Porky's Hero Agency (No Re-Guard for Consistency)

 

Director: Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”); Chuck Jones (credited as “Charles Jones” for animation)

Summary: Porky (depicted here as a child character) reads some Greek myths before bed and dreams that he runs a “Hero for Hire” agency who runs afoul of a man-hungry Medusa (the gorgon who turns men to stone with her cursed gaze) who works as a photographer and collects her rock-hard victims to use as statues.

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network (barring The Bob Clampett Show), Boomerang, MeTV, and MeTV Toons (surprisingly, not Nickelodeon)

Part(s) Edited: Two small parts for the same reason: The guard pulling Porky through the barred door window and putting him in line to be Medusa’s next victim, and the guard telling Porky that he’s next, with Porky backing away and imagining himself as a piggy bank. The alleged reason: either the guard is an outdated caricature of a black man or he's in blackface. I’m leaning hard towards the caricature claim, because there’s nothing that says that the guard is a white guy in questionable race make-up.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: We’ll get to the “why this grinds my gears [if it ever did]” bit shortly. I just want to bring up this:

I don’t understand why the price for a “fair maiden” rescue is lower than one for slaying dragons (which I don’t even think was part of Greek mythology. Yeah, they had the hydra, which was a dragon-like creature with three heads, but not the kind of dragon you hear about in fairy tales and epic, medieval fantasies that try to be like J.R.R. Tolkein with varying degrees of success and failure) or a daring last-minute rescue (and why change the price from $25 to 3 for $10)? Are damsels (or maidens) in distress so common that you can get them for cheap?

And let’s see how much all those prices would be in 2025:

The $50.00 (in 1937 money) dragon slaying would be $1,120 today (this also applies to the “genuine Egyptian pyramid” that Medusa makes out of a group of men in a human pyramid), which, yeah, pricey, but is worth it, give how difficult slaying a dragon is. From the stories I’ve heard and seen, it’s a one-man operation and only the bravest and most valiant definitely need to be paid that for the work done. The $12 per dozen in 1937 would come to $268.00 today, which might not seem much, but if you slayed more than ten dozen, you could clean up ($268 x 120 [ten dozen] = $32,160).

Fifty cents (in 1937 money) for a “fair maiden/damsel in distress” rescue is $11.20 today. I…guess that’s an improvement, but it seems like there’s no good money in rescuing maidens and damsels, despite that that’s one of the best parts about myths, legends, pulp stories, and most action and fantasy movies and TV shows. You want women to be safe, don’t you? On the other hand, with the large amount of “fair maiden/damsel in distress” rescues priced at $11.20 in today’s money, you could clean up a decent amount. It’s not going to be on the same level as ten or more dozen dragons slain, but it’s still a good amount.

The old price for “thrilling, last-minute rescues” was $25 a pop in 1937. In today’s money, that’s $560.00. Not bad, but a bit too rich for most people’s blood, that will no doubt spill because they can’t afford it. The new price where it’s three rescues for $10.00 (1937 money) would be $224.00, which, yeah, is a better deal. I just hope Porky(karkus) has a good installment plan, especially for the dragon slaying.

The old man statue labeled an “antique” that’s priced at $60 billion in 1937 money would be around $1.34 trillion in 2025. You read that right: trillion. So saying that you’re worth more dead than alive isn’t just an expression.

The “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” statue that was $3.00 in 1937 is $67.20 today, though I thought it would be priced higher, since Three Stooges memorabilia would be more popular, especially if it’s the original trio of Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Okay, the math and economics lesson is over for the day. Time for some film editing and criticism:

The first time the guard was cut looked painfully obvious, as there’s a jump in the audio track (at least from what I remember from seeing on Cartoon Network. I have vague memories of seeing it on Nickelodeon, but from what I could tell, the guard’s two appearances weren’t censored). Second edit…can’t really complain about it because of how seamless it is. It’s not on the edit approximation video, but the second edit was supposed to go from Medusa creating the Egyptian pyramid from a human pyramid to Porky walking in disguised as the Dick Powell statue, which Medusa immediately falls for.

Video Comparison:

Availability Uncut: For a mid Porky cartoon that was mostly shown on television (at least in my youth), this actually does have some good home media releases. In 1992, it was released (as a computer-colorized edition, which I assume is the copy that aired on such channels as Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and Nickelodeon when they turned Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon into a daytime show) on the VHS “Porky Pig: Days of Swine and Roses” as part of the Authentic and Original Looney Tunes Cartoons VHS collection (yeah, that title sounds very much like something from a gray market video distributor, where most, if not all, the cartoons are public domain -- at best. At worst, it sounds like a video collection series from Wish or Temu, but, in order to actually be like those, “Looney Tunes” has to be misspelled as “Loney Toons”). Two years later, “Porky’s Hero Agency” was released on the laser disc called “Wince upon a Time: Foolhardy Fairy Tales and Looney Legends” (a collection of Warner Bros cartoons that spoof fairy tales and mythical stories). Seven years after that, the short appeared on volume 9 of this British Looney Tunes video collection called, “The Looney Tunes Special Bumper Collection.” Today, the cartoon can be found, uncut, uncensored, and in its original black and white either as a special feature on the DVD version of the movie Marked Woman, starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, or, if you’d rather buy cartoon compilation DVDs instead of old movies with the cartoon shorts that ran concurrent with them in theaters as special features, the Porky Pig 101 DVD set.

‘Til next time…