The fastest mouse in Mexico is speeding to a theater near you.
New Line has given the green light to a big-screen version of Warner Brothers character “Speedy Gonzalez.”
The movie will follow in the footsteps of “Garfield” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” blending live action with CGI characters. According to the Hollywood Reporter, George Lopez will lend his voice to that of Speedy.
Lopez, Ann Lopez and Lynnette Ramirez are producing for George Lopez Presents, along with “Ocean’s Eleven” producer Jerry Weintraub, Tracy Ryerson and Jill Arthur.
Known as the fastest mouse in all of Mexico, Speedy debuted in the 1950s as a regular nemesis of Sylvester the Cat. Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt’s 1955 Warner Bros. short about the tiny hero, “Speedy Gonzales,” won the Academy Award for best short subject, cartoons that year. Pat Boone even wrote a hit song about the famous mouse in 1962.
Over the years, Speedy appeared in the live-action/animation features “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Space Jam” and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action.” But the character has often courted criticism that the ethnic characterizations of him and his compatriots (especially lazy cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez) are stereotypically racist and severely outdated.
Aware of this, New Line and the producers plan to update the brand with a modernized sensibility (it takes place in present day) under what Ann Lopez calls George’s “Latino seal of approval.”
“We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s — the racist Speedy,” Ann Lopez said with a chuckle. “Speedy’s going to be a misunderstood boy who comes from a family that works in a very meticulous setting, and he’s a little too fast for what they do. He makes a mess of that. So he has to go out in the world to find what he’s good at.”
I remembre Speedy Gonzales being yanked from Saturday morning cartoons because he was racist. So, naturally, they made a movie out of him….
Wow.. I can’t believe it..
Will not be the same without Mel Blanc doing the voice.
And the whole live action with CGI does nothing for me, so clearly this is going to be targeted at kids who’ve never seen Speedy before not the adults who grew up with him.
sigh.. why does everything have to endup racist. The movie sounds dumb anyhow.
So Speedy is racist against Mexican mice?
Maybe they had to make him stereotypical, because otherwise you wouldn’t know that he’s supposed to be from Mexico.
You know, apart from the over the top accent and the use of names of Mexican foods as exclamations of shock and alarm, Speedy was ironically probably the least stereotypical of any of the “ethnic” cartoon characters of that time period.
Odds are that if this movie gets made Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo will try to have it deported. 😉
Racist, Racist, Racist- You need to live in the community and this is how they/we talk and joke. My friends are not offended by cartoons, or other trivial things. It is all on how they are treated. I just hope it is funny!!!
I was thinking the same thing, isn’t the character patently racist to begin with?
How come people have a problem with Speedy Gonzalez, but they don’t have a problem with Pepé Le Pew, the skirt-chasing French (okay, maybe that’s redundant) skunk? It seems to me that both should be equally criticized. Maybe Le Pew more, because of the sexual angle. I mean, it’s a kids cartoon, right?
Kyle has a good point. Pepe’s usual schtick could easily be regarded as sexual harassment or even assault on some levels.
It’s a whole bunch of nonsense, Then new movie of speeding Gonzalez is going to be a waste of time, The original series was the bomb, George lopez is ok for chicano movies and cholos movie kind of stuff, He may be a comedian and all but he is the wrong person for the voice of speeding gonzalez character. Speedy was not racist i dont know who came up with that nonsense, How about pepe le pew, that is in a more sexual explicit kind of cartoon, skirt chasing maniac so i guess that is good for small children to hear and be like him. So which is better or worse.
Now back to speedy gonzalez new atmosphere and going to cut it, why do hispanic people always have to messed things up by making a different speedy setting, Why take something good and making it worse, Its like taking the statue of liberty and replacing it with a slogan of smile now or cry later, or better yet replacing the american flag with the mexican flag, By the way i am not racist i am a latino with mexican blood but born and raise The U S of A y am proud of my 2 heritages and back ground. Well pray for the better of this outcome
If he’s a misunderstood BOY, then he’ll probably be humanized, right?
If so, then I’M NOT WATCHING IT.
If he’s still a mouse then maybe I might take a look.
The Looney Tunes Show (Cartoon Network) version of Speedy ( Fred Amerson, not sure I spelt that right )
Does his voice. That version is cooler.
They SHOULD base the movie Speedy off of the TLTS version of him.
It’s probably going to be a box office bomb.
Ps- Why did us Americans brand Speedy “racist” if Hispanics can’t get enough of him?!
That clearly proves that we don’t know what the fuck racist means.
Most of us, we don’t know what we’re talking about.