168. Porky's Super Service (1937)

Release date: July 3rd, 1937

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Ub Iwerks

Starring: Mel Blanc (Porky, Cuckoo, Man,), Joe Twerp (Customer), Elvia Allman (Woman)

Though Ub Iwerks gets the director’s credit, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones both tackled the directing duties on this one. This is Ub’s last credit at Warner Bros., touting a positively interminable stint of 2 (technically 3 if you count his early involvement in Porky’s Badtime Story) cartoons. Bob Clampett would be the one to inherit his unit—according to Bob, when he came into work one Monday morning, he found Iwerks’ director’s chair empty and was told that he was the director. 

Preliminary lobby card.

Slapstick is galore in this final Iwerks credit—Porky runs a service station, but runs into trouble when he has to fix up a car and keep an eye out on a sadistic, violent baby at the same time. With Chuck Jones’ frustration comedy and Bob Clampett’s sadistic antics, both combine to make quite an amusing effort for the time period.

Already, the title card greets us with some ambiance as the sounds of car horns and motors preface a jazzy rendition of “I’m Hatin’ This Waitin’ Around”, the cartoon’s motif. Already, a wise decision to preserve money as the opening of the cartoon is reduced to a few layouts and pans: an overhead view of the titular service station trucks into a vertical pan of gas prices. 

“GAS 3 ¢” is emblazoned proudly on the sign at the service station, but as the pan goes down, the audience (and customer) is taxed for much more than they bargained for: 

STATE TAX 6 ¢ 

CITY TAX 4 ¢ 

COUNTRY TAX 7 ¢ 

UNEMPLOYMENT TAX 3 ¢ 

SOCIAL SECURITY TAX 5 ¢ 

FARM RELIEF TAX 2 ¢ 

LUXURY TAX 8 ¢ 

CARPET TACKS 5 ¢

 TOTAL 43 ¢ 

As much of a groaner and an eye-roller the punchline is, my pun-loving self can’t get too angry about this. This was actually one of the first Looney Tunes cartoons I checked out on my own, and it gave me a good laugh the first time I saw it.

The titular pig himself is busy at work filling up gas, befuddled at the placement (or lack thereof) of a car’s gas valve. A question mark pops above his head to convey his plight, an Iwerks staple–Iwerks would even animate a scene in the Oswald cartoon Oh Teacher (1927), where a cat uses its own question mark as a tripwire in order to steal Oswald’s girlfriend from him. 

Porky, however, isn’t that sadistic (at least, not yet)–instead, he asks the car owner where the gas goes. The car owner responds back in anaccent, “You vant to know?” “Ye-ye-yes, I veh-vant to know.” The owner then addresses the audience: “Hmmph. Should I tell him?” This is certainly a radio catchphrase of some kind, but which it belongs to, I haven’t found. I can confirm that it’s bubbled up in a few other cartoons, at the very least.

Nevertheless, the car owner/dog lifts up the entire top of the car, where a gas valve is situated inside. Porky heads over to pump the gas, a closeup on the gas take reflecting an Iwerks “shiver take” as the arrow eventually approaches the 10 galloon mark. When the arrow approaches 9, a little cuckoo bird pops out of the gas tank, quipping “At the sound of the gong, it will be exactly 10 gallons”–a reference to time tones being played on the radio. The bird listens, and when the “clock” strikes 10, it retreats back into its rightful place. While perhaps not the funniest gag today, it does have some clever and smooth animation.

A nice bit of character animation as Porky happily flips his shiny new coin, interrupted by the sound of an approaching customer. Porky fills the customer’s car with oil as per request (”Oka-okeh-okeh-ok-oka-ok-ok–alright!”), thus sparking a variety of odd job gags—alerting a flat tire to a rather angry patron, who literally goes through the (car) roof in anger before tying a knot in the rubbery tire himself to fix the issue (complete with some rubbery animation, ever so common in the Iwerks cartoons), and hitting the dents in another car, including a spontaneous dent in the window, causing a broken window in the aftermath via hammer. 

The gags aren’t gut-busting, yet they have some nice animation to them, especially character animation with Porky. However, the start of the opening is slow in comparison to the second half—a part of me wonders if Iwerks had more influence on the first half before Clampett and Jones really sunk their toes in with the rest of the cartoon.

The second half of the cartoon is marked by the sound of an angry horn—that is, an angry woman honking her horn. Elvia Allman lends her voice to the persnickety customer as she rather bluntly asks (demands, really) Porky to fix her flat tire. Porky obliges, but is caught in a caveat—don’t wake the baby.

Bob Clampett is responsible for our introduction to the little dickens, animating Porky  popping his head in the car to remark “Cute little fella.” And so, we see for ourselves just how cute this little fella is as he breaks his “slumber” to stick his tongue out at our protagonist. A nice sense of comedic timing and foreboding—we already know that nothing good is going to come out of this ordeal.

