Emma Webster, better known as Granny, is a recurring character and one of the few major characters who are human in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. In almost all her appearances she is the owner of Tweety, Sylvester, or Hector the Bulldog.
Design
Proto-Granny in her first appearance, Little Red Walking Hood in 1937
Granny has gone through several design changes. The earliest version of Granny can be seen in the 1937 cartoon Little Red Walking Hood. Another version with black hair appeared in 1941's The Cagey Canary and another changed design is seen in 1943's Hiss and Make Up. She received several other makeovers from 1940 to 1960, as shown in cartoons such as Canary Row (1950) and A Pizza Tweety Pie (1958). Granny is usually the owner of Tweety Bird and also serves as his protector. Sylvester The Cat often finds a way to break into Granny's house for the sole purpose of finding a meal. In later cartoons, Granny appears to be the owner of both Tweety and Sylvester. Granny appears to be unmarried, or maybe a widow, since she obviously lives by herself.
Appearances
In 1995, she stars in The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries series as a detective who investigates mysteries with Tweety, Sylvester and Hector the Bulldog. She always carries a magnifying glass around her neck for research. Later, she made appearances in Space Jam, Tweety's High Flying Adventure (where she was once again the caretaker of the yellow canary), and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
Granny appeared in Webtoons, where she starred in a series of three shorts, Judge Granny. These shorts show another version of Granny as a Judge resolving cases of some Looney Tunes major characters.
She takes care of the Baby Looney Tunes where she has a nephew named Floyd Minton, who started to make appearances later in the series to take the babies on trips.
An episode of Loonatics Unleashed contains a cameo of Granny herself, apparently still alive in the year 2772. Later, the show featured characters named Queen Grannicus (a possible descendant of Granny), the Royal Tweetums and Sylth Vester.
Emma fighting against Colonel Frankenheimer in the World War II.
The Looney Tunes Show
Granny also appeared as a recurring character in The Looney Tunes Show as one of Bugs and Daffy's neighbors, voiced by June Foray. In Eligible Bachelors, it is revealed that during World War II, Granny was a WAC spy and along with Tweety, "a carrier pigeon", she stopped Nazi Colonel Frankenheimer from stealing the Eiffel Tower and various paintings from the Louvre. During the flashback, she appears as an attractive red-headed young woman in WAC uniform. In The Grand Old Duck of York, Granny teaches piano lessons too. Her students were Daffy and Winnie Yang.
Personality
Granny is generally good-natured and is extremely protective of her beloved canary Tweety. Granny's over-protectiveness becomes apparent whenever Tweety is threatened (usually by Sylvester, a hungry "puddytat" who prefers eating birds over cat food). Although having the appearance of a kindly old woman, Granny has demonstrated her cleverness.
Voice-Actresses
Granny is voiced by June Foray, the same person who voiced her in the original shorts from the 1950's to the 1960's. This makes Granny the only character to have the same voice actor for the original shorts and The Looney Tunes Show, as June Foray and Stan Freberg were the only two original voice-actors still alive at the time of production.
- Bea Benaderet (1937-1953)
- June Foray (1953-present)
- GeGe Pearson (It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around The House)
- Joan Gerber (Corn on the Cop)
- Naoko Kyoda (Japan; Space Jam, Looney Tunes show)
Trivia
- In Hare Trimmed, Granny is called "Emmy" by Yosemite Sam.
Gallery
