The Dancing Pig

La polka du cochon - PARTITION MUSICALE Faria
La Polka du Cochon‘ by Georges Hauser & René de St. Prest, published by Emile Gallet (Paris, sd) and illustrated by Faria.

The Dancing Pig was a French vaudeville act at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1907 Pathé released a 4-minute film based on this act. A pig tries to seduce a young girl but is humiliated when she rips off his tuxedo. Suddenly standing stark naked, the humanoid swine nevertheless starts dancing with her. It is rather boring but at the end (3:46) it gets really creepy with a close-up of the tuxedoed pig wagging its tongue between its pointed teeth.

From one of our other sheet music, published the same year (1907), we discovered more about the origins of the Dancing Pig.

‘La Blockette’ by Albert Pharey, published by Costallat (Paris, 1907) and illustrated by Georges Dola.

The man dancing in the Pathé film was Mr. Odeo, who had a dancing routine le Cochon Mondain. From 1906 until the early thirties, he toured the music-halls with this burlesque act.

Mr. Odeo as le Cochon Mondain, 1907.

La Blockette, the title of the sheet music and the name of the piggish polka dance, was also the artistic name of actress and singer Fanny Bloch (1863-1956). This is a bit confusing, as it is perhaps her older sister, comic singer Jeanne Bloch (1858-1916) who by her hefty looks inspired the name of the flabby polka.

Portrait of Jeanne Bloch on the cover of ‘La Noce des Nez’ by Léon Laroche & Emile Duhem, published by Georges Ondet (Paris, sd) and illustrated by Hyacinthe Royet.

Jeanne Bloch was known as la colossale chanteuse and it was said, not very nicely, that she measured 1.60 m in all directions.

Jeanne Bloch –  Fête des Caf’conc’ [stade Buffalo, le 24 août 1908], source BnF Gallica.
We have another cover of a dancing pig in our collection: Manasse dansar, the Swedish version of Cincinnati Dancing Pig, a hit for country singer Red Foley.

Manasse dansar by Guy Wood & Al Lewis. Swedish lyrics by Börje Larsson, published by Nils-Georgs Musikförlag (Stockholm, 1950).

It is a fifties tap-dance song, a rather awful ditty if you ask me: Riggedy, jiggedy, jiggedy, jiggedy jig-a-jig-jig! Oink Oink


More reading on Jeanne Bloch at the wonderful site of Du temps des cerises aux feuilles mortes.