|
| “ | I'll work this little soft-hearted runt for everything he's got. | „ |
| ~ Butch snidely muses about taking advantage of Droopy. |
| “ | Why certainly! 50/50 share alike, just like it's always been: Pals forever! 'Till death's the worst part... and speaking of death now, you'll never know when a fatal accident might happen to you or me! But I just happened to have a document here which will protect both of our interests. In the event of accidental death to one or the other, the survivor gets all the gold! | „ |
| ~ Butch revealing a greater villainous nature to scam Droopy about their partnership in order to have all the gold for himself. |
| “ | Stop in the name of my reward! | „ |
| ~ Butch greedily chasing after Tom and Jerry to imprison Red. |
Butch (formerly known as Spike in early shorts) is an animated cartoon character, an antropromophic Irish dog created by the late Tex Avery and one of Droopy's main enemies (though he also starred in a trilogy of shorts without Droopy). His name was changed to Butch to avoid confusion with Spike from the Tom and Jerry cartoons, by the fact to consider that both characters are bulldogs and in the same universe. He serves as one of the two main antagonists in Droopy shorts (alongside The Wolf), in most of his one-shot appearances, and quite possibly, even in "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring". (see trivia below for more)
Voice Portrayals
- From 1949 to 1957, he was voiced by the late Tex Avery.
- Since 1950, he was voiced by the late Billy Bletcher.
- From 1951 to 1958, he was voiced by the late Bill Thompson.
- Since 1952, he was voiced by the late Carlos Julio Ramírez.
- Since 1955, he was voiced by the late Paul Frees.
- Since 1957, he was voiced by the late Daws Butler.
- Since 2002, he was voiced by Jim Cummings.
- Since 2010, he was voiced by Jeff Bergman.
- From 2011 to 2016, he was voiced by the late Joe Alaskey.
- Since 2019, to this day, he is voiced by Bill Farmer.
Personality and Biography
Butch is often portrayed as an arrogant, selfish, mean-spirited, attention-stealing, envious trickster who craves to take advantage of the weak yet superior, especially Droopy, as well as fame and riches and who does not really care about honesty, and who has brought disaster upon himself and others in his unquenchable thirst for monetary gain while showing no sympathy and hestiation to those around him (that he often doesn't deserve). As a new development for an antagonist for Droopy, being his designated victim whom he tricks and attempts to be done for once and for all, Butch must differ from The Wolf as once a stooge for him. Tex Avery made of it a stupid and malicious, envious cheater, who must inevitably fail in all its attempts against the hero. However, he not only antagonizes Droopy, but also antagonizes other characters such as Tom and Jerry (the main protagonists of their respective franchise) as shown in his return after the golden age of animation since "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring". Whom he attempts to steal the powerful magic ring stuck Jerry's head which belongs to Tom's sorcerer owner for the sake of expressing his greediness, and even forms an alliance with other characters against Tom only to have him stopped and harassed in the proccess, who came in to the rescure of guarding his ring and saving Jerry from danger. Butch and others show no remorse at the end when Tom got falsely accused of stealing the powerful magic ring of his sorcerer owner, and proceed to continue what they do through the sunset, as an addition to escape karma and express further villany.
Butch attempting to kill Droopy even before he gets to sign his scam document in "Grin and Share It"
While many of Butch's antagonistic stints have been mostly comedic due to his general incompetence and tendency to get himself punished through comedic slapstick (despite him usually deserving it and bringing it to himself), usually either out of being too greedy or trying too hard to one-up rivals like Droopy, some of his appearances, even those where he was paired up with Droopy (despite serving as the main antagonist of every short paired against him however) turned him into a more serious, straight-out villain who was astonishingly cruel, even for his standards, and for little reason. For one particularly good example, is in the cartoon "Grin and Share It", where Butch's mean-spirited nature is taken to the extreme. He outright attempts to murder Droopy and won't even let him have half of the gold that they seemingly worked for, for about 20 years out of sheer malice: This is without a doubt one of the most blatantly cruel things that Butch has done (and, to be fair, also slightly out of character). On a similar and additional note, he attempted to get rid of and kill Droopy who was desperate and wishing to form a team with Butch to expose the real criminal in "Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes", and berates him to not even let him have part of the reward, only to have the innocent Red kidnapped and arrested, antagonizing the titular cat and mouse detectives as well.
