Porky's Preview

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).

Porky's Preview, like another short oddity called Lions For Sale, is inexplicably included as an extra feature on the Sergeant York DVD, and while neither short film has any discernible reason for being found here, they are both clever little bits of short film-making worth checking out. In this one, a series of sight gags as various characters make their way into a theater (ushered in through the dark aisles by a helpful firefly), at which Porky Pig introduces a shows a curious stick figure animation show of his own making. It had been probably 10 or 15 years since I've seen a Looney Tunes cartoon, which I watched constantly when I was a kid, so it was fun to hear the familiar intro and outtro again after not having seen it for so long, and completists will be thrilled to see a hard-to-find Looney Tunes short. Well worth the time, although strangely hidden.

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.

After nearly 30 years of knowing and seeing a clip of this cartoon, I finally got to watch the entirety of Porky's Preview as an extra on the Sergeant York DVD. Basically it's a series of spot gags of animal attendants going to see Porky Pig's short movie which consists entirely of child-like line drawings animated to a bare bones-version of Carl Stalling's score. Those drawings are amusing if not hilarious and kudos to Fred "Tex" Avery for presenting such a thing before he left WB for greener pastures at M-G-M. There is one really funny gag involving a skunk-well, maybe more than one though like the other animals, he's not really given much to do. So on that note, Porky's Preview is worth a look for any animation buffs out there.

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.