

While in this calm state, he can be easily dealt with.

Taz does have one weakness: he can be calmed by almost any music. He is best known for his speech consisting mostly of grunts, growls, and rasps (in his earlier appearances, he does speak English with primitive grammar) as well as his ability to spin like a vortex and bite through nearly anything. His enormous appetite seems to know no bounds, as he will eat anything in his path. Though he can be very devious, he is also sweet at times.

He got his name in the short Ducking the Devil.

Taz is generally portrayed as a ferocious, albeit dim-witted, carnivore with a notoriously short temper and little patience. His efforts to find more food (animate or inanimate) are always a central plot device of his cartoons. Although the bipedal Tasmanian Devil's appearance does not resemble its marsupial inspiration, it contains multilayered references to other "devils": he has horn-shaped tufts of fur on his head (similar to the Devil's appearance) and whirls about like a dust devil (similar in appearance to a tornado) which sounds like several motors whirring in unison. Owen and Pemberton suggest that the character of the Tasmanian Devil was inspired by Errol Flynn.:153 The most noticeable resemblance between the Australian marsupial and McKimson's creation is their ravenous appetites and crazed behavior. Robert McKimson based the character on the real life Tasmanian devil, or more specifically its carnivorous nature, voracious appetite, and surly disposition.
