Patient Porky

Patient Porky is a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes theatrical cartoon, starring Porky Pig. It was directed by Bob Clampett, written by Warren Foster, and scored by Carl W. Stalling. Patient Porky was released on August 24, 1940.

A title card at the beginning claims that the cartoon is adapted from a book called The Pains Came, but this is merely a joke, a pun off the novel and film The Rains Came.

Plot

The cartoon begins with a tour of a hospital where we see many patients resting in their beds. Porky soon checks in with a stomachache, caused by overeating at his birthday party. Instead of a real doctor, he encounters a crazy cat patient who, as soon as he hears Porky's plea for a doctor, rushes over and introduces himself as "Young Dr. Chilled-Air" (a reference to Dr. Kildare). After Porky tells him about his tummy ache, the cat decides to take an X-ray of Porky's stomach. Inside we see three-quarters of a birthday cake with the candles still lit. The cat then sympathetically escorts Porky over to a bed where he throws him into it and he bounces up off of the bed, in the process a hospital gown that was on a hook above the bed flies off of the hook and onto Porky as Porky's jacket flies off of him and onto the hook. The cat then brags to the other patients, "Look fellas! I got a patient! I got a patient!" The cat then grabs the bed, pushes it and they go speeding through the hospital where he sings "I've got a terrific urgin' to be a famous surgeon so I'm going to start out to carve my new career." He rushes Porky into surgery where we see him sharpening knives and cleaning a saw with a rag. The cat, with the saw in his hand, then walks up to Porky who is lying in bed looking unaware of what the cat's plans are until the cat takes the covers down and lifts his gown to "operate." As soon as Porky sees what the cat is up to, he yells, "Hey! W-W-What's the big idea?" and wiggles around to try to get away from the crazy cat. He tries to escape the cat by slipping through the covers then running down the hall in an effort to escape. He runs out of the hospital and back home where the cat is hot on his trail. Porky runs into his bedroom and slams the door and the cat follows him where he finds Porky lying in bed with his arms behind his head and smiling. Thinking he has the upper hand and believing that Porky is going to allow the operation to proceed, the cat lifts his gown to operate on him again when suddenly he sees a sticker pasted on Porky's stomach that reads "Do Not Open till Xmas." The cat, with a confused look on his face, turns to the camera and says "Christmas?", then jumps in bed next to Porky, with the saw at his side and states "I'll wait" much to Porky's horrific dismay and the cat's satisfaction.

Availability

• Patient Porky is available, uncut and restored, on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, Disc 3.

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940–1949)

External links

• Patient Porky at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Patient Porky at the Internet Movie Database