Reviews of Looney Tunes (1930) and related work

• Entry: “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub” (1930)
• Entry: “Congo Jazz” (1930)
• Entry: “Hold Anything” (1930)
• Entry: “Box Car Blues” (1930)
• Entry: “The Booze Hangs High” (1930)
• Entry: “Big Man from the North” (1931)
• Entry: “Ain’t Nature Grand!” (1931)
• Entry: “Ups ’n Downs” (1931)
• Entry: “Dumb Patrol” (1931)
• Entry: “Yodeling Yokels” (1931)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Holiday” (1931)
• Entry: “The Tree’s Knees” (1931)
• Entry: “Bosko Shipwrecked!” (1931)
• Entry: “Bosko the Doughboy” (1931)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Soda Fountain” (1931)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Fox Hunt” (1931)
• Entry: “Bosko at the Zoo” (1932)
• Entry: “Battling Bosko” (1932)
• Entry: “Big-Hearted Bosko” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Party” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko and Bruno” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko and Honey” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Dog Race” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko at the Beach” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Store” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko the Lumberjack” (1932)
• Entry: “Ride Him, Bosko!” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko the Drawback” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Woodland Daze” (1932)
• Entry: “Bosko in Dutch” (1933)
• Entry: “Bosko in Person” (1933)
• Entry: “Bosko the Speed King” (1933)
• Entry: “Bosko the Sheep-Herder” (1933)
• Entry: “Beau Bosko” (1933)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Mechanical Man” (1933)
• Entry: “Bosko the Musketeer” (1933)
• Entry: “Bosko’s Picture Show” (1933)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Day Out” (1933)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Beer Garden” (1933)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Show Boat” (1933)
• Entry: “Buddy the Gob” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy and Towser” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Adventures” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Garage” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Trolley Troubles” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy of the Apes” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Bearcats” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy the Detective” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy the Woodsman” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Circus” (1934)
• Entry: “Viva Buddy” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy the Dentist” (1934)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Theatre” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Pony Express” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy of the Legion” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Lost World” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy’s Bug Hunt” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy in Africa” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy Steps Out” (1935)
• Entry: “Buddy the Gee Man” (1935)
• Entry: “A Cartoonist’s Nightmare” (1935)
• Entry: “Hollywood Capers” (1935)
• Entry: “Gold Diggers of ’49” (1935)
• Entry: “The Phantom Ship” (1936)
• Entry: “Boom Boom” (1936)
• Entry: “Alpine Antics” (1936)
• Entry: “The Fire Alarm” (1936)
• Entry: “The Blow Out” (1936)
• Entry: “Westward Whoa” (1936)
• Entry: “Plane Dippy” (1936)
• Entry: “Fish Tales” (1936)
• Entry: “Shanghaied Shipmates” (1936)
• Entry: “Porky’s Pet” (1936)
• Entry: “Porky the Rain-Maker” (1936)
• Entry: “Porky’s Poultry Plant” (1936)
• Entry: “Porky’s Moving Day” (1936)
• Entry: “Boulevardier from the Bronx” (1936)
• Entry: “Little Beau Porky” (1936)
• Entry: “Porky in the North Woods” (1936)
• Entry: “Milk and Money” (1936)
• Entry: “Porky the Wrestler” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Road Race” (1937)
• Entry: “Picador Porky” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Romance” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Duck Hunt” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky and Gabby” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Building” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Super Service” (1937)
• Entry: “Uncle Tom’s Bungalow” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Badtime Story” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Railroad” (1937)
• Entry: “Get Rich Quick Porky” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Garden” (1937)
• Entry: “Rover’s Rival” (1937)
• Entry: “The Case of the Stuttering Pig” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Double Trouble” (1937)
• Entry: “Porky’s Hero Agency” (1937)
• Entry: “Daffy Duck & Egghead” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky at the Crocadero” (1938)
• Entry: “What Price Porky” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky’s Phoney Express” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky’s Five & Ten” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky’s Hare Hunt” (1938)
• Entry: “Injun Trouble” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky the Fireman” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky’s Party” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky’s Spring Planting” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky & Daffy” (1938)
• Entry: “Wholly Smoke” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky in Wackyland” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky’s Naughty Nephew” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky in Egypt” (1938)
• Entry: “The Daffy Doc” (1938)
• Entry: “Daffy Duck in Hollywood” (1938)
• Entry: “Porky the Gob” (1938)
• Entry: “The Lone Stranger and Porky” (1939)
• Entry: “It’s an Ill Wind” (1939)
• Entry: “Porky’s Tire Trouble” (1939)
• Entry: “Porky’s Movie Mystery” (1939)
• Entry: “Chicken Jitters” (1939)
• Entry: “Porky and Teabiscuit” (1939)
• Entry: “Kristopher Kolumbus Jr.” (1939)
• Entry: “Polar Pals” (1939)
• Entry: “Scalp Trouble” (1939)
• Entry: “Porky’s Picnic” (1939)
• Entry: “Wise Quacks” (1939)
• Entry: “Porky’s Hotel” (1939)
• Entry: “Jeepers Creepers” (1939)
• Entry: “Naughty Neighbors” (1939)

