Disclaimer: As you can infer from the title, this review contains racist content and imagery. This is presented purely for informational and historical purposes, and I in no way endorse any of it. With that said, please let me know if I say something insensitive or harmful--it's never my intention and I want to take accountability should that occur. Thank you.
Release date: May 21st, 1938
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Bob Clampett
Starring: Mel Blanc (Porky, Sloppy Moe, Conductor, Bear Trap), Billy Bletcher (Inj*n Joe)
Despite containing an entire slur, this isn't the only cartoon to brandish such an egregious title: WB’s final theatrical short, directed by Bob McKimson in 1969, also shares the same name.
While this cartoon has certainly aged poorly, it debuts possibly one of the looniest minor characters in the Looney Tunes repertoire: Sloppy Moe. The cartoon is filled with rubbery animation and insurmountable energy, and Moe, a hillbilly, guffawing, hilariously elusive loon steals the show.
In 1945, the short would be remade as Wagon Heels, possessing more changes and tweaks than usual in comparison to some of the other remakes (Slightly Daffy comes to mind.)
Porky plays the role of a pioneer, tasked with keeping an eye out for that “varmint" Inj*n Joe. Along the way, he stumbles upon a dopey, screwball westerner who offers to give hints to Joe's whereabouts... by taunting him and running away before he can complete his sentence.
The exposition takes form as a map of the United States. Or, part of it, rather. As indicated by the graphic, Joe’s territory takes up the vast majority of the landmass, the U.S. hardly having any room to hug the east coast. Note the drawing of the whale and the ship in the bottom of the map—the cartographic aesthetics are a nice touch.
Smooth camera movements and transitions were still a work in progress—we shakily truck into the U.S, where a text box serves as our narrative guide:
Dissolve to the action at hand. Notice the modern architecture and skyscrapers in the background to indicate New York—a subtle but incredibly amusing gag. Two bulls pull the wagon train, their feet shuffling and sounding like the chuff of a train as an invisible train whistle blows.
Enter Porky, clad in a coonskin cap as he gallops along on his horse. Right off the bat, the horse’s design deserves commending. This cartoon has two subsets of animation—off the walls, rubbery animation, and realistic, highly-detailed animation pertaining to the horse specifically. Compare the limber legs and defined features to the horses in Porky’s Phoney Express, who were nothing but spheres glued together. What an amazing development—and the physics of the horse look fantastic in motion!
The train’s conductor lobs a wad of tobacco out of the “window”, the offscreen impact fittingly accompanied by the sound of a spittoon. Between frequent spits (all with spittoon sound effects), he tells Porky to scout on up ahead and keep a look-out for Joe. “The varmint!”
“O-ke-eh-kay, chiefy!” Porky flashes a dutiful salute and a smile as his own horse spits out its own wad of tobacco. The gag isn’t staged very clearly (perhaps the absence of the spit pinging the spittoon is why)—i’ve seen this cartoon many times and only just caught it now. Regardless, all in good fun.
A gorgeous run cycle from the horse is cut short as he and Porky suddenly skid to a halt in front of a sign. The horse patiently sits, almost like a cat as Porky reads the sign indicating a boundary line between the two territories, still perched on the horse’s back.
Stereotypes spurred on from the sign aside, Porky and his horse do a hilarious creeping cycle, the horse unexpectedly dainty as he tiptoes on ahead, Porky clinging on all the while. Such a gag would be reprised to an extent in Porky in Wackyland, Porky’s chariot an anthropomorphic plane rather than a horse. The double eyebrows on Porky as he and his horse peer down off of the cliff indicate this scene as the work of Norm McCabe—excellent work indeed.
Unlike in Wagon Heels, we don’t see the sight below, but whatever horrors lie down there are enough to spring the horse into action. He takes off with a whinny, scrambling down the cliff as a less appealing animator takes over, Porky and the horse skidding down the cliff at a 75° angle.
The skidding brake sounds are a wonderful touch—the shot doesn’t linger long on the “upside-down” angle which lessens the impact, but that’s more of a comparison sneaking in rather than an objective fact—Wagon Heels has a 45° angle and more weight in the animation, which makes it a doozy. A bit of an unfair comparison though, considering this is so early on and the latter was right in Bob Clampett’s heyday.
Nevertheless, the gag is still incredibly amusing, especially for its time. It only grows stronger as Porky and his horse finish their ride, the horse galloping along with its hindquarters stuck in the same skidding pose.
