Le petit cochon débrouillard

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

With his younger brothers in danger of becoming a pork pie, THE PRACTICAL PIG must have a final showdown with the Big Bad Wolf.

This amusing & lively little film was the last theatrical cartoon to feature the Three Pigs & the Wolf, following THREE LITTLE PIGS (1933), THE BIG BAD WOLF (1934) & THREE LITTLE WOLVES (1936). The Wolf's sons return for this outing and prove themselves to be every bit as rapacious as their father. The tune which the 'mermaid' is strumming on the harp is 'Frankie and Johnny.'

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

This is the third and last sequel to the Silly Symphony short, The Three Little Pigs, bringing back the three animals and the notorious Big Bad Wolf one final time for some forest thrills. This time, the wolf has captured two of the three little pigs and takes them to his lair to be cooked for dinner, but the wolf wants to capture the remaining pig, The Practical Pig, before cook time. But, the Three Little Wolves have devious plans of their own.

There are a some of thrills and excitement in this one, but the wolf-capturing-pigs plot element ran thin this time around, and the Practical Pig's inventions seem to run a little overboard in this one, but, it yielded some hilarious, laugh-out-loud comedy when tried out on the Big Bad Wolf.

Again, it's nice to hear a reprise of the song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf."

Overall, a very nice final Three Little Pigs cartoon

Grade B+

The Practical Pig is an amusing and very lively Silly Symphony, following Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf and Three Little Wolves, all of which are just as entertaining as this. The three little pigs are great Toon characters, and the Big Bad Wolf is as rapacious as ever. His sons also return here, and are very much like their father. The Practical Pig was one of my favourites as a kid, and after revisiting it last night, I can see why I loved it so much. The Technicolour animation is great, the music is excellent, and there are so many funny moments, my favourite being when Practical Pig traps The Big Bad Wolf, and puts him in a sort of lie detector machine. Overall, a childhood favourite and I am still very fond of it. 10/10 Bethany Cox