Minah Bird is a small and seemingly almighty mynah bird. He has a blank emotionless face and personality, and he always walks to the tune of Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides". Minah played a major role in every Inki cartoon short and has made several small appearances in the Looney Tunes franchise.
History[]
Minah in all cases appears in the middle of a conflict and proceeds to resolve it in his own unique way. Everything in the jungle is terrified of Minah apart from Inki and lions due to them being unaware of his reputation. In the shorts Minah always makes a huge, intimidating entrance which he doesn't seem to live up to having a small and non-intimidating appearance but he does live up to it in his abilities. Minah always gets in the middle of a conflict and causes physical pain to both sides (the amount of pain received is consistent to the size of their part in the conflict). Minah's abilities include escaping in a maze of holes, disappearing into thin air, reappearing out of seemingly anywhere whenever and wherever it is least expected or most convenient, and making other things disappear and reappear. Minah has regularly given brutal beatings to dogs, lions, and in one case a 28-ton dinosaur but always comes out completely unharmed.
He made his only Golden Age appearance outside of the Inki cartoons in Robert McKimson's "Hobo Bobo", where he suggests to Bobo the Elephant that he should paint himself pink so the young elephant could board a boat to head to America.
Post-Golden Age[]
The Minah Bird has had various cameos in later Warner Brothers works such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, Bugs Bunny Builders and Tiny Toons Looniversity. In all post-Golden Age works, Minah is separated from Inki due to outdated racial stereotyping of the latter character.
In 1990, the Tiny Toon Adventures episode titled "Buster and the Wolverine" featured a passing cameo by the minah bird, who interrupts the wolverine as it had cornered Buster and friends.
Then, in 1994, a Goodfeathers segment titled "Bad Mood Bobby" from the Animaniacs features a cameo by the minah bird. The Goodfeathers are having a bad day and see the mynah bird caged in a pet shop. They think they can cheer themselves up by laughing at the mynah bird's ugliness. The Fingal's Cave Overture begins playing, the mynah bird lets himself out of his cage, kicks them into a streetlight, then returns to his cage.
In 1999, he appeared in the The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries episode "A Mynah Problem" with Sylvester seen attempting to capture him. In 2000, he reappeared briefly in the series' final episode "This Is the End".
Also in 2000, he appeared in the direct-to-video film "Tweety's High-Flying Adventure".
He appears in Tiny Toons Looniversity as an ACME Looniversity student.
Appearances[]
"The Little Lion Hunter" (1939) - "Inki and the Lion" (1941)
- "Inki and the Minah Bird" (1943)
- "Hobo Bobo" (1947)
- "Inki at the Circus" (1947)
- "Caveman Inki" (1950)
Notes[]
- All of the Mynah Bird's shorts received a Blue Ribbon reissue.
Gallery[]
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