Looney Tunes (1930)

A series of 7-minute animated shorts for the Warner Bros.’s weekly distribution of a newsreel, a short and a feature film to affiliated theaters. Based on “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid” (1929), it started as an imitation of contemporary Disney shorts, and eventually branched off into something more creative.

References here: Gestaltning i A Silent Voice, “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid” (1929), Merrie Melodies (1931), “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931), “Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee” (1932), “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” (1971), A Man Called Ove (2015).

animation fiction moving picture series

‣ “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub” (1930)

Seen in 2017.

The first Looney Tune billed as such. Very much an imitation of Disney’s musical Silly Symphonies (1929), by ex-Disney animators.

References here: “Bosko’s Holiday” (1931).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Congo Jazz” (1930)

Seen in 2017.

Pretty good flow. Almost catchy.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Hold Anything” (1930)

Seen in 2017.

Watch it for the “comical” beheading of a mouse, à la The Itchy & Scratchy Show (1989).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Box Car Blues” (1930)

Seen in 2017.

Starts off nicely with a Depression hobo motif and crazy train tracks, but the quality of the storyboarding, if there was any, goes down hill with the train.

References here: “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!” (1931).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Booze Hangs High” (1930)

Seen in 2017.

Non-human child characters drinking moonshine during Prohibition. Otherwise relatively plotless.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Big Man from the North” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

The shootout in pitch blackness is nicely rendered, but is a wasted opportunity for a visual game akin to “Symphonie Diagonale” (1924).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Ain’t Nature Grand!” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

This was not the first colour Looney Tune, but I’ve seen in it a coloured (retouched) version, with Bosko hesitantly and uniquely still shown in black (ambiguously made of ink or being of African descent) yet reflected in water as reddish brown. Funny how the medium intersects the racism.

References here: “Ups ’n Downs” (1931).

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‣ “Ups ’n Downs” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Diverging from the preceding “Ain’t Nature Grand!” (1931), Bosko is entirely reddish brown in this one, after which the creative team went back to black and white for many years.

There are some relatively exciting ideas in this one. I particularly like the anthropomorphic hot dog that is almost eaten by a “real” dog, which is more of a commentary on the conventions of animated mediation than a mere pun. Though Baudrillard himself was just a year and a half old when this came out, it’s a gag worthy of the Baudrillardian Family Guy (1999).

References here: “Bosko’s Picture Show” (1933).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Dumb Patrol” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

The peak is firing a picket fence through an improvised machine gun.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Yodeling Yokels” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Holiday” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

It revisits the situations of “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub” (1930) with less musical animism.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Tree’s Knees” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Interesting mainly because of its themed application of anthropomorphization to trees.

References here: “Bosko the Lumberjack” (1932).

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‣ “Bosko Shipwrecked!” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Pretty good as an example of the childlike character Bosko stabilized into. Interesting visual design in the lion chase, where the predator and prey together fill the screen. Stereotypical black cannibals.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko the Doughboy” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

WW1 trench warfare as a comedic cartoon just 13 years later, with a blackface “mammy” joke to cap it off.

References here: “Boom Boom” (1936).

