154. Pigs Is Pigs (1937)

Warner cartoon no. 153.
Release date: January 30, 1937.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Supervision: Friz Freleng.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Hamhock), Berneice Hansell (Children) and Billy Bletcher (Evil Scientist).
Animation: Bob McKimson and Paul Smith.
Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: Piggy is very greedy who just loves to eat; until in his dream he's allowed to eat all he likes turns into a nightmare.

This is a classic Friz Freleng cartoon made during his period and probably his most memorable of the period. This is the second appearance of the Hamhock family and also their last.

The cartoon begins with a cottage on a very sunny day and the residents are the Hamhock family of course. The Hamhock piglets are seen outside in the garden playing happily with each other as they are giggling. They're all very good friends.

A member of the children is Piggy who is walking away from the children and all he is thinking of in his mind is food, and what food he wants to eat and when to have it. He is also isolating himself from the other children which makes him the odd-one out from the group. His mind thinks of roast chicken, sandwiches, pie, etc. just as he is walking down to a bench with all those thought bubbles fading in which is quite a good technique used by Friz Freleng; as he uses great animation techniques for this short, too.

As Piggy sits down at the bench he continues to think of the lovely thought of sweetcorn, watermelon, and Piggy licks his lips in despair. Mrs. Hamhock then brings out two freshly baked pies to place by the window-sill to make sure it cools down. The scent of the pies then start to give the scent to Piggy who is just tempted by the smell and his mind playing at him to eat the pie. Look at how his eyes widen (in the screenshot) and yet it's much more appealing than the eyes given on Piggy. Piggy starts to grab out a piece of raspberry pie as he spins it with his finger chomping at it leaving it with one piece left.

He then grabs out another piece but Mrs. Hamhock grabs it away in time as Piggy bites his fingers by mistake. Mrs. Hamhock cries at what happened to her pies; "My fresh little pies! Look what you have done to them, and I worked so hard all day over a hot stove. Can't you wait until dinner? Don't you ever fill up? My, what an appetite. Always hungry!" Piggy, of course is still hungry as he's thinking of roast turkey in his mind with a thought bubble popping out.

Mrs. Hamhock then steps onto the front porch as she rings the bell to call for the other students, "Dinner's ready, children" she calls. All of the other kids then start to run to the house after an afternoon of playing. I have to say that the backgrounds or this cartoon certainly is an improvement with colour although I imagine that's because this cartoon's in full colour while 'At Your Service Madame' was in 3-strip; I think.

The children are running to the house in that pathetic running cycle while Piggy makes a complete dash to the house even knocking the other piglets out of the way. Even the speed of Piggy dashing into the house was an improvement as though Freleng was inspired by Tashlin. The speed is made much more appropriate with Mrs. Hamhock almost sucked in by the wind as she holds on to herself. Piggy is already the first of the piglets seated at the table as he starts to grab the food with is hands but is stopped by Mrs. Hamhock.

All of the other kids then enter the table as they're ready to eat dinner. Mrs. Hamhock then starts to say her prayers as she orders the other piglets to do so before eating which would be part of their tradition. While they are mumbling saying grace; Piggy is the only member on the table not saying grace.

During the grace; Piggy asks the Lord; "And please could we have ice-cream, tonight?" as he is just demanding for more food which is rather disrespectful but typical. I doubt this is Berneice Hansell voicing Piggy here but I don't know. While of all of the other piglets including Mrs. Hamhock are saying grace; Piggy then comes up with a cunning plan to get as much spaghetti as he could which means he'll eat all of it. He starts to tie the spaghetti ends from one plate to the other and to do that in all the other tables.

Piggy then goes under the table as he finds bits of spaghetti dangling down the table and he ties them into a knot combining with each other altogether. It's rather clever but it makes me think why would every plate have a piece of spaghetti be dangling on the side of the table?

