SEVENTY BIG BAD YEARS:
ZEKE WOLF AND THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
By David Gerstein

When Walt Disney first released Three Little Pigs in 1933, what did theatre owners like most about it? If you answered, "color", you're right. Most cartoons were in black and white then, so cinema bosses saw the novelty of red and yellow as easy money. But you can't predict the public. Instead of prizing the new film for its colors, moviegoers fell in love with four great characters.
Of course, our real story begins long before 1933...

Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme, and monkeys chewed tobacco,
And hens took snuff to make them tough, and ducks went quack, quack, quack, O!

There was an old sow [who sent] three little pigs out to seek their fortune. The first that went off met a man with a bundle of straw, and said to him, "Please, man, give me that straw to build me a house." Which the man did, and the little pig built a house with it. The second little pig met a man with a bundle of sticks... and the pig built his house with them. The third little pig met a man with a load of bricks... and the pig built his house with them.
Presently came along a wolf, and knocked at the straw house door, and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

That's how The Story of the Three Little Pigs sounded in 1849, when Jacob Halliwell first published it in England. Like other fairy tales of its time, it existed before its print debut in a spoken folk tradition, stretching around Europe and Africa.
African slaves brought the story to America. The slaves' wolf and pigs lived in the same forest as some other African children's folk heroes -- Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear. In 1883, folktale collector Joel Chandler Harris published this version.

The knocking woke up [the first] Pig, an' he came to the door, an' he ask who it was. Brer Wolf allowed it was a friend. "My ma told me to keep my eyes on Brer Wolf," says Pig. "I see you through the crack in the door, an' you look mighty like Brer Wolf."
Then Brer Wolf, he drew a long breath...

Flash forward to the 1930s, when young Walt Disney needed fairy tales to fill his Silly Symphony cartoons. "These little pigs look as if... we should be able to develop quite a bit of personality in them," Walt told his staff. "Try to stress the angle of the little pig who worked the hardest." Off the drawing boards leapt the trio: silly Fiddler and Fifer, with their houses of sticks and straw, and hard-working, bricklaying Practical, who knew work and play didn't mix.
Walt hadn't yet considered their enemy. In an age of one-dimensional screen stars, artists Albert Hurter and Norm Ferguson created the first-ever self-conscious villain! This Wolf treated evil like a profession with himself as the master. His sharp teeth make it very clear that his threat to pigs is real, but his movements suggest he's trying to look even badder than he is!
Such a grand scoundrel deserved to be immortalized in song...

With a gruff puff-puff he puffed just enough, and the hay house fell right down.
One and Two were scared to death of the big bad wolfie's breath;
"By the hair of your chinny-chin, I'll blow you in," and the twig house answered yes.
No one left but Number Three to save the piglet family.
When they knocked he fast unlocked and said "Come in with me!"

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, big bad wolf, big bad wolf?
Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Tra la la la la!

In the hard Depression era, when folk spoke of 'the wolf at the door', the defiant "Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf" topped the pop charts, lifting spirits around the world. Three Little Pigs became an Oscar-winning cartoon and its stars came back for more.
Especially in an up-and-coming medium for Disney: comics!

Li'l Wolf: And what happened to the third little pig? Did you huff and puff and blow down his house, too?

Big Bad Wolf: No, dadrat it! He was smart! I huffed and I puffed! I puffed and I huffed! But I couldn't blow that brick house down!... There it is! Still standin'! And he's still living in it! Dadrat that Practical Pig!

Li'l Wolf: It's a cute li'l house, Pop! I'm glad you didn't blow it down!

Fiddler, Fifer, Practical and Big Bad turned up 19 January 1936 in Silly Symphony Sunday strips by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro. Instantly they grew as personalities. Practical's wolf defenses began to show a bit of overindulgent pride: the pig not only built wild wolf destruction machines, he patented them! Big Bad, meanwhile, put such effort and emotion into his pig traps and disguises that their failure made him sort of sympathetic. Pig catching and wolf dodging boiled down to a conflict of basically kindred egos.
In 1945 a great new character enriched the stand-off. Li'l Bad Wolf, created by Chase Craig and Carl Buettner, was not Big Wolf's first son: earlier cartoons and comics showed three bad little wolves. But the new Li'l Wolf had staying power. An abnormal kindly wolf in spite of his name, Li'l Bad Wolf befriended the Pigs! Now Zeke-- as Big Bad was called from 1946-- wanted to catch them not just to fill his belly or win a feud, but to correct a mistake of nature, saving his son from what he understandably saw as mental ruin. It was a masterful twist!

