Tweety Bird

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For other meanings of words and phrases starting with "tweet", see Tweet.
Tweety
Tweety
First appearance A Tale of Two Kitties ( November 21, 1942)
Created by Bob Clampett
Voiced by Mel Blanc, Bob Bergen (Space Jam), Eric Goldberg (Looney Tunes: Back in Action), Joe Alaskey (current), Samuel Vincent (Baby Looney Tunes)

Tweety Bird (also known as Tweety Pie or simply Tweety) is a fictional character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons. Tweety's popularity, like that of The Tasmanian Devil, actually grew in the years following the dissolution of the Looney Tunes cartoons.[citation needed] The name "Tweety" is a play on words, as it originally meant "Sweetie", along with "tweet" being a typical English onomatopoeia for the sounds of birds.

Despite the widespread speculation that he was female, Tweety is and has always been a male character, something that he often has confirmed in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries. On the other hand, his species is ambiguous; although originally and often portrayed as a young canary, he is also frequently called a rare and valuable "Tweetybird" as a plot device, and once called "The only living specimen" which is confusing due to the fact that in later episodes of he has a female cousin named Sweety. Also, the title song , suggests that it is a Canary. His shape more closely suggests that of a baby bird, which in fact is what he was during his early appearances. The yellow feathers were added but otherwise he retained the baby-bird shape.

Tweety is, for the most part, a good-natured character happily spending life in his cage or a nest. However, when a cat or other adversary threatens him, he can become downright malicious and devious, even kicking his enemy when he's down. In many of Tweety's appearances the bird is shown accompanying his owner, Granny.

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[edit] Creation

Bob Clampett created the character that would become Tweety Bird in the 1942 short A Tale of Two Kitties, pitting him against two hungry cats named Babbit and Catstello (based on the famous comedians Abbott and Costello). On the original model sheet, Tweety was named Orson (which was also the name of a bird character from an earlier Clampett cartoon Wacky Blackouts).

Tweety was originally not a domestic canary, but simply a generic (and wild) baby bird in an outdoors nest - naked (pink), jowly, and also far more aggressive and saucy, as opposed to the later, more well-known version of him as a less hot-tempered (but still somewhat ornery) yellow canary. In the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar, animator Clampett stated, in a sotto voce "aside" to the audience, that Tweety had been based "on my own naked baby picture". Clampett did three more shorts with the "naked genius", as a Jimmy Durante-ish cat once called him in Gruesome Twosome. The last of these, Birdy and the Beast, finally bestowed the baby bird with his name.

Many of Mel Blanc's characters are known for speech impediments. One of Tweety's most noticeable is that "s" is changed to a "t" or "d" sound; for example, "pussy cat" comes out as "putty tat", later rendered "puddy tat", and "sweetie pie" comes out as "tweetie pie", hence his name. He also has trouble with the "r" and "l" sounds. As with Elmer Fudd, it tends to come out as a "w". He also has troubles with gutturals, such as "g". In Putty Tat Trouble, he begins the cartoon singing a song about himself, "I'm a tweet wittow biwd in a diwded cage; Tweety'th my name but I don't know my age..." (Translation: "I'm a sweet little bird in a gilded cage...") Aside from this speech challenge, Tweety's voice (and a fair amount of his attitude) is similar to that of Bugs Bunny, rendered as a child (in The Old Grey Hare, Bugs infant voice was very similar to Tweety's normal voice), which was achieved by speeding up Mel Blanc's voice recordings of Tweety.

Another noticeable thing about Tweety is his occasional and rare habit of transforming into a Hyde version of himself, by accidentally consuming Hyde Formula. This was first seen in Hyde and Go Tweet, and happened again in the "London Broiled" episode of The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries. Since then, this habit was also used in certain idents of the UK Boomerang channel.

[edit] 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 1945. However, Clampett left the studio before going into full production on the short, and Freleng took on the project. Freleng toned Tweety down and cutsied him up, giving him large blue 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 (Cartoons).

The pairing of Sylvester and Tweety was one of the most notable pairings in animation history. Most of their cartoons followed a standard formula:

  • The hungry "puddy tat" wanting to eat the bird, some major obstacle stands in his way – usually Granny or her bulldog Hector (or occasionally, numerous bulldogs, or another cat who wants to eat Tweety.)
  • Tweety says his signature lines ("I tawt I taw a puddy tat!" and "I did, I did taw a puddy tat!").
  • Sylvester spending the entire film using progressively more elaborate schemes or devices to capture his meal. Of course, each of his tricks fail, either due to their flaws or, more often than not, because Tweety steers the enemy cat towards Hector the Bulldog, an indignant Granny (voiced by Bea Benaderet and later June Foray), or other device (such as off the ledge of a tall building or steering him into an oncoming train).

In 1951, Mel Blanc (with Billy May's orchestra) had a hit single with "I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat," a song performed in character by Tweety and featuring Sylvester. In the lyrics Sylvester sings "I'd like to get that Sweetie Pie when he leaves has cage" implying that Tweetie's name is actually Sweetie Pie, altered in its pronunciation by Tweetie's lisp. Sylvester, which his own speech issues, slobbers the "S" in "Sweetie Pie", just as he would the S sounds in his own name.

[edit] Later appearances

Tweety has a small part in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, "accidentally" causing Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) to fall from a pole by playing "This Little Piddy" with Valiant's fingers and loosening 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.

During the 1990s, Tweety also starred in an animated TV series called The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, in which Granny ran a detective agency with the assistance of Tweety, Sylvester and Hector. Tweety has the starring role and carries the story in the 2000 direct-to-video feature length animated film "Tweety's High-Flying Adventure". In 2003, a younger version of him premiered on Baby Looney Tunes.

Tweety appeared in an early 1980s public service announcement, warning parents of the dangers of boiling temperature bath water.

Tweety appeared in several television specials and feature-film compilations, along with Sylvester, in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the TV series Tiny Toon Adventures, Tweety appeared rarely as the mentor of Sweetie Pie.

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. This is also notable for being a rare instance where Tweety is playing a villain character.

In the game Taz: Wanted, he assists Taz in destroying wanted posters and gives him hints throughout the game. In the game, he refers to Taz as "Puddy-Taz" and expresses a dislike for him, thinking that he shouldn't be working with amateurs. At the end of the game, Tweety reveals himself to be the mastermind behind Yosemite Sam's evil plan, and fights Taz using a large robot, but is defeated.

In the television show, Loonatics Unleashed, Tweety's descendant, known as The Royal Tweetums, rules the planet Blanc in the care of its present ruler, Queen Grannicus (Granny's descendant). Grannicus didn't want to turn her monarchy over to him, so she hired Sylth Vester, Sylvester's descendant, to eliminate him. But with the help of the Loonatics, Tweetums defeated Grannicus and Sylth Vester.

Tweety appears as part of the TuneSquad team in Space Jam. There, he gets picked on and bullied by the Monstars due to his small size, until he retaliates by using Ken po moves on them. He also appears in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, although this "Tweety" is really Taz the Tazmanian Devil in disguise.

[edit] Comic Books

Toy made in Tweety's image
Toy made in Tweety's image

Western Publications produced a comic book about Tweety and Sylvester entitled Tweety and Sylvester first in Dell Comics Four Color series #406, 489, and 524, then in their own title from Dell Comics (#4-37, 1954-62), then later from Gold Key Comics (#1-102, 1963-72).

[edit] Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies filmography

[edit] External links


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