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: