Curtain Razor
Encyclopedia
Curtain Razor is a 1949 Looney Tunes
short directed by Friz Freleng
and starring Porky Pig
. It is notable as a showcase of the voice talent of Mel Blanc
.
's opera Lohengrin
accompany the opening credits and earth-shaking scene
as hopeful stage talents wait outside the office of Goode and Corny: Talent Agents. While singing, the voice boasts of his previous experience in other venues. The voice turns out to belong to a tiny grasshopper
, who ends his performance with Blanc's trademark pronunciation of Cuc-amonga. Porky, who is manning the office and listening to the auditions, tells the grasshopper he might have a spot for him. The rest of the short consists of a series of acts by various performers, most of whom Porky rejects.
Finally, it is the fox's turn to do his act. He dons a devil's costume and swallows atomic powder, TNT, gasoline, and finally, a lit match. BOOM! Porky thinks the act is terrific, but the fox, now a transparent ghost, comes through the office door and says that there is only one tiny problem with the act, he can only do it once!
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
short directed by Friz Freleng
Friz Freleng
Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....
and starring Porky Pig
Porky Pig
Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...
. It is notable as a showcase of the voice talent of Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
.
Plot
An operatic tenor voice and piano music for the Act III Prelude from Richard WagnerRichard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's opera Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
accompany the opening credits and earth-shaking scene
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
as hopeful stage talents wait outside the office of Goode and Corny: Talent Agents. While singing, the voice boasts of his previous experience in other venues. The voice turns out to belong to a tiny grasshopper
Grasshopper
The grasshopper is an insect of the suborder Caelifera in the order Orthoptera. To distinguish it from bush crickets or katydids, it is sometimes referred to as the short-horned grasshopper...
, who ends his performance with Blanc's trademark pronunciation of Cuc-amonga. Porky, who is manning the office and listening to the auditions, tells the grasshopper he might have a spot for him. The rest of the short consists of a series of acts by various performers, most of whom Porky rejects.
- A henChickenThe chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
(who bears a resemblance to DisneyThe Walt Disney CompanyThe Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
's Clara Cluck) clucks Blue DanubeThe Blue DanubeThe Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 , a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866...
. Porky seems to like this act, but the hen literally "lays an egg" and takes this event in its figurative sense in that her act flopped. Porky pushes a button on his desk that sends the hen and the egg with a sad looking chick (who resembles TweetyTweetyTweety Bird is a fictional Yellow Canary in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons. The name "Tweety" is a play on words, as it originally meant "sweetie", along with "tweet" being a typical English onomatopoeia for the sounds of birds...
) in it through a trap door in the floor. - A foxFoxFox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
bursts in telling Porky that his act is the best ever, but Porky tells him that it's not his turn yet. - A turtleTurtleTurtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
resembling Cecil Turtle but with Blanc's voice says he is the "man of a 1000 voices." He goes through a rapid fire montage of voice impressions (including Foghorn Leghorn, Bugs BunnyBugs BunnyBugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...
, and Jimmy DuranteJimmy DuranteJames Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
). Porky says that he counted only nine hundred ninety nine voices. The turtle is stumped as to what his 1000th voice is and exits the office hoping that he'll remember it later. - Bingo the ParrotParrotParrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three families: the Psittacidae , the Cacatuidae and the Strigopidae...
, Frankie the RoosterRoosterA rooster, also known as a cockerel, cock or chanticleer, is a male chicken with the female being called a hen. Immature male chickens of less than a year's age are called cockerels...
, and Al the CrowCrowCrows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
(resembling Bing CrosbyBing CrosbyHarry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Frank SinatraFrank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, and Al JolsonAl JolsonAl Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
, respectively) sing the popular hit song April Showers, each in the distinctive manner of their namesakes. Porky tells them that he'll consider their act but says after they leave that it was a low class act that only bobbysoxersBobby soxerBobby soxer is a 1940s sociologic coinage denoting the over zealous, usually teenage and young adult girls from about 12 to 25, fans of singer Frank Sinatra, the first singing teen idol. Fashionable adolescent girls wore poodle skirts and rolled down their socks to the ankle...
would like. - A two-headed man enters the office. Porky thinks that he would be a good act, but it turns out the man is just the janitor. (Porky: o boy two headed! This ought to be a sensational act! Two-headed man: Act, Shmact! I'm the janitor.)
- The fox barges into the office again, telling Porky to watch his act. Porky tells him to go back out and wait his turn.
- A dogDogThe domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
in a bathing suit named J. Fenton Hadding places his briefcase on the floor. It turns out to be a elevated platform that the dog rides through the office skylight 500 feet into the air. The dog then dives into a glass of water that he is holding in his hand (describing his whole act throughout). Porky sends the dog stuck in his water glass down the trap door. - Crawford Coo (a man in a circus ringmaster's outfit) has a trained pigeon act. He sets up various pigeon-sized acrobatic equipment and releases the pigeons from a box, but the pigeons fly out the window. Crawford tries tap dancing instead, but Porky sends him down the trap door (the gag is repeated in Show Biz BugsShow Biz BugsShow Biz Bugs is a Warner Bros. animated short originally released to theaters on November 2, 1957. It is billed as a Looney Tunes cartoon and stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck as its main characters...
). - The fox bursts in again. Porky sends him down the trap door.
- A shaggy dog enters. Porky thinks it's a dog act, but the dog hands him a business card, announcing that he is the Itch and Scratch Flea Circus. The dog blows a whistle and fleas hop from his back to build a tiny circus tent and carnival midway, then dismantle it when the dog blows the whistle again. The music played here is the Wackyland Rubber Band music featured in the shorts Tin Pan Alley CatsTin Pan Alley CatsTin Pan Alley Cats is a 1943 animated short subject, directed by Bob Clampett for Leon Schlesinger Productions as part of Warner Bros.' Merrie Melodies series...
and Dough for the Do-doDough for the Do-DoDough for the Do-Do is a Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon short released in 1949 and directed by Friz Freleng. The color remake of Bob Clampett's cartoon Porky in Wackyland , it is available on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1.-Plot:A newspaper shows Porky...
.
Finally, it is the fox's turn to do his act. He dons a devil's costume and swallows atomic powder, TNT, gasoline, and finally, a lit match. BOOM! Porky thinks the act is terrific, but the fox, now a transparent ghost, comes through the office door and says that there is only one tiny problem with the act, he can only do it once!
Censorship
- Much like Show Biz BugsShow Biz BugsShow Biz Bugs is a Warner Bros. animated short originally released to theaters on November 2, 1957. It is billed as a Looney Tunes cartoon and stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck as its main characters...
, this cartoon was edited on Cartoon Network and The Merrie Melodies Show to remove a character drinking gasoline (the fox performing his act for Porky in which he dresses like the devil and ingests dangerous chemicals). The difference between Cartoon Network's cut of this cartoon and The Merrie Melodies Show cut is that Cartoon Network left in the part where the fox swallows a match while The Merrie Melodies Show did not. - NickelodeonNickelodeon (TV channel)Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
left in the chemical drinking part at the end (despite editing a similar scene in Show-Biz Bugs), but edited the part where the Al Jolson duck (who looks like an off-model, big-chinned Daffy Duck) begs for his "Mammy" before the Bing Crosby parrot hits him in the head with his pipe.
External links
- Curtain Razor at Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...