Speedy Gonzales, (also known as Speedy), is a major character in the Looney Tunes franchise.
Speedy's first appearance was in 1953's Cat Tails for Two though he appeared largely in name (and super speed) only. It would be two years before Friz Freleng and animator Hawley Pratt redesigned the character into his modern incarnation for the 1955 Freleng short Speedy Gonzales.
The cartoon features Sylvester guarding a cheese factory at the international border between United States and Mexico from starving Mexican mice. The mice call in the plucky, excessively energetic Speedy to save them, and amid cries of "¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! Yee-haw!" (Spanish for "Go on! Go on! Up! Up!", although "Ándale arriba" may have been intended as meaning "hurry up") courtesy of Mel Blanc, Sylvester soon gets his comeuppance. The cartoon won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).
While Speedy's last name was given as Gonzales in Cat-Tails (on a printed business card shown in the cartoon), it was spelled with an 's' from Speedy Gonzales onward. Today, the earlier spelling is occasionally used by accident.
Freleng and McKimson soon set Sylvester up as Speedy's regular nemesis in a series of cartoons, much in the same way Chuck Jones had paired Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner in his Road Runner cartoons. Sylvester (often called "El Gringo Pussygato" by Speedy) is constantly outsmarted and outrun by the Mouse, causing the cat to suffer all manner of pain and humiliation from mousetraps to accidentally consuming large amounts of Tabasco hot sauce. Other cartoons pair the mouse with his cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, the "slowest Mouse in all Mexico." Slowpoke regularly gets into all sorts of trouble that often require Speedy to save him—but one cat in Mexicali Shmoes says that as if to compensate for his slowness, "he packs a gun!"
In the mid 1960s, Speedy's main rival became Daffy Duck or the Loco Duck as Speedy called him. In many cartoons with Daffy, the duck was an outright villain, often starving Speedy Gonzales friends and oppressing the poor, forcing Speedy to try to stop him.
Speedy Gonzales is depicted in a more sympathetic light in these episodes, doing all he can to try to reason with the stubborn Daffy Duck. For example, in Moby duck, Speedy offers to give Daffy the can opener he needs in exchange for only the quarter of one single can out of Daffy's many crates of canned food. Despite Daffy refusing and trying to murder Speedy for the can opener, Speedy still gives Daffy the can opener at the end of the cartoon and stays polite even when Daffy refuses to let Speedy Gonzales have a single crumb from his stockpile of food.
Speedy and the Road Runner are challenged into a race which of them is the fastest. But no results due to Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote.
Daffy was also depicted as a more threatening foe then Sylvester and defeated Speedy in two episodes.
Nevertheless a few cartoons in that period depicted Daffy as Speedy's arrogant friend instead of a completely evil character.
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