Lots Of Porkys On This Plate

Can Porky Get Warner Cartoons Back In Gear?

Warner Archive has released all of the Porky Pig cartoons in a single DVD set. There are 101 of them here. I suppose a person could go mad watching the dollop at once, or even within a week. But then there are those who "binge" on streaming television, and Porky is at least more benign than The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. As potted history of Warner Bros. animation, there is no better starting place than this set. You can get the whole education plotting Porky progress from his debut in 1935 to however far these things go (I've a long road ahead to a last of them). Older Porkys were always rare for being black-and-white and so shunted into offshoot packages for TV use. Original titles were replaced by ugly substitute of "Sunset" or "Guild Films" or who knows what else to disguise fact they were WB product, this to keep theatres from catching the Shield in bed with tube rivals during early 50's run-up to TV dumping, all irrelevant since Warners put back openings as were seen in cinemas, this warming heart of Porky purists.

The pig morphed, went forward, backward, as he came toward familiar face and squiggly tail we know. Porky might make a good argument for evolution as fact rather than theory, Darwinists using 101 for course syllabus. Porcines are supposed to be fat, but Porky began very much so. We liked him robust, but not too round. Up from mere support to "Beans," a WB character floated but ultimately let go, Porky seemed a supplicant to the billed-first star he'd ultimately supplant. You could say Porky was Eve Harrington to Beans' Margo Channing, latter not imagining a mere piglet (and yes, Porky started out young) could steal his lead. To topic of age, Porky progressed from schoolboy of I Haven't Got A Hat (debut) to domesticity of the 40's and ultimate stubble assist to Daffy as Dragnet pair they'd play in a 50's Chuck Jones spoof. But again --- did anyone imagine there were so many Porky cartoons? An interesting survey might determine which of all this is great, good, mere watchable, or affront to time and patience. I began with the first, am pulling plow in order of release, but have found none to discard, which gives hope for balance of the 101 and shows how fine a standard WB cartoons kept right from the go.

It's sobering to sit alone and watch half-dozen or more Porky Pig cartoons in a gulp. Has life really come to this? And yet --- show me who would share such meal (recipe to lose friends: make them watch an hour or more of cartoons). Anyone of normalcy, or leastwise sense of proportion, would bail after one or at most three. Porky was not meant to be consumed in such quantity, being like serials best seen a chapter at a time. How much sausage would you have with even a most bountiful breakfast? Porky cartoons are bacon strips you must limit. A same moderation might profitably apply to any cartoon group (I recently looked at six straight Road Runners and am still in recovery). Significant is fact I'm also going through twelve-chapter Mystery Mountain with Ken Maynard, back-forth between the serial and cartoons. Serious mind slippage can come of this, and never mind academic interest served. Porkys aren't all the same, though. They were tweaked from one t'other, no pair truly alike. Part of that was assign of directors with squiggly tails of their own, like Fred "Tex" Avery and Frank "Tish Tash" or "Frank Tash" Tashlin starting out and applying sensibility like no one else's, followed by maverick of them all, Robert Clampett. You always know an Avery when you see it --- no names necessary, while Tashlin we can spot because his cartoons look like features, with busy foreground, swooping camera, close and closer-ups. He clearly spent time watching other people's movies (and knew, got tips from, Michael Curtiz?).

Porky 101 is animation history as full as you'd get from any collection dedicated to that. More than just Porky are woven through the mass, for here came screen debuts of Daffy, embryonic Bugs, plus characters bound for obscurity and footnote status even for fans dedicated to the line. I had heard of "Beans," seen him in a few before, was reminded again of how quick-forgot such dud of a cartoon creation could be. Same for "Gabby," a horned goat who is that plus off-putting in each particular, yet billed beside Porky in a group meant to make a star of him. Put Gabby down beside poison-alities Warners couldn't make us love, notable his having name sake at Paramount, a Gabby off Gulliver's Travels to a series of his own, also failing utterly to make the grade. Was there ever a cartoon goat we embraced? Of human staff who didn't last with the Shield was wandering Ub Iwerks, WB presumed last stop before he'd light at Disney to finish up a career. There are several Porkys Ub-supervised among the 101, none to compete with what Avery, Tashlin, Clampett did for the series.

One of the cartoons, I think it's Porky's Romance, spoofs a radio program of the day that, according to audio commentary, lasted but a year. This otherwise obscure broadcast, nothing of which is otherwise recalled, survives thanks to briefest parody of it in this eighty-year-old cartoon. Warner staff were sponges for popular culture. They didn't so much invent funny phrases as crib them from elsewhere, mostly radio. We have little way of assigning credit for humor nuggets beyond what deep research is done by cartoon historians. Most of music, infectious as it is, came of merry melodies that WB owned. Songs for a feature would sooner turn up in cartoons, from there best remembered as back-lay for Bugs, Daffy, the rest. Thank Your Lucky Stars, It's A Great Feeling, others of time-lock sort, seem dated as dinosaurs, except for tunes kept in our heads from long-ago and repeat exposure to cartoons. Who knew Max Steiner's principal theme for Captains Of The Clouds would serve over and again whenever WB animated characters took flight?

Warners' warning label says, "Porky Pig 101 is intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable For Children," this like something you'd read on a cigarette package. But would youngsters be tempted? The Porkys seem languid beside madhouse that is modern animation, and then there's dreaded black-and-whiteness. What happens when all us "Adult Collectors" die out? Warner cartoons may by then have a same appeal as piano rolls from the 19th century (dare we ask a ten-year-old if he/she is familiar with Daffy Duck or Road Runner?). Would anyone not watching in yawn of time that was 50-70's follow WB cartoons now? They say nostalgia runs in twenty to forty year cycles, depending on strength of sentiment. Hard to imagine anyone mooning over 90's pop culture, but sure as flow of sand through an hourglass, lots do. I'd submit pave of memory lane among emerging adults for WB cartoons began around the mid-70's with Bugs Bunny Superstar, then college and revival house fests that followed (but query: Did those who saw them brand new in theatres cling as much to memories?). Childhood from mid-50's onward was revisited because that's when bulk of the WB's went to television, as in hundreds loosed at once during banner year 1956. Tubes fed non-stop, network and syndicated, lasted almost to a new century. Video cassettes, then laser disc, enabled ownership of cartoons, with peak that was "Golden Collections" Volume One through Six on DVD. These went from 2003 to interest flag by 2008. Now it's near a decade later and we could hope Porky will stem tide going out, sales to determine a next set ... or curtains down.

It helped when animators from the old days were still around to stimulate fans born since cartooning heyday. Chuck Jones sat for a ninety-minute documentary done in 2000, and venerable Friz Freleng reminisced clear into bonus segments for the DVD's. These and others were reassuring last link to when cartoons played first-run, but we couldn't expect creators to stay forever. What intrigues me are home historians who take upon themselves an ongoing task of restoring original titles to cartoons that till now lack them, result of reissues that long-ago lopped off art-enhanced openers in favor of boilerplate "Blue Ribbon" credits. It's a yeoman task, but there are those on You Tube dedicated to the doing of it, and I much admire their handiwork. Within a seeming thousand channels on satellite or cable to choose from, do old cartoons have a platform? Does Porky show up anywhere, that is, on free, streaming, or subscription basis? Little of WB animation has surfaced for the over twenty years TCM has been around. There's reason for that, but I'm not apprised of what it is. Effort was applied to "new" Bugs and Daffy cartoons, but we may assume those went down to defeat. There's bound to be value in the franchise, but then ... it's a long, and getting longer, road back to these characters. Are Porky, Bugs, and Daffy too remote to revive? Reception to Porky 101 may well answer that question.