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‣ “Bosko’s Soda Fountain” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Honey gets to do something that isn’t immediately about Bosko, but I wish the soda fountain had been more explored.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Fox Hunt” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Fun for ecocriticism. The hunted fox resembles the more anthropomorphic character of Foxy in “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931). Observe the beautiful cascade of leaves as its slides down a pliable young tree to harmonious music. It usurps the role of carefree underdog from Bosko, the nominal, more human-aligned star.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko at the Zoo” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

The first third is OK, but there is little of interest after that, ecocritically or otherwise.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Battling Bosko” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Strange use of radio, perhaps to save on animation time. The final image of Bosko going to sleep in the boxing ring, rolling its floor over himself like a blanket, blithe in defeat, nicely illustrates the evolution of the character. Unfortunately, even this shot is probably influenced by the pickaninny stereotype.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Big-Hearted Bosko” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Too much repetition.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Party” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko and Bruno” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Derivative, repeating several shots from earlier films in the series.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko and Honey” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

This one feels curiously modern in the very specific way that some of its shots are so cleanly representative that they invite use as animated GIFs on the Internet.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Dog Race” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

More Itchy and Scratchy vibes.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko at the Beach” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Relatively solid as a whole. Partly decent water animation, good Wilbur, another salute to the trashy foodstuff that is hot dogs, juvenile sexuality, and the pedagogically incorrect choice of stepping on a giant tack on the beach, then simply leaving it in place for somebody else to step on. It’s vulgar and pretty dumb, but pleasantly so. The musical animism has stabilized as a fairly minor element.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Store” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Incoherent, and rather tame apart from the closing “joke”: Wilbur pulling barbed wire across Bosko’s crotch.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko the Lumberjack” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Another “The Tree’s Knees” (1931), with a twist: Bosko chops down a small tree, whereupon it flops around on the ground anthropomorphically, apparently in paroxysms, until he knocks it on the “head” with the flat of his axe, killing it. Showing anything dying, even to this extent, is unusual despite the pervasive sadism of the series.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Ride Him, Bosko!” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

The unusual establishing shot of the street is put to good use. I also like the wobbly wagon, the silent intertitles, and the animators appearing in live action to cheerfully give up and go home. Unlike the tech demo of “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid” (1929), that last joke would not look out of place on Adult Swim in 2017. Even Bosko is especially good in this one.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko the Drawback” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Woodland Daze” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko in Dutch” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko in Person” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

It’s worth seeing simply because it’s becoming equivalent to the palliata comoedia that Latinists can parse word by word, but cannot actually understand because the idioms in them are extinct. Bosko in Person builds heavily on contemporary allusions. All of these can still be reconstructed and understood by experts, of course, but I would have got few of them without subtitles, and none of them are actually constructive: mere idioms repeated for the pleasure of cognitive ease and recall. For example, seeing an asbestos curtain burn in escalation of its appearance in “You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!” (1931) would have no comedic value to a kid who’s never heard of the contemporary panic or the material’s flame-retardant properties. Bosko’s face contorting into that of Jimmy Durante, uttering catchphrases, is even less charged with meaning, and more lost. Even knowing, it’s not actually funny, just morbidly fascinating as dead culture.

References here: “Bosko’s Picture Show” (1933), “The CooCoo Nut Grove” (1936), Blazing Transfer Student (1991), Daybreak (2019).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko the Speed King” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko the Sheep-Herder” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Beau Bosko” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

The soldiers singing good morning to their officer is a little funny.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Mechanical Man” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

The last of Bosko for quite a while. Surprisingly rich in accessible symbols of modernity, and they’ve aged pretty well too. Even the dog getting tired and slowing down, illustrated simply by its animation loop getting dragged out unrealistically across more frames, is pretty funny. A strong last outing.

References here: “The Blow Out” (1936).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko the Musketeer” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Bosko’s Picture Show” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

Livelier than the very similar “Bosko in Person” (1933), and it’s aged a lot better. Dirty Dalton’s walking bicycle in the Marx brothers caricature is still funny, though his generic catchphrase (“Aha, my proud beauty”) has almost fallen out of living culture. The final shot, of Bosko the presenter leaping onto and through the movie screen, leaving a hole in Dalton and thereby saving Honey, the movie-in-the-movie’s damsel in distress, prefigures postmodern entertainments in the same way as “Ups ’n Downs” (1931).

