Dark Horse Characters in Franchises

[Belchic]

This is a topic I felt like bringing up for discussions. It seems that with every franchise, there is at least one dark horse character, a character who is not intended to be a main character, but somehow gained an enormous amount of popularity amongst the fans. In this topic, I would like to discuss dark horse characters who are very popular.

These are a few very popular ones that I know of:

Star Wars:

I think the #1 Ensemble Dark Horse in all of pop culture would have to be Boba Fett from the original Star Wars trilogy. Originally, he was in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but he actually made his first appearance in the holiday special. *does the sign of the cross* He didn't play a very big role in either of the two films he was in, but still, the fans love him. I think when George Lucas was working on the Star Wars Special Edition trilogy in the 90's, he was aware of Boba Fett's popularity, so he decided as a special bonus and treat to the fans to give him a brief cameo in the special edition of A New Hope. I think it was nice to see Boba as a kid in Attack of the Clones and get a little backstory from him too.

101 Dalmatians: The Series:

Okay, obviously, since this forum is dedicated to this particular series, I do know for a fact that this series is LOADED with dark horse characters! Here are the ones that I know of:

1. There are several people on this board who are obsessed with Two-Tone, and they love her so much to the point where they think she deserved to be the fourth main pup instead of Spot.
2. Tripod is also very popular with a lot of people on this board.
3. babclayman seems to be obsessed with Wizzer.
4. Some pups here like Dipstick a lot.
5. The one-shot character, Rebecca, seems to have gotten a lot of popularity with a lot of people as well.
6. At a time, Patch was popular with quite a few people, but I'm not sure if he still is.
7. Two-Tone seems to be really obsessed with Amber and Ivy, especially with Amber!
8. Jewel was a dark horse with a lot of members too, even though she never appeared in the series.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:

Three particular dark ponies in this series come to mind:

1. Derpy Hooves is the prime example. This is a character who only makes one brief cameo in the background of pretty much every episode and hardly says anything, yet she is extremely popular with so many people who watch this show!
2. A lot of people on this board who watch the show seem to be obsessed with Princess Luna; I don't know why.
3. Two-Tone seems to have a big liking toward Doctor Hooves.

Lilo & Stitch:

This franchise has one particular dark horse character: Angel. I can see why she's so popular, given that she's pretty much a female counterpart of Stitch. It's no big surprise that this inspired so much Stitch/Angel fanart.

Those are the only big dark horse characters that I know of. I would like others to please contribute to this and list other dark horses from other franchises, particularly really popular ones. TV Tropes lists some ensemble dark horses, but they're like spread out all over the place (divided into different categories). Also, the last time I was on that page, I got attacked by a virus, so I don't want to take any risks.

So, if anyone knows of any other popular ensemble dark horses, please let me know, because I'm trying to put together a list of the Top 11 Ensemble Dark Horse Characters!

[Trey_Vore]

Good topic Belchic. I got some for ya:

The Simpsons

Two characters come to mind: Apu Nahasapemapetitlon and Milhouse Van Houten. They are both great characters and add a good amount of support and no one hates them in the slightest. You can even debate that Apu might be the Simpson family's Sixth Ranger.

Family Guy

Boy there's a lot here. Some of them include:

-Glenn Quagmire
-Greased Up Deaf Guy
-Ollie Williams
-Bruce the Performance Artist
-The Evil Monkey
-The Giant Chicken

Classic Disney Shorts

Donald Duck began his career as one. Today he has more cartoons to his name than Mickey Mouse.

Transformers Animated

The triple-faced, German accented Decepticon Blitzwing has one face that has him look like Colonel Klink, another that has him look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and another that has him look like Jack Skellington. He's an easy pick for an Ensemble Darkhorse.

American Dad!

During the planning stages for this series it was envisioned as a modern day All in the Family; the oldest characters were Stan and Hayley Smith. When the show started they added the wife Francine, son Steve, goldfish Klaus and the alien Roger. The producers thought that Klaus was going to be the Ensemble Darkhorse but that quickly became Roger. Today Stan, Francine, Steve and Roger dominate the show and Hayley and Klaus are basically "Artifacts".

Tiny Toon Adventures

Some of the characters' popularity might be on-again/off-again. There's one consistently popular character, who happens to be the Ensemble Darkhorse Fifi La Fume.

Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers

She only appeared in one episode, but Foxglove the Bat became an insanely popular character and many fans prefer to think of her lone episode as the series finale.

Batman (1989)

Bob the Goon. He even had his own action figure!

The Lion King

Admit it. The moment Timon and Pumbaa showed up, you wanted to see a LOT more of them.

[babclayman]

Wasn't Harley Quinn a bit of a Darkhorse as well?

She started as just another henchmen for the Joker, before she became Extremely Popular! o.o

Isn't that right, Trey?

Still, This seems an Interesting thread! ;3
I'll see what I can do on finding some Darkhorse Soon, okay, Belchic? X3

[Belchic]

I find it surprising that Donald Duck was a dark horse character at a time.

I think I may have to disagree on Timon and Pumbaa. They were the most popular characters on the movie even though they were supporting characters. They even got their own spin-off TV series. The same case goes for the penguins from Madagascar.

