Screwy Squirrel

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Screwy Squirrel
MGM Cartoons character
Screwy Squirrel seen in "Screwball Squirrel" (1944)
First appearanceScrewball Squirrel
April 1, 1944
Last appearanceLonesome Lenny
March 9, 1946
Created byTex Avery
Designed byClaude Smith
Voiced byWally Maher (1944–1946)
William Hanna (1944)
Pinto Colvig (1945)
Charlie Adler (1993)
Jeff Bergman (2004)
Paul Reubens (2013)
Sean Kenin (2019–2021)
In-universe information
AliasScrewball Squirrel
Screwy the Screwball Squirrel
SpeciesAmerican red squirrel
GenderMale

Screwy Squirrel (also known as Screwball Squirrel) is an

anthropomorphic squirrel created by Tex Avery for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
.

Among some of the more outrageous cartoon characters, Screwy's feats include pulling objects out of thin air, doubling himself, and breaking the fourth wall, all the while uttering a characteristic cackling laugh. The character was not as successful as Avery's Droopy was at this time, appearing in only five cartoons: Screwball Squirrel (1944), Happy-Go-Nutty (1944), Big Heel-Watha (1944), The Screwy Truant (1945), and Lonesome Lenny (1946).[1]

Biography

The character was known for being brash and erratic, with few sympathetic personality characteristics such as Bugs Bunny's nobility and Daffy Duck's pathos. (Both of those characters are also Tex Avery's creations).[2] Most of his cartoons had him paired with Meathead Dog (voiced by screenwriter Cal Howard in Screwball Squirrel, Tex Avery in Happy-Go-Nutty, and Pinto Colvig in The Screwy Truant) as his adversary. Meathead's physical appearance differed between the three shorts in which he appeared (with his ears changing color from grey-blue to black in Happy-Go-Nutty, and donning a new color palette in The Screwy Truant), but otherwise the character remained the same.

Screwy's shorts revolve around his infliction of various forms of torture on Meathead – or another enemy – for seven minutes. In The Screwy Truant, one gag has Screwy hitting Meathead over the head with everything he can find in a trunk labeled "Assorted Swell Stuff to Hit Dog on Head". When he finishes, Meathead remarks, "Gee whiz! He hit me with everything but the kitchen sink!" Screwy responds with, "Well, don't want to disappoint you, chum", then pulls out that very item and bashes him over the head with it.[1]

The final cartoon in the series,

What's Opera Doc?, which was directed by Chuck Jones. In that cartoon, however, as a dead Bugs Bunny is being carried away by a guilt-ridden Elmer Fudd, the rabbit awakes to speak to the audience about the opera parody
's sad ending.

The reason why Screwy was killed off in his last cartoon was said to be that Tex Avery grew to openly dislike the character. Animator Mark Kausler used to send Avery letters about his rendition of Screwy, only for Avery to throw away anything related to the character.[3]

Later appearances

Meathead Dog made a cameo appearance in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He is seen sniffing around at R. K. Maroon's Cartoon Studio in the film's beginning. Screwy is mockingly mentioned by one of Eddie Valiant's bar patrons Angelo: "Who's your client, Mr. Detective of the Stars? Chilly Willy, or Screwy Squirrel?"

In 1993,

Saturday morning cartoons.[4] Those new cartoons featured the character's name as Screwball—never Screwy—and pitted him not against Meathead, but against a pair of typical Hanna-Barbera authority figures, a human park attendant named Dweeble and his oafish dog Rumply. "Screwball" himself wore a T-shirt and often a "Napoleon-style" bicorne
hat.

On

Happy-Go-Nutty repeatedly from 6 am to 6 p, as part of an April Fool's joke that the cartoon character had seized control of the network.[5]

On April Fool's Day in 2012, Cartoon Network broadcast Screwy Squirrel's debut cartoon The Screwball Squirrel, at 6:00 am and 11:45 am, which marked the first time that a cartoon by Tex Avery was broadcast on the network since The Tex Avery Show.

In 2013, both Meathead and Screwy Squirrel made appearances as residents of "Fairy Land" in Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure, retaining most of their traits. Screwy Squirrel was voiced by Paul Reubens and Meathead was voiced by John DiMaggio.

In 2019, Screwy Squirrel made an appearance as a landlord of an apartment building called Screwy Arms Apartments, in the third season of The Tom and Jerry Show episode called "Double Dog Trouble". He also made various cameos in the series. Screwy was voiced by Sean Kenin.

American animator and producer Bruce W. Smith briefly began developing a series for Warner Bros. starring the titular character. In Smith's proposed storyline, which was never produced, Screwy thinks he is in Hollywood, California, but in reality he is in Hollywood, Alabama.[6][7]

Voice actors

Cartoons

# Title Release Date
1 Screwball Squirrel April 1, 1944
2 Happy-Go-Nutty June 24, 1944
3 Big Heel-Watha (Buck of the Month) October 21, 1944
4 The Screwy Truant January 13, 1945
5 Lonesome Lenny March 9, 1946

Comics

List of comics appearances

  • Our Gang Comics #12–14 (1944) (Dell Comics)
  • Tom & Jerry's Winter Carnival #1 (1952), #2 (1953) (Dell)
  • Tom & Jerry's Winter Fun #3 (1954), #6 (1957), #7 (1958), #8 (1958) (Dell)
  • Tom & Jerry's Summer Fun #1 (1954), #2 (1955) (Dell)
  • Tom and Jerry #213 (1962), #231, #232 (1966), #258 (1971)
  • Golden Comics Digest #3, #5 (1969), #8 (1970), #18 (1971), #22, #25 (1972), #28 (1973), #41 (1975) (Gold Key Comics)
  • Tex Avery's Wolf and Red various issues (1995) (Dark Horse Comics)
  • Tex Avery's
    Screwball Squirrel
     (1995) (Dark Horse Comics)
  • Tex Avery's Droopy various issues (1995) (Dark Horse Comics)
  • Comics and Stories various issues (1996) (Dark Horse Comics)

Some earlier comics style the character's name as "Skrewy Squirrel" or "Skrewy the Screwball Squirrel." Additional titles, not listed here, include the character in one-page gag or puzzle features.

Home media

Several Screwy Squirrel cartoons were released as bonus features on classic Warner Bros. titles including:

In March 2020, Screwball Squirrel, The Screwy Traunt, Big Heel-Watha and Lonesome Lenny were released on Blu-Ray, fully restored and uncut, by

Warner Archive as part of Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1.[10] Happy Go Nutty was released on October 5, 2021 as part of Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3- completing Screwy’s filmography.[11]

Other appearances

A voice clip of Wally Maher as Screwy Squirrel from the character's debut short was recycled for the character of Dweezil the cat in the video game Putty.

References

  1. ^ a b Adamson, Joe, Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, 1975, Da Capo Press
  2. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7
    . Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  3. ^ Yowp (December 19, 2011). "Tralfaz: Screwy Squirrel and the Sam Prototype". Tralfaz. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  4. ISBN 978-1476665993
    .
  5. ^ Markstein, Donald D. "Screwy Squirrel". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
  6. ^ @BruceAlmighteee (March 19, 2021). "#ThrowbackThursday I was at WB for a..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  7. ^ @BruceAlmighteee (March 19, 2021). "The idea: animated documentary-styled..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  8. ISBN 978-1-60473-685-4
    . Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  9. ^ "Screwy Squirrel". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  10. ^ "Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1 (BD) – WB Shop". Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  11. ^ "Some Advance Notes on "Tex Avery Screwball Classics" Volume 3 |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
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