Editing Porky in Wackyland

{{Short description|1938 animated short film directed by Bob Clampett}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name              = Porky in Wackyland
| image             = Porky in Wackyland.png
| caption           = Lobby card
| director          = [[Bob Clampett|Robert Clampett]]
| story             = [[Warren Foster]]
| animator          = [[Norman McCabe]]<br>[[Izzy Ellis|I. Ellis]]<br>Vive Risto<br>John Carey<br>Robert Cannon<ref>{{cite web |title=Porky in Wackyland Breakdown (#14) |url=https://archive.org/details/porky-in-wackyland-breakdown |access-date=19 December 2020}}</ref>
| layout_artist     = Bob Clampett
| background_artist = [[Elmer Plummer]]
| starring          = [[Mel Blanc]]<br>[[Billy Bletcher]]<br>[[Tedd Pierce]]<br>Danny Webb<ref name="Merrie Looney">{{cite web |last1=Hartley |first1=Steven |title=Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie: 216. Porky in Wackyland (1938) |url=https://likelylooneymostlymerrie.blogspot.com/2012/11/216-porky-in-wackyland-1938.html |website=Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie |accessdate=4 October 2020 |date=23 November 2012}}</ref><br>Bob Clampett<ref name=greatest/>
| music             = [[Carl W. Stalling]]
| editing           = [[Treg Brown]]
| producer          = [[Leon Schlesinger]]
| studio            = [[Warner Bros. Cartoons|Leon Schlesinger Productions]]
| distributor       = [[Warner Bros. Pictures]]<br>[[Vitaphone|The Vitaphone Corporation]]
| released          = {{Film date|1938|09|24}}
| runtime           = {{duration|m=7|s=23}}
| country           = United States
| language          = English
}}
'''''Porky in Wackyland''''' is a 1938 [[Warner Bros.]] ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' animated [[short film]], directed by [[Bob Clampett]].<ref name=Beck>{{cite book |last1=Beck |first1=Jerry |last2=Friedwald |first2=Will |title=Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons |date=1989 |publisher=Henry Holt and Co |isbn=0-8050-0894-2 |page=77}}</ref> The short was released on September 24, 1938, and stars [[Porky Pig]] venturing out to find the last [[Dodo|do-do bird]], which he finds in Wackyland, a land that makes no sense located in Darkest [[Africa]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |accessdate=6 June 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/124/mode/2up |pages=124–126}}</ref>

In 1994, ''Porky in Wackyland'' was voted No. 8 of [[The 50 Greatest Cartoons]] of all time by members of the animation field.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beck |first1=Jerry |title=The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals |date=1994 |publisher=Turner Publishing |isbn=978-1878685490}}</ref> In 2000, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States [[Library of Congress]], which selected the short for preservation in the [[National Film Registry]]. The short's copyright was renewed in 1966.{{Efn|1=Under [https://archive.org/details/catalogofc19663201213libr/page/96/mode/2up?q=wackyland R391450]}}

==Plot==
[[File:Porky in Wackyland title card.png|thumb|left|''Porky in Wackyland'' was inducted into the [[National Film Registry]] of the [[Library of Congress]] in 2000, deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".]]
A newspaper shows Porky Pig traveling to Africa to hunt for the last do-do bird. Upon landing his airplane in Darkest Africa, Porky sees a sign telling him that he is in Wackyland, where anything can happen. He tiptoes along the ground in his airplane and is greeted by a roaring beast, who suddenly becomes effeminate and dances away into the forest.

A musical interlude introduces several more bizarre creatures that inhabit Wackyland's impossible landscape. These include a [[one-man band]] that plays its nose like a flute, a rabbit swinging in midair, a duck caricature of [[Al Jolson]], and a beast with the heads of the [[Three Stooges]]. One creature wears a [[sandwich board]] advertising information about the do-do. The creature beckons Porky into a dark passage, where he falls down a chute and watches the do-do's big entrance. The do-do introduces itself and then tramples Porky while [[scat singing]]. Porky gives chase, but the do-do repeatedly uses surreal tricks to escape and humiliate him.

Some time later, the do-do encounters a [[newspaper hawker]] announcing that Porky's hunt has been a success. Confused by the news, the do-do drops its guard long enough for the hawker (Porky in disguise) to grab it. Porky briefly celebrates catching the last do-do, but is bested again when the bird calls for its other do-do friends.

==Voice cast==
Information is taken from the website ''Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie''.<ref name="Merrie Looney"/>
*[[Mel Blanc]] as various characters, including [[Porky Pig]] and [[Dodo]]
*[[Billy Bletcher]] as the Roaring Goon
*[[Tedd Pierce]] as mysterious voice
*[[Danny Webb (American actor)|Danny Webb]] as the Prisoner
*[[Bob Clampett]] as vocal effects

==Reception==
Steve Schneider's 1998 ''That's All Folks! The Art of Warner Bros. Animation'' writes that with this short, "the lord of cartoon misrule, Clampett established conclusively that in animation, realism is irrelevant".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schneider |first1=Steve |title=That's All, Folks! : The Art of Warner Bros. Animation |date=1988 |publisher=Henry Holt and Co |isbn=0-8050-0889-6 |page=60}}</ref>