While all of the other piglets are still mumbling with their prayers; Piggy then sits back on his table ending the grace, "Amen" as though he was praying all along. Piggy grabs out his fork as Mrs. Hamhock tells the piglets to eat; "You now commence". Much to the surprise of the children they find that the entire plates of their spaghetti are being sucked out of their plates and all sucking into Piggy's mouth; even including Mrs. Hamhock's plate. This shows some good personality of Piggy since that he is being very disrespectful to his family and being such a jerk as he's not giving any of the piglets and his mother to eat and being such a greedy piggy.

After the entire plates of spaghetti are wiped out, Piggy is being given a telling off by his mother. She screams: "Piggy! What's the matter with you? This is the last straw, that broke the camel's hump! Someday you will pay for this. So you want you should burst yet? Himmel, such a food papa. You listen to Mama!" One of these days; indigestion will get you sure!"

I like the facial expressions that are shown on Piggy's face as he's rather annoyed from hearing  Mrs. Hamhock giving Piggy a right bollocking. Indigestion will get Piggy? Well that seems unlikely in the meantime.

Later that night as the lights are being turned off (listen to the music at the exterior shot of the house - very good use of music by Carl Stalling it sounds very original and sort of too modern for the 30s).

All of the other piglets are in their beds snoozing but the only piglet who is still awake - is none other than Piggy. Piggy isn't giving a break on food as it's still in his mind. He is thinking of all the goodies to eat; with thought bubbles popping up in his mind: ice cream, hot dogs, chicken, sweetcorn, watermelon, cake and pie which probably suggests to us that he wants to have a midnight snack soon...

Piggy is still sitting on the bed but it dissolves into a dream sequence as he's outside in the garden sitting on a bench but in a different location. Piggy is wandering around thinking; "Where am I" until a door opens that gives him a fright. A mad scientist welcomes in inside, "Come in sonny; make yourself at home". The scientist appears to have the knack of continuous hiccupping while in dialogue.

The scientist then welcomes Piggy inside the scientist's laboratory. The scientist then starts to speak to Piggy; "Hungry my little man? Have some nice pies, cakes (hiccups), ice-cream and pickles". Piggy then walks up to a table filled with food that Piggy loves. The scientist allows Piggy to "help yourself". The scientist then allows Piggy to make himself comfortable to sit on the armchair. As Piggy sits down; the scientist pushes the table away as Piggy is caught on a chair where these leather belts to trap Piggy from moving and to have his mouth opened with a type of machine to hold his snout. The mad scientist then starts to laugh as he shouts; "So it's food you want? We'll give you plenty of that!"

The chair machine then starts to form a trap door with Piggy seated from the leather belt as it slides through the laboratory in perspective. I like the animation of that. The mad scientist then starts to laugh evilly as he walks to his machine called the "Feed-a-Matic". He asks Piggy; "So, you love food?" and starts to play with the machines to get the food out.

A conveyor belt has a line of tin soups that is poured into a special type of soup-feeder machine with the liquid combining together into purple and Piggy is force fed in this sequence. This sequence which does go on for quite a while is a masterpiece. This is probably Friz Freleng's best so far; as the force-feeding sequence from the Feed-a-Matic is so original and it makes the cartoon very interesting in it's ways as it's also very inspiring.

A hand machine then start to squeeze bananas out of their skins as Piggy has his mouth out with the bananas juts dropping down to his stomach all in one gobble. The mad scientist continues to laugh at Piggy's unfortunate event.

A hand then starts to place a coin in some type of vending machine that shoots out olives to go straight into Piggy's mouth. The price for the olives is 1 cent; and the hand continues to place the coin inside the vending machine as Piggy just goes for it. The next sequence then focuses on a type of machine with a bellows that blows ice-cream off the cones and straight into Piggy's mouth.

This sequence is so original that it would even be an inspiration to television shows, cartoons, sketches, etc. The most notable uses of the force feeding sequences would be featured nine years later in a Walter Lantz cartoon called 'Apple Andy' directed by Dick Lundy. Andy Panda loves apples but gets force fed apples in the sequence as it's shown here. The sequence was also displayed as rather dark like the 'Pigs Is Pigs' cartoons.


Here is the screen shot that I have provided here.

