#bob clampett

[acmeoop]

I’ll Get A Patient Of My Own!

Storyboard panel from The Daffy Doc (1938).

[daffydoodles]

A piece that has been 5 years in the making: the only thing better than a Dick Tracy valentine is a Duck Twacy valentine!

[dailylooneys]

Happy 90th B-B-Birthday, Porky Pig!

Yeap! Happy 90th Birthday to Warner Bros. first ever true cartoon star and the oldest continuing character in the Looney Tunes character.

After many (somewhat) failed attempts at creating a starring character for the very young Termite Terrace, many of them being Mickey Mouse-equse characters, such as Bosko, Foxy (most infamously and obviously) and Buddy....

.....there came a point in the mid-30s' where the directors, particularly Friz Freleng and Tex Avery, wanted to try and do something different, and that was to create a character who had a unique voice and embodied the soon-to-become irreverent style of humor of the WB cartoons.

First appeared in 1935's I Haven't Got a Hat, directed by Friz Freleng, part of the color one-shot series of Merrie Melodies shorts, was an attempt for Termite Terrace to see which character who appeared in the short could be there next star. Porky appeared in a somewhat supporting role in the film, voiced by Joe Dougherty, who had an actual stutter. The character's iconic stutter was inspired by a real-life pig guttering noise, according to Mel Blanc.

Well, I had trouble with, Porky, because he stuttered, and a lot of people said, "you can't do that". That's why I did it, because everybody was using falsetto voices, everything sounded the same. And I said, what can I do to make this character different? So I called up Warners' casting and said, do you got anybody who stutters? And they had this [Joe] Dougherty guy, who stuttered, and the guy could not just get through a line. And we were doing all of our sound on film then, there wasn’t any tape. If Jack Warner knew how much film I was using, I was through with animation. So I had to get somebody to mimic, and that was Mel. And of course, Mel can do anything. - Friz Freleng (”Friz on Film” documentary)

According to animation historian Jerry Beck, there was some thought that Beans would be the studio's next big cartoon star, as he would appear in a handful of shorts in the black-and-white Looney Tunes, while Ham and Ex were the only other characters of I Haven't Got a Hat to also make one more appearance, starring alongside Beans in The Fire Alarm (1936).

Goes without saying, nobody found Beans or Ham and Ex at all interesting, leading to Porky overshadowing them, and the rest is history.

From then on, Porky became the star of the Looney Tunes series, which were still in black-and-white up until '43. Like many classic cartoons character from the Golden Age of Animation, Porky's role varied from kid to adult character, to dealing with many everyday mundane things or having a specific position, including, but not limited to, farmer, hunter, waiter and zoologist, usually accompanied with other characters such as Porky's dad, Daffy Duck, Gabby Goat, or other one-offs.

The director who perhaps was responsible for giving Porky an even more distinguishing personality and design that we associated with today is Bob Clampett, as he was relegated to directing the main Looney Tune shorts up until the early '40s, which was possibly when Porky shorts were at their best.

(an image of the now-famous "blooper" (Breakdown of 1939) of Porky swearing, directed by Clampett, was made as part of a compilation of bloopers from live-action films, was screened during WB Christmas party reels, but was never released to theaters. This was made a year earlier before Gone with the Wind gained controversy for the use of the word "damn", as swearing was beyond prohibited in films up until the 1960s, when the Hays Code was starting die out.)

However, with the introduction of other, more colorful and quirky, mischievous characters such as Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, the directors would have admitted to having gradually grown tired of Porky as a character, even as early as 1939, he would play a very minimal role in much of the shorts, such as Porky's Hotel, Porky's Poor Fish, Meet Joe Dougherty and The Chewin' Bruin to name a few. Frank Tashlin infamously stated that he straight up hated Porky, referring to him as "a terrible character", due to the fact that a majority of the shorts he directed always starred Porky, finding him to be very inflexible, compared to his favorite character, Daffy. As a result of Porky's lack of popularity with the directors, Porky would end up becoming more of a side character, often alongside Daffy, Sylvester, Charlie Dog and so on, worked to Porky's benefit as not only did he continue to have sustained popularity with movie theater audiences, but the humor often derived from Porky being the most fairly grounded character being caught in the center of the character's wacky, off-the-wall personalities, or that when he's pushed to his limits, Porky will too snap!

"Nobody liked to work with Porky, because he was too square of a character." - Friz Freleng

Thankfully, this resulted in Porky never losing his popularity as he continues to be as world-famous and recognizable as Bugs, Daffy, Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, ect. After over 30 years, Porky would make his last appearance in the original theatrical series' in 1965's Corn on the Cop starring Porky and Daffy as Keystone Kops-looking cops trying to capture a crook whose dressed as Granny.

This cartoon has many significance: it being the only latter-day WB short he ever appeared in. The only Porky short directed by Irv Spector. And the only time Porky appeared alongside Granny, having almost the longest-lasting appearance of any of the characters in the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series, defeating only by Daffy Duck, who's last original appearance was in 1968 (31 years), near the ending of the original theatrical cartoon series and the closure of Warner Bros. animation department.

