The Big Bad Wolf is a fictional character who first appeared in the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood folktales that can be traced to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The character's best known incarnation is the villain of Walt Disney's animation Three Little Pigs, directed by Burton Gillett and first released on May 27, 1933. The Wolf's voice was provided by William Bletcher . As in the folktale, he was a cunning and threatening menace. But this version had also a taste for disguising himself; the audience could easily see through his disguises but they were convincing enough for the Pigs. The short also introduced the Wolf's theme song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", written by Frank Churchill .

The short was so popular that Walt Disney produced several sequels, which also featured the Wolf as the villain. The first of them was named after him: The Big Bad Wolf, also directed by Burton Gillet and first released on April 14, 1934.

The Wolf next appeared in Mickey's Polo Team, directed by David Dodd Hand and first released on January 4, 1936. The short featured a game of Polo between four of Disney's animated characters (one of whom was the Wolf) and four animated caricatures of noted film actors.

He also appears in Lil Bad Wolf comic book stories as Lil Bad Wolf's father, here called Zeke Wolf, who wants his son to be as mean as he is but he can't live up to his father's expectations.

The Big Bad Wolf has become a regularly recurring puppet character on Sesame Street, appearing usually in purple fur. He is generally puppeteered by Jerry Nelson.

The comic book series Fables by Bill Willingham features a reformed Big Bad Wolf as its protagonist.

External links

• Internet Movie Database's profile of William Bletcher, his voice actor