NFR Project: ‘Porky in Wackyland’
Dir: Bob Clampett
Scr: Warren Foster
Ed: Treg Brown
Premiere: Sept. 24, 1938
7:23
Nobody was paying attention, and they got away with it.
As I wrote for Senses of Cinema in 2005, “American animators
in the 1930s were a scruffy, itinerant bunch. Most bounced around from studio
to studio, serving apprenticeships in the cartoon production houses of such
figures as Walt Disney, Walter Lantz (best known as the home of Woody
Woodpecker), the Fleischer Brothers (Betty Boop, Koko the Clown), and Disney’s
once and future partner, Ub Iwerks. Serendipitously, an irreverent and rowdy
crew came together at Leon Schlesinger Productions, in a ramshackle,
bug-infested back-lot bungalow that later earned the affectionate sobriquet of ‘Termite
Terrace.’
“For a time this group included such leading lights as Chuck
Jones, Frank Tashlin, Robert McKimson, and Bob Clampett, all working under the
loose supervision and raucous inspiration of Fred “Tex” Avery (who lost the
vision in one eye during an office paper-clip fight!). The team enjoyed that
most happy of fates to be found inside any corporate structure – they were
largely ignored. Left to their own devices, they began gradually and
collectively to shrug off the nominally logical, linear, kid-oriented whimsies
that emerged from other rivals’ drawing boards.”
In terms of structure, Porky in Wackyland is a
classic type, here the “hunted outsmarts hunter” paradigm, common in the
cartoon lives of Porky Pig -- he Warner’s first big cartoon star, soon to be
joined by Elmer Fudd, and gradually relegated to a supporting role, usually serving
as a sidekick to Daffy Duck – Bugs Bunny, Daffy, and later examples such as
Speedy Gonzales and the Roadrunner.
Director Bob Clampett was working under Avery, who saw no
reason why all the rules of cartooning should not be relentlessly violated. Warren
Foster was the writer, but it was common for the inhabitants of the Terrace to
help each other out with gags. The teamwork needed to produce a quality cartoon
in a set amount of time makes every Warners cartoon a collaborative effort. And
in this case, it was open season on reality.
The film opens by breaking the fourth wall. Out in front of
the title credits strides a doggy newspaper vendor; “Ex-tree! Ex=tree! Read all
about it! Porky off on do-do hunt! Paper, mister?”
The headline: “PORKY HUNTS RARE DO-DO BIRD WORTH
$4000,000,000” (four thousand million, technically) “P.S. 000,000,000”. They
really hammer the gag into the ground, an early sign that all bets are off when
it comes to verisimilitude. The front-page photo comes to life, and Porky is
winging his way east. He turns to us, displaying a picture of his quarry – an
oblong, pointy-headed, tufted loony bird. “Hi, f-f-f-folks, here’s a pudda-- -dip-a-pudda--dip--p-p-p-p-p-picture!”
He weaves his way through Dark Africa, Darker Africa, and Darkest Africa,
straight into territory marked “?” Porky is an unlikely colonizer.
He screeches to a halt in front of a large sign. “WELCOME TO
WACKYLAND. IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.” (A reference to Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel
about an attack of American fascism, It Can’t Happen Here.) “POPULATION:
100 NUTS AND A SQUIRREL.”
Porky and his plane tiptoe nervously into a forest of
mushrooms under a sky that changes immediately to night. From the foliage
emerges a ravening monster, who comes at Porky, growling and howling. Suddenly,
it changes to coy, lisps “Boo!” and sashays offscreen. From monster to drag
queen in zero seconds.
The sun rises, held aloft by a stack of eccentric figures.
Again, Porky turns to us and gives us look, pointing gleefully at the scene.
The camera pans right to a creature sitting in a flower, playing its nose like
a flute – then switching rapidly to drums and then piano. We track past a
bizarre collection of chattering, absurd beings who seem lost in the surreal
actions they execute. All of them cavort against abstract backgrounds.
We see a rabbit swinging by his ears, a derbied, bow-tied frog
with human legs. There’s more creatures, a slew of them that pass in front of
us – something called a Foo, another that’s only a head with legs and feet, no
body; upside-down signs, crazy clocks, a jailbird who carries his own cell with
him, free to move but clamoring to be let out. A tiny policeman rolls up on a
wheel and bashes him in the head – which breaks the bars, triggering a handful
of stars, while the prisoner grins with delight.
