Speedy Gonzales | |
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Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies character | |
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First appearance | Cat-Tails for Two (August 29, 1953 ) (preliminary version) Speedy Gonzales (September 17, 1955 ) (official version) |
Created by | Robert McKimson |
Voiced by | Mel Blanc (1953–1989) Noel Blanc (1990, 2012) Joe Alaskey (1991–2008) Greg Burson (1994–1995, 1998) Jeff Bergman (2002) Eric Goldberg (2003) Billy West (2003) Bob Bergen (2006–2008) Fred Armisen (2011–2015) Tim Dadabo (2011, 2014) Eric Bauza (2014–present) Dino Andrade (2018) Gabriel Iglesias (2021) Raul Ceballos (2023–present) see below) |
In-universe information | |
Species | Mouse |
Gender | Male |
Family | Slowpoke Rodriguez (cousin) |
Nationality | Mexican |
Speedy Gonzales is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He is portrayed as "The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico" with his major traits being the ability to run extremely fast, being quick-witted and heroic while speaking with an exaggerated Mexican accent. [1] He usually wears a yellow sombrero , white shirt and trousers (which was a common traditional outfit worn by men and boys of rural Mexican villages), and a red kerchief, similar to that of some traditional Mexican attires. [2] There have been 46 theatrical shorts made either starring or featuring the character.
Speedy's first appearance was in 1953's Cat-Tails for Two though he appeared largely in name (and super speed) only. [3] It would be two years before Friz Freleng and layout artist Hawley Pratt redesigned the character into his modern incarnation for the 1955 Freleng short of the same name. The cartoon features Sylvester the Cat guarding a cheese factory at the international border between the United States and Mexico from starving Mexican mice. The mice call in the plucky, excessively energetic Speedy (voiced by Mel Blanc) to save them. Amid cries of "¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Epe! ¡Epe! ¡Epe! Yeehaw!" (Spanish for "Go on! Go on! Up! Up!", although "Ándale arriba" may have been intended as meaning "hurry up"), Sylvester soon gets his comeuppance. The cartoon won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).
While Speedy's last name was given as Gonzalez in Cat-Tails (on a printed business card shown in the cartoon), it was spelled with an 's' from Speedy Gonzales onward. Today, the earlier spelling is sometimes used.
Freleng and McKimson soon set Sylvester up as Speedy's regular nemesis in a series of cartoons, much in the same way Chuck Jones had paired Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner in his Road Runner cartoons (and indeed, all four characters ended up competing with each other in the short "The Wild Chase"). Sylvester (often called "El Gringo Pussygato" by Speedy) is constantly outsmarted and outrun by the mouse, causing the cat to suffer all manner of pain and humiliation from mousetraps to accidentally consuming large amounts of Tabasco hot sauce. Other cartoons pair the mouse with his cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, the "slowest Mouse in all Mexico." Slowpoke regularly gets into all sorts of trouble that often require Speedy to save him—but one cat in Mexicali Shmoes says that as if to compensate for his slowness, "he pack a gun!" [4] In the mid 1960s, Speedy's main rival and second nemesis became Daffy Duck, whom Speedy usually referred to as "the loco duck."
Speedy has the reputation of being a hit with the female mice. In many cartoons, when the mice decide to get Speedy to help them, one of the mice mentions that "Speedy Gonzales is friend of my sister". Another mouse adds that, "Speedy Gonzales is friend of everybody's sister", which earns a big laugh from the other mice.
Feeling that the character presented an offensive Mexican stereotype, Cartoon Network shelved Speedy's films when it gained exclusive rights to broadcast them in 1999 (as a subsidiary of Time Warner, Cartoon Network is a corporate sibling to Warner Bros.). In an interview with Fox News on March 28, 2002, Cartoon Network spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg commented, "It hasn't been on the air for years because of its ethnic stereotypes." [6]
The Hispanic-American rights organization League of United Latin American Citizens called Speedy a cultural icon, and thousands of users registered their support of the character on the hispaniconline.com message boards. Fan campaigns to put Speedy back on the air resulted in the return of the animated shorts to Cartoon Network in 2002. [7]
Speedy Gonzales remained a popular character in Latin America. Many Hispanic people remembered him fondly as a quick-witted, heroic Mexican character who always got the best of his opponents, at a time when such positive depictions of Latin Americans were rare in popular entertainment. [8]
In 2006, Volkswagen licensed Speedy Gonzales for a series of Spanish-language commercials for the Volkswagen Golf, using footage from the cartoon of the same name. [9]
In a March 2021 essay, Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote, “I love Speedy so much, I keep a large painting of him in my home office. His kind smile and brown skin takes me back to my childhood — and reminds me of where we as Mexicans exist today.” [10]
In 1983, he co-starred with Daffy Duck once again in Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island . He also made a cameo appearance in the finale sequence of the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit . [11] He had one appearance in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode segment "The Acme Acres Summer Olympics", as the coach, and serving as the mentor of Lightning Rodriguez. He had a minor role in the 1996 film Space Jam . [11] He made a cameo appearance alongside Porky Pig in the 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action , [11] making fun of his politically incorrect status. At around the same time, he made a non-speaking cameo in an episode of ¡Mucha Lucha! titled "Lucha, Rinse and Repeat".
Volume 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD series, released on November 14, 2006, has an entire disc of Speedy shorts, although some of his other shorts had previously been released on Volumes 1 and 3. Speedy is mentioned in one Duck Dodgers episode, after Cadet sits on Dodgers, prompting him to say, "I knew I should've chosen Speedy Gonzales as a sidekick!"
Speedy Gonzales appears in Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas . He is an employee at the Lucky Duck Superstore for the greedy Daffy Duck where he confuses Daffy with the Feliz Navidad comment.
Speedy Gonzales also appeared occasionally on The Looney Tunes Show . He is seen living with Bugs and Daffy as their "mouse in the wall" and running the pizza parlor Pizzarriba. Speedy is shown to act as Daffy's conscience, which is a far cry from the antagonistic relationship they had in the old days. The episode "Sunday Night Slice" showed that Bugs bought his favorite restaurant, Girardi's, to prevent it from being closed and hired Speedy to help him. When Bugs decides he does not want to own a restaurant anymore, he hands ownership of it to Speedy. In "The Black Widow", Speedy Gonzales answers Daffy Duck's call and races to Tacapulco to convince his cousin Sheriff Slowpoke Rodriguez to let Daffy Duck and Porky Pig out of jail.
Speedy Gonzales appeared in the 2015 direct-to-video movie Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run . He is seen as Lola Bunny's landlord.
An elderly Speedy Gonzales (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) was "interviewed" by Al Madrigal for Madrigal's one-hour comedic documentary special Half Like Me (currently available on YouTube and formerly on Hulu). [12]
Speedy Gonzales appeared occasionally in New Looney Tunes , often as the leader of a gang of mice that also includes Hubie and Bertie, Sniffles, and "Minnesota Rats" (originally Minniesoda Fats; an aborted 1970s character revived and fleshed out in this series). He seems to have reverted to his personality from Merrie Melodies .
Speedy was featured in an episode of Bugs Bunny Builders titled "Speedy", voiced by Raul Ceballos. In the episode, he is a professional soccer player and hired the Looney Builders to fly to Mexico and build a soccer stadium for his soccer game with his four teammates.
In 1962, pop singer Pat Boone scored a top 10 hit in the United States with the song "Speedy Gonzales" which featured Mel Blanc samples as Speedy. It was covered by Manolo Muñoz and several other artists.
In 1965, the movie Wild on the Beach included the song "Little Speedy Gonzales" which was written by Stan Ross and Bobby Beverly and performed by The Astronauts. [13]
In 1995, he appeared in a video game, Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos , for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
In 2006, Volkswagen licensed Speedy Gonzales for a series of Spanish-language commercials for the Volkswagen Golf, using footage from the cartoon of the same name. [9]
Speedy Gonzales starred in several video games: Cheese Cat-Astrophe Starring Speedy Gonzales for the Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, and Game Gear, Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Speedy Gonzales for the Game Boy and Speedy Gonzales: Aztec Adventure for the Game Boy Color. He also appeared as an enemy in Looney Tunes: Back in Action , and Looney Tunes: Marvin Strikes Back! as both a miniboss and playable character. In the 2018 film Overboard, Eugenio Derbez has a tattoo of Gonzalez.
In 2010, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema announced a new Speedy Gonzales live action / animated feature film. George Lopez was attached to voice the character. [14] In December 2015, it was reported that an animated film is in development at Warner Bros. [15] In April 2016, it was announced that Eugenio Derbez will voice the character. [16]
Melvin Jerome Blanc was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over 60 years. During the Golden Age of Radio, he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy radio programs, including those of Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, The Great Gildersleeve, Judy Canova, and his own short-lived sitcom.
