Porky's Garden: "Guinea" Meets Pig In Fond Farewell to Black-and-White for the Avery Unit

RELEASE DATE: 9/11/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb concurs)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY: Porky Pig 101 (WHV 5-DVD set; the version there is butchered)

You can view a cruddy but acceptable print of this cartoon HERE.

Thanks to our good bud Devon Baxter for hosting this cartoon. Devon has a great collection of classic cartoons online, and a visit to his YouTube account will yield hours of enjoyment.

The Avery unit has been in free-falling flounder for its past few cartoons. Despite a dearth of great ideas, Avery and his crew have been polishing up their act, as the look and feel of animation--and its increasingly faster pace--ramps up for the 1940s.

Porky's Garden is a fond step backwards, to the more innocent days of 1936. Avery had less front-office pressure as he and his talented crew cranked out lower-budget black-and-white "Looney Tunes."

And while this cartoon is as bankrupt of great ideas as Avery's last few--it is, indeed, the weakest of his black-and-white cartoons, until 1941's The Haunted Mouse--it proceeds in a cheerful, harmless way. It offers glimpses of the coming sophistication to the visual aspect of Hollywood animation.

A Sunbonnet Blue: Another Lesser Avery Effort--More Singing Mice, Less Mad Meta-Comedy

RELEASE DATE:
8/21/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb claims a 12/1/1937 release date)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
NONE

You can view a mid-1990s Turner print of this cartoon HERE. Thanks to our good bud Devon Baxter for hosting this cartoon. Devon has a great collection of classic cartoons online, and a visit to his DailyMotion page, or his YouTube account, will yield hours of enjoyment.

A month after its prior Merrie Melodie, Egghead Rides Again, the Avery unit reverts to front-office-pleasing pabulum, spiced with stolen moments of inspiration and humor.

In 2014, with knowledge of Avery's career, and of what he could do, left to his own devices, A Sunbonnet Blue is merely an annoyance. Having thrown down several gauntlets of challenge to animation conformity, this and similar cartoons are little more than a waste of Avery's time.