153. Pigs is Pigs (1937)

Release date: January 30th, 1937

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Friz Freleng

Starring: Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Hamhock), Berneice Hansell (Children), Billy Bletcher (Mad Scientist), Shirley Reed (Piggy)

One of Friz’s most iconic cartoons during this time period, and the first to debut his favorite “hold the onions!” gag. Also the second (and final) appearance of Piggy Hamhock and co. All disobedient Piggy wants to do is sit inside and eat all day, and it seems his dream comes true—but when a mad scientist gets involved, his appetite is quickly ruined.

An underscore of “When My Dream Boat Comes Home” opens the cartoon, a score that would be occasionally used by Stalling. In the quaint countryside resides a warm, happy home, a family of pigs dancing in circles and laughing. Everyone is happy and content—except for one. Piggy Hamhock strolls around the yard, with visions of hotdogs (questionable for a pig), turkeys, pies, corn, and watermelons dance in his head, sighing cravingly. He parks himself on a bench just outside the house, licking his lips as he imagines the food he can’t have.

Just then, fortune strikes. Mrs. Hamhock dotingly places two pies on the open windowsill to cool, and, of course, the fresh, inviting fumes waft straight into Piggy’s trajectory. Such a lovely detail as Piggy’s eyes grow wider and wider with each eager sniff—food! Even better is the animation as he snags one of the pies from the windowsill, spins it around on his finger, and devours the edges as it spins around, reducing it to nothing, popping the “core” of the pie in his mouth last. Piggy reaches for the other pie, preparing to dive in, but finds himself feasting on pork instead as he bites his own hands, the pie snagged out of his grip from an offscreen Mrs. Hamhock.

Mrs. Hamhock is devastated, lamenting “My nice, fresh pies! Look what you have done to them! And I’ve worked so hard all day over a hot stove. Can’t you wait until dinner?” while Mrs. Hamhock goes on and on, Piggy’s mind wanders to the imaginary meal once more, completely drowning out his mother’s words.

To quote Billy Bletcher from porky’s romance, time munches on and Mrs. Hamhock rings the telltale dinner bell, summoning her children to eat (with an underscore of “Puppchen” as Mrs. Hamhock’s theme). The children frolicking in the yard happily flock to the house. Piggy also catches wind of the dinner bell, and barrels over his siblings in the process as he rushes to be the first inside. Mrs. Hamhock braces herself against the draft left behind from piggy’s speed.

Eager to get a head start, Piggy licks his lips and rubs his hands together, reaching into the fruit bowl on the table, but is quickly smacked by his mother, glaring daggers at him as she positions herself at the table. The rest of the Hamhocks pour into the dining room. With that, Mrs. Hamhock instructs her children to say grace. A hilarious decision on Friz’s part to have a cacophony of dissonant mumbling as everyone incomprehensibly says grace, with a rolling pan sweeping down the table. The pan stops at Piggy, who audibly asks “and please, could we have lots of ice cream tonight?” 

Suddenly, an idea hatches. Before each little piglet is a bowl of noodles just waiting to be devoured. Piggy grabs one of his noodles and a noodle from the plate next to him and ties it together. He slips under the table (good decision with the lighting!) and makes his rounds from each plate, trying together every noodle he sees into one interminable rope. Every noodle covered, Piggy leaps back into his seat, innocently giving an “Amen!” 

“Und now, commence!” with Mrs. Hamhock’s permission, Piggy stuffs a wad of noodles in his mouth. I just love the animation of him sucking his face in to slurp up the noodles, it’s certainly tactile and you can just feel the breathless effort he’s exerting. All according to plan as the Hamhocks ogle at their magically disappearing noodles. Mrs. Hamhock takes notice and scolds Piggy, warning him that this is the straw that broke the camel’s “hümp”. Piggy’s face is priceless as he stares at his mother, mouth agape, noodles still suspended in his open mouth. He tunes out his mother’s lecture, head in hand as he shoots angry side glances at his mother.