As Porky dutifully busies himself with the tire, junior confirms the audience’s suspicions by whacking Porky over the head with his bottle. Porky, rightfully disgruntled, whips his head around to find the culprit before resuming his work. As he rotates the tire, junior assets his aggression even more by putting the car in drive.

And, predictably yet amusingly so, Porky is sent whirling around the back tire. He, along with the tire itself, are let loose from the car as they both catapult right into a metal pole. Iwerks’ dizziness lines as Porky collects himself coupled with the perfect pig-shaped dent in the pole definitely make Porky’s plight more amusing than painful. Carl Stalling’s gentle yet sardonic rendition of “My Little Buckaroo” adds another layer of sweet, incongruous irony to the entire cake.

Porky’s suffering has only just begun—a suspended part of the pole gives way from the impact and gives Porky another good konk on the noggin. As Porky once more attempts to collect himself, he realizes that he’s stuck inside the tire. Thus sparks a montage of him repeatedly straining to free himself, but to no avail–the timing itself at times is a little floaty and awkward (mainly when Porky’s crawling around on all fours), and the sound effects don’t feel as natural as they could be, but the facial expressions are rather appealing, and the movement is fun and rubbery. At one point, trying to free himself, Porky grabs the back of his overalls and accidentally pinches himself–certainly a Bob Clampett gag, as Porky turns defensive and looks around to see who snubbed him. 

While Porky  struggles, the demon baby slings his bottle at Porky, hitting him square in the arse and effectively freeing him from the tire (much to Porky’s vocal discomfort). The timing of Porky identifying the projectile and throwing it at the ground, shooting a glare at the baby, is absolutely priceless. He finally heads over to the car to confront the little dickens, but junior is peacefully sleeping, much to our hero’s head-scratching befuddlement. As he turns his back, junior once more shoots an angry glare, signaling that the fight has only just begun.

The frustration of Porky becomes much more visible (and hilarious) with this next scene as he prepares to work on the engine. Just as he lifts the lid of the car, junior, rife with sadistic energy, smacks the lid right over Porky’s head, trapping him inside. Junior’s gleeful expression coupled with Porky’s visible temperament really add a lot of flavor and feeling–as the charade continues, Porky finally allows himself to rip the hood of the car off its hinges and throw it off screen. Timing is succinct and snappy and allow for the jokes to hit quite well, even if it is a tad predictable.

However, the timing of the next sequence is not as snappy, and feels a bit like an odd transition between scenes, with an overall more whimsical mood as Porky listens to the engine for any problems. Nevertheless, junior’s attitude hasn’t changed in the slightest: he turns the ignition on, causing Porky to be electrocuted (with a rather ill-fitting scream not by Blanc). 

Junior gives Porky enough time to recover, honking the horn just when Porky’s listening to it, sparking some rather awkward animation of Porky getting punchy from the impact. While this scene doesn’t flow as well as others, it’s still rather amusing and creative–the Iwerks shiver takes and inverted colors during the electrocution sequence add a nice touch of individuality.

Next, Porky is dutifully oiling the engine, sparking junior to press the starter. The engine mechanics kick up, Porky’s snout getting stuck to the rising and falling pillars. He finally frees his snout (the scene reminding me of of W.C. Squeals’ snout sticking on the ice in Frank Tashlin’s Cracked Ice a mere year later), only to get thrown around by the rapidly pushing pillars of the engine. Rather creative as we see multiples of Porky bobbing around in a blur. 

Misfortune is still high, however, for the top of the engine closes on top of him, and all we see is bumps rising and falling in the metal above. Finally, Porky is shot out of the exhaust pipe, his body covered in soot, landing against the gas pump/clock hybrid from before, the cuckoo bird adding insult to injury as it gives a call after the impact. 

A rather abrupt transition as Porky, now unfazed, arrives back at the car to confront his foe once more playing possum. The facial expressions and overall timing give this away as a Bob Clampett scene as Porky shoots repeated scowls at the baby, who returns the favor with some rather snide, mocking expressions of his own behind the pig’s back. Porky finally believes he’s caught junior, who’s currently stretching his face out at Porky–yet, sure enough, junior goes right back to “sleep” when Porky turns around, causing the pig to give a frustrated snap of resignation. 

That doesn’t stop our protagonist from hatching a plan–he zips around to the other end of the car, right behind junior. Surely enough, junior prepares to make a face, but realizes he’s been duped. Wonderfully smooth animation of junior looking around in befuddlement, you can practically see those little gears turning. Finally, he whips around, spots Porky, gasps, and goes right back to sleep.