It should still be remembered that, while Butch may be mostly evil, he has had a good side to him on really only three occasions. The following being "The Counterfeit Cat", where he protects a canary bird from getting eaten by a black alley cat; "Rock-a-Bye Bear", where he keeps a hibernating bear sleeping in peace from a dog that looks like Droopy trying to take of his job from him; and in The Tom and Jerry Show episode "Bars and Stripes", where he helps Tom escape from prison based on a bank robbery crime he was framed of committing (which turns out that Butch Cat portrayed himself as a crime lord to have Meathead frame Tom for it by disguising as him). Despite him usually appearing as an antagonist or a clear-cut villain depending who writes the scenarios in whatever he appears in.
Overall Appearances (also Villainous Acts/Roles)
He usually appears as a reccuring main antagonist who has commited many villainous acts that ultimately makes him one of the most intimidating antagonists of the Tom and Jerry franchise, such as the following:
Cartoon Shorts
- Butch the Bulldog first appears in the 1949 theatrical animated short "Bad Luck Blackie". In the short, he maliciously torments a small white innocent kitten for his sick amusement. Eventually, he frightens the kitten to obtain the whistle and turns the black cat white to take advantage of his defense and luck as an attempt to continuously harass the kitten before delivering a horrific beatdown, until the kitten turns himself black to save his bodyguard, leading the dog to flee in terror after swallowing the whistle that causes heavy objects to land on him whenever he hiccups.
- In his first pairing with Droopy in "Wags to Riches" (including remake: "Millionaire Droopy"), a millionaire ends up leaving his fortune to his "favourite dog", Droopy. Upon the revelation that the fortune will revert to Butch once Droopy dies, he attempts to take advantage of that to kill Droopy using various deadly traps in order to keep the fortune all to himself (briefly turning into a skunk to display his nature). Finally, when he tries to frame Droopy as a mad dog, but gets mistaken for being rabid and gets caught by the dog catcher.
- In the 1950 theatrical animated short "Ventriloquist Cat" (including 1957 remake: "Cat's Meow") starts off with an enraged Butch noticing an alley cat spiting out how much he hates dogs (his xenophobic nature towards dogs can be excused possibly from the torment he received from them as shown in a flashback of "The Cat that Hated People"), and he then attempts to hunt down the cat with tricks of ventriloquism in order to avoid getting harassed by him throughout the short.
- In the 1950 theatrical animated short "Garden Gopher", an annoyed gopher calls out on Butch for continuously burying his bone to where he lives underground. Rather than deciding to make up with the gopher or bury it somewhere else, he goes far as attempting to murder the gopher rather than even merely getting rid of him. Tons of his traps of course backfiring in the process.
- In his second pairing with Droopy in "The Chump Champ", he competes against Droopy in a series of athletic contests. Eventually, he decides to cheat his way against Droopy in every sport but fails miserably, and later on to the point of attempting to kill him. In spite of the Butch's cheatings, Droopy wins the tests fair and square. Until then, he hypocritically tricks and frames Droopy to sign a document for cheating in every sport while showing no gratitude to keep the Queen of Sports of his dreams to himself. Although he won (ironically by cheating), Butch runs away while being chased by the Queen, who is revealed to be ugly.
- The 1951 theatrical animated short "Cock-a-Doodle Dog" starts off with Butch tired and needing some desperate amount of sleep. However, he went too far as actually trying to kill the rooster rather than just merely getting rid of him, because he wanted to sleep, but ends up making the rooster continuously crow to wake up people in the process. By the end, instead of using his time to sleep, he gets back at the sleepy rooster to have him annoyed and even to the point of having his feathers teared apart.
- In his third pairing with Droopy in "Daredevil Droopy", Butch's villainous deeds remain similar to "The Chump Champ" as he once again cheats his way onto every event against the basset hound. Only except that he and Droopy are in a competition for a daredevil circus acrobat's job. In the end, his attempt to kill both Droopy and the ringmaster result in the tent pole crashing on him.
- His fourth pairing with Droopy in "Droopy's Good Deed" begins with Butch as a vagabond and overhears about Droopy in a Boy Scout competition to win a free trip to Washington to meet President Harry Truman as award, and impersonates Droopy's friendly opponent to win the award. While Droopy tries to be fair to bargain with him in a charismatic manner, Butch shows no gratitude to keep the reward to himself as he tries to murder Droopy with every dirty trick in the book, thus backfiring.
