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QUOTES GUIDE!
If you've been nosing around this section long enough, then you surely have noticed the banners at the top of each country's page. There's usually Speedy, another character, and seemingly a random cartoon quote off to the side.
What if we told you they weren't really random at all?
Each quote has been picked because it relates in some way to that country's history or culture. Some are quite obvious, some not so much. So in case there was any confusion about why a certain quote was used, well, you've come to the right place!
Happy learning!
ARGENTINA
"When the swallows come baaaack...hic! to Capistrano...hic!"
(Swallow the Leader, 1949)
The city of San Juan Capistrano, California, is of course known for the annual arrival of migrating swallows, so much so that it inspired a popular song quoted in the cartoon above. But, fewer people are aware of where the birds actually come from. The swallows' trek begins every year from their winter home in Goya, Argentina.
AUSTRALIA
"Most extraordinary animals you've ever seen!"
(Little Orphan Airedale, 1947)
In a recurring gag in the Porky Pig/Charlie Dog cartoons, Porky tricks Charlie and ships him to a faraway land, this time Australia.
CHARACTER BONUS! Obviously the Tasmanian Devil would be the one representing his homeland, but who is that similarly looking character standing next to Speedy? Why, that's Butch Catsidy, a potential antagonist for Speedy that was developed by Robert McKimson at some point in the post-1964 period of the studio. He never appeared in a cartoon, but it's clear what the character model was based after.
BELGIUM
"Man, that smells like Limburger cheese!"
(Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, 1943)
A staple funny food in cartoons, Limburger cheese originated in the fifteenth century in the Herve area of what was the Duchy of Limburg, now located in present day Belgium.
BRAZIL
"Rio de Janeiro! Tropical nights! Romance! And a heavy bank account!"
(Daffy Dilly, 1948)
Founded in 1565, Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in the country of Brazil.
BULGARIA
"I don't, I say, I don't think this boy's got all his marbles. Shakes his head when he means yes, and nods when he means no."
(Feather Dusted, 1955)
In Bulgaria the custom to indicate yes and no is opposite from a lot of the world. They do in fact nod when they mean no and shake their head when they mean yes. There are a number of myths and legends as to why they do that, but it's been a part of their culture for centuries.
CANADA
"Says she's Fifi from Montréal."
(Bonanza Bunny, 1959)
Founded in 1642, Montréal is the largest city in Québec and the second largest city in Canada.
CHARACTER BONUS! Being one of the only known cartoon characters to hail from Canada, of course Blacque Jacque Shellacque had to be on hand to provide some national pride. When impersonating then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien on a November 1993 episode of Saturday Night Live, fellow Canadian Mike Myers introduced his character with, "You're saying, who the hell is this guy--this freak who talks like the French-Canadian lumberjack from Bugs Bunny?"
CHILE
"Oooooo, I hates coconuts!"
(Rabbitson Crusoe, 1956)
Though it is subject to some debate among scholars, it is generally accepted that the classic novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was inspired by the real-life shipwrecking of Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk on the Chilean island of Más a Tierra. The government formerly renamed it as Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.
CHARACTER BONUS! Sam Sheepdog is representing Chile because of the country's charmingly famous love of its stray dog population, which at one point was calculated to be around 2.5 million. In the country's capital of Santiago, stray dogs of all breeds are treated extremely well by the locals, who provide food, shelter, and healthcare to them at all times. The canines have become part of the country's cultural backdrop.
CHINA
"Help! I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese laundry!"
(China Jones, 1959)
We just wanted to see if you were still reading before we worked in the word China one more time.
COLOMBIA
"I love the java jive and it loves me!"
(Robinson Crusoe Jr., 1941)
The story goes that shortly before the nineteenth century, Dutch Jesuit missionaries brought over the Coffea arabica plant with them to Colombia. The crops became a quick and easy source of income for the locals, and before long the country became one of the world's top producers of coffee.
CHARACTER BONUS! Baseball became something of a national obsession in Colombia in the first half of the twentieth century. Famously, at one point in the late 1940s President Mariano Ospina Pérez asked a crowd of demonstrating citizens if they wanted the government's limited funds to be spent on building new roads or a new stadium. The stadium won out. Though there has been a drastic decline in local interest, Colombia has since been the birthplace of a number of Major League Baseball World Series players.
