Western Animation / The Turn Tale Wolf

"Swat the fly! Swat the fly!"

"The Turn-Tale Wolf" is a 1952 Looney Tunes short, directed by Robert McKimson. It stars the conniving three pigs that were in The Windblown Hare and marks the debut of "Uncle Big-Bad and his nephew"^note technically, the Big Bad Wolf did appear in the former cartoon, but with a different appearance, voice and personality than the wolf McKimson would use from this cartoon onward.

School is dismissed for the day, and Big-Bad's nephew is furious. He comes to visit his uncle and reveals that he's angry with him after reading about his doings in "The Three Little Pigs And The Big Bad Wolf" during class. Big-Bad sits his nephew down and then proceeds to tell his side of the story, claiming that it was actually the three little pigs who regularly tormented him and eventually blew his house down. His nephew doesn't believe him for a second, and at the very end of the cartoon, we discover that Big-Bad's story is indeed a humbug.

---

"The Turn-Tale Wolf" provides examples of:

• The Chew Toy: Big-Bad portrays himself as this for the Three Pigs, who constantly tease and torment him throughout his story.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: Big-Bad's story is The Three Little Pigs in reverse, with the pigs successfully blowing the wolf's house down at the end.
• Jerkass: The three pigs, who constantly torment Big-Bad for no apparent reason other than just for fun. Their reasoning becomes serious when they find a bounty sign offering $50 for a wolf tail, to which they respond by attempting to chop off Big-Bad's tail.
• Large Ham: The wolf, in his story, acts in the most dramatic fashion possible.
• Playing the Victim Card: Uncle Big-Bad portrays himself as the real victim in the Three Little Pigs saga. His nephew, however, sees right through this.
• The Reveal: We already get a couple sporadic hints that Big-Bad's story is a ruse^note specifically, after his nephew asks what he did to the pigs after hearing that they launched a giant boulder at him, he temporarily breaks his "innocent victim" charade to proclaim that he violently mauled them - only to quickly catch himself and resume his innocent facade and that he is not to be trusted^note the second he sees his nephew, he frantically hides the fact that he's illegally brewing moonshine and pretends to be tidying his house up, but the real clincher is at the very end, where we find out that Big-Bad lost his tail in a swinging door and did not have it chopped off by the pigs.
• Swapped Roles: The three little pigs are the villains in Big Bad's story and successfully manage to blow his house down.
• Unreliable Narrator: Big-Bad, full stop, given that his whole story is a crock.
• Wingding Eyes: The pigs get literal dollar signs in their eyes after seeing a bounty sign offering $50 for a wolf's tail.

---