Addendum Post: Porky's Prize Pony (The Reports of These Similarities Are Greatly Exaggerated)

The following is an addendum post. As I mentioned in the previous one for Milk and Money, there is a similar edit done to this cartoon that, according to the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki and the Censored Cartoons Page (old and new), is a recycled scene. This post is here to show that, while there is a fleeting similarity to it, the censored scene is not recycled or reanimated footage.

Director: Chuck Jones (it’s one of his early works that he was ashamed of, though this wasn’t his Disney clone work. This was his “Trying to distance myself from Disney” work)

Summary: Similar to “Milk and Money,” this is also about Porky, a horse race, and a horse who becomes an unlikely champion. Unlike “Milk and Money,” this one has Porky as a jockey (instead of mistakingly becoming one) whose champion racing horse is incapacitated due to accidentally drinking water tainted with horse liniment (at 125% alcohol?!) and the only way Porky can win is if a well-meaning, but very relentless and annoying farm horse (who may or may not be the one from 1942’s “The Draft Horse,” but has the personality of Charlie Dog) becomes his ride.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and MeTV (including MeTV+ and MeTV Toons)

Part(s) Edited: The beginning of the scene where the horses are called to the starting line and Porky runs to get his horse (who is passed out drunk from drinking liniment-tainted water) is edited because one of the foreground characters is a stereotypically black stable hand leading a horse to the starting line.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: The approximation I did I feel is well-done, but probably isn’t representative of how Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, MeTV, MeTV+, and MeTV Toons did it. I expect at least one of the channels to either use a still of the announcer horns to cover the scene while the audio plays normally. My money is on Nickelodeon, since their censorial cuts back then had some semblance of humor and creativity. MeTV and its spinoffs are my second choice, but the way they edit ranges from “standard” to “fooling around with video editing software and trying to pass that off as a censorship cut,” as you’ll see on “Hop and Go” and “Bugs Bonnets”. For now, though, enjoy this approximation video:

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: This isn’t one of those edits that would grind my gears. For one, I understand why it would be cut (stereotypical depictions of blacks/African-Americans aren’t tolerated today or even the alleged “good old days” of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s), even though the black caricature is tastefully done (which is an odd thing to say about a caricature of any race, skin color, gender, or creed, since caricature is supposed to exaggerate, but Chuck Jones was good at drawing distinct and diverse human characters). For two, the edit job done to get rid of the scene is fairly standard. If any of the channels mentioned did make the edit look obvious to even the most naive viewer. Lastly, if said edit is the worst thing about the cartoon (which isn’t that bad for an early Chuck Jones short, but I don’t see anyone clamoring for this short to be recognized and reassessed), then the cartoon isn’t too bad.

Probably the only gear-grinding thing about the cut is what wasn’t cut, and that’s the close-up of the bottle of horse liniment being 125% alcohol. I can picture Cartoon Network and Boomerang either digitally erasing it (in an artful, inconspicuous way, like the “You Beat Your Wife” sign on “Wideo Wabbit” or the Japanese man hiding in the phone on the Private Snafu short, “Spies,” not in the artless, conspicuous way exemplified with the “No Dogs Japs Allowed” sign on the MGM short, “Blitz Wolf” or the “Kick-Ass” sign on the Cartoon Network original show, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?) or cutting the liniment pouring into the water bucket and Porky’s original racehorse drinking from it, making it look like the other horse crashed into the stable and knocked out the racehorse (assuming this and the black stablehand parts were edited on Cartoon Network. A video showing a hypothetical edit of this will be forthcoming).

Availability Uncut: As of this writing, this is only available on the Looney Tunes Collector’s Edition VHS from 2001 (volume 12: Porky and Daffy) and the Porky Pig 101 DVD set, which has every black and white Porky cartoon ever made, including the ones that would either be banned or censored on American television (international channels may vary). However, there is some good news: this has been in the public domain since 1969, so you can watch it on most online video sites (assuming they don’t take it down because it belongs to Warner Bros., despite not being under copyright anymore).

Here’s the full, uncut black and white version of the cartoon.

Here are two versions of the redrawn, both of which have the scene with the black stable hand. One redrawn version is the unrestored version that did air on television (with the stable hand part cut, obviously); the other is 4K upscaled with A.I. and was probably someone experimenting with how that would look.

And last, but not least, the whole point of this blog post: proof that “Milk and Money” and “Porky’s Prize Pony” do NOT have the same scene:

Milk and Money (Out of My Stable Hands)

 

Director: Tex Avery (credited as “Fred Avery”)

Summary: Porky and his farm nag (worn-out horse) work in milk delivery to help his father save the farm from foreclosure. Thanks to a horsefly, Porky and the nag find themselves in a horse race with a cash prize for the jockey and his ride.

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network and Boomerang (the compare/contrast video does say “Cartoon Network,” but it also applies to Boomerang, since Boomerang airs/aired the same classic cartoons as Cartoon Network).

