Trap Happy Porky

Trap Happy Porky

Directed By: Charles M. Jones Produced By: Eddie Selzer (uncredited) Released: February 24, 1945 Series: Looney Tunes Story: Tedd Pierce Animation: Ken Harris Ben Washam (uncredited) Layouts: Backgrounds: Film Editor: Treg Brown (uncredited) Voiced By: Mel Blanc (uncredited) The Sportsmen Quartet (uncredited) Music: Carl W. Stalling Starring: Porky Pig Hubie and Bertie Claude Cat Hector the Bulldog Preceded By: The Unruly Hare Succeeded By: Life with Feathers

Trap Happy Porky is a 1945 Looney Tunes short directed by Charles M. Jones.

Plot

Porky is being disturbed by mice, which is causing him to lose sleep. He hires a cat in order to get rid of the mice, but things don't go as well as he planned - as the cat gets drunk and disturbs his sleep.

Availability

• (1986) VHS - Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Porky Pig Cartoon Festival Featuring "Nothing but the Tooth"
• (1988) VHS - Cartoon Moviestars: Porky Pig and Company
• (1992) LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 2, Side 10: Variations on a Theme
• (2012) Blu-ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (original opening and closing titles restored)

Trivia

• This is the second appearance of Hubie and Bertie, and their first appearance in the Looney Tunes series. In this cartoon, however, they are depicted as unnamed generic mice, indistinguishable except for fur color. None of them talk in this cartoon, except for one line said by one of them in one scene; "I'm only 3-and-a-1/2 years old". They only appear in the first half of this cartoon.
• This is the only cartoon with Hubie and Bertie paired with Porky Pig. This is also the only cartoon where Claude Cat is Porky's pet cat, and the only cartoon where all four aforementioned characters appear together.
• Unusually in this cartoon, Claude Cat is depicted as a smart and resourceful feline as opposed to the dimwitted and neurotic feline he was in other appearances, and both Hubie and Bertie lose to Claude Cat.
• The Rube Goldberg-esque contraption would be seen again in the 1947 Sylvester and Tweety cartoon "Tweetie Pie", where Sylvester uses it to catch Tweety, except that the bait used in bird seed instead of cheese, and unlike the contraption depicted in this cartoon which is successful, the contraption seen in "Tweetie Pie" fails as it injures Sylvester instead (coincidentally both Trap Happy Porky and "Tweetie Pie" were written by Tedd Pierce).
• The mouse that robs the trap Porky sets out quotes Baby Snooks' line, "I'm only three-and-a-half years old". However, as house mice are adults at an age of fifty days and have a short lifespan of two to three years, a three-and-a-half-year-old mouse would be a geriatric case.
• The Italian dub is lost.
• The copyright was renewed on 1972.
• The original print (with original titles) is copyrighted MCMXLV (1945), while reissue print is copyrighted MCMXLIV (1944).

Censorship

• The opening shot, of the sign stating "Uncle Tom's Cabins: Boarders Taken (For All They've Got!)" is cut on Cartoon Network, Boomerang and The WB!^[1], although it has aired uncut on overseas Cartoon Network and Boomerang channels and at least one showing of this short on Cartoon Network's Looney Tunes compilation show in the United States has aired this cartoon with the "Uncle Tom's Cabins: Boarders Taken (For All They've Got!)" establishing shot intact in 2009. It is unknown whether this was a mistake or intentional.
• The version on the former WB network also edits the part where the cats drunkenly sing "Moonlight Bay" to remove all of them pausing in the middle of the song to down some more cider.^[1]

Gallery

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References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} The Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Guide: T http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-t.aspx