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Hubie and Bertie are mouse characters in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. Though largely forgotten today, Hubie and Bertie represent some of director Chuck Jones' earliest work that was intended to be funny.

First Cartoon[]

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Hubie and Bertie in "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat"

Chuck debuted Hubie and Bertie in the short "The Aristo-cat", first released 19 June 1943. The storyline of the cartoon would serve as the template for most future Hubie/Bertie outings: A character with some mental illness or degree of naivete, here, a cat who doesn't know what a mouse looks like, is psychologically tormented by the pair. In this cartoon, they well the mouse-hungry cat that a bulldog is a mouse, leading to several painful encounters for the cat.

Hubie was voiced by Tedd Pierce and Bertie was voiced by Michael Maltese; both men were screenwriters for Chuck at the time. Bertie and Hubie as designed by Chuck are nearly identical mice with long snouts, large ears, and big, black noses. The two are somewhat anthropomorphic, walking on their stubby hind legs and using their forelimbs as arms. The characters are 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 sniggering "Riot!" if Hubie has just proposed some scheme with great comedic potential.

Beginning with "The Aristo-Cat", Jones quickly established differing personalities for his mice. Hubie, usually grayish-blue, 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 grunt work 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.

Later Shorts[]

"Trap Happy Porky" (24 February 1945) was their second appearance. Nameless, indistinguishable except for color, they appear only in the first act, stealing food from Porky Pig. They are silent except for a single "I'm only three and a half years old", and retreat when a cat shows up.

Chuck would repeat the theme of mind-games several more times in his Hubie & Bertie shorts, as in their second cartoon, "Roughly Squeaking" (23 November 1946). This time, Jones has the mice exploit a cat'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, the cat 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 Dick Nelson (Hubie) and Stan Freberg (Bertie). In addition, this cartoon is the first time both Hubie and Bertie receive their final redesigns to look more anthropomorphic and cartoony with bigger eyes, larger noses, longer upper jaws and with visible buck teeth on one of them in later appearances, though their respective fur colors would occasionally swap between appearances.

The short was followed by "House Hunting Mice" on 6 September 1947, where Hubie and Bertie run afoul of a housekeeping robot. In this cartoon and the next entry, "Mouse Wreckers", Stan Freberg voices Hubie and Mel Blanc voiced Bertie; the actors would swap roles for the final two shorts. After the classic cartoons, Joe Alaskey would usually voice Bertie.

Cat and Mouse[]

Jones created a permanent "villain" of sorts for the mice in "Mouse Wreckers". The short was released on April 23, 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). The mice, of course, torment the poor pussycat. The short was nominated for an Academy Award.

The mice would go on to antagonize Claude in two more films. "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" (25 April 1950), features Hubie and Bertie making Claude think he's fallen ill with various ailments and, make him think that he's dead. In "Cheese Chasers" (25 August 1951), Hubie and Bertie inadvertently torment Claude when, after going overboard on a cheese raid and getting ill of their favorite food, they decide to commit suicide by trying to get Claude to eat them.

After these seven cartoons, Chuck retired Hubie and Bertie. He was moving on to other characters, such as Pepé Le Pew/Penelope Pussycat, Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner, Marvin the Martian, and Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot. Jones would, however, continue to use the characters (or mice designed just like them) in cameo roles in other shorts whenever he needed a typical mouse for a gag (for instance, the unnamed mouse in "Chow Hound" or the "killer" mice in "Scaredy Cat").

Later Appearances[]

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Hubie and Bertie in Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas

In recent years, Hubie and Bertie have made several cameos in Warner Bros. productions. For example, they're the sports announcers in the 1996 movie Space Jam. They also appear in The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, and Duck Dodgers.

They had cameo appearances in the New Looney Tunes episodes "Appropriate Technology" and "Daffy the Stowaway". They are also among the captured mice in "Tweet Team".

They appear in Looney Tunes Cartoons voiced by Sean Kenin. Their designs are a hybrid of their earlier designs from their debut cartoon "The Aristo-cat" and their current designs seen from "Roughly Squeaking" up until "Cheese Chasers".

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-esque fluff starring ultra-cute characters such as Sniffles (who coincidentally, was also a mouse). The Hubie & Bertie shorts, in contrast, are intensely humor-driven and full of over-the-top gags and jokes, and the creation of these characters marked Jones' departure from creating Disney-esque cutesy characters, eventually leading to the creation of more comedic characters such as The Three Bears, Charlie Dog, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and many more.

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 Charlie Dog with his needy obsession to get himself a master, Wile E. Coyote with his obsessive pursuit of Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew with his outsized libido, and Penelope Pussycat with her lacking self-control when she falls in love. Chuck's Hubie & Bertie shorts prove that the director was already thinking about characters in terms of their personalities.

