Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Piggsburg Pigs!"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

It took me a few minutes to realize that "Piggsburg" was intended to be a pun on "Pittsburgh". How embarassing is THAT?

Piggsburg Pigs! was the creation of Melissa Silverman at Ruby-Spears Productions. It premiered on FOX Kids in September 1990, receiving thirteen episodes before getting the axe. It took viewers to the town of Piggsburg, populated entirely by anthropomorphic pigs.

Our main characters, the Bacon Brothers - consisting of Bo, Portley, and Pighead - and their pet duck Quackers fight the evil plots of wolf brothers Huff and Puff, who desperately want to eat them for lunch. So at first glance, it seems like a modern take on The Three Little Pigs. But the Bacon Brothers and their pals also had to deal with supernatural danger from the spooky swamp outside of Piggsburg, the Forbidden Zone: swamp monsters, evil spirits, mummy aliens, that sort of thing. TV Tropes' page for the show mainly talks about how jarring it is to have these genuinely creepy monsters in a show with talking pigs.

Seemingly no one remembers this show. There's little to no fan art for it on DeviantArt, no other cartoon reviewers have taken a look at it, there are no articles online talking about it... zilch! It probably doesn't help that Piggsburg Pigs! never received a VHS or DVD release in the U.S. (a couple episodes were released on DVD in the U.K., though). I don't even know if there was any merchandise, aside from some McDonald's toys.

FOX Kids as a whole seems to have been home to a lot of cartoons that went nowhere. Aside from this, it also aired Zazoo U, that Little Shop of Horrors cartoon, Mad Jack the Pirate, Xyber 9: New Dawn, C-Bear and Jamal, Super Dave: Daredevil For Hire, and Cybersix - most of which ALSO only got thirteen episodes made. I don't know why so many of their cartoons didn't become bigger hits. I haven't actually watched most of them, so I have no idea if they were good or bad. It couldn't have just been the station - I mean, FOX Kids also aired stuff like Animaniacs, Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego, and The Tick so clearly SOMEBODY was watching the channel.

Why don't we take a look at Piggsburg Pigs! and see if we can figure out why the show was a flop? Fortunately, there are episodes uploaded to YouTube for us to watch.

Just a head's up - there are apparently a LOT of pig puns. In the intro alone, there's a sign reading "Newpork", the welcome sign for Piggsburg has "Porkulation?" written under it, and there's a car wash called "HogWash". We'll be watching the fourth episode, "Pighead's Brain". This is Piggsburg Pigs!.

The episode begins on a dark and stormy night. This charming abode is the castle of Dr. Sargasso, mad scientist. It's just sort of a rule that all mad scientists in cartoons need to live in spooky-looking castles. Since I guess living in normal houses just isn't EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL enough.

Though, to be fair, would YOU turn down the chance to live in a castle? I didn't think so.

Inside the castle, we see that Dr. Sargasso has built himself a Frankenstein's Monster knockoff, which he shall use to inflict pain and devastation on those that he hates the most. We also see that Dr. Sargasso and one of his two minions is human. So this is one of those cartoons where anthropomorphic animals coexist with humans? This raises some questions... if the pigs are anthropomorphic, are they still slaughtered to make pork products? If I lived in this world, I'd probably feel really awkward about eating bacon. 

The other minion, by the way, appears to be a cross between a werewolf and a gargoyle. I want to know this guy's story - was he just born that way, or is his weird appearance because of Dr. Sargasso's handiwork? Is there an entire species of werewolf-gargoyle hybrid beings in this world?

I also wonder what happened to Dr. Sargasso's eye.

They bring the Frankenstein's Monster knockoff to life, and Dr. Sargasso tells it that he wants revenge on the pigs of Piggsburg for banning him from their universities. Why did they ban him? Was it simply because he's not a pig? Gosh, who knew the Piggsburg Pigs were speciesist?

"I don't mean to complain, doc, but couldn't you have given me a full head of hair?"

The monster starts destroying stuff in the lab, so Dr. Sargasso and his minions have to throw a net over him. What's the problem? It's the brain they gave him - it's defective. I would make a joke here, but every joke I'm thinking of feels needlessly mean-spirited to me.

"I must get a NEW brain!" Dr. Sargasso says, and then we cut to two of the Bacon Brothers working on an invention that makes corn juice. The Art Carney-esque one says that he's got the brains for this sort of thing. Gee, I wonder if it'll be HIS brain that Dr. Sargasso attempts to steal. I don't know for sure because I don't know which pig is which. They haven't called any of them by name thus far.

I'm GUESSING this one is Pighead, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.

The Art Carney-esque one calls the fat Curly Howard-esque one "Portly", so that helps out a little. Then the one with the jeans and the red jacket comes in asking if they've seen his bowling ball, only to trip on an ear of corn and have the bowling ball land on his head. OUCH!