It was very well spoofed in The Simpsons 'Treehouse of Horror IV' where Homer Simpson goes to hell after eating his forbidden doughnut. I love the fact of how Homer is given the amount of doughnuts in the world by the force-feeding machines; and this was only displayed as comedy while in this cartoon it's rather frightening. Here is a screen-grab that I've provided from my Season 5 DVD.

It's also funny seeing Homer really fat after eating all those doughnuts and is still hungry with the devil-type creature out of his marbles stating; "I don't understand it. James Coco went mad in 15 minutes!"

Anyway back to the review; there is a little animated sequence of the machines making a sandwich which is very well animated. The machines are picking up a piece of bread as well as adding a long piece of bread into it. Salt is shaken onto it, then some pepper. Then some mustard to add some flavour.

I love that small gag added here with the hand about to place a bowl full of onions but the sign reads 'Hold the Onions'. Another bit of bread is placed on top making it a complete sandwich which is all for Piggy to eat up. Piggy eats the pieces of bread like a lawn mower mowing the grass. The force feeding sequence is rather dark to me since it shows that Piggy is forced to eat as much as he possibly can or even to do beyond that; since no-one likes to be forced to eat (unless people with big appetites do). Piggy trapped in a chair is rather unsettling but frightening as he is forced to eat as much although the horror of it is appropriately displayed in this cartoon.

Piggy in the chair is sent to another section with pies. He is brought to the 'Pie-A-Trope' machine where hands extend for Piggy to chomp up the pies. A hand pushes a button for what Piggy would eat and is given a cherry pie. The cherry pie then spins as Piggy chomps it just like what he did earlier on in this short.

Piggy is now given a blueberry pie in which he chomps it off leaving blueberry stains on his face. The rest of the sequence then focuses on montage shots of Piggy continuously eating with a laughing scientist. The montage shots feel inspired from Frank Tashlin's short 'Little Beau Porky' and I just like how it is shown in this sequence. The staging is wonderful as it displays the horror and the continuous eating from Piggy as well as the scientist still laughing at Piggy's unneccessary sacrifice.

Piggy has already gained a lot of weight as his stomach appears to look very tight while wearing the leather belt. The mad scientist then starts to prod Piggy's belly while still sitting on the chair sarcastically asking him:

Scientist: Had enough, my boy?
Piggy: Yes, sir.
Scientist:  Why, you're not half-full.

Piggy then starts to wobble out of the seat as he is completely over-weight from over-eating. While he is walking out of the laboratory, he starts to pick up a chicken drumstick and as he is just takes a bite from it; he explodes. I love how that is presented here since he was eating too much and his stomach got to the point of no longer eating; but Piggy doesn't think about his stomach and as he takes a bite; his belly just explodes.

Piggy then starts to wake up under the duvets squirming from the nightmare he had. He is still alright of course. Piggy then starts to look around the room and only to find out that he is still at home.

Mrs. Hamhock then starts to call from downstairs; "Wake up, sonny. It's time for breakfast." Piggy then starts to jump out of his bed and dashes to the breakfast table. Piggy then starts to eat up his porridge very quickly. Now that is a funny ending considering we all thought that Piggy was going to be a different person at the end but the fact is that he's still the same. It goes to show that Friz Freleng used some good ideas (or even probably a story man) to think that he'll change at the end but doesn't even do so - it just makes him want to eat again

Overall comments: This is one of Friz Freleng's earlier masterpieces in this cartoon. It has a very good story with good character personalities of a greedy little pig who can only think about food but then his food dream turns into a nightmare as I imagine that it was supposed to be rather dark. The Feed-a-Matic sequence was very original to me and this is what influence writers on shows like 'The Simpsons' and even in Walter Lantz cartoons; and even the writers from the Treehouse of Horror episode mentioned that they were inspired from this short. This is the second and final appearance of the Hamhock family as we wouldn't have needed anymore since it could only go worse. The animation here is very appealing as it was animated by mostly Bob McKimson since I can see some scenes he probably did but I'm not going to grasp on the styles. After only two cartoons of the Hamhock family; the characters then disappear from the screen but Pigs is Pigs is easily their best cartoon out of  'At Your Service Madame' and it's even on the '100 Greatest Looney Tunes' book.

