprise to Gaston, all three girls have Jasmine's hairstyle, likely as the result of an animation error that could not be fixed in time for the movie's release. During the song and pretty much the whole time they're shown in the movie, their hairstyles continually switch around.
 * Claudia and Laura were voiced by the late Mary Kay Bergman and Paula was voiced by Kath Soucie (Who coincidentally voices The Enchantress in The Enchanted Christmas, who bears some resemblance to her).
 * In House of Mouse, they are all voiced by Kath Soucie due to Mary Kay Bergman's death by that point.
 * In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Flop Starz", the Ferbettes (Who were Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, Milly, Gretchen and Adyson Sweetwater) parodied the name, and are known for singing the song Gitchee Gitchee Goo.
 * A few characters with a similar design and personality also appeared in Aladdin.
 * The name "Bimbette" more than likely comes from the American word, "bimbo", which means 'a physically attractive woman who lacks intelligence, and also uses her body to get what she wants'.
 * Even though Disney doesn't acknowledge the girls very much (currently refraining them from making meet-and-greets in the parks, for example) and that they are on the side of good ultimately, it is their swooning over Gaston that ultimately feeds his ego and causes him to devolve psychologically into a true monster. However, the fact that he was considered a "hero" of the village implies that he did initially have some good in him.
 * Even though the girls are called the "Bimbettes" in the film and "Silly Girls" in the musical, they're unofficially known by many other monikers, such as the "Tavern Girls", "Village Girls", "Babettes" (which coincidentally is a name shared with Fifi the Featherduster, who is renamed Babette in the play), "Triplets" and even "Barmaids". Even their actual given names were never revealed until the Platinum Edition DVD was released.
 * Despite their "minor character" and "set piece" status in the movie, there has been a recent influx of fan art of the girls on the Internet by fans who love her, and are trying to revive them for newer generations on DeviantArt.