Night must fall, and all of the Hamhock children are asleep. That is, with one exception. A certain hungry Piggy still fantasizes about his hearty hors d'oeuvres, various foods surrounding him. As Piggy sighs longingly, his surroundings melt around him, and instead of in his bed he’s perched on a wooden bench outside of a cottage. There’s a large, green door just outside to match the ivy creeping up on the exterior. Piggy wanders around, spellbound, when the door opens to reveal a strange, balding, yellow man with rubber gloves who urges him to come on. 

The scientist ushers Piggy along in his cottage, which is revealed to be a laboratory. A tasteful array of beakers and solutions overlay the scene as Piggy makes his way in—ulcer tablets, gastritis pills, neon coils... the scientist hiccups as he croons to Piggy, “Hungry, my little man? Have some nice pies, cakes, ice cream, pickles...” I love the extraneous “pickles” to juxtapose with the other sweet, enticing desserts.

An enraptured Piggy dashed up to a table stocked to the brim with all the food he could imagine. A bottle in the foreground reads “VOD”, the rest of the lettering torn off. A vodka gag slipped under the Hays office! Piggy’s delight shines brighter as the scientist urges him to help himself, offering him a seat in a large, floral, cushioned seat. Piggy obliges, but suddenly grows anxious when the scientist shoved the table away. The floral covering on the chair is pulled away to reveal a metal chair, strapping piggy in with a belt and prying his snout open.

Now the villain launches into the trademark Billy Bletcher Bellow®️, reassuring Piggy that he’ll get plenty of food. There’s an intriguing, almost Tashlin-esque camera angle as a trap door opens beneath the floor, Piggy’s chair toting him down below into the scientist’s lab. Another tilted, warped angle as the scientist rushes to his post, a separate landing with a big, metal machine positioned on it. I love the subtle tilt of the angle, it really conveys how warped the scene is and how askew the mood is. Things aren’t right, and Piggy is actively aware of this. “So,” the villain coos, “you love food, eh?” Another villainous laugh as he goes wild on all the levers and buttons and contraptions on his big metal machine.

I bet you if this was made just 6 years later, Powerhouse would have been the underscore for this scene. Porky Pig’s feat gets the honor of the first cartoon to debut the iconic Raymond Scott score. An assortment of canned soups churn down an assembly line, pouring into one giant bowl. Piggy is force fed the disgusting, purple amalgamation of soups as a wheel of spoons paddle it down his throat like a waterwheel. The chair then moves beneath a banana peeling station, mechanical arms sliding bananas into Piggy’s gullet. The mad scientist observes in evil glee, laughing at the misfortune he has created.

A clever gag of a gumball machine spitting olives into Piggy’s mouth as a mechanical hand feeds pennies into the slot. Next, as displayed on this cartoon’s lobby card, a bellows pushes a number of ice cream cones down piggy’s throat. This entire sequence serves as the inspiration behind a number of cartoons. It served as a foundation for Dick Lundy’s Apple Andy at Walter Lantz in 1946. Yet perhaps it is most well known as serving as the basis for a scene in the Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror IV, where Homer sits in the same chair Piggy sits in, being force fed donuts—and of course enjoying it, the scene much more comical than portrayed here. So, good on Friz! 

The next torturous piece of food spawns Friz Freleng’s favorite “hold the onions!” gag. Mechanical arms prepare a giant sandwich, the bread suspended by hooks. Peppers and mustard garnish the spliced open hotdog (again adding to the morbid nature of the scene—being force fed your own kin!). Just as a bowl of onions prepares to topple over, a robotic arm juts out a sign that reads HOLD THE ONIONS! 

Phil Monroe is responsible for the gag. Later on, he’d tell Michael Barrier “For instance, I first worked for Friz in the middle '30s, and he had this one picture, I forget what the name of it is, but it was a mechanical machine that made a sandwich; the old cartoons used to do that all the time, use a gag like that. It was a Rube Goldberg machine that made a sandwich. I stuck in the gag ‘hold the onions’—a sign comes out and stops the machine and says, ‘hold the onions.’ Well, the only thing you remember about that cartoon is that one gag. He used that damned thing for years.” 

