Okay, I've read this forum for quite a while, but this is my first post here, and I thought that I'd toss out a theory that I've had for several years now, and see if I can get some feedback on it from you fine folks.

My theory concerns the inspiration for the Looney Tunes character, Rocky, and where he came from. I'm a big fan of the Howard Hawks film "The Big Sleep", and after a few viewings I noticed that the character of the hitman, Canino, bore a similarity to Rocky. Canino was played by character actor Bob Steele, as seen in the picture below.



Dangling cigarette. Check. Fedora. Check. Long coat. Check.
It could be him, but it is a pretty standard depiction of a gangster. I figured it was just a coincidence until I watched the John Wayne movie "Rio Bravo" (Directed by Howard Hawks some 15 years later), and lo-and-behold, who shows up in a very small role, but Bob Steele!



Then I saw this shot:



Look at the guy! Bob Steele wasn't only in a very small role, Bob Steele was a very small man! According to the IMDB, 5-foot, 5-inches. Both "The Big Sleep" and "Rio Bravo" were made at Warner Brothers, and I think there's a very good chance that Freleng or some of his animators had probably known, or at least, known of Bob Steele, and were aware of just how tiny the man really was.

I think I'm on fairly solid ground when I say that the basis for Rocky, is Bob Steele.

Does anyone have any information about this, that could either prove, or disprove this theory?
I know that Jerry has done interviews with Freleng. Did the topic of Rocky and Mugsy ever come up?

Thanks.

-Dan

I've never asked Freleng about this and I've got nothing to prove or disprove your hypothesis - but by golly, it's a great theory!

I'm also a big Bob Steele fan - he was a B-western star in the early 30s and ended his career playing "Duffy" on F-Troop (a Warner Bros. show).

very interesting theory,i must admit

The character of Rocky first appeared in Racketeer Rabbit and was clearly modeled after Edward G. Robinson. But later entries had him redesigned and he could have been modeled after some generic gangster type.

that's not rocky,it's simply an edward gee robinson caricature

The Rocky character in "Racketeer Rabbit" was a much 'hotter' personality than the one created by Freleng for "Golden Yeggs". The Eddie Robinson look-alike was extremely active in the first cartoon, while the other Rocky was a very 'cool' character to play off the hyperness of Daffy and Sylvester (nothing really happens to Rocky until he gets Mugsy for a partner and starts running up against Bugs in his third cartoon).

Steele may have been a part of that, but I think Friz also drew on other WB gangster portrayals, going back to the stuff Bogart and George Raft did back in the 1930s. But visually, there does seem to be a bit of a resemblence.

Okay, according to the IMDB, "Racketeer Rabbit" with the Edward G. "Rocky", was released on September 14th, 1946; and "The Big Sleep" was released to the general public on August 31st, 1946, only about two weeks earlier. So, "Racketeer Rabbit" was very likely, already in production by the time "The Big Sleep" was seen by most people.

It seems that we can at the very least, narrow down the idea that the classic "tiny-Rocky" was created after the release of "The Big Sleep". My theory that Freleng may have gotten the idea of a diminuitive, 'cool' (to use J Lee's description), gangster character from Bob Steele in "The Big Sleep" still holds up reasonably well.

Was "Golden Yeggs"(1950) the first time we ever saw Rocky? Can anyone think of a cartoon by Freleng between late 1946 and 1950 that had a gangster character in it?


Man, I love the IMDB.

-Dan

Actually, THE BIG SLEEP was completed about a year before its release. Warner Brothers held it back, so that the studio could get all its World War II-themed movies in release before they were out-of-date.

I'm not sure that this is relevant to the discussion here, but I thought I would mention it.

Yes, you're correct. I think they even showed it to soldiers while the war was still going on and made a few changes because of it. The GI's asked for more scenes with Lauren Bacall. Gee, I can't imagine why. *pant pant pant*

-Dan