A Star Is Hatched

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Porky's Phoney Express	Porky's Five & Ten

Airdate:
2 April 1938

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Vitaphone Number:
4051	8336

Copyright Renewed:

27 September 1965^[1]

Starring:

Emily the Chicken

Crew

Film Editor:

Treg Brown (unredited)

Musician:

Carl W. Stalling

A Star Is Hatched is a 1938 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.

Title[]

The title is a play on the 1937 film A Star Is Born.

Plot[]

Clem meets Emily the Chicken and gives her flowers, but Emily wants to be alone continuing to read the movie magazine. Emily then sees a "Megaphone" and runs out leaving Clem heartbroken. The man tells her to go to Hollywood if she wants to be in pictures and gave her his card. She then walks two thousand miles to Hollywood. On the way, are many caricatures of Hollywood stars for a minute and a half before reverting to Emily. Emily walks into a building but not too long before getting kicked out because the sign says, "DO NOT ENTER WHEN THE RED LIGHT IS ON!" There are acting rehearsals taking place for about two minutes before reverting to Emily who has found the waiting room for the "Megaphone" man. She noticed that it was filled with a lot of hens who had also received his same card. When he appeared Emily tries to get his attention but was buried within the other hen's trying to gain his attention. All entered with him to rehearse, with the door slamming on her. Emily starts to cry and decides to go back to Hickville. Eventually, she marries Clem and they have kids. Several years later, one of the chicks reads the magazine Emily read earlier in the cartoon, but the now wiser Emily slaps her when the chick says she wants to be an actress too.

Caricatures[]

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

This was Freleng's final cartoon in the 1930s for Warner Bros. due to his decision to work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's new series, The Captain and the Kids, for a higher salary. His unit would be temporarily taken over by Ben Hardaway, Cal Dalton, and Cal Howard until the aforementioned series was cancelled and Freleng returned to Warner Bros.
While this cartoon aired on the Turner networks in the 1990s as an a.a.p. print, the American dubbed version was released in 1997 on the fifth volume of The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, with the 1938-41 rendition of "Merrily We Roll Along" in place of the original. The European dubbed version, however, does not have this edit and keeps the original ending rendition. The restored print uses the soundtrack from the European Turner dubbed print.
The restored print has the rings extended to the end of the corners of the screen for the opening titles, but not the ending titles.
The Hollywood night lights in the title card were reused by Tex Avery for the title card of "Daffy Duck in Hollywood".
Reused animation from "Streamlined Greta Green" appears.
This was the final appearance of Emily. In the 1950s, Robert McKimson created a new character based on Emily, a widowed old hen named Miss Prissy. In fact, McKimson worked on animation for this short.
Emily's hick rooster boyfriend Clem from her debut cartoon "Let It Be Me" returns in this short, but with a drastically different appearance; as opposed to having black feathers as in his previous appearance, he has red feathers in this cartoon, as well as a more yokel-like appearance.
J. Megga Phone's three pairs of glasses are colored red, green, and blue, a reference to the three-strip Technicolor process used in this short.
This cartoon was shown in theaters with Over the Wall during its original release.
This film was copyrighted on 28 November 1937.^[4]
This cartoon gives an incite to what Hollywood is like and how its system works, giving those who would watch this and be dreaming of being a star a reality check to how cruel it can actually be.
This cartoon uses the song "Hooray for Hollywood", with one part of the lyrics changed from "Go out and try your luck, you might be Donald Duck" to "Go on and try your luck, you might be Daffy Duck", likely changed to avoid the mention of the Disney character. Coincidentally, the same thing happens in the short released after this one, "Porky's Five & Ten".