331. Porky's Prize Pony (1941)

Warner cartoon no. 330.
Release date: June 21, 1941.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Supervision: Chuck Jones.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Mel Blanc (Porky Pig).
Story: Rich Hogan.
Animation: Ken Harris.
Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: A horse attempts to become Porky's steeplechase, and goes so once Porky's horse becomes too drunk to race.

Compared to many of Chuck's cartoons which are mostly 'mood swings' lacking narrative or dialogue, Chuck appears to be trying to create a straightforward story in this short. Unlike Joe Glow the Firefly which was just absolute visualised nonsense, this short appears to at least have a purpose, at least for the clumsy steed who attempts to become Porky's racer.

The short starts with a horse who has been kicked out of the "Elite Stables", and upon discovering Porky's stable, he aspires to become his steeplechase.

In order to get from one point to another, Chuck still hasn't the ability to get to that point yet, so midway through the cartoon follows a series of several, failed attempts from the horse which results in a number of padding and consistency in terms of timing. He attempts to prove of his physical capabilities in which Porky a majority of the time, just ignores; and the horse's clumsiness proves his uselessness.

Porky is rather underplayed in this short, as he usually is. He is underplayed to the extent where he is given little to no dialogue whatsoever. He only speaks/sings during his introduction, where he sings We're in the Money whilst he is his noble steed a shine, for the county fair race.

He also appears to show at least some personality or action where he mocks the horses' poor attempts of being an eligible steeplechase for the county fair. Throughout the short, he does appear in small scenes here and there, where he is just a passing by character during one of the clumsy horse's chances.

Though, his role doesn't appear until the short's climax during the race. Despite more appearance, Porky's appearance is very passive in terms of action or dialogue. His actions in the latter part of the short are as equivalent towards a fly in the wall during a meeting conference. He is given very little to do other than being the jockey, and this thus shows how underplayed Porky could go to.

The horse's encounter to Porky in his theatrical greeting is rather a pleasant highlight to watch in some aspects. His use of pantomime is well communicated, through the use of signs: a common trademark for Chuck Jones.

The use of the signs are certainly believable and well character-animated in those scenes. The timing of the horses' poses where he attempts to prove he is of "excellent condition" are rather sharp and focused.

The drawing is solid, and so the scene is successful in those aspects. However, what really kills that scene is what follows afterwards. The tail of the horse is not adjusted to the posing from the horse's pose. The tail moves at an inappropriate angle where it is not in keeping with the sharp proportions the horse is attempting to make.

The first attempt was rather comical and subtle from Chuck's perspective. What then "kills" the scene, is the horse then attempting to adjust his style several times, taking up roughly half a minute of screen time. Chuck's obnoxious pacing is still evident, in which he just can't let a scene play, or just get from shot to shot, by having useless padding.

Possibly the worst sequence in the short with really eyesore pacing would be the horse attempting to struggle loose from a bucket. This is one of many of Jones' attempt of going Disnified, where he would require the characters to think like Pluto, and do Pluto stuff.

Watching the horse's hoof being caught in the bucket, and then following with all four legs being caught is quite pain some to watch, not just because of the pacing, but also because of how believable the animation use.

The squash and stretch, the posing is really top-notch, and thus this really does make the viewer feel the annoyance of being trapped. Despite being well-animated, the pacing still needed to get on the road.

One could ask what the sequence had much to do in terms of the short's story: the answer is very little, although this did pay off by the moving the story forward, and thus ending the horse's failed attempts of impressing Porky. The horse crashes towards the stable, where the interior part shows a bottle of horse liniment tipping from the shelf, coming from the reaction of the crash. The liquid falls, thus causing Porky's racehorse to drink from the bucket. However, oblivious to the horse is that the bottle has a very high alcoholic beverage rate of 125% which shows only cartoon characters could survive a physically impossible rate.

One animated gag that could have worked a lot better in terms of pacing and speed, would be the horses' attempt to prove he is eligible for racing is his attempt at high jumps. From how Chuck visioned it, the horses' first jump and into mid-air looks rather promising for the horse: only to find he crashes inside a house. The off-screen crashes and circumstances occurring in the house is rather effective and comical in how it has been achieved, and Chuck certainly pulls it off well.

The horse then exits the house where the gag results in the horse being bizarrely dressed like an old hermit, sitting in his rocking chair. No objection to the bizarre gag, as its amusing in itself, but it could have worked better in terms of its pacing, as the camera movement felt a tad too slow. This is only a minor complaint, on a rather minor gag but Chuck was still learning on improving his timing.

