What Price Porky (quel prix cochon)

The title to this Looney Tunes short is a takeoff on the silent war comedy, "What Price Glory?". And, as you might expect "What Price Porky" is a comedic look at war.

When the story begins, a flock of ducks arrive at Porky's farm and begin eating up all the corn he's saved up for his chickens. Soon, the chickens and ducks are mobilizing for war and this means exploding eggs, dive bombing ducks and more....with Porky stuck in the middle.

I really enjoyed this cartoon. It's very funny and the war seemed a bit like "Duck Soup"...silly and utterly ridiculous. However, the cartoon is quite adult compared to most Looney Tunes cartoons...with birds getting killed right and left AND the leader of the ducks looking and acting a bit Hitler-like....which might have gotten laughs back in 1938 but which certainly didn't age well once WWII began!! Be forewarned.

WHAT PRICE PORKY is a '38 cartoon in B&W (so little faith did studios have in Technicolor cartoon shorts apparently), and it's full of slapstick sight gags involving a war between hens and ducks that resembles WWII (or even WWI) with trench warfare and multiple explosions between the warring parties.

The fight is all over food supplies and the armies are drafted for the big fight even just after they emerge from their shells, which is the most inspired touch in the whole cartoon. Not much of a plot but an amusing curiosity in the way signs are posted ("No Hens Land") in a comic strip sort of way.

Actually it looks rather primitive and it's hard to see the attraction in a Looney Tune cartoon made in B&W for wartime audiences, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Kids should enjoy it and adults will have fun reading the double meaning signs.

During Porky Pig's first few years as a cartoon star, Warner Bros. mostly cast him in B&W cartoons* showing the various aspects of life. A slightly more complex turn for the stuttering swine was Bob Clampett's "What Price Porky". This one has Porky as a farmer trying to feed his chickens, but the ducks - who look and talk like Daffy Duck - steal the food. When I say that this leads to full-scale war, I don't mean that figuratively: I mean war involving tanks, bombers, trenches, the works.

It's worth noting that this came out in between WWI and WWII. At this time, the Spanish Civil War was raging. Japan had colonized Korea and much of China (the Japanese were real SOBs to the Koreans and Chinese, and still refuse to own up to their actions), while Mussolini's fascist Italy had colonized Ethiopia (and Italy committed some real atrocities there). And of course Nazi Germany was doing its stuff. In a way, this cartoon looks like a premonition of WWII.

But it was probably never intended as such. I just like to read really far into things. Bob Clampett no doubt intended the cartoon as pure entertainment, and it certainly entertained me. Moreover, it's a good thing that I saw "WPP" now, when I'm old enough to understand what it portrays. Had I watched it was I was a little kid, I would have naively laughed at it without comprehending the jokes. Definitely worth seeing.

*Until the early 1940s, the Looney Tunes - filmed in black and white - featured the stars, while the Merrie Melodies - filmed in color from 1934 onward - featured miscellaneous characters. After the Looney Tunes went color, the series became indistinguishable except for the opening songs: the Looney Tunes used "Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", while the Merrie Melodies used "Merrily We Roll Along".

If you watch enough of the classic-era cartoons, especially the ones from the 1930s to the mid-'40s, you'll read a lot of incredibly-corny signs, letters and other things filled with plays-on-word and puns of all type. This cartoon offers a great example.

Porky is trying to get the ducks from eating his hens' feed. He pleads with them and then mildly threatens them. Their response is this letter:

"Fowl Ones - Let's talk TURKEY. You're too COCKY. We think you EGGS are CHICKEN. Why don't you quit CACKLING and fight - you dumb CLUCKS! Signed - Gen. QUACKO, DUCKtator."

You get the idea.

The hens see the note and are now inspired to fight back. The mobilize an army, and the war is on between the hens and the ducks, complete aerial bombers, naval artillery and ships, you name it; even a "no man's land" in the middle renamed "No Hen's Land" with WWI-style trench warfare on each side.

Actually, a number of the sight gags are very inventive. The Ducks, by far, are the funnier of the two sides. Daffy joins the fray, armed to the teeth and asks, "Which way to the front?" After he's told, he speeds off in the opposite direction!

This cartoon is part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five and is the last one in the set, making the package end with a real winner!

I am a fan of Looney Tunes and have been from an early age. Porky Pig I do like, though he is not one of my favourites. What Price Porky is very good, though perhaps not outstanding. I thought the backgrounds were crisp and flowed nicely, but the character designs, with both Porky and Daffy having been designed better since, are somewhat primitive. However, the music is rousing and wonderfully patriotic, and the dialogue and gags as you'd expect from Bob Clampett are hilarious in an often riotous sense. The story while perhaps not the most surprising of all stories is amusing and well paced, while the characters especially the ducks are enormous fun with Porky, playing to his strengths, on great form. Mel Blanc and Clampett himself provide the voices flawlessly. In conclusion, very funny and well worth watching, though I do think as overall cartoons that Porky have done better. 8/10 Bethany Cox