''Porky in Wackyland'' is a 1938

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

'' Looney Tunes'' animated

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

, directed by Bob Clampett. The short was released on September 24, 1938, and stars Porky Pig venturing out to find the last do-do bird, which he finds in Wackyland, a land that makes no sense located in Darkest

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. In 1994, ''Porky in Wackyland'' was voted No. 8 of

The 50 Greatest Cartoons ''The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals'' is a 1994 book by animation historian Jerry Beck. Criteria It consists of articles about 50 highly regarded animated short films made in North America and other notable ca ...

of all time by members of the animation field. In 2000, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

, which selected the short for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

Plot

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 a

one-man band A one-man band is a musician who plays a number of instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical or electronic contraptions. One-man bands also often sing while they perform. The simplest type of "one-man ban ...

that plays its nose like a flute, a rabbit swinging in midair, a duck caricature of

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed ...

, and a beast with the heads of the

Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeare ...

. One creature wears a

sandwich board A sandwich board is a type of advertisement tool composed of two boards with a message or graphic on it and being either carried by a person, with one board in front and one behind in a triangle shape, hinged along the top, creating a "sandwich" ...

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 while

scat singing In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking medium. ...

. Porky gives chase, but the do-do repeatedly uses surreal tricks to escape and humiliate him. Some time later, the do-do encounters a creature selling newspapers announcing that Porky's hunt has been a success. Shocked by the news, the do-do drops its guard long enough for the creature (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.

Voice cast

Information is taken from the website ''Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie'' * Mel Blanc as various characters, including Porky Pig and

Dodo The dodo (''Raphus cucullatus'') is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The dodo's closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire. The ...

Billy Bletcher William Bletcher (September 24, 1894 – January 5, 1979) was an American actor. He was known for voice roles for various classic animated characters, most notably Pete in Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse short films and the Big Bad Wolf in Disne ...

as the Roaring Goon *

Tedd Pierce Edward Stacey "Tedd" Pierce III (August 12, 1906 – February 19, 1972) was an American screenwriter and voice actor of animated cartoons, principally from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s. Biography Pierce was the son of a stockbroker, Samue ...

as mysterious voice * Dave Weber as the Prisoner * Bob Clampett as vocal effects

Reception

Steve Schneider's 1998 ''That'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." In the 2001 ''Masters of Animation'', John Grant writes that "this short, in its cumulative effect, is more wildly inventive than anything even exAvery had produced for Warners." Animation historian Steve Schneider writes, "No mere Looney Tune, ''Porky in Wackyland'' was Warner Bros. Emancipation Proclamation. Building on the creaky liberties inaugurated by director

Tex Avery Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American animation. His mo ...

, here Bob Clampett scoffs and shreds the conventions — realism, literalism, infantilism, cutesiness, and worse — that, with the ascendancy of

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

, had come to caramelize cartooning. By reminding us of animations' horizons — namely, none at all — this anything-goes film illustrates Sigmund 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."

Follow-ups and derivative works

Much of the Wackyland sequence was adapted and reused by Clampett for inclusion in his 1943 short '' Tin Pan Alley Cats''. A color remake of ''Porky in Wackyland'' was supervised by Friz Freleng in 1948. Re-titled as ''

Dough for the Do-Do ''Dough for the Do-Do'' is a 1949 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on September 2, 1949, and stars Porky Pig. The short is a remake of Bob Clampett's 1938 cartoon ''Porky in Wackyland'', as ...

'', 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 in

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

, but was originally released in Cinecolor due to a dispute with the Technicolor corporation. Later reissues were printed by Technicolor. There were at least two

Terrytoons Terrytoons was an American animation studio in New Rochelle, New York, that produced animated cartoons for theatrical release from 1929 to 1973 (and briefly returned between 1987 and 1996 for television in name only). Terrytoons was founded by ...

plagiarizations of ''Porky in Wackyland'' in the 1940s or 50's. ''

Dingbat Land ''Dingbat Land'' is a 1949 short animated film produced by Terrytoons and distributed by 20th Century Fox starring Gandy Goose Gandy Goose is a Terrytoons cartoon character who first appeared in the 1938 short ''Gandy the Goose''. He is freque ...

'' (1949) starred Gandy Goose and Sourpuss. The role of the Do-Do was taken by a minor Terrytoons character, Dingbat. The second film, a more direct plagiarization of the Porky Pig/Do-Do cartoons, starred a British hunter and a Do-Do stand-in. The creature didn't talk, but made strange hooting noises, and flung flames from a tuft of hair on top of its head.

, for whom Clampett worked as an animator in the mid-1930s, borrowed strongly from this cartoon for his 1948 MGM cartoons ''Half-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) and ''

The Cat That Hated People ''The Cat That Hated People'' is a 1948 American animated short film directed by Tex Avery and produced by Fred Quimby, featuring Blackie the Cat. Blackie's voice was supplied by Patrick McGeehan in the style of Jimmy Durante; incidental music w ...

'' (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 in ''Porky in Wackyland''). Clampett would again use the Three Stooges parody when a later creation of his,

Beany and Cecil ''Beany and Cecil'' is a 1962 animated television series created by Bob Clampett for the American Broadcasting Company. The cartoon was based on the television puppet show '' Time for Beany'', which Clampett produced for Paramount Pictures compan ...

, faced the "Dreaded Three-Headed Threep". According to writer

Paul Dini Paul McClaran Dini (; born August 7, 1957) is an American screenwriter and comic creator. He has been a producer and writer for several Warner Bros. Animation/DC Comics animated series, most notably '' Batman: The Animated Series'' (1992–19 ...

, the Do-Do Bird is the father of Gogo Dodo, a character on the 1990s animated TV series ''

Tiny Toon Adventures ''Tiny Toon Adventures'' is an American animated comedy television series that was broadcast from September 14, 1990, to December 6, 1992. It was the first collaborative effort of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Animation ...

'', and a second Wackyland is drawn into Acme acres by Babs and Buster Bunny. A small clip from the film was used in a

Slappy Squirrel This is a list of characters in the 1993 animated series, ''Animaniacs'', and its 2020 revival. The Warner Siblings (Animaniacs) The Warner Siblings (also known as "the Animaniacs" by fans and the media) are small, silly, mischievous, anthro ...

segment on another Warners animated TV series of the 1990s, ''

Animaniacs ''Animaniacs'' is an American animated comedy musical television series created by Tom Ruegger for Fox Broadcasting Company's Fox Kids block in 1993, before moving to The WB in 1995, as part of its Kids' WB afternoon programming block, until ...

''. The segment, titled "Critical Condition", featured ''Porky in Wackyland'' as part of a fake LaserDisc release. The Do-Do Bird has made occasional guest spots in the

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

''Looney Tunes'' comic book, being colored in

grayscale In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a grayscale image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample representing only an ''amount'' of light; that is, it carries only intensity information. Graysc ...

as opposed to the rest of the art being in color. The character makes an appearance in the Wii game '' Looney 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 film ''

Who Framed Roger Rabbit ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' is a 1988 American live-action/animated comedy mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and loosely adapted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman from Gary K. Wolf's 19 ...

''. Yoyo also made a cameo in the 2020 ''

Looney Tunes Cartoons ''Looney Tunes Cartoons'' is an American animated television series developed by Peter Browngardt and produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the characters from ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies''. The series made its worldwide debu ...

'' short "Happy Birthday, Bugs Bunny!".

References

External links