Porky in Wackyland is a 1938 Looney Tunes short directed by Bob Clampett.
Plot[]
A newspaper shows Porky traveling to Africa to hunt the rare dodo bird, which is worth four sextillion dollars. Porky uses his airplane to go to Dark Africa, then Darker Africa, and finally lands in Darkest Africa. When Porky lands, a sign tells him that he's in Wackyland, "Population: 100 nuts and a squirrel", while a voice booms out "It can happen here!" Porky tiptoes along the ground in his airplane and he is greeted by a roaring beast, who suddenly becomes effeminate and dances away into the forest.
He watches as the sun is lifted above the horizon by a tower of stacked creatures. Nearby, another creature rises out of a tall flower, playing "The William Tell Overture", using his nose as a flute. The creature launches into a wild drum solo, plays a tiny piano, and plays its nose like a horn, which brings out a group of odd creatures, including a rabbit dangling in midair from a swing that seems to be threaded through its own ears, a small creature wearing large female mannequin legs who encourages the rabbit to swing faster, a peacock with a fantail of cards, an upside-down creature walking with giant bare feet in his hands, a goofy looking creature wearing large glasses in a small pot, a round creature with long legs on its sides, and an angry criminal imprisoned behind a free-floating barred window that he holds in his hands while a small policeman on a wheel appears and hits him on the head with a large stick. As Porky tries to find the do-do, he comes across a duck singing "Mammy!", a horn-headed creature, a conjoined cat and dog hybrid creature spinning around like a tornado while they fight, and a three-headed stooge whose heads argue and fight amongst themselves, but temporally stop their fight to tell the viewers that their mother was scared by a pawnbroker's sign, while a small creature with a light bulb on its head translates their gibberish speech.
Eventually, Porky meets a strange fellow wearing a sign stating "Information About The Dodo". Porky then asks a bunch of questions about him, finally asking "Which way?". The fellow states "That way!" as he shows a bunch of arrows pointing in every direction, confusing Porky. Quickly lowering the arrows and closing the sign on himself, he opens it to reveal a new sign stating "This way to The Dodo". The fellow whispers at Porky to follow him, but Porky instead falls onto a slide, spitting him out of a water spigot onto a dish. Doors open to reveal a castle surrounded by a moat as a light-up sign states "The Dodo". Finally, the Dodo appears and drives the drawbridge like a boat to the other side. Porky asks him if he truly is the last of the dodos, and he confirms it before playing tricks on him. The dodo runs off and pulls out a pencil to draw a door in mid-air, and instead of opening it and running through, reaches down and lifts up the bottom edge of the door like a curtain, darts underneath and lets it snap back into place for Porky to bump into. At another point, the dodo appears on the Warner Bros. shield logo and slingshots Porky into the ground. Afterwards, the dodo pulls a wall of bricks in the picture and lets him crash into it. Eventually, Porky triumphs when he disguises himself as a bearded paperboy, shouting "Extra! Extra! Porky captures Dodo!" before hitting the bird with a mallet. Porky loudly proclaims to the audience that he has captured the last dodo. The dodo mockingly replies, "Yes, I'm really the last of the dodos. Ain't I, fellas?" A multitude of dodos appear, all yelling out, "Yeah, man!" Then all of the dodos howl. Porky covers his ears at that. Then, the Dodo kicks Porky and stands on his head.
Caricatures[]
- Al Jolson - "Mammy" duck
- The Three Stooges - three-headed creature
Availability[]
Ham on Wry: The Porky Pig Laser Collection
Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition Volume 7: Welcome to Wackyland
Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2, Disc Three (restored)
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 2 Disc 1
Tweety Pie
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc One (restored)
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc One (restored)
Looney Tunes 3 Feature Collection Best Of
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volumes 2-3 Repack
Porky Pig 101, Disc 3 (restored)
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volumes 1-3 Repack
Censorship[]
- When this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon, the brief scene of the big-lipped Al Jolson duck saying, "Mammy, mammy," as he passes by Porky was cut.[6]
- Versions distributed by Guild Films/Sunset Productions in the 1950s cut the part where the Do-Do pops into frame onto the Warner Brothers shield and hits Porky with a rock from a slingshot. Television was very unpopular among theater owners and seen as a threat to their business, and Warner Bros. removed all mentions of their name to not offend them.[6]
Notes[]
Similar shots from Porky in Wackyland (left) and Dough for the Do-Do (right)
- This short subject is celebrated for its surreal humor, such as when Porky is chasing the bird, it disappears and suddenly the Warner Bros. shield emerges from the horizon's vanishing point, as it typically did at every cartoon's beginning, and complete with the standard stretched "boing" of the steel guitar. The Do-Do comes from behind the shield to bop Porky on the head and we see the shield immediately turn to return to the horizon with the bird riding it there (with, consequently, the boing sound played in reverse).
- Among the crazy characters Porky encounters is a creature with three heads arguing amongst themselves. From the haircuts on the three heads, it is clear that this is a parody of The Three Stooges. The character then faces the camera and leans into it in such a way that their round heads form a triangle, and a small character explains to the audience that, "He says his mother was scared by a pawnbroker's sign!"
- One of the creatures that Porky encounters in Wackyland is a cat and dog conjoined together while fighting, predating the title characters of CatDog by sixty years.
- The long pan through Wackyland, as well as the duck, horn-headed creature, and the conjoined cat and dog, was remade in color by Clampett for inclusion in his 1943 short "Tin Pan Alley Cats".
- A Cinecolor remake of "Porky in Wackyland" called "Dough for the Do-Do" was released in 1949.
- In 1994, by the members of the animation field, it was #8 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
- This is the first to use the 1938-39 Looney Tunes intro, replacing the one used from "Rover's Rival" to "Wholly Smoke".
- In 2000, it was selected to enter the "National Film Registry" by Congress, one of 4 other Looney Tunes cartoons to be entered. A print will be buried in a time capsule, waiting for others to view it a few hundred or thousand years later.
- It is, so far, the only one not directed by Chuck Jones.
- A clip from this cartoon was featured in the Animaniacs episode "Critical Condition".
- A 1995 computer-colorized print is known to exist; the Do-Do has his color scheme from the color remake in this version.
- This short was featured in the final episode of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon that aired 11 September 1999.
- This is the first Looney Tunes short written by Warren Foster.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SpongeBob in RandomLand" is both a reference to Alice in Wonderland and this short.
- This is the last cartoon that Elmer Plummer provided backgrounds for before he was replaced by Richard H. Thomas.[4]
- The pot in the short contains the phrase "Treg's a foo", likely referencing sound editor Treg Brown. "Foo" was a nonsense word used in the comic Smokey Stover, which was popular at the time. The word was also used in "The Daffy Doc", another cartoon directed by Clampett.[7] It is also possible that it is a pronunciation spelling of "fool".
- According to the map shown on Porky's journey, "Dark Africa" is where Mauritania and the Western Sahara should be, "Darker Africa" Mali and "Darkest Africa" Niger.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
- ↑ http://likelylooneymostlymerrie.blogspot.com/2012/11/216-porky-in-wackyland-1938.html
- ↑ File:Porky in Wackyland Cast.jpg
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2014/09/wackyland.html
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/porky-in-wackyland-breakdown
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-p.aspx
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19990508213300/http://members.aol.com/EOCostello/f.html
Further reading[]
- Beck, Jerry and Friedwald, Will (1989): Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company.