The Film Fan (Empty Promises)

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

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...though it’s not as bad as “Bacall to Arms,” which I will get to in the future.

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!

Pied Piper Porky (A Rolling Hole Gathers No Boss)

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: In this spoof of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Porky is the titular Pied Piper, who uses his pied pipe (which looks like a rough version of a clarinet and a flute) to rid the town of Hamelin of all the mice. However, there is one rogue mouse (one with a rough, African-American-coded sounding voice, in the same vein as Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) that he is unable to catch. After piping and actual mousetraps fail, Pied Piper Porky  tries an old-fashioned mouse trap (what others would call "a cat"), and the rest of the short is cat-and-mouse antics.

Fun Facts:

• This cartoon should not be confused with the 1949 Robert McKimson short, “Paying the Piper,” which was also about Porky Pig being The Pied Piper of Hamelin, but it also included a group of outraged cats who feel Pied Piper Porky stole their jobs in ridding the town of mice and their leader (a tuxedo cat known as “The Supreem Cat”) dresses up as an overgrown mouse and tricks the mayor into thinking Porky didn’t catch all the mice in town.

• John Carey also did animation work for “Paying the Piper,” making me think either he likes spoofs of that story, he wanted to work on a better version of “Pied Piper Porky,” or it’s just a coincidence that he worked on two cartoons that had Porky Pig as The Pied Piper of Hamelin (try saying all of that five times fast).

• The newspaper in the beginning mentions seeing both a San Francisco fair and a New York fair for $90.00...in the weather report box (I know it’s a pun on “fair” either meaning “a local carnival” when it’s a noun or “pleasant and mild” if it’s used as an adjective to describe weather conditions, and now you do too). $90.00 in 1939 money would be $2,162.28 in 2026 money. Those two fairs better be the best fairs in the world (by both 1939 and 2026 standards) for me to even consider going, because that price is outrageous.

Yeah, that’s about it for the “Fun Facts” this go-around. And Letterboxd hasn’t given me anything good for “Letterboxd Says the Darndest Things” (they have for the next Porky cartoon that was censored on TV and directed by Bob Clampett, “The Film Fan,” but not this). So, let’s move to the meat and potatoes:

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network (barring The Bob Clampett Show) and (I’m assuming) Boomerang (since Boomerang is a spinoff channel and anything Cartoon Network aired, Boomerang did too)

Part(s) Edited: Hurray! This may be the first time I report on an audio edit to dialogue since “Bosko’s Picture Show”’s “The dirty fuck”/“The dirty cur” line. However, this one wasn’t a Nickelodeon cut (it could have been). Cartoon Network’s (and Boomerang’s) version (not counting when it was on The Bob Clampett Show) muted the Eddie Anderson-sounding mouse saying “Boss” in his line, “This thing’s no good, boss. Fulla holes!” (referring to the horn/clarinet/flute Porky used on him to make him nearly go into the mousetrap), so now the line goes, “This thing’s no good [muted audio]. Fulla holes!”

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The ground gears are more questions about the edit that reveal how nonsensical the decision to edit the part is:

• If the word “boss” was a problem because of the Eddie Anderson-voiced mouse, why didn’t they just redub the voice of the mouse? Cartoon Network has done it before with Mammy Two Shoes (the black housemaid on the Tom and Jerry shorts), though editing Mammy Two Shoes’ voice also happened on TBS, TNT, and some unnamed syndicated versions from the 1960s (the latter of which had a white woman [June Foray] voicing a black character in “Dog Trouble” and another short [“Saturday Evening Puss”] where Mammy Two Shoes is redrawn/reanimated as a white teenage girl [a tasteful 1960s version. Pretty sure the depravity of the 1970s and the coming of MTV in the 1980s warped adolescence irrevocably], both editing measures of which wouldn’t be considered “politically correct” today).

• Cartoon Network has aired “The Mouse That Jack Built,” which also had a mouse who looked and sounded like Eddie Anderson’s Rochester character from The Jack Benny Show, with no cuts to “boss” or the Rochester mouse’s voice.

