Noutions
Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
ArrowverseDCEUGothamJoker
This is one of Friz Freleng's earlier masterpieces in this cartoon. It has a very good story with good character personalities of a greedy little pig who can only think about food but then his food dream turns into a nightmare as I imagine that it was supposed to be rather dark. The Feed-a-Matic sequence was very original to me and this is what influence writers on shows like 'The Simpsons' and even in Walter Lantz cartoons; and even the writers from the Treehouse of Horror episode mentioned that they were inspired from this short. This is the second and final appearance of the Hamhock family as we wouldn't have needed anymore since it could only go worse. The animation here is very appealing as it was animated by mostly Bob McKimson since I can see some scenes he probably did but I'm not going to grasp on the styles. After only two cartoons of the Hamhock family; the characters then disappear from the screen but Pigs is Pigs is easily their best cartoon out of 'At Your Service Madame' and it's even on the '100 Greatest Looney Tunes' book.
TheLittleSongbird
Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.'Pigs is Pigs' is not one of Friz Freleng's best cartoons by any stretch, in an uneven "still evolving" period of his long career, and he was yet to be in his full prime and not yet found his style properly. For a relatively early effort, 'Pigs is Pigs' has some interest but it's a bit bland too. It is never what one would call hilarious, Freleng's later efforts show more evenness and confidence in directing and the story is flimsy and occasionally loses momentum, taking too long to get going. It is also rather disjointed. Things become significantly more interesting in the truly nightmarish and sometimes second second half than the overly-cutesy and sugary sweet first act. Sadly, the two halves do feel like two different cartoons that don't gel properly with each other.However, the characters are fun, especially the antagonist the scientist while the pig is a decent protagonist. The conflict between them carries 'Pigs is Pigs' and does so very well.The cartoon is amusing at times when it becomes more interesting and entertaining in the nightmarish second half.Animation is excellent, it's fluid in movement, crisp in shading, vibrant in colour and very meticulous in detail. Ever the master, Carl Stalling's music is typically superb. It is as always lushly orchestrated, full of lively energy and characterful in rhythm, not only adding to the action but also enhancing it. Voice acting from particularly Billy Bletcher is terrific.All in all, interesting but not great. Freleng did much better since. 6/10 Bethany Cox
phantom_tollbooth
Friz Freleng's 'Pigs is Pigs' is an odd cartoon that starts out unbearably cutesy and then suddenly turns nightmarish. The story of a greedy little pig who falls foul of a mad scientist, 'Pigs is Pigs' starts out looking saccharine sweet and torturously slow paced as young pigs frolic in a brightly coloured garden. However, there's an inspired little scene in which the main pig steals spaghetti from the others and from here the cartoon picks up. The incongruous pairing of the overly cute characters and cloying voice characterisations with the disturbing latter half of the cartoon only serves to make that second half even more freaky. A strange yellow scientist force feeds the pig by strapping him to a chair that keeps his mouth open and firing various foods into it. All the best jokes emerge during this frightening sequence but the pacing still feels a little too slow and ultimately, 'Pigs is Pigs' is an interesting failure. It's definitely worth seeing but in the end it's a less than satisfying watch, despite the refreshing surprise that in a seemingly didactic cartoon the lead character learns absolutely nothing!
Steve Carras
This was an early animated prototype of Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" (which, btw, was released not in the late '60s, but in the early70s, and coincidentally it was the first of his pernament Warner Bros.Studio association!)Other toons used this gimmick too. MGM's "Pipe Dreams" Warner's own "Wholly Smoke" Art Clokey's "Grub Grabber Gumby!"Billy Bletcher was the villain, the very obscure Bernice Hansen, the little pig. The title was the only thing from that 1905 E.P.Butlerbook,"Pigs is Pigs", with a very different storyline than the WB cartoon, but Disney made a film twenty years later of the Butler book. WB was indeed the most cynical of the studios till Jay Ward,Hanna Barbera, then Spumco in the 90s.Soundtrack includes "Fella with a Fiddle" and "When My Dreaboat Comes Home", also much used in WB shorts of the time-"Fella" in "The Cat Came Back", "The Blow-Out",the title short "Fella", and "Little Beau Porky",and "Dreamboat" in "Porky's Badtime Story", and its remake "Tick Tock Tuckered",and "The Birth of a Notion".When the mother pig (talking in a Jewish accent--VERY sneaky WB type joke even for that un-PC period!) (as we see the outside shot of the piggie house!) warns her sonny-boy of indigestion, WE know he might have some nightmare, especially when he finds himself in a different place all of a sudden, especially when a Billy Bletcher-voiced mad doctor appears! But is it a dream, reality, or is it Memorex?(Compare this with PORKY's shorts, or more recent live action comedies about fatness--"Big Momma's House 1 and 2", and this year's smashes "Norbit" and "Hairspray"! (and that last was set back in the sixties..)The ending, like the "A Clockwork Orange" gimmick,is like "Wholly Smoke" (same director,Frank Tash), which DID have Porky.
