Porky's Duck Hunt: Return To Monochrome Inspires Director; Gives Birth to Archetype To End All Cartoon Archetypes

RELEASE DATE:
4/17/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb concurs)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Available on the Warner Home Video DVD THE ESSENTIAL DAFFY DUCK, released in 2011)

This epochal cartoon--as important to the artform as STEAMBOAT WILLIE or ROOTY TOOT TOOT--has, at long last, been lovingly restored and released on legit DVD.

It's the sole "new" attraction of the double-disc, double-dipfest that is The Essential Daffy Duck. Thanks to the wonderful Patrick Malone at The Internet Animation Database (link: http://www.intanibase.com) I have a sumptuous rip of the restored version. You can view this gorgeous, accurate version of Porky's Duck Hunt HERE. Do take nine minutes and watch it before you read further.

It is downright curious that such a crucial cartoon has been so overlooked in the restoration process. This cartoon appeared on one of the Warner VHS collections of the 1980s, and was in dire need of some TLC then. WHV also waited to restore Avery's other seminal game-changer, A Wild Hare (1940) until after the heyday of the scattershot-but-sweet Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets.

In a sense, Porky's Duck Hunt, like Steamboat Willie, has outlived its own effectiveness. Revolutionary upon its release, its gags and attitude were so absorbed into the lifeblood of the American cartoon landscape that it might elicit a "meh" from the casual viewer.

If this cartoon had not appeared when it did, and made the way it was made, American animation might have further suffered the stifling constraints of the Disney way.

Stuttering Charlatan Loses Girl, Wins Food Source: I Only Have Eyes For You

RELEASE DATE:
3/6/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb says 5/18/37)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Available on the Warner Home Video DVD DAMES, released in 2006)

A reasonably good copy of this cartoon can be seen HERE (thanks for providing this, Devon Baxter!) As always, we recommend that you watch the cartoon before reading!

Frustrating cartoon, this. It comes right before Fred Avery's first bonafide masterpiece—one of the most revolutionary animated cartoons in American film. This cartoon is, quite frankly, not worthy of his talent or effort.

This is a pattern that recurs through Avery's career. Minor films precede major works; masterpieces are followed by half-assed also-rans. Avery was not a consistent creator of gems. By his nature, he couldn't be. A constant, fearless experimenter, each film an object-lesson in how much he could get away with (both with the studio brass and paying audiences), Avery had to take mis-steps.

More so than Chuck Jones or Bob Clampett, Avery walked off metaphorical cliffs, and courted abject failure, so that he could excel in his cinematic and comedic gifts.

I Only Have Eyes For You is exactly the kind of cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger wanted. It exploited a hot song (and a genuinely fine one—it's become a solid part of the Great American Songbook), and, on its surface, did nothing out of kilter. It could have been made by any of the units at Schlesinger's studio.

Avery would keep making such cartoons throughout his stay at Schlesinger's. There will be four more of these song-driven cartoons in the next year. They are replaced by the troublesome string of topical spot-gag cartoons in 1939. Your humble host looks forward to covering those cartoons as he would a spoonful of syrup of ipecac.

Picador Porky: A Bold Stride Towards Utter Chaos

RELEASE DATE: 2/27/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database, IMDb and most other Internet sources)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY: Porky Pig 101 (WHV 5-DVD set)

Thanks to the official #1 pal of this blog, Devon Baxter, you can see a decent-enuf version of this cartoon HERE.

Apologies for the long delay in new postings. This is the only Avery-Warners cartoon that is really hard to see. Thanks to the modern day conglomo-monster that owns Warner Brothers, these black and white shorts have pretty much been chased off YouTube. Since they're actual cartoons, they're no longer shown on the Cartoon Network, save for rare relapses of taste and sanity by their programming directors.

With vintage cartoons on DVD pretty much dead in the mainstream, and the Blu-Ray format more inclined to serve up the latest slop from Hollywood, those early WB shorts that haven't been restored/reissued are not likely to be given such prestigious treatment in the foreseeable future.

End of screed. Let's get down to brass tacks...

