> 
> On with my point.  Two of my more favorite minor characters are Peg-Leg 
> Pete and Horace Horsecollar (don't ask me why - I don't know) But I have 
> never seen any mention of them here.  Do you use them very much? or at 
> all?  What are names over there?  Just thought I'd ask.
> 
Well, even in the States, Pete has gone through an evolution. Since a
handdicapped villain would be thought to imply that all handicapped people 
are villains, Pegleg Pete long since grew his leg back. No more jokes like
the one I saw recently in a '30s Mickey Mouse cartoon ("Mickey's Service
Station"), in which a fancily dressed Pete is shown wearing spats: a 
regular-sized spatterdash on his one shoe, and a miniature spat on his
peg-leg. He later became Black Pete, but supposedly the use of the word
"black" became problematic, so then he was Sneaky Pete...until somebody
realized sneaky pete is a kind of alcoholic drink. More recently he was
Big Bad Pete...and for all I know, he's just Pete now.

Speaking of peg-legs, I just translated a long Dutch story for Gladstone
in which Donald dresses up like a pirate, even to putting on a peg-leg.
THERE IS NO POSSIBLE PLACE TO PUT HIS REAL LEG AND FOOT! Yet he's shown
wearing a peg-leg as if his real leg and foot are missing! Weird...surreal...
(and one of the nephews is shown wearing an earring...with no ear to
attach it to).

As for Horace Horsecollar, I always thought the German name for him was
inspired. The German word for "horse" is "Pferd," so his name in German
became "Pferdinand." Incidentally, I've seen a Horace Horsecollar PVC
figure on sale in some toy stores, modeled in the '30s style. Nifty!

--Dwight Decker

(just a Mickey Mouse translator)

