Release Date:

June 28, 1952

Main Character(s):

None

Summary:

The Big Bad Wolf’s nephew is appalled to find out that his uncle is the very wolf who huffed and puffed and blew the Three Little Pigs’ houses down. The wolf tells his side of the story where he was seemingly bullied by the pigs.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1210 and was released as a Merrie Melodie.

The cartoon uses the plot from “The Trial of Mr. Wolf” from 11 years earlier (interestingly, this cartoon is presented after that one on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5 DVD set), in that both wolves tell their side of the story where the characters who are usually the heroes of their respective fairy tales are depicted as cruel jerks, but in reality, there is clear evidence to show the wolf is making this up (in this case, the wolf in this cartoon talks in a wise-guy New York voice, has a cigar in his mouth, wears a derby, and sounds threatening when he says, “Why, I murdelized the dirty-” before catching himself).

The pigs share the same character designs as the ones in “The Windblown Hare”, but are different characters as they wear different-colored shirts: red, blue, and lime green.

This is the first cartoon since “The Night Watchman” (the very first cartoon that Jones directed) to have animation by Keith Darling, who was most notable for frequently rotating between McKimson’s and Jones’ respective units from the mid-1950’s to early 1960’s. Throughout all of 1952-1954, Darling went uncredited due to only animating small amounts of footage and wouldn’t receive his first screen credit until Jones’ “Beanstalk Bunny” (1955).

This is the only Warner cartoon released in 1952 to be a one-shot.

This is the first McKimson cartoon where Herman Cohen is credited.

You can find out who animated what scene here.

Originally, Mel Blanc and Treg Brown had recorded a sung rendition of “King for a Day” for this cartoon, but it ended up not being used. While the song itself is not heard in the actual cartoon, the green-shirted pig does say, “No. In fact, we voted you King for a Day!”

Favorite Scene:

The “Swat the Fly” scene and the guillotine “throne”.

What Happens in This One:

The little wolf walks to the wolf’s house from school with a book, remarking angrily, “Oh, the shame of it! Hmmph! Flesh of my flesh! Blood of my blood! Oh, my own kinfolk! Hmmph! The humiliation of it!” (animated by Herman Cohen) At the wolf’s house, he is shown preparing a jug of alcohol from a still, but is startled upon hearing the little wolf knock and breathe angrily, so he pulls a curtain over the still to hide it and puts a lampshade over the jug to make it look like a lamp (animated by Phil DeLara).

Seeing his fuming nephew (animated by Cohen), the wolf chuckles nervously, “Oh, uh, heh. Hello, little nephew. Uh, just tidying up the joint, uh, house”, and acts like he’s sweeping the floor with a broom (animated by DeLara). The little wolf points at him, “Hmmph! For shame, Uncle Big Bad! Hmmph!” After the confused wolf asks, “Huh?”, the little wolf continues, “To think, that my own uncle is that fiendish Big Bad Wolf, who huffed and puffed and blew the Three Little Pigs’ houses down! Humph! We read all about you in school today!”, showing him the book he was holding, “The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf”. The wolf denies this, “Now wait a minute, kid. I never done nothin’ of the kind. That was a bum rap!” After the little wolf lets out another “Hmmph!”, the wolf has him sit down on a barrel to listen, “On the level, kid. Uh, here, sit down and I’ll tell ya what REALLY happened” (animated by Cohen).

The wolf explains, “Your Uncle Big Bad never huffed or puffed or blew NOBODY’S house down! It was them Three Little Pigs that was the mugs! Me? I was just a innocent, nature-loving kid” (animated by Charles McKimson) as his flashback begins. The wolf is seen dancing through the woods in a schoolboy sailor outfit without his cigar but still retaining his wise-guy voice. “I was NUTS about nature. I just loved it”. He cheerfully greets the surroundings, “Hello, nature. I love ya’s. Hello, bees. Hello, trees. Hello, fuzzy little caterpillar”, only for the caterpillar to growl ferociously at him when he pets it (animated by Rod Scribner).

The wolf continues, “Hello-”, but then reacts in fear upon spotting the pigs’ straw, stick, and brick houses all next to each other, “Uh oh. How I dread passing the houses of them three mean little pigs. But I mustn’t let them know that I fear them”. He skips past the three pigs watching him and nervously greets them, “He-hello, Three Little Pigs” (animated by Scribner). They all greet in unison, “Hello, Big Bad” before they all pull out slingshots and launch rocks (animated by Charles) at his rear end. He reacts to each as the pigs laugh at him. The wolf speaks in a very annoyed tone, “Oh, drat you three little pigs! Why must you always torment me when I pass your houses? Why?” (animated by Scribner)

The lime green-shirted pig rudely tells him, “Ah, blow your brains out!”. The red-shirted pig seemingly decides, “Hey, wait a minute, fellas. He ain’t such a bad guy. Let’s leave him play with us”. The other two ask in confused unison, “Huh?”, but the red-shirted pig winks to them, signaling that he’s pretending to be friendly, so they too play along. Lime-green shirted pig: “Oh, yeah, yeah”. Blue-shirted pig: “Sure, sure” (both laugh). The red-shirted pig calls to the wolf, “Hey, Big Bad, we’re sorry we picked on ya’s. Hey, you want to play ‘Slingshot’ with us?” (animated by Charles)

“Me?”, the wolf asks, “Oh, gee. That’d be just ginger-peachy. But I’m afraid I don’t know how to do it very well”. The red-shirted pig assures him, “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll learn ya’s. Here, you get to use the biggest one. Just hang on to it and I’ll load it for ya’s”. As the wolf is holding the slingshot, the clueless wolf chuckles. In a point-of-view shot of the wolf, the red-shirted pig fires a large boulder at him, “Ready, aim, fire!”, with the impact causing the wolf to fly out of his hat and shoes, before the camera pans across to reveal him stuck in a tree with the boulder stuck in his pants (animated by Keith Darling).

