Because Thanksgiving (United States version. I know Canada had their version in October and other countries don’t celebrate the holiday) is right around the corner, I decided to jump ahead and do a “Drawn and Quartered” installment for “Pilgrim Porky,” which came out in 1940 (I finished the 1938 cartoons and will start on 1939 after this, my report on “Holiday for Drumsticks,” and my report on “Patient Porky,” which is more-or-less a sequel to “The Daffy Doc”). Please enjoy, have a safe and happy holiday (assuming you celebrate it), and try not to fill up too much on turkey. Tryptophan knock-out is real.
Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)
Summary: We see our porcine protagonist set sail from England to Plymouth Rock on the coast of Massachusetts in this historical parody of The Pilgrims leaving their native land for America. Plenty of visual gags and a running gag about a cook finding a big enough fish for the crew abound.
Fun Facts:
- The short has a gorgeous computer-colorized version that’s been under copyright since 1995.
- This did air on television, despite being one of many Warner Bros shorts that isn’t shown much on television or home media due to outdated racial stereotypes. If it didn’t, then I wouldn’t have it on my list, much less push it ahead so that way I can publish its Censorship Report on Thanksgiving (U.S. version).
- In yet another connection between Bob Clampett and Disney Studios (particularly the 1937 animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), the narrator (voiced by Robert C. Bruce, who mostly played narrators of the WB and MGM Studio spot gag/newsreel parody shorts) says, “Heave-o, heave-o/It’s off to sea we go!” when Porky and the other Pilgrims set sail. No points on what that’s referencing, though you can click the link here if you truly and honestly don’t know.
The Channel(s): Nickelodeon
Part(s) Edited: All three scenes of the ship’s cook (meant to be a caricature of a black man, judging by the Eddie “Rochester” Anderson vocal impression Mel Blanc used and how much he looks like the elevator operator from “Patient Porky,” which I covered previously) were cut: when we first meet him and he dives in to get a fish; when we see him again, getting a medium-sized fish, only to be told by the narrator that it’s not big enough, and the end where a big fish swallows him.
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Since the cartoon is a pretty light affair, I don’t think the edits hurt the cartoon much…outside of the abrupt ending after the Native Americans meet Pilgrim Porky and his crew. For those asking, “Why didn’t Nickelodeon cut the appearance of the Native Americans?”, the answer is quite simple: it would have ruined the continuity. I’m so sure this is one of those cases where Nickelodeon had to leave in the Native American stereotypes because they were germane to the story, whereas the black chef looking for fish in the ocean was 86’d for not being germane to the plot (what little it had of it. It was mostly a Tex Avery-style spot gag short, only Bob Clampett directed it).
Video Comparison: I’m doing something special this go-around. Instead of my compare/contrast videos, I decided to take the short in question and do a full re-enactment of what it was like as an “edited-for-TV” version. I did use to do this with the Bosko shorts, but that was a long time ago (I am still planning on re-creating the videos and putting them in a library for people to view instead of having to sit through my gassing on about the cartoons in question):
Availability Uncut: This has been released on home media. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. If you want to (legally) see how beautiful it is in color, then you can find it on the DVD release of the movie The Fighting 69th (which has a Looney Tunes parody title: “The Fighting 69-1/2th,” a one-shot Friz Freleng cartoon that shows red ants and black ants going to war over an abandoned picnic lunch. That does have a Censorship Report attached to it, but I won’t get to it until later, as that came out in 1941 and is also included in the DVD version of The Fighting 69th), starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, and George Brent. If you want to see “Pilgrim Porky” in glorious black and white, then I recommend either the fifth volume and fourth disc of The Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set or the fourth disc of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set. No Blu-ray releases as of yet. It wasn’t released for reel-to-reel projector, and it wasn’t available on any official or unofficial VHS, Beta, or laser disc sets.
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Nope. No Amazon Prime Video, no HBO Max (or just plain “Max”) [both in the United States and Latin America/Brazil], no iTunes, no Boomerang app, and definitely no Tubi. As I mentioned in “Fun Facts,” this was rarely shown due to racial and ethnic stereotyping, even though most of the focus is on the stereotypically black ship chef and not the Native Americans Porky meets (at least when it comes to Nickelodeon censorship).
‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.
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