Baby Bottleneck

Baby Bottleneck is a 1945 Warner Brothers Looney Tunes (reissued as a Blue Ribbion) theatrical cartoon short released in 1946 and directed by Robert Clampett and written by Warren Foster.

Synopsis

The cartoon opens with an overworked stork (a clear Jimmy Durante reference) getting drunk in the Stork Klub. There is an emergency delivery in which inexperienced pea-sized brained friends take the babies to there parents. As a result, babies are getting sent to the wrong parents (such as a baby Hippopotamus to a Scottish Terrier and a baby alligator to a pig). To clear up the confusion, Porky Pig is brought in to manage the factory, with Daffy Duck as his assistant. The babies are seen going through a conveyor belt (to the tune of Raymond Scott's famous "Powerhouse") and getting sent by various animals, while Daffy mans the phones (making quick references to Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor and the Dionne Quintuplets).

When a stray egg is found without an address, Porky decides to have Daffy sit on it until it hatches. However, Daffy (nor Porky, for that matter) refuses to sit around on top of an egg. Porky chases Daffy around the factory, until they wind up trapped on the conveyor belt. The belt winds up stuffing both of them into one package (with Porky as the legs and Daffy as the top half) and send them off to Africa, where a gorilla is waiting for her arrival. When the gorilla looks at the 'baby', Porky peeks through the diaper, causing the gorilla to cry on the telephone to a call-in therapist.

Influence

Animator John Kricfalusi has mentioned this cartoon as a major influence, particularly due to its manic pace and very unusual animation of Daffy and Porky.

Trivia

• The voice of the ethnic sounding pig was provided by actress Sara Berner. All other character voices, including the narrator, were performed by Mel Blanc. ^{[citation needed]}
• The DVD version of this cartoon (available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 box set) has the original title cards instead of the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies card that has been used on TV for years. ^{[citation needed]}

Censorship

• In the sequence where the baby alligator tries to get some milk from the mother pig, the alligator manages to push the other pigs aside and is about to take a drink when the pig stops him and starts to say something before the scene abruptly ends. As it was reaching for her teat, the pig was about to tell the alligator, "Ah, ah, ah! Don't touch that dial!" This gag was censored before the theatrical version was released and remains so on the DVD, since the footage apparently no longer exists, but the DVD version has a quick shot of the pig glaring at the alligator before it cuts to the next scene, which is edited from TV to make it look as if nothing is obviously missing.

• Cut from the Cartoon Network airing (except on the short-lived clip show "The Bob Clampett Show") is a scene of an overworked stork under a table at a restaurant drinking alcohol and hiccuping. ^{[citation needed]}

See also

• List of Daffy Duck cartoons

External links

• Baby Bottleneck at the Internet Movie Database

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