Jeepers Creepers (1939 animated film)
Jeepers Creepers is a 1939 Looney Tunes animated short starring Porky Pig. It was directed by Robert Clampett.
Synopsis
Porky is a police officer investigating goings-on at a haunted house. The house is actually haunted, and the fun loving ghost (voiced by Pinto Colvig) plays a series of pranks on the unsuspecting pig. Porky is finally scared out of the house, but he has the last laugh when his back-firing car leaves the ghost in blackface (and the ghost doing a Rochester imitation).
Trivia
- The title is from the song (performed by the ghost) "Jeepers Creepers", from the Warner Brothers' film Going Places.
- In this cartoon, Porky is afraid of ghosts, yet in a series of cartoons with Sylvester, he is oblivious to all the scary things going on (instead Sylvester is shown as the scared one).
Censorship
- This cartoon was shown as a colorized version (either redrawn from the 1960s or an early-1990's computer-colorized version) on syndicated airings on local channels, on Cartoon Network shows outside of "The Bob Clampett Show" & "Late Night Black and White" (i.e., The Acme Hour, The Looney Tunes Show, and Bugs and Daffy), the "Merrie Melodies Show" when it aired on the Fox network, and on Nickelodeon so the ghost would be opaque and yellow. The actual editing of the ending (where the ghost, after getting exhaust smoke blown on him, is left in blackface commenting "My, oh my! Tattletale Gray!") has been done in different ways:
- The syndicated showings showed the actual ending, but had the ghost in purple face so the blackface joke would be less offensive.
- On Nickelodeon, the cartoon ended via fake iris-out after the exhaust on Porky's car blew in the ghost's face.
- On Fox's Merrie Melodies show, the cartoon ended via fake fade-out after Porky drove his car past the ghost.
- On Cartoon Network (save the versions shown on Late Night Black & White and The Bob Clampett Show), the cartoon ended with a black-out as Porky's car blows exhaust in the ghost's face.
Availability
As of 2011 this cartoon is not available on DVD.
Sources
Beck, Jerry; Will Friedwald (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.