You Ought to Be in Pictures

"You Ought to Be in Pictures" was made when the Looney Tunes were still in their infancy, but it's just about as good as their most famous cartoons. While the animators are out to lunch, Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig that cartoons aren't for him and that he should work in feature films. But when Porky tries to enter a studio, the security guard (played by writer Michael Maltese) throws him out. After a few more mishaps, Porky finally decides to get revenge on Daffy.

Man, they pulled no punches when making these cartoons. And even though mixing live action with animation was a new thing, they really accomplished something cool.

An amusing behind-the-scenes, studio-tour parody, "You Ought to Be in Pictures" is especially comical as a gag on what was happening to Porky Pig's character in the Looney Tunes cartoons. In the black-and-white beginning, he was Leon Schlessinger and company's top toon, starring as a stuttering everyman-type anthropomorphic hog in such innovative animated shorts as "Porky in Wackyland" (1937). But, he soon began to be overshadowed by one of the characters the cartoonists tried to make his side-kick, Daffy Duck, who in this film tries to trick Porky into getting out of his contract so as to break into live-action features--and not coincidently put Daffy in line for a promotion. Little did they know, however, and unaddressed in this film, is that another star was just getting started at Looney Tunes the same year, Bugs Bunny. In the tradition of tragic irony, the Pig has been a secondary character ever since as if serving out Schlessinger's punishment for him trying to once be released from his contract. Echoes there of John Gilbert's career sabotaged by Louis B. Mayer holding a grudge. Or William Haines run out by Mayer. Or Judy Garland mistreated by Mayer.... Well, Mayer just wasn't a good guy.

Anyways, it seems as though just about every animation department made this type of cartoon-interacting-with-animators film at some point, and it's one of my favorite types of cartoons, for the reflexivity and technical craft of mixing animation and live action. Winsor McCay adding a framing narrative to explain how he made his cartoons and also becoming one himself in "Gertie the Dinosaur" (1914), Willis O'Brien's work with stop-motion animation culminating with matte shots in "King Kong" (1933), "Cartoon Factory" (1924) taking advantage of rotoscoping in Fleischer's Koko the Clown - Out of the Inkwell series, selective double-exposures and editing trickery in Disney's "Alice's Wonderland" (1923) and the rest of the Alice comedies, and this. It's not "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988) , but it's still clever and well done. The bit where Porky pretends to be Oliver Hardy to sneak onto the studio lot is pretty good, and the drawing live-action actors' hands for their interaction with the Pig is an innovation that I'm not sure I've seen done prior, or at least not quite as thoroughly. Another one of the "50 Greatest Cartoons" according to Jerry Beck's Looney-Tunes-heavy book, which although I might not go that far, there are certainly worse ways to spend nine minutes.

As part of his plan to eliminate the competition, Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to seek his fame and fortune in feature movies. After convincing producer Leon Schlesinger to tear up his contract, Porky heads out to a hollywood studio to look for a job, but all he finds is a lot of trouble.

The only animation seen in the film is Daffy, Porky, and Porky's car. This is not only unique for a Warner Brothers cartoon, it may at the time have been the most ambitious effort ever to combine animation with live action footage. Although extremely simple by today's standards, nothing done since can match the brilliant creativity and direction which makes this such a hilarious success.

The real strength of the film, however, is Porky. We might consider this the ultimate ensemble film, since Porky can only attain such incredible heights through the combination of efforts by Friz Freleng (director), Mel Blanc (voice), Jack Miller (writer) and Norman Cohen (animator). For 8 glorious minutes, Porky is every bit the comedic actor that Charlie Chaplin was at his very best.

I've seen two versions of this classic cartoon-the original black and white version on VHS tape during the '80s and just now in a colorized version on Facebook. Either way, it's a nice mix of live-action and animation as Porky Pig is convinced by Daffy Duck to try starring in feature films instead of the short cartoons he's been doing for years. So Porky goes to Leon Schlesinger's office to tear up his contract. When he leaves, Leon says "He'll be back". I'll stop there and just say this quite a funny short especially concerning some of the visual gags done in the live-action section. Mel Blanc does the voices of virtually all the humans except for Schlesinger and this was Friz Freleng's first short back at the producer's studio after being at M-G-M for the last two years. So this might have been inspired by Freleng's brief foray away from his home studio during that time. So on that note, I highly recommend You Ought to Be in Pictures.

Wow, this is different, and way ahead of its time, that's for sure. You have a 1940 cartoon that mixes live characters with cartoon ones, such as Porky Pig. This is almost a half-century before "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" came out!

We are at the artist's studio where Porky Pig and Daffy Duck are drawn and when everyone goes to lunch, Daffy comes alive and asks Porky, "Say, you want a good job?"

"I know where you can get a good job in features as Bette Davis' leading man," says the duckster. Porky is reluctant, saying he already as a good job and a contract but Daffy, sounding the Devil pouring bad advice into Porky's ear, advises him to go up and tell the boss that "I quit." Unfortunately for Porky, Daffy's advice wasn't very good.

I loved Porky's line to the boss: "What's Errol Flynn got that I haven't?"

Notes: It was interesting to see Looney Tunes producer Leon Schlesinger, although he wasn't much of an actor, and the voice behind all these famous characters, Mel Blanc, who plays both a security guard and a stagehand......This cartoon runs almost 10 minutes, which is several minutes longer than normal.