12 Lost Disney Characters You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

A Disney animated feature goes through several edits and re-writes before it ever makes it to the big screen. Sometimes for the better -- without cuts, we would've seen a comical turkey voiced by John Candy in 'Pocahontas.' Here are 10 Disney characters who join Redfeather in the league of those who didn't quite make the cut.

Deafy, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'

In the original Snow White story, the dwarfs all had generic names and no defined personalities. To flesh out the story and make the dwarfs more appealing characters, Walt Disney and his story team gave the dwarfs easily identifiable traits and names to match. But picking the names and personalities was no easy task, as evidenced by the sheer number of unused dwarfs.

Among the rejects was Deafy, sometimes called “Deefy.” As his name(s) suggests, Deafy was hard of hearing and frequently misheard what other characters said to him. Story drawings of Deafy still exist, proving that he was a more serious contender for a role in the film than other suggested dwarfs like Thrifty and Burpy. (Yes, there was a Burpy.)

Why was he cut? It's not clear whether Deafy was too offensive even for 1930s tastes or Sneezy -- who eventually replaced Deafy -- just had better comedic possibilities. Either way, Deafy was dumped and modern audiences were spared some cringe-inducing dated and insensitive gags.