Speedy Gonzales

Christmas vacation made the better couch potato in me. Out of boredom I took a heap of vintage cartoon films and leisurely took a second look on the films by which I grew up with and featured the ‘fastest mouse in all Mexico”, Speedy Gonzales. Hip, young and spunky this Mexican mouse with the yellow sombrero which is too big for him, white camisa and pantalones and a red bufanda have endeared millions of fans all over the world. The words: andale!andale!(go on!go on!) would always be a trademark for this quick, smart-alecky and spirited rodent. Originally created by Robert McKinson in 1953 and redesigned by Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt, this animated mouse gained popularity in Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons series. As such along with him are other characters which surface, as there would never be a more appropriate nemesis than a cat named Sylvester, Slowpoke Rodriguez as Speedy’s antithesis of a cousin, Daffy Duck and a host of other casts. The commonplace theme of the conflict between and among them would range from winning the attention and affection of the ladies in town to the ultimate experience of getting the piece of cheese. Speedy would always get the upper hand in most if not all of the episodes and poor Sylvester or Daffy Duck ending in stitches.

The popularity of Speedy stems from his bilingual ability and this would probably be the take off point for the now famous Dora. Many Spanish-speaking countries are thrilled to have free advertisement for tourism from such a cartoon character and place Spanish as one of the highly-spoken languages in the world. This in fact have favored Speedy when in 1999 a controversy ensued because of ethnic stereotypes with his comrade rats shown as dimwits, dawdling and drunk. The League of United Latin American Citizens lobbied for his return after being out on air for four years. To date, Speedy is a multimedia actor with about 46 cartoons featuring his character, a hit song bearing his name and an academy award.

Speedy Gonzalez continue to soar high on better ground although at times in most of his episodes his antics are almost always peppered with some form of violence and many intended grammatical bloopers to spice up the dialogue among the characters, he has come a long ways since ‘Cat Tails for Two’ in 1953 as his debut film with a host of several persons who gave life to his voice as part of the evolution which transpired in his character over the years. Speedy Gonzalez never aged a bit in a span of almost six decades in the business but as he nears the 60^th year would he finally come home? He can sigh: holy frijoles! that thing runs faster than me! but then again as Speedy Gonzalez would declare with conviction “us good guys always win”. Speedy Gonzalez could run counter parallel to time and would never be outrun.