When Chuck Jones started directing his own shorts, this was his first character. As you can tell, Sniffles was a mouse. (Mice were quite popular in animation for a while there.) His name came about from his first appearance, wherein he had a cold. Seeing as he came around at the beginning of Jone’s directing career, Sniffles acted towards his problems much differently than the other Looney Tunes. (And he wasn’t voiced by Mel. But Bernice Hansen. I think the voice suits him) His first instinct was to run away. While this didn’t make for especially funny shorts, they were still entertaining. Showing how one might live if you were the size of a mouse. By the end of his theatrical career, Sniffles got more of a personality. He became quite the chatterbox. And this is how he is remembered to this day. But the poor guy just couldn’t compete with other characters like Daffy and Bugs, and by 1946, he had his final short. But the little guy wasn’t completely forgotten. He played quite the prominent role in the early Looney Tunes comic books. There he was the friend of a girl named Mary Jane. She could shrink down to his size and join him on his adventures.
He got his own apprentice on Tiny Toons. (Known as Lil Sneezer.)
And he played for the Tune Squad in “Space Jam.” He is promptly squished after annoying one of the Monstars with his chatter. (Which kind of annoys me. I wish his opponent would have covered his ears or something, allowing Sniffles to take the ball.) And he got a shout out in the direct to DVD movie “Leroy and Stitch.” One of the experiments is given the name “Squeak” and he is designed to annoy people with his endless chatter. And he wears a suspiciously similar hat.
And Sniffles was meant to appear in “The Looney Tunes Show.” But sadly it was cancelled before he could make more of an appearance besides the intro. But what really makes me sad, is that he was set to be voiced by Tara Strong. She’s a master at voicing cute characters. It would have been great to see how she would have made him sound. It’s sad that the little fella never got as popular as his co-stars, but he at least made enough of an impact to be absorbed by everyone subconsciousness. And I take great pride in having seen every one of his shorts. This Sniffles is one I am always happy to see every flu season. (Sorry, was that too cheesy?)