Pigs in a Polka

Did You Know?

• This film can be found in the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3 disc 1.
• It is one of the 61 pre-1948 WB cartoons to fall into the public domain as United Artists did not renew the copyright in time.
• The short is part of a light-hearted, culturally subversive Merrie Melodies running joke, later re-emphasized with another Fantasia parody, 1943's A Corny Concerto.

Plot

The wolf introduces himself, then the story follows the classic three little pigs tale. The first pig builds a wire frame from a home kit and quickly covers it with straw. The second pig constructs his house from hundreds of matches, but when he places the final match on the roof, the whole thing collapses. The third pig painstakingly lays bricks for his home.

Happy with their houses, the first two pigs dance and act foolishly, laughing together; one plays a violin, the other a flute. The wolf arrives disguised as a gypsy and tries to lure the pigs closer through dance so he can catch them. The pigs are wary, and when the wolf thinks he has them, they instead beat him up and come out wearing pieces of his costume. They dance briefly until the wolf approaches menacingly.

He chases them to the straw house and sets it on fire with a single match, destroying it instantly. The pigs run to the match house. Although it has a front door, it is still in ruins; the pigs quickly stack the matches back into a house shape, but the wolf drops one more match on the roof, and it falls apart again. The pigs escape to the brick house.

The wolf tries to smash the front door, then attempts to blow the house down by huffing and puffing. The pigs respond by offering him Lusterine mouthwash, but he fails. He prepares to charge at the front door, and the three pigs work together to stop him.

Reception

Friz Freleng took aim at Disney with this irreverent take on The Three Little Pigs, using Brahms' Hungarian Dances to drive the entire cartoon. From the familiar setup of the pigs building their straw, matchstick, and brick houses, it's clear Freleng is repeating the same careful synchronization of classical music and animation he had perfected in Rhapsody in Rivets. The bond between music and action is even stronger here.