The Mystery Cartoon Character Game, ongoing-ier.

Thanks, OUB. Now for one that should be solved with just three clues:

1. I'm a predator by nature.

2. I relentlessly pursue a coconut-hating castaway.

3. I can't stand being whacked with mallets and baseball bats.

It's Dopey Dick from Rabbitson Crusio.

Yep. You got it again, Salty. Good job.

1. Self-explanatory.

2. This shark goes after Yosemite Sam, who hates coconuts.

3. Sam uses mallets and baseball bats to fend him off.

So you go again.

Thanks, I finally got one together.

I only appear once in the first minute or so in the short.
First I was the predator, then I became the prey.
My short wasn't very popular, but it was significant.

I truly have no idea. There are many others who probably saw this one.

Hopefully these next three clues will do it.

After my bit, the short moved on to a butcher and some dogs.
My short gave Disney the confidence to go on with his sound cartoon.
That's because he thought my short was rotten.

Still don't have it. I found one silent short, but I'm not sure if its character is the right one.

Hmm.. when Walt Disney was in New York looking for somewhere to record the track for Steamboat Willie he was shown the Fables cartoon Dinner Time, which had been given a sound track. His verdict, in a letter home to Roy, was "MY GOSH - TERRIBLE - a lot of racket and nothing else. It merely had an orchestra playing and adding some noises. The talking part does not mean a thing. It does not even match. We sure have nothing to worry about from these quarters."

The cartoon starts with a bird who first tries to catch a worm, then is targeted by a cat. The main story is about dogs raiding Farmer Alfalfa's butchers shop. And the film is significant as the first sound cartoon in the new industry standard of 24 frames per second (discounting those Fleischer Song Car-tunes that were released in Lee De Forest's Phonofilm process between 1924-6, and apparently ran at 21 fps. Interestingly, Pat Powers invested in Phonofilm when De Forest got into financial difficulties, and subsequently pirated it as the basis for Powers Cinephone, the system that Disney signed up to use.)

This bird appears to be named in one review at the time as "Billy-Bird".

So that's my guess - Billy-Bird. Although the bird in The Early Bird, released 2 months earlier, was named as "Willie Bird".

That's correct, and for all the reasons stated! I was hoping someone would guess it, because I don't think I could have come up with more clues.

OK peterhale, you're up!

Here's one I'm surprised is not on the list yet...

1) I'm a little character with big eyes and a girlfriend - but then, there have been a lot of characters like that! I'm not a cat or a rabbit or a mouse or a dog.

2) From my opening night to my incomplete but final defeat, I starred in 20 shorts.

3) I was renamed alliteratively (but not so cutely) for the home movie market.

Can't put my finger on this one. Anyway, another lucky poster probably knows.

nope, I don't know who this is.

The only character I can think of is already on the list. Time to research.

Could this be Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid, created by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger's studio shortly after breaking away from Walt Disney Pictures? Bosko takes a lot of cues from Mickey Mouse, but has enough distinctions to dodge copyright infraction. It also helps that, under the Warner Brothers banner, Bosko could tap into Warner's large music library for songs and scores, whereas Disney had to use public domain material, or pay substantial license fees for popular tracks.

Not Bosko, who racked up a total of 40 shorts - 46 if you include the redesigned version at MGM.

More clues...

4) I'm not Bosko, but Harman and Ising made 3 of my films - as an aviator, a gaucho and (unfinished) as a loser to mice.

5) Tom and Jerry were phased out in favour of me.

6) My final film, though never shown theatrically, was released for TV (with added music but no sound effects) in 1947.

Got it now! It's Cubby Bear. Took a while, but it was worth it.

Well done, Em! Yes, it's Van Beuren's answer to Mickey Mouse - Cubby Bear.

The clues explained:
1) Another Mickey clone! His girlfriend was Honey.
2) Opening Night (1933) was Cubby's first film (conducting Faust at the Opera), the unfinished Mischievous Mice (1934) his last.
3) Renamed Brownie Bear for 16mm home movie release.
4) After parting with Schlesinger, Harman and Ising contracted with Van Beuren to make some of the Cubby series. They made Cubby's World Flight (1933) and The Gay Gaucho (1933) but a contractual dispute led them to stop production on Mischievous Mice (1934).
5) Not the famous cat and mouse, of course, but Van Beuren's human comedy duo.
6) You can watch Mischievous Mice here.

Emeraldisle scores a point for perseverance and is up again!

Thanks, Pete. But for now, I'll pass my turn to Glowworm, who hasn't posted clues since I don't know when.

Thanks, early black and white cartoon characters are not my forte.
Anyhow I've been thrown in the spotlight.

Let's go with this one.
1. I freak out people whenever I appear.
2. I am not so much scary, just unusually small for the animal that I am.
3. At one point I hang out in a birdbath.

I know. It's the tiny elephant from "Punch Trunk." All clues are self-explanatory.