| Piggy | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies character | |
 Piggy inYou Don't Know What You're Doin'!. | |
| First appearance | You Don't Know What You're Doin'! (1931) (Piggy) At Your Service Madame (1936) (Piggy Hamhock) |
| Last appearance | Pigs Is Pigs (1937) |
| Created by | Rudolf Ising (Piggy) Friz Freleng (Piggy Hamhock) |
| Voiced by | Johnny Murray (1931) Shirley Reed (1937) |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Domestic pig |
| Gender | Male |
Piggy is the name of twoanimated cartoon characters in theMerrie Melodies series of films distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures. The first character. created byRudolf Ising, was a fat, blackpig wearing a pair of shorts with two large buttons in the front, with his personality being nearly identical toFoxy. his first film wasYou Don't Know What You're Doin'![1]
An unrelated character of the same name was created by Ising's former subordinateFriz Freleng. His name came from one of two brothers who were childhood classmates of Freleng's, nicknamed "Porky" and "Piggy".[2]
AnimatorRudolf Ising introduced Piggy to replace his previous character,Foxy, as the star of theMerrie Melodies series Ising wasdirecting forproducerLeon Schlesinger; his personality is identical to that of Foxy with minimal modifications.[3] Piggy's coloration and dress were identical to those of theWalt Disney characterMickey Mouse before the advent of color film. John Kenworthy argues that, considering the fact that some sketches of mice that Hugh Harman had drawn in 1925 were the inspiration for the creation of Mickey Mouse, Harman and Ising never intended to copy Disney.[4]
Despite their clichéd lead character, Ising's two Piggy shorts are well received by some critics. In the first,You Don't Know What You're Doin'!, Piggy visits a surreal nightclub where he heckles and plays with the club's jazz band. Cartoon historiansJerry Beck andWill Friedwald call this "the definitive Harman-Ising Warner film: the characters are cute, the humor is gross, the visuals are uninhibited, and the music is red hot."[1]
This was followed byHittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land, also in 1931.[5] Here, Piggy plays a steamboat captain who must rescue a drowningUncle Tom. Due to its stereotypical portrayal of the Uncle Tom character, the cartoon is included among the so-called "Censored 11",Looney Tunes andMerrie Melodies shorts that are withheld from circulation due to their heavy use of ethnicstereotypes. Piggy never starred in another cartoon after that, although he continued to appear at the end of every short up to 1932'sI Love a Parade. Nonetheless, Ising had only made two Piggy shorts in 1931 before he left Warner Bros. with partnerHugh Harman. Ising retained the rights to Piggy alongside his other characters before settling atMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, though none of his characters save for Bosko were used during their tenure.
In 1936,animatorFriz Freleng created another character named Piggy. This character was given lighter, morewhite color with distinguishing birthmarks. The redesigned character appeared as a gluttonous child in a large family of pigs inAt Your Service Madame (which gives his full name asPiggy Hamhock),[6] where he leads his fellow siblings in foiling a bum's attempt to rob their mother.
A year later, the new Piggy starred inPigs Is Pigs in which his gluttony takes center stage.[7] This is his final appearance. After this, he is discarded, with his character traits transferred for a time toPorky Pig.
