Three Little Pigs (film)
| Three Little Pigs | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster | |
| Directed by | Burt Gillett |
| Based on | The Three Little Pigs |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Starring | |
| Music by | |
| Animation by | Fred Moore Jack King Dick Lundy Norm Ferguson Art Babbitt[1] |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 8 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $22,000 |
| Box office | $250,000 |
Three Little Pigs is a 1933 animated short film released by United Artists, produced by Walt Disney and directed by Burt Gillett.[2] Based on the fable of the same name, the Silly Symphony won the 1934 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The short cost $22,000 and grossed $250,000.[3]
In 1994, it was voted #11 of the
Three Little Pigs premiered at the Radio City Music Hall as a short subject to Radio City's release of the First National Pictures film Elmer, the Great on May 25, 1933, in New York City.
Plot
Fifer Pig, Fiddler Pig and Practical Pig are three brothers who build their own houses. All three of them play a different kind of
As they are singing, the Big Bad Wolf really comes by, at which point Fifer and Fiddler reveal that they are in fact very afraid of the wolf, so the two pigs each retreat to their respective houses. The Wolf first blows Fifer's house down (except for the roof) with little resistance and Fifer manages to escape and hides at Fiddler's house. The wolf pretends to give up and go home, but returns disguised as an innocent sheep. The pigs see through the disguise, whereupon the Wolf blows Fiddler's house down (except for the door). The two pigs manage to escape and hide at Practical's house, who willingly gives his brothers refuge; in Practical's house, it is revealed that his musical instrument is the piano. The Wolf arrives disguised as a door-to-door Fuller Brush salesman to trick the pigs into letting him in, but fails. The Wolf then tries to blow down the strong brick house (losing his clothing in the process), but is unable, all while a confident Practical plays melodramatic piano music. Finally, he attempts to enter the house through the chimney, but smart Practical Pig takes off the lid of a boiling pot filled with water (to which he adds turpentine) under the chimney, and the Wolf falls right into it. Shrieking in pain, the Wolf runs away frantically, while the pigs sing Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? again. Practical then plays a trick by knocking on his piano, causing his brothers to think the Wolf has returned and hide under Practical's bed.
Voice cast
- Billy Bletcher as Big Bad Wolf
- Pinto Colvig as Practical Pig / Big Bad Wolf posing as a Jewish Peddler (the latter was removed in later re-releases)
- Dorothy Compton as Fifer Pig
- Mary Moder as Fiddler Pig
Reaction and legacy
The cartoon premiered on May 25, 1933, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.[5]
The cartoon was phenomenally successful with audiences of the day, so much that theaters ran the cartoon for months after its debut, to great financial response.[6] The cartoon is still considered to be the most successful animated short ever made,[7] and remained on top of animation until Disney was able to boost Mickey's popularity further by making him a top merchandise icon by the end of 1934.[8] Animator Chuck Jones observed: "That was the first time that anybody ever brought characters to life [in an animated cartoon]. They were three characters who looked alike and acted differently." Other animation historians, particularly admirers of Winsor McCay, would dispute the word "first", but Jones was not referring to personality as such but to characterization through posture and movement. Fifer and Fiddler Pig are frivolous and care-free; Practical Pig is cautious and earnest. The reason for why the film's story and characters were so well developed was that Disney had already realized the success of animated films depended upon telling emotionally gripping stories that would grab the audience and not let go.[9][10] This realization led to an important innovation around the time Pigs was in development: a "story department", separate from the animators, with storyboard artists who would be dedicated to working on a "story development" phase of the production pipeline.[11]
The moderate, but not blockbuster, success of the further "Three Pigs" cartoons was seen as a factor in Walt Disney's decision not to rest on his laurels, but instead to continue to move forward with risk-taking projects, such as the multiplane camera and the first feature-length animated film. Disney's slogan, often repeated over the years, was "You can't top pigs with pigs."[12]
Controversy and censorship
The film features a scene in which the Big Bad Wolf disguises himself as a peddler for Fuller brushes, in an attempt to trick Practical Pig into allowing him to enter his brick house. In the original 1933 release of the film, the peddler disguise is that of a stereotypical Jewish man, complete with a hat, a coat, a fake Jewish nose, glasses, and a fake beard. In this version scene, Yiddish music plays as the wolf disguises his voice with a strong Yiddish accent whilst saying "I'm the Fuller Brush man, I'm giving a free sample."[13]
Shortly after the film's release, Rabbi J.X. Cohen, the director of the American Jewish Congress wrote angrily to Walt Disney, calling the scene "vile, revolting and unnecessary as to constitute as direct affront on Jews" and demanded the scene to be removed.[14] Roy O. Disney, speaking on Walt's behalf, responded to Cohen by saying: "We have a great many Jewish business associates and friends, and certainly would avoid purposely demeaning the Jews or any other race or nationality. … It seems to us that this character is no more [offensive] than many well-known Jewish comedians portray themselves in vaudeville, stage, and screen characterizations."[15][16][14]
When the short was
Song
The original song composed by
The song was further used as the inspiration for the title of the 1963 play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as the sequence has nothing to do with the 1966 film.
