{ "id": "ep8b79j82a", "slug": "porky-in-wackyland", "title": "Porky in Wackyland", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts", "label": "Animated and short films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.short-films-individual", "label": "Individual short films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.short-films-individual" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Animated and short films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts", "label": "Animated and short films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Porky in Wackyland (1938) is a Bob Clampett Looney Tunes short in which Porky Pig hunts the last Do-Do bird in surreal Darkest Africa; noted for its surrealism, Mel Blanc voices, Carl Stalling score, 1949 color remake, and 2000 National Film Registry induction.", "snippet": "Porky in Wackyland (1938) is a Bob Clampett Looney Tunes short in which Porky Pig hunts the last Do-Do bird in surreal Darkest Africa; noted for its surrealism, Mel Blanc voices, Carl Stalling score, 1949 color remake, and 2000 National Film Registry induction.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.short-films-individual", "markdown": "# Porky in Wackyland\n\n*Porky in Wackyland* is a 1938 Warner Bros. *Looney Tunes* animated short directed by Bob Clampett, in which [Porky Pig](https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-pig) flies to Darkest Africa to hunt the last surviving Do-Do bird through a landscape that defies logic and the laws of nature.[1](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=1366) • [2](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/) Produced at Leon Schlesinger Productions and released on September 24, 1938, it is widely regarded as Clampett's defining film and was inducted into the [National Film Registry](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-film-registry) in 2000.[1](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=1366) • [3](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | September 24, 1938, as Looney Tunes no. 8608, Warner Bros. / Leon Schlesinger Productions[1](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=1366) • [4](https://lamadraza.ugr.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Cuaderno_abril2019_WARNER.pdf) |\n| Director / writer | Robert Emerson \"Bob\" Clampett; story by Warren Foster[1](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=1366) • [5](https://cinegraph.org/movies/porky-in-wackyland-1938) |\n| Voices | Mel Blanc as Porky Pig, the Do-Do, and various Wackyland citizens; Billy Bletcher as the Roaring Goon[6](https://eofftv.com/porky-in-wackyland-1938/) • [5](https://cinegraph.org/movies/porky-in-wackyland-1938) |\n| Music | Carl W. Stalling, musical director[1](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=1366) |\n| Length | About 7 minutes (7:23)[5](https://cinegraph.org/movies/porky-in-wackyland-1938) • [7](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2025/04/nfr-project-porky-in-wackyland-1938.html) |\n| Remake | *Dough for the Do-Do* (1949), in color, directed by Friz Freleng[8](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2013/02/18/dough-for-the-do-do/) |\n| Recognition | National Film Registry, Library of Congress, 2000[3](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nA newspaper vendor opens the film by breaking the fourth wall, stepping in front of the title card to announce that Porky is off on a do-do hunt. The headline offers a reward for the rare bird, which MUBI's synopsis puts at four sextillion dollars.[7](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2025/04/nfr-project-porky-in-wackyland-1938.html) • [9](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/porky-in-wackyland) The front-page photograph comes to life, and Porky flies east through Dark Africa, Darker Africa, and Darkest Africa into territory marked with a question mark, landing in Wackyland under a sign declaring \"It CAN happen here!\"[7](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2025/04/nfr-project-porky-in-wackyland-1938.html) • [2](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/)\n\nThe inhabitants Porky meets include a peacock with playing cards for tail feathers, a cross-eyed rabbit swinging on his own ears as they hang in empty air, a duck with enormous lips imitating [Al Jolson](https://www.edgepedia.org/al-jolson), a creature with a honking horn for a body, and a hybrid animal with a cat at one end and a dog at the other that attacks itself.