Porky's Badtime Story

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Porky's Badtime Story
PorkysBadtimeStoryTitle.jpg
Title card while Porky and Gabby are still sleeping
Directed by Ub Iwerks (planned, uncredited)
Robert Clampett (finished)
Charles Jones (assistant, uncredited)
Story byBob Clampett
Cal Howard
Produced by Leon Schlesinger
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation byCharles Jones
Uncredited:
Jerry Hatchcock
Bob Clampett
Bill Hamner
John Carey
Tom Massey
Bobe Cannon
Lu Guarnier [1]
Layouts byCharles Jones (uncredited) [1]
Color process
Production
companies
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
  • July 24, 1937 (1937-07-24)
Running time
7:00
LanguageEnglish

Porky's Badtime Story is a 1937 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert Clampett and an uncredited Chuck Jones. [3] The short, Clampett's first as a credited director, was released on July 24, 1937, and stars Porky Pig and Gabby Goat. [4] The short was later remade by Clampett as Tick Tock Tuckered (1944), with Daffy Duck taking Gabby's role.

Contents

Production history

Despite being the first cartoon directed by Bob Clampett, direction on the short was started by Ub Iwerks. Clampett, Jones, and Robert Cannon had been loaned out to Iwerks' studio, Animated Pictures Corp., after Leon Schlesinger began subcontracting Looney Tunes from Iwerks. [5] Both Clampett and Jones resented the assignment - both had directorial aspirations, and both had hoped he'd each be promoted by Schlesinger to serve as director and head of his own unit at Schlesinger. [2] [5]

Work on the Iwerks Looney Tunes had been slow and difficult - Iwerks disliked the Porky Pig character, and he and his staff had to be coached by Clampett, Jones, and Cannon on how to execute the irreverent Looney Tunes tone and style. [1] Clampett would later recall that Iwerks' "heart just wan't in it," and he reported to work one Monday morning in April 1937 to find that Iwerks did not report to work - and that he was expected to complete direction of the cartoon. [6] Clampett had Jones complete Iwerks' unfinished layout drawings, and supervised the completion of the Schlesinger and Iwerks staff animators' work on both the original scenes and reshoots Clampett would later request. [1] [5]

The original intended title of the short was It Happened All Night, [6] a pun on the name of the popular 1934 Clark Gable-Claudette Colbert feature film It Happened One Night . While a title card with that name was produced, It Happened All Night was thought to be too suggestive and the short was retitled as Porky's Badtime Story. [6]

Clampett, with assistance from Jones on layouts, would finish one more Porky cartoon, Get Rich Quick Porky , [5] before the Schlesinger artists would return to the Sunset Boulevard lot and Clampett would be assigned his own unit – actually run as a separate corporation under Schlesinger's brother-in-law Ray Katz. [5] Under Katz, Clampett would direct Rover's Rival without any involvement with Iwerks, which would be released later in 1937. [5]

Plot

When Porky Pig and Gabby Goat realize that they overslept to 10:00 after their alarm goes off at 06:00, they end up rushing to work at Peter Piper Pickled Peppers and sneaking in. When clocking in, Gabby tries to pull the lever, but ends up struggling and the clock goes crazy. Their boss catches them and initially states in a friendly tone that if they weren't going to make it, he would have sent their work to them. The boss then drops the friendly act and gets furious, warning them that if they are late one more time, they are fired. The boss then orders them to get to work, to which they dash into their office and close the door so fast that the sign on the door shatters.

At 08:00 that night after returning home from work and dealing with their irate boss, Porky sets the alarm clock as Gabby complains about having to go to bed early. Porky reminds Gabby about their boss' threat that if they are late again, they will be fired. Porky climbs into bed, and they both fall asleep until a bunch of cats next door wake them up; and later a fly bugs them, literally. Later that night, the moon comes out and its light wakes up Porky. One of Porky's attempts to close the window ends up wrecking his bed. As the night progresses, a thunderstorm occurs while Porky is sleeping in Gabby's bed. A leak in the roof disturbs Gabby, who then opens an umbrella in the house with Porky telling him that it's bad luck. Gabby ignores Porky's statement until lightning destroys the umbrella. When Gabby quips that he should try sleeping under Niagara Falls, a lot of water comes through the roof and down on them.

The next morning, Porky and Gabby are shown sleeping in the drawers when the alarm clock goes off at 06:00. They get themselves ready and drive off to work to make sure their jobs stay safe from termination. When Porky and Gabby arrive at Peter Piper Pickled Peppers, they see a sign on the door that says "Closed Sunday", revealing that their workplace is closed for the day. Porky and Gabby drive home, and when they climb back into the drawers to sleep, the alarm clock goes off again at 06:15 and Porky hits it with a mallet, leaving the clock dazed.

Legacy

Bob Clampett later directed a remake of the short as Tick Tock Tuckered (1944), with Daffy Duck taking Gabby's role.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Baxter, Devon (December 13, 2022). "Animator Breakdown: Bob Clampett's "Porky's Badtime Story" (1937) #124;". Cartoon Research . Retrieved January 23, 2026.
  2. 1 2 Iwerks, Leslie; Kenworthy, John D. (2001). The hand behind the mouse : an intimate biography of the man Walt Disney called "the greatest animator in the world". New York: Disney Editions. pp. 139–140. ISBN   978-0-7868-5320-5. OCLC   44669781.
  3. ↑ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 59. ISBN   0-8050-0894-2.
  4. ↑ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 124–126. ISBN   0-8160-3831-7 . Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Barrier, Michael (November 6, 2003). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford University Press. pp. 342–346. ISBN   978-0-19-983922-3.
  6. 1 2 3 Barrier, Michael (1970). "An Interview with Bob Clampett". Funnyworld. Vol. 1, no. 12. p. 12. Retrieved January 24, 2026. Ub made a couple of pictures, and then one Monday morning when I walked in they told me, 'Ub's gone. You're the director now.' I had to sit down at Ub's desk, in Ub's chair, with Ub's stopwatch, to make my first cartoon. All of Ub's old staff were looking at me like, 'What the blazes are you doing sitting in Ub's chair?' I felt the same way, because we all revered him.
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