Wholly Smoke

Wholly Smoke
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Airdate:	27 August 1938
Series:	Looney Tunes
MPAA Number:	4485
Vitaphone Number:	8309
Runtime:	7 minutes, 17 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	22 August 1966
Starring:	Porky Pig
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc Tedd Pierce The Sing Band Paul Taylor Choristers (all uncredited)
Director:	Frank Tashlin
Written By:	George Manuell
Producer:	Leon Schlesinger
Animated By:	Robert Bentley Volney White (uncredited) Joe D'Igalo (uncredited) Robert McKimson (uncredited)
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl W. Stalling

Wholly Smoke is a 1938 Looney Tunes short directed by Frank Tashlin.

Title

The title is a play on the exclamation "holy smoke!"

Plot

A man at church is ringing the bell to signal the beginning of the service. At the house of Porky Pig, his mother is calling to him to come downstairs. A young Porky comes flying down the handrail of the stairs just stopping before crashing into a vase. His mother gives him a nickel for the collection plate at church, including a disclaimer about not spending the money on candy. Porky reassures his mother and leaves. Along the way, he runs into a bully standing alongside a wooden fence. The bully is practicing smoking tricks with a cigar when Porky arrives and chides him for smoking while underage. The bully then gets in Porky's face, sarcastically accusing him of being a tough guy. After a few moments of arguing, Porky offers a bet to prove he is not a wimp, the deal being the cigar for the nickel. Enticed by the proposition, the bully quickly gives up his cigar. Porky in turn tries to repeat the same set of tricks, with disastrous results.

Porky soon goes into a haze and stumbles into a smoke shop. An anthropomorphic cloud shrinks Porky in size and introduces himself as someone all smokers were well acquainted with, "Nick O'Teen". Nick offers Porky all the smoking he can handle. Suddenly, a wide variety of tobacco products and smoking devices comes to life to force feed Porky everything from chewing tobacco to cigarettes, all set to the song "Little Boys Shouldn't Smoke". At the culmination of the nightmare, Porky awakens and rushes to church. As he is sitting reading his hymnal, the collection plate starts coming towards him when he starts to panic. He races out of the church and grabs the nickel from the bully. He thrusts the cigar into the bully's mouth as it promptly explodes. He hurries back to church just in time to give his offering, and he promises never to smoke again.

Caricatures

• The Three Stooges
• Bing Crosby
• Rudy Vallee
• Cab Calloway

Availability

(2007) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, Disc Four (restored)

(2014) DVD
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3, Disc Two (restored)

(2014) Blu-ray
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3, Disc Two (restored)

(2017) DVD
Porky Pig 101, Disc 3 (restored)

Censorship

• The version of this cartoon that aired on Nickelodeon, the syndicated version of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends, and Cartoon Network was a colorized (redrawn on Cartoon Network; redrawn and computer-colorized on Nickelodeon and computer-colorized on The Merrie Melodies Show) version that had the following edits from the original black and white version:
  • The beginning of the "Little Boys Shouldn't Smoke Song" where four matchsticks strike themselves and burn out to form blackface (while singing in the style of The Mills Brothers) was cut on Nickelodeon and Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends. On Cartoon Network, the scene was recolored so the blackface would be red.
  • The part where a pipe cleaner sticks his head in a dirty pipe and comes out looking and singing like Cab Calloway was cut on Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends and Cartoon Network. The scene was left uncut in the early 1990s on Nickelodeon, but by the mid-to-late 1990s, it was edited out, though in the flashback after the "NO SMOKING" cigarette march, one can see the part that was cut on Nickelodeon (the newer, redrawn version on Cartoon Network replaces the Cab Calloway part during the montage with the Indian cigars scene that was cut when Cartoon Network aired the redrawn version of this cartoon).
  • The short shot of Porky tied to a post while a tribe of Indian pipes dance around him was cut on Cartoon Network (but left in on Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends and Nickelodeon).

Notes

• The song “Little Boys Shouldn’t Smoke” consists of the Mysterioso Pizzicato theme, as begun in Nick O’ Teen's introduction.
• This cartoon teaches the dangers about smoking.
• This is the last cartoon to use the 1937-1938 Looney Tunes intro.
• The cartoon shares a similar plot to the 1938 Happy Harmonies cartoon "Pipe Dreams" from MGM, as both involve normally good characters tempted to do something dangerous.
• Photography for this cartoon finished 29 July 1938.

Gallery

Lobby card