Back again in record time! At long last, I’ve finished the 1930’s! What is hopefully the longest most arduous task (until the 1960’s, which is supposed to SUCK!) Otherwise, I feel like I’ve crossed a major hurdle here, and I’m excited what lies beyond the horizon. For now, here’s the reviews for the rest of the shorts for the 1930’s. (Spoiler Alert: They are mostly mediocre at best.)
I will make sure to mark titles that I found of particular interest for GREAT, WORTHWHILE, or TERRIBLE!!! (If it’s outlined in black, I didn’t really feel like the short offered much of anything, and is just harmless filler.) Merrie Melody shorts (which are shorts that don't feature a recurring character) will be denoted by an "MM" after the title.
More like “Porky in Saudi Arabia.” Really, there’s nothing in this cartoon that screams Egypt at all. All of the designs are reminiscent of something you’d see in depictions of Arabia. No pyramids, or anything that really said “Egypt.” (Maybe I’m just ignorant of Egyptian culture?)
Anyways, not much happens in this one. Porky misses a bus-camel (or does he?) and then has to cross the desert on his came on his own. Then the camel goes crazy and starts hallucinating. I’m sure there were a bunch of references the camel made that I didn’t understand, but I thought that it was pretty funny for the randomness the camel was spouting off. Also, I was VERY surprised that the song or the melody of “The Streets of Cairo” didn’t start playing. Props to that, I guess.
220. You’re an Education (MM):
You’re a piece of trash. I have come to despise this kind of cartoon: Random objects in a shop of sort come to life at night. And what is it this time? Characters on the covers of travel brochures around the world! UGH! It is absolutely ripe with stereotypes, and repeated and lazy animation. For the first half, all the shots are 5 second long clips or random nations and jokes based off of them. Then, for some reason a man from “Bagdad” steals diamonds from a mine. (He has the key, but apparently its still stealing.) Whatever, I’m thinking way too much about this short that probably had much less thought put into than that. Don’t watch this.
221. The Night Watchman (MM):
I don’t talk about the Director’s enough, but this was directed by Chuck Jones, who is probably he most well known of the Looney Tunes directors, by far. This short had a few inklings of what eventually become some of his iconic jokes, with some Tom and Jerry-esque stuff in there as well!
I wouldn’t say this short is anything groundbreaking, but it was definitely a little different than what I’m used to: A little cat takes on his father’s job as the night watchman of the kitchen and fails...before ultimately redeeming himself. It told a complete story, but there wasn’t much else to it. It felt above average, but I don’t think it’s a classic.
222. The Daffy Doc:
Cast billing is so weird. Porky Pig is stated in the credits as being the “Star” of this short, but only shows up in the last 2 minutes of the 6 minute short. The real start here is Daffy Duck, in his first(?) starring role...where he plays a “Quack” doctor.
As much as I love the word “Quack” in relation to doctors, I found this cartoon to just be sort of alright. It’s pretty evident that they knew the character had potential, they just didn’t know what to do with him yet, and the Daffy Duck in this short is just a little too wacky for my tastes...
223. Daffy Duck in Hollywood (MM):
Prior to this, with a single exception early on, Merry Melodies were reserved for random non-recurring characters with a random song thrown in, but apparently its not the absolute case. Here we have a character from the Looney Tunes shorts, and NO SONG! What?!? Sadly, I don’t think this was that good of a short.
The short features Daffy Duck infiltrating a Hollywood studio, and bizarrely...Daffy Duck is barely in it, and about a 3rd of it is just stock footage they through together for a joke...not very good.
224. Porky the Gob:
Reusing the title of “Buddy the Gob” from a few years back, and replacing it with Porky, eh? (I’m sure there will be repeat puns all about.) I don’t remember that short at all, because of how dang forgettable Buddy is, but this is probably just a little more than completely forgettable.
It “stars” Porky, as what I can only assume is a Gob. (A navy sailor) But, really features this dog-commander dude for most of it. The dog-commander dude is that special, and its odd that he’s focused on so much.
I don’t know why this guy was winking and saying “And I Dooo Mean ROCKING” at this part. Even in context, I can’t fathom what the hey this could have.
Also, I do watch the black and white Looney Tunes shorts in black and white. Typically, I will simply go into my device settings and change the color to monotone for these shorts that are only easily found in color. Hey, look! Boomerang! It’s all coming back to me!
