Ernie

### Likes

Giving tours, exploring, Tasha, assisting royalties, horseback riding, mining gold, movies

### Dislikes

Gold rustlers, Wesley's betrayal, threats to Westwend

## Family information

### Partner(s)

Tasha (girlfriend)

**Ernie** is a major character in the cartoon series, *Dreamcoast Adventures.* He's a tabby cat with a Southern accent and a tour guide from the town of Westwend. He helps Mark and the gang with finding a gold mine that originally belonged to Blaster's late grandfather, Ol' Boulder.

## Background

Ernie is an orange cat living in Westwend as a tour guide. As a tour guide, Ernie is tasked with leading visitors through the town, safely. Ernie often works at Westwend City Hall alongside his girlfriend, Tasha whom he has dating for almost six years and is a close friend of Mayor Wesley.

### Development

Ernie was inspired by the character of the same name from the educational short, *Faux Paw Meets the First Lady.*

### Personality

Ernie is introduced to be a charismatic and witty cat who enjoys giving tours to visitors. It assumed that Ernie has lived in Westwend for almost his whole life which gives a keen knowledge on Westwend. His knowledge on the Western-themed town helped him guide Mark and his friends over to the gold mines and protect them from a band of merciless gold rustlers. Ernie loves his job as a tour guide because he gets to explore the town and show visitors, the way.

In the episode, it is shown that Ernie loves his job because he gets to guide royalties through the city. He sees it as an honor to help royalties and is determined to protect them from danger. This isn't different for his girlfriend, Tasha as he loves her and wishes to be with her forever. Ernie and Tasha are one of the Wooten couples to give each other nicknames which symbolizes their strong affections for each other. Ernie's calm demeanor can immediately change whenever he senses danger. As demonstrated in the episode, when he first saw Giles and Niles and recognized them as gold rustlers, he told his friends to run for their life.

### Physical appearance

Ernie is a orange tabby cat with a muscular physique. His cowboy outfit consists of a yellow shirt with red stripes and white buttons and brown leather pants and boots with a golden belt buckle on his black belt.

## Appearances

### Disney Adventures

#### Gold Run

After receiving the location of Ol' Boulder's gold mine, Mark and the gang took the first bus ride over to Westwend. Once they departed and entered the town, they meet Ernie who witnessed the gang getting off the bus. Mark introduces himself and his friends to Ernie, who is then ecstatic to meet the king and queen of Dreamcoast. He kindly offers to help them to find Ol' Boulder's gold mine, not before dressing them in Western-themed clothing. Before going into the forest, they stopped by City Hall where he introduces his girlfriend, Tasha to the gang and arranges a date for her after he helps Mark and the gang with the special job. Ernie takes the gang upstairs to Wesley's office to get a map on Ol' Boulder's gold mine. Once they obtained the map, they went into the forest to locate Boulder's gold mine.

With help from Darwin and Hurley's invention, the Golden Arrow, they find Boulder's gold mine and discover that it's filled with millions of bars of gold. By using a bottomless bag, they collect all of the gold and proceed to head back to town to celebrate. Unfortunately, they spot by Giles and Niles who have been given orders to steal the gold from the gang and kill them. Mark, Ernie and the gang then run over to the Old Westwend Hotel, in order to hide from the Gold Rustlers. However, they are found and captured by an army of gold rustlers. The Gold Rustlers' boss is shown to be Wesley, to the surprise of Ernie and the others. He reveals himself as the thief of the gold mines and the murderer of Ol' Boulder. He plots to gain control of the rest of the gold mines in the town in order to improve his status as mayor and get revenge on the people, who rejected him.

Wesley then leaves Ernie and the others to die as he rigged the hotel to explode. Shocked over Wesley's unexpected betrayal, Ernie apologizes to Mark and the gang for putting them in danger. Mark instead thanks Ernie for his help and for doing his best to protect him and his family from the Gold Rustlers. Just as the gang braces themselves for their imminent deaths, the explosives are deactivated by Tasha (who discovered Wesley's true colors and escaped City Hall before Wesley could kill her). Determined to expose Wesley as the crooked mayor, he is, Mark leads the gang over to the camera tower when he gets an idea.

The gang's escape from the hotel prompts Wesley to take matters into his own hands as he orders the Sheriff and his Posse to have Mark, Ernie and the gang kill for "stealing from the mayor." He grabs his shotgun and runs inside the camera tower, just as citizens arrive for the weekly movie festival. Annabelle and the gang hide inside the shutters while Mark confronts Wesley. Meanwhile, Ernie records the confession on his IPhone and broadcasts on the movie screen for the townspeople of Westwend to see. The townspeople are shocked by Wesley's true colors and is booed for his immoral actions.

Wesley attempts to make a run for it but is stopped by Pascal and Tinker Bell. He is then arrested and taken to Westwend Jail along with his henchrats. With Wesley behind the bars, Ernie helps Mark pay back Westwend with the gold stolen by the Gold Rustlers.