Regardless, they both know that junior’s been caught as they make eye contact once more. Finally, junior literally rolls away and heads to the window crank, sliding the window up and getting Porky’s snout caught in the process. Porky spits out a stream of threats and exclamations of pain (”OWW! Ouch! O-oh, leh-leh-let go! I’ll fix you! Eh-eh-eh-eh-don’t do that! S-s-stop! S-stop, ya hear me!?”) while junior sneaks out of the car, shutting the door and letting the pig dangle around helpless. In the midst of Porky’s rant, junior heads off and arrives back with a hose, placing it matter-of-factly in Porky’s overalls.

Suddenly, we see that the hose is connected to an air pump. Junior gives the wheel a few good turn, and air shoots through the tube and right into Porky’s pants. Porky is finally freed from the window, but is now rocketing around in the air, laughing hysterically. Mel Blanc’s performance of Porky’s hysterical laughter, sounding eerily similar to Daffy’s trademark HOOHOO! laugh is nothing less than contagious and commendable. 

While Porky flies around in the air, junior makes matters worse by carrying an oil gun and shooting spurts of oil right at the pig. And they said pig’s couldn’t fly! Unfortunately for junior, Porky’s movements are too erratic to make for a proper target, but no matter: a simple shut off of the air will do the trick. 

Porky flops to the ground, having little time to grasp his bearings as junior shoots his face full of oil. The physics of the oil are nice and rubbery, very malleable, thick, and stretchy–certainly reminiscent of the mud puddles in Iwerks’ previous effort, Porky and Gabby. As I said before, I’ve always admired the physics in Iwerks’ cartoons: you feel like you could grab everything for yourself. Very soft, stretchy, rubbery, easy to manipulate. 

Despite Porky’s demands for junior to give up the gun, the little baby from hell only squirts Porky with another helping of oil, this time covering his entire body. Once more, the animation and physics of the oil are to be commended. Porky slips around helplessly in the now fully formed oil slick, which sends him catapulting down a rather random set of stairs in the ground (though, upon further inspection, the stairs were present in the opening layout, so it’s not as spontaneous as it could be).

Junior once more attempts to target Porky, but no more oil comes out of the pump. Predictably yet amusingly so, the little dickens turns the gun to his own face. As he pulls the lever, a nice, hearty gush of oil covers his entire face. Sweet, slippery karma. 

Now, junior is just as covered as Porky is, and begins to wail. Porky’s nods of satisfaction are a hilarious detail–as is his surprise when he notices the persnickety mother approaching. Junior points at Porky, who doesn’t appear all that blameless as he now holds the oil gun, attempting to hide it behind his back coyly.

The mother gives Porky a good lecture about how he ought to be ashamed of himself, all the while disposing of her child like a rag doll and putting him in the back seat of the car. Elvia Allman’s speech is drowned out by the wails of junior, however, prompting the mother to give an eerily polite “Quiet, junior, when mother’s talking.” 

The timing of the next joke is spot on: as junior continues to bawl, the mother smacks him right in the face. The way the smack sound effect even cuts off and the total silence of junior combine to make a great payoff, though the joke IS rather dark and not the most ethical. Still, wonderful timing and execution on that one.

Comedic timing is still rife as the mother, now oddly subdued, ponders “Now… where was I? Oh yes. I’M GOING TO REPORT THIS TO THE AUTHORITIES!” In the midst of her “It’s getting so that you can’t trust anybody anymore” ranting and raving, junior, who’s seldom learned his lesson, reaches for a nearby gas hose and ties it around the car tire. 

Porky is left to his own devices as the mother and her hell child roll off into the distance. However, junior leaves one final impact: all three gas pumps are sucked out of their respective places and dragged behind the car. Even more insult to injury, the entire service station collapses on top of the unlucky pig. A VERY creative close as the “PORKY’S SUPER SERVICE” sign lands right on top of Porky, his disgruntled, oily self popping out right in the middle. Who needs a drum when you have a wooden sign? 

And thus wraps up Ub Iwerks’ directorial reign at Warner Bros. While his cartoons aren’t my favorite, I’ve certainly come to appreciate them much more, for their individuality (such as the shiver takes, visible reactions such as question marks and dizziness lines, and so forth) and rubbery animation. 

I definitely feel that this is his stronger effort out of his 2 pieces–it has a lovely score, the animation is fun and rubbery, and again, Bob Clampett’s sadistic energy coupled with Chuck Jones’ frustration comedy make for a delightful combination. Porky is SUPER appealing in the Iwerks cartoons as well in the design compartment–lots of really great expressions to freeze frame on. 

This cartoon is a winner for me–I say watch it! It’s not the most exciting Porky cartoon by any means, and it still has its weaknesses: the beginning half is rather slow, there are a few timing issues, etc, but it’s still rather enjoyable overall. I almost wish Iwerks had stayed longer, just to see what his other cartoons would have been like. Thankfully, though, Bob Clampett took his place, sparking the reign of my personal favorite director.

So, overall, give it a watch! 

Link!