[RaceFanX]

Does the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard count? Despite being the main character's car on a live-action show the Charger got more fan mail asking for autographs than the actors.

[Trey_Vore]

I think it should count.

Garfield and Friends

Here's two:

Garfield - Odie has a popularity that rivals Garfield's.

U.S. Acres - The one character that seems to have a fanbase is Wade Duck.

[Belchic]

I have a book that's part of my Easter decor, and it's based on U.S. Acres. It's a story about Booker attempting to catch the Easter Bunny. At the back of the book, it showed all the characters from the show, but included were 2 characters who I never saw appear in the show at all: a cat named Blue, and a dog named Cody. Do you know anything about these characters, Trey? And would they count as dark horses?

[RaceFanX]

Blue and Cody were characters in the comic strip only and never animated on the show, they didn't last very long before being phased out without explaination and neither were apparently very popular.

[Belchic]

Jan 6, 2012 1:58:35 GMT -5 @RaceFanX said:

Blue and Cody were characters in the comic strip only and never animated on the show, they didn't last very long before being phased out without explaination and neither were apparently very popular.

To the best of my knowledge, there was never a U.S. Acres comic strip...unless the strip ran during a time when I wasn't reading newspaper comics.

[RaceFanX]

U.S. Acres was based on Jim Davis' other comic strip that ran from 1986 to 1989, it wasn't popular in newspapers and died off even though Garfield and Friends was on the air at the time...
www.garfield.com/usacres/todayscomic.html

Here's more info on its run...
www.platypuscomix.net/otherpeople2/usacres1.html

[Trey_Vore]

Well, here's the thing...

Yes, that is right. In the U.S. Acres strip, there was Orson the Pig, Roy Rooster, Wade Duck, Booker, Sheldon, Bo, Lanolin, Cody the Dog and Blue the Cat.

Cody the Dog and Blue the Cat were... a dog and cat. When they decided to bring U.S. Acres to Garfield and Friends, they already had a very large cast to squeeze into a 7 minute sketch, and remember that on the Garfield part of the show Garfield is a cat and Odie is a dog. If Cody and Blue were featured on the show, they'd probably make the already unpopular U.S. Acres seem very crowded and redundant (well, Garfield and Odie are already established and popular. Why would you need another cat and another dog?)

That is pretty much the reason Cody and Blue never got animated.

[RaceFanX]

Despite only appearing in the 1996 episode "You Only Move Twice" Hank Scorpio from the Simpsons is still pretty popular. Scorpio temporarily became Homer's boss in that episode which revealed that despite being a really nice guy to his employees he's actually a very component "Bond villain" type. Over a decade after his one-shot role the makers of the Simpsons still considered him for the role of main bad guy in "The Simpsons Movie."

Another popular one-off is Frank Grimes from the 1997 episode "Homer's Enemy." While Grimes flipped out and died at the end of his only episode he is still very popular because of how he was written, he acted exactly as a normal person in the real world would if they had to deal with Homer (he freaks out when he sees what kind of dangerous stuff Homer tries at the nuclear power plant).

[Trey_Vore]

Oct 14, 2011 13:55:53 GMT -5 Belchic said:

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:

Three particular dark ponies in this series come to mind:

1. Derpy Hooves is the prime example. This is a character who only makes one brief cameo in the background of pretty much every episode and hardly says anything, yet she is extremely popular with so many people who watch this show!
2. A lot of people on this board who watch the show seem to be obsessed with Princess Luna; I don't know why.
3. Two-Tone seems to have a big liking toward Doctor Hooves.

I think I have another character who can be added to this list: Trixie.

After I did my rock band pic, I got a request that it be featured in a Trixie fan club on DeviantART.

[Belchic]

True. Trixie does have a big fan base too. And that's cool that you got that offer/request Trey! It's also nice to see people reviving old topics.

[RaceFanX]

On 'Knight Rider' Michael's evil twin Garthe Knight, Wilton Knight's actual son played by David Hasselhoff wearing fake facial hair in a double role in the double-length episode "Goliath" (named for Garthe's semi-truck equipped with the same indestructable compound as K.I.T.T.), and the one-off villain Adrianne Margeaux (the bad guy of the episode "Soul Survivor" where she seduced a computer wiz to help her still the car used as K.I.T.T.) were so popular the two became the only human villains to come back for an encore. The pair unite to tag-team Michael and K.I.T.T. in the double-length episode "Goliath Returns" but both of them and Goliath met their ends during the climax of the episode. Margeaux' actress Ann Turkel came back to play a similar but different character in a later episode any way.

The only other Knight Rider villain to come back for a Round 2 was K.I.T.T.'s own evil twin K.A.R.R. Originally featured in first season episode voiced by the one and only Peter Cullen...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpeQkhhVxSE
...K.A.R.R., K.I.T.T.'s original prototype designed to survive at all costs, was destroyed at the end of his original episode only to have it reconned away so he could return in the third season. K.A.R.R. died again, with a little hint perhaps he survived this time, and while he didn't return on the original show he remains so popular a new version of K.A.R.R. again voiced by Cullen appeared in an episode of the 2008 remake of Knight Rider.