Porky spends the bulk of the cartoon battling Pierre the termite with “assistance” from I.M. Sureshot, the smiling dog exterminator. Pierre reduces everything wooden in Porky’s home to sawdust by gnawing on it. In one sequence, Porky ends up at the bottom of the stairs when the bannister is partially eaten, followed by crockery that bops him on the noggin.
The next scene has a truly bizarre gag. Pierre carves a replica of Porky’s head from the decorative ball at the end of the bannister—then the fake head sticks out its tongue at the pig. How? Why? Back in the early ‘30s, everything in a cartoon came to life. That had stopped by the mid-‘40s. It comes out of nowhere here. Its so unexpected and weird, it’s still funny, even if it may be disconcerting.
Davis is in too much of a hurry here. The gag is capped with a reaction from Porky, but Davis quickly fades out before the audience can get the full impact of the take.
George Hill wrote this cartoon. He arrived at Warners around February 1945 originally to help Warren Foster in the Bob McKimson unit but was transferred (with gagman Hubie Karp) when Davis became a director a few months later. Lloyd Turner, who ended up writing for the unit along with Bill Scott, related to historian Mike Barrier how Hill gave the Bronx cheer to producer Eddie Selzer and got fired (Hill had worked for the Fleischers in New York). Hill’s ending for the cartoon is superfluous and a little off-kilter. Toward the end, Porky and Pierre take revenge on Sureshot, which would have been a good way to end the cartoon; all Pierre had to do was make a wise crack to the camera. But instead Hill tags it with a scene where Porky and Pierre are in business together making furniture. What?! What brought that about? And why?
Don Williams provides some fun animation in this cartoon. Bill Melendez, Basil (Dave) Davidovich and John Carey are credited as well. The cartoon was released in 1947.
Actually, it was released in 1948. WAnjt something else 1930s like, and from another of the most cartoony (and underrated) directors in a Porky? Check out another dog one, "Dog Collared", 1951, where Porky hears on the radio news, "bucks" for a dog he's trying to find, he and then radio repeat each otherr!St eveC
ReplyDeleteOff-kilter is a good description of this cartoon. I'm also never quite sure whose side I.M. Sureshot is actually on. His schemes go so awry for Porky that you start to feel like he must be in the termite's corner, but that isn't so. Is he a bad guy or a really inept good guy? It's never clear to me.
ReplyDeleteRoss, I don't think he's on anyone's side. He's just an incompetent salesman.
DeleteThere seems to be a weird dynamic going on in Davis' cartoons. I don't know if it's the timing or what it is. I like his work but they have a different feel than the other Warners directors.