Nibbles (Tom and Jerry)

Tuffy (Nibbles)
Tom and Jerry (WB/Turner Entertainment) character
Nibbles pats in delight after gobbling the whole turkey in The Little Orphan.
First appearance	The Milky Waif May 18, 1946
Created by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Voiced by	See below
Information
Species	House Mouse
Gender	Male
Family	Jerry (Uncle)
Relatives	Muscles Mouse (Cousin of Jerry) Uncle Pecos (Great Uncle)

Nibbles (also known as Tuffy) is a fictional character from the Tom and Jerry cartoon series. He is the little, blue/gray, diaper-wearing orphan mouse whose cartoon debut came in the 1946 short The Milky Waif. Nibbles was later featured in the 1949 Academy Award-winning short The Little Orphan.

The character's first actual appearance came in the 1942 comic book Our Gang Comics #1, where despite his diaper, he was presented as a peer of Jerry rather than a younger individual. In the comics, the gray mouse's name was given as Tuffy Mouse from the start.

When the smaller Nibbles design was introduced to animation in 1946, the comics' Tuffy was retconned to match, almost immediately shrinking in size and age, although the name Tuffy was retained. In the comics, Tuffy remained a peer of Jerry with no familiar relationship to him. But in 1953, the animation writers decided to change his on-screen relationship to Jerry. He became Jerry's nephew in Life with Tom.

Now it was the cartoons' turn to retcon, changing the screen name Nibbles to Tuffy in the 1957 cartoon Feedin' the Kiddie. The character was thus named Tuffy in all English-language media from 1957 through the 1980s.

Tom and Jerry comic books have been out of print in the United States since 1991. Not surprisingly, as time passes, fewer English-speaking staffers working on modern Tom and Jerry products remember the comics and the continuity they introduced. For this reason, the character's name has sometimes changed back to Nibbles in new product, notably the Tom and Jerry movies, Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, and the new TV series, Tom and Jerry Tales. The reference books Hanna-Barbera Cartoons by Michael Mallory and The Hanna-Barbera Treasury by Jerry Beck refer to the character only as Nibbles, without mentioning his alternate name at all.