• Why didn’t Nickelodeon think to edit it too, considering that they also do audio edits and edit for outdated racially insensitive stereotypes and caricatures? Maybe they figured people wouldn’t understand the reference? But what about the Amos ‘n Andy reference from “I Got to Sing a Torch Song”? Yeah, I don’t have an answer to that.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Just like “Naughty Neighbors,” we have another disappointing physical media turn-out. “Pied Piper Porky” was first available on the 1994 laser disc, Wince Upon a Time: Foolhardy Fairy Tales and Looney Legends (this release also had “Paying the Piper” on it, so you can compare and contrast the two shorts...or pick one over the other). 23 years later (2017), “Pied Piper Porky” was released as part of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set and has been there ever since (as of this writing). Compare with “Paying the Piper,” which was released on DVD in 2007 (13 years after appearing on Wince Upon a Time...) as part of both the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set and the fifth volume of its less expensive, family-friendly counterpart, The Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection. “Paying the Piper”’s most recent DVD release was in 2014 (seven years after its first DVD release and twenty years after its release on laser disc), where it was part of the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, volumes four and five repack.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: The streaming front looks a bit better...at least to “Pied Piper Porky.” This short was on Boomerang’s streaming app from 2017 to 2024, and it was included on HBO Max (and Max) from 2020 to 2025. Meanwhile, “Paying the Piper” was also on HBO Max, but it was on the Latin American/Brazilian feed (why? I don’t know. There was nothing offensive about it). In the end, both “Pied Piper Porky” and “Paying the Piper” can be found uncut, uncensored (though “Paying the Piper” was never edited for anything), and restored/remastered on Tubi as of this writing.

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!

Naughty Neighbors (Let's Not Du-et and Say We Did)

Yay! After weeks of interruptions, we finally found this week’s entry! Granted, it’s not one of the better Porky Pig cartoons of the era, but it is sweet and charming and has some good visual gags, so...enjoy?

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: Petunia Pig and Porky Pig declare peace between their respective families, the Martins and the McCoys, who have been violently feuding all this time, but when the feud starts up again, it’s up to Porky and Petunia to use peace through brute force (or a literal “love bomb”). It’s basically Romeo and Juliet filtered through the Hatfields and McCoys feud, and with a happy ending.

Fun Facts:

• This is the final appearance of Petunia Pig in the Golden Age era. Petunia would come back decades later in the DC Looney Tunes comics and 86 years later in 2025’s The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, now voiced by Candi Milo (with Porky voiced by Eric Bauza).

• The newspaper is dated June 18, 1942, which is two and a half years after this short’s release, yet reports on the sinking of the Titantic, which happened 30 years before the short’s release. That’s probably the weirdest newspaper since the one from “Tortoise Wins By a Hare” that was dated for 1942, but reported that Adolf Hitler committed suicide...which didn’t happen until 1945. Before there was “The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump would be U.S. President,” there was “Looney Tunes predicted Hitler would kill himself.”

• The newspaper also has a headline about animator John Carey’s birth. John Carey was born in 1915 and died in 1987 (Carey would have been 24 when “Naughty Neighbors” was theatrically released and 27 according to the 1942 newspaper), further asking what kind of timeline the newspaper editors think they’re in.

The Channel(s): Unnamed syndication, Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon), and WKBD in Detroit, Michigan (1989; as part of the Porky Pig and Friends compilation show)

Part(s) Edited: A rather innocuous part (but one that probably had to be cut due to time or to cover up the shoddy workmanship of the notoriously awful redrawn-colorized version): Porky and Petunia’s duet of “Would You Like to Take a Walk” (with modified lyrics) was shortened on the redrawn-colorized version and when it aired on Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon. How shortened? Well, the first part of it is gone, as you’ll see in the video comparison.

Over on WKBD in Detroit, the first 45 seconds of the short were cut for time reasons, though the video I found on YouTube showed that the cartoon was basically reduced to nothing after a long intro made by the station that feels familiar, like I may have seen it on a local affiliate in Pennsylvania as a kid.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The redrawn-colorized/Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon version’s cut is obvious, and kind of surprising, considering that the cartoon is actually safe to watch. The violence isn’t even that gruesome (it’s just the typical slapstick you get from Bob Clampett, though even that feels toned down for this), the kissing is G-rated, and there’s no racial/ethnic caricatures that makes modern audiences cringe in disgust. There is a slight World War II reference with the “non-aggression pact” leading to more violence, but that’s oblique enough that casual viewers aren’t going to understand it at first watch.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: To show just how unpopular this cartoon is (outside of occasionally airing on television), its physical media history shows it’s only been released twice: once on the 2001 Looney Tunes: The Collector’s Edition VHS (volume 12, dedicated to Porky and Daffy shorts). Sixteen years after that, “Naughty Neighbors” appeared on the Porky Pig 101 DVD set, where all black and white Porky Pig cartoons went to die (and this one has a music mistake where a loop of the “Porky's Tire Trouble” title card music plays over both the title card to this cartoon and the first few seconds up until the Martins and the McCoys start fighting).

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: However, something good did come from t-t-that: streaming gave it a better home and exposure. Boomerang’s streaming app had “Naughty Neighbors” from 2017 to 2024, while HBO Max (and its short-lived rebrand Max) had it from 2020 to 2025. And yes, it’s one of the Tubi 786 as of this writing.

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!