Peg Leg Pete
Mickey's villaneous foe.
Mickey's villaneous foe.
His first appearance in comics was in
Death Valley
from 1930, but he had existed a long time on the screen before that.
In fact he predates his usual adversary
Mickey Mouse, as he was a bad guy already
in the early Alice Comedies, and he debuted there in 1925.
Pete had his peg leg until 1936 in the cartoons. In the comics it
lasted until 1941, when the story
Mystery at Hidden River
explained how
he had gotten an artifical leg that looked real.
Occasionally he resumed his peg leg in later stories though,
for example in The World of Tomorrow
(1944).
He has had lots of names over the years: Peg-Leg Pete, Black Pete, Big Pete, Big Bad Pete, and Dirty Pete are some of them. Before 1930 he was sometimes called Putrid Pete and Bootleg Pete. And there's a late-1970s story where he's referred to as Bold Pete. He was called Sneaky Pete
for a little while too.
This name was eventually shown the door when it was decided that,
given that this was the name of a certain mixed drink, it would imply
that Pete got his name by being an alcoholic.
The name Big Bad Pete originated with a 1932 publicity release
that unaccountably named him Big Bad Bill. When looking for a new
name in the mid-1980s, Disney executives saw this and went for it.
The advertisment for the first Mickey daily
announced Pete as Terrible Tom - The Vile Villain
!
Another name was Louie the Leg.
Often he has an accomplice who has had several names over the years, but sometimes is known as Catfoot.
Versions of Pete occasionally appear in Barks stories.
Many had only subtle resemblances to the real
Pete, but the most
glaring examples are:
Pirate Gold(not written by Barks).
Frozen Gold.
The Inventors' Contest.