oscaralbert Review of Paying the Piper

Paying the Piper (1949)

Porky Pig undertakes to rid Hamelin of . . .

[8/10 · 25 March 2016]

. . . drunks, in Warner Bros.' animated short, PAYING THE PIPER. Porky performs a single song on his swinging clarinet, "Little Brown Jug." As this Retold Tale begins, Porky already has ridden Hamelin of its 300 billion rat population, according to the city limits sign and a "Hamelin Blab" headline. (At half a pound a rat, that's 150 billion pounds of rats, which translates to around 75 million tons of rodents, which could make up a convoy of 52.3-foot dump trucks 750,000 miles long bumper-to-bumper, circling the globe about 30 times at the Equator--but I'm not sure where you could dump so many rats: Texas, perhaps? They'd be barely noticed there.) Hamelin's "Supreme Cat" appears to be an alcoholic, since he staggers after Porky whenever that latter plays his drinking song, like a zombie following a Candied Brains Truck. While Porky may be as Good Natured as the Good Humor Man, he's not about to let the Supreme Cat filch his hard-earned fee for dumping so many loads of rats in Texas. Porky gets the last laugh here, informing the Supreme Cat that his "sister drives a pickle wagon!"