Heckle and Jeckle - Who's Who?

Who's Who?

Although identical in appearance, they are differentiated by their voices. Jeckle speaks with a slightly falsetto English accent, and his dialogue is somewhat more refined. Heckle is more rough around the edges, and speaks with a more informal, slangy vernacular and gruff New York dialect. However, the two magpies are far more alike in temperament than they are different. The characters seldom referred to each other by name, leading to some confusion as to which one was which. Heckle usually refers to Jeckle familiarly, as "chum" or "pal", while Jeckle often calls Heckle "old chap", "old thing", "old boy" or "old featherhead", indicating a close friendship between them.

Among the few instances where the two are positively identified, they clearly refer to each other by name in the short Bulldozing the Bull (1951), with the Brooklyn accent belonging to Heckle and the English accent belonging to Jeckle. In the later cartoon Stunt Men (1960), Jeckle, in an English accent, again calls Heckle by name. In Rival Romeos (1951), the magpies, after being simultaneously smitten by the same female, race home to get dressed. They are shown to occupy two sides of the same tree, and each character's home is marked with a sign—Heckle is clearly designated as the Brooklyn magpie with his jaunty porkpie hat, and Jeckle dons an English-looking bowtie, monocle and straw boater. Rival Romeos is also one of the only cartoons where the magpies are at odds with each other rather than united against a common adversary (usually either of two series "regulars": Dimwit, a moronic hound dog, or Chesty, a belligerent, disagreeable bulldog).

In 1979's The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle, the birds introduce themselves by name in the opening credits; Heckle again with the Brooklyn accent, and Jeckle with the English one. Both characters were voiced at different times by Sid Raymond (1946–47), Ned Sparks (1947–61), Roy Halee (1951–61), Dayton Allen (1956–66) and Frank Welker (1979–81).