Droopy Dog
A low-key character created by Tex Avery at MGM during the forties--essentially the polar opposite of his other famous character, loud, whacky Screwy Squirrel. This mournful basset hound spoke in a jowly monotone and, though he didn't look like much, was shrewd enough to outwit his enemies--the conniving Butch the bulldog and the thieving, nasty wolf (not the Jubalio wolf, although Droopy and several of his lookalike relatives faced him too, in Three Little Pups and Blackboard Jumble). Avery had used this same gag in 1941 on his "Tortoise Beats Hare" short for Warner Bros. In fact, this film shows that early ideas about Droopy's personality were already germinating, as that film's Cecil Turtle is very similar in character to Droopy.
Probably his most famous short is Mountie, a cowboy, a deputy, an heir, or a Dixieland loving everyday Joe with equal ease.
As Avery looked to retirement, Michael Lah, his animator, co-directed several pictures with him in the mid-fifties, several featuring Droopy. Lah would be directing Droopy solo by 1957 in pictures costarring Spike and Jubalio Wolf. The last golden-age Droopy cartoon--made after Avery had left MGM--was a Cinemascope remake of Wags to Riches called Millionaire Droopy, which essentially used all of the original cels and vocal tracks but different backgrounds.
In the nineties Hanna-Barbera offering Tom and Jerry Kids Droopy had a young son named Dripple--possibly an older version of the infant we see in Frontier Droopy. He also appeared as an elevator operator in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