225. Count Me Out (MM):
Egghead sees an ad for Boxing equipment, and buys it. There really wasn’t much worth talking about here. It’s a pretty standard boxing story, and it all turned out to be a dream anyways. The only thing that made me smile was a random anecdote that the guy delivering the equipment had about a bridge being out. It made no sense, but it was so random and nonsensical, it gave me a chuckle. Next.
226. The Mice Will Play (MM):
Last cartoon of 1938! I was really excited about the direction this seemed to be going in, but for the most part it failed to meet those expectations. A bunch of mice break into Dr. I.M Mad’s lab, and...they play with his normal Doctor stuff. Damn. I was hoping they would get into wacky antics with crazy lab equipment.
The story then deviates into a love story where Susie Mouse is trapped in a cage. Johnny mouse saves her, and rejects her advances. 30 seconds later she tells him she loves him, and next thing you know there’s a vaudeville dance number to the wedding.
The best part is the cat that’s after the mice the whole time. He’s looming throughout the entire cartoon, and doesn’t really do anything. In the end, he overhears Susie talking about how many “Little Fat Mice” her and Johnny are gonna have, and he decides to wait because he wants more mice to eat. Dark. Overall, I think the cartoon was above average output.
1939
227. The Lone Stranger and Porky:
I was going to mention this in a previous review, but I suppose it’s more relevant here: There’s been a number of Lone Ranger references throughout the past few shorts. Now, I’ve really never understood the appeal of the character, but I’m sure he was rather daring for the 1930’s. Looney Tunes was really on the up and up on cashing in on his popularity.
Porky Pig doesn’t have a single line in the short, and it’s mostly about The Lone Stranger coming to save Porky. The Lone Stranger is really what the short is about, and sadly it’s not very good at that. So far as I can tell, all the jokes are standard fare, and there’s nothing in particular in there that seems like its a jab at the Lone Ranger in any way. It’s like a parody...but, it’s not because there’s no satire at all. All the jokes have been done before in previous shorts, and now it’s under the guise of a popular pop culture icon of the time. Boo.
228. Dog Gone Modern (MM):
In this Chuck Jones directed short, two dogs wander into a “Modern Home” and antics ensue with the wacky appliances that they stumble upon. This was pretty standard fare. I usually love dogs, but this just felt tired. I didn’t really see anything new or fresh here. Best thing I can say is that, at times, they nailed dog mannerisms...at times, of course. Boo.
229. It’s an Ill Wind:
In this short, Porky Pig and his Sailor Outfit wearing duck friend (Not, not Daffy, or Donald...but, “DIZZY DUCK”) wander through an abandoned building by the harbor while a stray dog also...does stuff. Another really boring cartoon, with not much going on in it. The most notable thing is the duck character, I suppose.
230. Hamatuer Night (MM):
Another short that really doesn’t seem to have anything special in it. There was one joke that made me sort of smirk, but the rest was pretty bad. It was directed by Tex Avery, and you can see a lot of things in this that would eventually become his staples (having almost all the humans be dog...things...for one.)
The story is just an amateur night at the theater, with Egghead randomly being inserted throughout (kind of a throwback to his early conceptual appearances) but, nothing of note happens until the end, where it’s revealed that the audience is nothing but Eggheads! It doesn’t make any sense, but who cares? It’s a dull short that isn’t worth much.
231. Robin Hood Makes Good (MM):
A group of squirrels pretend to be Robin Hood and get in trouble with a Fox who wants to eat them. 1939 really is a stinker, isn’t it? Another substandard cartoon with not much worth mentioning in it. I was left wondering why we weren’t focusing on the actual Robin Hood instead of these random squirrels. Chuck Jones, who directed this short, took on Robin Hood years later with Daffy Duck and Porky, but for some reason he took the easy way out with this one...it’s visually bland and boring. Ugh.
232. Porky’s Tire Trouble:
Man, they must really hate Porky. Almost all of his Cartoon’s anymore barely feature him, despite him getting “star” status. This one features his dog “Flat Foot Flookey” following him to work at a rubber factory. There’s very little in terms of tires, and it’s primary gags are based around the dog getting covered in rubber solution and bouncing around a lot.
If intentionally made to be a bit of a callback to more “rubber hose” type animation from a decade prior, I can see this being pretty good overall, but I doubt it was meant to be anything more than a silly gag. I still enjoyed it, it was simple enough and didn’t bore me to death...which I guess is as much as I can ask for in 1939.