At last, the audience is given some context as the sight is revealed—a wagon train has been reduced to rubble, wooden frames pierced by numerous arrows. Porky scours the scene for more clues when he stumbles upon giant footprints and does a hat-take. Joe dropped by for a visit, the giant human-shaped crater in a nearby rock assert as much.
Carefully do Porky and his horse creep along, Porky brandishing a dagger. Both of their sneak cycles are a delight, very smooth and furtive, but the horse’s walk especially deserves more kudos.
Enter the star of the show. The two creep right past a pine tree, the lack of a pan following their movement indicating that our focus should be on said tree.
Once the coast is clear, the leaves of the tree unfurl to reveal a giant beard, with a dopey, smiley hillbilly as its rightful owner. Not unlike a wet dog shaking off its fur, he shakes his facial hair free from a swarm of arrows. Already a fun and mischievous gag, the lightheartedness continues in the topper—the beard takes shape of a hand, daintily plucking away one lingering arrow from the depths of his facial hair.
Sloppy Moe (as Wagon Heels bills him)’s musical motif is hilariously dissonant and even childish. It serves as a strong indicator of his personality—the music’s a bit annoying, off-kilter, loose, just like him. All of this can be surmised without a word having to be uttered.
Chuck Jones animates this entire sequence, and it’s not a stretch to say that this is one of the most appealing bits of animation we’ve seen in a cartoon so far. Though animating on ones doesn’t equate better work, the smoothness works in Chuck’s favor—Moe’s beard flows in arcs upon arcs upon arcs, trailing in front of him and behind him and so on. As a result, his animation is bouncy, flowing, smooth, and visually stimulating. A funny design never hurts, either.
Sloppy Moe approaches Porky, who’s still investigating the footprint sized craters. He can merely observe in open-mouthed awe as Moe circles him, like a kid on the playground at school. Mel Blanc’s deliveries are breathy, dopey, and energetic, slightly reminiscent of the vocal stylings of Elmer Blurt from Al Pearce and His Gang.
He taunts in tune to “London Bridge is Falling Down”: “I know something I won’t tell, I won’t tell, I won’t tell… I know something I won’t tell, ha, ha, ha ha!”
His animation is positively hilarious, even more so as he gives a befuddled Porky a shove. While Porky sits wordlessly with the tail of his cap hung over his eyes, almost mockingly so, Moe leans against an invisible wall, his hat flying into the air and revealing his chrome dome.
Porky takes the bait, shoving the raccoon tail away from his eyes. “We-we-what is it?”
A wonderfully timed pause, complete silence except for the childish music score. Moe’s hat comes flopping down, excessively rubbery and floaty as it reunites with Moe’s bald head, bouncing and settling into place. All the while, Moe hasn’t moved from his position leaning against the invisible wall.
Like his personality, Moe’s movements are erratic and spontaneous. He bursts into rubbery life again, guffawing incomprehensibly. “Huh, huh… well, it’s just that… huh.. huh… aw… huh, huh, huh…”
Porky observed in slight annoyance, his slow, subtle head tilts a refreshing antithesis to Moe’s flowing, heaving, bashful movements.
No articulate answer is uttered. Instead, Moe zips off into the horizon, leaving only a trail of dust behind. Porky’s expression of raw bewilderment that he flashes at the audience for all of .02 seconds is one of my favorite expressions to grace any cartoon in the WB library. Not that Porky isn’t an expressive character (quite the opposite), but such unadulterated emotion coming from him especially makes it all the more amusing. He too is thinking what the audience is thinking: what the hell was THAT all about?
Attached are two vastly different interpretations of the same scene. You can’t help but admire just how far Bob Clampett, Warner Bros., and animation as a whole have come in such a short amount of time. Even the music stylings are indicative of their respective time periods—I especially adore that ending jazz cue in the Wagon Heels clip.
Balancing out the high of the previous scene, Inj*n Moe makes his debut. As to be expected stereotypes are (and have been, and will continue to be) abound, but a little bit of credit must be given where it is due. The proportions are in stark contrast with each other--the huge chest and tiny head/waist--and are much more amusing as a result. Again, compare his design to the designs of the Native Americans in previous cartoons. Though still insulting, the comedic proportions aren't something we've seen before on a character such as himself. His design would continue to be pushed to more extremes in Wagon Heels.
