Porky's Railroad

One of the many cartoons from the days when Porky Pig was the top Warner Bros. cartoon star - though Daffy Duck would soon overtake him - "Porky's Railroad" looks to me like a parable of many American's hopes during the Depression. We see how Porky is the simple little guy with his ordinary train going about things as he's always done, but he gets replaced by a big guy, much like how the banks foreclosed on many people's homes during those years. So, Porky's only hope is to race the big galoot: he's the underdog against seemingly improbable odds.

Of course, I just might be reading too far into this cartoon. I don't know what specifically director Frank Tashlin wanted to say here; he may have just intended it as a way to pass time. Whatever the gist is, it's still a pretty enjoyable cartoon. Not their best by any stretch, but worth seeing.

In this one, our blubbery friend is an engineer on an out of date train.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.

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'!

Clearly this cartoon has been around a long time, produced prior to my birth. However in about 1997 I had an occasion to be viewing this piece in the company of several small children. In the midst of this viewing, I caught what I detected to be Morse code signals. I wasn't sure at first but as I carefully listened to this piece (on VHS tape), the more I was convinced that I was right. The problem was complicated because the Morse was somewhat hidden beneath a rendering of "California Here I Come." Nevertheless, taking time to be sure, I found that the real message was different from the message being show to those in a theater watching the cartoon. In the picture Porky, in a race against a new and modern train, was alerted by telegraph that a cow was on the tracks ahead. To convey this message to the film watching audience, a hand came to the screen taping a message on a telegraph key. There was this Morse code sound and the audience would have assumed the sound was a representation of a message to Porky that he should be careful. However the real message of the code was an invitation to contact the producer in Hollywood and receive a picture of Porky. At this late date it is fair to say that there is no way to know if anyone ever did this. In the days when this cartoon was being viewed by the theater going public, few in the audience would have had the opportunity to get a copy of this and go over it many times to weed out the truth of the hidden message. This didn't really become easily available to the general public until the development of VHS tapes. I view this as a simple little joke by the cartoon producers who probably had a long laugh in their offices for many years. A similar Morse code message can be found in The Lone Stranger and Porky produced in '39. Were it not for my skill at Morse, acquired as a condition of being a ham radio operator, this hidden message would probably never have come to my attention. I have no reason to think I was the first to note this message. Nevertheless it was an interesting experience to discover something few others would have noticed.

"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.