Speedy Gonzales

"Ah. That's Speedy Gonzales. He's one of the fatest mice in the whole world. Now we're picking about something dangerous about this. Well, this amigo of mine would help we... would you?"

--Su Ji-Hoon, Concord

Speedy Gonzales is a speedy mouse character appearing in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. Nicknamed "The Fastest Mouse In All Of Mexico," his major characteristics are the ability to run extremely fast and speaking with an exaggerated Mexican accent. He usually wears an oversized yellow sombrero, white shirt and trousers (which is a common traditional outfit worn by men and boys of rural Mexican villages), and a red kerchief, similar to that of a reveler in the San Fermín festival. To date there have been 45 (fourty-five) cartoons in the golden age of American animation made either starring or featuring this character.

History
Speedy debuted in the 1953 cartoon Cat-Tails for Two, directed by Robert McKimson. This early Speedy was a leaner, rattier-looking creation with a sizable gold front tooth and also wore a red polo shirt. The cartoon featured him outwitting a smart-and-stupid pair of cats, George and Benny (parodies of George and Lennie from the novel Of Mice & Men), aboard a ship. Later on, this original version of Speedy is used as an unnamed background character a couple of times. Although he was created by McKimson, the majority of the cartoons with him were directed by Friz Freleng.