Hubie and Bertie
Encyclopedia
Hubie and Bertie are animated cartoon
mouse
characters
in the Warner Bros.
Looney Tunes
and Merrie Melodies
series of cartoons. Though largely forgotten today, Hubie and Bertie represent some of animator
Chuck Jones
' earliest work that was intended to be funny rather than cute.
and Bertie by Tedd Pierce
; both men were screenwriter
s for Jones at the time.
Hubie and Bertie as designed by Jones are nearly identical mice with long snouts, large ears, and big, black noses. The two are completely anthropomorphic, walking on their stubby hind legs and using their forelimbs as arms. The characters are primarily distinguished by their color; one is brown with a lighter-colored belly and face, while the other is gray (which mouse is which color changes from film to film). Hubie has a pronounced Brooklyn
street-accent. Bertie has large buck teeth, and a habit of responding to Hubie with: "Yeah-yeah, sure-sure!" or snickering "Riot!" if Hubie has just proposed some scheme with great comedic potential.
Hubie made a cameo in Odor-able Kitty.
Beginning with The Aristo-cat, Jones quickly established differing personalities for his mice. Hubie, here in gray, is the thinker. He comes up with the plans, and he is the mouse with the chutzpah to fast-talk anyone into doing almost anything. Bertie, on the other hand, brown in this cartoon, is the doer. He performs the gruntwork to accomplish Hubie's schemes. Hubie makes it clear who is subservient to whom, slapping the simpler Bertie around whenever his natural goofiness interferes with the task at hand.
Hubie and Bertie will appear in The Looney Tunes Show
voiced by Joe Alaskey
and Frank Welker
.
Jones would repeat the theme of mind-games several more times in his Hubie and Bertie shorts, as in their third cartoon, Roughly Squeaking on 23 November 1946. This time, Jones has the mice exploit Claude's stupidity by convincing him that he's a lion
and that a dog
is a moose
he wants to eat. By the short's end, Claude thinks he's a lion, the dog believes he's a pelican
, and a bystanding bird has pulled his feathers out and imagines himself a Thanksgiving
turkey
. The mice are here voiced by Mel Blanc
(Hubie) and Stan Freberg
(Bertie). The short was followed by House Hunting Mice
on 6 September 1947, where Hubie and Bertie run afoul of a housekeeping robot
. In the next cartoon, Mouse Wreckers
, and for the remainder of the series, Blanc and Freberg would handle the voices of Hubie and Bertie, respectively. After the classic cartoons, Joe Alaskey
would usually play Bertie.
. The short was released on 23 April 1949 and was the first in which they are officially called "Hubie" and "Bertie". In the cartoon, the duo moves into a new home, only to discover that it is protected by champion mouser Claude Cat (the character's debut), voiced by Mel Blanc. The mice, of course, torment the poor puss both physically and mentally. The short was nominated for an Academy Award
.
The mice would go on to agonize Claude in two more films. The Hypo-chondri-cat on 15 April 1950, featured Hubie and Bertie making Claude think he's sick with various ailments and, ultimately, make him think he's dead. In Cheese Chasers
, on 25 August 1951, Hubie and Bertie inadvertently torment Claude when, after going overboard on a cheese raid and getting sick of their favorite food, they decide to commit suicide by trying to get Claude to eat them.
After these seven cartoons, Jones retired Hubie and Bertie. He was moving on to other characters, such as Pepe Le Pew
, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner
, and Marvin the Martian
, as well as his Marc Antony and Pussyfoot
shorts. Jones would, however, continue to use the characters (or mice designed just like them) in cameo
roles in other shorts whenever he needed a generic mouse for a gag (for instance, the unnamed mouse in Chow Hound
- who resembles Bertie - or the "killer" mice in Scaredy Cat
).
announcer
s in the 1996 movie Space Jam
. They have also appeared in Tiny Toon Adventures
, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries
, Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (2000) and Duck Dodgers
. Hubie and Bertie briefly appear in The Looney Tunes Show
opening.
fluff starring ultra-cute characters such as Sniffles
(who coincidentally, was also a mouse). The Hubie and Bertie shorts, in contrast, are intensely humor-driven and full of over-the-top gags and jokes.