In other words, Chuck's coming certainly does appear to be kicked up a notch a couple of times in the short. He expresses certain wackiness where he is gradually trying to catch up with the other Warner directors, who are also attempting to turn out faster shorts.

Two striking examples are when the horse is dressed as a hermit, he rushes off-screen leaving only the long piece of underwear visible in mid-air, and still riding like a horse. This was rather wacky for Chuck in that time era, and it's definitely full of charm.

The second, shows Chuck giving the horse a characteristic, funny run cycle. Notice the gallop he is making, where Chuck expresses his clumsiness towards the horse where the back part of his legs are not in sync towards the front part of the gallop. It's the sort of characteristic walk that Tex Avery could have used, and this is surely evident that Chuck was desperately attempting to escape from the style of shorts he's making, but isn't yet ready to do so.

Having discovered that Porky's horserace has passed out from the alcohol he drank, Porky faces a brief dilemma. The race is at the procedures of starting, and he desperately needs to find a horse for racing. The clumsy horse, realising his advantage, then proceeds to race to the tracks, taking Porky with him.


As for the horserace sequence, I must admit I quite enjoy Chuck's use of pacing in this racehorse, as it felt as though it was in good taste and it captured the speed and franticness of a horserace rather well.

Chuck creates an effective race where Porky and his horse race through a bush, in which results a steam-locomotve gag, emphasising the speed they are racing at. A rather cute gag, and this also shows Disney influence from the Donald Duck short The Hockey Champ, a short which also had rather rapid pacing. Despite the horse's clumsiness and lack of skills in the race, such as breaking through stumps and landing underwater at a pool, his great speed and cheating goes unnoticed in the crowds, and thus Porky and his horse win the race. A great success for Porky, but the horse discovers his hoofs are caught in the trophy, a rather cute recurring gag from previously.

For a Chuck Jones short where he relies on pantomime, I would consider this short as passable..at least passable to a low level. The short itself had a straightforward story and appeared to at least go from one point to another, even if Chuck's sense of timing was still slow and in bad shape. Chuck and his animators definitely have the clumsy horse an identity and took advantage of that rather well, in which it was paid off successfully. The pacing of the short, however was still slow and aggravating to watch, and Porky's role was too underplayed, either using or losing him for the short. This short, once again, shows elements of Chuck's potential which is still not fully recognised or successfully achieved.

Rating: 2/5.

330. Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941)

Warner cartoon no. 329.
Release date: June 7, 1941.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Supervision: Friz Freleng.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny / Hiawatha).
Story: Michael Maltese.
Animation: Gil Turner.
Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: Little Hiawatha is on the hunt for a rabbit, but upon discovering Bugs Bunny, Hiawatha's wits never succeed, in sequence after sequence.

Another team up with Friz Freleng and Michael Maltese, in which both of them work for the first time on Bugs Bunny: a character both men would become closely associated with. This time, Mike Maltese is satirising the legendary Hiawatha, a Mohawk who is said to have existed in the 12th and 13th century of the Americas.


Instead of how the legend tells about the figure, Maltese mocks the character with the simple-minded, Elmer Fudd-like personality. From the beginning of the short, you can see that Maltese and Freleng establish the opening shorts very carefully and delicately in order to achieve comedic purposes that would carry on the short.

Starting off with Bugs' narration, the scenery is rather beautiful where an audience member would get the impression the short is being influenced like the previous Silly Symphony short.

The waterfall effects are rather stunning, and Hiawatha zig-zagging through the steepy river is rather cute. Bugs Bunny, who happens to be sitting by a tree reading about the Hiawatha story, reads about Hiawatha's adventures, such as "slaying the forest rabbit". Bugs, realising he is the victim of the story, then immediately begins with a strategic plan to fool Little Hiawatha. By the way, does anybody else agree that Hiawatha ISN'T a caricature of Disney animator Ward Kimball? He resembles a much more Elmer Fuad than any of Kimball's distinctive features.

The simple-minded satire of Hiawatha is well broadly-handled by Friz's comic timing, as well as with Maltese's humiliation and ignorance displayed on the character. Mel Blanc himself provides the dumb voice for Hiawatha rather realistically, beginning with the first line: "I'm gonna catch me a rabbit, and I'm a-gonna cook him in this pot right here, right here"--already putting emphasis on "right here".


And as for Freleng's comic timing, he certainly adds depth to his ignorance and clumsiness as he giving him a characteristic trait to carry out through the entire short. When Hiawatha is chasing after Bugs, or following his tracks; he has his bow and arrow ready, but each run he makes, he consistently trips clumsily.