The song was parodied in September 1989 during the
area. WFLZ then started to mock and belittle its competitor, including a "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" parody entitled "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Q?"Home media
In the
It was later included in Walt Disney's Timeless Tales, Vol. 1, released August 16, 2005 (featuring the edited version in the US
In those other countries to whom the original 1933 cartoon was first released with original soundtracks in both English and other foreign languages, the uncensored images — with original 1933 soundtracks in both English and other foreign languages — are still issued by Disney corporation in-home release videos.
Sequels and later appearances
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (June 2020) |
Disney produced several sequels to Three Little Pigs, though none were nearly as successful as the original:
- The first of them was The Big Bad Wolf, also directed by Burt Gillett and first released on April 14, 1934.[21]
- In 1936, a second cartoon starring the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf followed, with a story based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf. This short was entitled Three Little Wolves and introduced the Big Bad Wolf's three pup sons, all of whom just as eager for a taste of the pigs as their father.[22]
- A third cartoon The Practical Pig, was released in 1939, right at the end of the Silly Symphonies' run.[23] In this, Fifer and Piper, again despite Practical's warning, go swimming but are captured by the Wolf, who then goes after Practical only to be caught in Practical's newly built Lie Detector machine.
- In 1941, a fourth cartoon, war bonds, and the Big Bad Wolf representing Nazi Germany is unable to blow his house down.[24]
- Fiddler Pig, Fifer Pig, and Big Bad Wolf appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
- Characters from the film also appeared on television series House of Mouse and its direct-to-video films Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse (2001) and Mickey's House of Villains (2002). In the second episode of the series, the Wolf is portrayed as a popular jazz trumpeter with the stage name, "Big Bad Wolf Daddy", and the pigs play as his backup band. This possibly may have been an attempt to parody the Warner Bros. cartoon Three Little Bops. The episode "Pete's House of Villains" also includes a short starring the Big Bad Wolf teaching his son how to hunt the pigs.
- The four characters of the film are part of the group of the Walt Disney Animation Studios characters that appear in the short film Once Upon a Studio.[25]
Comic adaptations
The Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip ran a seven-month-long continuation of Three Little Pigs called "The Further Adventures of the Three Little Pigs" from January 18 to August 23, 1936. This was followed by another storyline called "The Practical Pig" from May 1 to August 7, 1938.[26]
The anthology comic book
See also
References
- ^ "Walt Disney's "Three Little Pigs" (1933) -". cartoonresearch.com.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4847-5132-9.
- ISBN 978-0-299-23004-3.
- ISBN 978-1878685490.
- ISBN 9780231110952.
- ^ "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company (1934)". www.islandnet.com.
- ^ "Huffing and Puffing about Three Little Pigs • Senses of Cinema". www.sensesofcinema.com. 31 July 2006.
- ^ "The Walt Disney Family Museum - Find animation, innovation, and inspiration and immerse yourself in the remarkable life story of Walt Disney". disney.go.com.
- ISBN 9781461421016.
- ISBN 9780313358302.
- ISBN 9780679757474.
- ISBN 9780679757474. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
- ^ "The Three Little Pigs. (Walt Disney, 1933) | UC Berkeley Library". www.lib.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
- ^ a b Gabler, Neal (2006). Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. New York: Alfred A Knopf. p. 448. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
- ^ Korkis, Jim (2017). Call Me Walt: Everything You Never Knew About Walt Disney. Theme Park Press. pp. 151–152. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
- ^ Korkis, Jim (September 20, 2017). "Debunking Myths About Walt Disney". MousePlanet.com. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
- ^ Korkis, Jim (February 19, 2014). "Debunking Meryl Streep: Part One". MousePlanet.com. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
- ^ "Insider - Oh My Disney". Oh My Disney.
- Vulture.
When fascism began bubbling up in Europe, the pigs with houses of straw and sticks were repurposed as a desperate warning call to Western nations not taking the Nazi threat seriously.
- ^ "Silly Symphonies: The Historic Musical Animated Classics DVD Review". DVD Dizzy. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
- ^ "Big Bad Wolf, The (film)". D23. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
- ^ "Three Little Wolves (film)". D23. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
- ^ "Practical Pig, The (film)". D23. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
- ^ "Thrifty Pig, The (film)". D23. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
- ^ Reif, Alex (October 16, 2023). "Disney's "Once Upon a Studio" – List of Characters in Order of Appearance". Laughing Place.
- ISBN 978-1631408045.
- ^ "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #52". Inducks. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
- ^ "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #52". Inducks. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
External links
- Official website
- Three Little Pigs at the TCM Movie Database
- Three Little Pigs at IMDb
- Three Little Pigs in the Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