In addition, Hubie and Bertie's penchant for playing to their foes' neuroses hints at Jones' later work with Looney Tunes characters such as Daffy Duck
. Jones is the one largely responsible for turning Daffy from a bouncing screwball to a neurotic narcissist, and it is Jones who introduced several characters who are driven by believable impulses rather than just revenge, such as Wile E. Coyote
with his obsessive
pursuit of the Road Runner
and Pepé Le Pew
with his outsize libido
. Jones' Hubie and Bertie shorts show that the director was already thinking about characters in terms of their personalities.
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
mouse
Mouse
A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...
characters
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
and Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...
series of cartoons. Though largely forgotten today, Hubie and Bertie represent some of animator
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
' earliest work that was intended to be funny rather than cute.
First film
Jones introduced Hubie and Bertie in the short The Aristo-cat, first released on June 19, 1943. The plot of the cartoon would serve as the template for most future Hubie/Bertie outings: A character with some mental illness or degree of naïveté, here, a cat who doesn't know what a mouse looks like, is psychologically tormented by the pair. In this cartoon, they tell the mouse-hungry cat that a bulldog is a mouse, leading to several painful encounters for the cat. Hubie is voiced by Michael MalteseMichael Maltese
Michael "Mike" Maltese was a long-time storyboard artist and screenwriter for classic animated cartoon shorts.-Career:...
and Bertie by Tedd Pierce
Tedd Pierce
Tedd Pierce , was an American animated cartoon writer, animator and artist. Pierce spent the majority of his career as a writer for the Warner Bros. "Termite Terrace" animation studio, working alongside fellow luminaries such as Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. Pierce also worked as a writer at...
; both men were screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
s for Jones at the time.
Hubie and Bertie as designed by Jones are nearly identical mice with long snouts, large ears, and big, black noses. The two are completely anthropomorphic, walking on their stubby hind legs and using their forelimbs as arms. The characters are primarily distinguished by their color; one is brown with a lighter-colored belly and face, while the other is gray (which mouse is which color changes from film to film). Hubie has a pronounced Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
street-accent. Bertie has large buck teeth, and a habit of responding to Hubie with: "Yeah-yeah, sure-sure!" or snickering "Riot!" if Hubie has just proposed some scheme with great comedic potential.
Hubie made a cameo in Odor-able Kitty.
Beginning with The Aristo-cat, Jones quickly established differing personalities for his mice. Hubie, here in gray, is the thinker. He comes up with the plans, and he is the mouse with the chutzpah to fast-talk anyone into doing almost anything. Bertie, on the other hand, brown in this cartoon, is the doer. He performs the gruntwork to accomplish Hubie's schemes. Hubie makes it clear who is subservient to whom, slapping the simpler Bertie around whenever his natural goofiness interferes with the task at hand.
Hubie and Bertie will appear in The Looney Tunes Show
The Looney Tunes Show
The Looney Tunes Show is a packaged show, created for Cartoon Network, and broadcast from 2002 to 2005. It was produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The show featured cartoon shorts from the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon series produced from 1930 to 1969.-External links:...
voiced by Joe Alaskey
Joe Alaskey
Joseph "Joe" Alaskey is an American actor, comedian, and voice artist, credited as one of the successors of Mel Blanc in impersonating the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other characters from Warner Bros. cartoons. He was born in Watervliet, New York.-Other work:Alaskey has also done voices...
and Frank Welker
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...
.
Later films
Trap Happy Porky (24 February 1945) was their second appearance. Nameless, indistinguishable except for color, they appear only in the first act. Quick, clever food stealing foes of a Porky in nightshirt & cap. They are silent except for a single "I'm only three and a half years old", and retreat when one of Jones great cats shows up - a Rube Goldberg by day, drunken roisterer by night.Jones would repeat the theme of mind-games several more times in his Hubie and Bertie shorts, as in their third cartoon, Roughly Squeaking on 23 November 1946. This time, Jones has the mice exploit Claude's stupidity by convincing him that he's a lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
and that a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
is a moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
he wants to eat. By the short's end, Claude thinks he's a lion, the dog believes he's a pelican
Pelican
A pelican, derived from the Greek word πελεκυς pelekys is a large water bird with a large throat pouch, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae....
, and a bystanding bird has pulled his feathers out and imagines himself a Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. The mice are here voiced by Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
(Hubie) and Stan Freberg
Stan Freberg
Stanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...
