158. Porky’s Romance (1937)

Release date: April 3rd, 1937

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Frank Tashlin

Starring: Joe Dougherty (Porky), Shirley Reed (Petunia), Mel Blanc (Excited Petunia), William Royale (Announcer), Three Dots of Rhythm (Chorus)

I’ve been looking forward to reviewing this since the day I first typed my review for Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid.

First off, this cartoon means a lot to me. It’s the first one I checked out on my own accord. I caught wind of who Carl Stalling was and wanted to listen to a piece of his music to familiarize myself. I saw his Depression era compilation of music on Youtube, and included was the opening number for this cartoon, which absolutely blew me away. 

I looked up the cartoon and watched it and instantly fell in love. Porky was fat! Porky has a different voice actor! Porky was INTERESTING! Porky was killing himself! I had never seen anything like it, so it holds a special place in my heart. 

I had a vague idea of some directors, like Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones, but had no idea who the hell this “Frank Tash” guy was. But after watching it, I knew i’d love him. And I do! 

Model sheet.

Secondly, this is Joe Dougherty’s final appearance. While Mel is undoubtedly the better Porky, I’ve really come to appreciate Joe. He gets a hard time because he had a real stutter, and one of the repeated criticisms I see is that it sounds too overdone. True as that may be, he couldn’t help it, and I applaud him for working as long as he did. I mean, a little over 2 years, that’s a decent amount of time! And he does have talent. We’ve seen and heard much worse. So I’m a little sad to see him go, but excited at the same time knowing wonderful things are ahead.

I love this particular era in Looney history. There’s this sense of newness and freshness—new voices, new characters, new directors. You feel the change happening before your very eyes. It’s all so exciting! 

I’ve rambled enough, and I’m certainly going to ramble much more, so buckle up! After Petunia Pig rejects Porky’s marriage proposal, Porky seeks a noose for comfort. When the suicide attempt goes wrong, he’s then launched into a dream sequence about their potential marriage life… and realizes marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

This cartoon has a unique opening to it. Before the title card itself, we are presented with “Leon Schlesinger’s new Looney Tunes star: Petunia Pig!” 

Curtains draw to reveal Petunia positioned in front of a microphone. Yes, this is Petunia‘s first appearance! She has quite an interesting history. She appears only in 3 Frank Tashlin cartoons, where she was depicted as a sultry, sexy foil for the bumbling, not very sexy Porky. Bob Clampett would adopt her in 1939 and make her to be much cuter, giving her hair and a much more naïve demeanor. She hardly has any cartoons at all, yet somehow managed to live on through the Dell Looney Tunes comics and in future Looney iterations.

Petunia greets her audience warmly, opening with “My public! I hope you pictured my liking–i mean, I hope you lictured my picking… I mean… i–” Overcome by nerves, Petunia struggles to read the script in front of her and greet the audience. This little bit was inspired by the short lived 1936-1937 radio program Community Sing, which Tashlin would dedicate an entire cartoon to later this year with The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos. 

The offscreen announcer attempts to calm her down. “Shhh, Petunia  Don’t get excited, don’t get excited…” Petunia’s furious outburst (vocals by Mel Blanc, of course) of “EXCITED!? WHO’S EXCITED?? I’M NOT EXCITED!!!” comes from comedian professor Tommy Mack, who would do the same slow routine and then the explosion with the “WHO’S EXCITED?” line. The same line would be reused by Gabby Goat in Porky and Gabby.

The curtains close on Petunia  and then we’re actually greeted with the title card. An absolutely stellar rendition of “I Wanna Woo” underscores the title and the opening scene. A happy Porky whistles along to the music as we have a montage of him buying necessities for Petunia. A diamond ring, some roses, some chocolates. What a good guy! I love the visuals in this cartoon. Everything is so sleek and modern–it’s evident Tashlin was enamored with the Art Deco style. And that song again is just beautiful–it’s why I investigated this cartoon in the first place! 

Porky finishes his routine as he approaches Petunia’s house, dancing up and down the stairs before ringing the doorbell. I love that face of his as he poses by the doorbell, throwing his bouquet in the air and catching them in his hand. He’s awfully full of himself.

Inside, Petunia approaches the door, her brat of a dog Fluffnuma by her side. For some reason, Fluffnums was attempted to be pushed as a reoccurring character, with model sheets and drawings of him surfacing around the studio, I guess for publicity, but he only appeared in this cartoon. Same goes for the iceman in I only have eyes for you (his name is Sammy Sparrow?) and the parrot in I Wanna be a Sailor. 

