Porky Pig

Porky Pig is probably the most famous of several of the Looney Tune characters who display speech-language disabilities. Created by Warner Bros., Porky Pig debuted in I Haven't Got A Hat, directed by Friz Freleng in 1935 This amazing 7-minute cartoon features an overweight Porky Pig with a severe stutter. If you are still able to watch the archived cartoon, you will see a clown character, not Porky Pig, exclaiming fluently "That's All Folks." In 1937, Mel Blanc debuted his famous character voices. Gerald Johnson, Ph.D. published an article in the Journal of Fluency Disorders in 1987 entitled A Clinical Study of Porky Pig Cartoons, JFD, 12 (1987), 235-238. In 1991, the National Stuttering Project picketed Warner Bros. Studios carrying signs that read "Make Friends, Don't Make Fun of Kids Who Stutter." Although Warner Bros. at that time turned down NSP's request to use Porky Pig as an advocate for children who stutter, they did give the Stuttering Foundation of America a $12,000 grant to underwrite the costs of a 1994 Conference for School Clinicians in the treatment of childhood stuttering . Through persistence, particularly of NSP member Ira Zimmerman, in 1997, Warner Brothers "Top of the Tune Squad" developed a downloadable poster using various Warner Bros. cartoon characters including Porky Pig in a media campaign to stop the bullying of all kinds of children.

Everyone's Unique and Th-th-that's Good Folks!