- In his fifth pairing with Droopy in "Droopy's Double Trouble", Butch (once again as a hobo) asks Droopy if he can put him up for a little since he hasn't been in good luck for quite a while. As Droopy reluctantly agrees, Butch reveals his true colours as he attempts to take advantage of Droopy within everything he has. What he didn't count on is that Droopy's twin brother Drippy attacking him when Droopy leaves his sight. Believing Droopy's gone insane after Drippy beats him with a baseball bat (referred to by Butch as a "shillelagh"), Butch calls an ambulance to take him away, only to go crazy himself when he sees both Droopy and Drippy at the same time.
- The 1952 theatrical animated short "Magical Maestro" starts off with Butch practicing for his act. As Mysto the Magician shows up hoping to help out to make his opera act significantly more entertaining without boring the audience (the best of both worlds with entertaining magic and beautiful opera), he emphatically rejects him as he kicks Mysto out the door into the alley. Forcing the upset magician to realize that he can pass off as the conductor to get revenge on the snobbish opera singer as a result.
- In his sixth pairing with Droopy in "Deputy Droopy", he teams up with The Wolf in attempting to steal gold from the Sheriff's safe. Even though they gagged Droopy, he keeps trying to make noise for the Sheriff to hear before they finally give up after being blown up with dynamite and put themselves in jail.
- The 1955 theatrical animated short "Cellbound" casts Butch as a criminal who has planned to dig a tunnel from his prison cell as an attempt to break out. Until he took the wrong place to hide from the warden, going crazy once he gets exposed by the warden on the television set he planned as a gift for his wife.
Butch attempting to get away killing Droopy in an explosive death in "Grin and Share It"
- The aforementioned seventh pairing with Droopy in "Grin and Share It" represents, by far, Butch's most villanous deed. Where he tries to make Droopy believe that their companionship was the biggest thing to come in mind when attempting to have equal shares of gold they've been mining for as of 20 years. When they finally struck a pile of gold out, Droopy cheers and hopefully manages to have an equal amount of gold for such a loving team they made as a celebration. The greedy dog refuses and attempts to murder Droopy to claim all the gold for himself as he makes a deal with Droopy based on a scam document to whoever survives gets all the gold, bringing up every deadly attempt to kill Droopy, so that Droopy won't even get half of the gold to share. He eventually snaps at the end after every failed attempt of killing his partner, and maliciously tries to murder Droopy with a failed dynamite trick. Despite Droopy unknowingly landing him the bag full of dynamite which he could've otherwise died from, causing the explosive death to backfire on Butch as punishment.
- His eighth pairing with Droopy in "One Droopy Knight" casts Butch and Droopy as two brave knights attempting to slay a dragon to win the love of a princess. As Butch shows off and antagonizes him (such as having his helmet crash on the princess' hand to make him look like an awful gentleman to her), he cheats his way against Droopy to win her love. He then becomes foiled as he gets molded into a metal can.
- In his ninth pairing with Droopy in "Mutts About Racing", Butch and Droopy compete as race car drivers to win $100,000,000. Butch becomes arrogant and plans schemes to stop Droopy in the process, but of course, fails miserably as he gets defeated in a car crash by the end through a dead end.
- In his tenth and final pairing with Droopy (during the golden age of animation) in "Droopy Leprechaun", Butch mistakenly confuses Droopy for a real leprechaun (in fairness, Droopy also mistakenly confuses Butch for being "The Mad Duke"), and attempts to make himself rich to prove that he's a "real live leprechaun". He eventually claims to be unselfish to Droopy despite the greedy bulldog attempting to take advantage of him to become a millionaire regardless. Eventually after Droopy leaves Ireland feeling horrified of being chased by Butch throughout, Butch gets sent to prison by the end of the short despite his hallucination of seeing an actual leprechaun beside him.
Movies
Tom facing Butch in "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring"
- In "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring", Butch appears in a fortunetelling home attempting to steal the powerful magic ring of Tom's sorcerer owner stuck on Jerry's head to himself. As Tom comes to the rescue against him and Butch Cat attempting to capture Jerry, his greediness still shows up but fails miserably as Jerry saves Tom's life by freezing Butch and the antagonistic mob (consisting of Butch Dog, Spike, Tyke, Butch Cat, and the police) with the ring. He and the villainous mob returns unfrozen and all return to antagonize Tom at the end by chasing after him through the sunset.
