Information
Full name: Sleepy
Age: unknown
Designers: Albert Hurter, Ferdinand Horvath, Gustaf Tenggren, Fred Moore, Dot Smith (colors)
Animators: Vladimir Tytla, Fred Moore, Fred Spencer, Bill Roberts, Marvin Woodward, Shamus Culhane, Dick Lundy, Bob Wickersham, Arthur Babbitt, Les Clark, Frank Thomas.
Voice actor: Pinto Colvig
Models: unknown
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Inspiration
Sleepy is, well, always sleepy. He’s constantly yawning, dozing off, and dreaming of his next nap. Sleepy’s droopy eyelids and perpetual drowsiness make him instantly recognizable. His voice, provided by Pinto Colvig, is soft and lethargic, perfectly capturing his perpetually tired state.
Design
Animators Fred Moore and Vladimir Tytla, and concept artists Albert Hurter and Ferdinand Horvath, among others, were responsible for bringing Sleepy to life on the screen, giving him a dreamy, almost hypnotic quality that adds to his charm.
Sleepy’s fame
Due to his very nature, Sleepy is in danger of being the less remarkable of all the dwarfs. He has very few dialogue, probably in part because his voice is provided by Pinto Colvig who also gave his voice to another, more proeminent dwarf: Grumpy. As a matter of fact, he is the only dwarf that Snow White does not kiss onscreen in the final sequence.
Yet he is the one who requests a story from the Princess, thus starting the memorable sequence where she sings “Some Day My Prince Will Come”. He also is the one who points out to the other dwarfs that the Queen may be onto Snow White when they cannot figure out why the animals drag them out of the mine.
He also is a source of comic relief thanks to his unwilling partnership with a fly, which keeps insisting on landing on his nose, which it finally does as they both go to sleep in sequence 8C, “Going to Bed”. As a matter of fact, this fly was supposed to appear with Sleepy in several deleted scenes like the soup sequence or the bed building one.
Other Productions
Appears in the following productions:
Standard Parade for 1939 (1939)
7 Wise Dwarfs (1941)
All Together (1942)
The Winged Scourge (1943)
This is Your Life Donald Duck (1960)
Wish Upon a Coin (2015)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Once Upon a Studio (2023)
Snow White (2025)
Go to Sequels and references