He most certainly DID use that damned thing for years, featured in (but not limited to) cartoons such as Jungle Jitters, The Fighting 69th 1/2, The Gay Anties, and used by other directors such as Jones, McKimson, and Tashlin. The gag even managed to creep across studios, appearing in the 1951 tom and jerry short His Mouse Friday. Thank you, Phil! 

Piggy is then force fed the giant sandwich, attacking it like a lawn mower in neat rows, the chair reversing and accelerating as he eats. Next spawns the “PIE-A-TROPE”, Piggy devouring rapidly spinning pies from the outside in, just like how he was doing beforehand, spinning the pie on his finger and eating the outside.

More Tashlin-esque camera angles as we get a series of overlaid and reused footage, underscored by the maniacal laughter of the scientist. Eventually, we find the end result: Piggy is full to bursting in his chair, the scientist poking him with twisted glee. “Have enough, my boy?” Piggy stammers (another Friz Freleng stuttering pig!) “Y-y-yessir!” The scientist frees piggy from his restraints, insisting he’s not half full. Hilarious animation as the rotund Piggy waddles across the room and past a buffet table.

Just then, a delicious turkey leg catches his attention. Piggy can’t resist. I just absolutely love this—the whole time, he’s been tortured, force fed, what have you, the mood so dark and twisted and askew. Piggy had been visibly upset and anxious the entire time, and now here he is helping himself VOLUNTARILY with a hungry grin on his face! What a great detail. Piggy devours the turkey leg, and promptly explodes.

Fade out to piggy screaming, lumps underneath his blanket writhing as he pops his head out, unscathed, his normal self in his own normal bed in his own normal home. He collects himself, breathing a sigh of sweet relief and wiping his brow. Mrs. Hamhock’s voice calls from downstairs “Wake up, sonny! It’s time for breakfast!” (which I believe in hindsight is reused from Toy Town Hall.) Piggy demonstrates that he has dutifully learned a solemn lesson as he rushes downstairs and gorges himself in breakfast, devouring as fast as he can and displaying no table manners whatsoever. Iris out.

One of Friz’s first classics, and rightfully so. It’s a great cartoon with drastic changes in mood. The cartoon starts and ends in the same notion: lightheartedly. I adore how moody this cartoon is, and how stark the contrast is. You have the lighthearted sympathy of watching Piggy lust over food, getting scolded by his mother, and then you’re diving head first into such a twisted, morbid torture scene where you as the audience member also feel captive. And then, in true loony fashion, Piggy demonstrates that he learned absolutely nothing whatsoever from his nightmare and is tickled pink with his gluttony. The animation is great, and the colors and backgrounds are beautiful and inviting. You absolutely need to watch this one! If anything, do it for historical significance. First “hold the onions” gag, and it was referenced by The Simpsons! Go watch it! 

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141. At Your Service Madame (1936)

Release date: August 29th, 1936

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Friz Freleng

Starring: Tedd Pierce (W.C. Squeals), Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Hamhock), Berneice Hansell (Giggles)

The last cartoon to be scored by Norman Spencer (who did NOT die in 1936, contrary to an interview Mel Blanc gave) and the first cartoon to feature some reoccurring characters: Piggy and W.C. Squeals! A different Piggy than the Rudolf Ising character—he’d make another appearance in the sequel Pigs is Pigs, voiced by Berneice Hansell, whereas W.C. Squeals would reappear in another Freleng short, The Coo-Coo Nut Grove, and a Tashlin short, Cracked Ice. Squeals, of course, being a parody of comedian W.C. Fields.

Piggy Hamhock is far from obedient, much to his mother’s chagrin. However, his rebellious spirit may come in handy when a greedy pig tries to swindle Mrs. Hamhock out of her fortune.

