Title - Porky in Wackyland
Director - Bob Clampett
Released - 1938
Interesting Fact -- Selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress
Reason for Placement --
If you took the images of movies made by David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, and add Salvador Dali to taste... you'd have a tenth of the surrealism featured in Clampett's early opus, Porky in Wackyland.
This cartoon is like an acid trip, it is so bizarre. Porky goes on an expedition to find the long-thought extinct Dodo Bird, finding him in Wackyland (which is apparently located in the darkest regions of Africa). As the sign on the entrance explains, "IT CAN HAPPEN HERE"... and it pretty much does. I really wish I could explain half of the stuff Porky runs into, but frankly, it's all so abstract and strange that I honestly don't think I could do it justice. That's how crazy it all is. The design of this cartoon brings to mind one of those nightmares you had but refused to tell anyone about it because you were scared they'd think you'd lost your mind.
Also, this is one of the few cartoons that was pretty much remade in later years. In 1949, Friz Freleng oversaw a new version of the cartoon in full color, re-titled Dough for the Do-Do. The two films are nearly identical, though there are a few changes: a couple of gags are cut and a few new ones are put in, the voices are slightly different, and most of the backgrounds are altered just a bit.
Still, despite being so unbelievably bizarre, this cartoon really helped pave the way for Clampett's career with Warner Bros., and was a major jumping point for Termite Terrace to distance themselves from their Disney rivals. The plain & simple truth is that despite its updated remake from Freleng, there really was no other cartoon like Porky in Wackyland, and honestly, I don't think there will ever be another one like it.
Porky in Wackyland, a heavy-dose of eye-popping surrealism that serves as a reminder that no matter where we end up in life... at least it's not there.
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