233. Gold Rush Daze (MM):
The best one in a while! It did a lot of things right, that these shorts normally do wrong. First, it told a pretty basic, yet interesting story about a prospector hound dog who goes searching for gold, where at every step, he doesn’t manage to make a claim. Interestingly, it’s told as a flashback, which is a kind of storytelling these shorts don’t do much either.
In addition, there’s a song in this Merry Melody, which is something that hasn’t been in them much lately, and something I usually hate. However, it’s done VERY well here, because the song is actually relevant to the situation, and I felt actually helped accentuate the atmosphere of the story. It’s just a little song about Gold Mining. I suppose it helped that the music was actually being played.
Overall, I wouldn’t say it was fantastic or anything, but I certainly think its a lot better than what I’ve come to expect. I did some things differently, and deserves a little bit of praise for that. The bar is set pretty low though, so if you watch this on it’s own, don’t expect much.
234. Porky’s Movie Mystery:
Sigh. You’d think that something with that title would be great, but you’d be mistaken. In what is apparently a parody of the “Mr. Moto” movie series, Porky plays a stereotype of a Japanese secret agent in search of a mysterious phantom who haunts movie sets at “Warmer Brothers.” (Not to be unexpected, but the actual movies being represented aren’t Warner movies at all, but rather Universal Monsters and Fox.)
The story doesn’t really partake in much in terms of parodying movies, with large chunks being devoted to single gags that don’t amount to much. In the end, the phantom is revealed to be a long forgotten celebrity from the time: Hugh Hubert.
The problem with this one, is that a lot of the gags are severely dated. I really created this to give my opinions on these shorts, and not really go super in depth. In terms of opinion, I tend to stray towards the negative if these shorts rely too heavily on pop culture of the time for it’s gags. Sadly, this one just doesn’t work in that regard.
235. A Day at the Zoo (MM):
Another one that was pretty decent! It’s really just a nature-documentary-esque short that takes place at a zoom. There’s just joke after joke about animals at the zoo. Most of them were just dumb puns, but I found them to be charming, if a little bit lame. I didn’t get a few of the jokes, but that’s okay. I found this one to be better than average, because it had a lot of focus, and didn’t outstep it’s scope, or try to tell a big story halfway through.
236. Prest-O Change-O (MM):
The two dogs from “Dog Gone Modern” return! What! And this time they are in a different house. (I guess that’s their schtick...going into houses.) The house is the home of a magician, and they get into all sorts of wacky antics.
The short also features “Happy Rabbit”, the character that is a prototypical version of Bugs Bunny. Unlike in his first appearance, “Porky’s Hare Hunt, he is taller, and bizarrely enough, ACTS like Bugs Bunny. Of course, there are some weird differences, but the mannerisms and absurd brand of humor is on point. Huzzah!
It’s nice to be able to watch a short that actually has an inkling of what most people expect when they hear “Looney Tunes.” Now, the rest of the short is kinda “meh” altogether, so me liking it has a lot more to do with the aforementioned rabbit than anything. Really, the short’s problem is that it is soooo slow. It really needs to pick up the pace and not linger on the same gags for most of the time. That’s the real test. Hopefully it picks up soon.
There he is! (I got this from a YouTube page that apparently sees a reason to watermark an public domain short? Yeah, “Kiss Cartoon” this belongs to everyone! This is a review, ya schmucks.)
237. Chicken Jitters:
Another Porky Pig cartoon. He’s a chicken farmer. Not much really happens, except for a kinda cool fight with a Fox at the end. I really don’t have much to say about this one. I wish I did. It’s a genuinely completely forgettable short otherwise.
238. Bars and Stripes Forever (MM):
Wow! This actually made me chuckle a few times! It’s really just a short about a prison, and a convict that escapes, but there are some really good jokes in there. (Including a particularly dark one about an electric chair.) The absurdist humor is really on point, and is again, a good sign that things will probably be getting a lot better soon! This is very promising! Probably one of the first shorts of 1939 that I can genuinely recommend! :D
239. Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (MM):
Another relatively decent cartoon, that reminiscent of what you expect from a Looney Tunes shorts, with a few stumbles that knock it down quite a bit. It’s essentially an “Elmer Fudd Hunting” short but, with a caveman hunting Daffy Duck.