A forest community began to blossom around our heroes. Disney's Song of the South (1946) turned Brer Bear, Brer Fox, and Brer Rabbit into cartoon stars. Having shared a forest in 1883 with the literary wolf and pigs, the Brers now moved into Zeke's comic book woods. Great relationships grew up which we still see today.
As a kind, but simple and bad-tempered farmer, club-toting Brer Bear naively befriends good guys and bad guys alike; till one of them offends him, as "Brer Wolf" always does. Fast-talking Brer Fox runs the Foul Fellows' Club, a union of crooks who put peer pressure on Big Bad. And trickster Brer Rabbit, with his smart practical jokes, loves to play Zeke and other forest folk off against each other.

Complementing the Brers were all-new wolves and pigs. Big Bad considers his really rotten nephew, Izzy, a proper role model for Li'l Wolf-- but himself gets sick of Izzy's bratty company. Izzy's pop, Zeke's brother Zeb, is a hulk who outbigs Big Bad in the muscle department. But Zeb pales beside another forest strongman; when protective Pig cousin Raymond Razorback Hog gets punchy, Zeke is the punching bag!
Nobody scares Zeke, however, like his own mother, Grandma Wolf. Wouldn't you know it; Zeke's otherwise wicked family has one other abnormal, good wolf in it, and that one wolf has authority over Zeke. Some generation gap, huh? When "Maw" lectures Zeke, Zeke knows he's right and she's wrong-- because nature's on his side. Alas, Grandma doesn't care about nature, nor is she shy about saying so. The only thing worse than obeying her is imagining that Li'l Wolf might grow up to be like her. (Shudder!)

By about 1950 the Pigs and Zeke had become their modern, fully rounded selves. This was largely thanks to classic writer/artist Gil Turner, who worked on the series from 1947. Turner's early tales turned most critically on father and son: on Zeke as Li'l Wolf's guiding light. "Wolfishness" became a life philosophy with provisions for sloth, littering, ignorance, and disobedience-- all of which are encouraged, of course.
"Wolves are meant to steal chickens, not buy them," snaps Big Bad in one story. Or reading Li'l Wolf's report card: "Arithmetic... good! Bah! This is awful!" Another time: "If I hadn't started fibbin' in the cradle, I'd have been a failure!" We feel for Zeke's commitment to his cause even as we laugh at its silliness.

Gil Turner finished his wolf work in the late 1950s, but other creators picked up where he left off. These include Americans Vic Lockman and Jack Bradbury; Brits Paul Halas and Gail Renard, Dutchmen Wilbert Plijnaar and Dick Matena; French Didier le Bornec and Isabel Penalva; Germans Wolfgang and Katja Schaefer; Spaniard Julio Ramos; and Swedes Unn Printz-Påhlson and Peter Härdfeldt. Recurring stars and themes came out of the later stories too: Zeke's tough sister Red Minna was a Schaefer creation, while Vic Lockman brought Practical Pig's anti-wolf contraptions to new heights. Lockman also created Li'l Wolf's girlfriend Meana, who much later became a recurring character in France.

For many years, Big Bad Wolf and the Three Pigs have been more popular in Europe than anywhere else in the world. This makes 27 May 2003, their 70th anniversary, an especially big, bad occasion for us! We're celebrating their distinguished career with an all-new story: "The Baddest Day", by David Gerstein [that's me, folks!] and Massimo Fecchi. Zeke has never liked the idea of sharing a birthday with his longtime enemies, but we've specially enlisted Li'l Wolf to make peace this time and bring them together for a celebration. And almost everyone else in the forest settlement is invited. To see how it all pans out, huff and puff your way to the newsstand for our special commemorative issue--

An' steal it! Wolves never pay for stuff!

Get out of here, Zeke. Happy birthday!

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Fact Sheet: Three Little Pigs

Full name: Pete (Practical), Cyril (Fiddler), and Marcus (Fifer) Pig
Film debut: 27 May, 1933 in Three Little Pigs
Some relatives: Father Pig (deceased; cartoon Three Little Pigs), Hamm (uncle, KF 11-25-63 C in ST 14/87), Mother Pig, Otto (uncle, deceased; cartoon Three Little Pigs), Peter Pig (cousin, KF 09-16-34 SIL in DK, SW TIL 23/94, NO TIL 04/94), Prissy (aunt, W/WDC 279 B in AA, DD 43/64, 16/82, KA 42/64, 15/82), Raymond "Ruffy" Razorback Hog (cousin), Sow (uncle, despite the name!)
Some friends: Bongo, Brer Bear, Brer Rabbit, Kubs and Klibs the li'l bear twins, Lamb Chaps, Li'l Bad Wolf, Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandma (cartoon The Big Bad Wolf), Meana Wolf (W/MM 90 D in AA, DD 33/64, KA 32/64), Missus Bear (Brer Bear's wife), Missus Broon the bear schoolteacher
Some enemies: Big Bad Wolf, Brer Fox, Grandpa Wolf (W/WDC 151 D in AA, DD 01/54, 04/72, KA 12/53, 03/72), Red Minna
Members of: Boy scouts, Junior Woodchucks (D 3445 in AA, DD 31/77, KA 30/77), Wolf Pack scouts (W/WDC 82 B in AA, DD 04/49, 10/67, KA 02/49, 09/67)
Favorite foods: turkey, healthy fruits and vegetables (Practical); corn, ice cream, cake, candy (Fiddler and Fifer)
Favorite musical instruments: piano (Practical), fiddle (Fiddler), flute (Fifer, though the flute is actually a different instrument from the fife!)
Some anti-wolf contraptions: brainwashing machine (W/CND 8 C I in AA, DD 22/58, KA 21/58), defensive doorknocker (riddle D 98469), ejector doormat, trapdoor doormat, lie detector (cartoon: The Practical Pig), "one-wheel wolfer" (armed unicycle, W/MM 95 E in AA, DD 25/65, KA 24/65), rooftop cannon, trees armed with boxing gloves, wolf alarm, wolf detector, wolf-malleting machine, "wolf pacifier" (a tarring-and-feathering machine, cartoon: Three Little Wolves), wolf radar (W/CND 22 C I in AA, DD 28/61, DD 27/61), wolf rocket (W/CND 26 C I in AA, DD 12/62, KA 11/62), wolf-skinning machine

