Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)
Summary: In the days when most of the United States was “Indian Territory” (a disporportionate part, if the map in the cartoon is indicative of anything), Porky sets off on a wagon train expedition from New York to the territory that would later become California, where he and his horse run afoul of Injun Joe and a strange, bearded man who knows something about Injun Joe that others don’t.
Fun Facts:
- This has a color remake called “Wagon Heels” that was released in 1945. That one I remember seeing more as a kid. How? Well, late 1980s/early 1990s TBS and TNT did air some cartoons that had racially insensitive content (mostly stereotypes of Native Americans, though, as I mentioned before, there was one instance of “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” airing in the early 1990s).
- There’s another WB cartoon called “Injun Trouble” that also rarely, if ever, gets aired much because of outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes. The second “Injun Trouble” is a late 1960s Cool Cat cartoon (1969, to be exact) that really shows just how far the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies have fallen in quality. It’s considered one of the rarest WB shorts ever and is the last new Golden Age short released in theaters.
- This is one of the many non-Censored Eleven/non-Bugs Bunny 12 cartoons that doesn’t air much because of Native American stereotypes, even though “Wagon Heels” had more airtime (both on and off Cartoon Network). “Injun Trouble” isn’t even included on The Bob Clampett Show (the early 2000s Cartoon Network show celebrating Bob Clampett’s works when he worked at Termite Terrace and when he went on to do Beany and Cecil), but it was shown on...
The Channel(s): ...Cartoon Network (Late Night Black and White)
Part(s) Edited: A rather inexplicable cut. When Injun Joe is chasing Porky with an axe, a brief part where Injun Joe is chasing Porky up one side of a tree is cut, though the rest of the scene where he chases Porky down the other side and creates a wooden replica of The Statue of Liberty wasn’t cut.
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: It doesn’t “grind my gears,” but it does make me ask questions, like, “What was the point of cutting this?”, “Shouldn’t the whole scene be cut if a Cartoon Network censor had a problem with a Native American creating The Statue of Liberty out of a tree?”, “Who would think that scene was problematic in the first place?”, and “Why am I bothering? I should be used to the poor decisions and inexplicable reasons behind American censorship by now.”
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: For obvious reasons, it didn’t/doesn’t air much on TV (not even when Cartoon Network had The Bob Clampett Show, as mentioned in “Fun Facts”). It does, however, have a DVD release: 2017’s Porky Pig 101 DVD set…and that’s probably where it’ll stay until someone gets the courage to remaster it to Blu-ray.
For comparison, Wagon Heels had more home media releases: it was on two Viddy-Oh! For Kids VHSes, one Cartoon Moviestar VHS, The Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc set (volume 3, side 9: “Porky and Daffy”), volume 5 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set, the “Porky Pig and Friends: Hilarious Ham” volume of the Looney Tunes Super Stars DVD collection (as well as its repackaged reissue Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature Vol. 2), and is a bonus cartoon for the DVD version of the Western movie San Antonio, starring Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith.
Is/Was It Available on Streaming?: Never was and (most likely) never will be, not even on Tubi. This also applies to “Wagon Heels.”
Rather than a “‘Til next time” ending, I’d like to close out today’s blog with an installment of “Animator Breakdown,” a recurring segment on the website “Cartoon Research” in which Devon Baxter identifies which animator animated which scene in classic cartoons (mostly Warner Bros., but he’s done different studios). Today’s installment, of course, is a look at not just who animated the individual scenes on “Injun Trouble” (1938 edition) and “Wagon Heels.”