[10](https://looneyblog.beehiiv.com/p/porky-wackyland) • [2](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/) A three-headed creature talking nonsense is a caricature of the Three Stooges, with [Moe Howard](https://www.edgepedia.org/moe-howard), \"Curly\" Jerome Howard, and [Larry Fine](https://www.edgepedia.org/larry-fine).[11](https://threestooges.net/filmography/view_tribute/4)\n\nThe Do-Do Bird, an oblong, pointy-headed, tufted loony bird, outwits Porky at every turn: it pulls a giant brick wall out of nothing, sits behind a window floating in empty space, draws a door in midair and slams it in Porky's face, and even appears on the Warner Bros. shield when the logo rises from the horizon, using it to knock Porky down.[2](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/) • [12](https://alexanderstorey.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/cartoon-reviews-porky-in-wackyland/) Porky finally captures the bird by disguising himself as a paperboy and announcing that the Do-Do has been caught, but a hundred more Do-Do birds then appear from nowhere.[12](https://alexanderstorey.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/cartoon-reviews-porky-in-wackyland/)\n\n## Surrealism and style\n\n**Anti-realism** governs the film from the first shot, when the newspaper boy enters the title card, and intensifies once Porky reaches Wackyland. The reviewer at Dr. Grob's Animation Review calls it the most surreal cartoon since [Max Fleischer](https://www.edgepedia.org/max-fleischer)'s *Snow-White* (1933), noting background paintings that recall the comic-strip artists George Herriman and Cliff Sterrett, including one scene with three simultaneous moons, and others that are completely abstract.[2](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/) Carl Stalling's score and a multitude of strange sounds and voices heighten the effect; a scholarly essay on music in Termite Terrace cartoons argues that such accompaniment was critical to the surrealist suggestion because of the way music can move a listener from the waking state into the dream state.[13](https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/146381075-Andres-Lombana-The-New-Sounds-of-the-Slap-of-the-Stick-Termite-Terrace-1937-1943-and-the-Slapstick-Tradition.pdf)\n\nThe film's place in art history has been examined formally. In the *Journal of Surrealism and the Americas*, Jorgelina Orfila, an art historian at [Texas Tech University](https://www.edgepedia.org/texas-tech-university), and Francisco Ortega Grimaldo argue that *Porky in Wackyland* should be considered a surrealist animation, situating it in the 1930s American reception of [Surrealism](https://www.edgepedia.org/surrealism) that began with the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art)'s \"Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism\" exhibition of 1936–37.[14](https://www.jsa-asu.org/index.php/JSA/article/view/13) Reviewers have also read the cartoon through Lewis Carroll, pointing to the mushroom field, Porky sliding down a hatch in place of a rabbit hole, and a character mixing the Mad Hatter and the March Hare.[15](https://letterboxd.com/cineanalyst/film/porky-in-wackyland/)\n\n## Place in Clampett's career and the Warner style\n\nClampett (1913–1984) had joined what became the Warner cartoon studio in 1931 and, working under [Tex Avery](https://www.edgepedia.org/tex-avery) from 1935 in the back-lot bungalow nicknamed Termite Terrace, helped forge the wild, irreverent humor that became the Warner style.[16](https://clampettstudio.com/pages/bob-clampett) From 1935, Avery, Frank Tashlin, and Clampett had experimented with natural-law-defying, dimension-breaking scenes; in *Porky in Wackyland* those experiments are, in one reviewer's phrase, unleashed full throttle.[2](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/) The film is the best known of eight 1938–39 Porky shorts that the scholar Rajko Petković singles out as representatives of Clampett's emerging deranged, zany world, and he calls it Clampett's seminal film of that period.[17](https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/395505) The Do-Do itself behaves, in one account of Termite Terrace's style, in a truly crazy, lunatic, carnival-grotesque way, in the lineage of the anarchic \"anti-prey\" characters begun with [Daffy Duck](https://www.edgepedia.org/daffy-duck) in 1937.[13](https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/146381075-Andres-Lombana-The-New-Sounds-of-the-Slap-of-the-Stick-Termite-Terrace-1937-1943-and-the-Slapstick-Tradition.pdf)\n\n## Remake and legacy\n\nIn 1949 [Friz Freleng](https://www.edgepedia.org/friz-freleng) remade the cartoon in color as *Dough for the Do-Do*, reanimating Porky throughout, dropping some scenes, and replacing the original's loosely defined, Herriman-like backgrounds with settings inspired by [Salvador Dalí](https://www.edgepedia.org/salvador-dali), complete with Dalí-style rocks, sticks, eyes, and melted watches on the title card.