Sylvester the Cat

Sylvester shows a lot of pride in himself, and never gives up. Perhaps because of his pride and persistence, Sylvester is, with rare exceptions, placed squarely on the "loser" side of the Looney Tunes winner/loser hierarchy. He shows a different character when paired with Porky Pig in explorations of spooky places, in which he doesn't speak, and behaves as a scaredy cat. He also appears in a handful of cartoons with Elmer Fudd, most notably in a series of cartoons underwritten by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation extolling the American economic system.

Sylvester, whom for the most part always played the antagonist role. A couple of cartoon features Sylvester playing the protagonist role while having to deal with the canine duo of Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier after being chased around. In 1952's Tree for Two by Friz Freleng, Sylvester is cornered in the back alley and would result in Spike getting mauled by a black panther that escaped from a zoo. 1954 film Dr. Jerkyl's Hyde, Spike (here called "Alfie") is pummels the poor pooch. After Spike's ordeal, Sylvester would have the courage and confidence to confront Chester, only to be beaten and tossed away by Chester.

Perhaps Sylvester's most developed role is in a series of Robert McKimson-directed shorts, in which the character is a hapless mouse-catching instructor to his dubious son, Sylvester Junior, with the "mouse" being a powerful baby kangaroo which he constantly mistakes for a "king-size mouse". His alternately confident and bewildered episodes bring his son to shame, while Sylvester himself is reduced to nervous breakdowns.