Nibbles (also known as Tuffy) is a fictional character from the Tom and Jerry cartoon series. He is the little, blue/gray, diaper-wearing orphan mouse whose cartoon debut came in the 1946 short The Milky Waif.[1] Tuffy was later featured in the 1949 Academy Award-winning short The Little Orphan,[2] as well as Two Little Indians and The Two Mouseketeers (both 1952).[3]
Origin and development
The character's first actual appearance came in the 1942 comic book Our Gang Comics #1, where despite his diaper, he was presented as a peer of Jerry rather than a younger individual. Nibbles was created by Gaylord Du Bois. In the comics, the gray mouse's name was given as "Tuffy" from the start, a name later used in subsequent appearances.[4] In the animated shorts, Nibbles is depicted as a hungry and curious orphaned mouse where he is mentioned to live at the fictional Bide-a-Wee Mouse Home.
After his first three appearances in Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, Nibbles starred in The Two Mouseketeers and was voiced by Francoise Brun-Cottan where the character mostly speaking in French. She would later voice the character again with three sequels of the trilogy and the last was Royal Cat Nap in 1958 and that year, Lucille Bliss voiced Nibbles in Robin Hoodwinked, where the character made his final theatrical appearance at the time of the Golden Age of Animation. Nibbles would continue to appear in subsequent Tom and Jerry media, most recently appearing in Tom and Jerry in New York from 2021.
^Barrier, Michael (2014). Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books. University of California Press. p. 123. ISBN978-0520283909.
^Barrier, Michael (1999). "MGM, 1939-1952". Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford University Press. ISBN9780198020790.
^Maltin, Leonard (1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Revised ed.). Plume. p. 303. ISBN0-452-25993-2.
^Becattini, Alberto (2019). "MGM: Home of Tom and Jerry". American Funny Animal Comics in the 20th Century: Volume One. Seattle, WA: Theme Park Press. ISBN978-1683901860.
^Scott, Keith (October 3, 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2. BearManor Media. p. 192.