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Fact Sheet: Big Bad Wolf

Full name: Zeke Midas Wolf (source for middle name: W/WDC 106 X in AA, DD 08/50, 29/68, KA 07/50, 28/68)
Film debut: 27 May 1933 in Three Little Pigs
Some relatives: Bigger Badder Woolf (uncle, 1930s magazines; note spelling of last name), Fatso (cousin, S 1177), Grandma Wolf (mother), Grandpa Wolf (father, W/WDC 151 D in AA, DD 01/54, 04/72, KA 12/53, 03/72), Izzy (nephew, mean and bratty; also called Li'l Terror), Li'l Bad Wolf, Red Minna (sister), Rip Van Wolf (uncle, S 9119), Terrible (aunt, so ugly she wears a big bonnet and never shows her face), Terror (uncle, Aunt Terrible's husband, cannot speak English and only growls), Tiny (cousin, D 94124 in AA, DD, KA 51/1995), Zeb (brother; father to Izzy)
Some "friends": Brer Bear, Brer Fox, Brer Gator (alligator Foul Fellow), Dirty Bill (bulldog Foul Fellow), Hickory and Hunk Wolverton (D 96442 in AA, DD, KA 02/98), Hotte (coyote Foul Fellow, S 6060), Kalle (dog Foul Fellow, S 6060), Ricky Rat (tiny rat Foul Fellow), Wicked Witch, Willy Weasel (weasel Foul Fellow). Some of these "friends" are also enemies at times!
Some enemies: Bent-Tail Coyote (W/V. P. 1 E in AA, DD 15/79, KA 14/79), Brer Bobcat (W/WDC 188 C in AA, DD 02/57, KA 01/57), Brer Rabbit, Kaifas (rival wolf living over the mountains, S 0104), Lamb Chaps, Little Red Riding Hood, Practical Pig, Three Bears (S 2114 in AA, DD, KA 26/02). Almost anyone we don't mention here is an enemy, too.
Member of: the Dirty Dozen, the Foul Fellows' Club (also called the Badfellows' Club)
Favorite foods: pork, chicken, turkey, rabbit, squirrel, quail, duck, watermelon, "roast skunk smothered in poison ivy" (W/WDC 105 K in AA, DD 14/70, KA 10/49, 13/70)
Least favorite foods: beans, "squabbit" (W/WDC 57 E in AA 22/57, 41/74, DD 04/58, 41/74, KA 21/57, 40/74)
Favorite musical instrument: trombone (W/WDC 53 B)
Some pig-fooling disguises: boy scout leader (KF 03-15-36 SIL and W/XMAS P. 1 K), Don Quixote (H/W/761), fairy godmother (to Red Riding Hood, who doesn't have one; W/WDC 118 F in AA, DD 04/51, 18/69, KA 03/51, 17/69), Fuller Brush man (cartoon: Three Little Pigs), giant pig (W/CND 30 E I in AA, DD 19/63, KA 18/63), Goldilocks the fairy queen (cartoon: The Big Bad Wolf), Mr. Goodheart the bus driver (W/WDC 60 F in AA, DD 21/57, KA 20/57), Grandma Wolf (W/WDC 248 C in AA, DD 15/62, KA 14/62), gypsy queen (KF 05-01-38 SIL), Little Bo Peep (cartoon: Three Little Wolves), mermaid (cartoon: The Practical Pig), Professor Lobo the school teacher (W/WDC 153 D in AA, DD 02/54, 09/72, KA 01/54, 08/72), Mr. Schubert the music teacher (01-19-36 SIL), space alien (W/O. S. 30 A in AA, DD 19/61, KA 18/61), another big bad wolf (W/WDC 104 R in AA, DD 05/50, 17/68, KA 04/50, 16/68).