Despite the perceptions that people may hold, owing to the long
lashes and high pitched voice of Tweety, Tweety is male. This is
established several times in the animated series The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and in the film-short Bad Ol' Putty Tat when Sylvester tries to trick Tweety using a fake female bird. On the other hand, a 1951 cartoon was entitled "Ain't She Tweet." Also, his species is ambiguous; 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 directly states that the bird is a canary. His shape more closely suggests that of a baby
bird, which in fact is what he was during his early appearances
(although the "baby bird" aspect has been used in a few later cartoons
as a plot device). 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 foe, even kicking his enemy when he is down. Tweety was toned
down when Friz Freleng started directing the series into a more cutesy bird, and even more when Granny
was introduced, however sometimes Tweety still kept his malicious side.
One of his most notable "malicious" moments is in the cartoon Birdy and the Beast;
when a cat tries to chase Tweety by flying and falls after remembering
that cats cannot fly, Tweety says sympathetically, "Awww, the poor kitty
cat! He faw down and go (in a loud, tough, masculine voice) BOOM!!", after which he grins mischievously. A similar gag was used in A Tale Of Two Kitties when Tweety, wearing an air raid warden's helmet, suddenly yells out in that same voice: "Turn out those lights!"
Creation by Bob Clampett
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:a 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 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.
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 (final
s) /θ/; 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 liquid sounds; as with Elmer Fudd, /l/ and /r/ tend to come out as /w/. 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. I
don't have to wuwy and dat is dat; I'm tafe in hewe fwom dat ol' putty
tat." (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 Bird.
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 gave him a cuter appearance, including 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).
Sylvester and Tweety proved to be one of the most notable pairings in
animation history. Most of their cartoons followed a standard formula:
- The hungry Sylvester wanting to eat the bird, but 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 saying his signature lines "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!" and "I
did! I did taw a puddy tat!" (Originally "I did! I taw a puddy tat!",
but the extra "did" got inserted somehow). Eventually, someone must have
commented on the grammar of "...did taw..."; in later cartoons, Tweety
says "I did! I did tee a puddy tat!".
- Sylvester spending the entire film using progressively more
elaborate schemes or devices to capture his meal, similar to Wile E.
Coyote in his ongoing efforts to catch roadrunners. 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 (voiced by Bea Benaderet and later June Foray),
or after Tweety steers the enemy toward them or another device (such as
off the ledge of a tall building or an oncoming train).
In 1951, Mel Blanc (with Billy May's orchestra) 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 Sweetie Pie when he leaves
his cage", implying that Tweety's name is actually Sweetie Pie, altered
in its pronunciation by Tweetie's rhotacism. Sylvester, who has his own
speech issues involving the letters S and P, slobbers the "S" in
"Sweetie Pie", just as he would the "S" sounds in his own name.
From 1945 until the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio closed,
Freleng had almost exclusive use of Tweety at the Warner cartoon studio
(much like Yosemite Sam), with the exception of a brief cameo in No Barking in 1954, directed by Chuck Jones (that year, Freleng used Pepé Le Pew, a Jones character, for the only time in his career and the only time in a Tweety short, Dog Pounded).
Later appearances
Tweety had a cameo appearance in My Book about Me.
Tweety Bird Christmas flag adorns this front yard for the Holiday
Tweety had 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"
he has a girlfriend called Aooga, he is not married, and doesn't have
any children. In 2002, a younger version of him premiered on Baby Looney Tunes, thus coming full circle from his earliest appearances.
Tweety appeared in several television specials and feature-film compilations, along with Sylvester, in the 1970s and 1980s.
On Animaniacs, Tweety had a quick cameo in the Slappy Squirrel short subject, Scare Happy Slappy and appeared in The Warners 65th Anniversary Special.
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 is playing a villain character.
A 1996 Christmas commercial for Target featuring LeAnn Rimes
had Tweety giving her a kiss on the cheek as the other Looney Tunes
characters danced to Rimes' song "Put a Little Holiday In Your Heart".
In the game Taz: Wanted,
Tweety 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 defeats 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 in his second appearance, this "Tweety" is really Taz in disguise.
In the MAD segment "Dinosaurs with bird effects", Sylvester appeared as a saber-toothed cat and Tweety appeared as a dinosaur.
Tweety is 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 Devil Dog, where he and Sylvester work
together to avoid getting eating by Taz. He later was revealed to have
fought in WWII 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 (Tweety) was a boy or a
girl. Tweety whispered into his ear and Sylvester had a surprised
expression on his face, and said "Huh, I was wrong."
Warner Brothers has also announced he will star in the 3-D short, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat along with Sylvester.[1]
Modern art
British artist Banksy's 2008 New York art installation The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill features "Tweety", an animatronic sculpture of an aged and molting version of the character.[2]
Comic books
Directed by Bob Clampett
Directed by Friz Freleng
Directed by Gerry Chiniquy
Directed by Chuck Jones
- (MM-Merrie Melodies)
- (LT-Looney Tunes)
Post-Golden Age of American animation
- Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), voiced by Jeff Bergman
- Carrotblanca (1995), voiced by Bob Bergen
- Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries (1995), voiced by Joe Alaskey
- Space Jam (1996), voiced by Bob Bergen
- Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (2000)
- Baby Looney Tunes (2002), voiced by Samuel Vincent
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), voiced by Eric Goldberg
- Museum Scream (2004), voiced by Billy West
- Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas (2006), voiced by Bob Bergen
- The Looney Tunes Show (2011), voiced by Jeff Bergman
Tweety is also known for his 'famous' sayings:
I tawt I taw a putty tat.....I did! I did taw a putty tat!
and his song:
"I'm a tweet wittle birdie 'n a gilded cage, Tweety's my name but I
don't know my age, I don't have to wowwy and dat is dat, I'm safe in
here from dat old putty tat!
References
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweety
