And You Tawt That Perhaps the Most Popular One Is a Bunny?
Guess who is the most popular Looney Tunes character?
If you said Bugs Bunny or even Daffy Duck, you’ve made a major error. The most favorite of the Warner Bros. animated characters, the studio reports, is none other than the yellow canary, Tweety.
Adults adore the little guy, who is Sylvester the Cat’s arch-nemesis, and he’s idolized by kids. Girls especially go for his innocence and superiority over Sylvester. Currently, Tweety stars in four high-rated kids’ TV shows, including “The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries” and “Looney Tunes” on ABC.
Now, Tweety is headlining two new videos, “Tweet and Lovely” and “Home Tweet Home,” which have just been released under Warner Home Video’s new banner, “Looney Tunes Presents.” Each collection is 70 minutes and features some of the best animated shorts starring the Oscar-winning birdie and that mean ol’ puddy tat--among them “Birds Anonymous,” “Tweet Tweet Tweety,” “Greedy for Tweety” and “Rebel Without Claws.”
Tweety made his film debut as a bird named Orson in the 1942 Merrie Melodies short “A Tale of Two Kitties.” It was in this Bob Clampett-produced feature that Tweety uttered his famous signature phrase: “I tawt I taw a puddy tat!”
After honing his personalty in “Birdy and the Beast” and “A Gruesome Twosome,” he was paired with Sylvester in 1947’s “Tweety Pie.” Under the direction of the legendary Friz Freleng, the two became an instant hit and won an Academy Award. “Tweety Pie” was the first Warner Bros. cartoon to receive that honor. Over the next four decades, the dynamic duo appeared in more than 40 shorts and won a second Oscar. They were the most popular stamp last year with 38 million bought by collectors.
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Tweety is nowhere to be found in the terrific wildlife documentary series “The Life of Birds” (BBC, $90). Hosted by award-winning wildlife expert Sir David Attenborough, the brother of Oscar-winning director Richard Attenborough, this five-part, 10-hour series gives an up-close and unique look at this magnificent, diverse and complex species.
“Life of Birds” took 48 camerapeople, three years and more than $12 million to complete. Attenborough made 70 trips to 42 countries, amassing footage of more than 9,000 types of birds on seven continents. The series looks at birds’ strategies for finding food, their complex social system and their bizarre mating rituals. The series airs next month on PBS.
