''Baby Bottleneck'' is a 1946

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation.

'' cartoon directed by

Bob Clampett Robert Emerson Clampett Sr. (May 8, 1913 – May 2, 1984) was an American animator, director, producer and puppeteer. He was best known for his work on the '' Looney Tunes'' animated series from Warner Bros. as well as the television shows '' ...

and written by

Warren Foster Warren Foster (October 24, 1904 – December 13, 1971) was an American writer, cartoonist and composer for the animation division of Warner Brothers and later with Hanna-Barbera. Early life He was born in Brooklyn, New York to Marion B. Fos ...

. The cartoon was released on March 16, 1946, and stars Daffy Duck and

Porky Pig Porky Pig is an animated 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 celebrity, star power, and the animators created ma ...

. Tweety makes a cameo appearance in the film.

Plot

As the

post-World War II baby boom The middle of the 20th century was marked by a significant and persistent increase in fertility rates in many countries of the world, especially in the Western world. The term ''baby boom'' is often used to refer to this particular boom, generally ...

explodes, an overworked

stork Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family called Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes . Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons an ...

(patterned after comedian

Jimmy Durante James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced song ...

) gets drunk in the

Stork Club Stork Club was a nightclub in Manhattan, New York City. During its existence from 1929 to 1965, it was one of the most prestigious clubs in the world. A symbol of café society, the wealthy elite, including movie stars, celebrities, showgirls, ...

, complaining that he does all the work and the fathers get all the credit. Inexperienced animals; among them a dog with a propeller-powered tail carrying bundles of babies, four crows attempting to deliver an elephant, a pelican with simple devices to help haul the babies in its bill, and a mouse dragging a baby

rhino A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

; are among those commissioned to handle the increased workload as they take the babies to their parents. Because of the inexperience of the substitutes, babies are getting sent to the wrong parents; a mother

goose A goose ( : geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera ''Anser'' (the grey geese and white geese) and '' Branta'' (the black geese). Some other birds, mostly related to the ...

is disgusted by her baby

skunk Skunks are mammals in the family Mephitidae. They are known for their ability to spray a liquid with a strong, unpleasant scent from their anal glands. Different species of skunk vary in appearance from black-and-white to brown, cream or ginge ...

, a baby

kitten A kitten is a juvenile cat. After being born, kittens display primary altriciality and are totally dependent on their mothers for survival. They normally do not open their eyes for seven to ten days. After about two weeks, kittens develop qu ...

refuses to swim for its mother

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...

, a baby

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...

rides uncomfortably in the pouch of a

Kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

, a Scottie Dog tries to rock his hippo to sleep, and two parents receive offspring that try to eat them—a kitten to a terrified mouse and an alligator to a pig.

is brought in to manage Storks Inc. and its assembly line, with Daffy Duck as his assistant. While Daffy mans the phones, making quick references to

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...

("I'm sorry, Bing, you've used up your quota."),

Eddie Cantor Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, ...

("You say you haven't got that boy yet?") and the

Dionne Quintuplets The Dionne quintuplets (; born May 28, 1934) are the first quintuplets known to have survived their infancy. The identical girls were born just outside Callander, Ontario, near the village of Corbeil. All five survived to adulthood. The Dionn ...

' father ("Mr. Dionne, please!"), Porky runs the control room, contacting references to Roydan Stork, Jimmy Doolittle as Jimmy Doo-quite-a-little, and a B-19. Then a dog worker, apparently research and development, comes in through Porky's door and tells him that strapping a skyrocket to the back would speed things exponentially, but the rocket exploded before the send-off. It's back to the drawing board for that idea. Then Daffy yells, "Fffull-speed ahead!" and Porky pulled the switch as the babies (among them Tweety in a brief cameo) are seen going through a conveyor belt (to the tune of Raymond Scott's famous " Powerhouse") as they are diapered, fed milk and mechanically burped before they are sent by various animals, one of which is a baby hippo crying loudly and paused as it cutely said, "I'm only 3½ seconds old," before resuming its wailing. Several minor mishaps happen along the assembly line; the machine that diapers babies is presented with a baby turtle but works around it by taking the baby out of their shell, then when the milk feeding machine tries to feed the turtle, it ends up flooding the shell, forcing the turtle to bail the milk out while badmouthing the machine; when the milk feeding machine begins sprays milk over a puppy's diaper, it begins crying as an alarm suddenly sounds. In response, Porky pulls a lever that sends the puppy to be given a rather quick bath. Problems, however, occur when Porky, reading the tags from the other babies, finds a stray egg is without an address and decides to have Daffy sit on it until it hatches. However, Daffy refuses to sit around on top of an egg. Furious, Porky chases Daffy around the factory (complete with an imitation of Porky by Daffy) until they wind up trapped on the conveyor belt. The belt winds up stuffing both of them into one package (with Porky as the legs and Daffy as the top half) and sends them off to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

via a stork-shaped skyrocket (Patent Pending), where a

is waiting for her arrival. When the gorilla looks at the "baby" she sees Daffy Duck crying, Porky peeks through the diaper, saying, "Uh, boo...", causing the gorilla to cry on the telephone, "Mr. Anthony, I have a problem!!" (a reference to John J. Anthony, who conducted a daily radio advice program at the time called '' The Goodwill Hour''; its stock phrase was "I have a problem, Mr. Anthony").

Censorship

When the alligator is trying to get milk from Mrs. Pig, she starts to say something before it abruptly cuts. According to Bob Clampett, she says “Don’t touch that dial” (a common

cliché A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...

when radio or television shows cut to commercial). It was cut out because the Hays Office deemed it too risqué. No footage has surfaced of the original uncut scene.

Reception

Michael Barrier Michael J. Barrier (born June 15, 1940) is an American animation historian. Work Barrier was the founder and editor of ''Funnyworld'', the first magazine exclusively devoted to comics and animation. It began as a contribution to the CAPA-Alpha a ...

writes, "''Baby Bottleneck'', like ''

Book Revue ''Book Revue'' is a 1946 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon directed by Bob Clampett. The cartoon was released on January 5, 1946, and features Daffy Duck. The plotline is a mixture of the plots of Frank Tashlin's ''Speaking of the Weather'' ...

'' (1946), reveals just how great Bob Clampett's impact was on the Warner Bros. cartoons in the early 1940s... As so often in Clampett's best cartoons, there is a prevailing air of hysteria and madness: The stork is drunk, inexperienced help is delivering babies to the wrong mothers, everything is a mess — and all is bliss."

Home media

*DVD: Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 *DVD: Storks (1952 blue ribbon reissue) *Blu-ray and DVD: Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1

References

External links