Three Little Bops

The Three Little Pigs are a performing trio playing at the House of Straw. The Big Bad Wolf tries to join the band, but he plays badly. The Pigs call him square and rejects him. He leaves and blows down the place. The Pigs' next gig is the House of Sticks. The Big Bad Wolf tries again and the audience is disgusted with his playing. He gets thrown out and once again, he blows the place down. Finally, the Three Little Pigs are playing at The House of Bricks. This one has a sign that reads, "No Wolves Allowed". The wolf keeps trying, but he can't ever blow it down.

The Three Little Pigs are Looney Tunes favorites despite not being uniquely to them. I really like doing this take. Mostly, I love the narration mixed with this song. It is loads of fun and I love the ending.

Friz Freleng's 'The Three Little Bops' is a longtime favourite of mine. From the first time I saw it at a very early age, I was always on the lookout for a chance to see it again. While I was growing up during the 80s and 90s, Warner Bros. cartoons were frequently on TV and every so often this one came around. I was absolutely delighted when it finally became available for me to own on the essential Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. A jazz parody of Disney's famous 'Three Little Pigs' cartoon, 'The Three Little Bops' is entirely set to music with a great vocal by the underrated Stan Freberg (who finally gets screen credit in this cartoon). It tells the story of the Big Bad Wolf's unsuccessful attempts to be accepted into the Three Little Pigs nightclub act and each time he is rejected, he blows the nightclub down! The visuals are beautifully stylised, fitting perfectly with the modern theme of the cartoon, and Warren Foster's lyrics are often priceless ("Dew Drop Inn did drop down"!). It's not quite a perfect cartoon, since there are a couple of slightly mistimed moments and the section in which the Wolf adopts a series of disguises slows things down and unnecessarily breaks from the musical narration for a conspicuously long time. Nevertheless, if asked to list my favourite cartoons, 'The Three Little Bops' would always be one of the first to pop into my head. It's a toe-tapping delight of which I never tire.

Jazz, 1950s style, takes precedence in this cartoon of the "The Three Little Pigs" who are jazz musicians. They're good, too, on sax, drums, piano with a bass handy, if needed. The whole cartoon is told in song, with Stan Freberg doing his best to sound jazzy as he sings the story. It actually sounds more like very early rock 'n roll.

The story is basically a hip-dressed wolf who enters the club, hears the pigs and wants to join in with his trumpet. The pigs are nice guys and can't say "no" but when the wolf starts blowing his horn, well, it ain't' good. As Fregerg sings, "The three little pigs were really gassed; they never heard such a corny blast."

The pigs tell the wolf, "We've played in the West; we've played in the East, we've heard 'the most,' but you're 'the least!' They escort the wolf out. He winds up blowing the house of straw down!

This happens in several places as the pigs entertain elsewhere, each time the wolf coming in and getting thrown out for his horrible playing until the pigs finally build a place made out of bricks ("made in 1776" - each line is rhyme in this cartoon.)

It's this kind of dialog and singing (along with the dress-ware of the musicians) that makes this cartoon just a huge hoot to watch and hear. I loved it! It was different from anything else I've seen on these Looney Tunes collections. I felt like I was in a jazz club back in the '50s or at a Bill Haley rock 'n roll concert. This is one cartoon I will play over and over.

Every muso you speak to knows this cartoon. When I was in year 10 my school music teacher showed us this video. I'm now a high school music teacher myself and I want to share it with my students too. Unfortunately my old teacher has lost it and I can't find a copy of it anywhere. I've described it to my students and they have named their jazz band "House of Bricks". I may sound slightly obsessed but to me watching this cartoon was a defining moment in my musical career.

Why this absolutely brilliant 1957 "Looney Tunes" entry was not nominated for an Academy Award, I'll never know. In a 1992 television viewers' poll, it was deservedly voted one of the best twenty cartoons in the whole Warner Brothers' repertoire.

For once, the UPA cartoon style isn't employed by the Warner artists simply because it's flavor of the month, but because it's highly suited to the subject matter. The backgrounds and the character animation all perfectly compliment the up-beat vocal.

No matter how many times you watch and listen to "The Three Little Bops", repeated viewing does little to lessen the impact of its cleverly off-beat visual and verbal humor.