Wacky Bird Syndrome: Found in many animated properties.

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Animated sidekicks are nothing new. From Thumper in Bambi to present day Dug in Up. But there seems (to me at least) one type of sidekick that stands out in particular. I've always found this brand of animated second banana a bit more funnier and entertaining then the rest... until I sat down one day and compared just how 'many' of these types there are. And the type of sidekick I speak of: The Bird Sidekick. Feel free to draw similiarites...

Iago: He has his own distinct personality, to be sure, but is possibly the most abused of all the sidekicks in Aladdin and has some of the most wackiest moments. Consider Carpet, the Genie, Abu and Rajah. All shown in certain wacky situation; but who takes the lead in all the injury-prone insults?

During the seventies I recall that this trend began with the bird from The Rescuers. Now why this character was original at the time, I've seen the persona pop up in other movies after it. The Secret of NIMH'S crow, Little Mermaid's Scuttle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't help drawing comparsions to bird sidekicks who draw away from the main protagonist(s) endeavours.
 
Not technically an animated property, in the comic book series Lucky Luke in some book cover, there was some vultures waiting to see if a cowboy will pass away. Note then it was recycled in the animated adaptation "Daisy Town" as the undertaker's sidekick but it didn't got a role in the animated series of the early 1980s.

 
It's not so much that they appear a lot, it's just that they follow a similiar pattern.
Look at the bird from The Rescuers that appeared in the first movie, his role is clearly comic relief. And then on into the 2nd movie around the early '90's he appears again for nothing more then to act wacky and lighten an otherwise serious plot. What is sort of interesting to me is that in Secret of NIMH, Don Bluth's first animated feature in his attempt to take on Disney, he wants to try and connect with the old Disney spirit and yet he feels the need to add a character - the crow that appears infrequently - to what is again a serious plot.

Maybe I'm overreacting. There's a lot of sidekicks that function this way, Timon and Pumbaa, Turk from Tarzan. But it just seems to me that the bird characters don't ever appear more then just wacky, nonsensical beings. There were several serious apes aside from Turk (Kala, Kerjack) and even Timon and Pumbaa rise to the occasion. But what do these bird sidekicks serve only to lessen the impact of the plot and/or distract from it entirely?
 
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