Gold Diggers of '49 is a 1935 Looney Tunes short directed by Fred Avery.
Title[]
The short's title alludes to the California Gold Rush as well as to the popular Busby Berkeley musicals Gold Diggers of 1933 and Gold Diggers of 1935, which were also released by Warner Bros.
Plot[]
In Ville at 1849, Beans is at the Red Gulch to mine for gold. Little Kitty tells her father, Porky Pig, about the discovery. Meanwhile, Beans is at the gulch, and finds gold that is dispensed from a slot-machine mountain. He tells the whole town, leading to several people to follow the cat to the gulch.
Taking Porky with him, Beans and several townsfolk settles out to find gold piece by piece. Porky finds a piece, and when he tries to find more, his hand reaches out from another side and picks out the same nugget that is in his pocket. Beans discovers a treasure chest, which has a book titled "How to Find Gold" with its only contents being "Dig for it".
Meanwhile, a villain spots an unattended pack of gold nuggets, which belonged to Beans and Porky. Beans trails after the villain in his car. As the two have a gun-slinging duel, Beans' car runs out of gas. He attempts to refill it with alcohol, which causes the car to haphazardly speed up, hitting the villain. Beans takes the gold right back, ejects the villain, and takes Porky back home. Porky rewards Beans with Little Kitty's hand in love, but Porky also reveals that he never found gold; the baggage only had his lunch - a giant sandwich.
Availability[]
Gold Diggers of 1935
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, Disc Four (restored)
Porky Pig 101, Disc 1 (restored)
Censorship[]
When this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon in its original black-and-white form (back when Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon was a Nick at Nite show and aired mostly black and white shorts), two scenes involving the Chinese laundrymen were cut:[5][6]
- The scenes with the Chinese laundrymen racing along with the other characters in search of gold (and digging for gold in the mine)
- The scene where the Chinese laundrymen are covered in the exhaust from Porky's car and do a blackface impression of Amos 'n Andy.
When the computer-colorized version of this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon (when Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon was put on the daytime slot and phased out its black and white shorts in favor of color shorts, often colorizing some of the black and white shorts they aired in the process), not only were all scenes with the Chinese laundrymen cut, but the sequence where Beans shoots at a villain, who shields himself with a metal tub, was also cut. Cartoon Network aired both the original black and white and the computer colorized versions of this short uncut.[5]
Goofs[]
- On the title card, when the title dissolves from the credits to Beans' face, the apostrophe in "Gold Diggers of '49" disappears.
Notes[]
- This is the first cartoon directed by Tex Avery for Warner Bros. Cartoons.
- This cartoon is the earliest cartoon that received a computer colorized version, which was completed in 1995.
- This is the first and only cartoon to have Porky talk in a deeper voice.
- The adult version of Porky used in this short was essentially recycled for Porky's poppa in later shorts such as "Porky the Rain-Maker" and "Milk and Money"; Porky appears in these as a small child.
- There is a deleted opening scene of this cartoon where it is revealed that the cartoon was made as a short film made by the students from "I Haven't Got a Hat".[7]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
- ↑ (3 October 2022) Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2 (in en). BearManor Media, page 39.
- ↑ https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/animation-profiles-cal-howard/
- ↑ https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2013/03/stereotypically-tex.html
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-g.aspx
- ↑ https://drawnandquarteredcartoons.blogspot.com/2024/11/golddiggers-of-49-of-mice-and.html
- ↑ The Bob Clampett Collection