Sheriff Cleghorn & Deputy Wendell

Sheriff Gomer Cleghorn and Deputy Wendell are the main antagonists of the Talespin episode "Citizen Khan". They are two corrupt officers who work for Khan Industries, running an mining town called Boomstone owned by Shere Khan, the CEO of Khan Industries.

Sheriff Gomer Cleghorn was voiced by the late David Doyle, and Deputy Wendell was voiced by Frank Welker.

History

They are first seen when Baloo (the protagonist of the series), Kit, and Wildcat were flying their plane (the Sea Duck) around their area to deliver a crate of kumquats. Without hesitation, Cleghorn has Wendell to fire a rock at one of the Sea Duck's propellers, forcing Baloo to land near Boomstone. This allows Cleghorn and Wendell to take the trio into custody. After putting up a kangaroo trial, Cleghorn (acting as the judge) sentences the trio to six months of hard labor working in the mines. His secretary Clementine Clevenger is strongly opposed to this, reminding of the fact that Cleghorn is doing this to speed up the progress of the mining operation in Boomstone by bringing in more 'volunteers' against their will. After Cleghorn sends Clementine to finish up her reports, Wendell drags the three to the silver mines to get them to work.

The trio then soon learn that the mine doesn't possess any silver, but instead possess a certain type of rock mineral called urgonium, which is proven to be highly explosive by hard contact, and that Cleghorn and Wendell have been withholding the information from Khan for their own greedy purposes. It wasn't until Wildcat accidentally set of an explosion by dropping a urgonium pebble onto a bucket full of the stuff, that Baloo and Kit notice a similarity between him and a painting of Shere Khan. Taking the opportunity, the trio fool Cleghorn and Wendell into believing that Wildcat is Shere Khan, and the two offer to make amends by offering better treatment for them. However, the stakes are risen when three of the miners (believing Wildcat to be Shere Khan) kidnap him and tie him up in their tunnels, determined to make him pay for the abuse they are forced to endure while working in the mines. Upon hearing of the kidnapping, Clementine informs Cleghorn and Wendell about this, but the two refuse to help out and instead lock up Baloo and Kit in a cell to silence them. When Clementine finally decides to report this by calling Khan Industries herself (unaware that on the end of receiver, she is speaking with the real Khan, who starts to grow suspicious about this), Cleghorn has her locked up in his office.

Baloo and Kit manage to escape out from their cell (since Wendell forgot to actually lock their door and had left the keys on it) while Clementine escapes throughout the window. However, anticipating that the three would head back to the mines to save Wildcat and clear the misunderstanding with the miners, Cleghorn and Wendell set up a explosion to seal off the entrance to the mines, leaving them trapped. Cleghorn and Wendell then plan to escape away from Boomstone with all the urgonium they can handle. However, Wildcat manages to build up a mining vehicle made out of wood and metal, allowing himself and his friends, along with Clementine and the miners, to escape, just as the real Khan arrives in his plane to investigate the situation. Realizing that they have been fooled by the trio, Cleghorn attempts to pass off by lying to Khan that Wildcat was trying pose as him to steal his mines. However, Khan isn't fooled, and upon hearing about the urgonium from the miners (whom Khan doesn't even know, as Cleghorn and Wendell have been forcing them to work in the mines without Khan's knowledge), Khan demands to know why he hasn't been informed about it in the first place. Realizing now that they have been exposed of their illegal activities, Cleghorn and Wendell board on their hovercraft to escape with their supply of urgonium, so Baloo, Kit, and Wildcat go after them. As the trio chases the two crooked cops, Khan made it clear to Clementine that in spite of his megalomania, he never intended to have both Cleghorn and Wendell to abuse their power for their personal gain in the first place ("I desire only money and power. Unpresentable employees provide me with neither."), Eventually, Baloo, Kit and Wildcat manage to stop both officers in their tracks by throwing their kumquats (since they have went rotten thanks to the officers' interference) at their hovercraft, causing them to land-crash.

In the end, Khan demotes both Cleghorn and Wendell to be working in the mines as punishment for their crimes, and to ensure their cooperation, he promotes Clementine to be their new mining foreman. Khan also offers to reimburse Baloo, Kit, and Wildcat for the spoiled kumquats as a reward for exposing Cleghorn and Wendell's illegal activities, much to their delight.

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