Looney Tunes is an American animated franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. It began as a series of short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, along with its partner series Merrie Melodies, during the golden age of American animation. Following a revival in the late 1970s, new shorts were released as recently as 2014. The two series introduced a large cast of characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig. The term Looney Tunes has since been expanded to also refer to the characters themselves.
Daffy Duck is a cartoon character created by animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett for Leon Schlesinger Productions. Styled as an anthropomorphic black duck, he has appeared in cartoon series such as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, in which he is usually depicted as a foil for either Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig or Speedy Gonzales. He was one of the first of the new "screwball" characters that emerged in the late 1930s to replace traditional everyman characters who were more popular earlier in the decade, such as Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig, and Popeye.
Porky Pig is a cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts featuring the character. Even after he was supplanted by later characters, Porky continued to be popular with moviegoers and, more importantly, the Warners directors, who recast him in numerous everyman and sidekick roles.
Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr. is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic cat in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. Most of his appearances have him often chasing Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales, or Hippety Hopper. He appeared in 103 cartoons in the golden age of American animation, lagging only behind superstars Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck. Three of his cartoons won Academy Awards, the most for any starring a Looney Tunes character: they are Tweetie Pie, Speedy Gonzales, and Birds Anonymous.
Cool Cat is a fictional cartoon character created by director Alex Lovy for Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Animation. He was the final star of the original Warner Bros. theatrical cartoons. His first appearance was in an eponymous short in 1967. He was voiced by Larry Storch. Robert McKimson took over as director for the last two cartoons in this series.
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 is a DVD box set that was released by Warner Home Video on October 28, 2003. The first release of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD series, it contains 56 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and numerous supplements. The set won the Classic Award at the Parents' Choice Awards.
Jeffrey Bergman is an American voice actor who has provided the modern-day voices of various classic cartoon characters, most notably with Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera.
Mexicali Shmoes is a 1959 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon short directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on July 4, 1959, and stars Speedy Gonzales and the singing cats Jose and Manuel. Voice actors include Mel Blanc as the voices of Speedy Gonzales and Jose plus an uncredited Dal McKennon as the voice of Manuel.
Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island is a 1983 American animated anthology film directed by Friz Freleng and Phil Monroe with a compilation of classic Warner Bros. cartoon shorts and animated bridging sequences, hosted by Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales. This was the first Looney Tunes compilation film to center on Daffy Duck, as the previous ones had centered on Bugs Bunny. The premise of the framing animation was a general parody of the popular 1970s/1980s television series Fantasy Island, with Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales playing caricatures of that series' principal characters, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo (respectively).
Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas is a 2006 animated direct-to-DVD Christmas comedy film starring the Looney Tunes characters, directed by Charles Visser, produced by Warner Bros. Animation and animated by Toon City Animation. The film is based on Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol (1843). The special was released on DVD on November 14, 2006, and was then broadcast on Cartoon Network in December 2006. The special was rereleased on DVD as part of the Looney Tunes Holiday Triple Feature on September 1, 2020.
Daffy Rents is a 1966 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on March 26, 1966, and stars Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
Gregory Lewis Burson was an American voice actor. He was best known for being one of the many successors to voice actors Daws Butler and Mel Blanc following their deaths in 1988 and 1989 respectively.
Well Worn Daffy is a 1965 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes animated short directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on May 22, 1965, and stars Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
Mucho Locos is a 1966 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on February 5, 1966, and stars Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
The Looney Tunes Show is an American animated sitcom produced by Warner Bros. Animation, and aired on Cartoon Network for two seasons from May 3, 2011, to November 2, 2013. The series featured characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon shorts in a sitcom format with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, who live a surburban life together within a neighborhood of fellow cartoon neighbors, dealing with various issues in their own way. Many episodes also include a musical short under the Merrie Melodies name, and the first season also includes computer-animated shorts involving new antics between Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales is a 1982 American animated fantasy comedy film produced and directed by Friz Freleng. It combines classic Warner Bros. cartoon shorts with new animation, with Bugs Bunny serving as the story host.
Mexican Boarders is a 1962 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon short directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on May 12, 1962, and stars Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester. Voice actors are Mel Blanc, and Tom Holland as the narrator.
Media related to Speedy Gonzales at Wikimedia Commons