Porky's Bear Facts

One of Porky's outings from the days when they gave him rather hokey roles depicting "normal" parts of life; as it is, Porky only appears in two scenes, so they could have easily made this a miscellaneous cartoon (those were the cartoons that didn't feature any of the stars). Laborious Porky does everything that one needs to do to get by in life, while his lazy neighbor believes that work can wait; this proves unfortunate for the poor sucker come winter.

Back then, work actually worked for most people. Nowadays, with the economy like it is, people are lucky to find any work. Anyway, "Porky's Bear Facts" is an OK edition to the Looney Tunes series. Friz Freleng created a neater version of the grasshopper and ant story in 1942's "Foney Fables".

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

A relatively early cartoon from Friz Freleng, 'Porky's Bear Facts' seems to be a loose take featuring Porky Pig on the fable 'The Grasshopper and the Ants'. 'Porky's Bear Facts' may not be one of Freleng's best cartoons (his best period being the 50s, which saw a fair share of classics) or see him on the most top of forms, but it is not one of the finding-his-feet quality of his earlier cartoons, even if his style was stronger and more refined later. It's very nicely done, with amusing and well timed, if never hilarious, moments and also messaging that resonates still today.

Porky is amusing and likeable but rather underused for a titular character. His foil is more interesting and funnier, but admittedly they do work well together.

While a good one, the story is slight and occasionally lacks momentum.

Mel Blanc's voice acting as ever shows how amazing and multi-talented a voice actor he was, showing a knack for bringing an individuality and different personalities to every character he voiced (a vast majority of the time being multiple characters in the same cartoon.

Animation is excellent, it's fluid in movement, crisp in shading and very meticulous in detail. Freleng directs solidly.

Ever the master, Carl Stalling's music is typically superb. It is as always lushly orchestrated, full of lively energy and characterful in rhythm, not only adding to the action but also enhancing it.

Overall, very well done though falling short of greatness. 8/10 Bethany Cox

"Porky's Bear Facts" is a reworking of the old Aesop tale of "The Grasshopper and the Ant". In this case, the industrious one is farmer Porky and the neighbor, a bear, is lazy and does nothing to grow crops to last him and his farm animals through the winter. The only thing left is a single bean...and the mouse soon steals it. So what's the dopey bear to do?

The plot here is a bit preachy, though some of this is offset by the dark turn when the bear is about to eat his pet dog! But fortunately, something intervenes....and this is the sight of Porky enjoying a delicious meal.

Overall, a mildly interesting but only occasionally funny cartoon. Not bad...but it's essentially one long cartoon for just one joke at the end. This, combined with second-rate animation (for Looney Tunes), it's one that is easy to enjoy...or skip.