Summary: In this spoof of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Porky is the titular Pied Piper, who uses his pied pipe (which looks like a rough version of a clarinet and a flute) to rid the town of Hamelin of all the mice. However, there is one rogue mouse (one with a rough, African-American-coded sounding voice, in the same vein as Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) that he is unable to catch. After piping and actual mousetraps fail, Pied Piper Porky tries an old-fashioned mouse trap (what others would call "a cat"), and the rest of the short is cat-and-mouse antics.
Fun Facts:
- This cartoon should not be confused with the 1949 Robert McKimson short, “Paying the Piper,” which was also about Porky Pig being The Pied Piper of Hamelin, but it also included a group of outraged cats who feel Pied Piper Porky stole their jobs in ridding the town of mice and their leader (a tuxedo cat known as “The Supreem Cat”) dresses up as an overgrown mouse and tricks the mayor into thinking Porky didn’t catch all the mice in town.
- John Carey also did animation work for “Paying the Piper,” making me think either he likes spoofs of that story, he wanted to work on a better version of “Pied Piper Porky,” or it’s just a coincidence that he worked on two cartoons that had Porky Pig as The Pied Piper of Hamelin (try saying all of that five times fast).
Yeah, that’s about it for the “Fun Facts” this go-around. And Letterboxd hasn’t given me anything good for “Letterboxd Says the Darndest Things” (they have for the next Porky cartoon that was censored on TV and directed by Bob Clampett, “The Film Fan,” but not this). So, let’s move to the meat and potatoes:
The Channel(s): Cartoon Network (barring The Bob Clampett Show) and (I’m assuming) Boomerang (since Boomerang is a spinoff channel and anything Cartoon Network aired, Boomerang did too)
Part(s) Edited: Hurray! This may be the first time I report on an audio edit since “Bosko’s Picture Show”’s “The dirty fuck”/“The dirty cur” line. However, this one wasn’t a Nickelodeon cut (it could have been). Cartoon Network’s (and Boomerang’s) version (not counting when it was on The Bob Clampett Show) muted the Eddie Anderson-sounding mouse saying “Boss” in his line, “This thing’s no good, boss. Fulla holes!” (referring to the horn/clarinet Porky used on him to make him nearly go into the mousetrap), so now the line goes, “This thing’s no good [muted audio]. Fulla holes!”
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The ground gears are more questions about the edit that reveal how nonsensical the decision to edit the part is:
- If the word “boss” was a problem because of the Eddie Anderson-voiced mouse, why didn’t they just redub the voice of the mouse? Cartoon Network has done it before with Mammy Two Shoes (the black housemaid on the Tom and Jerry shorts), though editing Mammy Two Shoes’ voice also happened on TBS, TNT, and some unnamed syndicated versions from the 1960s (the latter of which had a white woman [June Foray] voicing a black character in “Dog Trouble” and another short [“Saturday Evening Puss”] where Mammy Two Shoes is redrawn/reanimated as a white teenage girl [a tasteful 1960s version. Pretty sure the 1970s and the coming of MTV warped adolescence irrevocably], both editing measures of which wouldn’t be considered “politically correct” today).
- Cartoon Network has aired “The Mouse That Jack Built,” which also had a mouse who looked and sounded like Eddie Anderson’s Rochester character from The Jack Benny Show, with no cuts to “boss” or the Rochester mouse’s voice.
- Why didn’t Nickelodeon think to edit it too, considering that they also do audio edits and edit for outdated racially insensitive stereotypes and caricatures? Maybe they figured people wouldn’t understand the reference? But what about the Amos ‘n Andy reference from “I Got to Sing a Torch Song”? Yeah, I don’t have an answer to that.
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: Just like “Naughty Neighbors,” we have another disappointing physical media turn-out. “Pied Piper Porky” was first available on the 1994 laser disc, Wince Upon a Time: Foolhardy Fairy Tales and Looney Legends (this release also had “Paying the Piper” on it, so you can compare and contrast the two shorts...or pick one over the other). 23 years later (2017), “Pied Piper Porky” was released as part of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set and has been there ever since (as of this writing). Compare with “Paying the Piper,” which was released on DVD in 2007 (13 years after appearing on Wince Upon a Time...) as part of both the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set and the fifth volume of its less expensive, family-friendly counterpart, The Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection. “Paying the Piper”’s most recent DVD release was in 2014 (seven years after its first DVD release and twenty years after its release on laser disc), where it was part of the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, volumes four and five repack.
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: The streaming front looks a bit better...at least to “Pied Piper Porky.” This short was on Boomerang’s streaming app from 2017 to 2024, and it was included on HBO Max (and Max) from 2020 to 2025. Meanwhile, “Paying the Piper” was also on HBO Max, but it was on the Latin American/Brazilian feed (why? I don’t know. There was nothing offensive about it). In the end, both “Pied Piper Porky” and “Paying the Piper” can be found uncut, uncensored (though “Paying the Piper” was never edited for anything), and restored/remastered on Tubi as of this writing.
‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!
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