The Isle of Pingo Pongo

This article contains mature content and may not be suitable for all readers. This article particularly deals with content blacklisted from contemporary television for containing harmful, outdated racial stereotypes and/or imagery. This article is not censored, as to censor the article would be to pretend that these prejudices never existed. Please continue at your own risk.

The Isle of Pingo Pongo
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Airdate:	28 May 1938 Blue Ribbon reissue: 19 August 1944
Series:	Merrie Melodies
MPAA Number:	4189
Vitaphone Number:	8402
Copyright Renewed:	27 September 1965
Starring:	Elmer Fudd
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc Tex Avery Gil Warren The Jones Boys The Sons of the Pioneers Roy Rogers Harland C. Evans (all uncredited)
Director:	Fred Avery
Written By:	Geo Manuell
Producer:	Leon Schlesinger
Animated By:	Irven Spence Virgil Ross (uncredited) Paul Smith (uncredited) Sid Sutherland (uncredited)
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl W. Stalling

The Isle of Pingo Pongo is a 1938 Merrie Melodies short directed by Tex Avery.

Plot

A cruise ship's trip from New York starts departing to the island of Pingo-Pongo, presumably located in the South Seas. The ship sails past the Statue of Liberty, who acts as a traffic cop, past the "Canary Islands" and "Sandwich Islands," to the remote island. The inhabitants are mostly tall, black, and have big feet and lips. They at first play drums, then break into a jazz beat, still described as a "primitive savage rhythm".

Throughout the cartoon, Elmer Fudd shows up asking, “Now, boss?”, only to be told no. When he shows up again at the end, the narrator tells him that it’s finally time, and he shoots down the Sun.

Caricatures

• Tony Labriola - "Oh, yeah"
• Fats Waller
• The Mills Brothers

Notes

• This is the first cartoon to use the name Elmer Fudd, although it only uses "Elmer" on the lobby card. The first cartoon to use the name in the actual short subject is "A Feud There Was".
• This was the first of the Tex Avery spot gag cartoons.
• The short was banned from syndication in the United States by United Artists in 1968. Ten other Warner Bros. shorts were also banned, dubbing the banned collection the Censored Eleven. This ban has been upheld by the cartoon's successive owners, however, as The New York Times reports, unauthorized copies are relatively easy to find.
• Unusual for most releases from this era, the original credits show up while the Merrie Melodies theme is playing. Thus, there is no extended title cue to go along with the titles. Rather, the narrator says "Pingo Pongo, the pearl of the Oyster Island." After this, the cartoon begins. In the reissue, the first sentence is excised entirely.
• The Baby Bird crying out for his mother gag from this cartoon was later recycled in the record, Porky Pig in Africa.
• Additionally, the short was viewed with seven films part of the Censored Eleven at the TCM Film Festival in Hollywood on 24 April 2010 as part of a classic film series, presented by Donald Bogle. It is unknown if the original titles have been restored for the future DVD release. The release has yet to come, but Jerry Beck has said that transfers are done with a few extra banned films owned by WarnerMedia. However, around August 2016, Jerry Beck said that Warner Bros. was not going to release their Censored 11 DVD until their DVD market goes up in sales again.
• This is the final Warner Bros. cartoon to use the byline "RELEASED BY WARNER BROS. PRODUCTIONS CORP" in the ending titles. Also, this is the final Merrie Melodies of the 1937-38 season to use the early variant of the closing titles. A second variant was created to reflect the byline change of "RELEASED BY WARNER BROS. PICTURES INC".
• This cartoon was submitted for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 1938, but not nominated.

Gallery

Production cel with a production background from "Daffy Duck & Egghead"

Lobby card