10 Facts About Cartoon Characters That Show Them From a Totally New Angle

It seems that we have watched Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Shrek a thousand times and know them by heart. We use quotes from them and remember all the iconic moments, but we still don’t know a lot of interesting stories behind the characters of these cartoons. For example, Lady and the Tramp almost didn’t have the spaghetti noodle kiss in that famous dinner scene.

The Bright Side team decided to learn more about our favorite cartoon characters and wants to tell you some unexpected facts about them.

Shrek was originally red-nosed, had no teeth, and lived in a dump.

In the early drafts, Shrek was very different from the Shrek we know. He had a red nose, no teeth, he wore sandals, and looked much goofier. In the book the animation was based on, he was fire-breathing.

Also, he didn’t live in the swamp right away. He was supposed to live in a dump near a village. But these ideas didn’t work with the image of a lonely and misunderstood character. So the creators decided to put him near a swamp.

The Beast became one because he didn’t love a fairy.

The oldest version of Beauty and the Beast was different from the Disney cartoon. The prince lost his father when he was a child, so his mother had to rule the kingdom and left him in the care of an evil fairy. So the fairy turned the prince into a beast because he didn’t love her.

A character from Little Women was the inspiration for Belle.

The first movie adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women that was released in 1933 was the inspiration for the creators of Beauty and the Beast. Belle’s independent temper was partially based on Jo March.

Jo was the smartest one among her sisters, she loved reading and writing, and she didn’t like the idea of marriage. In the modern version (2019), Saoirse Ronan portrayed her.

Jackie Chan was the voice of the Chinese version of Beauty and the Beast.

In China, Beast from Beauty and the Beast spoke in the voice of Jackie Chan. The actor also needed the music education he received at opera school. Aside from voicing one of the characters, he also sang some of the song, including the most famous one, “Beauty and the Beast” by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson in the original version.

Scar from The Lion King was supposed to be a baboon.

The original version of The Lion King was very different from what we saw. The story was centered around the competition between lions and baboons. Scar was still an antagonist, but a baboon. Rafiki was a cheetah. Simba would also not leave the kingdom but, instead, would become a “lazy, slovenly, horrible character” due to manipulations from Scar, so Simba could be overthrown after coming of age.

The fairies from Sleeping Beauty are based on elderly women.

The creators of the cartoon watched elderly ladies at wedding receptions and in grocery stores. They noticed some key features in their behavior: many women wore hats and walked fast, no matter where they went. This was what the 3 good fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, were based on.

Diego wasn’t supposed to survive at the end of Ice Age.

At the end of the first Ice Age, there was a scene where Diego was fighting other saber-toothed tigers. He was wounded, and other characters lost hope he would live. But soon, Diego wakes up and catches up with his friends.

In the first version of the cartoon, Diego actually died. But this scene made the kids that watched it cry, so the creators decided to change Diego’s fate, so he was in the next parts of the franchise.

Rapunzel’s hair was designed based on art.

One of the main goals of the animators was to create an effect that looked like oil paintings. They didn’t want any photorealism, they just wanted to make the hair look gorgeous. Jean-Honore Fragonard’s paintings were used as a reference to create the hairstyle.

Elsa’s prototype was Amy Winehouse.

One of the 2 main characters in Frozen was originally inspired by Amy Winehouse — a British singer with a tragic fate. At the early stages of production, Elsa had dark hair and big eyes.

Artist Claire Keane that worked on this character also said that she imagined her to have a deep, soulful voice and dramatic mood swings. But then the character changed quite a bit. But the drama in Elsa’s look and her big eyes remained unchanged.

The famous spaghetti moment and the kiss between Lady and the Tramp almost didn’t happen.

This episode today is one of the most famous in the movie industry. But Walt Disney didn’t want this scene to be in the cartoon. He wanted the characters to be human-like, and he believed that this kind of behavior in dogs was unbelievable. The animals sharing food couldn’t look elegant. But in the end, Franklin Thomas developed a draft of the scene that eventually persuaded Disney.

Do you like these cartoon characters? Which facts about them amazed you the most? Tell us in the comment section below!