CROATIA
"Bow, four-in-hand, five-in-hand, false granny, Windsor, Smindsor..."
(Design for Leaving, 1954)
Croatia was the birthplace of the necktie, which originated there during the French War in the seventeenth century. The country also inspired the item's original name, the cravat.
CZECH REPUBLIC
"Just relaxing und telling me about your id when you was a kid, ja?"
(Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, 1964)
The legendary Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in the town of Freiberg in the Moravian-Silesian Region of what was then known as the Austrian Empire. That area is now the Czech Republic.
DENMARK
"Please, Mr. Cat. Please eat us."
(Cheese Chasers, 1951)
Hubie and Bertie's curious plea prompts Claude Cat to visualize the famous line from Hamlet, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
ESTONIA
"Okay, I'm swing-ink!"
(Big Top Bunny, 1951)
The country of Estonia has had a long history of swinging as a cultural pasttime, with communal swings being a presence in village squares since at least the eighteenth century. In 1993 an actual regulated sport was made out of the recreation, kiiking.
FINLAND
"Perhaps there'll be a bunch of toys for me..."
(The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives, 1933)
Of course in terms of legend Santa Claus lives and works at the North Pole, but since 1927 Finland has boasted that St. Nick's home is somewhere on the Korvatunturi mountain range in the region of Lapland. The area has since been an international tourist destination, even opening the Santa Claus Village theme park in 1985.
FRANCE
"Beaucoup Chevrolet coupé pas vous caller la piggy bank?"
(The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, 1946)
"Eh, French phone."
CHARACTER BONUS! Pepé le Pew has made Paris his home since 1949's For Scent-imental Reasons.
GERMANY
"There's the little wiener schnitzel now."
(Dumb Patrol, 1964)
Even though it's often associated with German cuisine, hence its reference in the above cartoon, wiener schnitzel is in fact an Austrian dish.
CHARACTER BONUS! Porky's German name is Schweinchen Dick, roughly translated to "Piggy Fat."
GREECE
"Is your daughter safe? Phone Porkykarkus at Olympia-2222."
(Porky's Hero Agency, 1937)
The town of Olympia has been a part of Greece since at least 1600 BCE.
HUNGARY
"Who? Franz Liszt? Never heard of 'em. Wrong number."
(Rhapsody Rabbit, 1946)
Perhaps one of the most known pieces of music in history, and certainly in the history of cartoons, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt was first published in 1851.
INDIA
"And I ain't no namby pamby!"
(Bugs Bunny Rides Again, 1948)
In the above cartoon, Yosemite Sam's original line was, "And I don't mean Mahatma Gandhi!" Tragically, Indian political activist Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, about five months before the cartoon was released to theaters. The line was quickly rerecorded, but prints do exist with the original line of dialogue, even showing up in local television syndication through the mid-1980s.
INDONESIA
"Say, it looks like a piggy bank crime wave!"
(The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, 1946)
Pig-shaped money banks have had their origins traced to Java, one of the Greater Sunda Islands in the southwest portion of Indonesia.
CHARACTER BONUS! Chickens have had a strong influence on Indonesian history and culture. Reportedly, local gangsters would use cockfights as a show of strength against the state military during a time of demonstrations and unrest throughout the 1970s. The town of Magelang is also home to a dove-shaped temple of worship that has become colloquially known as the "chicken church."
IRELAND
"Zee corned beef do not run away from zee cabbage."
(Wild Over You, 1953)
Corned beef and cabbage is usually thought of as a traditionally Irish meal and has become a cornerstone of most Americans' St. Patrick's Day holiday. But alas, the dish did not originate in Ireland--it was something that Irish immigrants in America came up with in the nineteenth century when they discovered that cornered beef was a cheaper and easier-to-acquire alternative to their go-to protein, Irish bacon. The cabbage was added simply to make the meal heartier and more filling.
CHARACTER BONUS! Would you have rather it been O'Reilly from Shamrock and Roll?
ISRAEL
"Kreplach - $1000.00 each."
