The Blow Out

The Blow Out (1936)

*** (out of 4)

A mad bomber is terrorizing the city by blowing up various buildings. Also in town, Porky Pigg wants an ice cream soda but he's five pennies short. He notices that doing good deeds gets him a penny so he goes around town being nice but soon he runs into the bomber.

THE BLOW OUT is certainly the best film that Porky Pig appeared in up to this point. The idea of a kid's cartoon having a terrorist bomber might seem odd today but it was perfect for the time and there are actually a lot of nice gags here. The highlight of the film is certainly watching Porky do the various good deeds to get the penny. I thought it was rather funny seeing how excited he got when he was one penny closer to what he wanted. The animation was extremely good as well and the short ends on a high note with a great action sequence.

The Blow Out was an early Warner Bros. cartoon that was the second made by "supervisor" Fred "Tex" Avery as director. It also starred Porky Pig in his early incarnation with original voice Joe Dougherty (who stuttered in real life). Other voices featured were Sara Berner who was later gossipy switchboard operator Mabel on "The Jack Benny Program", and Lucille La Verne who later voiced the Queen on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She voices the bomber here. Porky is a kid here trying to buy an ice cream soda but finds he's five pennies short. So when he accidentally picks up a misplaced item from a passerby, he gets awarded one cent. After this gets repeated a few times, the pig finds the bomb-which he thinks is just an ordinary clock-and proceeds to give it back to the one who dropped it who of course keeps running away. Soon the cops follow. You may be able to guess what happens from here on but I'm not going to tell you. Needless to say, the ending is one you've probably expected from Tex Avery if you're familiar with his subsequent cartoons for both Warner Bros. and M-G-M. On that note, I definitely recommend The Blow Out.

This is an early Tex Avery, with Avery still feeling his way. The cartoon is actually more cute than menacing and Avery seems to have more fun with the villain than with our hero, the rather hefty Porky (this was a formative cartoon, when they were still fiddling around with character design and Porky carried a good deal more weight then), with Porky's role limited to one running gag and the payoff at the end. This is a cute cartoon and there are quite a few sight gags, but pacing is slower and the gags are more repetitive in nature and form than later Avery shorts. Avery taking baby steps. But I like this one a lot, personally. The original black and white is far superior to the later colorized version (usually true, but in this case, the use of shadows originally makes colorizing this one an especially bad idea), so try and catch the black and white. Well worth watching. Recommended.

Don't expect to see this one on TV. It is a perfect example that animators, especially at Warner Brothers, in the 1930's weren't afraid to use any topical subject for humor. No wonder Chris Rock cites Bugs Bunny as a major influence. It features Porky Pig before they slimmed him down. It was directed by Tex (as Fred in this case) Avery, his second directorial effort for WB. The Ha Ha subject? A terrorist bomber. It opens with a character looking like radio's The Shadow placing a bomb in front of a building and blowing it up. Next, newspaper front pages report on the further carnage and reward offered for the capture of the mad man. Porky enters the picture by trying to buy an ice cream soda. He comes up five cents short. He hits on the idea of picking up things people drop and returning them in hopes of a small reward. He sees the bomber deposit a bomb. The cartoon then kicks into high gear with Porky dogging the tale of the bomber trying to return the bomb. Now the hunter is the hunted, trying to escape his own murderous device. Porky finally chases him right into the welcoming arms of the police, earning the reward. He immediately goes back to the soda fountain and spends every penny on a mountain of ice cream sodas. If you think Tex Avery was the only animator who would make fun of terrorism, see Ali Baba Bound (Bob Clampett), oh yes, that one isn't shown any more either. Suppressing the past, doesn't it make you feel safe?

"The Blow Out" is one of the darkest shorts I've seen from Looney Tunes from the 1930s...if not the darkest. It's about a mad bomber and not only is he up to all sorts of unsavory stuff, but his voice and look are incredibly creepy! It's probably NOT a great film for little kids because of this....or at least you might want to watch it with them.

After you see and hear the bomber, the story cuts to Porky Pig....and back in 1936 he looked very different from his later and more familiar incarnation. He is much more rotund, not especially cute and the voice is much different. It is important to note that this is the first Looney Tunes cartoon STARRING Porky, though he'd already been in a few others before this as a supporting character. How do the bomber and Porky relate to each other in this one? See the film and find out for yourself.

I actually LIKED the darker and nasty aspects of this cartoon. Too often in the 1930s, Looney Tunes depended on cute characters and saccharine singing...none of which is evident here, thank goodness! Also, for Looney Tunes the artwork is pretty good, though not even close to the quality of the industry leader at the time, Disney. The overall quality of the Looney Tunes/Warner Brothers cartoons would increase tremendously in the 1940s. Still, despite not looking amazing, it is, for the time, among the best the studio had to offer.