Porky's Preview

Porky's Preview (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Porky Pig opens a movie theater and once everyone is inside we're treated to some of his hand-drawn cartoons.

I'm not going to lie, I think most of the early Porky Pig cartoons are uneven at best and that's certainly true of this one. The short starts off pretty good as we see an assortment of characters coming into the theater and I thought the animation itself was quite good and we got some interesting characters. From here the film went downhill and especially with the cartoons being shown. I just didn't find any of them all that funny and while the animation was nice the film just needed more laughs.

While one might think stick figures are primitive, the way these move and interact is quite wonderful. The vehicle for things is Porky's contention that these are his seven year old drawings. Of course, the writers had to include a man in black face (why is this the only character that has move conventional features). I will put that aside, however, and just admire the risks taken and the success achieved.

While I am sure that there are some that disagree with me, but the Looney Tunes cartoons made before about 1942 were generally pretty shabby. They were often black & white and had pretty insipid characters. While these cartoons were a lot worse in the 1930s (when they tried to be cute and had a lot of singing), there's just no comparing the quality of these cartoons to the wonderful Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons once they found their comedic edge. It was like there was a renaissance at Warner Brothers starting about 1942 and the quality improved dramatically.

This cartoon is one of those films made just before the change at Looney Tunes. Porky Pig in this cartoon is still a relatively bland guy and the cartoon lacks color (literally and figuratively). It consists of Porky showing a cartoon he made to all the barnyard animals. It's very poorly done and I think we are supposed to laugh at how badly he made it. I dunno, I just thought it was bad. The film lacked zing and could have definitely benefited by adding Daffy Duck to the mix. Where is the edge?! Where is the humor?!

I used to watch Warners cartoons all the time when I was a kid, but it's a long time since I last saw one, and I'm pretty sure I'd never seen this one before. The reason I'm sure is because it's in black and white, and I didn't even know Warners made cartoons in b&w. The lack of colour is no doubt why it wasn't shown on TV.

Anyway, the film is enjoyable enough while being nowhere near the best of Avery & co's output. There's only one laugh-out-loud moment which practically every other reviewer on this page has already described. Although the laughs are scarce, the wild imagination of Avery is plain to see as Porky Pig presents his own cartoon show made up entirely of childishly drawn stick figures (complete with crossings-out when he gets things wrong).

Watching "Porky's Preview", I was surprised that it wasn't wackier, given that Tex Avery directed (here he's billed as Fred). But even so, it's still fairly entertaining. The cartoon features Porky Pig showing a group of animals some work that he did as a child. Probably the cleverest gag comes early on: the entry fee is five cents, but the skunk only has one (s)cent.

I get the feeling that this one was sort of a place holder in between the really great cartoons (1941 also saw the release of "Tortoise Beats Hare" and "Wabbit Twouble"). Still, it's always great to see these classic cartoons. Worth seeing. As it's a special feature on the "Sergeant York" DVD, I wonder whether or not it preceded that movie in the theater.