(The Scarlet Pumpernickel, 1950)
Though developed by exiled Jews living in Eastern Europe around the fourteenth century (give or take a day), the dumpling-like kreplach has become a staple of Jewish cuisine all over the world. Really rough estimates suggest that about 30 percent of the Jewish population that have migrated to Israel have come from this specific lineage (known as the Ashkenazi Jews), bringing their cuisine to the country with them.
ITALY
"Hey, doesn't anybody around here capisce??"
(A Hound for Trouble, 1951)
The final theatrical Charlie Dog cartoon finds our stray protagonist in Italy, where he ends up being tricked into "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
CHARACTER BONUS! For the better part of the 1960s and 1970s, Sylvester was a true cartoon superstar in Italy. You can read all about that by clicking on the country name above.
JAPAN
"That is not a Japanese general. Oh no, that is Bugs Bunny!"
(Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, 1944)
Japanese military and citizens were regularly seen as dumb and incompetent in wartime theatrical animation, so we thought we would at least pick perhaps the one moment where one was depicted as intelligent.
CHARACTER BONUS! It was Tweety who starred in the very first DVD collection of classic Warner Bros. cartoons...but only released in Japan.
KOREA
"The Wole of Wall Street"
(A Coy Decoy, 1968)
When Warner Bros.-Seven Arts enlisted Color Systems Inc. to colorize a package of black and white Porky Pig cartoons for television syndication, the work was farmed out to a plant in South Korea. Since the Korean animators didn't have a great grasp of the English language, words and lettering on the newly repainted backgrounds were often subject to spelling errors. In the original cartoon, a wolf is seen emerging from the book The Wolf of Wall Street.
CHARACTER BONUS! In addition to the authorized contract it had with Warner Bros., Color Systems (through owner Fred Ladd) also took it upon themselves to colorize a number of public domain cartoons. When they got their hands on a few early Looney Tunes starring Bosko, they gave his outfit that mustard-and-gray color scheme.
KUWAIT
"Ickity ackity oop!"
(Ali Baba Bunny, 1957)
Although they have existed in Arabic folklore since before 600 CE, belief in jinn (genies) is particularly prevalent in Kuwait. At one point there was even a traditional ritual in the country called a zār to help people who thought they had become possessed by a jinn.
LITHUANIA
"We challenge you to a basketball game."
(Space Jam, 1996)
Having first been exposed to it in 1919, basketball has become the most popular sport in Lithuania. Since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, they have finally been able to have their own national team in the Olympics.
CHARACTER BONUS! The white stork is the country's national bird.
MALAYSIA
"Well, don't tell me there's no ketchup!"
(The Bee-Deviled Bruin, 1949)
Although it wasn't invented there, when the Chinese brought their eggplant-based fish sauce kôe-chiap over to Malaysia around 700 CE, the locals adapted the name to "kecap," which just means a fermented and savory sauce. Fast forward to around 1700, when British merchants began trading spices and goods with Malaysia. The British are credited with taking the concept of ketchup with them to the western part of the world (where they turned it into a mushroom-based sauce), bastardized version of Malaysia's name for it and all.
CHARACTER BONUS! Although Cool Cat is likely not of this variety, there is an endangered species known as the Malayan tiger. At last count, there are fewer than 150 of such tigers in the wild.
MEXICO
"Yeah, we see him in moving pictures. In the Chihuahua drive-in."
(Crows' Feat, 1962)
Chihuahua is the capital city of the same-named state in Mexico, one of the six states that share a border with the United States.
CHARACTER BONUS! Do we really need to explain why Slowpoke was picked?
NETHERLANDS
"Now don't you worry, my daffodil. I'll get the money and save the mill."
(Little Dutch Plate, 1935)
Windmills have been used in the Netherlands since the eighteenth century for water management to help prevent flooding. Very stupid people think that windmills cause cancer.
NEW ZEALAND
"What was his second grade teacher's name, you're so smart?"
(The Ducksters, 1950)
The quote is Daffy's followup question to Porky after correctly knowing the name of the referee in the New Zealand heavyweight championship fight of 1726 (Arbuckle Dreen). In real life, the various New Zealand boxing commissions didn't hold a championship fight until 1885.
NORWAY
"Hey, looks like one of them new electric can openers broke loose."
(Prince Violent, 1961)
Vikings made their home in what is now Norway from the eighth to eleventh centuries.
