Regardless of how you feel about the company, Disney has been a part of all of our lives no matter how old or young you are. They’ve created a plethora of memorable characters over the years and since I’ve been a longtime Disney fan in my lifetime, I do have my own set of characters that I really do love and so I figured, why not? It’s time to do a list of my top 10 favorite Disney characters.
Now, I am going to set up some ground rules here, I’m only going for characters that were created by Disney or a co-production of Disney and not picked up the studio later on so, no, there will not be any Star Wars or Marvel characters on this list, because let’s be honest, those could fill out top 10 lists on their own but Pixar characters can make the list because Disney distributed all the Pixar movies.
Like with every list, this is my personal opinion and I know that everybody is going to have their own lists but this is just my personal list and trust me, this was not an easy list to put together at all, with that said, these are my top 10 favorite Disney characters.
10. Jack Skellington
From The Nightmare Before Christmas and voiced by Chris Sarandon with a singing voice by composer Danny Elfman, Jack Skellington was always one of those characters that just won me over the first time I saw this movie.
Skellington is a character that obviously has a love for his holiday of Halloween but he’s also pretty complex because as much as he loves Halloween, he wants more out of life and so when he finally sees what Christmas is like and decides that he wants to do this, he stays the same optimistic character throughout the majority of the film. When he takes over Christmas, he’s not doing it for sinister purposes, he sees something exciting and new to him and wants to bring this new idea into his life and while it doesn’t go as well as he wanted it to, he’s still, by the end, like “hey, I tried, might as well stick to what I do best.”
That’s what I really like about this character, even when his plans backfire, he still has this optimistic side to him that he’ll never give up regardless of the situation at hand.
9. Mickey Mouse
Yeah, I know I’m cheating by putting Mickey on this list but honestly, I can’t help it, Mickey Mouse is a fun character. Sure, he doesn’t have the slick wiseguy approach of Bugs Bunny to face against the bad guys but he’s still a very fun character to watch.
Like with Jack Skellington, he’s very optimistic and he has a good heart to him but at the same time, he’s basically a kid at heart but he has a humorous side to him that makes him very approachable.
Throughout the various interpretations of Mickey from the Steamboat Willie era to the recent Mickey shorts on Disney Channel, Mickey Mouse will always have that timeless quality to him as one of, if not Disney’s most iconic character.
8. Donald Duck
Donald Duck is just a character you can not help but love. He tries so hard to be a good person like Mickey but let’s be honest, when Donald snaps, its some of the most hilarious stuff you will ever see.
I always love watching the classic Donald Duck cartoons when he tries his hardest to deal with the situations at hand whether it’s with his nephews or Chip & Dale or even when it’s just real life, when he snaps and gets mad, that’s where a lot of the humor comes into play.
I know that Goofy should be on the list too because he and Donald in the classic cartoons are very much alike in a way and don’t get me wrong, I love Goofy too but when it comes to watching the comedic hijinks that come from a classic Disney character, I gotta go to Donald Duck.
7. Eddie Valiant
The only live-action character on this list surprisingly, this is, of course, Bob Hoskins’ character in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the reason why this character is one of my favorites is because he’s a complex but overall likeable character. He has this prejudice of toons because a toon killed his brother and yet, he’ll still take toon related cases regardless of his prejudices and when he encounters Roger Rabbit and learns of his situation, he realizes that he’s a person too even though he’s animated and what’s great about his character is that he, over the course of the film, goes from being the drunken detective with his own views on the world to more of what he was like when his brother was alive by the end of the film.
The scene where you have Eddie’s backstory told through scenes and the music by Alan Silvestri where it just shows all these pieces of Eddie’s past life with his brother and how they used to love hanging out with these toons is one of my favorite scenes in movie history because it does a good job of examining Eddie without any dialogue and letting the scene itself to the talking itself.
A sourpuss of a character but with a good heart in him to keep going through the movie.
6. Belle
For the longest time, Belle from Beauty & The Beast was my favorite of the Disney Princess characters and she still does hold up for a number of reasons. For one thing, she’s a beautiful woman but she’s not flaunting it out to people, she doesn’t care what people think of her as long as she’s nice to them, she does what nobody else in this little town does and for the most part, people give her a pass unlike a recent remake that decided that a large majority in this town has to be the biggest jerk to her…but let’s not talk about that mediocre remake, let’s just stick with the original animated movie.