Back in the present, the little wolf asks, “Gee, Uncle Big Bad. What did ya do to them?” The wolf nearly reveals his true nature by mistake, “Why, I murdelized the dirty-” before catching himself and correcting, “Eh, I, I, I mean, I, I just stood there sobbing me little heart out”. We fade back to the flashback where the wolf is doing just that as he sobs, “Dirty guys”. The red-shirted pig tells him, “Aw, come on. You’ve been such a good sport. We’ll let ya’s play ‘Surprise, Surprise’ with us”. The wolf agrees, “Well, alright. But I’m afraid I don’t know how to play ‘Surprise, Surprise’”. The red-shirted pig replies, “Ah, there’s nothing to it. Just put your hands behind your back. That’s right. Now, when we count to three, ya’s can see what’s in your hand”, as he slips a dynamite stick in the wolf’s hands. The pigs count to three and the dynamite stick goes off once the wolf takes it out from behind his back, to which the pigs yell, “Surprise, Surprise!” The explosion is shown to have caused only the wolf’s tail, pants, and shoes have seemingly remained, but his fur-less head comes out of his pants to give an awkward chuckle (animated by DeLara).

In the present again, the wolf continues, “Well, everything was going swell. The Three Little Pigs kept wanting me to play with them! Then one day,….” (animated by DeLara). The flashback continues as the wolf is seen zooming around with makeshift wings and making buzzing noises in the manner of a fly, “We was playing as usual. This time, we was playing ‘Swat the Fly’. I was the fly”. The pigs all come out with giant paddles and hit the wolf with them as they all repeatedly shout, “Swat the Fly!” (brilliantly animated by Scribner)

With the wolf continuing to be paddled on the ground, he and the pigs hear a hammering noise and find that a sign has been posted on a nearby tree, “$50.00 Bounty for Wolves. Cut Off Tail on Dotted Line and Mail In” (animated by Darling). The wolf looks over his shoulder and sees the pigs look at him greedily as their eyes turn into dollar sings and ching like a cash register. A dotted line then appears on the bottom of his tail. Realizing what the pigs are about to do, the wolf grabs his tail and yells, “No! Not that! Not my beautiful tail! No! No!” (animated by Scribner)

The red-shirted pig assures him, “Oh, no, Big Bad. You’re our friend. We wouldn’t do THAT to ya’s”. The lime-green shirted pig agrees, “No. In fact, we voted you King for a Day”. The blue-shirted pig adds, “Yeah. That’s right” (animated by Charles). The pigs walk him over as the red-shirted pig says, “Come on, King Big Bad. We’ll lead ya’s to your throne”. After sitting him down at the “throne”, they replace his hat with a crown, “There ya are, king”. The wolf is delighted, “Aw, gee, fellas”. The red-shirted pig gives him a rope, “Here, your Majesty. Ring out the glad tidings! Peal the Royal Bell!” The camera puns upward to reveal he is actually seated on a guillotine with the blade labeled “Little Nipper Guillotine”. The wolf pulls the rope, oblivious to the falling blade, “Gee, fellas. You treat me like a king. And I thought you was after my beautiful-”, before finding out that he managed to move his tail out of the way just in time as he hears the blade land behind him, as he finishes “-tail” in a meek, frightened voice (animated by DeLara).

Upon seeing the pigs all staring at him in a greedy, threatening manner, the wolf exclaims, “Yike!” and runs (animated by DeLara) all the way back to his house, which is completely different than his actual one. The pigs arrive at his door and demand in unison, “Open the door! Let us in! Let us in!” The wolf, who’s hiding under the plant in a large pot, nervously answers, “N-no-no-not by the hair on-on my chinny ch-chin chin!” The pigs reply in unison, “Then, we’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow your house in!” and they successfully manage to do exactly that! The wolf’s behind ends up sticking out from the wreckage with his tail fully shown, as the pigs arrive with axes, but the flashback ends before they do anything (animated by Charles).

The wolf finishes, “So ya see, little nephew. It was those dirty pigs that blew MY house in and made off with me tail!” The little wolf doesn’t believe it and dismisses, “Oh, Unc. What a whole lot of malarkey!” The wolf turns around to reveal his missing tail replaced by a bandage, “Does THIS look like malarkey!?” as the cartoon irises out. The wolf opens the black screen on his side to confide to us, “Of course, uh, WE know I lost it in a swingin’ door!”, proving that his story is indeed malarkey (animated by Charles).

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