Porky's Railroad

"Porky's Railroad" is a Looney Tunes cartoon that offers few laughs, though it is entertaining. In this short, Porky is the engineer of an old steam engine...one that clearly is outdated. The plan is to replace him with a new Streamliner engine. However, before this happens, there's a race between one of these modern trains and Porky's...with rather predictable results.

For a 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon, this one is pretty good, though considerably less fun to watch than Looney Tunes' later work. Not bad...but nothing special here.

Porky Pig is a conductor driving an old railroad engine. It struggles to get up a hill. When it gets on top of Piker's Peak, it starts to pick up speed. Porky encounters a cow on the tracks which leads to a funny confrontation with a bull. The Streamline Train is much faster. Porky Pig is told that he and his train engine are no longer needed. In frustration, he challenges the new train to a race.

This is an early black and white Porky Pig. It is a fun train-based cartoon. It is solid fun with plenty of action and good cow fun. As often is the case, there is a racially insensitive joke, but that's nothing new.

Porky's Railroad (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent, if nothing overly special, short has Porky Pig traveling around in his 15th Century train when a newer, faster 30th Century challenges him to a race.

PORKY'S RAILROAD is pretty slim on story and I'd also argue that there really aren't too many laughs either. The short manages to be slightly entertaining thanks to the very good animation, which is certainly the highlight. I'd say that Porky is in fine shape and manages to hold your attention as he talks to his train and keeps trying to make it do better than it actually should.

Frank Tashlin's 'Porky's Railroad' is one of the lesser black and white Porky Pig cartoons. Tashlin directed many of the finest of these early Porkys but sometimes the script would let him down. This is very much the case in the interminably dull 'Porky's Railroad', although Tashlin makes a few odd choices himself. The cartoon opens with a lot of on screen captions and Tashlin accompanies them with some weird use of slow-motion. There follows a string of crummy gags (broken up by a rather lovely aerial view sequence) before the main storyline kicks in, with Porky taking part in a race with a more powerful train. This feeble plot, despite a surprisingly sad ending, throws up few moments of interest and, despite some unusual camera angles and a gallant attempt to inject some pace, Tashlin never manages to make 'Porky's Railroad' come to life. The result is a pedestrian pig picture, one of several lacklustre cartoons with the generic title 'Porky's...fill in occupation'!

In this one, our blubbery friend is an engineer on an out of date train. After many efforts to barely survive a trip, Porky bets he can beat a guy with a brand new, silver streak train. There are several pitfalls along the way, but something Porky does early in the cartoon becomes his salvation. This is a pretty typical cartoon with only a couple clever events.