Tweety Bird
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Tweety Bird
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| Tweety in Tweety's SOS | |
| First appearance | A Tale of Two Kitties (1942) |
| Created by | Bob Clampett |
| Voiced by | Mel Blanc, |
| Background Information | |
| Aliases | Orson |
| Friends | Granny, Hector, Sweetie Pie (student) |
| Rivals | Sylvester |
| Catchphrases | I tawt I taw a puddy tat! I did! I did taw a puddy tat! Bad old puddy tat! |
- For other meanings of words and phrases starting with tweet, see tweet.
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. 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. 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.
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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 naked (pink), jowly, and 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" 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 noticable 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 an 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).
- 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 Bird and featuring Sylvester.
[edit] Later appearances
Tweety has a small part in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, by "accidentally" causing Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) to fall from a pole.
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. In 2003, a younger version of him premiered on Baby Looney Tunes.
Tweety appeared in an early 1990s 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.
Script for The Origin of Tweety that was never used.
[edit] Comic Books
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
- A Gruesome Twosome
- Tweetie Pie
- I Taw A Putty Tat
- Bad Ol' Putty Tat
- Home Tweet Home
- All A Bir-r-r-d
- Canary Row
- Puddy Tat Twouble
- Room and Bird
- Tweety's SOS
- Tweet, Tweet Tweety
- Gift Wrapped
- Ain't She Tweet
- Bird in Guilty Cage
- Snow Business
- Fowl Weather
- Tom Tom Tomcat
- A Street Cat Named Sylvester
- Catty Cornered
- Dog Pounded
- No Barking
- Muzzle Tough
- Satan's Waitin
- Sandy Claws
- Tweety's Circus
- Red Riding Hoodwinked
- Tweet And Sour
- Tree Cornered Tweety
- Tugboat Granny
- Tweet Zoo
- Tweety And The Beanstalk
- Birds Anonymous
- Greedy For Tweety
- A Pizza Tweety Pie
- A Bird In A Bonnet
- Trick Or Tweet
- Tweet And Lovely
- Tweet Dreams
- Hyde And Go Tweet
- Trip For Tat
- Rebel Without Claws
- The Last Hungry Cat
- The Jet Cage
- Hawaiian Aye Aye
[edit] External links
de:Sylvester und Tweety es:Piolín fr:Titi (Looney Tunes) it:Titti (fumetto) he:טוויטי nl:Tweety pt:Piu-piu fi:Tipi zh:崔弟
