Slappy Squirrel

Slappy the Squirrel

Full Name	Slappy, the Slap-happy Squirrel
Relationships	{{{relationships}}}
Segment	Slappy Squirrel
First Episode	The Monkey Song (first appearance) Slappy Goes Walnuts (first standalone short)
Voice Actor	Sherri Stoner
Catchphrases	"Now that's comedy!" "You remind me of a very young..." "Go away!" "Somebody shoot me!" "Oh, now this is sad!" "Ehhh enough with the singing already." "She asked as if she cared" "Oh,put a sock in it!"

Slappy Squirrel is an elderly, grumpy veteran cartoon tree squirrel who starred in a fictional version of Looney Tunes cartoons as Slappy, The Slap-Happy Squirrel.

Today, she lives in a treehouse with her cute, chipper, and cheerful nephew, Skippy Squirrel. She often faces old enemies from her past, like Walter Wolf, Sid the Squid, and Beanie, the Brain Dead Bison. Other situations see her facing common nuisances, like annoyingly perky neighbors like Candie Chipmunk ("I Got Yer Can") and Skippy's emotional traumas ("Bumbie's Mom"). She typically solves her problems with exaggerated cartoon violence. She has even blasted the Warners' annoying new nanny out of Warner Bros. Studio when the Warners could not do it themselves because of their moral beliefs ("The Sound Of Warners"). The music played during the title card of her segments is an excerpt from Antonín Dvořák's "Humoresque". Slappy is the craziest squirrel.

Slappy is voiced by series writer Sherri Stoner.

Character Biography

She is characterized as a grumpy, bitter, cranky, elderly anthropomorphic gray squirrel with a thick New York accent. She is usually seen usually wearing a green hat decorated with a drooping yellow flower, purple eyeliner on her eyelids 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 Tonight's Mary Hart) refers to Slappy as "octogenarian". She lives in a hollow tree with her nephew Skippy, her polar opposite in terms of personality, who loves to hear her tell stories about her former days of stardom. In the episode "My Mother The Squirrel", 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 the show's third episode, "Slappy Goes Walnuts", originally aired on September 15, 1993, which also introduced an extract of a purely fictitious Looney Tunes cartoon featuring herself and suggesting that she was a retired Looney Tunes character who crossed over into Animaniacs. In several episodes, there are shots of fictitious Looney Tunes cartoons portraying a younger Slappy, under the pseudonym Slappy the Slap-Happy Squirrel, a reference to the MGM cartoon character Screwy Squirrel.

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 the animated movie Bumbie (a parody of Bambi). Slappy solves this by taking Skippy to see the actress in question. 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 resolved issues peacefully, and "pretty female animals who had no slapstick". 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!" 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?", in Episode 59 ("Woodstock"), in which she tries to determine which band is performing on stage ("The Band", "Who" or "Yes") which of course ends with Roger Daltrey inviting the pair on stage.

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 while 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 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. Slappy often pokes fun at her own age and ailing health.

Slappy's Fictional Filmography

An incomplete filmography of Slappy's Looney Tunes cartoons can be pieced together from mentions in the show.

"Slappy Goes Nutz" (poster seen in Slappy's house)
Cartoon where Slappy works as a construction worker and Walter Wolf tries to eat her (title unknown)
"Cave Girl Slappy" (1932; directed by Piz Peeners)
“Wap Wap Wap Wappy Slappy” (1944;directed by Stubby Winker)

Episodes

Theme song (nonspeaking)
Episode 1 - The Monkey Song (nonspeaking) & Nighty-Night Toon (supporting)
Slappy Squirrel Theme Song
Episode 3 - Slappy Goes Walnuts
Episode 5 - Taming Of The Screwy (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
Episode 35 - Baghdad Cafe
Episode 36 - Critical Condition & The Three Muska-Warners (cameo)
Episode 38 - Spellbound (cameo)
Episode 40 - The Slapper
Episode 41 - Buttermilk, It Makes a Body Bitter & Broadcast Nuissance (cameo that wasn't shown in the censored version)
Episode 45 - ...And Justice for Slappy
Episode 46 - Turkey Jerky (silent cameo)
Episode 49 - A Christmas Plotz (cameo, as the Jacob Marley character)
Episode 50 - Twas the Day Before Christmas
Episode 51 - Frontier Slappy
Episode 58 - Oh Oh Ethel (pre-theme sketch) & Smell Ya Later
Episode 59 - Woodstock Slappy
Episode 62 - Scare Happy Slappy & MacBeth (cameo)
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 78 - The Sound Of Warners (Cameo)
Episode 79 - My Mother the Squirrel
Episode 81 - Soccer Coach Slappy
Episode 83 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock
Episode 92 - Dot the Macadamia Nut (cameo) and Bully for Skippy
Episode 97 - The Sunshine Squirrels
Episode 98 - The Christmas Tree

Behind the Scenes

Slappy was created as a joke by writer and voice actor Sherri Stoner. Stoner had had a history of playing troubled teenagers in TV movies during her early career. Friend and writer John McCann joked that she would be playing troubled teenagers until she was 50. This caused Stoner to event her "old lady" voice. When she was pitching the Slappy character to Steven Spielberg, she used the voice, and Spielberg decided Stoner should do the voice in the series.