The character was known for being brash and erratic, with few sympathetic personality characteristics such as
Bugs Bunny's nobility and
Daffy Duck's pathos. Most of his cartoons had him paired with Meathead Dog (voiced by screenwriter
Cal Howard in
Screwball Squirrel, Tex Avery in
Happy-Go-Nutty, and
Pinto Colvig in
The Screwy Truant) as his adversary. Meathead's physical appearance differed between the three shorts in which he appeared (with his ears changing color from grey-blue to black in
Happy-Go-Nutty, and donning a new color palette in
The Screwy Truant), but otherwise the character remained the same. Screwy's shorts revolve around his infliction of various forms of torture on Meathead – or another enemy – for seven minutes, often doing so by breaking any sort of laws of reality. In
The Screwy Truant, one gag has Screwy hitting Meathead over the head with everything he can find in a trunk labeled "Assorted Swell Stuff to Hit Dog on Head". When he finishes, Meathead remarks, "Gee whiz! He hit me with
everything but the kitchen sink!" Screwy responds with, "Well, don't want to disappoint you, chum", then pulls out that very item and bashes him over the head with it. Additionally, Kausler claimed that Avery hated the character because he didn't catch on as well as his
Warner Bros. creation, Bugs Bunny.
Later appearances Meathead Dog made a cameo appearance in the 1988 film
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He is seen sniffing around at R. K. Maroon's Cartoon Studio in the film's beginning. Screwy is mockingly mentioned by one of Eddie Valiant's bar patrons Angelo, when he says, "Who's your client, Mr. Detective of the Stars?
Chilly Willy, or Screwy Squirrel?" A voice clip of Wally Maher as Screwy from the character's debut short was recycled for the character Dweezil in the video game
Putty. In 1993, Patrick Ventura was developing a series starring Screwy and Meathead at
Hanna-Barbera.
Joe Barbera intervened, wanting Screwy's personality to be toned down and made more "soft and likeable" for modern audiences. Hanna-Barbera resurrected Screwy in new animation for the series
Droopy, Master Detective as part of
Fox Kids' programming block of
Saturday morning cartoons. Those new cartoons had the character renamed "Screwball" and pitted him not against Meathead, but against a pair of typical Hanna-Barbera authority figures, a human park attendant named Dweeble and his oafish dog Rumply. "Screwball" himself wore a T-shirt and often a "Napoleon-style"
bicorne hat. He lived in a hollow tree in the center of the grounds and frequently annoyed Dweeble with his antics (not unlike fellow cartoon
funny animals The
Shirt Tales, though minus the redeeming social value). Screwy was used as a template for
Animaniacs character Slappy Squirrel, and Ventura's own Sledgehammer O'Possum in
What a Cartoon!. On April Fool's Day in 2012, Cartoon Network broadcast Screwy Squirrel's debut cartoon
The Screwball Squirrel, at 6:00 am and 11:45 am, which marked the first time that a cartoon by
Tex Avery was broadcast on the network since
The Tex Avery Show. In 2013, both Meathead and Screwy Squirrel made appearances as residents of "Fairy Land" in ''
Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure'', retaining most of their traits. Screwy Squirrel was voiced by
Paul Reubens and Meathead was voiced by
John DiMaggio. In 2019, Screwy Squirrel made an appearance as a landlord of an apartment building called Screwy Arms Apartments, in the third season of
The Tom and Jerry Show episode called "Double Dog Trouble". He also made various cameos in the series. Screwy was voiced by Sean Kenin. American animator and producer
Bruce W. Smith briefly began developing a series for Warner Bros. starring the titular character. In Smith's proposed story line, which was never produced, Screwy thinks he is in Hollywood, California, but in reality he is in
Hollywood, Alabama. ==Voice actors==