Joe's strength and dominance are easily asserted. A mountain splits in two (with a tremendous cracking sound, the split fighting to form and conveying a real sense of strength--the mountain doesn't merely slice into two like butter), Joe wordlessly marching out of the mountain, a triumphant score of "The Sun Dance" serving as appropriate accompaniment.
Trekking forward, variations of the first gag continue--Joe creates a silhouette of his body as he passes through two trees, the physics not carrying as much weight as the mountain tearing in two. He bulldozes a number of trees with his chest, the tops of the trees landing perfectly on the stumps as the middles are torn away. Admittedly, the animation is a little sloppy and unclear, the trees poorly designed (especially in the leaves) but the gag gets across regardless.
Elsewhere, a bear approaches Joe from behind. He heaves a ferocious growl, teeth bared and claws out. Joe returns the favor, growling and flashing his own fangs back. The bear shrinks in size, a clever metaphor that could use a little extra pushing for clarity's sake. Either way, the bear is reduced to tears, literally crying like a baby.
Cue a mischievous yet cruel gag that would be cut from the remake. To make reparations, Joe darts to the nearest mountain, grabbing the snowcap and bringing it back to the delighted bear, served on a plate with a spoon. Incredibly creative and whimsical, one that certainly feels inspired from comic books.
The happy bear cub begins to indulge in his nature-made soft serve, when Joe gobbles up the entire plate in seconds, slurping the last bit of ice cream off of the bear's spoon. Waterworks ensue once more.
Continuing on his trek, Joe passes a nearby bear trap, accidentally getting his foot caught. A jump cut is in order so as to accommodate the action of the scene, making sure there's enough room for everything to be seen, but still remains a tad bit jarring. Clampett was no stranger to jump cuts, which could work in his favor or against him. He wasn't the most seamless filmmaker--not that the cut is to any real detriment here.
Instead, Joe retaliates, his ferocity stressed once more as his own teeth mimic the teeth on the trap. He bites straight into the metal, the bear trap screaming and hollering in pain (vocals provided by Mr. Blanc, of course). The bear trap frees itself from Joe's clutches and runs for the hills like an injured dog. Despite everything, the gags themselves are whimsical enough to deserve a bit of praise. We never forget for a second that what we're watching is a cartoon.
Back to our star porcine and his trusty steed, who still have yet to encounter Joe in person. Porky crawls on all fours, following the trail of footprints, which stop right at a river, much to his hat-spinning astonishment. Rather than addressing the audience about his situation like in Wagon Heels, Porky instead allows his horse to do the heavy lifting. His rather effeminate horse tinkers daintly to the creek, unrolling his fur to reveal a bare arm (a gag that's been used before, but surprisingly sparingly up until now. At the very least, it was used in the Bosko era--Congo Jazz comes to mind.)
Reaching into the river, the horse unplugs (what else?) a drain, chain and all. Indeed, the water whirlpools into the built-in drain, revealing a set of footprints that have crossed the ravine already. Porky and horse soldier on.
The childish, off-kilter arrangement of "The Old Apple Tree" announces the arrival of a familiar face. Sure enough, Sloppy Moe juts his head out of the top of a hollow log, his head bobbing in wonderful, cartoony, rubbery fashion. His lower half of his body slowly creeps out of the front end of the log horizontally, making for a very amusing piece of animation.
Moe shows no signs of distress freeing himself from the log, instead slipping out like butter and resuming his childish prance. As to be expected, his victims await, still following the footprints. Circling Porky, Moe reprises his chorus of "I Know Something I Won't Tell." The vocals are a little misaligned with the musical accompaniment, which can be distracting, but the scene is still just as amusing as the first time.
Rather than shoving Porky like the first time, Moe opts to slide Porky's cap over his entire body. Porky doesn't move, instead wordlessly emitting "excitement lines", another instance of comic inspiration (and a funnier alternative to the shoving.)
Porky manages to free himself with some effort, Chuck Jones' animation once more in top form. Moe casually leans against an invisible barrier, observing in hayseed oblivion. And, instead of confronting him for his trickery, Porky's curiosity prevails, demanding "Weh-wee-weh-wee-whaddaya know??"
Instead of providing an adequate answer, Sloppy Moe zooms off into the horizon once more. However, Porky isn't left much time to ponder the whole interaction--Moe zips up behind him to chide "It's a secret! Huh huhhh!"
Cleverly, Porky does another hat-take at the arrival of Sloppy Moe, his hat flipping perfectly onto his lid. Thus, Moe uses such a placement as the perfect opportunity to slide the hat over Porky once more. Cross dissolve as an immobile Porky ejects more "excitement marks".