(Bertie). The short was followed by House Hunting Mice
House Hunting Mice
House Hunting Mice is a 1947 animated short film from Warner Bros. Studios, that was produced in Cinecolor . Running for 7 minutes and starring mice Hubie and Bertie, the short was directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce...
on 6 September 1947, where Hubie and Bertie run afoul of a housekeeping robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
. In the next cartoon, Mouse Wreckers
Mouse Wreckers
Mouse Wreckers is a 1949 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones starring Hubie and Bertie in their first pairing with the redesigned Claude Cat . The short centers around Hubie and Bertie's attempts to move into a new home by chasing Claude out of the home...
, and for the remainder of the series, Blanc and Freberg would handle the voices of Hubie and Bertie, respectively. After the classic cartoons, Joe Alaskey
Joe Alaskey
Joseph "Joe" Alaskey is an American actor, comedian, and voice artist, credited as one of the successors of Mel Blanc in impersonating the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other characters from Warner Bros. cartoons. He was born in Watervliet, New York.-Other work:Alaskey has also done voices...
would usually play Bertie.
Cat and mouse
Jones introduced a permanent "antagonist" of sorts for the mice in Mouse WreckersMouse Wreckers
Mouse Wreckers is a 1949 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones starring Hubie and Bertie in their first pairing with the redesigned Claude Cat . The short centers around Hubie and Bertie's attempts to move into a new home by chasing Claude out of the home...
. The short was released on 23 April 1949 and was the first in which they are officially called "Hubie" and "Bertie". In the cartoon, the duo moves into a new home, only to discover that it is protected by champion mouser Claude Cat (the character's debut), voiced by Mel Blanc. The mice, of course, torment the poor puss both physically and mentally. The short was nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
.
The mice would go on to agonize Claude in two more films. The Hypo-chondri-cat on 15 April 1950, featured Hubie and Bertie making Claude think he's sick with various ailments and, ultimately, make him think he's dead. In Cheese Chasers
Cheese Chasers
Cheese Chasers is a 1951 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Hubie and Bertie in their final appearances of the Classic era. Also starring are Claude Cat and a bulldog predecessor to Marc Antony...
, on 25 August 1951, Hubie and Bertie inadvertently torment Claude when, after going overboard on a cheese raid and getting sick of their favorite food, they decide to commit suicide by trying to get Claude to eat them.
After these seven cartoons, Jones retired Hubie and Bertie. He was moving on to other characters, such as Pepe Le Pew
Pepé Le Pew
Pepé Le Pew is a fictional character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, first introduced in 1945. A French skunk that always strolls around in Paris in the springtime, when everyone's thoughts are of "love", Pepé is constantly seeking "l'amour" of his own...
, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner
Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner
Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner are a duo of cartoon characters from a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. The characters were created by animation director Chuck Jones in 1948 for Warner Bros., while the template for their adventures was the work of writer Michael Maltese...
, and Marvin the Martian
Marvin the Martian
Marvin the Martian is a fictional character appearing in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Marvin's likeness appears in miniature on the Spirit rover on Mars.-Conception and creation:...
, as well as his Marc Antony and Pussyfoot
Marc Antony and Pussyfoot
Marc Antony and Pussyfoot are animated characters in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons...
shorts. Jones would, however, continue to use the characters (or mice designed just like them) in cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
roles in other shorts whenever he needed a generic mouse for a gag (for instance, the unnamed mouse in Chow Hound
Chow Hound
Chow Hound is a Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. Released June 16, 1951, the voices were performed by Mel Blanc, Bea Benaderet and John T...
- who resembles Bertie - or the "killer" mice in Scaredy Cat
Scaredy Cat
Scaredy Cat is a 1948 Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Chuck Jones and produced and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was the first of three Jones cartoons which placed Porky Pig and Sylvester the cat in a spooky setting where only Sylvester was aware of the danger - the other two films...
).
Later appearances
In recent years, Hubie and Bertie have made several cameos in Warner Bros. productions. For example, they play the public addressPublic address
A public address system is an electronic amplification system with a mixer, amplifier and loudspeakers, used to reinforce a sound source, e.g., a person giving a speech, a DJ playing prerecorded music, and distributing the sound throughout a venue or building.Simple PA systems are often used in...
announcer
Announcer
An announcer is a presenter who makes "announcements" in an audio medium or a physical location.-Television and other media:Some announcers work in television production , radio or filmmaking, usually providing narrations, news updates, station identification, or an introduction of a product in...
s in the 1996 movie Space Jam
Space Jam
Aside from Jordan, a number of NBA players and coaches appeared in the film. Larry Bird portrays a friend of Jordan who joins him for a game of golf. When the Monstars steal the NBA players' talent, they invade a game between the Phoenix Suns and the New York Knicks, causing the Knicks' Patrick...