Part(s) Edited: A brief scene of the black stablehands leading the horses to the starting line.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: With the way I edited it, I tried to make it so that way the horse immediately saw the horse race and went to the starting line (I also cropped the shot of Porky and the horse at the starting line to get rid of the black stablehand running off before the start of the race). I’m not 100% sure if Cartoon Network and Boomerang edited it this way, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, they did. If this is what Cartoon Network and Boomerang did, then the cut is seamlessly done and makes it look like the horse knew that the horse race was a last-ditch effort to earn money needed to save Porky’s farm (as opposed to the horse just wanting some oats and finding himself in the race completely by accident, which is funnier, as the whole thing is a comic misunderstanding).

As always, here’s a video comparison:

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: Not much, except the fact that Nickelodeon and (possibly) MeTV, MeTV+, and MeTV Toons aren’t listed as possible channels that have censored this short. “Porky’s Prize Pony” also had a scene featuring a black stablehand walking by during the preliminaries to a horse race (it’s not similar or recycled from “Milk and Money,” as the Looney Tunes fandom wiki or the old Censored Cartoons Page has stated. I will do an addendum post about it) and those channels cut that scene. I’m going to chalk it up as, “It was edited on those channels, but there’s nothing to prove or disprove it.”

Availability Uncut: You can find this uncut, uncensored, and remastered on disc four of the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set, on disc 1 of the Porky 101 DVD set (which has every black and white Porky Pig cartoon ever made, including some that have never aired on American TV [or have, but were edited] due to outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes), and the Blu-ray version of The Devil Doll, starring Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O’Sullivan, and Frank Lawton, and directed by Tod Browning (the same Tod Browning who did Freaks).

I Love to Singa (Gogo Dancer)

Director: Fred “Tex” Avery

Summary: Another early Tex Avery cartoon that doesn’t feel in-character for him, but, unlike “Page Miss Glory,” Tex probably didn’t hate this one as much. This one is the story of an owl family that prides itself in classical music and opera, but are left reeling when one of their children is a jazz singer (back then, jazz was seen with the same disdain as rap and hiphop in the 1980s and 1990s: if you were white and into that, you were a disgrace to your family or a race traitor/poseur). When forcing the jazz singing son (named Owl Jolson) to sing opera doesn’t work, Owl gets thrown out and decides to make it on his own as a jazz singer. His first gig: a radio amateur hour, where anyone who doesn’t win over Jack Bunny (a very common pun name on comedian Jack Benny) gets rejected and ejected from the studio.

And if this short still isn’t familiar to you, the sound clip of Owl Jolson singing the title song was used on the very first episode of Comedy Central’s South Park ("Cartman Gets an Anal Probe") when Cartman is controlled by the anal probe and the cows use alien tech to make Officer Barbrady sing.

The Channel: TNT (on The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show)

Part(s) Edited: Two scenes were cut for time (as there wasn’t anything offensive about the two scenes cut):

1) After Owl Jolson is hatched and shocks his parents with his rendition of “I Love to Singa,” Fritz Owl decides that the best way to “cure” Owl’s jazz singing is to force him to sing “To Cilia,” which doesn’t work, as Owl keeps interjecting, “I Love to Singa” in between verses.

2) When Owl Jolson runs away from home, he happens upon Jack Bunny’s Amateur (spelled “Amatuer”) Radio Show, where contestants keep getting gonged and put through the trap door for bad performances.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: The way I edited it on the video is probably not how it played out on The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show, but it’s one of those edits that Nickelodeon used to be able to do when it aired Looney Tunes cartoons: tried to salvage the cartoon and had a sense of humor about editing the shorts. If you remember Rudy and Gogo and how “I Love to Singa” was cut, then, by all means, describe it in the comments or email me. For now, enjoy the video:

Availability Uncut: This one is popular enough to be released on home media. I'm not going to list them all (a full list can be found here), but I am going to list the DVD and Blu-ray titles that have this short uncut, uncensored, and with original titles restored (if you've ever seen it on television, it was probably the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie version):

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 2 (on disc 2)
• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, volume 2 (also disc 2, which would be the last disc on that collection, since Spotlight Collections were the scaled-back version of the Golden Collection).
• The 2005 DVD release of the 1927 movie The Jazz Singer (which I don't recommend, not because of the blackface on the cover being potentially offensive, but because the version shown is the 1995 Turner dub that might not have the original titles to it). The 2013 Blu-ray release of the same movie does have the original titles to "I Love to Singa," so I do recommend that for the completionist Looney Tunes fan.
• Looney Tunes Collection All-Stars volume 3 (this is only available in Australia)
• The DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray versions of the 2006 animated movie, Happy Feet. (I know I shouldn't have included HD-DVD, since it pretty much lived and died in the mid-2000s because Blu-ray kicked its ass, but there are probably people out there who still have HD-DVD players for some reason).
• The DVD and Blu-ray versions of the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection (volume 1, disc 2)
• The Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection DVD
• The Looney Tunes Parodies Collection DVD (most recent as of 2025; it was released five years ago).