Costeletas de Porco

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.

Porky Pig is clear cutting the North Woods. A squirrel lives in the last tree standing. Porky starts chopping. Well, the squirrel is not surrendering his home yet.

I don't mind Porky Pig as a lumberjack, but maybe there are better choices. The no-name squirrel is fine, but maybe there is a better choice there too. At the end of the day, neither are obviously the perfect choices for the roles. This feels like an extraneous short. There is nothing special about this. Even the bear feels non-special. I don't know the size of this bear, but he ends up in the squirrel's home. Maybe he shrank along the way.

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.

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.

A city-wise squirrel is resting comfortably in his new vacation-type room in the middle of a big tree trunk in the Northwest. He's from Flatbush and has his "Brooklyn Dodgers"pennant tacked on the wall. As he is getting ready for his first long nap, he hears what he thinks is a woodpecker. However, he soon realizes it isn't: it's some "lumberjackson" down below chopping the tree (Porky Pig). "One of the local yokels," he says. "I'll fix that icky."

I don't what all the complaints are here. I thought this was very entertaining. The squirrel was a "hipster" that had many dated-but-funny lines. That alone made this worth watching. Some of ploys to keep Porky from chopping the tree down weren't bad, either.

Whoever this squirrel was, it was really HIS cartoon, not Porky's.