References here: “Buddy’s Theatre” (1935), I rök och dans (1954).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Day Out” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising had left Warner Bros. over a budget dispute with Schlesinger, taking Bosko and their other characters with them. Bosko’s successor is more clearly a human boy, which is to say that Buddy exists in a slightly more realistic framework. I wonder how important Bosko’s origins in blackface were to the reduction of plastic surrealism here; perhaps it was actually harder for the white animators to imagine an apparently white kid in fanciful circumstances. More likely, the added verisimilar predictability of this reboot, and the character names appearing in superimposed captions prefiguring sitcom intros, were both choices made to invite a less capable new audience.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Beer Garden” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Show Boat” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy the Gob” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Compounding the error in “One Step Ahead of My Shadow” (1933), the background artist fails to distinguish between the stated setting (China) and Japan, using torii. Buddy is particularly boring here.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy and Towser” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Adventures” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

The balloon sequence has some nice animation, but Sourtown is entirely unfunny.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Garage” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

I like the process of oiling the anthropomorphic car after the shower. Buddy squirts its axles at the arm pits and groin, and the engine(?) at a belly button, tickling the machine.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Trolley Troubles” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Derivative of train-themed Bosko shorts.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy of the Apes” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

“Junior”, the little ape, has more personality than Buddy. Observe the range of modern customs and variations within the hostile tribe, co-existing with the obvious racism.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Bearcats” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy the Detective” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

I like the moody musician, and particularly the early shot of a tree jazzing it up on his piano, to his consternation.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy the Woodsman” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Circus” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

References here: “Shake Your Powder Puff” (1934).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Viva Buddy” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy the Dentist” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Extraordinarily boring, like a particularly ill-advised subplot from a moribund sitcom episode. Very little of it would have been impossible in live action.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Theatre” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

An imitation of “Bosko’s Picture Show” (1933) modified for Buddy’s image as an imaginary playmate. I don’t get the Swiss navy joke on the newsreel; it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Switzerland being landlocked.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Pony Express” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

In the spirit of Bosko.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy of the Legion” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Chuck Jones’s first credit as animator on a Warner Bros. cartoon. Notice how, in the framing device at the book shop, white Buddy has acquired Bosko’s subversiveness and pickaninny nonchalance. The Foreign Legion dream sequence conflates numerous notions about Africa, Arabia, Amazons and overbearing women.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Lost World” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy’s Bug Hunt” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Minor ecocritical interest. Buddy learns a lesson here, which is unusual in a Looney Tune.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy in Africa” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Yeah, it’s pretty racist. I wonder what the kangaroo is doing there.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy Steps Out” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Note the closeups. The team was trying to refine their technique, but they didn’t have appropriate character designs for it.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Buddy the Gee Man” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

The last of Buddy, in a joke prepended to ‘G’ Men (1935). Good riddance to him. The short is potentially interesting for the childish optimism.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “A Cartoonist’s Nightmare” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

A metafictional homage to the minor villains that Warner Bros. cartoonists felt they had to make up and treat poorly in earlier Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies to inject melodramatic tension, sometimes just in the last couple of minutes. I like the design of the animation studio: A ramshackle dungeon with a lot of character.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Hollywood Capers” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Gold Diggers of ’49” (1935)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

I love the mountain-as-a-casino metaphor, and Little Kitty is a marginally more interesting female character than her predecessors.

References here: “Tex Avery” tag description.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Phantom Ship” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

A step backward. Beans seems to lose his original character, becoming instead an “uncle” in a plot of plastic animism that could just as easily have happened in a Bosko short six years earlier.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Boom Boom” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

“Bosko the Doughboy” (1931) also uses the slide whistle for WW1 artillery bombardment. This one kicks it up a notch. It’s practically archetypal as a clean and joyful depiction of truly extreme violence, including an anthropomorphic horse chased by homing shells, eventually taking a hit and becoming an angel. I don’t think it’s bowdlerization, but it doesn’t seem to be an attempt to laugh at the horror either.