Carl Stalling also puts emphasis on the clumsiness to great execution, as Hiawatha's run is heard through the sound of drums, but each trip interrupts the suspense with a cymbal crash. This is excellent satire from Friz's timing where it is just excellent mockery on the legendary, brave warrior.

From watching this short and being the first directed Bugs Bunny by Friz Freleng: you'll notice that Bugs goes through several different crude-designs in the short. The model of Bugs resembles little to what was seen previously in Tex's cartoons, and Bugs' design would come to settlements with Friz, (as well as Chuck's unit) for at least a couple more years.


Without doubt, Bob McKimson was known for giving Bugs's standard design, but it appears to be in the earliest shorts by Freleng that Bugs' design would range from passable to just crude, very off-model drawing.

Two very striking examples of the different crudeness in drawing is evident in Bugs' rain dance over Hiawatha (animated by Cal Dalton), and Bugs relaxing inside the cauldron pot (animated by Gil Turner). The rain dance sequence, with Bugs looking quite possibly the crudest, shows how low-brow the sloppiness of drawing could get.

Whilst they are rather amusing gags and wits coming from Bugs, one would feel rather disturbed of the evident designs that change throughout the course of the short. Whereas this is mostly just my opinion, the clearest answers of why Friz did not appear to follow the standard McKimson model for Bugs appears to be explained in the Phil Monroe interview, who mentioned the settlements on design "couldn't have any consistency". This evidently must have occurred at a time before Bob McKimson was in charge of keeping the characters looking on-model from all units.

One of the greatest sequences where Bugs is at the top of his game appear in two sequences that come to mind. The first shown is Bugs relaxing in the cauldron pot sequence. From a 1941 audience viewpoint, one would feel sympathy for Bugs to not get captured and stewed by Hiawatha, but watching him bathe and hum When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano.

Watching this short chronologically in line of many of Bugs' shorts; this is rather hilarious in the sequence, as the boiling cauldron does no harm or threat to Bugs, and instead just sits in the cauldron like he's taking a hot bath.

Some excellent character personality of Bugs stepping into the cauldron, as he responds "Easy does it" before sinking his body in.

And so, as Hiawatha is cutting carrot slices--the great delivery sense of that gag is that Bugs chews on them anyway, which is just excellent delivery. And so, Bugs responds: "Hey, what's cookin', chief?", when asking Hiawatha what's for dinner (the answer being rabbit), Bugs double-takes on the word "Rabbit?!" before attempting to escape.

Another great sequence shows Hiawatha carrying a piece of rope in hope to tie up Bugs. Much like Bugs' manipulating ways of tricking slow-witted antagonists, he speaks to Hiawatha normally who declares, "I'm gonna tie you up!.

Bugs responds to this by laughing at Hiawatha in a ridicule manner ("Oh, that's a pip. Gonna tie me up!"). Bugs' laughter then leads into Hiawatha's attempted outburst in capturing Bugs, only to have Hiawatha tied to a pole where Bugs performs a small rain dance surrounding him. This is a rather great little sequence where the the audience would question Bugs' strategy, such as laughing what what would be considered a dangerous threat: but the delivery and karma pays off.

Some great uses of comic timing from the master, Friz Freleng himself comes to great use. Bugs attempts to distract Hiawatha once more by challenging him into a jump challenge. Freleng's comic timing is certainly very slick and appealing, with a lot of appealing brushwork. Bugs them lands, leaning on a stick hanging onto the edge of a cliff.


Hiawatha then repeats these actions, with the same speed and pacing that were repeated by Bugs only to find himself standing at the edge of the cliff, where a lollipop labelled 'sucker' is shown as an overlay opaquing him, to show emphasis on what a loser he is.

Standing in mid-air, in quite possibly one of animation's oldest gags, meets his fall.

And so, after Hiawatha's fall...it then appears to be that Hiawatha has already made his last attempt at capturing Bugs Bunny. He gets sail onto his wooden canoe and begins to sail through the river, much like the opening of the short. This is a rather unusual sense of closure for the short's ending, at least how Mike Maltese is depicting it. Like the opening, the short concludes with rather rich-looking backgrounds and staging of Hiawatha's departure, especially the last shot with the sunset which is parallel to the Silly Symphony short. Bugs Bunny finishes off the narration of Hiawatha who then begins to set sail through the shores. Responding, "Fairly well" to Hiawatha's departure in the horizon, Hiawatha quickly rides back to give justice to Bugs. Hiawatha ends with the last laugh by kissing Bugs in the lips before setting sail before, perplexing him. A rather unusual choice of closure for the short, but only Maltese could have created a better idea of payback for Bugs.

