| Porky in Wackyland | |
|---|---|
 Lobby card | |
| Directed by | Robert Clampett |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Starring | Mel Blanc Billy Bletcher Tedd Pierce Danny Webb[1] Bob Clampett[2] |
| Edited by | Treg Brown |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by | Norman McCabe I. Ellis Vive Risto John Carey Robert Cannon[3] |
| Layouts by | Bob Clampett |
| Backgrounds by | Elmer Plummer |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
Release date |
|
Running time | 7:23 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Porky in Wackyland is a 1938Warner Bros.Looney Tunes animatedshort film, directed byBob Clampett.[4] The short was released on September 24, 1938, and starsPorky Pig venturing out to find the lastdo-do bird, which he finds in Wackyland, a land that makes no sense located in DarkestAfrica.[5]
In 1994,Porky in Wackyland was voted No. 8 ofThe 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.[6] In 2000, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United StatesLibrary of Congress, which selected the short for preservation in theNational Film Registry. The short's copyright was renewed in 1966.[a]
A newspaper shows Porky Pig traveling to Africa to hunt for the last do-do bird. Upon landing his airplane in Darkest Africa, Porky sees a sign telling him that he is in Wackyland, where anything can happen. He tiptoes along the ground in his airplane and is greeted by a roaring beast, who suddenly becomes effeminate and dances away into the forest.
A musical interlude introduces several more bizarre creatures that inhabit Wackyland's impossible landscape. These include aone-man band that plays its nose like a flute, a rabbit swinging in midair, a duck caricature ofAl Jolson, and a beast with the heads of theThree Stooges. One creature wears asandwich board advertising information about the do-do. The creature beckons Porky into a dark passage, where he falls down a chute and watches the do-do's big entrance. The do-do introduces itself and then tramples Porky whilescat singing. Porky gives chase, but the do-do repeatedly uses surreal tricks to escape and humiliate him.
Some time later, the do-do encounters anewspaper hawker announcing that Porky's hunt has been a success. Confused by the news, the do-do drops its guard long enough for the hawker (Porky in disguise) to grab it. Porky briefly celebrates catching the last do-do, but is bested again when the bird calls for its other do-do friends.
Information is taken from the websiteLikely Looney, Mostly Merrie.[1]
Steve Schneider's 1998That's All Folks! The Art of Warner Bros. Animation writes that with this short, "the lord of cartoon misrule, Clampett established conclusively that in animation, realism is irrelevant".[7]
In the 2001Masters of Animation, John Grant writes that "this short, in its cumulative effect, is more wildly inventive than anything even[Tex] Avery had produced for Warners".[8]
Animation historian Steve Schneider writes, "No mere Looney Tune,Porky in Wackyland was Warner Bros.Emancipation Proclamation. Building on the creaky liberties inaugurated by directorTex Avery, here Bob Clampett scoffs and shreds the conventions — realism, literalism, infantilism, cutesiness, and worse — that, with the ascendancy ofDisney, had come to caramelize cartooning. By reminding us of animations' horizons — namely, none at all — this anything-goes film illustratesSigmund Freud's notion that humor arises from breaking taboos. And breaking taboos is something that animation, with its limitless freedom, is uniquely gifted to do".[2]
Much of the Wackyland sequence was adapted and reused by Clampett for inclusion in his 1943 shortTin Pan Alley Cats. A color remake ofPorky in Wackyland was supervised byFriz Freleng in 1948. Re-titled asDough for the Do-Do, the remake was released in 1949. The films were nearly identical, in many cases appearing to match frame-by-frame in certain details, albeit with Porky's appearance updated (by redoing most of the animation of the character), the voices having evolved (with less use of speeding-up) and the backgrounds being changed to a surreal, Daliesque landscape.Dough for the Do-Do was produced inTechnicolor, but was originally released inCinecolor due to a dispute with the Technicolor corporation. Later reissues were printed by Technicolor.
There were at least twoTerrytoons plagiarizations ofPorky in Wackyland in the 1940s or 1950s.[citation needed]Dingbat Land (1949)[9] starredGandy Goose and Sourpuss. The role of the Do-Do was taken by a minor Terrytoons character, Dingbat.[10]
Tex Avery, for whom Clampett worked as an animator in the mid-1930s, borrowed strongly from this cartoon for his 1948 MGM cartoonsHalf-Pint Pygmy (in which the characters,George and Junior, travel to Africa in search of the world's smallest pygmy, only to discover that he has an uncle who's even smaller) andThe Cat That Hated People (where the cat travels to the moon and encounters an array of characters similar to those in Clampett's Wackyland, e.g., a pair of gloves and lips that keep saying "Mammy, mammy", just like the Al Jolson duck inPorky in Wackyland). Clampett would again use the Three Stooges parody when a later creation of his,Beany and Cecil, faced the "Dreaded Three-Headed Threep".
According to writerPaul Dini, the Do-Do Bird is the father ofGogo Dodo, a character on the 1990s animated TV seriesTiny Toon Adventures, and a second Wackyland is drawn into Acme Acres by Babs and Buster Bunny.[citation needed] A small clip from the film was used in aSlappy Squirrel segment on another Warners animated TV series of the 1990s,Animaniacs. The segment, titled "Critical Condition", featuredPorky in Wackyland as part of a fakeLaserDisc release. The Do-Do Bird has made occasional guest spots in theDC ComicsLooney Tunes comic book, being colored ingrayscale as opposed to the rest of the art being in color. The character makes an appearance in theWii gameLooney Tunes: Acme Arsenal as an unplayable character. He is given a first name, Yoyo Dodo. Yoyo can also be seen at Maroon Cartoon Studios as a brief cameo in the beginning of the 1988 filmWho Framed Roger Rabbit. Yoyo also made a cameo in the 2020Looney Tunes Cartoons short "Happy Birthday, Bugs Bunny!" and plays a large role in thestop motion episode "Daffy in Wackyland".
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