[8](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2013/02/18/dough-for-the-do-do/) By the late 1940s this kind of wild surrealism had largely toned down at Warner Bros. in favor of character humor and dialogue, and the remake reads as more old-fashioned than the 1938 original.[8](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2013/02/18/dough-for-the-do-do/)\n\nThe Library of Congress selected *Porky in Wackyland* for the National Film Registry in 2000 as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and it appears in the book *100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons*.[3](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/) • [10](https://looneyblog.beehiiv.com/p/porky-wackyland) [Television](https://www.edgepedia.org/television) prints distributed by Guild Films and Sunset Productions in the 1950s cut the gag in which the Do-Do pops onto the Warner Bros. shield and hits Porky with a slingshot rock, because Warner Bros. did not want to be associated with television when the cartoon was sold for broadcast in 1955.[18](https://warnerbros.fandom.com/wiki/Porky_in_Wackyland)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Porky in Wackyland (1938), The Internet Animation Database](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=1366)\n2. [Porky in Wackyland, Dr. Grob's Animation Review (2018)](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2018/01/17/porky-in-wackyland/)\n3. [Complete National Film Registry Listing, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/)\n4. [Cuaderno abril 2019: Warner (title card, Looney Tunes no. 8608)](https://lamadraza.ugr.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Cuaderno_abril2019_WARNER.pdf)\n5. [Porky in Wackyland, Cinegraph](https://cinegraph.org/movies/porky-in-wackyland-1938)\n6. [Porky in Wackyland (1938), EOFFTV](https://eofftv.com/porky-in-wackyland-1938/)\n7. [NFR Project: 'Porky in Wackyland' (1938), The Film Patrol (2025)](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2025/04/nfr-project-porky-in-wackyland-1938.html)\n8. [Dough for the Do-Do, Dr. Grob's Animation Review (2013)](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2013/02/18/dough-for-the-do-do/)\n9. [Porky in Wackyland, MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/porky-in-wackyland)\n10. [Porky in Wackyland, LooneyBlog (2023)](https://looneyblog.beehiiv.com/p/porky-wackyland)\n11. [The Filmography: Film & TV Tributes, ThreeStooges.net](https://threestooges.net/filmography/view_tribute/4)\n12. [Porky in Wackyland, 1001 Articles (2013)](https://alexanderstorey.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/cartoon-reviews-porky-in-wackyland/)\n13. [Andrés Lombana, The New Sounds of the Slap of the Stick: Termite Terrace 1937–1943 and the Slapstick Tradition, MIT](https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/146381075-Andres-Lombana-The-New-Sounds-of-the-Slap-of-the-Stick-Termite-Terrace-1937-1943-and-the-Slapstick-Tradition.pdf)\n14. [Jorgelina Orfila and Francisco Ortega Grimaldo, Fantasyland or Wackyland? Animation and Surrealism in 1930s America, Journal of Surrealism and the Americas](https://www.jsa-asu.org/index.php/JSA/article/view/13)\n15. [Porky in Wackyland review by Cineanalyst, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/cineanalyst/film/porky-in-wackyland/)\n16. [Bob Clampett, Clampett Studio](https://clampettstudio.com/pages/bob-clampett)\n17. [Rajko Petković, The Visionary from Wackyland: Bob Clampett's Early Films](https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/395505)\n18. [Porky in Wackyland, Warner Bros. Entertainment Wiki](https://warnerbros.fandom.com/wiki/Porky_in_Wackyland)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Individual short films*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Porky in Wackyland\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Porky in Wackyland](https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland](https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Porky in Wackyland\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/porky-in-wackyland. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Porky in Wackyland is a Bob Clampett Looney Tunes short in which Porky Pig hunts the last Do-Do bird in surreal Darkest Africa; noted for its surrealism, Mel Blanc voices, Carl Stalling score, 1949 color remake, and 2000 National Film Registry induction." }