Can I Borrow a Cup of Gags?

Pigs in a Polka is expertly timed by director Friz Freleng to Brahms’ music, including the obligatory scene where the Big Bad Wolf huffs and huffs but can’t blow down the pigs’ brick house.

Instead, there’s a gag.



Warners wasn’t above re-using routines. The gag comes from Tex Avery’s A Gander at Mother Goose, released three years earlier in 1940.



Later, it’s revealed Big Bad Wolf has a wind-up record player stashed in her shawl disguise.



A similar gag popped up in 1933 in the Van Beuren cartoon Fresh Ham, a good Cubby Bear cartoon.



There’s no writer credit on this Blue Ribbon release of Pigs in a Polka, though apparently the original credits exist.