Dough for the Do-Do

Years before Gus Van Sant's scene-by-scene remake of "Psycho", Friz Freleng made a color remake of Bob Clampett's b/w classic "Porky in Wackyland". For the most part, Freleng took the original soundtrack and animation and added color, thus retaining the looney charm of the original. He did make several changes, cutting some scenes and adding a couple of new ones, including an alternate ending. The best addition is the background styling, a clever pastiche of Salvador Dali paintings. (The original backgrounds were inspired by 1930s comics, particularly Smokey Stover.)As remakes go, it's better than most. Best to see the original, but if you can't, "Dough" will do-do just fine.

Ways in that this is different to "Porky in Wackyland": It has a Salvador Dali style, which is a good touch, there is colour animation, Porky has a more modern animation style to him and some of the jokes are missed out/enhanced, which is both good and bad in different places.

Ways in that this is the same to "Porky in Wackyland": Many of the jokes are exactly the same - even animated in a way which is almost exactly the same.

Overall, this remake was entirely pointless - except there were some jokes that were better improved than in the last episode. Having said that, there are many very good jokes in "Porky in Wackyland" that were cut out completely here.

If you have not watched either "Dough for the Do-do" or "Porky in Wackyland", then I strongly recommend watching the original first, as it is slightly better than this episode. If you have already watched PIW, but not this, then expect a cartoon almost exactly the same but with colour. If you have watched this already, but not PIW, then expect PIW to be a much older cartoon with a different slant on humour.

Enjoy "Porky in Wackyland"! :-)

7 and a half out of ten.

In his search for the priceless Do-Do bird, Porky Pig flies over Africa, into deepest Africa and further into Even Darker Africa. There he finds some strange and crazy things - but nothing prepares him for his meeting with the insane Do-Do bird itself.

The set up for this film is very basic and it doesn't really do anything other than the basic plot summary says; however - it is very, very funny. Set in a world that is half Warner Brothers and half Salvador Dali, the action basically revolves around the fact that everything in this world is totally, totally insane! All sorts of mad characters exist in this world - I really wondered how on earth they managed to think them all up!

Porky is really good here and has more meat (in terms of character) on him than he has had in other films, however, despite his top billing, he is not the star of this film. No - that honour belongs to the wonderfully insane Do-Do bird himself. He is manic and crazy to the point that he out-Daffy's Daffy himself! The film builds to him and I was amazed just how funny and imaginative the character was - especially coming after such a host of crazy characters.

Overall, if you are a fan of Daffy Duck when he was in his crazy period then you will simply love this cartoon. Visually it is impressive and imaginative but it is the Do-Do bird that makes it all work. Join me! Do-do-do-do-do-do-do!

The headline reads, "Porky Hunts Rare Do-Do Bird Worth $4,000,000,000,000. The subhead reads: p.s.-000,000,000.

He flies his plane into "darkest Africa" and lands in "Wackyland." Wacky is right: wild characters that look like something out of Star Wars movies and a background that is strictly Salvador Dali-esquire. One of the "monsters" is a three-headed guy with Curly, Larry and Moe's head and they take turns slapping each other. That's just one of hundreds of bizarre sights in this strange cartoon.

The quick-as-lightning and magical green do-do bird is no exception....but is he really the last do-do?

This is one of those cartoons you'd have to watch many times to catch all the crazy and clever visuals.

Porky Pig goes to darkest Africa to catch the supposedly last remaining Dodo bird. This short is weird with a capital W. The problem is that simply very weird doesn't translate to simply hilarious in and of itself. The second strike against this, is the fact that it's pretty much a re-make of an earlier Porky Pig Looney Tunes short and I don't really like re-makes as most times it's just sheer laziness on the remakers part. Still there are a few laughs to be had in this cartoon, albeit small as they may be. And perhaps I'm in the minority here, but if that's the case so be it.This cartoon is on Disk 2 of the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1"

My Grade: C-