Petunia opens the top portion of her door to see her visitor, and we see cocky old Porky posing with his hat hilariously tipped on his face. Petunia isn’t very pleased, turning her nose and marching away, stomping her foot. “Porky Pig! Pooh-pooh!” In the same rhythm, the dog barks the same amount of syllables, stomping its little paw. Warm welcome.

A lovely, downtrodden chorus underscores Porky as he trudges away tearfully, wilting, pausing only to kiss Petunia’s nameplate on her house. Suddenly, Fluffnums looks out the window and barks for Petunia. 

“What is it, Fluffnums?” Then, Petunia spots the box of chocolates porky carries along behind his back. We then get this BEHEMOTH of a scene that displays how tasteful of a director frank tashlin is: 6.5 seconds, 157 frames, 10 cuts. Petunia rushes out of her house at the speed of light and urges Porky back inside her home. The scene has CLARITY–you can understand what’s happening, unlike the rapid cutting in Porky in the North Woods. This scene is genius. Petunia throws a dazed Porky on her couch while she gorges herself on the chocolates, cooing about how glad she is to see him.

Mark Kausler identifies the animator as Volney White (though the thick eyebrows make me think of Bob Bentley) for the scene where Porky tries to reach for a chocolate himself. Fluffnums, ever the threatening guard dog, growls. We have a great back and forth scene as Porky sheepishly pets the dog on the head, reaching for a chocolate and still getting growled at. The charade continues until Porky finally snatches one, sticking his tongue out in childish defiance at the dog. As Porky lifts up his trophy, winking towards the audience at his act of outsmarting, the dog jumps up and eats the chocolate himself, breaking a hole in Porky’s boater hat in the process. 

Seeing as this is Joe Dougherty’s last cartoon, he doesn’t speak very much at all. In this scene, the animators had Porky facing AWAY from the audience so they wouldn’t have to animate his lip movements. It was pretty clear that everyone was tired of working for Dougherty. 

Instead, Porky’s body jitters as he speaks. They used a technique called staggered exposure, which was mixing up a sequence of drawings to get that jittery effect (so instead of going in a sequence of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and so forth, it would be more like 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and so on.) 

“Why, Petunia, I want you… you.. you to.. be in love.. that is.. um.. will you.. uh… er, uh.. may I.. that is… won’t you… will you… aw, shucks. Will you marry me?” 

Just as Porky finally manages to spit out his confession, disaster strikes. Petunia’s bastard of a dog pulls the carpet out from under Porky, sending him flipping and falling in the air. Because of this, Petunia ridicules and laughs at him. Porky is now absolutely devastated, leaving Petunia‘s house for good. I love the detail of his ears and bow tie wilting. Carl Stalling’s music is on point in this cartoon: an underscore of “The Little Things You Used to Do” backs up the scene here. That song was sung at the end of The Coo-Coo Nut Grove, where the entire nightclub was flooded in tears.

The next scene is strikingly somber and surprised me greatly the first time I watched it. We iris in on Porky writing a suicide note, a noose tied around his neck, tied to a tree branch. The note simply reads “Dear Petunia, I love you. Goodbye forever – Porky”. The camera panning out is a little janky and rough, but I digress. Porky wipes away his tears, pulling a photo of Petunia from his pocket and giving it a kiss. With that, Porky jumps.

Because of his weight, the suicide attempt fails as the tree branch breaks, Porky toppling to the ground and hitting his head. Thus launches a dream sequence as his surroundings spin around (by unscrewing the lens of the camera, screwing it (counter)clockwise in front of the aperture), melting away to the exterior of a church. 

Wedding bells chime victoriously. Inside, Petunia and Porky give their vows. Porky struggles, stuttering “I d-d-d…. I-d..d-” the officiator whistles (a Dougherty era running gag), and Porky spits out his final “do.” 

More Volney White animation as the lovebirds exit the church, waving to the crowd that surrounds them. And, of course, Fluffnums is there too, begrudgingly carrying Petunia’s veil in its mouth.

We cut to Porky and Petunia happily riding in their car, a victorious JUST MARRIED banner waving in the wind, with shoes attached to strings on the bumper marching along in time to “In My Merry Oldsmobile”, a gag reused from Earl Duvall’s Honeymoon Hotel. Porky’s license plate reads BOOB – a good indicator of how Frank Tashlin felt about Porky.

A lovely overhead layout of the honeymoon hotel Porky and Petunia stay at. The elevator rises to the top floor in syncopation with the music. A nice silhouette shot of Porky and Petunia, and rather suggestive at that. They kiss, and the last we see before a fade out is Porky turning off the light in the apartment.

