Porky's Railroad (Re-Drawn Together)

Director: Frank Tashlin

Summary: Porky’s clunky, yet reliable train engine, Toots the 15th Century Unlimited (a 2-2-2 engine --two leading wheels, two driving wheels, and two trailing wheels -- popularly called a “Jenny Lind”)  squares off against Dirty Digg’s streamlined train, Silver Fish (no word on what kind of wheel alignment it’s supposed to have) in this battle between old tech vs. new tech.

The Channel(s): Unnamed syndication, Nickelodeon, and MeTV

Part(s) Edited: A very quick sight gag. During the race between Toots and the Silver Fish, a brief scene showing the Silver Fish racing by a woodpile that flies up revealing a black man (one that kind of looks humanoid, the way Bosko did) in tattered clothes was cut. Surprisingly, neither Cartoon Network nor Boomerang cut that part, and I actually found proof of it (see the “Video Comparison” section below).

The redrawn-colorized version also cut a short scene where Dirty Digg’s Silver Fish turns a tunnel inside out, and the end where Porky is crowned the new engineer of the Silver Fish, but those cuts were because redrawn-colorized versions had a hard time replicating the frenetic and fast-paced animation of these black-and-white shorts (mostly Bob Clampett’s work, but Frank Tashlin did a lot of what Clampett would be known for) and would often drop scenes because they weren’t usable (if you think that’s bad, wait ‘til we get to “The Daffy Doc” and “Wholly Smoke”).

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: This probably doesn’t grind my gears as much as it should. The “black man in the woodpile” edit goes by so fast that you don’t even notice. However, the Looney Tunes Fandom wiki says that it was cut because it’s a visual pun on a racially offensive saying. We have enough racist sentiment in this world; we don’t need any more unless it’s backed by historical context or someone challenging and condemning it, so I don’t know or want to know what that saying is.

As for the two other cuts…those were cut due to shoddy workmanship, not censorship. I’m not running a “Shoddy Workmanship” blog, though I do like pointing out how redrawn-colorized cartoons look like complete and utter crap, since I remember seeing those a lot on Nickelodeon (and occasionally, Cartoon Network).

Video Comparison: In a return to the style of the pilot blog post about Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid, I’m going to show the full, uncut black and white version versus the redrawn-colorized edited version:

Uncut (black and white version):

Uncut (computer-colorized version as seen on Cartoon Network):

Edited (redrawn-colorized, as seen on Nickelodeon, MeTV, and unnamed syndication):

Availability Uncut: It is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 DVD (on the second disc centered on Frank Tashlin cartoons), the Porky Pig 101 DVD set, and the Porky Pig volume of a UK-based DVD set called “The Looney Tunes Big Faces Box Set” (a.k.a “The Kids WB Bumper Box of Toons”). It’s not on streaming as of yet, but it doesn’t matter, as this cartoon has been in the public domain since 1965, so you can watch it wherever fine public domain films (live-action and animated) are uploaded.

For more information on trains and how they’re depicted in the media, visit https://obscuretrainmovies.wordpress.com

‘Til next time…