References here: Life Is Beautiful (1997).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Alpine Antics” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Fire Alarm” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Blow Out” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

Notwithstanding the greyscale film and the villain’s resemblance to Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) and to caricatures of Jews in contemporary German propaganda, this is a huge step forward in characterization and creativity, with the energy level and zaniness of “Bosko’s Mechanical Man” (1933). Tex Avery finds his groove and it is good.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Westward Whoa” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

Sadistic and racist with not much else going on. Beans the cat’s second-to-last appearance and his last as a nominal lead.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Plane Dippy” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

Entirely a comedy, but the depiction of the self-steering vehicle is somewhat prescient. It gets the squash-and-stretch treatment but is not anthropomorphized or given a will of its own. Its dangerous behaviour is entirely the fault of the poor control mechanism, which requires no authentication at the unarmed lab stage seen here. In fact, as a robot it is extremely competent.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Fish Tales” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

Another kinetic couple of steps toward the iconic stuff to come, and one of the strongest implicit reflections on funny animal ecology thus far. Unlike “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule” (1934), Porky’s nightmare about being fished into the sea with a fake donut—by the fishy father of a nuclear family of four—is neither induced by alcohol nor does the protagonist seem to regret giving up the habit of fishing as a result.

References here: “Porky’s Duck Hunt” (1937).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Shanghaied Shipmates” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Pet” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

Notice the sleeping and static characters who are painted as part of the background. They don’t even get single cels. Warner Bros. trying to save money I suppose.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky the Rain-Maker” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

Another hit from the early Tex Avery. The farm animals, which include no pigs since the farmers are pigs, go picketing for feed like strikers. When the horse eats a fog pill we get a close-up of a horse fly—a miniature flying horse—reporting low visibility on its radio.

The bondfångare is selling his miracle “at cost”, “today only” and says to Porky, in imitation of a W.C. Fields catchphrase, “Don’t lean on the platform kid, you bother me.” In any normal film this would be a simple confidence man, a criminal, the villain of the piece, but Avery is already playing with both reasonable and genre expectations. The man (pig) is telling the truth and is in fact able to solve the problem of the Dust Bowl. When the rain does come, the crops immediately become hyperfertile, perhaps to the delight of children watching the movie in Oklahoma. It is a pretty good example of an extreme and open, but entirely playful, concession to the wishful thinking of children. I wonder if it predisposed anyone to get taken in.

References here: “Get Rich Quick Porky” (1937), “Sioux Me” (1939), “Mudd’s Passion” (1973).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Poultry Plant” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

A fine debut by Frank Tashlin, infusing the usual anthropomorphic agricultural chaos with unusual empathy.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Moving Day” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

It rises to a brief but lovely absurdity.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Boulevardier from the Bronx” (1936)

Seen in 2018.

A case of atypical anthropomorphism, allowing some cockish behaviour by the cocks.

References here: “Casey at the Bat” (1946).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Little Beau Porky” (1936)

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky in the North Woods” (1936)

Seen in 2018.

Lots of ecocritical interest here: The protection of nature by ownership and rules, and the revenge of nature led by an especially anthropomorphic pig.

animation fiction moving picture nature entry

‣ “Milk and Money” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky the Wrestler” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

It could just as easily have been Bosko.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Road Race” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Mostly reference humour. Despite this being Mel Blanc’s series debut, it isn’t done with the same warm feeling and visual flair as “The CooCoo Nut Grove” (1936).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Picador Porky” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

I like the “safety zone” gag.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Romance” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Duck Hunt” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

Another step forward from the similar “Fish Tales” (1936). Excellent energy, the best of the series up to this point.

References here: “Daffy Duck & Egghead” (1938).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky and Gabby” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Building” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Porky’s established personality plays no part here. He’s been reduced by mass production.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Super Service” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Uncle Tom’s Bungalow” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

Quoth Tom, “My body may belong to you, but my soul belongs to Warner Brothers.” That’s the over-stressed animators identifying with the stereotyped slave.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Badtime Story” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Oddly oppressive. The mean boss does not get his comeuppance.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Railroad” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Get Rich Quick Porky” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Less daring than “Porky the Rain-Maker” (1936).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Garden” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Rover’s Rival” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Good energy in the escalation.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Case of the Stuttering Pig” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Notable for its running gag of bilateral audience interaction.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Double Trouble” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

The resolution is well played: Petunia chooses the bad boy.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Hero Agency” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Black and white. Heavy Roman influences on the supposedly Greek myth.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Daffy Duck & Egghead” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

The formal debut of Daffy Duck, prototyped in “Porky’s Duck Hunt” (1937). He’s got less energy here, less id, but the presentation is still vastly better than the contemporary “September in the Rain” (1937). There are a couple of unusually strong metafictional jokes of the type Winsor McCay put in “Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914): Daffy shoots and kills an annoying member of the audience and, as an ambulance driver, he uses the phrase “looney tuney” about another version of himself.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky at the Crocadero” (1938)

Seen in 2018.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “What Price Porky” (1938)

Seen in 2018.