The problem lies in the pacing primarily, spending wayyy too much on certain jokes. Towards the end there’s a gag about signs advertising duck as a great me. This gag goes on for at least a minute...and it just keeps going and going. The short is only about 7 minutes long, so that’s particularly worrisome.
But, the reminiscence is what’s key here. It’s cool to see everything come together with these shorts so quickly. Definitely a lot of fine tuning...but, hey, the animation on the dinosaur that the caveman had was pretty good!
Very fluid and interesting animation, that isn’t just lazy. There’s definitely more thought put into this bit of animation than most early shorts.
240. Porky and Teabiscuit:
I enjoyed this one. For once, it actually told a story, and wasn’t overly focused on one thing for too long. It’s just Porky getting scammed into buying an awful race horse, and (SHOCK) the horse winds up winning the race. I don’t have too much to say about it. It wasn’t particularly funny, but it kept my attention enough. I can’t complain about it in any way. Just sort of average, maybe a little above?
241. Thugs With Dirty Mugs (MM):
Another one that was pretty enjoyable. It’s a little sort of gangster short, with a celebrity impression of that guy that goes “It’s like this, see? Gotta be cool, see?” as the main character. I thought it was fun to watch, and it had pacing that was actually quite good.
Some of the jokes were really good too. I laughed at 2 sequential jokes! What?! That’s unheard of for these shorts so far! And, I thought the gag for how they found who the killer was to be clever as well: An irritated audience member watching the cartoon just tells the cop straight out where the killer is headed. Overall, I think this was pretty good. I’m definitely able to recommend it.
242. Kristopher Kolumbus Jr.:
Oh, boy. You can probably tell there are problems with this one just by the title. And, there are! This isn’t a “censored 11” cartoon, but it’s still pretty racist towards Native Americans (gasp) and treats them as if Christopher Columbus is a big celebrated hero to them. Poor Porky Pig probably doesn’t even realize that he was playing someone who was guilty of mass genocide.
But, besides all that, the cartoon is slow and boring, with no jokes that garnered even a smirk. This feels like a cartoon from Early Porky days that just got held back for what would be obvious reasons today. Definitely the worst in a while for many reasons.
243. Naughty But Mice (MM):
The first appearance of the character Sniffles the Mouse! Evidentially, his name is based off the fact that he has a cold in this first short, but I’m not sure how much that continues in the future.
Anyways, the short is just kinda slow and weird. The design of Sniffles is definitely a lot better than other designs, so it’s clear that this guy sticks out in the crowd, but yeah...I really think they must have been drunk when they came up with this idea (by they, I mean Chuck Jones) and I mean no disrespect.
The story is tiny mouse Sniffles walking into a drug store after hours, and drinking some medicine that’s very high alcohol content, and then he proceeds to get drunk with a living electric razor. Is the razor really alive? Probably. But, it gets drunk too, don’t worry. The absurdity of the situation made me chuckle, but other than that, I didn’t really super enjoy this one.
Yeah...I don’t know what they were thinking when they made this one.
244. Polar Pals:
Porky Pig is living on the North Pole with (sigh) Polar Bears and Penguins. A Poacher comes along, and they stop him. Not much of anything else happens in this not-very-funny short. Didn’t exactly blow me away, at all.
245. Hobo Gadget Band (MM):
I wound up liking this more as it went along. There isn’t much plot here...just hobos riding the rails, getting kicked off, and then playing a song.
What really stuck out to me, crazy enough, was the song! I usually hate the songs in these, but this one was genuinely pretty okay. I’d say it’s *almost* worth watching the whole thing, but...not quite.
Plus, I’m a bit of a stickler for hobos. I find them quirky and fun to see the antics of. Personally, I like it, but I don’t think many others would.
246. Believe It Or Else (MM):
Oh, Lordy. This Parody of “Ripley’s Believe it Or Not” is pretty damn awful. I actually didn’t enjoy a single moment of this. None of the jokes landed for me, and I just wanted it to end. It was just “weird thing” after “weird thing” with no plot or substance. Ugh. Also, apparently this was the last appearance of Egghead, all future appearance would be as his fully developed Elmer Fudd persona.
247. Scalp Trouble:
Oh, no. The title really says it all. The stereotypes and treatment of Native Americans is really troublesome here. The plot is really just a war with Native Americans, and that’s it. Many truly awful moments, and at least one particular moment where a solider sings a song while he happily shoots natives. That’s some dark “jokes” that I’ve only seen a few of in my time reviewing these.
