Summary: This is basically Friz Freleng’s “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter” filtered through one of Clampett’s Porky Pig cartoons where Clampett can’t be arsed to put Porky in an interesting situation, but the cartoon itself is an interesting time capsule about what it was like to go to the movies in the 1930s (similar to “Bosko’s Picture Show” and “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter”). In this one, Porky (who is supposed to be a kid character, but is shown as an adult) is out on a grocery run, but sees a “Kids Admitted Free Day” poster at the local movie theater and decides to partake. The rest of the cartoon is a string of gags involving movie trailers and situations associated with 1930s movie-going (my favorite is the one where a snooty society lady tells the audience that she and her dog don’t go to the movies [there were people like that back then, who thought the movies were low-class. These days, it’s only the half-truth, though the magic is fading as new technology, fatigue for the old, and audiences wanting higher quality continues to grow. I believe things will sort itself out, since there are people out there trying to change the movie-going experience], but the dog obviously makes an exception when he sees a poster for a movie about trees).
Fun Facts:
- Porky’s coin-flipping walk cycle was recycled from “The Daffy Doc.” A bit obvious to be a fun fact, but it is amusing to point out, and it helps you see it for yourself to make sure I’m not just pulling facts out of my butt.
- The ticket taker is reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath during the scene of Porky finding out about the “Kids Admitted Free” day and running inside. There wouldn’t be a film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath until 1940 (with John Ford as director).
- Some movie references for those who think the Golden Age of Hollywood started in the 1980s and 1990s (it didn’t, godddamn it!):
Ahs of a Wizard: The Wizard of Oz, obviously. The Oz books (by Frank L. Baum until his death in 1919, yet continued under different authors until 1963, known as “The Famous Forty,” and considered canon to the series) started in 1900 (that’s 126 years ago, for those keeping score at home) were 39 years old at the time of this short, but the movie that everyone knows (the one MGM produced that had Judy Garland as Dorothy) was released in August of 1939 (so, four months before this short).
Gone With the Breeze: Gone With the Wind (adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel), which was produced by...(gasp): Warner Bros. Studios, same place that also did the Looney Tunes! What’s more, this cartoon came out the day after Gone With the Wind premiered in theaters.
The Masked Marvel and Sterling: Sounds like a rejected Marvel movie, but it isn’t. It’s a reference to the Western serial, The Lone Ranger, with Sterling as a stand-in for the titular hero’s horse, Silver. If the footage from the trailer looks familiar, that’s because it’s recycled from “The Lone Stranger and Porky,” which, if you’ve been paying attention, was the first WB cartoon of 1939 and starred Porky Pig in it (even though the role was almost as small as the one here). We’ve come full-circle here, people, because this is the last Bob Clampett-directed Porky cartoon of 1939 (and, by proxy, the 1930s). “The Curious Puppy” from Chuck Jones is the last cartoon of the year and decade.
Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: I know. I said I wouldn’t bring this back (at least, not as frequently), but this particular review from Brandon Reese (not Tim Brayton, surprisingly) has got me scratching my head on whether he likes it or not, considering he’s pointing out everything that’s wrong with it. Is this that “liking things ironically” trend I kept hearing about from 2010 to 2015?:
I like Clampett the satirist because he barely rises to the level of satire. The target of the gag where a bus pulls up and unrolls like a sardine tin to let dozens of people off is buses, if there even is one. It's less specific targets and way more just a vibe. He can't think of a specific example per se but you know what he's talking about when he says everything is sort of shitty and everybody's an idiot, right? That's the advantage guys in the 30s had from not growing up in a landscape polluted by Bill Hicks.
It's never a good sign when Porky is a child. Porky is a middle aged man somehow simultaneously henpecked and divorced. He carries that with him even in childhood and even though he looks more like a human baby than a pig. And yet this short persists. Porky is merely a framing device, here. Make him a teenager. Who gives a shit? The gags are good, which makes sense because this premise (Porky goes to the movies) is actually a flimsy excuse to invent Robot Chicken.
This short ends on an unbelievably weak note but I don't care because I had already decided I liked it at that point.
About the only thing I agree with him about is the fact that Porky looks like an adult here, but takes advantage of a “Kids Admitted Free” day at the movie theater. Either that’s a continuity error in a series that normally doesn’t have fans who care about them or Porky is taking advantage of “Kids Admitted Free” day because he’s young enough to lie about his age and the movie ticket takers don’t care (though they do care enough to send the manager to announce that Porky’s mom — and everyone else’s — notified the audience about a child who would rather take in a show than go out grocery shopping for the family).
In contrast to that, I found this review of the cartoon from “Eliza’s Review Blog” (which I used before as research on “The Daffy Doc”), whose writer does paint it as better than it is, despite being a thin attempt at recreating “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter.”
The Channel(s): Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, colorized redrawn version)
Part(s) Edited: A rather innocuous edit this go-around. The redrawn colorized version cut a brief scene introducing the Looney Tone (not “Tune”) News by Warmer Bros. (“The Newsreel With ‘Oomph’”), featuring newsreel anchor Dole Promise (reference to Lowell Thomas, who actually was a newsreel anchor, as well as a TV and radio broadcaster, a non-fiction writer focusing on biography and travel narratives; and a documentarian whose works turned T.E. Lawrence [a.k.a “Lawrence of Arabia”] into an international celebrity).
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Yeah, this is one of those edits that doesn’t do anything to ruin the cartoon, but it does aggravate me when stuff like this gets cut for little to no reason. Since this edit happened in the redrawn colorized version, I’m going to assume the cut was done for the usual reason: because the redrawn-colorized versions of black and white shorts had the worst art and animation, and there were times where footage would be so unusable that it had to be scrapped.
There was also word on the old Censored Cartoons Page back in the late 1990s into the early 2000s that there may have been other cuts to this, like how there may have been a scene featuring the trailer for the double feature Honeymoon in Bali with The Old Maid that was allegedly replaced with a shot of Porky and two ducks watching the screen. That claim has since been debunked when the Censored Cartoons Page was revamped. I can see why people would want to believe parts were cut: because of either a tight budget or the Hays Office telling Bob Clampett they had issues with the joke, the actual scene showing that trailer either had to be cut or was only written or pitched as an idea, but never made. The cartoon does feel like it’s been stitched together (as I mentioned before: most of it is recycled from “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter,” while Porky’s walk cycle from “The Daffy Doc” was reused) with random gags holding it together.
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: Today, I’d like to release a new format that I hope to keep for later posts. It’s a timeline showing the release years of a short, followed by any interesting notes. I’m doing one for the physical media releases and one for streaming and digital download.
“The Film Fan” Physical Media Release Timeline
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: It was/is on streaming, but not digital download.
“The Film Fan” Streaming Media Release Timeline
‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!
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