142. At Your Service Madame (1936)

Warner cartoon no. 141.
Release date: August 29, 1936.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Supervision: Friz Freleng.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Ted Pierce (W.C. Squeals) and Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Hamhock).
Musical Score: Norman Spencer.
Animation: Don Williams and Cal Dalton.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: 

 The last cartoon to be scored by Norman Spencer (who probably went into early retirement) and NO people - he didn't pass away in 1936 just as Blanc made it up in an interview. This is also believed to be the first cartoon for Warner Bros. ink & painter Martha Sigall to work on this cartoon as she said so in her book. Apparently this cartoon was an attempt for Friz Freleng to create recurring characters of the Hamhock family but it never went any further. This probably sounds like a very unreliable fact but does anyone have proof to support that?

Our cartoon begins with the darkness of the sky but the sun rises as it's morning time. There is a small, crowded house on top of the hill where a pig mother and her piglets live. The rooster is giving out the morning call off-screen. Quite a neat shining effect shown of the window reflection here.

Inside the house are a group of piglet children in there single beds snoozing as the sun reflections reach through the window. The piglets are snoring and snorting. The mother pig named Mrs. Hamhock is preparing porridge for her piglets to have for breakfast. Mrs. Hamhock walks up to the bottom of the stairs ringing the bell calling for the children that are sleeping upstairs, "Wake up children; breakfast's ready". She is a widow as she is of-course left with the children. The Mother Pig continues to ring the bell until the children are awakened.

The children upstairs then hear the sounds of the bell as they stretch to wake themselves up. Piggy (not to be confused with Porky Pig); the other piglet appears to be sleeping in a single bed-room or just at the end side of the bedroom where all of the other piglets are as he is near the door.

Piggy dashes to the bathroom down the hallway to rinse his face; then back down but runs back to the bathroom he washes his toothbrush to pretend as though he's brushed his teeth before dashing downstairs to have breakfast. Piggy dashes downstairs quickly with his cutlery up with his hands ready for breakfast. If this was Avery or even Frank Tashlin working on this cartoon; they could take the timing of the dashing Piggy even faster. The mother is surprised to see Piggy made it at such speed. All of the other piglet children start to run through the hallway to go down the stairs; including a slow piglet jogging but gets stampeded by an incoming piglet with his pants flap down. Another piglet sibling who is considerate helps out the piglet and sorts the pants flap back up and even sorting out the pig tail. At least this shows the piglets having different personalities.

Piggy is still sitting down at the breakfast but is already helping himself scoffing up the porridge. Mrs. Hamhock is disgruntled by Piggy's manners as she bitterly tells him off, "Piggy, now you wait for the others!" Notice how the pig's breakfast meals are being served in small pig troughs - ha; at least it shows us realism since pigs eat from troughs. The rest of the piglets then arrive at the breakfast table.
 
 Mrs. Hamhock then begins her demonstrations on how to have good manners on the table while having porridge; by counting on "fours"; in which the first three numbers counted they angle themselves with positions of holding the spoon, dipping it, etc. and on the "four" count they slurp the porridge. The children are seen copying her actions as they seem to he not bad; but they hold their spoons tightly and not lightly with their pinkie sticking out like Mrs. Hamhock.

During the table pan scene - we pan to Piggy who is not on track and just slurping the soup and each slurp  is each count from his mother. The mother grabs out a stick off-screen to whack Piggy on the head as Mrs. Hammock gives him a telling off; "Now how many times must I talk to you? Can't you ever try to behave like the others? My, my - I don't know what I'm gonna do with you" Some pretty solid character animation of Piggy drumming his fingers on the trough sulking while the mother is grilling his ass. Piggy shows the character personality of a "greedy piggy" since pigs are portrayed as greedy and used as examples for someone being greedy with food; and Piggy is the odd one out here since he can't behave and would rather eat.