We revisit Joe, observing the oncoming wagon train from the top of a cliff. The layout of the scene is strong in its figure-ground composition, lots of twists and turns in the cliff that are mirrored by cliffs in the distance.
A gag that will be repeated to greater lengths, Joe jumps off of the cliff, using it as a diving board, and dives down into the chasm. He spreads his jacket out to assume the shape of wings, cueing a crudely drawn yet amusing visual metaphor as he turns into an airplane and back before landing. Interestingly enough, Joe literally morphs into the plane, rather than a cross dissolve to an image of a plane, which would be the easier route.
Cartoon physics prevail, and a parachute ejects from Joe’s back, ensuring a smooth landing. The animation of Joe’s body catching up to the parachute is perfectly rubbery, bouncy, and snappy—lots of weight. His contented, empty smile towards the audience is a nice topper.
The wagon train is right on track, but not for long. Joe uses a log as a lever to divert the train. Due to the lack of rail tracks, the dirt path on the ground instead turns right past Joe, the train following with no interruptions. Kudos for sticking so strongly to the train theme. That entire gag isn’t entirely special now, but I imagine it got big laughs out of theatergoers in 1938.
Enter the inevitable as the train traps itself into a circle. Joe circles the perimeter, shooting at the wagons with an invisible gun. A close-up reveals him to be riding a log like a horse, whooping awkwardly ill-fitting war cries.
Not unlike Westward Whoa (though perhaps less vile), a shoot-out ensues. The tobaccy-chawin’ conductor fires his rifle at Joe, his gun spitting bullets in an imitation of its owner spitting lobs of carcinogens. In addition (and one of my favorite gags), his bulls pulling the train begin to fire by means of machine gun.
Unfazed, Joe turns his wooden steed into a bow and arrow, summoning arrows from thin air and firing. Again, despite everything, the animation has a nice sense of weight and rubbery tension to it.
One of the arrows lodges itself into the cloth of a wagon, prompting its passenger to pump the wagon up with an air-tire and resume shooting. Such a gag would be re-used as late as 1948 in Art Davis’ Nothing But the Tooth (who, ironically, was the predecessor of the Clampett unit).
Norm McCabe animates one of the passengers firing his rifle, hiding behind the wooden sanctity of a barrel. While he pauses to reload, the coonskin cap on his head takes a life of its own, a deceptively Disney-esque raccoon firing its own round of ammo. The raccoon flashes a wink and an “okay” sign before morphing back into a mound of fur. An amusing gag that’s a callback to the days of the Harman-Ising cartoons, where jackets were made of live kittens and so on.
Such a spray of bullets is child's play to Joe. He catches them all in his hand and ingests them, his chewing animation amusingly tactile and rubbery. He heaves a big breath, and spews a singular, giant bullet in return. The bullet zips through the air with a shriek, landing right in the middle of the wagon circle and blowing the entire train to smithereens...
...or so we're led to believe.
Finally do our protagonist and antagonist unite; Porky and his horse spot Joe and rush to confront him. The elasticity of this cartoon cannot be understated--Porky clings to the horse's reins, who charges yards ahead of him. Two electric guitar slides later, and Porky's hugging his trusty steed as they charge into battle, Porky (admittedly crudely) bouncing up and down off of the saddle.
Joe is made aware of his company, doing a take as Porky slides off of his horse and directly onto his feet, no momentum broken whatsoever (bravo!). In a rare moment of bull-headed (yet still awkward) bravery, Porky puts up his dukes, bracing a scowl as if he believes he's any match for Joe.
Alas, he is not. Joe swings an axe right at him, prompting the pig to literally jump out of his pants and then into them for safety. Seeing as Porky doesn't wear any pants in Wagon Heels, they substituted his real hindquarters instead, with Porky hilariously donning a pair of boxer briefs as the reveal.
A chase ensues. Joe swings his axe around with such speed and ferocity that he turns into a circular buzz saw, hot on Porky's tail. Surprisingly, the next scene was omitted from airings of this cartoon on Cartoon Network (which is shocking enough in itself): Joe follows Porky up and down a slab of rock, carving said rock into the shape of the Statue of Liberty. Amazing how that was deemed to be too much, yet the cartoon's title and excessive use of the eponymous slur was fine.
