Tweety
Tweety is a fictional cartoon character, a yellow canary bird in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons. His characteristics are based on Red Skelton's famous "Junior the Mean Widdle Kid". He appeared in 46 cartoons during the golden age, made between 1942 and 1964.
Personality and identity
Despite the perceptions that people may hold, owing to the long eyelashes and high-pitched voice, Tweety is male although his ambiguity was played with. For example, in the cartoon "Snow Business", when Granny entered a room containing Tweety and Sylvester she said: "Here I am, boys!". Another confirmation that Tweety is male comes from the cartoon Greedy for Tweety in which during a hospital stay, Granny utters "Oh the poor little Tweety bird, let's makes him a little more comfortable", as she adjusts his bed. Nonetheless, a 1952 cartoon was entitled Ain't She Tweet. His species has been ambiguous across various depictions; although originally and often portrayed as a young canary, he is also frequently called a rare and valuable "tweety bird" as a plot device, and once called "the only living specimen". Nevertheless, the title song of The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries directly states that he is a canary. His shape more closely suggests that of a baby bird, which is what he was during his early appearances. The yellow feathers were added, but otherwise he retained the baby-bird shape.In his early appearances in Bob Clampett cartoons, Tweety is a very aggressive character who tries anything to foil his feline adversary, even kicking the cat when he is down. One example of a malicious moment is in the cartoon Birdy and the Beast, where a cat chases Tweety by flying until he remembers that cats cannot fly, causing him to fall. Tweety says sympathetically, "Awww, the poor kitty cat! He faw down and go BOOM!!" and then grins mischievously. A similar use of that voice is in A Tale Of Two Kitties when Tweety, wearing an air raid warden's helmet, suddenly yells "Turn out those lights!"
Tweety's aggressive nature was also initially characterized by Friz Freleng when he began directing the series, but would later be toned-down to instead have him be portrayed as a cutesy bird usually going about his business, and doing little to thwart Sylvester's ill-conceived plots, allowing them to simply collapse on their own; he became even less aggressive when Granny was introduced, but occasionally Tweety still showed a malicious side when egged on. Despite this, in comparison with other major Looney Tunes protagonists such as Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety was not given a complete character arc, instead embodying the "innocent child" role offsetting the motives of his superior Sylvester and their guardian figure.
Creation by Bob Clampett
created the character that would become Tweety in the 1942 short A Tale of Two Kitties, pitting him against two hungry cats named Babbit and Catstello. On the original model sheet, Tweety was named Orson, which was also the name of a bird character from an earlier Clampett cartoon Wacky Blackout.Tweety was originally created not as a domestic canary, but as a generic baby bird in an outdoor nest: naked, jowly, and also far more aggressive and saucy, as opposed to the later, better-known version of him as a less hot-tempered yellow canary. In the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar, animator Clampett stated that Tweety had been based "on my own naked baby picture." Clampett did two more shorts with the "naked genius", as a Jimmy Durante-ish cat once called him in A Gruesome Twosome. The second Tweety short, Birdy and the Beast, finally bestowed the baby bird with his new name, and gave him his blue eyes. After the first three cartoons, censors declared that the character was nude, and they made the studio paint him yellow to make it look as if he was covered in feathers. The change made Tweety look like a regular yellow domestic canary.
Many of Mel Blanc's characters are known for speech impediments. One of Tweety's most noticeable is that /s/, /k/, and /g/ are changed to /t/, /d/, or /θ/; for example, "pussy cat" comes out as "putty tat", later rendered "puddy tat", "Granny" comes out as "Dwanny" and "sweetie pie" comes out as "tweetie pie", hence his name. He also has trouble with liquid consonants: as with Elmer Fudd, /l/ and /r/ come out as /w/. Some of his cartoons feature him singing a song about himself, "I'm a tweet wittow biwd in a diwded tage; Tweety'th my name but I don't know my age, I don't have to wuwy and dat is dat; I'm tafe in hewe fwom dat ol' putty tat". Aside from this speech impediment, Tweety's voice is that of Bugs Bunny, one speed up ; the only difference is that Bugs does not have trouble pronouncing /s/, /k/ and /g/ as mentioned above.
Freleng takes over
Clampett began work on a short that would pit Tweety against a then-unnamed, lisping black and white cat created by Friz Freleng in 1946. However, Clampett left the studio before going into full production on the short, however Freleng would use Tweety in his own separate project. Freleng toned Tweety down and gave him a cuter appearance, resulting in his long-lashed blue-pupil eyes and yellow feathers. Clampett mentions in Bugs Bunny: Superstar that the feathers were added to satisfy censors who objected to the naked bird. The first short to team Tweety and the cat, later named Sylvester, was 1947's Tweetie Pie, which won Warner Bros. its first Academy Award for Best Short Subject.Sylvester and Tweety proved to be one of the most notable pairings in animation history. Most of their cartoons followed a standard formula:
- Sylvester wants to catch and eat Tweety, but some major obstacle stands in his way – usually Granny or her bulldog Hector.