Billy Bletcher voices the narrator as a triumphant fanfare blares. “TIME… MUNCHES ON!” There are some rather disconcerting eating noises, and then we open to a very rotund Petunia and Fluffnums gorging themselves on chocolate. Not the most flattering depiction of a woman, but the ironic “laughing” of the clarinets and horns playing “Oh, You Beautiful Doll!” is a wonderful touch. I love when the scores themselves serve as jokes. 

Pan across the apartment, the score melting into another rendition of “I Wanna Woo” as we see poor Porky hard at work. I adore the layout of this entire scene. Porky busies himself with all the odd jobs Petunia has (presumably) thrown onto him, washing the clothes, ironing a dress, cooking the food, washing the dishes. He unsuccessfully attempts to balance the chaos, trying not to kill himself in the process. 

Pay attention to how the furniture is arranged. The stove, the sink, even the ironing board, they’re all slightly diagonal and at an angle. Practical? Absolutely not, no one has their furniture arranged like that, just jutting out. But in animation terms, it’s more than practical. It’s so that you can see the details clearly, so that you can see every little thing happening. The clarity of the scene would be muddied if the furniture was arranged the way it should be–you may miss details like the pan burning on the stove or the looming pile of dishes. This is some super smart staging, and the architecture is just beautiful within itself. 

Porky struggles to keep up with the demands, but fails, burning food, clothes, etc. You’ll notice that when he fails to balance a pile of dishes, the china crashing into him as he flops down on the floor, whatever he’s cooking in the pot boils over as well. Everything just explodes at once. 

Meet Porky Pig Jr., Porky Pig Jr., Porky Pig Jr., Porky Pig Jr.,  Porky Pig Jr., Porky Pig Jr., Porky Pig Jr., Porky Pig Jr., and so on. All of the babies start screaming at the noise (Bob Bentley animation), and Petunia puts in her two cents by yelling “Porky Pig! Shut those kids up!” 

Porky rocks one of the cradles back and forth, reassuring her “I’m doing the best I can, Petunia dear.” Petunia marches forth, wielding a rolling pin as she Porky “Don’t dear me, you WORM!” With that, she beats porky relentlessly over the head with the rolling pin, all of the kids shouting “GIVE IT TO HIM, MAMA! GIVE IT TO HIM!”.

Finally, we’re met with reality. Porky sits in a daze on the ground, Petunia stroking his cheek with Fluffnums at Porky’s other side. Petunia puts on her best sympathy act, cooing “Oh Porky, i’m so so-ree! You’re my honey man. I’ll marry you, darling, honey bunny boo…” 

While Petunia showers porky in all sorts of pet names, he looks up at his suicide note, remembering his dream where Petunia was an abusive slob. They had trouble with the camera movements again–when they came out of the dissolve, the camera was in the wrong position slightly, creating a double image.

This is one of my favorite endings to any Looney Tunes short. A terrified Porky jumps up at zips away into the horizon (with that great electric guitar zoom/twang sound effect I love so much), Petunia shrugging and Fluffnums making a ! mark appear over its head. Suddenly, Porky retreats, snagging his chocolates from petunia and running for the hills. A beat… and he returns once more, only to give Fluffnums a well deserved swift kick in the ass. The music score in this scene is just lovely, nice and jazzy. The timing is succinct, and I love the guitar zoom sound effect. Iris out.

As you can see, I love this short, a lot. While I also love The Blow Out, I think this is my first true favorite that we’ve seen so far. It’s so dark, and I don’t even like dark stuff! It just feels so different. Carl Stalling is in tip top shape with his music scores. Every single piece is lovely, especially that beginning. The animation is fun, the expressions are great. I wish I could articulate my thoughts better, because I really adore this cartoon a lot. I’m super happy it was one of the first I had seen, because I probably wouldn’t be typing these reviews had I not. 

Frank Tashlin’s cinematography is STRONG in this one. The camera cuts, the angles… this is a beautiful cartoon, inside and out. I feel bad that it’s Joe Dougherty’s last appearance, but understand at the same time. Great things are ahead, revolutionary things! I’ve warmed up to him quite a lot. I’ve found nothing in terms of what he did after his tenure as Porky–Wikipedia (not reliable, I know) states that he attended medical school before becoming a voice actor, so good on him! 

Anyway, I absolutely love this cartoon and have seen it multiple, multiple, multiple, MULTIPLE times. It’s strikingly different in tone than what we’ve seen and what we WILL be seeing. It’s not just your everyday Frank Tashlin Porky cartoon. This one stands out, and I implore you to watch it. Though, of course. it does deal with some dark topics, (as to be expected with a cartoon about suicide) so exercise some caution going in. 

Link!