He must have a very thick skull if the bowling ball didn't, you know, crack his head open like
an egg. I'm pretty sure that's what would happen if a bowling ball landed on someone's head.

Portly calls the red jacket-wearing one Bo, so by process of elimination, the Art Carney-esque one must indeed be Pighead. Unbeknownst to the pigs, outside their house... which looks like a barn, a nice touch...

I particularly like how the roof is made of hay.

A truck is pulling up. And in that truck are Huff and Puff, who intend to get their paws on the pigs using a cannon. Huff is the one in the cannon, Puff is holding the fuse.

Methinks Huff and Puff have been watching too many Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

When Puff pulls the fuse, the back door of the truck closes, and Huff winds up slamming into it. So no pulled pork sandwiches for Huff and Puff today.

Back inside the house, Portly complains that Pighead is so dumb he can't do anything right. A girl pig named Dottie (voiced by Tara Strong) runs in with proof that Pighead isn't dumb - the results of their school's aptitude test. Pighead got the highest score, which makes him even smarter than Albert Swinestein... wouldn't "Albert EinSWINE" be a better pun?

I gotta ask - did Bo get that jacket from Alvin the Chipmunk?

"With my smarts, we'er sure to win the science fair!" Pighead declares. At their school, Pighead is interviewed by a reporter who I'm sure has some sort of pig pun for a name (Christiane Amanpork? Gloria Swinenem? Please tell me I'm clever). And wouldn't you know it, Dr. Sargasso and his minions just so happen to be watching this on TV. "A genius..." Dr. Sargasso purrs. "His brain could be our answer!"

Y'know, for a show about talking pigs, this cartoon is actually pretty accurate - pigs are generally typecast in cartoons as dim-witted oafs (see also the pigs in Barnyard, Pig Goat Banana Cricket, and Pearls Before Swine), but in real life they're quite intelligent. Studies have found that they're smarter than cats, dogs, and even three year old children. Which begs the question, if they're so smart, why do we eat them? Or is it just the pigs who blow their money on lottery tickets and think Seth MacFarlane is a master impressionist who we send to slaughterhouses?

Dr. Sargasso isn't the only one who wants to get his hands on Pighead - Huff and Puff spy on Pighead as he's leaving the school, and they deduce that if they eat him, they could become smarter too. Then they fall out of the tree and into a canyon, just to demonstrate even further that they are perhaps even more incompetent than Scratch and Grounder.

Is it even legal to eat another anthropomorphic animal in this world?

Pighead is approached by the female human minion of Dr. Sargasso, who introduces herself as Mona. Upon seeing her, the Bacon Brothers go hog-wild. What is it with fictional pigs and humans having the hots for each other? Miss Piggy's had her fair share of human admirers... Porky snagged a human girlfriend in a couple episodes of The Looney Tunes Show... I'm pretty sure there's an episode of the Timon and Pumbaa show where Pumbaa got into a relationship with a human...

Oh, and the duck sounds like Donald Duck. Good thing Disney's lawyers supposedly never watched the show.

So, if the duck in love with her too? I'm really weirded out here...

"I work for a famous university. We've heard about your fantastic brain and we'd like you to join our teaching staff," Mona claims. "Let me show you our campus, hmmm?" The girl pig urges him to say "No", since he has to go home and work on his science project - and also, y'know, kids are taught to stay away from strangers. But Pighead decides to go with Mona. How exactly did this pig get the highest score on the aptitude test again?

"Do you believe in interspecies dating?"

"Well, I've dated a lot of guys who turned out to be real PIGS, if you know what I mean..."

Mona leads Pighead and Quackers to her limo (now he's taking a ride from a stranger... hasn't Pighead been taught about stranger danger yet?)... which is being driven by the werewolf/gargoyle thing. I would not trust this creature behind the wheel.

Who gave this guy a driver's license?!

Upon seeing the freak of nature behind the wheel, Pighead and Quackers realize that, hey, this Mona lady might be evil, leading to a fight between the duck and the werewolf/gargoyle/possibly part gorilla as well beast. Eventually the werewolf/gargoyle thing... y'know what, I'm gonna call him Fangs, seems like a good name for the guy... throws Quackers out of the car, but he grabs onto the antennae... for a while, then he grabs onto the bumper... by the time the limo pulls up to Dr. Sargasso's castle, Quackers has somehow been stripped of his feathers. He is one plucked duck.

Donald... sorry, QUACKERS finds Pighead's friends and tries to fill them in as to what's going on, but a pig who seems to have swiped clothing from Fievel Mouskewitz's wardrobe thinks that he's an imposter so getting their help might be quite difficult.

"Shut up! My Fievel Mouskewitz costume is FANTASTIC!"

After being subject to some WHACKY SHENANIGANS, Quackers makes it into the house and gets the pigs inside to follow him to Dr. Sargasso's castle. I love how during this scene they're talking about how Pighead must be in big, big trouble and yet they have cheery smiles on their faces. Clearly they're mucho concerned about Pighead.

