Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a porcine weekend here at Pictorama starting with this Three Little Pigs mug I purchased for my birthday. Much like mice (mostly Mickey) and dogs, pigs seem to make up a sub-genre of the Pictorama collection. I’m fond of the little fellas. I keep a particularly nice plastic one on my desk at work (a post that includes him can be found here) and I purchased a very snappy wind-up version from my same beloved toy vendor in Chelsea a few years back. (Pause to advertise for the Antique Toy Shop New York whose website can be found here.) Like this mug, that wind-up, shown below (the post can be found here) is a marketing tribute to the Disney animated classic of The Three Little Pigs and the juggernaut of toys that came out of that film.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
And of course there was the recent unexpected purchase of my (absolutely splendid) stuffed Wolf recently. He has the honor of sitting on my bedside table and I will say, I like to sleep at eye level with his clever little, hoary paw feet. The Wolf has quickly become a favorite item. (That entire post is here.)
Pams-Pictorama.com collection
When I went to pluck today’s mug off a high bookcase shelf this morning I realized it is virtually identical to the Little Orphan Annie mug I keep up there as well. (China lives on high cat-proof shelves here at Deitch Studio!) I show them together below. The Little Orphan Annie mug (detailed in a post here) was a Kim find and gift to me. While its markings, Manufactured exclusively for the Wander Co., Chicago, Makers of Ovaltine, fail to identify S.C. Co Patriot China as identified on the Pig mug, it is clearly the same company.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
A quick search turns up plenty of Disney related items (I feel a Mickey Mouse version of this mug coming on for me) there was not much history about the company itself easily found. Clearly they had a significant Disney contract as well as the Ovaltine novelty one. As per my post, the Little Orphan Annie mug predates this one by a few years. However, the style and molds are identical.
This Pig mug is pretty raucous. The Piggies are standing atop of a firmly trounced Wolf, looking like a Wolf-rug here, singing their Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf song. (I like this Sing-Along version on Youtube, here.) A look at the lyrics below are a reminder that the story is a bit of Ant and the Grasshopper tale of the pig who works hard to build his house of bricks as opposed to his brethren who slap theirs together out of straw and sticks. Luckily the brick house building pig is charitable and rescues the others and they defeat the Wolf.
Written by Frank Churchill with additional lyrics by Ann Ronell and featured in the 1933 cartoon, the song had long legs of its own and was recorded by numerous artists. It is one of the most popular to come out of the Disney canon.
The big bad wolf, the big bad wolf
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf
Tra la la la la
Little handsome piggy wigs
For the big, bad the very big, very bad wolf
They did not give three figs
And he built his house with hay
With a hey hey toot he blew on his flute
And he played around all day
And so he built his house with twigs
Hey, diddle diddle he played on his fiddle
And danced with lady pigs
I shall build my house with bricks”
He had no chance to sing or dance
‘Cause work and play don’t mix
Just winked and laughed ah, woo
The big bad wolf,…
Pam's Pictorama 