Charles, Antoine, and Loni are major characters who appears in the musical adapation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, based on the characters, Victor, Hugo, and Laverne, from the 1996 animated film.
Background[]
The Gargoyles, renamed Charles, Antoine, and Loni, are featured in the German musical adaptation, in which they are explicitly depicted as Quasimodo's imaginary friends. They try to encourage Quasimodo to leave Notre Dame and rescue Esmeralda. They also try to comfort him after Esmeralda dies. They don't have the over the top personalities that their Disney counterparts have nor are they as silly. Their levity is light-hearted and subtle. The Gargoyles also had a darker nature in the musical, as they are the ones who told Quasimodo to kill Frollo near the musical's end.
The Gargoyles don't appear in the North American version, in which they are replaced with a choir of saint statues, who also act as the musical's "Greek chorus", both narrating the story and acting as Quasimodo's friends.
Trivia[]
- Their names in the musical bear homage to three previous actors of Quasimodo in past adaptations of The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton, and Anthony Quinn.
- Notably, the names Charles, Antoine, and Loni were among the names suggested for the trio in the film, but all those names, as well as the names Chaney, Laughton, and Quinn, were dropped in order to avoid a potential lawsuit from the estates of Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton, or Anthony Quinn for using their names.
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