In the next scene takes place in a city street where a entrepreneur pig who is walking down that is a caricature of Hollywood celebrity of the time; W.C. Fields but in this cartoon his name is parodied after W.C. and is called W.C. Squeals. While Squeals is down the side of the pavement; he notices a cigar on the other side of the street (such splendid eyesight) and he crosses the road but dodges incoming honking cars to help his way through.


W.C. Squeals then picks up the cigar as he walking around strolling in his characteristic walk with the cigar in his mouth. While walking past the Hamhock family - the name of the street is called 13 Pine Street. W.C. Squeals picks up the morning newspaper "Daily Bulge"  as he reads what appears to be the front headlines: WIDOW INHERITS FORTUNE and W.C. Squeals is reading the paper murmuring the words in the paper.

W.C. Squeals then looks out of his window to see what is outside and finds the exact house he read on the newspaper article by coincidence. As W.C. Squeals steps on the porch and before ringing the doorbell; he peeps through the window to see.

W.C. Squeals has his snout caught on the window as he attempts to push himself away from the window but his snout is still glued to the window. The comic timing isn't very exaggerated at all and too slow or my taste but at least when the snout plops  out of the window is good humour. W.C. Squeals then uses his cane to ring the doorbell like a snooker club. He picks up some posies that are on Mrs. Hamhock's front porch while he has prepared for her. Remember kiddies; he's only doing this for money. 

W.C. then greets Mrs. Hamhock with some posies.

W.C. Squeals: Good mornin; my little chickadee. Pretty flowers for ma pretty lady.

I think W.C. Fields said the "my little chickadee" line somewhere in a film but I'm not too sure.

Mrs. Hamhock then smells the posies he was given as she giggles as she is flattered, "Oh thank you. Won't you sit down?" W.C. Squeals sits himself down  on the chair with Mrs. Hamhock as he holds her hand faking compliments on her "What a beautiful hand you have!". He grabs out a microscope to take a closer look of the silver ring she is wearing but instead gets a squirt of her ring. Now that is a funny gag since he didn't see that comin', eh? I'm surprised that she's already being flattered by W.C.  Squeals who is a stranger to her; and yet she seems unaware of strangers. Of course; you'll back this up saying "but she is inheriting fortune so she would've known" but she  doesn't seem to know he's after money.

W.C. Squeals continues to faking compliments which he doesn't mean as he unenthusiastically says "What a lovely house you have in here, yeah, yeah, etc. This is very nice; Mrs. Hamhock. Quite homie". There is a point-of-view shot of W.C. Squeals scanning around the looking room looking for the vault as he finds the vault where the money is located. Removing the vault door  as visionary; the money is located in there.

W.C. Squeals: You play piano, Miss Hammy - y'know I sing a little.
Mrs. Hamhock: Oooh (giggles) certainly.

Mrs. Hamhock stands up out of her sofa to go over to the piano to play some tunes for W.C. Squeals being totally conned by his nasty trick not doing about the money he's after. Mrs. Hamhock then starts to play the title song in the piano; In Your Service Madame with W.C. Squeals (Ted Pierce) doing the singing.

While he is singing the song; Piggy is seen upstairs probably because of the piano playing and stranger singing that caught his attention. W.C. Squeals is still singing but gets annoyed when he sees little Piggy walk into the scene which shows he won't be able to steal the cold-hard cash.

W.C. Squeals then tries to scoot little Piggy away; "roll away son; you're bothering me". He quickly unwinds the lock to get access to the safe (which Piggy saw with his eyes) as he attempts to scoot Piggy out of the way, "That's all son, that's all". He continues to try and scoot Piggy away while still singing At Your Service Madame shouting "Scram, lad, scram" and gets to the point of kicking Piggy out of the way. Piggy rolls away as he hits a table with a fishbowl falling on top of his head as a goldfish swims around his head. Piggy plops his head out of the fishbowl as he vows to get revenge on Squeals. Piggy finds that he has eaten the goldfish which gave me a shocked chuckle since I also didn't see that comin'.

