One Meat Brawl is a 1947 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert McKimson.
Title[]
The title is a parody of the 1944 song "One Meatball", even though the plot has nothing to do with meatballs.
Plot[]
In the forest, a burrow is inhabited by a groundhog named Grover. Today is Groundhog's Day, and Grover Groundhog is ready to make his appearance. He turns on the radio, positions his lamp and sings his song. Then his shadow does its acrobatics act and Grover applauds. That when the radio announcer talks about Groundhog's Day and everybody gathering around for the appearance of Grover Groundhog. Grover steps out, happy to meet his "fans", only to find that his "fans" are really hunters, and the "cameras" are really rifles. This was around the time of meat shortage and high priced meats even though most wartime rationing on food has ended following the end of World War II; Grover even exclaims that this meat shortage is tough on the animals.
Porky Pig and his dog Mandrake have different plans for Grover. Porky wants Grover to complete his stuffed animal collection. Mandrake wastes no time in finding Grover even after a tiny mishap of bringing back a shoe. Grover scares Mandrake, Mandrake identifies him and Grover did a little Take or Leave It act. The chase is on but before Mandrake could catch him, Grover shames the dog and tells him a sad story, which the groundhog admits to the audience "Dogs are suckers for sob stories".
Porky shows up but before he could shoot Grover, Mandrake stops him and growls at him. Grover even whacks Porky on the knees with a plank. Porky quickly snaps him out of it and puts earmuffs on Mandrake so that he wouldn't let Grover trick him again. But Grover is one step ahead of them and wires the earmuffs to a microphone and continues to tell the sad story. Porky again relents but not before Grover escapes. Now Porky starts to shame Mandrake and Mandrake does a suicide attempt by pointing a gun against his head. Turns out, that gun is a harmless water pistol. Porky then gives Mandrake one more chance and send him off again.
Grover sees Mandrake coming and sets up a "Free Food" display, with him and a bone as the choices. It took Mandrake a few seconds to make a choice but he eventually makes it. Porky shows up and gets knocked out hearing Mandrake eating something. Porky realizes that Mandrake ate the groundhog, shames him again and starts to tell that same sad story with Grover whispering it to Porky's ear, even crying over the groundhog's sad story. But Mandrake spots the truth and shows Porky the groundhog. Grover escapes again, but not before saying "I'm only 3½ years old." Porky corners Grover in a pail, but somehow the bullets missed him entirely. Grover then runs back to his home and his two advisories are right behind him although Mandrake briefly blocks Porky's entrance but Porky pushes him to the side, goes in and Mandrake follows.
Then a big fight ensues, but it is really their shadows doing the fighting. Porky explains that shadow boxing is to make sure nobody gets hurt.
Caricatures[]
- Walter Winchell
- Billy Gray - "I'm only 3½ years old."
Availability[]
Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Porky Pig and Daffy Duck Cartoon Festival Featuring "Tick Tock Tuckered"
Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Porky Pig Cartoon Festival Featuring "Tom Turk and Daffy"
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 2, Side 6: McKimson & Davis
Looney Tunes Super Stars' Porky & Friends: Hilarious Ham (USA 1995 Turner print)
Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature Vol. 2, Disc 3
Looney Tunes Collector's Choice: Volume 2 (restored)
Streaming[]
Production[]
- The working title was "Grover Groundhog".[2]
- On 17 March 1945, the first recording session occurred with Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg.
- On 31 March, another recoding session occurred, but only with Stan Freberg to record the Walter Winchell voice emitting from Grover Groundhog's radio. The dialogue recording for "Roughly Squeaking" occurred on the same day.
- In the middle of production, Bob Clampett left Warner Bros. Cartoons, and Art Davis took his place after leaving McKimson's unit. Because of this transition between the two units, nine artists are credited on the animator draft sheet, more than usual for McKimson's crew. Some animators only worked on one shot or scene.
- One particular scene that was affected by Art Davis being promoted to director's chair was the song Grover sings at the start. The scene starts with Davis animating but halfway through, Rod Scribner takes over.
- On 29 June 1946, another recording session occurred, but only with Mel Blanc for unknown dialogue. By that time, the title had been finalized.
- On 6 July 1946, another recording session was held for the musical score, with arranger Milt Franklyn in attendance.
- At some point in production, the cartoon's production number was changed from MM-10-15 (the tenth Merrie Melodies of the fifteenth season) to 1015 (dropping the hyphen and two letters), making it the first cartoon to use the new 4-digit production number system. From then on, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons were unified under one production number system.
- The cartoon was finally released in January 1947, two years after the story was finalized.
Notes[]
- Grover Groundhog's personality is similar to that of Bugs Bunny, and the entire cartoon's scenario in general plays out like a typical Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd cartoon, with Porky Pig in Elmer's role, Grover Groundhog in Bugs' role, and Mandrake (Barnyard Dawg) in a role similar to Elmer's hunting dogs.
- At one point in this cartoon, Porky considers trading in Mandrake for a cat due to being fed-up with the former's incompetence at hunting Grover Groundhog. This is in stark contrast to several other Porky shorts that came out before and after this cartoon where Porky experiences cat trouble with his pet cats, such as in "Trap Happy Porky", "Kitty Kornered", "Scaredy Cat", "Claws for Alarm" and "Jumpin' Jupiter".
- This cartoon marks Barnyard Dawg's first appearance outside a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. He would reappear in three more non-Foghorn cartoons after this: "Daffy Duck Hunt" (1949), once again as Porky's dimwitted hunting dog, "Don't Axe Me" (1958), once again facing off Daffy Duck, albeit with Elmer Fudd as his owner, and "Gopher Broke" (1958), where he faces off the Goofy Gophers.
- A brief snippet of the a.a.p. intro music can be heard on early copies of the USA dubbed version, which air on Cartoon Network. In later copies of the USA dubbed version (much like the one on the Looney Tunes Super Stars' Porky & Friends: Hilarious Ham DVD), as well as the EU dubbed version, the a.a.p. intro music is cleanly omitted from the soundtrack, and the short plays as normal. This means that an old a.a.p. print was used as the footage source for the short's "dubbed version", since back in 1994 Turner did not have access to the short's original negatives, which were stored in the WB vaults, and had to rely on what was available at the time.
- The European dubbed print has red borders while the American dubbed print has no borders.[3]
- It is the most recent Barnyard Dawg cartoon to be restored; as of 2021, all of his cartoons have now been restored.
Music-Cues[]
- "Chittlin' Switch" (by Barbara Belle, Anita Leonard, and Lucky Millinder)
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyrig3281213li/page/85/mode/1up
- ↑ https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/grover-groundhog-in-one-meat-brawl-1947/
- ↑ https://yadi.sk/d/5OoeshdnfwQGF/WB%20-%20Merrie%20Melodies%20-%201947-01-18%20-%20One%20Meat%20Brawl.m2p
- ↑ https://www.patreon.com/posts/whats-score-81644429
- ↑ https://books.google.com/books/about/Tunes_for_Toons.html?id=Rz2WJ_-NxsAC