Super Ellsworth
(Super Genius)

        Ellsworth was created on October 30, 1949 by Bill Walsh and Manuel Gonzales for a Mickey Mouse strip (ZM 49-10-30) in which he was an anthropomised [?] mynah bird, with a beret and carried the full name Ellsworth Bhezer. First, he was intended to be a simple pet of  Goofy, but he quickly became Mickey's sidekick in some adventurs, until Scarpa created his adoptive son, Bruto, because Ellsworth had a too strong personnality... He was said to make adventures all over the world, and sometimes came back to Mouseton. While he seemed to become a real anthropomised character, not a pet anymore, he still used to fly, unlike the other characters, which made him a special character. Now he doesn't fly anymore, in modern stories, and is considered as a character like the others... he doesn't were his beret anymore but a cap. He is very talkative, egoistical, egocentric, selfish, and vain. In France, from 1986 to 1997 (aproximative dates), he was often given a place in a one-page gag, most of the time written by François Corteggiani, arted by José Miguel Tortajada Aguilar, and inked by Comicup Studio, in which he was shown to live at Goofy's, which makes us ask ourselves this question again : is he a pet or a "human" character? At the beginning of the Genius (his French name, note that the correct orthograph is Genius and not Génius, as I often believed) series by Corteggiani and Aguilar, he acted more like a pet (he was brought to the vet,...), but in the later "episodes" of this gag series, he seems to be a character like the others.
   Let's speak about his hidden identity : in this very gag series, and even in a longer story, he had already taken the appearance of... Super Genius !!!
Super Genius, who would be called Super Ellsworth in English,  appeared in the following 8 gags :  F JM 97316, from April 23, 1997 ("Le Journal de Mickey" #2340),  F JM 97322, from June 25, 1997 (JM 2349),  F JM 97324, from July 9, 1997 (JM 2351),  F JM 97325, from July 16, 1997 (JM 2352),  F JM 97326, from July 23, 1997 (JM 2353),  F JM 97317, from November 19, 1997 (JM 2370),  F JM 97350, from December 24, 1997 (JM 2375),  F JM 97323, December 31, 1997 (JM 2376).(Some appearances are not listed in I.N.D.U.C.K.S.), all by Corteggiani, Aguilar and Comicup.
But another version of Super Genius appeared in the 8-paged goofy story entitled "Super Genius", F JM 97212, from April 30, 1997 (JM 2341). This could have been understandable if it was bi different authors, but it's still written by Corteggiani (the art is by Conrado Lazaro and the ink by Comicup)!!! So I found an explanation... The long story, althought it was published after the first gag, must happen before...
 
 

In this story, Genius looks at a TV series, a superhero called Superragou, and tells Goofy that he feels he was born to be a superhero, but when Goofy mocks at him, he gets angry and answers him that anyway, he doesn't know anything about Superheroes. And Goofy answers "And who do you think Supergoofy was?" (this adds to the debate we had several times on the list, and that I like very much : "who knows who Supergoofy is?"). Ellsworth asks him if he has supergobbers yet, and Goofy gives him a supergobber, but this doesn't work on Ellsworth (although it worked on a lot of characters such as Big Bad Wolf,... Maybe it's because Ellsworth is just a pet, or maybe Goofy wanted, after all, to keep his secret). Anyway, Ellsworth decides to be a superhero, and as he can't have superpowers, he can still have a special superhero dressing, and he makes a ridiculous purple costume (I'm sure I've seen this costume design somewhere, maybe on Fethry, once). He is finally catched by the police, and photographied for a soda add... Neighbours mock at him. Maybe he understood his costume was ridiculous, and he made another one, the one we should call the "usual", the "normal", the "regular" costume...

 
 

His appearance in the first gag,  F JM 97316 : Not exactly the definitive appearance : the knot is red, and he were gloves, and his cape is blue, not red.

 

About the difference between the two costumes, notice that in the purple one, the letter "SG" are seen, while in the definitive appearance, Ellsworth keeps his "G" shirt.

As I already told, Super Genius doesn't have ant superpowers, except in  F JM 97323, in which he is seen flying, and he says "Super Genius finally has superpowers", but it is in fact a dream. (Curiously, he doesn't seem to remember that he used to fly in his first stories :-))

Actually, I cheated a bit : his actual first appearance, according to I.N.D.U.C.K.S., was the gag F JM 93325, published in JM 2140... I think this doesn't change anything to my reflection, as he probably wore the "regular" costume, as it's a gag, but I'm not quite sure, as the art is from other artists, José Ramon Bernadó and Isabel Penalva even if the writing is Corteggiani's...
   I hope you had fun while discovering this new Disney character we French are the only ones to have today :-)
 
 

Gilles MAURICE
goofy313g@free.fr
icq #162434490
http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/