- Tweety says his signature lines "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!" and "I did! I did taw a puddy tat!". In later cartoons, such as Home, Tweet Home, Tweety says "I did! I did! I did taw a puddy tat!"
- Sylvester spends the entire film using progressively more elaborate schemes or devices to catch Tweety, similar to Wile E. Coyote in his ongoing efforts to catch the Road Runner, Tom's attempts to catch Jerry, and the Aardvark's attempts to catch the Ant. Of course, each of his tricks fail, either due to their flaws or, more often than not, because of intervention by either Hector the Bulldog or an indignant Granny, or after Tweety steers the enemy toward them or another device.
In 1951, Mel Blanc had a hit single with "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat", a song performed in character by Tweety and featuring Sylvester. In the lyrics Sylvester sings "I'd like to eat that Thweetie Pie when he leaves his cage", implying that Tweety's name is actually Sweetie Pie. Later the name "Sweetie Pie" was applied to the young, pink female canary in the Tiny Toon Adventures animated TV series of the early 1990s.
From 1945 until the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio closed, Freleng had almost exclusive use of Tweety at the Warner cartoon studio, with the exception of a brief cameo in No Barking in 1954, directed by Chuck Jones.
Later appearances
Tweety had a cameo role in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, making Eddie Valiant fall from a flag pole by playing "This Little Piggy" with Valiant's fingers and releasing his grip. The scene is essentially a re-creation of a gag from A Tale of Two Kitties, with Valiant replacing Catstello as Tweety's victim. He also appears near the end of the film alongside other animated characters. This was the last time Mel Blanc voiced Tweety.During the 1990s, Tweety also starred in the animated TV series The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, in which Granny ran a detective agency with the assistance of Tweety, Sylvester and Hector. In the series, Tweety has the starring role and is voiced by Joe Alaskey. The storyline carries into the 2000 direct-to-video feature-length animated film Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, where Joe Alaskey reprises his role. Tweety's prototype, Orson, also made an appearance in the series.
Tweety also appears in Tiny Toon Adventures as the mentor of Sweetie Pie, and one of the faculty at Acme Looniversity. He was voiced by Jeff Bergman for most of his appearances and Bob Bergen in "Animaniacs".
In the 1995 cartoon short Carrotblanca, a parody/homage to Casablanca, Tweety appeared as "Usmarte", a parody of the character Ugarte played by Peter Lorre in the original film. In several sequences, Tweety was speaking and laughing in character like Peter Lorre. He also does the Looney Tunes ending instead of Porky Pig or Bugs Bunny. This is also notable for being a rare instance where Tweety plays a villain character. Bob Bergen voices the role again.
In 1996, Tweety appeared in the feature film, Space Jam, with legendary basketball player Michael Jordan.
In 2001, a younger version of Tweety appeared on Baby Looney Tunes, thus coming full circle from his earliest appearances. Here he was voiced by Sam Vincent.
In 2003, Tweety made two appearances in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, although in one of those appearances this "Tweety" was actually the Tasmanian Devil in disguise.
In 2011, Tweety was featured, with his Looney Tunes co-stars, in Cartoon Network's series The Looney Tunes Show. He is voiced by Jeff Bergman. He appeared in the episode "Ridiculous Journey", where he and Sylvester work together with Taz to get back home to Granny and Bugs Bunny. He had been revealed to have fought in World War II alongside a young Granny. Sylvester also asked him how old he was, to which Tweety replied, "I'll never tell". Sylvester then asked if Tweety would at least tell him if he was a boy or a girl. Tweety whispered into his ear and Sylvester had a surprised expression and said "Huh, I was wrong".
Tweety appeared as a major character in New Looney Tunes and Looney Tunes Cartoons, where his designs were based on his Bob Clampett Cartoons while still maintaining his yellow feathers. His personality reverts him to being more violent and abusive in nature while being toned down to retain his cute facade. Bob Bergen voiced the character in New Looney Tunes, while Eric Bauza voiced him for the first time in Looney Tunes Cartoons.
On February 17, 2021, it was announced Tweety would star in Tweety Mysteries which would have been similar to The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries. The series would have been a live-action/animated hybrid aimed towards girls and would have aired on Cartoon Network. However, the series never got off the ground as Cartoon Network announced all live-action productions were scrapped in December 2022.
Tweety next appeared in Space Jam: A New Legacy, which was released on July 16, 2021. He was voiced by Bob Bergen.
Tweety starred in a direct-to-video film King Tweety, which was released on June 14, 2022. He was voiced by Eric Bauza.
Tweety appears in the preschool series Bugs Bunny Builders which aired as part of Cartoonito on Cartoon Network and HBO Max on July 25, 2022. In the series, similar to Baby Looney Tunes and the finale of The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, he is friends with Sylvester. Eric Bauza reprised his role from Looney Tunes Cartoons.