Where's Bo, by the way?

Miss Piggy, Link Hogthrob, and Petunia Pig: the early years.

The blonde girl pig comes up with an idea to rescue Pighead. They'd better hurry, because at the moment he's strapped to a table and about to be put in a "brain transference chamber". Before Dr. Sargasso can do any brain-transferring, in walk Portly, Dottie, Quackers, and the blonde girl pig whose name hasn't been mentioned yet covered in swamp muck. While Portly is distracting Dr. Sargasso, Mona, and Fangs, Dottie and the blonde girl pig wheel Pighead out of the room... and down a stairway.

Whenever Portly speaks, I expect him to go "I don't get no respect! Nyuck nyuck nyuck!".

They all go flying out a window and land in the back of the truck they used to get to the castle. Quackers drives them away, and when they get back to their house, Portly decides to build a harmless copy of Pighead's brain out of clay. That way, if Dr. Sargasso and his gruesome twosome show up, they'll just give them THAT. Then they go see their pal Pigger the Digger.

Or rather, Pig Fester Addams.

Portly asks Pig Fester Adams if they can borrow his genuine plastic pig skeleton so they can make a dummy that looks like Pighead. They put Pighead's clothes on it and presto, they've got a dummy. Dr. Sargasso will never know the difference!

Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, this character is voiced by Keith Knight, the same guy who
voiced Lowly Worm in The Busy World of Richard Scarry. Imagine Lowly doing a Curly
Howard impression and presto, you've got Portly.

They put a pig mask on the skeleton to complete the look, then leave to get Pighead some new clothes. But it's not Dr. Sargasso who shows up once they're out of the room, but rather Huff and Puff. Thinking that it's the real Pighead, they grab the dummy and make a run for it. Pighead, Portly, and Quackers chase the wolves back to their place, finding them reading a cookbook full of pork recipes.

Fortunately, Quackers has a very, very, very, very, very stretchy neck (so he's the Mr. Fantastic of Waterfowl, I guess?), which they use to snatch the dummy and sneak out. They put the dummy in Pighead's bed, so when Mona and Fangs show up to pignap him again, Fangs mistakes the dummy for the actual Pighead and grabs it.

No, seriously, where IS Bo? Heck, where are the Pork Brothers' parents?

And don't the Pork Brothers lock their bedroom doors?

When Dr. Sargasso puts the fake brain in the monster and brings it to life, he discovers that it's still a mindless destruction machine. He realizes that he's been tricked, and he is MAD! I expect Ashton Kutcher to pop out from behind something and yell "You got PUNKED!".

But wait! Why doesn't he send the monster to Piggsburg to get Pighead? Surely the monster won't fail him like Mona and Fangs did! Honestly, though, at this point I can't help but wonder if it's really worth all the trouble. Surely you can find another brain.

We then cut to the Piggsburg Science Fair, where Portly shows off what he claims is an automatic teeth-brushing hair-combing machine. From the looks of it, I wouldn't expect Portly to join MENSA anytime soon.

Huff and Puff are there, too, still trying to grab Pighead and have themselves some "brain food". Bo has invented a wheelbarrow that digs, rakes, plants, AND waters at the same time, which I guess explains why he vanished from the episode for a while. Who will win the science fair? A better question is, who will grab Pighead first - the wolves or the monster, who's just barged in through a wall (since using the door like a normal person isn't EEEEEEEEEEVIL enough)?

That vein in his hand is freaking me out...

Everyone uses their inventions to take out the monster, Dr. Sargasso, Mona, and Fangs. Oh, and it turns out that the guys grading the aptitude test made a mistake - Pighead is not, in fact, a genius. And here's something else that might take you by surprise - the main ingredient in apple pie is APPLES.

What's the Verdict?

Piggsburg Pigs! isn't anything fantastic, but it's not a bad show. The characters aren't unlikeable, just flat. What we know about them (from this episode at least) is that... uh, Bo is the leader, Pighead is dopey, and Portly is fat and sounds like Curly Howard? The animation is fine for the most part, but the coloring is inconsistent - like, one second Huff will be wearing a purple shirt and the next his shirt his suddenly green. The show is also not very funny. But it's decent as a whole, the voice actors all do a good job and there isn't anything awful about it. Heck, there aren't even as many lousy pig puns as I expected there to be! I still don't know why the show only got thirteen episodes. Was it the time slot? Were pigs just not super popular in the 1990s?

Nah, that couldn't have been it...

I've probably said this before, but doing a funny review of something that you find just okay is HARD. It's easy to make jokes about something horrible. I don't know if it's because the show itself doesn't give me enough to work with or because I just stink at writing funny reviews. Probably the latter.

Ah well. Next time we'll be reviewing another 1990s cartoon, ProStars. Maybe I'll get more joke material out of that. Until then, eh-buh-dee-eh-buh-dee-eh-buh-dee-that's all, folks!