This Flintstones dodo shares cartoon DNA with Tweety and Foghorn Leghorn

We connect the dots between cartoon birds of a feather.

Warner Bros.

"Dodos don’t talk," Fred Flintstone says in The Flintstones episode "The Buffalo Convention."

"This one can," the sleazy salesman on the street insists. He lifts a cloth off a birdcage to reveal a pinkish purple dodo, looking quite defeated.

Fred buys the bird for $5 as a birthday present for Wilma, but really, the dodo bird was a gift for Flintstones fans. For years, fans have found themselves quoting this colorful character called Doozy.

"Doozy wanna cracker, Doozy wanna cracker," the dodo repeats after Barney at one point, following a moment when Barney and Fred have hatched a scheme to silence the bird from revealing a secret by stuffing its mouth full of salty crackers.

"Frantic City!" the bird squawks at another point, leading the boys' wives to catch them in the act of deception.

Throughout the episode, Doozy continues to snitch on Fred and Barney to Wilma and Betty, and the joke helped make the otherwise fleeting character stick in the memory of fans.

It may interest you to know that Doozy the dodo was hatched in the brain of a writer who is partially responsible for one of the silliest bird-based earworms in cartoon history.

Warren Foster is the funny writer behind "The Buffalo Convention." He got his start in the 1930s writing Porky Pig cartoons. After a decade writing for Looney Tunes, Foster got together with TV legend Alan Livingston and co-wrote Tweety's theme song "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat" in 1950, along with composer Billy May (who later wrote the Green Acres theme).

"I am a widdle tiny bird / My name is Tweety Pie," Tweety sings. "I wiv inside my birdcage / A-hangin' way up high."

This cartoon theme song repeats Tweety's catchphrase, including bursting out to insist, "I did, I taw a puddy tat!"

And then Sylvester the cat takes over, repeating his own catchphrase, "Sufferin' succotash," in a delightful, sing-songy way.

Tweety had been featured in Looney Tunes cartoons since 1942, so it took a pretty long time before we got this theme song. It didn’t matter how long it took to real Tweety fans, who can absolutely sing every word. Next time you hear it, though, you'll know Tweety's catchy theme came from the same guy who gave Wilma Flintstone that iconic talking dodo.

But it's far likelier that Doozy reminds you of a different iconic cartoon bird that also hatched from Foster's funny mind.

Foster and animator/illustrator Robert McKimson teamed up and created Foghorn Leghorn in 1946. The rooster known for running his mouth in a thick country drawl was definitely a character who introduced zany cartoon tension like Doozy did, whereas Tweety was different, and really just a sweetie pie. (Most people don’t realize that Foghorn Leghorn was a spoof of another fictional character, Senator Claghorn, who appeared on Fred Allen's radio show in the 1940s.)

"We gotta ditch this gabby bird," Fred says at one point in "The Buffalo Convention."

Doozy only appears in this one episode of The Flintstones, so clearly Hanna-Barbera agreed with Fred. But we bet you remember Doozy.

Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
Close

23 Comments

MeRay 41 months ago
I'm 69 years old but my wife says I'm a child because I love the Flintstones.
rubenchapa 45 months ago
I am 45 and still love them old shows
Mark091 46 months ago
I would like to see FREAKAZOID
Cartoons and Betty Boop cartoons
On METV
Mark091 46 months ago
I hope that MeTv will decide to carry
Yogi Bear Pixie and Dixie Quick Draw
McGraw Huckelberry Hound Mighty Mouse Heckle and Jeckyl Tennessee Tuxedo and FREAKAZOID
MarkSpeck Mark091 45 months ago
Considering that Warner Bros. owns all of the cartoons featured on Me-TV and also owns the Hanna-Barbera catalogue, from which the majority of all those cartoons originate, you may get your wish down the road.

