Foxy (Merrie Melodies)

Foxy
File:Merrie Melodies title with Foxy.jpg Foxy on the Merrie Melodies title card in 1931
First appearance	Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (Merrie Melodies, August 1931)
Last appearance	Two-Tone Town (Tiny Toon Advenutures, September 1992)
Created by	Rudolf Ising
Voiced by	Rudolph Ising (Merrie Melodies (1931)) Rob Paulsen (Tiny Toon Adventures (September 1992))

Foxy is an animated cartoon character featured in three 1931 animated shorts in the Merrie Melodies series distributed by Warner Bros.  He was the creation of animator Rudolf Ising, who had worked for Walt Disney in the 1920s.

Concept and creation

In 1925, Hugh Harman drew images of mice on a portrait of Walt Disney. Disney and Ub Iwerks would then use it as the basis for their creation of Mickey Mouse, the character who eventually became Disney's most popular. Knowing that Disney and Iwerks had capitalized on their little idea, Harman and Ising figured it was only fair that they should conceive a character based on a similar mold, thus leading to the birth of Foxy.

Though Foxy bears a strong resemblance with his Disney counterpart, he and Mickey still have a considerable number of differences. Foxy's persona is composed of tear-drop ears, a baritone voice, shoes with a more complex design, a bushy tail, and a more enthusiastic character. Mickey has circle ears, a falsetto voice (he was originally baritone), plain shoes, a much thinner tail, and is mild-mannered.

Screen history

Merrie Melodies

Foxy in One More Time.

Foxy was the star of the first Merrie Melodies cartoons Ising directed for producer Leon Schlesinger. (Ising had already helped his partner Hugh Harman create another series, titled Looney Tunes, with the character Bosko.) Foxy's first appearance on screen was on August 1931 in "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!". This old-western themed short features Foxy developing affection for the tavern singer who would become his girlfriend.

Foxy and his then-nameless girlfriend would appear in another cartoon that same year: "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" (September 5, 1931), a musical set on a trolley. The plot bares some similarities to Trolley Troubles, a 1928 Oswald Rabbit cartoon which Harman and Ising contributed on. This also marks the first time Foxy's name was mentioned

Nearly a month later, a third short called "One More Time" (October 3, 1931) was released. This musical cops-'n'-robbers themed cartoon would become Foxy's final appearance in the Merrie Melodies series.

At the end of each short, Foxy comes out from behind a bass drum and says to the viewers "So long, folks!" This closing act would later be assumed by Porky Pig but with a different line. Although all three shorts use sound, the voice actors aren't credited and were never revealed.

Upon leaving Warner Bros. two years later, Ising took and kept with him the rights to Foxy and two other characters he conceived. Though Ising got a job at another studio, none of the characters he recently featured made anymore theatrical appearances. All three Foxy shorts would end up in the public domain after several years.

Later appearances

After more than six decades of absence, Foxy would hit the screen one last time. He appeared along with his girlfriend (here christened "Roxy") and fellow forgotten Warner Bros. progenitor Goopy Geer in "Two-Tone Town", an episode of the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures aired on September 28, 1992. The three live in a world of black-and-white which is visited by the series' stars, Babs Bunny and Buster Bunny. Feeling sorry for the old timers left in oblivion, Babs and Buster decided to help bring Foxy, Roxy and Goopy back to the limelight. The efforts of the two rabbits worked out but doing so resulted in an exchanged of scenarios: Buster and Babs end up being featured in an old theather while the three characters they helped became the new TV sensation.

The series animators significantly redesigned the foxes for this episode, making them less like their original versions. These changes are:

• Foxy wearing plain shoes rather than the sophisticatedly designed ones he had in the Merrie Melodies period.
• Roxy wearing pumps that fit instead of oversized.
• More fur protruding from their cheeks.
• Having triangular ears rather than teardrop shaped.
• Having slightly smaller eyes.
• White portions on the tip of their tails instead of all black.

In the Tiny Toons episode, Foxy was voiced by Rob Paulsen and Roxy was voiced by B.J. Ward.

Parodies and references

The only parody of Foxy and Roxy may have been in "The Fairly OddParents". In the episode "The Good old Days", Timmy, his grandpa, Pappy, Cosmo and Wanda enter the world of old cartoons. Cosmo and Wanda disguise themselves as foxes, which may have been a spoof of Mickey and Minnie, but may have been a reference to Foxy and Roxy.

In "Animaniacs", in the debut episode "De-Zantisated", when "Yakko, Wakko, and Dot" first meet Hello Nurse, Yakko and Wakko have wolf faces that look similar to Foxy's face in his Tiny Toons guest appearance.

See also

• Mickey Mouse
• Bosko

External links

• Foxy and Roxy profile at Bosko.ToonZone.net