- In "Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes", he not only antagonizes Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy/Nibbles to kidnap and imprison Red for a reward despite her being falsely accused of a crime, but also antagonizes Droopy as he tried to kill him and get rid of him only to keep the reward and promotion to himself despite being instructed to work together and bargain with each other, unlike Droopy who fairly wondered who could've been the real criminal to help out. Despite Professor James Moriarty, Tin, Pan and Alley all being exposed for their crimes as Butch attempts to arrest them, Droopy seemingly chains the greedy dog to a fence after figuring out his nature, while gaining the reward and promotion once after he arrests them for their crimes instead.
- In "Tom and Jerry & The Wizard of Oz", Butch appears as a Winkie Guard working for the Wicked Witch of the West with Droopy.
- In "Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz", Butch is working for The Nome King with Droopy.
Video Games
- In the online game based on "Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes" of the same title, he appears as an antagonistic obstacle along with Moriarty, Tin, Pan and Alley to stop Tom and Jerry from solving the mystery.
Comics
- Cheats his way against Droopy to earn Red's kiss in the Droopy comic "Turkey for Dinner".
- Attempts to frame Droopy and kill him to cheat his way onto their teamwork for Santa Claus' promotion in the Droopy comic "Santa's Little Helpers".
- Arrogantly shows off against Droopy to cheat his way to victory while attempting to kill him in a wrestling competition in the Droopy comic "Wrestling Ruckus".
For his other appearances...
- See above in the last paragraph of his "Personality and Biography" section of his other appearances, despite them not being villainous.
Trivia
- In some episodes, he has an Irish accent.
- Interestingly, Butch is by far the most ruthless and dangerous of Droopy's foes, easily outstripping The Wolf who was more harmless and less cruel and malicious in comparison to Butch. He was close to murdering Droopy (in "Grin and Share It"), got the best of an alley cat (in "Ventriloquist Cat"/"Cat's Meow") and a rooster (in "Cock-a-Doodle Dog"), a magician exposed to to conduct (in "Magical Maestro"), and even defeated Tom (in "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring"). Proving that while Butch may be dimwitted and incompetent, he is capable of being a cunning trickster when needed.
- He is similar to Buzz Buzzard from the Woody Woodpecker franchise, The Little Man from The Pink Panther franchise, Bluto from the Popeye franchise, and Eustace Bagge from Courage the Cowardly Dog:
- All five of them are envious rivals to the protagonists and are jealous of them (Butch to Droopy, Buzz to Woody, The Little Man to Pink Panther, Bluto to Popeye, and Eustace to Courage)
- Butch, Buzz, and Bluto have protagonist rivals of the same species (Butch and Droopy are both dogs, Buzz Buzzard and Woody Woodpecker are both birds, Bluto and Popeye are both human sailors)
- All five of them are antagonists to titular protagonists, and Butch also can antagonize Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse (the titular two main protagonists of the Tom and Jerry franchise) as well, let alone Droopy for the most part.
- All five of them are incompetent and never get the best of their rivals, while being physically punished through comedic slapstick.
- All five of them are maliciously egotistical, and always attempt to come up with solutions to kill and/or do away with the protagonists, and proving to be better than them, but fail miserably.
- In "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring", it could be possible for Butch to be the main antagonist as he has the most amount of screentime compared to all the other antagonists (Spike, Tyke, Butch Cat, and the police + Freddie and Joey in addition) and has more plans than any other antagonist as well: By striving to kidnap and terrorize Jerry to steal the powerful magic ring of Tom's sorcerer owner stuck on his head for himself, while antagonizing Tom in the process to have him framed by his sorcerer owner and terrorize him as well.
- Butch's roles in "Garden Gopher" and "Magical Maestro" are similar to Tom's roles in "Gopher It, Tom" and "The Cat Above and the Mouse Below". However, while Tom was the hero/protagonist on both of his roles, Butch was the villain/antagonist of his roles in both shorts.
- In the Droopy segments of "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show", Spike is awkwardly miscasted as one of Droopy's antagonists in his role instead. Most likely because of Filmation's unintentional confusion between him and Spike, given how Butch was formerly known as Spike during the earliest cartoons from the late-1940s (since his first appearance in "Bad Luck Blackie") to the early-1950s (since "Grin and Share It" which was when he was officially renamed as Butch), despite also being a bulldog from otherwise the same franchise.
Template:Warner Bros. Animation Villains
 Villains
| ||
|
Television Theatrical Movies Direct-to-video Movies | ||