Tweety was the creation of Bob Clampett, who had a fascination with baby birds. While WB had had similar birds before (the Avery/Clampett 1941 cartoon The Cagey Canary), Clampett gave the bird (originally called Orson, judging from an early model sheet) a lisping baby voice, a head proportioned like a baby, and a temperment borrowed perhaps from the Red Skelton character of Junior, the Mean Widdle Kid. In his debut in A Tale of Two Kitties (Clampett, 1942) and in the followups Birdy and the Beast and A Gruesome Twosome ( both Clampett, 1944 and 1945), Tweety (first named in the credits for Birdy and the Beast ) shows that he is no helpless little orphan, as he uses gasoline, hand grenades, dynamite and clubs to protect himself.
Originally pink, Tweety was changed to yellow, after censors complained (no doubt tipped off by the Durante-like cat in A Gruesome Twosome calling Tweety the naked genius.
Tweety's personality drew people in. Not only was he cute and cuddly, he drew us in on the plight of a bird in a dangerous world of cats.
Tweety may look defenseless, but don't let that fool you...underneath that sweet exterior
lies a bird who is intelligent and not at all beyond developing wicked ways to defend
himself against a certain nasty puddy tat! In the fourty plus years since Tweety Bird first
debuted, Tweety has been featured in 41 cartoons. Tweety also co-starred in the movie
"Space Jam".
