Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land

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Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land
Production company	Harman-Ising Productions
Distributor	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	November 28, 1931
Run time	7:09
Starring	Johnny Murray Rochelle Hudson Rudolf Ising Ken Darby
Producer(s)	Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising
Music composed by	Frank Marsales
Animation	Isadore Freleng Paul Smith
Director(s)	Rudolf Ising
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Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land is the fifth Merrie Melodies theatrical short. It was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and The Vitaphone Corporation on November 28, 1931. It was produced and directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, the founders of Harman-Ising Productions and creators of the series.

Piggy is a riverboat captain and has his girlfriend Fluffy and a canine Uncle Tom along the way.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor
Piggy	Johnny Murray
Fluffy	Rochelle Hudson
Uncle Tom	Ken Darby

Music

The music was composed by Frank Marsales.

Release

Dates are in order of release:

• United States: August 1931 in theatres

Behind the scenes

• The short is the first of eleven Warner Bros. animated shorts that fall under the Censored Eleven, a group of cartoons withheld from syndication in 1968 for its offensive use of African and African American stereotypes.
• It entered the public domain in 1959 due to Warner Bros. failing to renew its copyright in time. It is also one of only three Censored Eleven shorts to be under public domain, the others being Jungle Jitters and All This and Rabbit Stew.
• The scene where Piggy pilots a steamboat is similar to the 1928 Mickey Mouse short Steamboat Willie.

Everlasting influence

• This marks the last appearance of Piggy, although he would appear in the closing scenes of the Merrie Melodies shorts throughout most of 1931 to 1932.
  • In 1936 another character similarly named Piggy was introduced in the short Pigs is Pigs, but has no relation to the previous character.
• It is also the final appearance of Fluffy.

Home availability

• Not available due to the aforementioned stereotypes.