Porky's Pooch

Porky's Pooch (1941)

*** (out of 4)

A poor dog walks out into the street where he sees one of his buddies in a rich car. The rich dog then tells his friend how he got adopted by a rich man and then we flashback to him showing up on the home of Porky Pig.

PORKY'S POOCH is a charming B&W short that manages to have some nice laughs that will keep you entertained throughout the short running time. I must admit that the dog is so annoying that I really wouldn't have blamed Porky had he done something rather drastic. With that said, there are some pretty funny reaction shots of Porky who is obviously in over his head as far as this dog is concerned.

"Porky's Pooch" is a very unusual cartoon from Looney Tunes. This is because instead of the normal backgrounds, they are sometimes black & white photographs OR drawn to look just like them. It's a most unusual look...and you wish the studio had made a few more like it.

The cartoon is also a bit unusual because it was later remade by the studio as "Little Orphan Airedale".

The story begins with a hungry Scotty coming upon a dog waiting in Porky's car. Apparently, Porky didn't want a dog but the dog was persistent...VERY persistent!

This is a cute and clever cartoon...well worth seeing and very well made despite being one of the last black & white cartoons made by Looney Tunes.

By the way, the final line "I'm a bad boy" is taken from Lou Costello....from rival Universal Studios.

Bob Clampett's cartoons often were high in energy and fun and displayed a uniquely wacky visual style that one can recognise immediately. At his best, he was responsible for some of the best and most unique cartoons around.

Porky Pig is always watchable and is a very likable character, even though there are funnier and more interesting Looney Tunes characters around and he can get outshone when partnered with a stronger personality (Daffy Duck being a primary example).

'Porky's Pooch' doesn't see either at their best, due to them having cartoons with more laughs and ones where the laughs are funnier and sharper, but even lesser efforts or cartoons that are around the middle of their output (the latter applies here) by both are still worth the look. 'Porky's Pooch' is one of those cartoons.

It is more amusing than it is hilarious, and the laughs could have been more frequent. Rover is an acquired taste, and admittedly there are times where he is a little annoying and even obnoxious though also a couple of the cartoon's best moments are with him, and the ending is rather abrupt and paced a bit too hastily.

However, the animation is deliciously wacky, eye-popping, rich in detail and high in imagination, with the black and white colours being beautifully shaded and crisp. Porky's reaction shots are very imaginative here and provide some of the cartoon's best moments. Carl Stalling still proves himself to be a compositional genius with his energetically high-voltage, luscious, rousing, dynamic and action-enhancing music score.

Witty and sometimes suitably wild scripting helps too, while there are some highly amusing moments, especially the reaction shots, Rover's mumbled praying and Rover's Carmen Miranda impression. There's nothing bland about Porky here, Rover does have his fun moments though he is a marmite character and for me he didn't always work and Sandy is a memorable if underused character. Mel Blanc's vocals once again shows an unparalleled ingenious talent, the Scottish accent for example is exaggerated but for comic effect and actually enhances the humour, though he shines in all his roles in what is essentially a one-man show.

All in all, good fun if not the best of Clampett or Porky. 7/10 Bethany Cox

If the average person thinks of a pesky dog trying to get Porky Pig to adopt him, s/he will probably think of Charlie, who invaded Porky's life in "Little Orphan Airedale" (which I interpreted as having the same gist as the Alan Bates movie "King of Hearts"*), "Often an Orphan" and "Awful Orphan". Well, a few years before all those, there was "Porky's Pooch", featuring Rover. As always, the wise guy mutt stops at nothing to try and become Porky's pet.

I noticed an in-joke: Porky's building is called Termite Terrace. Hard-core Looney Tunes fans probably know that Termite Terrace is the building where the Chuck Jones/Friz Freleng/Bob Clampett crowd created the cartoons.

Overall, I preferred the Charlie cartoons better, as this one had sort of an abrupt ending. But it still worked as brief entertainment. Worth seeing.

*"King of Hearts" shows that the people in the insane asylum weren't as crazy as the people behind WWI; "Little Orphan Airedale" portrays Charlie's friend deciding...well, I won't spoil it. As it is, I may have been the only person who interpreted a link between the two.

This was a great short from Warner Bros. The dog Rover was very funny trying to get Porky Pig to be his master. Very original and fresh. There would be other shorts similar to this one, but this would be the best of any of those shorts.