Naughty Neighbors (Let's Not Du-et and Say We Did)

Yay! After weeks of interruptions, we finally found this week’s entry! Granted, it’s not one of the better Porky Pig cartoons of the era, but it is sweet and charming and has some good visual gags, so...enjoy?

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: Petunia Pig and Porky Pig declare peace between their respective families, the Martins and the McCoys, who have been violently feuding all this time, but when the feud starts up again, it’s up to Porky and Petunia to use peace through brute force (or a literal “love bomb”). It’s basically Romeo and Juliet filtered through the Hatfields and McCoys feud, and with a happy ending.

Fun Facts:

• This is the final appearance of Petunia Pig in the Golden Age era. Petunia would come back decades later in the DC Looney Tunes comics and 86 years later in 2025’s The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, now voiced by Candi Milo (with Porky voiced by Eric Bauza).

• The newspaper is dated June 18, 1942, which is two and a half years after this short’s release, yet reports on the sinking of the Titantic, which happened 30 years before the short’s release. That’s probably the weirdest newspaper since the one from “Tortoise Wins By a Hare” that was dated for 1942, but reported that Adolf Hitler committed suicide...which didn’t happen until 1945. Before there was “The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump would be U.S. President,” there was “Looney Tunes predicted Hitler would kill himself.”

• The newspaper also has a headline about animator John Carey’s birth. John Carey was born in 1915 and died in 1987 (Carey would have been 24 when “Naughty Neighbors” was theatrically released and 27 according to the 1942 newspaper), further asking what kind of timeline the newspaper editors think they’re in.

The Channel(s): Unnamed syndication, Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon), and WKBD in Detroit, Michigan (1989; as part of the Porky Pig and Friends compilation show)

Part(s) Edited: A rather innocuous part (but one that probably had to be cut due to time or to cover up the shoddy workmanship of the notoriously awful redrawn-colorized version): Porky and Petunia’s duet of “Would You Like to Take a Walk” (with modified lyrics) was shortened on the redrawn-colorized version and when it aired on Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon. How shortened? Well, the first part of it is gone, as you’ll see in the video comparison.

Over on WKBD in Detroit, the first 45 seconds of the short were cut for time reasons, though the video I found on YouTube showed that the cartoon was basically reduced to nothing after a long intro made by the station that feels familiar, like I may have seen it on a local affiliate in Pennsylvania as a kid.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The redrawn-colorized/Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon version’s cut is obvious, and kind of surprising, considering that the cartoon is actually safe to watch. The violence isn’t even that gruesome (it’s just the typical slapstick you get from Bob Clampett, though even that feels toned down for this), the kissing is G-rated, and there’s no racial/ethnic caricatures that makes modern audiences cringe in disgust. There is a slight World War II reference with the “non-aggression pact” leading to more violence, but that’s oblique enough that casual viewers aren’t going to understand it at first watch.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: To show just how unpopular this cartoon is (outside of occasionally airing on television), its physical media history shows it’s only been released twice: once on the 2001 Looney Tunes: The Collector’s Edition VHS (volume 12, dedicated to Porky and Daffy shorts). Sixteen years after that, “Naughty Neighbors” appeared on the Porky Pig 101 DVD set, where all black and white Porky Pig cartoons went to die (and this one has a music mistake where a loop of the “Porky's Tire Trouble” title card music plays over both the title card to this cartoon and the first few seconds up until the Martins and the McCoys start fighting).

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: However, something good did come from t-t-that: streaming gave it a better home and exposure. Boomerang’s streaming app had “Naughty Neighbors” from 2017 to 2024, while HBO Max (and its short-lived rebrand Max) had it from 2020 to 2025. And yes, it’s one of the Tubi 786 as of this writing.

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!