Eile mit Beile

Porky Chops (1949) *** (out of 4)

A squirrel from Brooklyn goes to the great Northwoods to get some rest but then comes across lumberjack Porky Pig trying to cut down his tree. The two start battling one another but soon a third party is going to enter the picture. This is a pleasant short that manages to have quite a few smiles and it's certainly cute enough. The one problem I have with the short is the actual squirrel who just doesn't sit too well with me. I've seen this film several times over the years and each time I can't help but think it would have been different with a better character. As far as Porky goes he's at the top of his game and the poor guy takes a nice beating like he always does. The third party that shows up only appears for a matter of seconds but he clearly steals the film. I won't ruin the gag as it's one of the best in the film.

In a nutshell, Porky Pig is a lumberjack who's chopping down a tree that occupies a squirrel who wears pajamas, hangs a "Brooklyn Dodgers" banner over his bed, and reads the racing forms from the newspaper. The squirrel tries various ways to shoo the pig away like putting aluminum siding on the tree and then disguising it with varnish as Porky fails to chop with various axes that keep losing their sharp heads. Many funny chase gags abound and a twist involving a bear especially pays off here. This cartoon came from the short-lived Arthur Davis unit and it shows how talented Davis really was with the timing of the gags and pacing that also marked his predecessor, Bob Clampett. Too bad, due to budget constraints, Warner Bros. later had to cut Davis' staff. Porky Chops is highly recommended.

A hip squirrel from New York goes to the woods to relax but his vacation is interrupted by lumberjack Porky, who's trying to cut down his tree. Judging by some of the reviews on here, this one seems to set off some Porky Pig fans. I can kind of see why since Porky is little more than an Elmer Fudd-like villain for the squirrel to defeat. But this didn't really bother me as Porky is not high on my list of favorite Looney Tunes characters. The squirrel is clearly the star of this short with all the best lines and gags. I disagree strongly with another reviewer who said this cartoon was ugly. The animation is quite lovely, with beautiful colors and nicely-drawn characters and backgrounds. Lively, whimsical music from Carl Stalling. Great voice work from Mel Blanc. An enjoyable cartoon if all one is expecting is entertainment. If you're a Porky fan looking for an impressive showcase for his character, you might be disappointed.

Arthur Davis, who directed "Porky Chops", was most famous as an animator; maybe he just didn't have exactly what it takes to be a director. This cartoon is pretty funny - hell, it looks like "Citizen Kane" compared to some of the cartoons coming out today - but it mostly seems to be a one-joke premise, as Porky Pig tries to chop down a tree but the wise-guy squirrel using it as his vacation home keeps interfering.

So, it's not a great cartoon, but still good for a few laughs...particularly with what happens after the dynamite gag (the Termite Terrace crowd sure had a way with dynamite, didn't they?).

PS: The name "The squirrels of Central Park" originally came from Gary Larson's cartoon "The Far Side". The squirrel here reminded me of that.

Even if you were not to know who the director and the writers were before watching this cartoon, it's almost certain that you would start suspecting none of the usual gang at the Warner Brothers animation studio were behind this entry. What we have here are writers who worked at the studio only for a brief time, and a director who was more successful as an animator. The end result is very strange, feeling like it was done by people who had only seen a handful of Looney Tunes cartoons before being assigned to make this cartoon. They have the words, but not the music - the timing is very off, and they don't seem to understand how the characters (both the protagonist and antagonist) need to act. I agree with the previous poster that this was an odd choice for Warner Brothers first box set of Looney Tunes cartoons - it certainly is no classic. Still, I must admit it shines when placed next to some of the cartoons that came out of the cartoon studio during its dying days.