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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, and speaking with an exaggerated Mexican accent. 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. There have been 46 theatrical shorts made either starring or featuring the character.
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 sauce 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!" In the mid 1960s, Speedy's main rival and second nemesis became Daffy Duck, whom Speedy usually referred to as "the 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.
However, 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.
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.
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.
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."
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 Porky Pig 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 . 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).
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 Gonzales appeared in the Bugs Bunny Builders episode "Speedy", voiced by Raul Ceballos. In the show, 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. He was featured in a cameo in the episode "The Snuffles", where he watches the world premiere of the movie Wonder Rabbit on his laptop on the soccer field.
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.
In 1995, he appeared in a video game, , 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.
Speedy Gonzales starred in several video games: Cheese Cat-Astrophe Starring Speedy Gonzales for the Sega Genesis, Master System, and Game Gear, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Speedy Gonzales for the Game Boy and for the Game Boy Color. He also appeared as an enemy in , and as both a miniboss and Player character.
In the 2018 film Overboard, Eugenio Derbez has a tattoo of Gonzales.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived from the original on July 29, 2017.
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