Title: Porky's Hotel
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 9/02/39
Credits:
supervision
Robert Clampett
Animation
Norman McCabe - John Carey
Musical Direction
Carl W. Stalling
Series: Looney Tunes
Running time (of viewed version): 6:42
Synopsis: Porky has a hotel, where Mr Gouty stays and where young Gabby Duck makes a nuisance of himself.
Comments: Jaunty '30s tune for the hotel. The limo front stretches while moving, in contravention to Einstein's theory of relativity (no, that's just a joke; it would need to be traveling at near light speed for the compression). I assume a mechanized wheelchair was not an actual thing in 1939. The little duck Gabby looks a bunch like Donald (ironic, as there is a goat, named Mr. Gouty, and Gabby had been the name of Porky's goat co-star awhile before). There's a painting of John Smith about to be beheaded; was that a standard painting, or is that a gag? The cuckoo has the Squiggy voice. This is a cast thumping cartoon, as a Tweety, Sylvester and dog cartoon would eventually be. Modern Porky closing. The cartoon starts with an establishing shot of a town, followed by a sign. This is common Clampett practice. Porky gets ditched, but not as badly as sometimes. There's an Esquire-y painting in the background of the hotel lobby. Gabby looks more like Gandy Goose when he smacks his own bill.
The opening tune was a take-off on "Honeymoon Hotel" from one of the Busby Berkeley WB musicals. The point of the painting is to set up the closing gag; I don't think it's a depiction of a genuine painting. Gabby's refrain of "I Be-e-e-et-cha!" comes from radio's FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY.
ReplyDeleteThe closest i can find to the painitng is
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Pocahontas-saves-Smith-NE-Chromo-1870.jpeg
but the cartoon version lacks Pocahontas and the general crowd, has the axeman and teepees on the wrong side, and John Smith is flipped. I still say it has the feel of a specific reference.
Foster would re-use the "Donut Center" gag again 14 years later for the start of "Hare Trimmed". Warners really tried to push the idea of an annoying like character who wouldn't shut up, didn't they? (almost 10 freakin' years, from "I Wanna Be A Sailor" in 1937 all the way to "Hush My Mouse" in 1946). Vive Risto supposedly did the redesigned animation on Porky for the closing tag line that debuted in this cartoon and survived (supposedly and ironically) all the way through "Hush My Mouse" in 1946.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget the first time I saw "I Wanna Be A Sailor;" early one morning on TNT's Fun Zone. When "Gabby" (unnamed in the film) turned to us and said "Ain't I the talkin'est little guy?" I fell off the couch laughing. I can just imagine the reaction in a full theater, which probably explains why Schlesigner and WB kept trying that kind of character.
ReplyDeleteThe electric wheelchair generally wasn’t used until 1945 to aid WW2 veterans who were injured. It wasn’t mass produced until well after that.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that seemed like a prediction to me was the tilted flat panels that adorned the walls of the main lobby.
I know they weren’t TVs but they sure look like it.