PERU
"Oh papa, we thought you'd been run over by an elevator!"
(Rabbit's Feat, 1960)
The quote is the next line after Bugs greets Wile E. Coyote with, "Daddy! You're back from Peru!"
CHARACTER BONUS! Dogs of all breeds roam freely across the cities and towns of Peru, and very few of them are strays. Culturally, their owners set them loose during the day to explore, and they are usually seen as well-nourished and healthy.
POLAND
"Duck Polonaise under glass, mm-mmm!"
(Rabbit Fire, 1951)
The word "Polonaise" means to come from Poland.
PORTUGAL
"Now look here, me bucko!"
(Compressed Hare, 1961)
The quote is Wile E. Coyote's response to Bugs causing a champagne cork to shoot into his eye. Portugal is the world's top producer of cork, exporting $1.1 billion of it annually.
ROMANIA
"So long, Dracula!"
(Draftee Daffy, 1945)
It may come as a surprise to some that Transylvania is not an actual country but a cultural region of Europe located in central Romania. The character of Dracula was in large part inspired by Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler.
RUSSIA
"Dasvidaniya, Americanski."
(Tease for Two, 1965)
During the "Space Race" of the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union notably beat the United States to a number of firsts. On April 21, 1961, Soviet-Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel into space, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes.
SERBIA
"Well abra cadabra, I'm an umpire!"
(Transylvania 6-5000, 1963)
According to legend, it was the eighteenth-century Serbian word "vampir" that was passed into German and then eventually English and became the word vampire, and many credit Serbian folklore with the creation of the creature itself.
SINGAPORE
"Have some g-g-g-gum, Mr. Ape?"
(Congo Jazz, 1930)
Chewing gum has been officially banned in Singapore since 1992, though there are some very limited exceptions, such as for medical or dental use.
SOUTH AFRICA
"Cwy fweedom!"
(Looney Tunes: Back in Action, 2003)
Cry Freedom is a 1987 biopic starring Denzel Washington as Steve Biko, a South African activist who became one of the country's most vocal critics of the government's apartheid system of racism and segregation. Apartheid finally and totally ended in 1991, but one of its strongest supporters now owns the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
SPAIN
"Can't you see that I'm much sweeter? I'm your little senoriter."
(Rabbit of Seville, 1950)
Although The Barber of Seville is famously an Italian opera based on a French play, it takes place in the Spanish city of Seville.
SWEDEN
"Yumpin' yiminy, every day the same thing. Clean out the birdcage, clean out the birdcage."
(I Taw a Putty Tat, 1948)
Although saying the phrase "yumpin' yiminy" in a Swedish accent was popularized by (decidedly non-Swedish) comedian El Brendel, the trope of a Swedish maid had been a comedy staple since the days of vaudeville.
THAILAND
"Act shmact! I'm the janitor!"
(Curtain Razor, 1949)
The phrase "Siamese twins" was first popularized in relation to Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins born in 1811 in Siam, which in 1939 was renamed Thailand.
TURKEY
"No doubt you've heard of the Trojan Horse. Well, this here is a Trojan Dog."
(The Honey-Mousers, 1956)
The ancient city of Troy, as in the Trojan Horse, was located in what is now present day Turkey.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
"You-a ain't-a nothing but a hound camel..."
(Hare-Abian Nights, 1959)
Despite the setting and the origins of the stories found within One Thousand and One Nights/Arabian Nights, there has been little evidence of the tome's popularity in the actual Arab world.
CHARACTER BONUS! There is a large black-market industry in the United Arab Emirates dealing with the trafficking of primates.
UNITED KINGDOM
"I shall probably hateth myself cometh the dawn."
(Rabbit Hood, 1949)
Robin Hood has been a fixture of English folklore since at least the late 1200s.
VENEZUELA
"It's not good for me to be roughly handled, the way I am."
(Little Orphan Airedale, 1947)
If you don't know the punchline to the above quote, then you need to acquire the cartoon on Blu-ray immediately.
YUGOSLAVIA
"And now, we will pwesent the beautiful Bwue Danube."
(A Corny Concerto, 1943)
The legendary Danube flowed its way through what was once northeastern Yugoslavia, with the capital city of Belgrade on its route.
