ANIMATOR BREAKDOWN: "The Practical Pig" (1939)
Added 2020-10-02 15:30:22 +0000 UTCIf you are unable to play the Google Drive embed, click here.
The outline circulated for the final sequel with Disney’s Three Little Pigs circulated around the studio on July 15, 1936. In the outline, the film originally opened with the three pigs working at a flour mill. Practical Pig goes to market, and orders his two brothers to keep busy and to be on the lookout for the Big Bad Wolf. The two pigs ignore their wise brother’s advice and shirk their responsibilities to go out for a swim. The action in the outline reflects the events of the finished film, including the Wolf disguising himself as a mermaid and being interrogated by the Practical Pig’s lie detector machine.
As the animation progressed after a year from December 1937 through March 1938, Fred Moore acted as a supervisor of the opening scenes credited to Claude Smith, Larry Clemmons and Riley Thompson. Since these were intended to establish the characters’ personalities, Moore aided the three animators with their footage.
Likewise, Don Williams was given scenes of the Practical Pig inside the house when the Wolf arrives disguised as a postman, and the sequence of the three little wolves baking the two brothers into a pork pie, ready to set them in the oven. Williams was also credited on the scene of the wolves stuck to the wall, covered with dough. By early March, Larry Clemmons took over Williams’ scenes; the sweatbox notes dictate one scene for Clemmons to “rough right over Don’s drawings, making all the action more direct, clarifying the dialogue.” According to the late Dave Smith, Williams left Disney’s by February 1938; it is unclear if his departure was related to his work on the production, but it might have been an incentive to have his scenes redone.
For JB Kaufman’s research on the Silly Symphonies, he revealed The Practical Pig was given a private showing with other Disney shorts at the Filmarte in Los Angeles on September 27, 1938. The announced release took place a few months later on February 24, 1939.
(Thanks to Mark Kausler, JB Kaufman and David Gerstein for their help.)
