Meany, Miny, and Moe

Meany, Miny, and Moe

Meany, Miny, and Moe (art by Walter Lantz Studios).
Character information
first app.:	"Monkey Wretches" (1935)
last app.:	"The Air Express" (1937)
created by:	Walter Lantz Studios

Meany, Miny, and Moe are Walter Lantz characters, who made their first appearance in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon "Monkey Wretches" (1935). Their final animated appearance was in 1937 in "The Air Express".

According to their theme song, the trio are "just three monkeys from the sticks / just a bunch of jungle hicks / but they know a lot of tricks." At first portrayed as unclothed identical triplets in the Oswald cartoons, the monkeys began wearing clothes and behaving individually when they graduated to their own series. Meany is a wannabe tough guy, often bullying his shyer, clumsier brothers. In animation, the trio rarely speak coherent English, instead rapidly gibbering in an imitation of real-life monkeys.

While usually depicted as monkeys with tails, the three brothers are occasionally drawn tailless, making them look more like chimpanzees.

In the later Lantz comic books Woody Woodpecker Back to School 1 and 2 (1952, 1953), the three monkeys starred in comic stories of their own. The spelling of their names changed to Meeny, Miney and (sometimes) Mo. In the comics, the trio spoke English in a style roughly mimicking the Three Stooges. While Meeny's name no longer exactly matched the word "meany," he was still portrayed as a wannabe tough guy.