You Ought to Be in Pictures

United States

1940

9 Min

Black and White

1.37:1

English

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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CAST Leon Schlesinger, Mel Blanc, Michael Maltese, Gerry Chiniquy, Henry Binder, Paul Marin, Chuck Jones, Robert Clampett

MUSIC Carl W. Stalling, Milt Franklyn

ANIM Herman Cohen, Gil Turner, Cal Dalton

Synopsis

You Ought to Be in Pictures is a 1940 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short film featuring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. The film combined live-action and animation, and features live-action appearances by Leon Schlesinger, writer Michael Maltese, and other Schlesinger Productions staff members. The title comes from the popular 1934 song “You Oughta Be in Pictures” by Dana Suesse and Edward Heyman. In 1994 it was voted #34 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.

Daffy wants to be the top star in the studio. To this end, he persuades Porky to resign from the Schlesinger studios to pursue a career in feature films as Bette Davis’ leading man. Porky goes to Leon Schlesinger and asks to have his contract torn up. Schlesinger reluctantly agrees, and wishes Porky the best of luck. “He’ll be back!” chuckles Schlesinger after Porky is out of earshot.

The rest of the short involves Porky trying to get into the lots and sets of various un-named studios, all with the same degree of success (none, that is). After several failures, he decides to see if Schlesinger will take him back. He returns to Schlesinger’s office after frantically dodging his cartooned car in and out of “actual” Los Angeles traffic, a situation mirrored in Disney’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit 50 years later, only to see Daffy doing a wild audition to become the new star of Warner Bros. cartoons and openly downgrading Porky (“Porky never did anything. I did all the work”) . He asks Daffy to come with him and takes Daffy into another room, Daffy questioning why Porky was back (“Hey, whatsa matter? They try to cut you down to nine-thousand?”) Once in the room, Porky beats Daffy up. After Porky gets his revenge on Daffy, he hurriedly runs into Schlesinger’s office to beg for his job back. Schlesinger, laughing heartily and saying “I knew you’d be back!”, reveals that he didn’t really rip up Porky’s contract, and tells him to get back to work. Porky gladly runs back into the animation paper that he was in when the short started. Daffy, still not quite having learned his lesson after being beaten by Porky, again attempts to persuade Porky to resign and work with Greta Garbo, only to get splattered with a tomato. —Wikipedia

Director

Friz Freleng

Friz Freleng began animating cartoons with Hugh Harman and Ub Iwerks at United Film Ad Service in the mid-1920s, then moved with his associates to the Disney studios. Freleng left Disney in 1929 and after directing his first cartoon for Walter Lantz at Universal (Wicked West), joined the Warner Brothers animation department. There his black-and-white cartoons of the mid-‘30s showed a special flair for integrating music and action, especially in his “Bosko” series. Freleng began directing Warners’ color series of Merrie Melodies cartoons in 1934 and over the next three decades made many of Warners’ funniest cartoons, creating such memorable characters as Yosemite Sam (said to be a self-caricature) and Speedy Gonzalez, as well as developing the identities of such iconic figures as Porky Pig (Porky’s Hired Hand), Bugs Bunny (Racketeer Rabbit, Rhapsody Rabbit), Daffy Duck (Ain’t That Ducky), and Sylvester and Tweety (Tweetie Pie, Birds Anonymous). After Warners’ cartoon unit folded, Freleng… read more