Release Date:

February 12, 1949

Main Character(s):

Porky Pig

Summary:

A hipster squirrel is attempting to vacation in the sole standing tree in a lumber camp. Lumberjack Porky Pig attempts to chop this tree down, but the squirrel constantly thwarts him.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1061 and was released as a Looney Tune.

This is the earliest color cartoon to have made its home video debut in restored form as its first home video release was on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1 DVD set in 2003 (on a side note, I do not own any VHS and laserdisc releases nor will we be talking about them when I talk about all of the essential home media releases after talking about all of the cartoons first, because with nearly everything being restored and cartoons previously unavailable on disc continuing to be put out on Blu-ray, the formats of VHS and laserdisc are no longer relevant. Believe it or not, though, in 2019, just a year before they continued with new restorations, I nearly resorted to collecting all of the VHS tapes and laserdiscs that had cartoons that weren’t on disc then. I am glad I didn’t because I wouldn’t have had any need for them in about a year from then).

The squirrel is basically a teen of the 1940’s, saying such slang from that decade and wearing bobby socks.

The title is a pun for “pork chops”.

What I Like About This One:

The rendition of “Piggy Wiggy Woo” (weird title for a song, isn’t it?) over the opening credits, complete with the sound effects of a slide whistle and clang, which is supposed to resemble an ax being swung in time to the music.

With “Home on the Range” playing in the background, the squirrel opens the windows in his tree and comments about the how beautiful the north woods is for a vacation spot. He then nails up a banner for the Brooklyn Dodgers before getting into his purple pajamas and saying, “Flatbush was never like this! Nothing to do but sleep! I’m gonna pound my ear for a week! Ah, it sends me. Right down to me bobby socks!” (animated by Emery Hawkins).

As the squirrel starts sleeping, he mistakes Porky chopping at the tree for woodpeckers. “What a cheerful sound”, the squirrel sighs before he snores in rhythm to the chopping before realizing, “That ain’t no woodpecker! What gives here!?” He looks down and sees Porky chopping at the tree. The squirrel puts his clothes back on and says, “A lumberjackson. One of the local yokels. Heh. I’ll fix THAT icky!” (animated by Hawkins).

The squirrel unzips an opening in the tree and removes the ax’s blade when Porky is in the middle of chopping, causing him to vibrate when the blade less ax hits the tree. The squirrel then throws the blade aside, which lands atop Porky’s head. Seeing it fall into his hands, Porky comments, “G-g-gee! You don’t have to fly off the handle like that!” He figures that chopping this tree is going to be a tough job. “Calls for a whole fl-fl-fl-flock of axes!” After Porky leaves, the squirrel mimics him, “Fl-fl-fl-flock of axes, eh? This calls for some real stra-tee-gy!” (animated by Don Williams)

Before Porky returns, the squirrel puts a steel sheet over the tree, before riveting it in place and painting it brown to look like the rest of the tree (animated by Basil Davidovich). Porky comes back with a golf bag full of axes, and is irritated when the first ax’s blade shatters to pieces with a clang: “Oh, d-d-d-d-d-doggone it!” The rest of Porky’s axes all clang to pieces in perfect synchronization as the squirrel keeps handing them all to him. Eventually, there are no more axes left, leaving Porky to accidentally grab the squirrel by the tail, who shouts, “Hold it, stupid!” Porky stops and realizes, “S-s-so YOU’RE the one behind all this!” The squirrel tells him off, “Read, fat boy! Ya vex me, understand?, ya vex me! Now cease the chop-chop, chubby? Blow, Joe! Hit the road! I’m gonna get me a little shuteye! And so are you!” He pokes Porky in the eyes before finishing, “Now scram, ham!” (animated by Bill Melendez)

The squirrel gets back into his pajamas and reads the newspaper, “Paper Boy in the Sixth” (animated by Hawkins). Porky is now attempting to use a huge saw to cut down the tree (animated by Davidovich) to which the squirrel remarks in annoyance, “Some guys don’t never learn!” Getting back into his clothes (animated by Hawkins), the squirrel marches down the tree and attaches the other end of the saw to a smaller tree. Porky’s struggling to move the saw results in him flying under the cut part of the tree and into the pond, where he comes out with a lilypad on his head, complete with a frog croaking. The squirrel heckles him with, “What a charmin’ chapeau! Toodle-loo, Myrtle!” Porky rants, “D-d-d-d-doggone squirrel!” and chases him up the tree, only for the squirrel to push a large branch in the way, causing Porky to get his overalls stuck on there, hit the branch when bouncing back up, and then get them cut off by the squirrel using scissors (animated by Davidovich).

After the squirrel watches Porky fall, he suddenly sees Porky next to him with a rifle. Porky shoots, but only causes the branch he was on to come loose. The squirrel assures him, “Wait right here, pork chop. Don’t go ‘way”. He comes back with a fruit basket for Porky to hold, and just before Porky falls, the squirrel tells him, “Bon voyagee, tubby!” He races down with a mattress, but Porky lands about a foot in front of it. The squirrel is seen resting on the mattress and says, “I thought you’d never get here” (animated by Davidovich). With the basket now resembling a sheriff’s hat, Porky is seen dazed and holding two bananas as guns, asking, “Wh-wh-which way did they go? Wh-wh-which way did they go?” The squirrel points to his right and answers, “They went that-a-way, sheriff. You can head ‘em off at the pass!” Porky starts to run off, before getting wise. He walks back up to him in anger, but the squirrel squirts the bananas at him, giving Porky a fruity mustache (animated by Melendez).

Back in his tree, the squirrel believes, “And that is that. So to bed”, but before he can go behind his wardrobe to change back into his pajamas, he is confronted by Porky’s rifle, causing him to shout, “Yipe!” in an extended eyeball take (animated by Williams). Chasing him down the tree, Porky is slowed down from shooting, and eventually passes a hollow log, before coming back to confide, “I’m n-n-not so stupid”. He points his rifle inside the log, “I s-s-see ya in there, ya little varmint!”, only to hear roaring inside (animated by Davidovich). Thinking it’s a bear, Porky does a fantastic “Yipe!” take, where he jumps out of his shoes, and then the shoes jump off without the soles (animated by Melendez). It turns out the squirrel is only imitating a bear, before he continues scaring Porky into getting him to climb up to the lowest branch. The squirrel chuckles, “Ah, you’re just a bundle of nerves, butterball. You need a vacation worse than I do!” (animated by Williams)

Porky puts some dynamite into the tree while ranting, “Wh-why you rat in squirrels’ c-c-clothing! I’ll-I’ll-Ill fix you! I’ll k-k-kill two birds with one st-st-stone! I’ll b-b-blow up the tree, and-and get rid of that d-d-doggone squirrel too!” As he says this, the squirrel is seen tossing the dynamite into the log. After Porky lights the fuse, it goes through the tree (animated by Davidovich) and blows up the log. It turns out a real bear was sleeping in there, and he comes after them in anger (animated by Williams), which causes both Porky and the squirrel to give fantastic wild takes (animated by Melendez). The squirrel jumps in Porky’s arms (animated by Williams), before they both run off separately (animated by Melendez).

In the end, the bear has claimed the tree for himself, is now wearing the squirrel’s pajamas, which are clearly way too small for him, and gets confused by the newspaper: “Paper Boy in the Sixth!?” (animated by Hawkins)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