Piggy continues to look at what Squeals is doing; which he is unwinding the lock for the safe. Piggy catches him opening the safe as he plans to stop him to save his mother. W.C. Squeals is stealing the money and placing them in his jacket without Mrs. Hamhock noticing since she's too busy playing the piano. Every time Mrs. Hamhock turns; W.C. quickly turns back acting all innocent.

Piggy has attracted a group of his sibling that are watching his shenanigans as Piggy whispers a plan to outsmart W.C. Squeals to get their mother's money back.W.C. continues to steal the money from the safe in which Piggy walks in as he's got an electric socket to place in his tail. Another piglet then turns on the lamp switch by the armchair which causes W.C. Squeals to be electrocuted as he turns to Piggy with a dirty look. Mrs. Hamhock gets the wrong idea as she tells off Piggy; "Piggy! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? You had better bringing up than that. Now you march right off to your bed! I haven't been so embarrassed in all my life!" Really, woman?

While Mrs. Hamhock is busy telling off Piggy as usual; the other piglets have set up the trap on W.C. Squeals. There are a group on top of a banister of the stairs with a hook attached to wire while the other group of kids in a different area of the lounge have the rope attached all the way to a laundry mangle.

The hook is being lowered as it's caught W.C. Squeals as he is high in the air. There is a brief bit of action going on as W.C. Squeals is being scraped by the stairs which follows him down the stairs and under the carpet as he spins around hitting the poles, and hitting all kinds of crazy shit. W.C. Squeals is already found himself in a good position already since he is caught on a lamp attached to the ceiling. There are piglets sliding down the rails of the stairs with a moose's head as they jab the moose on W.C. Squeals as he's sent flying.

W.C. Squeals has his snout caught on the wall as he is still attached to the rope. There is a little sequence going on where it shows the piglets are standing on top of a cupboard with dishes stored as they push W.C Squeals forward with W.C. Squeal's snout smacking the wall while the force of the rope pushes him backwards. This routine is repeated a few times.

I noticed how there was a little bit of perspective animation of the pig zooming towards the camera but it reminds me of a 3/4 angle shot - but not quite. W.C. Squeals then reaches for the window with the rope but is almost suffocated as a piglet closes the window to trap his neck. Blimey; now this is turning into physical violence where he could be choking? Doesn't that seem to be too much of a stretch there?

W.C. Squeals is still suffocating as he shouts "Say, what's the big idea?" and the piglets then grab out a type of machine that shakes with a slingshot that shakes; as they do that to W.C. Squeals' body and money falls out of his pocket so Mrs. Hamhock would finally know about his plan.

The shaking still continues until Squeals falls out as the window crashes. Mrs. Hamhock looks out the window as she pecks her piglets for getting rid of the fraud. W.C. Squeals walks off very shaky as he farewells her (although I don't fully understand it since it sounds like he's shaking in his speech. He then starts to walk down the path away from them - and I'd imagine the joke at the end was that he still thinks he has the money in his pockets which was part of the plan but he doesn't know that. Some pretty good animation of the shaking W.C. Squeals here.

When I listen to the 'That's All, Folks' ending in a Norman Spencer cartoon. He seems to have a trait where he would repeat a finale ending to the music over and over again in his cartoons.

Overall comments: Friz Freleng has performed a good cartoon here with character personality. Even the W.C. Squeaks character was a good take of W.C. Fields who was voiced by story man womaniser Ted Pierce; who in my opinion is pretty underrated when it comes to voices. Piggy showed some good personality of a "greedy piggy" but is of course the hero of the cartoon at the end. The cartoon consisted of character animation (mostly on the W.C. Fields character) as this was a pretty good try there; and it did the job. It's interesting to hear that Martha Sigall; an admired ink-and-painter veteran worked on this short where she would work and ink on all the Schlesinger cartoons until his retirement (if I'm not mistaken). This short was later followed by the sequel Pigs is Pigs which is an improvement to the cartoon; although the Hamhock family probably wouldn't be a great idea for recurring characters of the Warner Bros.cartoon franchise - but at least they were in good cartoons in their brief time.