In the 2001 ''Masters of Animation'', John Grant writes that "this short, in its cumulative effect, is more wildly inventive than anything even [[Tex Avery|[Tex] Avery]] had produced for Warners".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grant |first1=John |title=Masters of Animation |date=2001 |publisher=Watson-Guptill |isbn=978-0823030415 |page=55 |url=https://archive.org/details/mastersofanimati00gran_0?q=%22porky+in+wackyland%22 |accessdate=23 July 2020}}</ref>

Animation historian Steve Schneider writes, "No mere Looney Tune, ''Porky in Wackyland'' was Warner Bros. [[Emancipation Proclamation]]. Building on the creaky liberties inaugurated by director [[Tex Avery]], here Bob Clampett scoffs and shreds the conventions — realism, literalism, infantilism, cutesiness, and worse — that, with the ascendancy of [[Walt Disney Animation Studios|Disney]], had come to caramelize cartooning. By reminding us of animations' horizons — namely, none at all — this anything-goes film illustrates [[Sigmund Freud]]'s notion that humor arises from breaking taboos. And breaking taboos is something that animation, with its limitless freedom, is uniquely gifted to do".<ref name=greatest>{{cite book |editor1-last=Beck |editor1-first=Jerry |title=The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons |date=2020 |publisher=Insight Editions |isbn=978-1-64722-137-9 |page=142}}</ref>

==Follow-ups and derivative works==
[[File:Wackyland-bw-color.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Near-identical moments from ''Porky in Wackyland'' and its color remake, ''Dough for the Do-Do''.]]

Much of the Wackyland sequence was adapted and reused by Clampett for inclusion in his 1943 short ''[[Tin Pan Alley Cats]]''. A color remake of ''Porky in Wackyland'' was supervised by [[Friz Freleng]] in 1948. Re-titled as ''[[Dough for the Do-Do]]'', the remake was released in 1949. The films were nearly identical, in many cases appearing to match frame-by-frame in certain details, albeit with Porky's appearance updated (by redoing most of the animation of the character), the voices having evolved (with less use of speeding-up) and the backgrounds being changed to a surreal, Daliesque landscape. ''Dough for the Do-Do'' was produced in [[Technicolor]], but was originally released in [[Cinecolor]] due to a dispute with the Technicolor corporation. Later reissues were printed by Technicolor.

There were at least two [[Terrytoons]] plagiarizations of ''Porky in Wackyland'' in the 1940s or 1950s.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} ''[[Dingbat Land]]'' (1949)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://classiccartoons.blogspot.com/2006/04/rare-and-unknown-dingbat-land.html|title=Classic Cartoons|work=classiccartoons.blogspot.com}}</ref> starred [[Gandy Goose]] and Sourpuss. The role of the Do-Do was taken by a minor Terrytoons character, Dingbat.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/terrylc08-big.jpg |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2006-08-19 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311194421/http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/terrylc08-big.jpg |archivedate=2007-03-11}}</ref>

[[Tex Avery]], for whom Clampett worked as an animator in the mid-1930s, borrowed strongly from this cartoon for his 1948 MGM cartoons ''Half-Pint Pygmy'' (in which the characters, [[George and Junior]], travel to Africa in search of the world's smallest pygmy, only to discover that he has an uncle who's even smaller) and ''[[The Cat That Hated People]]'' (where the cat travels to the moon and encounters an array of characters similar to those in Clampett's Wackyland, e.g., a pair of gloves and lips that keep saying "Mammy, mammy", just like the Al Jolson duck in ''Porky in Wackyland''). Clampett would again use the Three Stooges parody when a later creation of his, [[Beany and Cecil]], faced the "Dreaded Three-Headed Threep".

According to writer [[Paul Dini]], the Do-Do Bird is the father of [[Gogo Dodo]], a character on the 1990s animated TV series ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', and a second Wackyland is drawn into Acme Acres by Babs and Buster Bunny.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} A small clip from the film was used in a [[Slappy Squirrel]] segment on another Warners animated TV series of the 1990s, ''[[Animaniacs]]''. The segment, titled "Critical Condition", featured ''Porky in Wackyland'' as part of a fake [[LaserDisc]] release. The Do-Do Bird has made occasional guest spots in the [[DC Comics]] ''Looney Tunes'' comic book, being colored in [[grayscale]] as opposed to the rest of the art being in color. The character makes an appearance in the [[Wii]] game ''[[Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal]]'' as an unplayable character. He is given a first name, Yoyo Dodo. Yoyo can also be seen at Maroon Cartoon Studios as a brief cameo in the beginning of the 1988 film ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]]''. Yoyo also made a cameo in the 2020 ''[[Looney Tunes Cartoons]]'' short "Happy Birthday, Bugs Bunny!" and plays a large role in the [[stop motion]] episode "Daffy in Wackyland".

==See also==
* [[Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1929–1939)]]
* [[Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940–1949)]]
* [[Looney Tunes Golden Collection]] ''Porky in Wackyland'' on [[Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2|Volume 2]] (Disc 3) and ''Dough for the Do-Do'' on [[Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1|Volume 1]] (Disc 2)

==References==
<references/>
{{notelist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|0030604}}

{{Porky Pig in animation|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:1938 films]]
[[Category:1938 animated short films]]
[[Category:1938 comedy films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Bob Clampett]]
[[Category:Animated films set in Africa]]
[[Category:Looney Tunes shorts]]
[[Category:Surrealist films]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:1930s American animated films]]
[[Category:Animated films about birds]]
[[Category:Porky Pig films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Carl Stalling]]
[[Category:Dodo]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Warren Foster]]