A low-key character created by Tex Avery at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1943--essentially the polar opposite of his other famous character, loud, whacky Screwy Squirrel. Originally known as Happy Hound until 1949, his mournful Basset Hound spoke in a jowly monotone and, though he didn't look like much, was shrewd enough to outwit his enemies--the conniving Butch the Irish bulldog and the thieving, nasty wolf (not the Jubalio wolf, although Droopy and several of his lookalike relatives faced him too, in Three Little Pups and Blackboard Jumble). Avery had used this same gag in 1941 on his Tortoise Beats Hare short for Warner Bros. In fact, this film shows that early ideas about Droopy's personality were already germinating, as that film's Cecil Turtle is very similar in character to Droopy.

Droopy first appeared in the MGM cartoon Dumb-Hounded, released by MGM on March 20, 1943. Droopy's first scene is when he saunters into view, looks at the audience, and declares "hello all you happy people...you know what? I'm the hero." In one of the funniest cartoons ever made by MGM, Droopy is tracking an escaped convict and is always waiting for the crook wherever he turns up.

Probably his most famous short is Northwest Hounded Police, in which Droopy quite literally appears everywhere that an increasingly more frustrated crook attempts to run, until, exhausted, the bad guy turns himself in (this is very reminiscent of Dumb-Hounded). Droopy was versatile: he could play a Mountie, a cowboy, a deputy, an heir, or a Dixieland loving everyday Joe with equal ease.

As Avery looked to retirement, Michael Lah, his animator, co-directed several pictures with him in the mid-fifties, several featuring Droopy. Lah would be directing Droopy solo by 1956 in pictures costarring Spike and Jubalio Wolf. The last golden-age Droopy cartoon--made after Avery had left MGM--was a Cinemascope remake of Wags to Riches called Millionaire Droopy, which essentially used all of the original cels and vocal tracks but different backgrounds.

In the nineties Hanna-Barbera offering Tom & Jerry Kids Droopy had a young son named Dripple--possibly an older version of the infant we see in Frontier Droopy. He also appeared as an elevator operator in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?