Daffy and Porky together for the first time, with rather dark gags and absurdities that go outside the usual modes—including a an aircraft that is a duck, with planes that are ducks, with pilots that are also ducks—all enhanced by the black-and-white production.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Phoney Express” (1938)

Seen in 2018.

I like the most successful “Injun”, who sharpens his throwing axe on the wheel of his moving bicycle. The framing device, with Porky outshining his tyrant boss, is as dull as the racism.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Five & Ten” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Hare Hunt” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

An unfortunate dilution of Daffy into a hare equivalent. Over the next two years, the hare would gradually evolve into Bugs Bunny.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Injun Trouble” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky the Fireman” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Party” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Spring Planting” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

The second half portrays chickens eating crops as a cock mob racket.

animation fiction moving picture nature entry

‣ “Porky & Daffy” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

This merely diminishes Daffy.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Wholly Smoke” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

Anti-smoking proganda. As such, it is a clear counter-example to the common claim that cartoons of the period were subversive. For example, despite the title, there is no apparent anti-Christian message. Unfortunately, the execution builds heavily on Tashlin’s favourite motif of goods coming to life in a store.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky in Wackyland” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

Less racism than I expected but few ideas.

References here: “The Door to Saturn” (1932).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Naughty Nephew” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

They didn’t manage to stick the landing on this one, but the bathing-suit physicality is pretty good.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky in Egypt” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Daffy Doc” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

The still-embryonic character doesn’t translate well to a surgical setting. Generic screwball antics without Avery’s touch.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Daffy Duck in Hollywood” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

The only good gag is the studio mogul’s reaction to Daffy’s version of the film. It prefigures a later era of media savvy.

References here: The Nuthouse (1951).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky the Gob” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

A presentiment of WW2.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “The Lone Stranger and Porky” (1939)

Seen in 2019.

Billy Bletcher does a fantastic job camping it up as the narrator.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “It’s an Ill Wind” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

Most notable for its knock-off of Donald Duck as Dizzy Duck.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Tire Trouble” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

References here: Adventure Time (2010).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Movie Mystery” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

The Invisible Man (1933) eats an apple, which reconstitutes itself in his stomach, and says “They star me in one picture, then drop me!” This is a rare joke about Hollywood studios not making enough sequels. Indeed, The Invisible Man Returns (1940) was just around the corner. There’s some adaptation decay in the corresponding parody of Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938), an originally Japanese yellowface character meeting a contemporary trend; Porky’s version is just generically and stereotypically Asian.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Chicken Jitters” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky and Teabiscuit” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Kristopher Kolumbus Jr.” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

There is a nary a fact in this retelling of the discovery of America. Even its title, appending a “junior” as in “Sherlock Jr.” (1924), must be a joke, since the son of Columbus would not be able to discover America for Europe a second time.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Polar Pals” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

Solid work for this era, with Porky as an anthropomorphic domesticated-animal friend to wild animals.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Scalp Trouble” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

Both Daffy and Porky have the personalities of a later, mature canon in this entry, which is entirely about killing native Americans, portrayed as aggressors. The violence is meant to be joyful. The natives are humanized to about the same extent as the colonizers, though the higher concepts of “Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas” (1938) are not in play.

References here: “Old Glory” (1939).

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Picnic” (1939)

Seen in 2021.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Wise Quacks” (1939)

Seen in 2021.

Lots of funny-animal worldbuilding glitches in this short, where the relationship between Porky and Daffy, an alcoholic father, has decayed to sitcom buddy status.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Porky’s Hotel” (1939)

Seen in 2022.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Jeepers Creepers” (1939)

Seen in 2022.

animation fiction moving picture entry

‣ “Naughty Neighbors” (1939)

Seen in 2023.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud merged with WWII and a parody of the then-popular, now-forgotten song “Would You Like to Take a Walk?”

animation fiction moving picture entry