The Old Prisoner is a minor character in Disney's 1996 animated feature film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He is an elderly man who serves as a running gag in the film, where he is accidentally freed from a prison, cheers in joy, and ends up inadvertently trapping himself in yet another prison.
Role in the film[]
When Esmeralda and her goat Djali try to escape from Frollo's soldiers, she knocks a large cage which contains an old prisoner in it to the ground, and it rolls away with Esmeralda and Djali riding on top of it and then jumping off it, causing it to land on top of the soldiers and knock them out, breaking open the door to the cage in the process.
When the Old Prisoner realizes he is free, he happily says "I'm free, I'm free!". Unfortunately, his freedom is short-lived, as due to having lived in that cage for years, if not decades, his less-than-graceful balance causes him to trip on the cage and stumble right into a stockade, which closes and locks on him, thus imprisoning him again, to which he says "Dang it!"
A few days later, as the citizens of Paris and the French army are fighting Frollo's soldiers, one of the soldiers accidentally breaks the lock off the stockade with a beam, to which the Old Prisoner becomes free again. Once again, he happily celebrates his freedom by screaming "I'm free, I'm free!". He is so busy celebrating his freedom, that he does not pay attention to where he is going, and he falls into a hole with a sign next to it that says "Mon Sewer". After this, he once again says "Dang it!" He is not seen throughout the rest of the film after this and is presumed to be rescued by the French army.
Trivia[]
- The Old Prisoner's design bears a striking resemblance to Jafar's beggar disguise in the film Aladdin, released four years earlier.
- The Old Prisoner is voiced by the film's director Gary Trousdale.
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