Slappy Squirrel (voiced by
Sherri StonerSherri Stoner is an American actress and writer. She was born July 16 1965, in Santa Monica, California, United States.She has worked extensively in animation. She was a writer and producer for such 1990s animated shows as Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs...
) is a character in the Warner Brothers
cartoonThe word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time....
show
AnimaniacsSteven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, usually referred to as Animaniacs, is an American animated series, distributed by Warner Bros. and produced by Amblin Entertainment. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation during...
. She is characterised as a bitter, cranky old woman. She is an
anthropomorphicAnthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts. Examples include animals and plants depicted as creatures with human motivation able to reason and converse and forces of nature such as...
gray squirrelGray squirrel is the common name for two species of squirrel native to North America:*The Eastern Gray Squirrel *The Western Gray Squirrel.Gray squirrel may also refer to:* Arizona Gray Squirrel* Mexican Gray Squirrel...
, usually wearing a green hat decorated with a drooping yellow flower and carrying a pink purse and green umbrella that she occasionally uses to hit other characters.
Hurray For Slappy reveals Slappy to be in her 80s, as Mary Heartless (a parody of
Entertainment TonightEntertainment Tonight is a daily tabloid-like television entertainment news show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world. Kaylee Stacey is the producer...
's Mary Hart) refers to Slappy as "octogenarian". She lives in a hollow tree with her nephew
Skippy SquirrelSkippy Squirrel is a fictional cartoon squirrel in the Warner Bros. animated series Animaniacs who is the nephew of Slappy Squirrel. He is voiced by Nathan Ruegger, the son of the show's producer Tom Ruegger...
, her polar opposite in terms of personality, who loves to hear her tell stories about her former days of stardom. While Skippy represents a cuter style of cartoon characters, Slappy was and is a more chaotic and old-school character, enjoying violence for comedy's sake and resentful of milquetoast, censor-influenced modern cartoons.
She was first seen in
Animaniacs' third episode,
Slappy Goes Walnuts, originally aired on September 15, 1993, which also introduced an extract of a purely fictitious
Looney TunesLooney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theaters from 1930 to 1969. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and is Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. The regular Warner Bros...
cartoon featuring herself and suggesting that she was a retired
Looney TunesLooney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theaters from 1930 to 1969. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and is Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. The regular Warner Bros...
character who crossed over into
AnimaniacsSteven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, usually referred to as Animaniacs, is an American animated series, distributed by Warner Bros. and produced by Amblin Entertainment. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation during...
. In several episodes, there are shots of fictitious
Looney TunesLooney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theaters from 1930 to 1969. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and is Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. The regular Warner Bros...
cartoons portraying a younger Slappy, under the pseudonym
Slappy the Slap-Happy Squirrel, reference to the MGM cartoon character
"Screwy" SquirrelScrewball "Screwy" Squirrel is a cartoon character, an anthropomorphic squirrel created by Tex Avery for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, generally considered the wackiest of the screwball cartoon characters of the 1940s, which included Warner Bros.'s Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Disney's Aracuan Bird, and...
.
Characters
Her former co-star and arch-enemy Walter Wolf harbors a grudge against her, both for defeating him repeatedly (and violently) in the past and for becoming a big star, albeit now a faded one. He has also enlisted the help of her other ex-nemeses, including Sid the Squid and Beanie the Brain-Dead Bison. Much like Slappy, all these characters show signs of age and senility.
In addition to Walter's occasional attempts at revenge, Slappy must sometimes endure more mundane annoyances such as a cloyingly-perky new neighbor or Skippy's emotional traumas, for instance after he watches
Bumbie (a parody of
BambiBambi is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...
). In this case she tells Skippy that Bumbie's mother was played by an old friend of hers, the cartoon
doeDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. They include for example Moose, Red Deer, Reindeer, Roe and Chital. Animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla are often also considered to be deer – these include muntjac and water deer...
Vina Walleen, who, like herself, Walter Wolf et al., is now much older. She manages to convince Skippy that Vina played Bumbie's mother by taking him to Vina's home and asking her to
morphMorphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes one image into another through a seamless transition. Most often it is used to depict one person turning into another through technological means or as part of a fantasy or surreal sequence. Traditionally such a depiction...
into the character. But Vina cannot maintain the morph for long, and on returning complains that she can't do it as well as she used to.
Humor
Slappy easily outsmarts whatever foes she faces (who are almost universally dimwitted as well as decrepit) and exacts revenge with exaggerated cartoon violence, usually whilst reminiscing about her "classic" (but fictional) film appearances of her youth. She often will remark how her enemies remind her of various famous cartoon characters when they were very young. Her catchphrase "Now
that’s comedy!" is usually delivered after visiting seemingly grave physical injury and humiliation upon her opponents. She also occasionally says, "You remind me of a very young (insert name)," to everyone from the Warner siblings to her enemies.
In many ways, Slappy's one-liners are similar to those made famous by comedienne
Phyllis DillerPhyllis Diller is a Golden Globe-nominated American actress and comedienne, considered one of the pioneers of female stand-up comedy. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically-dressed housewife who makes jokes about a fictional husband named "Fang" while smoking from a long...