All in all, this is a rather decent introduction for Friz Freleng, being his first Bugs Bunny short, as well as for Mike Maltese. They both adapt to the character very faithfully to Tex's previous shorts, and Friz continues to direct some of the best Bugs Bunny shorts ever made. The satire on Hiawatha in this short has been nailed by Maltese, for his clever use of dumbing-down a heroic figure, and Friz has certainly nailed his own interpretation of Bugs in this short. The comic timing and use of scenery is certainly rich and entertaining at the same time, especially giving Hiawatha a personality of consistently tripping. Bugs' interpreted design, however, is still a major problem from Friz's unit, and this would continue to be a problem for a couple more years in his years, as Bugs had not yet been given a consistent design. Despite the creative and design issues the studios was facing with Bugs, this didn't stop Bugs from his great antics and entertaining scenes that is scattered throughout the short.

Rating: 3/5.

329. A Coy Decoy (1941)

Warner cartoon no. 328.
Release date: June 7, 1941.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Supervision: Bob Clampett.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Mel Blanc (Porky Pig / Daffy Duck / Duckling).
Story: Melvin Millar.
Animation: Norm McCabe.
Musical Score: Carl W. Stalling.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: Taking place in a bookstore for bizarre reasons, a wolf springs to life as he attempts to use a decoy as bait to trap Daffy Duck, though his wackiness causes the wolf to not succeed.

Daffy Duck returns in a Warner's short, as it has been almost a year since his previous short: You Ought to Be in Pictures. This time Daffy is turned to the hands of Clampett, who in my opinion did the best interpretation of putting 'daffy' into his name, at least in some of his later shorts.

At this point, Daffy was still being refined with a more tamer personality, though without losing none of his wackiness, as well as giving Daffy more of a personality than a total-screwball one.

The screwball personality in this short is certainly evident during the chase sequences of the short, as well as its opening song sequence: in fact it is evident throughout the entire short. Which will be explained further in the review.

Considering how the short is a 'Porky and Daffy' short, it is considerably better off as a Daffy Duck short, standalone. Porky only appears briefly during the beginning of the sequence where he sitting by a campfire, dressed as a cowboy playing: Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride.

He also appears briefly towards the end of the short as it reaches closure. It seems somewhat considerably pointless that Porky appears briefly in the short, where the short is dominated by Daffy.

Bear in mind, Daffy Duck was already a Warner Bros. cartoon star at that point, even though he was just portrayed as a supporting character, but that's not all. Porky at that point was not becoming a top priority in appearing in every black-and-white Warner Bros. cartoon; and the short perhaps would have worked a lot better without Porky.

That's not all, the short itself appears to be Clampett's take on the 'books come to life' stories. It seems pointless and bizarre for a cartoon which consists of a straightforward cartoon plot to have its theme set with books. Clampett did use Daffy Duck again with the same theme in Book Revue, except it had a purpose; whereas here...it doesn't. I suppose Clampett was attempting to be creative in using Warner's star characters for that theme, but for a story which consists of a wolf attempting to trap Daffy with a decoy, it could easily be a passible short, without the books.

Daffy's introduction to the song consists of a rather lengthy though also pointless segment where Daffy sings: I Can't Get Along, Little Dogie. No doubt we've all seen Daffy sing, especially when a short is introduced, but it is usually evenly paced with great animation taking advantage of the song sequence.

In this short, Daffy's singing does not appear to have any tone whatsoever in terms of pacing or even being visualised.

Much of the time we see Daffy running about singing a lot very appealing song, and he just asks rather goofy, but without much character or enough visuals to make the song sequence itself work. The song sequence itself also contains a pun in which results some action.

Daffy is seen climbing on top of a Black Beauty book cover. Knowing the book, you'd expect to see a black horse, much like the original novel. Though, the 'pun' instead shows an African-American stereotype who Daffy Duck is seen riding like a horse. Usually, I don't mind these stereotypes in shorts, as I understand it was a product of their time: but this joke is in incredibly bad taste. This is one of the few stereotypical jokes from that time period that even I am offended of.

And so, the wolf then enters into Daffy's stardom, which was supposedly what the pointless song sequence seemed to be about. The wolf steps out of a book which is titled metaphorically, The Wolf of Wall Street, which I'll admit is a pun that works itself. To avoid confusion to readers, who might bizarrely refer to the title to the recent Martin Scorsese film, the tittle was actually named after an infamous con man named David Lamar, and of course: there is also another movie (made in 1929) titled the same time.

