''Porky's Preview'' is a

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

'' 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 America ...

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

Porky Pig Porky Pig is a cartoon 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 man ...

Plot

has arranged the screening of a film in a film theater for an audience of

barnyard A barnyard or farmyard is an enclosed or open yard adjoining a barn,Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009. Barn. n. and, typically, related farm buildings, including a farmhouse. Enclosed ...

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

kangaroo Kangaroos are 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 gi ...

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 figure Stick Figure is an American reggae and dub band founded in 2005. The group has released eight full-length albums and one instrumental album (Prince Fatty Presents), all of which were written and produced by frontman and self-taught multi-instr ...

s, 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 filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

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

is depicted in a very simple style. Effectively serving as a parody of its art form. All fictional characters within it are drawn as stick figures, 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 encourage audience laughter. It ...

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 folk song about a cockroach who cannot walk. The song's origins are Spanish, but it became popular in the 1910s during the Mexican Revolution. The modern song has been adapted using the Mexican genr ...

'' (first mentioned c. 1819), "

Aloha ʻOe "" ("Farewell to Thee") is a Hawaiian folk song written by Queen "Lydia" Liliʻuokalani, who was then Princess of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It is her most famous song and is a common cultural symbol for Hawaii. Background The story of the ori ...

" (1878), " The Old Gray Mare" (written between 1875 and 1895), " Frat" (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 sin ...

" (from a 1937 Warner film and sung by an

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and ...

imitator). Stalling also parodies the typical music score of shorts produced by

Warner Bros. Cartoons Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was ...

. 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 carto ...

'' (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 a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, ...

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, wicket. ...

, the lady working there wears a

gas mask A gas mask is a piece of personal protective equipment 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 ...

to endure its scent. The

self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

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 v ...

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, informati ...

'' 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 (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

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

References

External links

* * {{Tex Avery 1941 films 1940s American animated films Looney Tunes shorts Films directed by Tex Avery Animated films set in a movie theatre Porky Pig films Films scored by Carl Stalling American animated black-and-white films 1941 animated short films