Porky y El Gran Teabiscuit

Following his debut in the 1935 Merrie Melody "I Haven't Got a Hat", Porky Pig mostly starred in hokey Looney Tunes until the early 1940s (Chuck Jones's "Old Glory" may have been Porky's only cartoon during this period that constituted anything more than a series of childish gags; I think that it was also Porky's only appearance in Merrie Melody during this period).

"Porky and Teabiscuit" was one of the hokey ones. While it did follow the theme of casting Porky as the underdog, it doesn't have much clever. Not that it isn't worth seeing (there are a few neat gags). But I suspect that most people will agree that if Leon Schlesinger Productions hadn't started giving Porky roles with greater complexity, then that would have quickly been all for him, folks. This one is OK, not great.

PS: directors Cal Dalton and Ben Hardaway headed what had been Friz Freleng's unit. Freleng worked at MGM from 1937 to 1939, returning to Warner Bros. when MGM canceled the series that he had been directing. Ben Hardaway's nickname was Bugs, and he submitted a drawing of a rabbit titled "Bug's Bunny". You can probably guess what happened from there.