''Porky's Preview'' is a

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation.

'' cartoon directed by

Tex Avery Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American a ...

. The short was released on April 19, 1941, and stars

Porky Pig Porky Pig is an animated character in the Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his celebrity, star power, and the animators created ma ...

Plot

has arranged the screening of a film in a

film theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

for an audience of barnyard animals. The public goes to the ticket booth. A chicken buys tickets for herself and her three "children" (eggs). A

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

tears the tickets (and even the hand that holds it) and throws them in his pouch. A firefly usher leads the audience with his hindquarters as a bright lamp. A

skunk Skunks are mammals in the family Mephitidae. They are known for their ability to spray a liquid with a strong, unpleasant scent from their anal glands. Different species of skunk vary in appearance from black-and-white to brown, cream or ginge ...

has a "scent" (pun on smelling it, and 1 cent of a dollar) and cannot enter, so he goes through the back door. On stage Porky presents the film he made himself. The accompanying music is a version of the flickering that usually introduced cartoons of Looney Tunes. The film turns out to be a series of small sketches of primitive characters drawn with stick figures, minimalist, with settings that seem to have been penciled by a child. After the film, Porky is surprised to see the theatre in shambles. The only audience remaining is the skunk (whose presence drove away everyone else). The skunk enthusiastically applauds Porky's film.

Analysis

The basic premise of the film is that a 7-year-old Porky has created a "homemade"

animated cartoon Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

, and demonstrates it to an audience willing to pay an admission fee. The artistic skills of the

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

are minimal, so the

film within a film A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes c ...

is depicted in a very simple style. Effectively serving as a parody of its

art form The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

. All

fictional character In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, ...

s within it are drawn as

stick figure A stick figure, also known as a stickman, is a very simple drawing of a person or an animal, composed of a few lines, curves, and dots. On a stick figure, the head is most often represented by a circle, which can be either a solid color or som ...

s, while the animation style is reminiscent of a

flip book A flip book, flipbook, flicker book, or kineograph is a booklet with a series of images that very gradually change from one page to the next, so that when the pages are viewed in quick succession, the images appear to animate by simulating moti ...

. For this film within a film,

uses a series of

blackout gag A blackout gag is a kind of joke in broad, rapid-fire slapstick comedy. The term is derived from burlesque and vaudeville, when the lights were quickly turned off after the punchline of a joke to accentuate it and/or allow for audience laughter. ...

Carl Stalling Carl William Stalling (November 10, 1891 – November 29, 1972) was an American composer, voice actor and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' shorts produced by War ...

accompanies each joke with a tune already familiar to the audience. Among them are ''

La Cucaracha La Cucaracha ("The Cockroach") is a popular Mexican folk song about a cockroach who cannot walk. The song's origins are unclear, but it dates back at least to the 1910s during the Mexican Revolution. The song belongs to the Mexican genre. The s ...

'' (first mentioned c. 1819), " Aloha ʻOe" (1878), "

The Old Gray Mare "The Old Gray Mare" is an American folk song, more recently regarded as a children's song. History Some authors have said that the song originated based upon the performance of the horse Lady Suffolk, the first horse recorded as trotting a mile i ...

" (written between 1875 and 1895), "

Frat A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, " brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity ...

" (1910, a frequent Warner cartoon staple) and "

September in the Rain "September in the Rain" is a popular song about nostalgia by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, published in 1937. The song was introduced by James Melton in the film '' Melody for Two''. It has become a standard, having been recorded by many artists ...

" (from a 1937 Warner film and sung by an

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jews, Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-bi ...

imitator). Stalling also parodies the typical music score of shorts produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons. The credits of the film within a film make use of ''

The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin and published by Harms Inc., New York. It is best known as the theme tune for the ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon series and ''Merrie Melodies'' reissued cartoon ...

'' (1937), but the familiar tune is simplified, giving the impression that it is played by an

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

. A number of notes are repeated, in the style of a

broken record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove ...

which repeats over and over. The film includes some references to war. When a skunk approaches the

box office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicke ...

, the lady working there wears a

gas mask A gas mask is a mask used to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft tissues of the face. Most gas mask ...

to endure its scent. The

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

of Porky is marked as

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

No. .

Reception

The Film Daily ''The Film Daily'' was a daily publication that existed from 1918 to 1970 in the United States. It was the first daily newspaper published solely for the film industry. It covered the latest trade news, film reviews, financial updates, informatio ...

'' called the short a "fair cartoon", saying, "Some of the characterizations are amusing... Rate it as just fair."

Television Edits

The "September In The Rain" clip has been removed from

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...

, and a few VHS prints in the United States due to its racist content.

References

External links

* *
''Porky's Preview'' (Colorized) on the Internet Archive
{{Tex Avery 1941 films 1941 animated films 1940s American animated films 1940s animated short films Looney Tunes shorts Films directed by Tex Avery Films set in a movie theatre Porky Pig films Films scored by Carl Stalling American black-and-white films