Otherwise, it’s notable for being the first time that Daffy is given billing (as in he is listed as a “star”) but, he shares such status with Porky. Otherwise, this is a completely trash short that should probably be left unseen. Unless you are curious. Really, it’s nothing special. Don’t watch.
248. Old Glory (MM):
For perhaps the first time, one of these shorts is meant to be taken completely seriously. There isn’t a joke to be found in this short, just a nice patriotic short with Porky Pig (bizarrely appearing in a Merry Melodies short) learning about the history of the United States.
Glossing over history aside, I found some of the moments to be truly well-meaning. It’s a great example of something that makes you feel proud to live in the United States, which is particularly difficult in 2020.
In another odd circumstance, aside from Porky himself (who is very cute and in color for the first time in a while) every other character in the short, primarily comprised of flashback characters, are rotoscoped. It’s well done, and not as particularly jarring as one would expect from Rotoscoping, but the characters do look a little creepy and overly realistic compared to what you’d expect from the cartoons.
Overall, I’d say it’s pretty great. I would imagine that this is up there with a number of classic shorts. I would say there are some things that make it dated, but it’s a great short to help you feel good about the US when nothing else can.
249. Porky’s Picnic:
Porky and his girlfriend Petunia go on a Picnic...and it just gets weirder from there. A baby (who I guess is Porky’s nephew from a short from awhile back...) named Pinky comes along, and he’s just the most insane character I’ve seen in these shorts so far (it’s a shame he didn’t catch on, although I think he’s a rip-off of Swee’ Pea from Popeye...)
Pinky is really the star of this short. His tomfoolery is insane. He spends a good portion of the short um, trying to cut the head off of a squirrel with Scissors. I was left agape for that entire scene confused out of my mind at this sadistic child. He then decides he wants to hit Porky with a 2x4, and then he wanders into a zoo where he nearly gets eaten by an alligator and a lion.
Holy crap. That baby was amazing to watch. I feel so disappointed that apparently he never appears again. I suppose the violence was really far ahead of it’s time (and still kinda is with the sadistic nature of the the violence at parts.) I recommend this solely based off of Pinky alone. He’s probably my favorite character that’s only appeared once, or apparently twice...maybe.
250. Dangerous Dan McFoo (MM):
An unremarkable short about a little dog man boy thing...and how he fights in the Yukon (or somewhere north) against another dog man who wants his lady. There was a brief gag at the start that made me smile, but it was otherwise completely forgettable. (OH, and the dog has the same voice as Elmer Fudd, so it would get transposed onto Elmer sometime soon.) ALSO: I’m 25% through these shorts as of this one!!!
251. Snowman’s Land (MM):
Ah, my least favorite Super Mario 64 level! But, also a pretty awful Merry Melodies cartoon from 1939. This one again features a snowy wilderness, with Mounties in the northwest territory. One rather goofy looking Mounty is charged with looking for a criminal, and “antics” ensue.
Now, when I saw “goofy looking” I mean that he is pretty much Goofy. Complete with laugh, voice, and overall mannerisms. It really harkens back to the old days of these cartoons, where Disney rip-offs were extremely common place, and you couldn’t go a single short without seeing some sort of rip-off design or character.
It’s a shame too. I actually love Canadian Mounties (Dudley Do-Right is amazing.) But, this short really didn’t do the comedic possibilities of Mounties to any sort of interesting extent. I was disappointed all around. Not worth anyone’s time, except mine, because apparently I like pain.
252. Wise Quacks:
Daffy and his wife(?!?) are expecting and Porky Pig comes to celebrate the birth with them, and one of the newborns is carried off by a Buzzard. Oh, and Daffy gets drunk from not being able to handle being a dad. That’s something that happens.
It seems to me that there’s a recurring theme around the baby characters being the best lately. The baby duck that’s captured has a lot of the funniest lines in the short (aside from a random line that dog at the start has.) I’m not sure why this is, but maybe one of the writer’s had a baby recently, and they are really have babies on the mind? I’m not sure.
Anyways, I found the short to be very enjoyable overall. The baby made me laugh or smile with literally every line it had, and there were a few other jokes that made me smile. The story was actually present, and they didn’t focus on any gag for too long. It was fast paced, but not quite as fast as you’d expect. A pretty good one.
