Cecil Clayton (Character What)

Cecil Clayton is one of the least recurring villains in the Character What series and the main antagonist from Disney's 1999 full-length animated feature film Tarzan. He is a arch nemesis of Tarzan and a member of The Forces of Evil.

Personality

At first impression, Clayton seems to be chivalrous and polite gentleman, yet with a bit of a temper and intolerance for treating the African expedition like a vacation experience rather than a business trip. He is shown to have a dislike toward animals as he values them as lesser creatures, such as gorillas and lions as savage beasts, and deers as uncivilised animals, despite other characters suggesting otherwise.

However, as throughout his first appearance, Clayton's true motives begin to unfold: as he is nothing but a greedy poacher who captures animals and selling them for profit as a way to make wealth for himself. He would also be willing to kill anyone who interfere with his plans, as demonstrated when he attempts to kill Tarzan out of anger for ruining his plans of selling the gorillas, but he would continue rounding up the gorillas after Tarzan is dealt with completely.

Clayton shows no signs of cowardice when a anger Tarzan cornered him with his own gun, he didn't begs him to spare his life, Clayton instead only mocks Tarzan to make him into pulling the trigger on him so that he can be a 'real man' though Tarzan choose to spare him as he didn't want to be a man like Clayton. However, like most of the villains in Shadow Aaron's intergalactic empire, Clayton is shown to terrified of Shadow Aaron after witnessing destroying Time Baby, realizing he could do the same thing to him unless he submit to Shadow Aaron.

Despite his villainy, Clayton is willing work with other hunters as long as they share their part of the profit, as shown in Hunters in the Forest when he team up with Gaston into hunting animals in Bambi's forest, Clayton even had no intention into betraying Gaston, unlike Tarzan, Jane Porter and Archimedes Q. Porter. In the same episode with Gaston, he has no qualms against killing young animals, as shown when he and Gaston shown no quilt into killing Bambi who was still a young fawn during that time.

Character What: Tales

In Return to Pride Rock, Clayton and his men return to African but instead of capturing gorillas, he plans capture lions and sell them to zoos. Clayton and his inmates arrive at Pride Rock, but the lions left for hunting, so Clayton take advantage of the situation by setting up a ambush for the lions return. Simba and his pride return from hunting, Clayton and his henchmen came out of hiding, netting every lion of Pride Rock while Simba tries to rescue his pride, but he is captured as well. Clayton approaches the netted lion king and decides to shoot him and had Simba's head mounted on his wall as a trophy, but Shadow Joe fries straight toward Clayton, knocking him out ground. Shadow Joe frees Simba and both fight clayton's men and saved the rest of the lions. Clayton refusing to surrender and decides to kill Shadow Joe for ruining his plans.

Character What: The Last Stand

In Bird to Hunt, Clayton arrives in Australia with the intention to capture the rare and enormous eagle known as Marahute to make a higher profit, something that Percival C. McLeach failed to do. Due to McLeach's death in Betrayed of the Daleks, he decides to hunt the rarest bird for himself to make a fortune without the McLeach wanting to hunt the bird only for him. Prior to McLeach's demise, Clayton learn from the latter that he kidnap Cody who befriended with Marahute and force to disclose the bird's whereabout or he would destroy the giant eagle's eggs. Clayton sets up the same pit-trap that Cody fall into in a effort to capture the young boy. Eventuality, Cody fell into Clayton's trap and and take the young boy to McLeach's old lair which was abandoned and all of the rare and protected Australian animals were released from their cages, presumably by Shadow Joe or the authorities. Upon returning to Australia, Shadow Joe learn from Cody's mother that him has not return, so Shadow Joe decide search for the boy. Meanwhile, Clayton tries to persuade Cody revealed the eagle's whereabouts, but Cosy refuses to say anything. Clayton soon realize another way to convince Cody to reveal the eagle's location by telling him that he had learn from McLeach about how Cody became protective over Marahute's eggs which are now hatched, and will kill the newborn eaglets should Cody refuse to tell him where the eagle is. With no other option, Cody decides to lead Clayton to location when the eagle lives, but Cody actually attempts to misdirect him in order to protect Marahute and her babies. Unware that Clayton knows about his trick and put a tracking device on Cody, he set Cody free to lead to the Marahute's nest, while Clayton pretends to fell for Cody's false eagle's whereabouts.

Trivia

• Clayton is one of the few hunters that Bambi never considered to be the one who killed his mother, as Bambi had finally met Man in Man in the Forest, and didn't met Clayton until Hunters in the Forest, which takes part some point after Bambi and Man meet ease other face-to-face.
• In the episode Tarzan, which is based on the film. When Clayton was hanged by the vine around his neck after falling, his shadow of his handed corpse isn't seen. This is mostly due to how graphic his death was that considered too dark and terrifying for children.
• Clayton only made 7 episodes in the Character What franchise, a possible reference to how Clayton made least appearances in Disney media, due to the legal issues with the family of Edgar Rice Burroughs.