. Slappy would often poke fun at her age and ailing health, comments which would inevitably go over Skippy's head but which her
GeritolGeritol is a US trademarked name for various supplements, past and present. Geritol was introduced as an alcohol-based, iron and B vitamin tonic by Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in August 1950 and primarily marketed as such into the 1970s. Geritol was folded into Pharmaceuticals' 1957 acquisition of J. B....
-generation cohorts would find hilarious.
Slappy is also well known for the dialog
Who's on Stage?, a 2 minute Vaudevillesque wit-round routine, based on the legendary sketch
Who's on First?Who's on First? is a vaudeville comedy routine made most famous by Abbott and Costello. In Abbott and Costello's version, the premise of the routine is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team to Costello, but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers...
, in Episode 59 (Woodstock), in which she tries to determine which band is performing on stage ("
The BandThe Band was a rock music group active from 1967 to 1976 and again from 1983 to 1999. The original group consisted of four Canadians: Robbie Robertson ; Richard Manuel ; Garth Hudson ; and Rick Danko , and...
", "
WhoThe Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. The primary lineup consisted of guitarist Pete Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They became known for energetic live performances including the pioneering spectacle of instrument destruction...
" or "
YesYes are an English progressive rock band that was formed in London in 1968. Their music is marked by sharp dynamic contrasts, extended song lengths, abstract lyrics, and a general showcasing of instrumental prowess. Yes blends symphonic and other 'classical' structures with their own brand of...
") which of course ends with
Roger Daltrey Roger Harry Daltrey CBE is an English singer-songwriter and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who...
inviting the pair on stage.
In a later episode, "No Face Like Home", Slappy had been combining her disdain for new slapstick-free cartoons as well as her dislike for cartoons that were mostly peppered with environmentalist messages and "pretty female animals who had no slaptick", and briefly looked at a cartoon where an attractive female bird recites to a villain why he ought not cut down trees, to which Slappy said not only could that girl not act, she had no anvils or other traits Slappy was famous for. Slappy also succumbs to Hollywood's craze with plastic surgery by attempting to have herself transformed artificially back into her youthful self and get back into cartoons "to make them the way they should be, with anvils and dynamite!"
The music played during the title card of her segments is an excerpt from
Antonín DvořákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of Romantic music, who employed the idioms and melodies of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. His works include operas, symphonic, choral and chamber music...
's "Humoresque".
Episodes
Excluding
cameoA 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. Short appearances by film directors, politicians, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities are common. These roles are generally small, and...
s and brief appearances in ensembles, Slappy has appeared in the following
Animaniacs episodes:
- Episode 3, Slappy Goes Walnuts
- Episode 5, Taming of The Screwys (Cameo)
- Episode 8, Bumbie's Mom
- Episode 13, Little Old Slappy from Pasadena
- Episode 16, Hurray for Slappy
- Episode 22, Guardin' the Garden
- Episode 27, I Got Yer Can (according to writer/voice actor Sherri Stoner on the Animaniacs Vol. 2 DVD, this was based on a real situation)
- Episode 36, Critical Condition
- Episode 36, The Three Muska-Warners (Cameo)
- Episode 41, Broadcast Nuisance (Cameo;Unaired version)
- Episode 45, ...And Justice for Slappy
- Episode 46, Turkey Jerky (Cameo)
- Episode 50, `Twas the Day Before Christmas
- Episode 51, Frontier Slappy
- Episode 58, Smell Ya Later
- Episode 59, Woodstock Slappy
- Episode 62, Scare Happy Slappy
- Episode 64, No Face Like Home
- Episode 70, Nutcracker Slappy
- Episode 71, Three Tenors and You're Out
- Episode 72, Rest in Pieces
- Episode 73, Gimme a Break
- Episode 74, Method to Her Madness
- Episode 79, My Mother the Squirrel
- Episode 81, Soccer Coach Slappy
- Episode 82, One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock
- Episode 92, Bully for Skippy
- Episode 94, The Christmas Tree
- Episode 97, Sunshine Squirrels
Show Notes
- Episode 3, Slappy Goes Walnuts: Slappy makes reference to Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton , was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
who popularized the vibraphone in the 1930s.
- In Episode 22, Guardin' the Garden, Slappy refers to God as "Mr. Big".
- A prelude to Episode 51, Frontier Slappy, included Slappy and Skippy advertising the purely fictitious breakfast cereal, Smellogg's Branimaniacs, as a parody of the Kelloggs adverts around at the time.
- A majority of the Slappy cartoons were animated by StarToons
StarToons was an American animation studio located in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded by Jon McClenahan, an animator who had previously worked for other studios like Hanna Barbera...
.
- There's a running gag where Yakko, Wakko, and Dot
Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner, also known as "The Warner Brothers ", are the three title cartoon characters featured on the animated series Animaniacs. The trio of red-nosed Warner siblings were considered to be the stars of the ensemble of characters on the show...
would often make brief cameo appearances in Slappy cartoons. In return, Slappy would make cameo appearances in their cartoons, such as Turkey Jerky, The Three Muska-Warners and The Taming of the Screwy. She appears to know them personally and has helped them on occasion. All her cartoons begin with the Warners singing a song about her. Slappy and the Warners are also the only characters that know each other personally.