After the end of his movie career, Porky would continue to appear in many other Looney Tunes-related material, one of them being The Porky Pig Show (1964 - 1967) which is a compilation of various of the original shorts, an appearance on Tiny Toon Adventures as Hampton J. Pig's idol and mentor, and many more, especially more recently, one of the main stars of The Day The Earth Blew Up (2025) where we see him in his original Bob Clampett design.

So, despite not being considered the immediate favorite of either the creators (both the original and new) and/or casual viewers', we should not forget the importance of Porky Pig and the impact he left on the original Looney Tunes, and the franchise as a whole. I mean, we got a whole DVD set entirely dedicated to the pig himself:

[life-in-toontown]

Three Easter Eggs I noticed in The Day the Earth Blew Up:

The coffee shop that Porky and Daffy briefly work at is called Beans Brew after the early Looney Tunes character Beans the Cat (his face is in the shop’s logo too)

The diner where Porky and Daffy meet Petunia is called Clampett’s Diner after animator Bob Clampett

The boba shop at the end is called Tex’s Tea House after animator Tex Avery

I especially love the Beans reference not just because he’s a forgotten character nowadays but because he and Porky debuted together

[jakecuervodelespacial]

solo un mal sueño

[acmeoop]

These Blockbuster Bombs Don’t Go Off Unless You Hit Them Juuuuust Right… “Falling Hare” (1943)

[juiccbox]

From 2021. Just saw the new movie, go watch it!

[cosmonautroger]

Bob Clampett, Bugs Bunny

[aaaaanas1]

watched "porky & daffy" last last night (watta great title) and man theres something about the animation in 30's clampett cartoons that i really love, its so uniquely fluid and fun to watch, this was a really fun (and funny) cartoon

[prismcreative]

It Can Happen Here

[alexander-gander]

Made this in honor of the release anniversary of Baby Bottleneck. Go watch The Day The Earth Blew Up its so peak.

[artoflooneytunes]

Storyboard panels for an unproduced cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, 1940s.

[daffydoodles]

Happy eh-bih-be-ehh-eh-beh-bih-eh-bih-ehh—aw, the ol’ boy’s 90! As the self proclaimed number one Porky Pig fan, this isn’t an occasion to take lightly; I had to just devote a piece to the wonderfully chaotic Porky’s Party to celebrate! Happy birthday, fat boy!

[dailylooneys]

Happy 80th Birthday Sylvester

Created by Friz Freleng and designed by Hawley Pratt, this lispy aggressive black cat made his debut to the world in a 1945 Merrie Melodies short, titled “Life with Feathers”, the infamously darkly comedic cartoon featuring the first onscreen appearance of Sylvester.

Proving to be a success with audiences, Sylvester would appear in numerous of shorts paired with other characters, Porky Pig, an unnamed woodpecker, Hector, Foghorn Leghorn, Henry Hawk, Sylvester Jr. and, mostly memorably and famously, Tweety and later, Speedy Gonzales. The latter two would become one of the best and most iconic duo in animation history, rival only by Tom & Jerry. 

Sylvester, like Porky, Bugs and Daffy, would also be the subject of many of the directors getting a taste of the character. Robert McKimson’s Sylvester would often be paired with either Hippety Hopper (the kangaroo who Sylvester mistakes for a giant mouse) and/or Sylvester Jr.. Chuck Jones would pair Sylvester with Porky Pig in only three shorts revolving around a formula of a silent Sylvester trying to warn his owner, Porky, about the dangers of there surroundings much to Porky’s ignorance (Scaredy Cat, Claws for Alarms and Jumpin’ Juipter). Bob Clampett’s Sylvester (Kitty Kornered) was very much like Freleng’s, with the only difference was in his design, his yellow eyes. Arthur Davis’s Sylvester (Catch as Cats Can) was more very different from the more familiar Freleng Sylvester, in that his voice and overall personality was more dimwitted.

Sylvester is perhaps most noted for sharing nearly the same lispy voice strongly similar to Daffy, only that Daffy’s voice was sped-up in post-production. To this day, it remains debatable where the inspiration for Daffy and Sylvester iconic lispy voices come from. The common belief being it was inspired by producer Leon Schlesinger who was said to speak with a “slight lisp”, but Mel Blanc says denies this claim, same with Friz Freleng.

“Some people think that the voice of Daffy Duck was basically copied from the voice of Leon Schlesinger. I can't confirm that statement. Maybe Mel Blanc just happened to hit on the voice without any thought of Leon Schlesinger. Besides, I don't recall that Leon had any strong lisp like Daffy at all.” 

- Friz Freleng

The interesting fact of Sylvester that, like Wile E. Coyote and Chuck Jones’s Daffy, Sylvester was a loser, with only very few shorts depicting Sylvester as the winner, one of those cases being my personal favorite Back Alley Operoar, Kit for Cat, Bell Hoppy and Doggone Cats.

[skullislandproductions]

Happy Birthday Mac and Tosh! “The Goofy Gophers,” directed by Bob Clampett and Arthur Davis was released on January 25th, 1947. We revisited the overly polite duo, in both the “Duck Dodgers” TV series and “The Looney Tunes Show.”

[oldshowbiz]