Porky the Wrestler: Minor but Meaningful Sports Shenanigans Welcome Mel Blanc to the Avery Universe

RELEASE DATE:
1/9/1937 (according to the Grand Cartoon Database, IMDb and most other Internet sources)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Porky Pig 101 (WHV 5-DVD set)

An as-good-as-it-gets version of this cartoon can be seen HERE (thanks for providing this, Devon Baxter!)

Avery and his unit continue to coast (but do so well) in this unaccountably rare and fairly minor cartoon. One deeply inspired sequence, worthy of a Jacques Tati, and an early vocal appearance by Mel Blanc--soon to finalize the Termite Terrace Dream Team with his great voice work and wit--makes this cartoon worthy of the name of Fred Avery.

This is one of the earlier Schlesinger cartoons to have been censored. One scene, or shot, was removed sometime in the 1940s. No one knows exactly why. Popular speculations include racial material (which seems unlikely, as racial stereotypes were vibrantly alive in the '40s) and a topical celebrity or sports caricature that no longer made sense, when and if this cartoon was reissued.

Don't Look Now: Half-Strength Avery Better Than None, Alleged Expert Sez

RELEASE DATE:
the unreliable IMDb gives a release date of 12/30/1936 for this film. BCDb says 11/7/1936 is the release date. They give 4/10/1948 for its Blue Ribbon re-issue, which is the version that survives today.

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
NONE AT PRESENT

You can watch a decent color print of this cartoon HERE. Thanks to Devon Baxter for his help with this. If you're not familiar with this cartoon, please watch before you read--thanks!

Like the earlier I'd Love To Take Orders From You, this film is Avery at half-strength. It's another attempt to make an appealing mass-market Technicolor cartoon. That it's done with greater humor and film-making attests to Avery's constant ambition to grow as a creator and show his colleagues and rivals what he could do.

Unlike the earlier cartoon, Don't Look Now has a more pointed, direct narrative, and takes advantage of every attempt to cram something funny into its footage. In retrospect, knowing what lays ahead for the Avery unit in their 1937 films, this cartoon seems less impressive than it ought to.

Milk And Money: Lightning Strikes Twice--To The Keester

RELEASE DATE:
shown at the Strand Theatre in New York on 9/28/36.

Other dates given are 10/3/36 or 12/28/1936 (according to IMDb, which has proven itself, ahem, a mite unreliable)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Looney Tunes Golden Collection,
Vol. 5 (Warner Brothers DVD 112172)

You can watch a nice black-and-white print of this cartoon HERE. If you're not familiar with this cartoon, please watch before you read--thanks!

In popular entertainment, lightning always attempts to restrike. If Movie A, Song A, or TV Series A proves a success, a rehash is always urged by the highers-up. Apparently, thus was the case with Avery's earlier picture, Porky the Rainmaker. In this case, it was willingly done, and the results show a strong step forward in Avery's skillset as a cartoon film-maker.

The Village Smithy: Consider That Fourth Wall Busted, Folks! And...Introducing Carl W. Stalling*

RELEASE DATE:
12/5/1936 (according to the unreliable IMDb, and most other Internet sources)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Porky Pig 101 (WHV 5-DVD set)

A crappy-quality 1990s colorized version of this cartoon can be seen HERE, as part of a collection on archive.org. Thanks to reader "clark" for spotting this version. Due to WB's recent pogroms of their classic cartoons from YouTube, it's newly hard to see many of these early pieces.

This brings up an unavoidable pre-essay thought. It seems ridiculous to me that so many corporate copyright holders (a) have no interest in preserving or making available their archives and (b) strive so hard to keep people from seeing their holdings. This goes for the major music moguls, all movie studios, and book publishers. They seem stubbornly resistant to the fact that there IS interest in this stuff, and that, if they made even the feeblest attempt to offer it publicly, it would be greeted with positive response, which would, in turn, make the greedy gits look good (or as close to good as they might ever appear).

It seems to me that a win-win situation for these monoliths is to let this stuff stay up on YouTube, etc., in the belief that it will create a new market for these vintage pieces. If/when a legal, official version is commercially released, they'd have every right to crack down on poachers. If they only want to hoard these gems, and keep people from seeing them, then they're going to look like selfish, arrogant jerks.

End of soapbox sermon. Now, on with the show...