Why does the piggy from Looney Tunes stutter?

Launched in the 1930s by Warner Bros. Animation, the Looney Tunes are characters beloved by audiences to this day. Among the famous names in animation, we have Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Frajola, Piu-piu, Papa-Léguas and Gaguinho, the adorable stuttering pig.

In addition to being extremely sweet, one of the most striking features of Porky is precisely his speech impediment. But why is he stuttering?

art imitates life

As found by the Legião dos Heróis portal, the main reason behind the character’s characteristic is that his original voice actor, actor Joe Doughertywho lent his voice to the pig in his debut on the animated show “Merrie Melodies” (1935), also had a stutter.

According to the Mental Floss portal, Dougherty suffered from a severe stutter, and voiced a stutter for two years. However, interestingly, he ended up being fired for not being able to control the condition, causing him to miss lines, causing delays in the production of episodes and causing financial problems for the studio.

With his departure in 1937, the actor honey blanc, who also voiced Bugs Bunny, ended up taking over the role, where he remained for an astonishing 52 years. However, unlike Joethe inspiration of Honey for Porguinho’s stuttering it has a very different origin.

white would have said in a statement to the book ‘The Magic Behind the Voices: A Who’s Who of Cartoon Voice Actors’ how he was inspired to create the character’s new voice: “I went to a pig farm and wallowed with them and found that if a pig could speak, he would speak with a grunt. That’s how Guaguinho speaks — with a grunt.

controversies

Despite being hugely beloved by the public, in the early 1990s the San Francisco National Stuttering Project held a protest in front of Warner Bros. stating that the character’s speaking style was belittling people who actually suffered from this condition.

Even with the protest, the character’s trait was never changed. To show that the intention is not to belittle stuttering, according to the Mental Floss portal, the studio would have made a donation of $ 12,000 to the Stuttering Foundation of America, in addition to carrying out a series of advertisements denouncing all those who intimidated people with stuttering.