For the season finale, J.D. ties up loose ends with the help of Danny Horn (The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast) as they discuss a Friz Freleng masterpiece. We get into Freleng’s early career, the peculiar popularity of Porky Pig, and, making his Stick to Shorts debut, Daffy Duck!
Host/Producer: J.D. Hansel
Guest: Danny Horn
Content Warning for Cartoon: smoking.
Availability: Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 2; Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, Vol. 2; Looney Tunes Platinum Collection, Vol. 2; Porky Pig 101.
Notes:
Here’s an interview with Friz Freleng (alluded to near the beginning of the episode) that was a helpful resource for learning about his story. Content warning: he uses an outdated, now offensive term around 7 1/2 minutes in.
The episode of the podcast Stuttering Is Cool I referenced in the show is #230. (I feel the need to clarify that my chuckling around this part of the episode was not snickering or mockery, but just something that happens sometimes when I feel particularly anxious. I found the conversations in the Porky episode of Stuttering Is Cool episode highly valuable, so I hope my listeners with check it out.)
The Friz Freleng quote about The Captain and the Kids is from page 283 of Of Mice and Magic by Leonard Maltin. The Freleng quote at the end of the episode pertaining to You Ought to Be in Pictures is from page 242 of the same book.
The episode mentions the Schlesinger Productions Christmas Party film, which is worth watching shortly before or after watching to this cartoon or listening to this episode. It is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Six DVD set or the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume Two Blu-Ray set as part of “The World of Leon Schlesinger”.
You will find most of the trivia and casting information about this cartoon repeated in lots of places, but I was specifically pulling from Jerry Beck’s audio commentary track on the cartoon and his book The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons.