A beautiful shot at dawn as the sun rises, illuminating the exterior of a house. Inside, a line of little pigs are all asleep in their beds. Their mother downstairs prepares the finishing touches on breakfast, ringing a bell and summoning her kids. They all rise slowly... except for one pig on the end. He jolts out of bed in a split, running to get dressed and wash his face. A nice little detail as he slides back down the hallway and halts, running into the bathroom once more to wet his toothbrush. He zips down the stairs and assumes his position at the table, knife and fork in hand, eagerly awaiting his meal.

His siblings aren’t too far behind, all rushing down the hallway. A callback to the Harman and Ising days as we get yet another butt flap gag! Man, and I thought we were past these. A constant reminder of the brazen Harman-Ising days, with butts and outhouses galore! One of the pigs trips in the midst of his excitement, the butt flap of his pajamas spilling open. Another one of his siblings lifts him up and rebuttons the flap, pulling on the pig’s tail and smacking it against his butt for good measure.

Already the hungry piglet is indulging in his food (cleverly displayed in a mini trough). His mother snaps “Piggy! Now you wait for the others!”, and Piggy glowers down at his hands in impatient frustration. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait for too long. The crowd of siblings come pouring in, Piggy motioning for them to hurry up.

The mother pig instructs her children to begin by counting off a cadence “Begin, 2, 3, 4!”, eating a spoonful at the final count. Not at all unlike the barrage of synchronized gags in the oh so memorable Tom Palmer cartoon I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song. Coy as it is, it’s a great opportunity for Friz to show off his timing. All of the pigs eat in obedient unison, keeping time... except, of course, for Piggy, who scarfs down his food twice as fast (great timing as he’s still kept in time, 1/8 instead of 1/4). His mother takes notice and smacks him with a wooden stick. She scolds him, lamenting that he can’t behave like the others and that she doesn’t know what she’ll ever do with him. Piggy frowns at his trough and impatiently drums his fingers along the sides.

Transition to a pig caricature of W.C. Fields strolling down the streets. On the other side of the street sits a deserted cigar on the sidewalk, still smoldering. HILARIOUS timing as view lines from Squeals hit the cigar, accompanied by the sound of a car horn. Like some sort of weird game of Frogger, squeals zips through busy traffic just to get the cigar, placing it in his mouth and chuffing on it as he continues his stroll.

Squeals stumbles across the pig household, where he picks up a stray newspaper and reads the headline: WIDOW INHERITS FORTUNE — Mrs. Hamhock who resides at 13 Pine Street. Squeals reads it out loud, droning “13 Pine Street, huuuuh? I’ll have to remember that, yeeeaahh.” He looks at the mailbox in front of him, which is conveniently labeled 13 PINE. Squeals marches onto the porch and prepares to ring the doorbell, but stops. Instead he peers through the window, hilarious animation as his snout gets stuck to the window like a suction cup (a reoccurring gag) as he moves his head around. He attempts to pry his face off of the glass, his snout slapping him back in the face after some struggling.

Now ready to pounce, Squeals pretends to chalk and aim his cane like a pool stick, ringing the doorbell with it. He plucks the flowers out of Mrs. Hamhock’s window box, fashioning a makeshift bouquet. Mrs. Hamhock opens the top portion of the door to see who her guest is, and we see Squeals tip his hat, greeting “Good morning, my little chickadee!” (a saying used by Fields in movies such as If I Had a Million.) Mrs. Hamhock allows Squeals in, who hands her the bouquet. “Pretty flowers for pretty lady!” Mrs. Hamhock giggles, inviting him to sit down.

They both cozy up on the couch, Squeals holding Mrs. Hamhock’s hand. He spots a diamond ring and puts on a loupe, clearly interested in the ring as he admires “What a beautiful hand you have!” Once again Mrs. Hamhock giggles, the gag enhanced as the ring turns out to be a gag ring, squirting water right in Squeals’ eye.

Squeals butters her up, scanning the surroundings as he gabs about how lovely her home is, very homey, yeahhh. He spots a safe right next to a piano, loaded with cash. Just what he needed. He asks her if she plays piano, mentioning that he sings a little, and of course Mrs. Hamhock answers in the affirmative. She moves over to the piano and begins to play, Squealsstanding next to her and flashing an excited grin at the safe behind him. Thus launches the title song, accompanied with Tedd Pierce’s hilarious, nasally, talk-songy W.C. Fields impression.

