134. Shanghaied Shipmates (1936)

Release date: June 20th, 1936

Series: Looney Tunes 

Director: Jack King

Starring: Joe Dougherty (Porky), Billy Bletcher (Captain, Hippo), The Sportsmen Quartet (Chorus)

The first of a number of cartoons inspired by MGM’s Mutiny on the Bounty (‘35). As the title suggests, the cartoon details the harsh conditions porky and his shipmates endure thanks to a dictatorial captain.

On occasion, I’ve likened Jack King to Frank Tashlin—both directors with a keen eye for cinematography. While Tashlin is inarguably the better director, more confident and ambitious than King, King certainly thought in cinematographic terms, as the opening scene suggests. A mist overlay shrouds a seaside town as we hone in on a bar. Our favorite pig is doing a dance front and center while a gang of rowdy drunkards cheer him on. A hippo plays tickles the ivory on dueling pianos, and a goat tugs ferociously on a rope connected to some heavy object offscreen—a giant mug of beer. All is well.

All is well inside the bar, that is. The mist overlay compliments the foreboding atmosphere as we get a shot of a docked ship and a lone captain pacing around on deck. Suddenly, a tiny little bespectacled dog (one of the supporting members of the I Haven’t Got a Hat gang) hilariously ambles on deck, even climbing over the captain and hopping back down onto the floor, declaring “The crew’s deserted the blinkin’ ship!” The captain is far from pleased, snarling in his assistant’s (christened Mr. Stew) the only suitable comeback would be to shanghai the crew.

The two pace through the streets of town and break into the bar. There’s a rather Tashlin-esque camera angle as the captain analyzes one cowardly drunk in particular. It comes off as random and slightly misplaced, but certainly an interesting angle that’s worthy of a kudos for experimentation. King experimented with his cinematography, but not much else. With a steely glare, the captain pummels his victim and sends him whirling back onto the ship. The process continues, and one by one victims whirl back into their place, the bar growing emptier by the second.

Finally, all of the shipmates are back on deck... except one. Porky attempts to hide, diving into the inside of a piano, but his tail sticking out of the doors tells on himself immediately. The captain drags him out, grinning condescendingly as Porky insists “You can’t do this to me!” Of course he can! The captain, relatively unbothered, shoos Porky along, giving a bellowing laugh and smacking Porky in the butt to get him to go.

Highly amusing setup as Porky now scrubs the deck of the ship with the most contemptuous expression, glaring absolute daggers at the captain who surveys his every movement. Porky’s disdain gets to him, and in an act of rebellion he slips the soap from his grip and slides it all the way to where the captain is marching. And, of course, the captain slips, none too pleased. Porky acknowledges what he’s done, naive mischief now replaced with visible anxiety as he braces for punishment. Said punishment: a bar of soap shoved down his piggy gullet. Once more, Porky insists “You can’t do this to me!”, but a hiccup spawning a multitude of bubbles destroys any sort of authority or credibility.

Porky goes back to scrubbing when one of his shipmates checks to see what all the fuss is about. A hiccup later and Porky attempts to explain himself, hindered by not only a stutter but an entire bar of soap lodged in his throat, eventually gagging “Agh-agh-aghh, soap!” 

Thankfully, his buddy is a good sport. The shipmate pulls Porky’s tail and slingshots it back, propelling the soap out of his mouth and back onto the deck... where it ends up perfectly in position in front of the lumbering captain, who falls victim to the bar of soap once more. A hippo sticks his head out from inside the ship just to guffaw at the captain—he gets his as the captain placed him in stocks, forcing a cat to lick his feet while the captain bellows in laughter.

After some more mismanagement of the shipmates, we now go to lunch as a dog blares the lunch fanfare through a tuba. A stampede of starving shipmates trample him in seconds, the dog weakly blaring out a few more notes after the fact. A gag very similar in nature to Boom Boom, another King entry.

