Back in the day when Walt's creativity started getting the studio to branch out into other entertainment areas, his brother Roy did not want their "star" characters like Mickey and Minnie associated with those projects in case they failed. Roy did not want their top tier characters risk being associated with failures. So, the "second tier" characters, like Jiminy Cricket, Tinker Bell, Dopey, were used to promote things like
Disneyland and to star in educational films. This practice continued for decades with newer characters stepping into these types of roles that were previously filled by Jiminy and Tinker Bell.