Secondary characters that became stars

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ClothesRus

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What are some examples of cartoon characters that were intended to be supporting characters, but were so popular they became big stars in their own right?
 
Cosgrove-Hall's Count Duckula originally appeared as a guest on 2 episodes of Danger Mouse, but proved popular enough to receive his own series, albeit in a noticeably different form.
 
I think Harley Quinn would be the most notable character. She was created to fulfill a specific role in one episode of ?Batman: The Animated Series? and her popularity just skyrocketed.
 
Yogi Bear was originally a secondary character on The Huckleberry Hound Show, but became popular enough to star in his own series a couple of years after Huck.
 
Animaniacs was mentioned in a recent thread, which brings to mind...Pinky and the Brain! Bit characters who got thier own show. A quite substantial show, at that. (At least until the last season.)
 
Many of the characters from The Simpsons, including Krusty The Clown, Mr. Burns and Smithers, Apu, Moe, and many more are considered secondary characters, but they have all reached high popularity, including full episodes revolving around them. There are even a few characters, like Groundskeeper Willie and Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel, who were originally intended as one-shot characters, but were popular enough to become recurring characters and later have their own episodes.

Another one I can think of is Foghorn Leghorn. He first appeared in the 1946 cartoon Walky Talky Hawky, and was intended to be a secondary character in contrast to Henery Hawk, who was intended to be the star. He reached star power with the audience however, and now he is one of the most well-known Looney Tunes characters, whereas most people don't even know Henery Hawk's name.
 
One notable example of this is Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker, who 1st appeared in an Andy Panda cartoon "Knock-Knock" (1940), and was later developed as the studio's major star.
 
Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny come to mind. Heck, if you consider the fact that Beans was supposed to be the breakout star during that era, you'd also have to consider Porky Pig in that category.

I'm tentatively including the Tasmanian Devil in the category of secondary characters that became stars, though a lot of his popularity and personality evolved in the 90s. Still, Taz became a bigger star when other one-shot adversaries were written off for good.
 
Donald Duck, easily. He was only a secondary character in his Silly Symphonies debut, and then afterwards played second fiddle to Mickey. Donald quickly overshadowed Mickey, however, became an audience favorite and starred in many more cartoons than Mickey did, and continued to appear in theatrical releases long after the mouse retired from theaters.
 
Taz owes his career to studio head Jack O. Warner, who loved the Tasmanian Devil despite then WB cartoon producer Eddie Selzer hating the character and initially demanding that Taz never be used again after his first short, Bedeviled Rabbit. In fact Taz became amazingly popular among WB fans, not bad considering that there were only 5 theatrical cartoons made featuring the character throughout the original run of the studio.
 
Alright, if we are doing classic cartoon characters, I guess I'll throw in Tom and Jerry. When William Hanna and Joseph Barbera used the characters in the 1940 cartoon Puss Gets The Boot, they never intended to use the characters again, and in fact the cat and mouse weren't even known by those names, Tom was known as Jasper and Jerry was reportedly named Jinx on the model sheets. However, the characters became a hit with audiences, and through the next decade and a half Hanna and Barbera proceeded to make 113 more cartoons in the successful series, including tying with Disney as the series to receive the most Academy Awards, a total of seven times.
 
Brak from Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet. They gave him two spin-off series. With Zorak, now that I think of it.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and Moltar hosted Toonami during its early years, didn't he?

Homestarrunner.com's resident delinquent Strong Bad comes to mind as well.
 
Jimminy Cricket and Tinkerbell. The first started out as Pinocchios sidekick, the later as Peter Pans, but both are now among Disneys most prominent characters, having made many appearances in various TV specials, and also appears in the theme parks in countless places. Some people count them as two of only three characters that Disney appears to use to represent the company as a whole, the third of course being Mickey Mouse.
 
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