Filmography[]

Cartoons[]

  1. Merrie Melodies "The Aristo-cat" (1943) Blue Ribbon
  2. Looney Tunes "Trap Happy Porky" (1945) Blue Ribbon
  3. Looney Tunes "Roughly Squeaking" (1946) Blue Ribbon
  4. Looney Tunes "House Hunting Mice" (1947) Blue Ribbon
  5. Looney Tunes "Mouse Wreckers" (1949) Blue Ribbon Academy Award nominee
  6. Merrie Melodies "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" (1950) Blue Ribbon
  7. Merrie Melodies "Cheese Chasers" (1951) Blue Ribbon

In other media[]

Voice Actors[]

Hubie[]

Bertie[]

  • Michael Maltese: "The Aristo-cat"
  • Mel Blanc: "Trap Happy Porky" and "Mouse Wreckers"
  • Stan Freberg: "Roughly Squeaking"[1], "House Hunting Mice", "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" and "Cheese Chasers"
  • Jeff Bennett: The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, New Looney Tunes
  • Bob Bergen: Space Jam
  • Steve Kehela: Space Jam
  • Joe Alaskey: Duck Dodgers
  • Eric Bauza: New Looney Tunes
  • Sean Kenin: Looney Tunes Cartoons

Notes[]

Gallery[]

Main article: Hubie and Bertie/Gallery

References[]

Characters
Main Characters
Bugs Bunny (Prototype Bugs Bunny) Daffy Duck Elmer Fudd Foghorn Leghorn Lola Bunny (Honey Bunny) Marvin the Martian (K-9) Pepé Le Pew (Penelope Pussycat) Porky Pig Road Runner Speedy Gonzales Sylvester (Sylvester Jr.) Taz Tweety Wile E. Coyote Yosemite Sam
Recurring Golden Age Characters
1930s debuts

Bosko Honey Bruno Foxy Piggy Goopy Geer Buddy Cookie Beans Little Kitty Oliver Owl Ham and Ex Petunia Pig Piggy Hamhock Gabby Goat Egghead Big Bad Wolf Little Red Riding Hood Yoyo Dodo Mrs. Daffy Duck The Two Curious Puppies Sniffles Inki Minah Bird

1940s debuts

Willoughby Three Little Pigs Cecil Turtle Beaky Buzzard Mama Buzzard Leo the Lion Babbit and Catstello Conrad the Cat Hubie and Bertie Claude Cat A. Flea Three Bears Schnooks Hector the Bulldog The Drunk Stork Gossamer Rocky Barnyard Dawg Henery Hawk Charlie Dog Bobo the Elephant Goofy Gophers The Dog Wellington Gruesome Gorilla Hippety Hopper The Talking Bulldog The Crusher The Supreme Cat Playboy Penguin

1950s debuts

Melissa Duck Frisky Puppy Granny (Proto-Granny) Miss Prissy (Emily the Chicken) Sam Cat Nasty Canasta Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot Spike and Chester Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog The Weasel Witch Hazel Tasmanian She-Devil Ralph Phillips Egghead Jr. Mugsy Jose and Manuel The Honey-Mousers (Ralph Crumden, Ned Morton, Alice Crumden, Trixie Morton) Instant Martians Slowpoke Rodriguez Pappy and Elvis Blacque Jacque Shellacque

1960s debuts

Cool Cat Colonel Rimfire Merlin the Magic Mouse Second Banana Bunny and Claude

One-Off Golden Age Characters
1930s debuts

Owl Jolson

1940s debuts

The Gremlin The Dover Boys (Tom Dover, Dick Dover, Larry Dover, Dora Standpipe, Dan Backslide) Mr. Meek Russian Dog The Little Man from the Draft Board Colonel Shuffle Giovanni Jones

1950s debuts

The Martin Brothers Pete Puma George and Benny Toro the Bull Babyface Finster Michigan J. Frog Shropshire Slasher Mot Pablo and Fernando Charles M. Wolf Señor Vulturo Mighty Angelo

1960s debuts

Hugo the Abominable Snowman Nelly the Giraffe Count Bloodcount Spooky Rapid Rabbit and Quick Brown Fox

Post-Golden Age Characters
Tiny Toon Adventures

Buster Bunny Babs Bunny Plucky Duck Hamton J. Pig Fifi La Fume Shirley the Loon Sweetie Bird Elmyra Duff Montana Max

Taz-Mania

Jean Hugh Molly Jake Dog the Turtle Drew

Pinky and the Brain

Pinky The Brain

Baby Looney Tunes

Floyd Minton

Duck Dodgers

Dr. I.Q. Hi Captain Star Johnson Commander X2

Loonatics Unleashed

Ace Bunny Lexi Bunny Danger Duck Slam Tasmanian Tech E. Coyote Rev Runner

The Looney Tunes Show

Tina Russo

New Looney Tunes

Squeaks the Squirrel Bigfoot Barbarian Boyd Cal Carl the Grim Rabbit Claudette Dupri Dr. Clovenhoof Eagle Scout Elliot Sampson Horace the Horse Ivana Jack Thes Leslie P. Lilylegs Miss Cougar Pampreen Perdy and Paul Perdy Rhoda Roundhouse Shameless O'Scanty Sir Littlechin Slugsworthy the First Squint Eatswood Tad Tucker Trey Hugger Viktor Winter Stag

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