Classic Cartoon Critic: Little Beau Porky

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Rating:  ★★★

Another Porky Pig cartoon by Frank Tashlin, and it’s a significant step up from the last. There’s a lot of good gags in here, even if the pacing is a bit off and there’s a significant amount of racism to deal with.

Porky is part of the French Foreign Legion this time around, but unfortunately for him, he’s just a camel scrubber, something his Commandant makes sure he’s acutely aware of. The rest of the legion leaves Porky at the base, and, of course, the evil Ali Mode chooses then to attack. Porky and his camel have to fend off the villains, in a short action sequence that’s the most exciting part of the short.

There’s good gags throughout, many of them based around the Commandant, and his fun character design. Porky also displays much more of a personality in this one than in the last Tashlin cartoon.

The two things that drag the cartoon down a bit, though, are pacing and racism. There’s several shots that go on way too long, especially in the beginning, stretching the short out more than was necessary. And then, of course, there’s the racism, which is expected given this is a 30′s cartoon set somewhere in the middle east. The depiction of Ali Mode is not great, from his appearance to the gibberish that he mostly speaks in.

The end of the cartoon, where Ali Mode assaults the base and Porky has to fight the villain’s forces off, is paced dramatically faster than the rest of the short, with quick cuts back and forth to fast gags. It’s got a great energy, and is honestly the main reason to give this cartoon a look, if you can deal with the racism.

 

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Classic Cartoon Critic: Porky’s Poultry Plant

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Rating: ★★

After “The Blow Out”, Porky became Warner Bros’, new big cartoon star, and so the pig starred in a huge amount of cartoons throughout the rest of the 1930s and into the early 1940s. This was one of the earlier ones.

This Frank Tashlin cartoon suffers strongly from an identity crisis. It can’t decide if it wants to be a cutesy farm short, an action adventure, or an absurdist comedy. So it tries to be all three, succeeding most at the comedic bit towards the end.

The first three and a half minutes of this short are excruciatingly boring. A rooster crows, we’re introduced to all the birds around the farm, and Porky feeds them. Finally, after that we’re introduced to the fact that chicken hawks have been nabbing a bunch of Porky’s chickens (who are framed more as his friends than his livestock).

Soon thereafter, a chick is nabbed, and it’s Porky to the rescue. When a normal gun fails him, he hops in a plane to give chase, and soon there’s a small army of chicken hawks fighting against him.

The absurdist comedy bit first starts when Porky and the hawks fly into some clouds, and then emerge with the hawks holding the gun of Porky’s plane. But it really takes a turn towards the absurd when the hawks start acting as though they’re football players, huddling up and tossing the baby chick to each other. The rooster even narrates as though it’s a football game!

A very uneven short, but with some surprising comedic gems toward the end. Looney Tunes are slowly but surely turning into the sort of series we remember it as.

 

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