What’s also great about Belle is that she’s smarter and more aware of situations than most of the town but even she’s finding herself in situations where her knowledge can’t really help her, mostly with the early scenes in the castle with the Beast, trying to get along with the Beast and realizing the more she’s around him that there is a person with a good heart in him but he doesn’t know how to show it and what I love about Beauty & The Beast that the remake fucked with is the continuity, you never really know how long Belle ends up in this castle and it shows with the progression of time how she and the Beast have come together in more ways than one over what seems to be a few months.
Add in the great voice of Paige O’Hara and you have one of Disney’s most memorable princess characters ever.
5. Elsa
Voiced by Idina Menzel, I love the character of Elsa from Frozen for a lot of the same reasons I like Belle in Beauty & The Beast in which she came off as a villain in some of the earlier trailers but when the movie came out, Elsa was just a good person who had just came under some unfortunate circumstances. She’s a great character who is fully aware of the Disney princess stereotypes and is not afraid to bring logic into a situation where somebody needs to come in and say something and not only that, she has the most iconic moment of the movie singing Let It Go.
When I first saw the movie for the first time, I was surprised at how well written of a character she was and she’s really the true highlight of this movie.
4. Mr. Incredible
Voiced by Craig T. Nelson, Mr. Incredible is a great character because he’s a character who has this passion to return to his superhero roots but he knows he has to be a normal family man so his cover isn’t blown that he was once a superhero regardless of how hard he tries. Like with Jack Skellington, his passion is definitely there to remain a superhero but he also has to hide this from his family over the course of the movie and he’s afraid that he can not be that hero when his family is in trouble, which culminates in a great line of dialogue from him just before the final fight where him and Elasti-Girl are arguing about fighting the bad guys and he just says the line “I can’t afford to lose you again” and you know that he is doing this so he can be not only the protector of the city but the protector of his own family to make sure they don’t get hurt or die and the movie does such a good job of making his character be conflicted but still likeable in the process.
3. Bambi
A character from my favorite movie of all time, you better believe the title star is gonna make the list. As I’ve talked about before, Bambi is one of the best coming-to-age stories ever and where a lot of the charm comes from is from its’ characters, specifically Bambi.
What makes Bambi such a great character is that a lot of people can relate to him in the different periods of his life, when he’s a baby deer being shown to the world from the first time to when he’s walking as a child for the first time to all the way up to when he grows up as an adult. There are even people who can relate to being in Bambi’s situation when he realizes he doesn’t have a mother anymore.
The character of Bambi is a simple character that resonates with a lot of people, I can look at Bambi and be like “yeah, I was that naïve and clueless when I was little” and see how he matures over the course of the film and see themselves in the situations as an adult, taking your place in the big plan of life and standing up against your enemies. Over the course of the film, you follow Bambi through his life and you can see yourself in that light as well and to me, that’s why he’s such a great character to me, simple but relatable.
2. Wall-E
Much like with Bambi, Wall-E works because he’s a simple but loveable character, he’s optimistic and he’s very curious of the world around him from meeting this other robot named EVE who he instantly is attracted to to seeing this impressive world where many of the humans that used to live on Earth are now living on this gigantic ship.
Also like Bambi, Wall-E is very little on dialogue and most of what he does is done through the character himself and some slight voice work by Ben Bruitt but other than that, most of the character gets his emotion and character out through the visuals and the script itself.
The character of Wall-E works because he’s simple to understand and leaves that lasting impression on you everything you see what he does.
and my #1 favorite Disney character is…
Stitch
Ever since I saw Lilo & Stitch for the first time, Stitch has always been my favorite Disney character.
Stitch is a great character because he can appeal to both genders, boys can like him because of his ability to be a mischievous troublemaker, like Disney’s equivalent of Bart Simpson, and his ability to destroy things but girls can love him because he is a cute creature who does have a heart to him.
To me, both of those elements come together so well with this character and also that Stitch is so loveable on both sides, he’s a badass but he also has the heart to him that makes him such a universally appealing character.
With Stitch, it’s hard not to love this little guy and he still remains my all-time favorite Disney character to this day.
Follow The Reviewing Network at our Facebook page at Facebook.com/TheReviewingNetwork for continuing updates and debuts for new blog posts and also follow my Twitter feed so you can see new postings right as they are posted.
The Reviewing Network 
Leave a comment