Jeepers Creepers is a 1939 Looney Tunes short directed by Bob Clampett.
Title[]
The title is from the song (performed by the ghost) "Jeepers Creepers", from the Warner Bros. film Going Places.
Plot[]
One late evening at the Podunk City Jail, a report is sent out to the car Porky drives. So he goes to investigate the location. He is warned to be careful, as there may be some ghosts at the house.
At the location, a bunch of strange goings-on occur throughout the house. Inside, a bunch of noise is coming from the ghost listening to spooky radio show. He turns off the radio, then resumes smoking his cigar. He eats the smoke rings like donuts with his coffee. He sings for a moment and screams and makes noises all of the sudden before resuming.
He switches songs and quickly takes a bath, when he hears someone knocking. Quickly getting downstairs, the ghost sees Porky outside of the door. He imitates a woman and tells Porky to come in, then vanishes.
Porky sneaks around while trying to determine what may be going on and the ghost hides in a random room. He puts two frogs into a pair of shoes and puts them down to make it seem as if someone is following Porky. The shoes soon get stuck around a coat rack, and eventually a jacket or blanket gets draped over it, making it resemble a figure dressed in a pure black cloak. Behind Porky is the ghost creeping up on him. He bangs on a pot lid to scare him, then vanishes again as Porky turns to see the "figure" approach. As he opens the door, Porky finds the ghost and runs up multiple flights of steps and right into the ghosts arms.
Upon realizing this he quickly runs down all of the steps and out the door. The ghost chases Porky outside and Porky quickly drives his car. As the ghost acts as a hitch-hiker, Porky speeds on by, stopping for a moment to come back and hold up a sign saying "No riders". He speeds on by again as exhaust smoke from his car blows on the ghost.
Caricatures[]
- Pinto Colvig - the ghost's voice is based on his.
- Eddie "Rochester" Anderson - "My, oh my! Tattletale gray!"
Availability[]
Porky Pig 101, Disc 4
Censorship[]
- This cartoon was shown as a colorized version (either redrawn from the 1960s or computer-colorized in the 1990s) on syndicated airings on local TV channels, on Cartoon Network (American feed) compilation shows barring "The Bob Clampett Show" and Late Night Black and White (i.e., The Acme Hour, The Looney Tunes Show, and Bugs and Daffy), the FOX version of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends, and on Nickelodeon so the ghost would be opaque and yellow. The actual editing of the ending has been done in different ways:
- The syndicated showings of the redrawn version showed the actual ending, but had the ghost in a purple face.[2]
- On Nickelodeon, the cartoon used a fake iris-out to abruptly end the cartoon after Porky's car blows exhaust in the ghost's face.[2]
- On the FOX version of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends, the cartoon ends after Porky drives past the ghost, who is trying to hitchhike.[2]
- On Cartoon Network in America (save the versions shown on Late Night Black & White and The Bob Clampett Show), the cartoon ended with an abrupt black-out as Porky's car blows exhaust in the ghost's face.[2] International Cartoon Network channels have aired a computer-colorized version that leaves the ending intact, but does not colorize the blackface ghost (except for the tongue) and edited an earlier scene of the ghost smoking a cigar and using the smoke rings as donuts.
Notes[]
- The 1990 colorized version uses the 1937-39 Porky drum ending.
- This was one of the few black-and-white cartoons from the Sunset Productions/Guild Films package to air on Cartoon Network that still aired with a redrawn-colorized print regularly. Others included "Wholly Smoke", "Porky's Bear Facts", "Porky's Pooch", "Daffy's Southern Exposure", and "Puss n' Booty". In the cases of this short and "Wholly Smoke," it was because both cartoons had censorship involving characters in blackface and the redrawn versions either already had them edited or re-colored to be less offensive.
- The animation of Porky running up and down the stairs is reused from "The Case of the Stuttering Pig".
- Mel Blanc provided the voice for the ghost in this cartoon by imitating Pinto Colvig's Goofy voice.[3] This followed Colvig's temporary departure from Warner Bros. in 1939, having left to work for Fleischer Studios in Florida.[4]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 https://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-i-j
- ↑ Scott, Keith (20 September 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 1. BearManor Media. ISBN 979-8887710099.
- ↑ https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/schlesingers-exposure-sheet-1-2/