Notice, though, that I said 'majority'...Heckle and Jeckle are owned by ViacomCBS and Tennessee Tuxedo by Universal (through Dreamworks Animation), so they probably won't be turning up on Me-TV anytime soon, unfortunately.
Mark091 46 months ago
I am thrilled that Popeye Egghead
Elmer Fudd Bugs Bunny Daffy duck
Porky pig etc and a Tex Avery cartoons are coming to MeTV on
Saturday December 2nd
I like the Tex Avery cartoons
Who Killed Who and I will be
HAPPY when METV shows this
Cartoon The detective in Who
Killed Who looks like character
Actor Fred Kelsey Fred Kelsey
Played the detective in The Laurel
Hardy Murder Case Fred Kelsey
Also played the detective in the
Three Stooges short If A body meets
A body Also I hope that MeTv will consider showing the comedy shorts
Of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
Hogansucks1 47 months ago
That a snitching Doozy DoDo bird would have been served with mint jelly at the kitchen table!!! Yabba do do- DoDo !!!! 🍽
Mark091 47 months ago
Yogi Bear cartoons on MeTv??!!
I would like to see reruns of
Pee Wees Playhouse and I hope that
MeTv will decide to carry
Eddie Cantor movies
Joe Penner movies
Eddie Cantor Joe Penner and
Pee Wee Herman were fantastic
Comedians I heard that Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) would like to do a remake of the Eddie Cantor movie Kid Millions from the year
1934. I also heard that Actress Cathy Silvers AKA Jenny Piccalo wants ABC
To do A reboot of Happy Days
Anson Williams and Donny Most (Potsie and Ralph) would also like to
Star in a reboot of Happy Days and
Call it Happy Days Again
Mark091 Mark091 47 months ago
Everytime I see the ice cream factory in the Eddie Cantor movie Kid Millions the ice cream factory reminds me of the
Playhouse on Pee Wees Playhouse
Pee Wees Playhouse and the movies of Eddie Cantor and Joe Penner would be great additions
To Me TVs lineup of shows
RedSamRackham Mark091 42 months ago
On Pee Wee's show that King Of Cartoons showed the gayest cartoons with cutesy dancing bugs & flowers yet never showed entire cartoon. Soupy Sales better than Pee Wee any day! Soupy showed & humorously narrated public domain silent movie shorts on his Saturday lunch-time program. ☺
Mark091 RedSamRackham 42 months ago
I like Soupy Sales also and I also
Like Paul Winchell the ventriloquist . Paul Winchell
Was very funny in the movie
Stop Look and Laugh with the
3 Stooges. Also I have seen Soupy Sales on reruns of old
Game shows . Did Soupy Sales
Have more than one TV show .
I receive Soupy Sales on one of
The TV channels on DIRECT TV
. The Buzzer Channel shows
Reruns of old game shows like
To Tell the Truth where I saw
Soupy Sales as one of the panelists . I wonder if Soupy Sales was ever a panelist on
What's my Line?? Buzzer is carried on DISH Network and
Pluto TV.
Mark091 47 months ago
Is it true that Bugs Bunny Elmer Fudd
Yosemite Sam Daffy duck Egghead
Porky pig and other Looney tunes
Are coming to Me TV in January??
I would also like to see the Little
Rascals and Tex Avery cartoons and
Popeye cartoons on MeTv
I would like see reruns of the Sitcom
Alice and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet on Metv
Rick Nelson Skip Young as Wally
Plumstead and Charlene Salerno
As Ginger were funny on The
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Doug Robinson who played Doug
And Pat Cranshaw w
to see rerun
Mark091 Mark091 47 months ago
I would like to see Alice reruns
On MeTv
Doug Robinson played Doug
And Pat Cranshaw as Andy were
Funny on Alice
Mel (Vic Tayback) was always
Running Doug out of Mel's Diner
daDoctah 47 months ago
Another connection of sorts was that Warner Brothers had once featured a dodo ("the *last* of the dodos", according to the script) in a Porky Pig cartoon originally in black and white.
texasluva 47 months ago
I say...I say ...I say thar.....A Dodo trying to horn in on us.....There's a reason they became extinct....dumb Dodo's can't fly worth a plug nickle....Excuse me while Tweety and I exit this Dodo ....as Snagglepuss would say.........Exit Stage left as in....head for the door thar boy. Get extinct and don't....I say don't come back ya hear....Yep Sufferin' succotash...da Dodo is a one and outer....Looney Tunes runs this Show this is it!.........
justjeff texasluva 47 months ago
Nyaaa... What a maroon! What an ultramaroon! Dat's sabatoogey, Doc!
dmagoon 47 months ago
"The Wuzzles" had dialogue resembling Foghorn Leghorn's; like "hot-diggety-dog"(Croc) and "lower than a saber-toothed snake's bellybutton (Rhinokey).
dmagoon dmagoon 47 months ago
Things like the latter phrase were use in the Fat Albert cartoons (ending in "No class").
stephaniestavropoulos 47 months ago
If METV sticks "true to form," {please, anyone, feel free to correct me.} METV is notorious for writing several articles/quizzes with the theme being something that's up and coming to METV"S schedule. With that being said, we can look forward to more WB quizzes/stories because of what's being added to the weekly/Saturday a.m. lineups come January. If anyone is curious to know what I"m talking about, check out texasluva's post from last week. He downloaded a video about it. Don't remember which page it's on, sorry.
justjeff 47 months ago
MeTV left out something about about Alan Livingston. Livingston was the head of Capitol Records for decades and helped move the label into rock music in the 1960s... and was also responsible for creating Bozo the Clown in 1946 [during his first tenure with Capitol] whom he and Capitol sold to Larry Harmon in 1956.

He was credited as the inspiration for the Capitol tower [completed in 1956] which was the world's first circular building (inspired by a stack of records).

Livingston, by the way, was married to Betty Hutton (1955-1960) and Nancy Olson (1962-2009). He was also the brother of composer Jay Livingston.

For those of you "keeping score" of the DNA connection between the Flintstones and Looney Tunes - Mel Blanc was the voice of the Dodo as well as Tweety and Foghorn Leghorn.
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?