Certainly nothing can go wrong at lunch, right? An expectant Porky observes as the captain stalls with his heaping bowl of fried chicken. Porky is so deprived of food that he can hardly contain his unadulterated glee, slapping his face and bouncing up and down and running his hands together. At first I found the scene to be much more disconcerting than anything, but now that I rewatch it, it’s pretty funny in a very unconventional and off-putting manner. Funnier than what was intended to be.

Paul Smith animates the shipmates receiving their hearty meals: nothing but a plain old bone, the captain stripping every single piece of chicken of its contents. The shipmates are not at all happy. A hippo folds his arms in rebellion, a dog resorts to scarfing down his own hat as a means of sustenance, another chopping his bone to pieces and rolling his eyes all around, and even Porky tearfully pouring salt on his bone and pitifully licking it off. The scene is unfortunately hindered by the restrained simplicity of Smith’s animation, and thusly doesn’t reach its potential in terms of humor. Once more, wannabe rebel Porky reaches out for a fully packed chicken leg, receiving a slap of the wrist and a bone down the throat in shock.

A week crawls on, and the shipmates are more stir crazy than ever. They bang their mugs against the dining hall table, all chanting “We want food! We want food!” in unison. Finally fed up, Porky crawls onto the table and signals for the rest of the gang to huddle in as he whispers a plan. Just then, Mr. Stew pokes his head into the dining hall and is surprisingly smart enough to put two and two together. The animation of him going to alert the captain, scrambling all around the deck and twirling around a pole, is very amusing and funny. “Mutiny, captain! Mutiny!” 

The rowdy shipmates continue to demand for their food as the captain barges into the dining hall, armed with duel pistols. A ballsy Porky marches up to the captain and asserts “We demand food!” But, of course, his diminutive size is nothing for the giant captain, who merely blows him over and pins him against the wall with a deep breath. With that, Porky orders “C’mon, men! Get ‘im!” and thus sparks mutiny on the bounty as all of the men tackle the captain, gunshots firing in defense.

Porky himself sets his sights on Mr. Stew. Certainly one of the funniest moments in a King cartoon as Porky pins Mr. Stew down, Mr. Stew holding up a hand to pause for a second. He signals to his glasses, lifting them up as if to say “Would you hit a guy with glasses?” Even better, mild-mannered Porky gingerly places them aside, and then wastes no time as he decks Mr. Stew in the face repeatedly. Great timing and great unspoken dialogue.

Now the fight rages on on the deck of the ship, some shipmates even flying overboard and jumping ship. Porky leads his crusade to victory as they all charge towards the captain. In retaliation, the captain whips a menacing cannon right in front of them, threatening to knock them all over like vengeful bowling pins.

However, his plan backfires (no pun intended): he shoots, and the force of the shot is so tremendous that the captain is scooped onto the cannon as it rolls backwards and propels itself into the air. He lands in the comfort of a bunch of crates. Crates labeled as explosives. One explosion later, and the shipmates are singing merrily, lazily drifting across the ocean current on a raft, Porky in the lead and armed with a whip. Pan over to the captain pulling the entire caravan of crusaders, receiving a few hearty whips from porky as we iris out.

I didn’t think much of this cartoon when I first saw it, but I certainly appreciate it more now. Not phenomenal by any means, and still hides in the shadow of Tex and Friz. The gags don’t always hit, some scenes suffering from a lack of confidence and conviction. However, with that said, this was an ambitious cartoon and certainly adventurous. Though it didn’t always work out in his favor, King worked ambitiously and experimented with camera angles and surreal ideas, but his execution was where his cartoons were bogged down. Good ideas that struggled to be realized. I give him credit for attempting to experiment so often! I’ve started to gain a little respect for him (though his cartoons unfortunately don’t really rival the others during this time period.) This was a high energy cartoon that had its moments, such as Mr. Stew’s run cycles, Porky contemptuously scrubbing the ship deck, and the fight scene between Porky and Mr. Stew. I think this is one of King’s more interesting cartoons and would fare well as a single watch, but that’s probably about it.

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