253. Hare-um Scare-um (MM):
I have a few things to say about this one. For starters, it’s a pretty standard “Hunting” short that are pretty common, but it also features “Happy Rabbit” yet again, this time looking extraordinarily like Bugs Bunny, but acting a bit out of character, yet. He acts like 1939 Daffy Duck, complete with the same catchphrase. He also have Woody Woodpecker’s laugh (and if you don’t know, Woody is NOT a Looney Tunes character.)
The short itself isn’t too bad, but it feels kinda stale. Pretty much the same sort of gags we see out of these “hunting” shorts from the 30’s. At one point Bugs...I mean, “Happy Rabbit” sings a song, and I actually really liked it, and it made me sort of see why they really pushed the character as their main star later on. Probably the most “magical” moment any of these characters have had (even if it was completely out of character.
One weird thing to note is that apparently there was a “lost ending” that was later found and restored. The difference is the gag goes on for another 20 seconds...and the lost ending is pretty bad. No wonder why the cut it.
254. Detouring America (MM):
A short “documentary” type short about the United States. Aside from a few sight gags, the short is pretty unremarkable. In fact, there are several offensive stereotypes of African Americans as well as Native Americans, making this a double decker bologna sandwich...in other words, not very good.
255. Porky’s Hotel:
Another cartoon with a duck wearing sailor outfit! Not Daffy, or Donald, or Dizzy, but *ANOTHER* duck named “Gabby” who sadly is the focus of this short. You’d think it would be about Porky owning a hotel, but that’s just the setup for this little duck kid chasing around a fly and annoying the hell out of a goat guest at the hotel. And, annoying the hell out of me in the process. There wasn’t anything remarkable about this short, except it was a little annoying to find online.
256. Little Brother Rat (MM):
Sniffles is back, and he is on a scavenger hunt after tearing a cat’s whisker off to fulfill the latest part of it. Now he needs an owl egg, and his attempts to get it are the focus of the short. Really, not that bad. Except Sniffles is pretty awful in how he treats the other animals for the sake of completing his scavenger hunt. The story went along nicely, and didn’t really hit any bumps, but it lacked any really solid jokes. Overall, I’d say it’s average.
257. Sioux Me (MM):
Aside from some rather rough stereotyping of native Americans, I found this short to be interesting. Far from the worst short I’ve seen. It’s about a Native American rainmaker trying to get it to rain. Not much in terms of laughs or anything, but it kept my attention, and felt sort of vaguely memorable. Overall, I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would. Sue me.
258. Jeepers Creepers:
I enjoyed some of this short. The story is just Porky Pig entering a haunted house, and a ghost that tries (and succeeds) at haunting him. There’s not much in terms of jokes, again, something that’s been pretty lacking lately in general.
The real start of the show was indeed, the ghost though. He’s a cool design, and he’s actually pretty adorable. He even gets a neat little song! Aw!
259. Land of the Midnight Fun (MM):
Ugh. This one was rough. It lacked any sort of concrete focus, and felt like the mashed two ideas for a short into one. It starts with a boring series jokes about a cruise liner, and then they arrive in Nome, Alaska (solely for the sake of the “There’s no place like Nome” gag that’s been done to death these days, but probably was rather clever in September 1939, a month after the Wizard of Oz came out, if it is even meant to be a reference to that.)
Overall, none of the jokes were funny, and the lack of focus REALLY hurt it. It meandered from place to place with little rhyme or reason. I disliked this one quite a bit.
260. Naughty Neighbors:
Not much going on in this one! It’s a Hatfield’s vs. McCoy’s parody (done several times in previous years) and there’s not much new substance here. Apparently they stopped fighting because of something Porky did, and 50% of the short focuses on a dumb song about how everybody is friends now. They pretty much immediately start fighting again after the song is over. No funny jokes, not much here worth celebrating. Oh, and apparently there are more of these “Hatfield McCoy” shorts coming...GREAT!
261. The Little Lion Hunter (MM):
Can’t go too long without a negative stereotype, can ya, Looney Tunes? This time it’s an African Boy (apparently named Inki) who is hunting a little crow, and then tries to escape a lion. Not much else happens. I was really confused by the end of it, because there wasn’t really anything going on pretty much the entire time. I can’t remember much of any “jokes” that happened either.
It must be said though: The animation in this one was top notch. Very impressive. I would argue that aside from some more artistic shorts like “Page Miss Glory” or “Old Glory” (no relation) this is the best in terms of animation thus far.
