Pigs is Pigs

Almost sixty years ago, when the original Star Trek television series was being aired, David Gerrold submitted a humorous episode that was quickly accepted by the producers.  Entitled “The Trouble With Tribbles”, the episode dealt with the crew of the Enterprise acquiring a tribble—a strange little furry alien that was both lovable and harmless.  

Unfortunately, it seemed that Tribbles multiplied so rapidly, that within days, the ship contained hundreds of them, each multiplying rapidly.  Where one of the featureless little balls of fur was lovable, thousands of tribbles were a menace.  (Actually, Spock calculated that there were 1,771,561 tribbles).  How poor Captain Kirk handles this lighthearted crisis is the substance of the plot.  (You can watch an excerpt here.) 

Shortly before the episode aired, the producers of the show became aware that there was more than a passing resemblance between the tribbles and a creature in a story written by Robert Heinlein in his 1952 book, The Rolling Stones.  In Heinlein’s version the crew of a spaceship, the Stone Family, acquire a lovable furry alien while visiting a mining camp on Mars.

Angelo tickled it with a forefinger; it began to purr like a high-pitched buzzer. It had no discernible features, being merely a pie-shaped mass of sleek red fur a little darker than Castor's own hair. "They're affectionate little things and many of the sand rats keep them for pets - a man has to have someone to talk to when he's out prospecting and a flat cat is better than a wife because it can't talk back. It just purrs and snuggles up to you."

Soon after the flat cat arrives on spaceship, the flat cat has eight “kittens”, each of which soon delivers a kitten of its own.  And so forth.  In the Heinlein version, the Stone family solves the problem by banishing the flat cats to a refrigerated cargo hold that puts the little Martian critters into hibernation.  Eventually, the surplus flat cats are sold off to lonely miners in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.  (You can read the entire book here.)

When the producers questioned David Gerrold about the origin of the story, he admitted that he may have unintentionally borrowed the idea from Heinlein.  (Gerrold may have unintentionally borrowed ideas from other authors as well, one of his other scripts bears a striking resemblance to West Side Story.)  As T. S. Eliot said, “Good writers borrow; great writers steal.”

Gene Coon, one of the producers of Star Trek reached out to Heinlein, sending him a copy of the script and asking the author for his approval.  Heinlein, a fan of the television show, graciously waived his rights, not even asking for a credit line when the episode aired on television, saying that he had borrowed the idea for flat cats from Ellis Parker Butler’s book, Pigs is Pigs.

At this point, you’re probably asking, “Who the hell is Ellis Parker Butler and what is Pigs is Pigs?”

A century ago, Butler was a well-known humorist, writing books and magazine articles.  Though he was primarily known for his day job as a prominent New York banker, he also published over 30 books and more than 2,000 short stories (the stories were published in leading magazines, alongside works of such contemporary authors as Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Arthur Conan Doyle.  He created the character Philo Gubb, a detective who solved crimes while murdering the English language.  

Sadly, we frequently forget the works of authors soon after they die.  As Mark Twain once remarked, “The very memory of the departed author is frequently lost, and even the works of many, once in great favor, are soon forgotten.”  

In the case of Ellis Parker Butler, this would be a mistake, because there is a timeless humor about most of his works and his writing is eminently readable.  If you can find them, that is…I checked the local libraries and found but one single copy of any of his books.  Luckily, they are all available online as electronic editions.  I bought the complete works of Butler from Amazon for $2.  (By “complete”, they meant 32 books and short stories, but it is a nice collection.)

By far the most famous of Butler’s works is the short story, Pigs is Pigs.  First published in American Illustrated Magazine in 1905, it was published as a short, illustrated book the following year.  I was able to find a great first edition copy for $10 at a used bookstore in New Jersey, but you can read it online for free here.

In the original story, Mike Flannery is the railway agent in the small town of Westcote.  A devoted company man, Flannery operates strictly by the rule book of the Interurban Express Company.  When a consignment of two guinea pigs arrives, Flannery wants to charge the freight rate for pigs, thirty cents per head.  The consignee, a skinflint Scotsman named Morehouse, refuses to pay more than twenty-five cents per head, the published rate for pets.  When neither man will budge, Morehouse leaves, promising to complain to the home office.

As you have probably guessed, the guinea pigs rapidly multiply while correspondence to and from the home office slowly debates whether ‘pigs is pigs’ or ‘pigs is pets’.  By the time the matter is resolved, there are tens of thousands of guinea pigs.  This is a slight exaggeration, of course.  If Spock can do the math on tribbles, I can do the math for guinea pigs.  Assuming that the first two guinea pigs were both female, both pregnant, and both delivered the day they arrived in Westcote, by the end of a year, the maximum population possible would be 3,636 guinea pigs.  (I’ll spare you the calculations, but guinea pigs mature in 60 days and can have five litters a year.)

In 1910, Edison labs made a movie based on the story.  Another film and an animated cartoon soon followed.   Since these were published in the early days of cinema, Butler didn’t receive any screen credit (let alone, any pay) for use of his work.   Finally, in 1954, Walt Disney produced a high quality color cartoon of the story, that was nominated for an Academy Award.  Though the opening scene briefly displays an animated image of the book, the author’s name is so dim that I had to enlarge the picture to see the faded words, “Ellis Parker Butler”.  I doubt that even a few who watched the cartoon noticed it.  In the opening credits, Disney even says the story is by Leo Salkin.

The Star Trek episode about the tribbles was so popular that later Star Trek series—Star Trek Next Generation and Deep Space Nine—referenced the original episode.  One of the world’s best-selling science fiction authors used Butler’s plot.  And two movies and two cartoons (one of which was nominated for an Academy Award) were published based on the original story. 

And all of this was done without anyone’s giving Ellis Parker Butler any credit.