The gag is continued once more, skyscrapers being carved out of a slab of rock instead, before Joe finally corners on the edge of a cliff. Though the scene is initially viewed at a distance, it reads very well--Porky's scramble and loss of his hat is a nice indicator of his powerlessness against Joe.
More Norm McCabe animation as Joe picks Porky up by one lone strand of hair, a gruesome grin on his face indicating nefarious intent.
Just then, distant guffawing saves the day. Sloppy Moe pops up from the side of the cliff, circling Joe (who's still swinging Porky around by his hair the entire time) and chanting his famous mantra.
Instead of observing on nonplussed, Joe cuts Sloppy Moe's song short and lifts him by the beard, disregarding his axe. He speaks in stereotypically broken grunts, Billy Bletcher's low register growling "What you know? Huh?"
"It's just that..." Sloppy Moe turns bashful, Poking Joe's chest. Each syllable is accentuated by Carl Stalling's music score. "Inj*n... Joe... is... ticklish!"
Joe drops Porky onto the ground as he's reduced to a humiliating, convulsing, screeching mess, his voice sped up as Sloppy Moe tickles him with his beard. The entire animation of this sequence is admirably frenetic, especially for this time.
Porky observes in that same befuddled stare as Joe is sent toppling off of the cliff, Sloppy Moe reveling in Joe's humiliations in increasingly zany ways. At one point, he too falls alongside Joe, floating upside down with his pants serving as a parachute as he tickles Joe with his beard.
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| Of course Bob Clampett would slip a bare ass in there. |
Bobe Cannon animates the ending scene as Joe is sent toppling into a hollow tree trunk, various limbs sticking out from the trunk and causing Sloppy Moe to tickle him from inside said trunk. Porky rushes to Sloppy Moe's side to observe the glory--the physics on Joe and the tree trunk are beautiful. Pure elastic goodness--the tree trunk isn't even a trunk anymore, but a mere vessel to keep Joe contained.
An iris begins to close on the scene, Porky and Sloppy Moe shaking hands at their victory. However, as the iris gets too close for comfort, Joe screams a giggly "WAIT!"
The iris opens--to see someone other than Tex Avery indulging in the iris out gags is always a delight. Once more does Joe speak in his stereotypical speech patterns, giggling coyly: "Do-um some more?"
Sloppy Moe obliges, and we iris out for good. (As a quick side note, a sharp eye spots Porky's cel jumping out of frame at the last second, almost like he's taken off running. Not a criticism, but something amusing that only took me until now to catch.)
Obviously, this cartoon is not without its problems or ugliness. While not as vile or openly as mean-spirited as other cartoons with Indigenous stereotypes, it's still quite racist, especially with the liberal usage of the eponymous slur. However, and while I am in no way defending this cartoon, it curiously carries a much more lighthearted tone than other cartoons.
That doesn't negate the damage it's done, but it is curious to think about--previous cartoons such as Porky's Phoney Express or Westward Whoa are more serious (and harsher) in tone when dealing with their climaxes. This cartoon is rather lighthearted--Joe is still seen as a threat, and his gags (such as his entire introduction, like biting the bear trap) perpetuate the "mean, ruthless, savage" stereotype, but his character is largely used for comedic purposes, especially at the end. While still harmful overall, it is interesting to think that this light-heartedness and sense of playfulness has been relatively absent in previous cartoons that share a similar narrative.
With that said, the energy of this cartoon is undeniable. As I've said before, the animation throughout the entire thing is incredibly energetic, tactile, elastic, and untamed. In a 2021 lens it doesn't seem entirely remarkable, but as of May 1938, especially for a Warner Bros. cartoon, this is rather impressive stuff. Again, the horse's sleek, lean, realistic design deserves plenty of kudos for how strikingly modern it looks.
Porky isn't of much particular interest in this short--interestingly, he plays more prominence in Wagon Heels, given more lines. Regardless, it doesn't work to the cartoon's detriment, which is nice. As big of a Porky fan as I am, this isn't his cartoon; it belongs to Moe 'n Joe.
This isn't a cartoon I frequent for pretty obvious reasons, but it has its share of feats and accomplishments, though the bitter taste it leaves behind is difficult to shake. I feel there's no real rush to seek this short out, but it is amusing when it wants to be. Speaking for 1938, this is a successful short in comparison to the filmography we've seen so far. 2021 wise, not much at all.
As always, I'll provide a link--proceed with caution and be wary for excessive use of the title slur.
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