Apparently this character and bird would go on to be featured in MORE SHORTS later on down the line for some Godforsaken Reason. I can’t really fathom why. Apparently they aren’t banned or anything either (although this one was apparently removed from circulation) so, maybe the depictions got better? We’ll have to wait and see...
262. The Good Egg (MM):
An infertile mother hen decides she rather die than never have chicks, so she decides to go to the river and kill herself...
...And after that dark opening, it turns into a rather bland story about how she finds a turtle egg, hatches it, and it saves some chicks from drowning the joke is that he’s a life guard. HAHAHAHA! Really though, completely forgettable.
263. Fresh Fish (MM):
AHHHH! The puns! They were so bad! I actually cringed at some of the jokes (something I probably should have been doing for awhile) but, they were just non-stop stupid fish puns in a documentary-style showcase of stupidity at the bottom of the sea. There’s not much else to this one, it’s a show case of stupidity at bottom of the barrel of quality of these shorts.
264. Pied Piper Porky:
Porky WAS the Pied Piper, but then he fails to catch a mouse/rat (They call it both) who breaks his pipe, and then a cat chases it for the last 4 minutes of the short. Pretty unremarkable. Really, I have very little to say about this one. It was boring and forgettable. Oh, and the mouse/rat is pretty obviously a black stereotype in mouse form.
265. Fagin’s Freshman (MM):
A little cat, named Blacky (Oof) is apparently a delinquent because he turned on the radio while his family was singing and then he has a dream (Whoops, spoilers!) where he goes to a school ran by “Fagin” to teach kids to be criminals. It was...interesting! It kept my attention with a rather unique story, which is more credit than I can give most of these shorts. Otherwise mostly forgettable.
266. Porky the Giant Killer:
This one put me to sleep. So dreadfully boring. Even watching it again when I woke up, it was still extremely boring. Porky goes to a Giant’s lair...and doesn’t even really get to the point of trying to kill it. Instead, it’s about the Giant’s Baby. And, no...the baby isn’t interesting like other babies in these shorts have been lately, it’s literally just an annoying baby. If you want to fall asleep, this might be useful, but otherwise fugettaboutit!
267. Sniffles and the Bookworm (MM):
Sniffles is back! I would probably say this is his best short yet, but it’s kinda weak at the start before it really picks up: Sniffles is sleeping by a book when a book worm comes across him, and the worm is scared so he calls upon his friends that live in books...some Peter Pan/Robin Hood/Pied Piper looking dude, and a barbarian to take down this HUGE mouse...but, they realize the truth!
The short then picks up greatly with this little jazz number bizarrely called “It’s Mutiny in the Nursery” and all the characters in the books come to life. It’s definitely the highlight of this short that’s otherwise pretty lackluster. The song is a definitely the product of it’s time, but it has a sort of charm to it that other shorts don’t. It’s sort of whimsical in a way? Not sure what exactly makes it better, but it probably has to do with he fact that the song is, I dunno, actually good? The short is actually good too.
268. Screwball Football (MM):
A bizarre little short that’s just a bunch of football related jokes and visual puns. I didn’t really find it to be all that great. A joke or two was particularly dark, such as a referee um, accidentally(?) shooting himself with the starting gun...and another joke that made me smile. I don’t know, it was just sort of standard fare.
I will mention one other thing: There’s a creepy man who keeps licking an ice cream cone that a baby is holding. It’s just weird and kinda unsettling...why would the man do that?
Thankfully, the baby guns him down in the end.
269. The Film Fan:
Porky Pig goes into a movie theater and watches...a news reel. That’s reel-y about it. There was a joke about an upcoming film called “Gone With the Breeze” which, as stupid as it sounds, I did laugh at. Oh, and apparently, (AND THIS IS A VITAL PLOT POINT) he’s a child in this short...no indication whatsoever that he’s supposed to be one, it just sort of something you have to accept while watching it. I didn’t really care for this one.
270. The Curious Puppy (MM):
At last! The final film of 1939, and subsequently the last of the 1930’s!
This short was the 3rd featuring the dog duo from “Dog Gone Modern” and “Prest-O Change-O” and, it’s probably about as good as the former. That is today, it has some cute dog related moments, but nothing too funny, or overly interesting. I giggled at a few dog related jokes more so because I love dogs, than because they were genuinely clever or funny. I’d say this short is just sort of run of the mill. (No pun intended.)
- Alavem (All of them.)
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