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!

Porky's Romance (Dog-Gone Love)

 

Director: Frank Tashlin (credited as “Frank Tash”)

Summary: In this, the debut of Porky Pig’s shallow love interest, Petunia Pig (who isn’t as nice and bland as later incarnations), and the final cartoon with Joe Dougherty as the voice of Porky (who was let go because Dougherty’s actual stutter was slowing down voice recording. It’s the opposite of what we have now, where producers will cast an actual stutterer because one who can fake a stutter is considered “ableist.” What a world!), Porky comes over to try and win Petunia’s hand in marriage, but it becomes clear that she only wants him because he bought chocolates and flowers. When Porky attempts suicide over being rejected and used, the hanging goes pear-shape and Porky sees what life would be like if he did marry Petunia.

The Channel(s): The WB

Part(s) Edited: Surprisingly, Porky’s botched suicide wasn’t cut, nor was Porky and Petunia going straight to the Honeymoon Hotel, kissing, and turning off the lights (the shorthand way of showing sex on a wedding night in Hays Code-censored movies. They probably still do it today, but only as a joke or if something is meant to be PG instead of PG-13 [which sadly seems to be as far as most creatives are willing to go. I want my R, NC-17, and unrated entertainment that’s not confined to HBO and premium cable. And maybe G-rated stuff, since that's not as common as it used to be]), Petunia feeding chocolates to her dog (which is extremely dangerous to do), or Petunia beating Porky with a rolling pin (classic female-on-male domestic abuse schtick. It’s a total double standard that “You Beat Your Wife” gets censored on The WB, but not that part).

Nah, fam. What got cut was the very end, where, after Petunia wakes Porky up from his suicide attempt and agrees to marry him after turning him down, Porky (thinking back to the nightmare where his blushing bride becomes a slovenly, unashamed housewife who feeds chocolate to her dog and nags Porky about the housework and childcare) decides, “Screw that!” and bolts, but not before coming back to retrieve the box of chocolate and give Petunia’s dog a well-deserved kick in the ass. The WB didn’t appreciate Porky kicking the dog, so it was cut.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: Nothing, except for the whole double standard about how “Wideo Wabbit”’s “You Beat Your Wife” part was censored, yet Petunia whaling on Porky with a rolling pin was uncut. That’s more a Tumblr argument and I was only into Tumblr to find like-minded people who want to be better fiction writers and thought Cartoon Network’s Time Squad (from 2001) was rife with homosexual innuendo and jokes more suited for Adult Swim rather than daytime Cartoon Network (which it is. Rob Paulsen’s podcast episodes with Mark Hamill and Pamela Segall-Adlon say so and co-creator Carlos Ramos [who has his own Tumblr filled with weird art and answers to fan questions] agrees).

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: 

The ending is abrupt, but not annoyingly so. Ending it with Porky running away after retrieving his chocolates (or even with Porky running off and leaving Petunia and the chocolates behind) is more believable story-wise, as it shows that Petunia only liked Porky because he had chocolates for her and the dream showed what would happen if Porky did marry Petunia and she continued her chocolate eating. Either taking the chocolates away from her or leaving her with them is a final “Screw you!” to her and everything she stands for when it comes to shy men (or anthropomorphic pigs) trying to pour their hearts out to high-maintenance women (or high-maintenance, anthropomorphic sows in this case, since a sow is a female pig, but that word can be used like “bitch” or “cow” to be a derogatory term for a woman, whether deserved or not) who just aren’t feeling it.

Availability Uncut: Your choice: The Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 3 DVD set (on the third disc with optional commentary by Mark Kausler) or the Porky Pig 101 DVD (disc 2). It, sadly, isn’t available for streaming or digital download (so, no HBO Max, no Warner MediaRIDE, no Amazon Prime Video, no iTunes, No Boomerang streaming, and definitely no Tubi) as of this writing.

‘Til next time…