¡Arriba, arriba! The long-awaited Speedy Gonzales film appears to be in motion at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.
News of a movie based on the Looney Tunes character came Tuesday evening as writer-director Jorge R. Gutierrez, creator of “The Book of Life,” uploaded a selfie to X which sees him smiling beside his miniature figure of the quick-witted mouse. “Guess what movie I might be developing at Warner Brothers Pictures Animation…” the status read.
Gutierrez’s update seems to have drummed up excitement for the revival of the beloved Mexican mouse. His social media post gained over 15,000 likes by Thursday morning. Hundreds in the comment section rejoiced, including one user who suggested that Gutierrez incorporate Kumbia All Starz’s 2007 rendition of “Speedy Gonzales,” a song that was originally popularized in the 1960s by singer Pat Boone.
Gutierrez declined to comment further on the matter.
Warner Bros. first announced the development of an animated movie back in 2016, with Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez cast to voice the sharp-witted critter. However, the film was reportedly put on hold following the Warner Bros. merger with Discovery, according to Screen Crush.
Derbez expressed doubt that the film would come to fruition, telling United Press International in a 2024 interview that “studios are afraid that, nowadays, it’s so politically incorrect.”
“The only ones offended are the Americans, but we love Speedy Gonzales,” Derbez said. “He’s smart. He outsmarts the cats. He’s a hero. He gets cheese for his people. He’s fast.”
The earliest iteration of the Warner Bros. cartoon first appeared in the 1953 short “Cat-Tails for Two,” though a revamped version of the rodent would make its official debut in the 1955 short “Speedy Gonzales” — and would go on to win an Academy Award that same year.
Speedy Gonzales quickly gained popularity across the United States and Mexican border. Viewers of all ages enjoyed his fast paced adventures, which typically involved outsmarting Sylvester the Cat, who he often referred to as “El Gringo Pussygato.”
But “the fastest mouse in all Mexico” — who always wore an oversize yellow sombrero and spoke a nonsensical Spanish voiced by the non-Latino voice actor Mel Blanc — could not scurry past the obvious stereotypes. The standard story line would often invoke Speedy as a scoundrel, while his fellow Mexican mice were portrayed as lazy; there was also his dopey cousin, “Slowpoke Rodriguez,” who with his drawled out speech and pace rather resembled that of a snail.
Speedy was eventually banned on ABC airwaves during the 1980s “because the title character presents a stereotypical image that is not offset by any other Latino television characters,” according to a 1981 story that ran in the Los Angeles Times. Cartoon Network would also pull Speedy from its U.S. broadcast lineup in the late 1990s, citing concerns over ethnic stereotyping.
Despite criticisms of the contentious cartoon character, many Mexicans championed the idea of a triumphant tiny creature against the bigger Anglo pussycats, who often blocked Speedy’s access to cheesy goods.
In a 2021 column titled “Why do so many Mexican Americans defend Speedy Gonzales?” Times columnist Gustavo Arellano interrogated the Chicano community’s unwavering support of the character, noting that he himself keeps a large painting of the animated hero in his home office.
Arellano cites Speedy’s popularity among college students in the 1990s who viewed Speedy as a proto-Zapatista who fought against American imperialism. There was also a 2002 letter from the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Hispanic and Latin-American civil rights organization in the United States, who urged for Speedy to return to television.
“Polite society told us we shouldn’t worship this bad hombre because he made Mexicans look bad. So they tried everything possible to dim his star — but we Mexicans always fought loudly against any attempts to cancel our compadre,” wrote Arellano.
Whether or not the film will see the light of day is yet to be determined. Warner Bros. has stalled other Looney Tunes projects, such as “Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical,” with some news outlets alleging its cancellation; there’s also “Coyote vs. Acme,” a live action-animation hybrid starring John Cena and Lana Condor, which was shelved before Warner Bros. sold it to Ketchup Entertainment in March.
Could it be that Speedy Gonzales might finally get his moment in Hollywood? With the Supreme Court effectively legalizing racial profiling in immigration raids, a victorious Speedy Gonzales on the big screen might provide sweet vindication.
“At a moment when Latino immigrants are being terrorized by the Trump administration, how beautiful that the most famous Mexican border-crossing hero of them all is coming to make us laugh and inspire us,” said Arellano to De Los in light of the recent film developments. “If little Speedy could continually beat those gringo cats, so can we.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano contributed to this reporting.
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