You Don't Know What You're Doin'! | |
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Directed by | Rudolf Ising Isadore Freleng |
Produced by | Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising Leon Schlesinger |
Starring | Johnny Murray Rochelle Hudson (both uncredited) |
Music by | Frank Marsales |
Animation by | Isadore Freleng Norm Blackburn Uncredited: Larry Martin Rollin Hamilton Robert McKimson Bob Clampett |
Color process | Black and white, Color (1987 Korean redrawn colorized version) |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 6 minutes |
Language | English |
You Don't Know What You're Doin'! is a 1931 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Rudolf Ising. [1] The short was released on October 21, 1931, and stars Piggy, one of the series' early recurring characters. [2] The film is perhaps one of the most amusing and effective of the cartoons from the studio's earliest years.
The story involves the character Piggy, who picks up his girlfriend Fluffy and takes her to a theater where a hot jazz orchestra is playing. Piggy mocks the trumpet soloist, then crashes the stage to play a corny chorus of the 1873 hit "Silver Threads Among the Gold" on the saxophone. The audience, led by three shabbily-dressed drunken dogs in the balcony, mock Piggy with the title song "You Don't Know What You're Doin,'" as Piggy defends his self-perceived "talent."
One of the tipplers (a black dog, perhaps a prototype of Goopy Geer) bounces on a drum and joins Piggy onstage. The dog drinks from a bottle of bootleg hootch (the film was made during alcohol Prohibition in the US) and belches in Piggy's face. The fumes on his breath instantly intoxicate Piggy. Piggy snatches the booze and runs out of the theater with the dog chasing him. He pours some of it into the radiator of an automobile, which arches its back like a frightened cat and takes Piggy for a wild ride through the city. Even the streets, lampposts, telephone poles, and background buildings seem to come to life in a loopy, drunken state.
The dog continues to chase after Piggy, but both of them eventually end up in the back of a truck which dumps them into a trash can. Both of them shout out "Whoopee!" as the cartoon comes to an end.
The musical soundtrack was done by the then-nationally famous Abe Lyman Orchestra (though on some prints mis-attributed to the Gus Arnheim band), which adds a happy energy throughout the cartoon. The eccentric virtuoso trombone playing of Orlando "Slim" Martin is prominently featured. Martin played not only music but also some rather bizarre effects on his horn (the techniques he used to produce some of his sounds continue to puzzle other trombonists). His trombone solo representing the drunken automobile is especially memorable. The Schlesinger Studio had their sound effects department construct mechanical devices to roughly reproduce some of Martin's sounds, which became standard cartoon sound effects.
The short was redrawn colorized in 1987. This version suffered from many issues, such as poor animation, and missing frames.
You Don't Know What You're Doin'! is available on disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 .
Charlie Dog is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes series of cartoons. The character was featured in nine cartoons between 1941 and 1958. He is generally characterized as a friendly wise guy.
Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the companion series to Looney Tunes, and featured many of the same characters as the former series. It originally ran from August 2, 1931, to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it had been revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black and white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.
Piggy is the name of two animated cartoon characters in the Merrie Melodies series of films distributed by Warner Bros. The first character was a fat, black pig wearing a pair of shorts with two large buttons in the front, and his first film was You Don't Know What You're Doin'!
Foxy is an animated cartoon character featured in the first three animated shorts in the Merrie Melodies series, all distributed by Warner Bros. in 1931. He was the creation of animator Rudolf Ising, who had worked for Walt Disney in the 1920s.
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Two Gophers from Texas is a 1948 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Arthur Davis. It was released on January 17, 1948, and features the Goofy Gophers.
Speedy Ghost to Town is a 1967 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudy Larriva. The short was released on July 29, 1967, and stars Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales. It is the first cartoon released under the newly reopened animation department of Warner Bros. in 1967, as from 1964 to 1967, all Looney Tunes cartoons were developed at DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and Format Productions instead. It is also the first Warner Bros. cartoon to be directed by Alex Lovy.
Don't Axe Me is a 1958 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on January 4, 1958, and stars Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Barnyard Dawg.
Ups N' Downs is a 1931 Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Bosko. It was released in April 1931 and is directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. The film score was written by Frank Marsales.
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