. They have also appeared in Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures
Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures, usually referred to as Tiny Toon Adventures or simply Tiny Toons, is an American animated television series created by Tom Ruegger and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. It began production as a result of Warner Bros....
, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries
The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries
The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, produced by Warner Bros. Animation, is an animated television series which aired from 1995 to 2001 on Kids' WB and was later re-run on Cartoon Network...
, Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (2000) and Duck Dodgers
Duck Dodgers (TV series)
Duck Dodgers is an American animated television series, based on the classic cartoon short Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, produced by Warner Bros. Animation from 2003 to 2005. The series aired on Cartoon Network and starred Daffy Duck as the titular character...
. Hubie and Bertie briefly appear in The Looney Tunes Show
The Looney Tunes Show
The Looney Tunes Show is a packaged show, created for Cartoon Network, and broadcast from 2002 to 2005. It was produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The show featured cartoon shorts from the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon series produced from 1930 to 1969.-External links:...
opening.
Impact on Jones
Despite their short run of films, Hubie and Bertie are significant in that they symbolize Chuck Jones as he had reinvented himself in the late 1940s. Before then, his films were mostly sweet, Disney-esqueThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
fluff starring ultra-cute characters such as Sniffles
Sniffles
Sniffles is an animated cartoon and comic-book character in the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies series of cartoons and comics.-Character biography:...
(who coincidentally, was also a mouse). The Hubie and Bertie shorts, in contrast, are intensely humor-driven and full of over-the-top gags and jokes.
In addition, Hubie and Bertie's penchant for playing to their foes' neuroses hints at Jones' later work with Looney Tunes characters such as Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, often running the gamut between being the best friend and sometimes arch-rival of Bugs Bunny...
. Jones is the one largely responsible for turning Daffy from a bouncing screwball to a neurotic narcissist, and it is Jones who introduced several characters who are driven by believable impulses rather than just revenge, such as Wile E. Coyote
Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner
Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner are a duo of cartoon characters from a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. The characters were created by animation director Chuck Jones in 1948 for Warner Bros., while the template for their adventures was the work of writer Michael Maltese...
with his obsessive
Fixation
Fixation may refer to the following:In science:*Fixation , the state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another human, an animal, or an inanimate object...
pursuit of the Road Runner
Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner
Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner are a duo of cartoon characters from a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. The characters were created by animation director Chuck Jones in 1948 for Warner Bros., while the template for their adventures was the work of writer Michael Maltese...
and Pepé Le Pew
Pepé Le Pew
Pepé Le Pew is a fictional character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, first introduced in 1945. A French skunk that always strolls around in Paris in the springtime, when everyone's thoughts are of "love", Pepé is constantly seeking "l'amour" of his own...
with his outsize libido
Libido
Libido refers to a person's sex drive or desire for sexual activity. The desire for sex is an aspect of a person's sexuality, but varies enormously from one person to another, and it also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. A person who has extremely frequent or a suddenly...
. Jones' Hubie and Bertie shorts show that the director was already thinking about characters in terms of their personalities.
Filmography
- The Aristo-cat (1943)
- Trap Happy Porky (1945)
- Roughly Squeaking (1946)
- House Hunting MiceHouse Hunting MiceHouse Hunting Mice is a 1947 animated short film from Warner Bros. Studios, that was produced in Cinecolor . Running for 7 minutes and starring mice Hubie and Bertie, the short was directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce...
(1947) - Mouse WreckersMouse WreckersMouse Wreckers is a 1949 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones starring Hubie and Bertie in their first pairing with the redesigned Claude Cat . The short centers around Hubie and Bertie's attempts to move into a new home by chasing Claude out of the home...
(1949) - The Hypo-chondri-cat (1950)
- Cheese ChasersCheese ChasersCheese Chasers is a 1951 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Hubie and Bertie in their final appearances of the Classic era. Also starring are Claude Cat and a bulldog predecessor to Marc Antony...
(1951)