Piggy overhears the piano and the stranger and peers out from the upstairs landing. He makes his way down the stairs and stands behind Squeals, so as to get a good look at him. Squeals dismisses him (“Go along son, you bother me!”), giving the safe a subtle turn of the knob after he waves his fingers at Piggy. Piggy grows suspicious and scowls, standing his ground. Squeals once more pushes him away with his foot, and Piggy once more inches closer. Very amusing setup with Squeals’ interjections of dismissal, finalized by a final kick that sends Piggy flying into a fishbowl, getting the bowl stuck on his head. He frees himself, spitting out a half eaten fish in the process. The fish continues to swim around in its bowl, its entire body reduced to bones.

Squeals gives the knob on the safe a few more turns, attempting to discreetly flash a few looks in the process, all while under the observant eye of Piggy. At last he manages to open the safe, and Piggy, sensing what’s going on, darts away to take action. The entire time, squeals is singing, stuffing wads of cash in his inside pockets, flashing a cheesy grin as he desperately attempts to keep things discreet.

The entire Hamhock family is crowded around Piggy, who whispers a plan in their ears. They all disperse, squeals still loading himself. Piggy creeps into the room, now armed with an electrical cord. Like in Into Your Dance, Piggy ties the cord around Squeals’ tail, giving the okay to one of his siblings, who yanks on the cord of a lamp. Instantly Squeals is turned to bacon as he leaps into the air in agony. The song is put to a halt as Mrs. Hamhock recognizes Piggy as the culprit, pushing Squeals out of the way to scold him.

While Mrs. Hamhock continues her lecture, two of the pigs on the above landing lower a hook, snagging it on the end of squeals’ jacket. Two other pigs crank the handle of a wringer, which lifts squeals up to the landing, through the bars and across the hallway, sliding down the stairs and under the rug, bumping into furniture in the process. Great animation of the pattern on the rug whizzing by. He’s spun around two support beams, finally hitting a chandelier and hanging in the air, suspended. Two other pigs charge down the banister of the staircase, armed with a moose head mount and ramming it into squeals’ butt.

He’s now swung like an uncontrollable piñata, hitting the side of the wall, his nose struggling to get unstuck as it smacks him like a suction cup (accompanied by great Treg Brown sound effects.) The pigs give him another push on the opposite end and the charade continues. Eventually, he’s swung towards the open window, where one of the pigs closes the window on his head. Piggy pushes an exercise shaker towards Squeals and fashions it around his waist. With a simple start of the shaker, all of the cash in Squeals’ pocket is shaken loose. The force of the vibration catapults him out of the window, the entire Hamhock family (mother included) crowding around to ogle at him.

Mrs. Hamhock kisses the heads of her children in gratitude. Squeals, meanwhile, is still shaking, uneasily grabbing his hat and cane and bidding goodbye—something you gotta hear. It’s hilarious, it sounds like his voice is glitching out and skipping as he talks and sputters along. What a great detail! Iris out as he shakes along, walking into the horizon.

While I think Pigs is Pigs is more cinematographic, this is a very clever cartoon with some great comedic timing. Even if you don’t know who W.C. Fields is, W.C. Squeals is hilarious and Pierce does a great job of voicing him. He totally steals the show. I love the gag where he picks up the cigar off the street, and the scene where he’s stuffing fat stacks of cash into his coat and grinning as if everything is peachy keen is great. And, of course, the ending where his dialogue is skipping as he vibrates is very clever. Timing was definitely a pivotal part to this cartoon, in terms of musical timing (the pigs eating their breakfast) and comedic timing. Definitely a funny cartoon that’s worth a watch, it doesn’t at all feel like your archetypical Friz Freleng cartoon (like Bingo Crosbyana or something like that. Not that it’s bad, but it’s certainly formulaic.) 

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