Tweety

For other meanings of words and phrases starting with tweet, see tweet.

Tweety Bird (also known as Tweety Pie or simply Tweety) is an Academy Award-winning 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. Today Tweety is considered, along with Taz and Bugs Bunny, among the most popular of the Looney Tunes characters, especially (because of his "cute" appearance and personality) among girls and young women. Despite 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.

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.

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 naked (orange), jowly, and far more aggressive, saucy, and even somewhat sadistic, 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", or sometimes rendered "puddy tat", and "sweetie pie" comes out as "tweetie pie". 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).

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.

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 pronounciation by Tweetie's lisp.

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 Piggy" 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 Catsello 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.

In the TV series Tiny Toon Adventures, Tweety appeared in several episodes 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.

In the game Taz Wanted, he helps Taz through different levels of the game and ends up being the true villain of the game in the end. In 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.

Comic Books

File:TweetyDoll.jpg

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).

Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies filmography

External links