Another creature crosses the screen, mouthing with its big
lips “Mammy! Mammy!” a la Al Jolson. A whirling, snarling streak circles Porky,
then comes to rest. It’s a half-dog, half-cat fighting with itself. Another
being emerges from behind an igloo – it’ a three-headed critter that abuses
itself, a la the Three Stooges. The three heads address the camera in gibberish.
A tiny creature rolls out and explains, “He said his mother was frightened by a
pawnbroker’s sign!” (three balls were the ancient symbol of a pawnbroker’s
shop).
Finally, Porky runs across a rolling-eyed goon wearing a lit
candel that advertises “INFORMTION ABOUT THE DO-DO”.
“Oh my gosh, where is he?” Porky gasps. “Where did he go?” A
profusion of pointing hands explodes, indicating everywhere. “THATAWAY!” the
goon cries. Then the signboard flips, revealing shaft and proclaiming “TO THE
DO-DO.” Beckoned, Porky leaps into the opening – a finds himself sliding
rapidly down a long, bumpy ramp.
He is squeezed out of a tap like a drop of water,
reconstituting himself in a small tub. A curtain appears in front of him, and a
voice from above declares, “INTRODUCING . . . IN PERSON . . .”, after which a series
of doors open, rise, turn – to reveal a castle, on which there is a neon sign
reading “the Do-Do.” The castle’s drawbridge falls, and across the moat in a
motorboat comes the do-do!
He anchors his boat, which blithely sinks. “Are you
ree-ree-really the last of the do-dos?” asks Porky. “YEAH,” replies the bird,
bending Porky backward with his emphasis. “I am de last of the do-dos!” And he proceeds
to dance all over the hapless pig, singing, “Vo-do-de-o-do!” He runs off, runs
back on from the other side of the screen, and hoots at Porky, driving him up
into the air.
The do-do is clearly in charge of what’s real and what’s not
by now, and he leads Porky on a merry chase across a surreal landscape, hiding
behind impossibly thin pseudo-trees. He demonstrates his mastery over the
medium by producing a pencil from this air, drawing a door to escape through --
then lifts the door up like a curtain to escape. Naturally, Porky can’t follow
him.
As Porky struggles to open the door, the do-do hoots at him
from a nearby second-story window suspended in the empty sky. Porky leaps into
the opening, as the do-do circles behind him and kicks him through, landing him
in the desert beyond, not in a notional room in a house. The do-do withdraws
his permission for Porky to live by the rules he establishes.The do-do creates an elevator car, and takes it up and out of
the shot. Porky stretches up to look at it, and then most bizarrely the do-do
rides in on the Warner Brothers logo and snaps Porky in the head with a
slingshot, retreating from whence he came.
The dodo finds himself trapped, then lifts the scene like a
shade, escaping into a fresh background behind it. He pulls a brick wall across
the screen after him, which Porky crashes into. The poor pig sits in the wreaked
pile of bricks and cries, finally worn down to defeat.
Or is he? Disguised as a newspaper vendor, Porky cries “Ex-tree!
Ex-tree! Porky catches do-do bird!” He has adopted the backwards logic of
Wackylnd to achieve his goal. The do-do bird strolls by him and stops. “What’s that?
What’s that? How? Where? When?”
“N-n-n-n-n-n-now!” cries Porky, and he bashes the creature
on the head. Grabbing him by the neck, he exults. “Oh, b-b-b-boy, I caught the
last of the d-d-d-d-d-do-dos!”
“Yeah, I’m really the last of the do-dos,” the bird
exclaims. “Ain’t I, fellas?”
A hundred more do-dos fill the screen. “Yeah, man! WOOOOOO!”
they cry. Porky’s discovery is not so special.
This is the comedy of frustration, extended as far as
possible into absurdity as the creators thought they could go. The theme of a cartoon
character not having control over his surroundings would be used again, as in Duck
Amuck (1953). However, the cartooning at Termite Terrace would never go as
far out of this world as in this one.
The NFR Project is one
writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry
in chronological order. Next time: The River.
