In the Pig Head sequence, Eddie Valiant was kidnapped by the Weasels and taken to Toontown, where he was ‘toonarooed’ – painted with a Pig Head. He is tossed out of the Toontown tunnel entrance and runs back to his apartment to shower off the Pig Head with turpentine.
Although it was an interesting sequence and included some wonderful special effects, it was cut from the film. Interestingly, some of the early trailers included shots from the Pig Head sequence.
Zemeckis thought that the scene leading up to this sequence slowed down the story too much. He also thought that it would confuse the audience. The sequence had been completely animated and painted onto cels.
The Pig Head was to dissolve when Eddie took a shower using turpentine. Rather than have the effects down at ILM in post-production, mechanical effects supervisor George Gibbs wanted to do the effects live and in camera. They first sculpted a pig head out of floral foam, with the expectation that it would just crumble away under the shower. Instead, it did just what it was designed to do – it absorbed the water, got very heavy, and finally broke apart. Ultimately, they molded a pig head in silicone rubber and lined the mold with a mixture of water, sugar, and Kleenex tissues. Then packed the pig head with as much cotton candy as they could. Fine slits were cut in the silicone pig head so that when Hoskins poured the contents of ‘turpentine’ bottle on it in the shower…the cotton candy and tissue would start to dissolve. In the final shot, it was pink cotton candy going down the shower drain.
Pete Western worked for months animating the sequence – only to see it deleted from the film.
The Pig Head sequence was included in the first network television broadcast – on CBS.