And so, as the wolf enters the story: his ambitions are rather simple: to eat and kill Daffy Duck for hunger. As this ambition carries out the entire short: it is again another point of how pointless it is to still include the setting in a bookstore.

And so as the wolf approaches Daffy's location, he sets up a female decoy as bait to trap Daffy Duck. As soon as he he gets the bait set; Daffy does instantly fall for it. He zips over to the decoy, in which he responds to the decoy a la 'romance embrace', where Clampett is mocking the romantic embrace scenes, which of course is a cliche itself in cartoons.

As soon as he embraces towards the decoy, talking romantic, the wolf approaches and disguises itself as a decoy in which Daffy, being lovestruck, misinterprets the wolf's nose as the decoy.

The growl then frightens Daffy in which Daffy shivers and melts like liquid. Whilst it is a little cliched, and amusing for a while, it then appears to go into poor pacing, similar to how Chuck would have interpreted the gag.

Daffy takes a while to realise he is danger, when he examines the fangs as well as the distinctive features of the wolf before realising he is in danger. It could have worked in a broader fashion had he discovered much quicker.

As soon as he is aware of his danger; he then goes into a begging situation, and this is mostly taken from Hare-Um Scare-Um, where Daffy begs to have his life spared. He tried to attribute his plead with vulnerability; "Why I'm nothin' but skin 'n bone see", as well as the "why even the army don't want me", as he hands out a rejection letter. Compared to the 'Hare-Um' short, the delivery and suspense is a lot more broader and wackier here, for better. Daffy's fearfulness is greatly exaggerated as he bursts out several more problems such as having an ingrowing toenail, coated tongue, as well as dandruff. That dandruff gag is just wonderful in terms of gag-wise and how well executed it is in animation which only Clampett would have demanded for his animators.

And so, a climax cannot occur without a chase scene, some of them pay off and others don't. This sort sort of does, as it is a tad wackier than what the Warner's viewer of that viewer were used to seeing. You'd expect to see some lame puns from the books which add to the climax, such as Daffy entering the 'Escape' book but ends up being blocked by the wolf.


What makes the sequence wackier themselves, is not of course the whooping sounds Daffy Duck makes, but these subtle little scenes where the climax is just interrupted on purpose. Daffy skids, where he asks: "Say, are you following me?" before the chase continues.

One of those little subtle interruptions is again another trait of Clampett's where he is evidently testing the audience' patience. He does it again, though most notably in The Hep Cat which won't be released until a year later.

The climax then makes a closure as Daffy opens up the 'Hurricane' book, as you may guess, this blows the wolf out of side. Though, this only sends him to his death. Lightning from another book strikes the wolf, killing him. He lies still as his 'funeral' occurs at the front cover of Ernest Hemmingway's infamous novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, which had only been newly published around the time the short was in production.

And so, as soon as the Wolf has been killed off the short: Daffy goes back to what he desires--the decoy (or is it). Porky walks over after not having seen him since the beginning, and scoffs at Daffy's romance: "That dumb duck, he's been wasting his time around that decoy. Everybody knows that there can never be possibly mean anything to each other".

Daffy then scolds at Porky's cynical comment in which he leaves with his decoy, and this then follows with several ducklings following them. This is the type of ending where it ends on a bizarre manner, that itself it leaves on a rather ambiguous note: is the decoy real or not?

I highly doubt Clampett intended that to be this way, as the gag is meant to be incoherent as well as nutty, so it's best to leave the gag as that. One of the little ducklings at the end of the line then scoffs at Porky's comment: "You and your education", which without doubt is the funniest line in the whole short.

Despite a short which is mostly a mess: it does have some shining, classic Clampett moments. As explained, Clampett takes advantage partly in the chase sequences where he interrupts the action. Thus, Daffy Duck is of course the main role, whereas Porky hadn't yet been given much identity than than an everyman personality. The execution of Daffy's pleading with the wolf is also very believable and amusing. Though the flaws: where to start. The fact it is set in a bookstore seems completely to lack focus and it ends up looking unjustified. Although, one could make the assumption Clampett was trying to make his scenery look intriguing as well as unique, but it isn't done very well. Porky's screen appearance seems pointless as he has no purpose of the short except his cynical comment towards Daffy at the end, which is the only point of having him appear; but otherwise it would've worked better with Daffy Duck alone. The first-part of the short itself is a mess in ways: as the song sequences are in poor taste, as well as the pacing; though as soon as the climax sequence is about to start: the short seems to get into better shape, even if parts of it already ruin the entire short.

Rating: 2/5.