Little Beau Porky (1936)

Porky is not one of WB/Looney Tunes' strongest or funniest characters and his effectiveness as a lead character has been a mixed bag but he is likable and works very well as a support character with other stronger personalities. Here he takes on a lead role, and is quite funny and endearing. And Little Beau Porky has a huge amount to enjoy, Frank Tashlin was a great if underrated animation director and you can see that clearly. It does have a couple of drawbacks, the pacing is not always consistent with a build up that sets things up a little too slowly and a slightly rushed ending and somehow it does feel odd without the presence of Mel Blanc, Joe Dougherty tries his best as Porky but his stutter has always been overdone to me. The Arab stereotyping will go either way too, I personally wasn't offended but others might. The animation is fluid, well drawn and shaded/coloured with care. The camera angles are very clever and are the prime reason why Tashlin is deserving of more recognition. Carl Stalling's music score is lush and full of character, accentuating every gag and character gesture, and the dialogue even early on has freshness and sharpness. The gags come thick and fast at a wild pace, there are a healthy amount and all of them are funny, the best particularly with the camel uproarious. The pacing is generally solid, and the story while a tad predictable entertains, while the supporting characters compliment Porky well(especially Ali Mode). Billy Bletcher provides witty vocals. All in all, hugely enjoyable though Porky has done better. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Frank Tashlin's 'Little Beau Porky' is an enjoyable cartoon that showcases Tashlin's skill as a director with some trademark extreme close-ups, fast moving action and deft storytelling. Casting Porky as a member of the foreign legion who must protect the fort against the villainous Ali Mode single handed, 'Little Beau Porky' moves at quite a lick once it gets going. The build up is fairly slow but contains some great sequences including Porky's grilling by his commanding officer and an uneasy game of Echo through the fort entrance. It all comes to a satisfying if predictable climax making 'Little Beau Porky' a very enjoyable cartoon. A final noteworthy point is that 'Little Beau Porky' contains the roots of two other, superior cartoons. The camel in this short is clearly a forerunner for Humpty Bumpty from Bob Clampett's completely bonkers 'Porky in Egypt' while the evil Ali Mode is extremely similar to the frightening Lawyer Goodwill from the following year's 'The Case of the Stuttering Pig', one of Tashlin's great masterpieces.

Directed by Frank Tashlin (billed as "Frank Tash"), "Little Beau Porky" is a fairly good Warner Bros. cartoon starring Porky Pig, even though he is not the Porky we are more familiar with (and he was not yet voiced by Mel Blanc), but we love him just the same. In this film, Porky is a bumbling, incompetent, fearful, yet determined soldier in the French Foreign Legion, way out in the bleak desert. When a messenger informs the commanding officer (a pompous, humorously accented bulldog with numerous bell-chiming medals) that Ali Mode and his Riff Raffs plan to attack their army, the unlikely Porky manages to save the day in a severe test of his fortitude.Two highlights: First, the commanding officer angrily addresses Porky, who is the only officer not properly standing at attention; Porky exerts his usual uncontrollable stutter when he asks "Who? Me?", and the commander hilariously imitates Porky's stutter when he answers, "Yes, you!" And second, Porky learns that trying to scrub the commander's camel can be quite an ordeal, because every time Porky climbs the ladder to scrub the camel's humps, the camel hunkers down, and every time Porky climbs down, the camel stands up; Carl Stalling's music score greatly accentuates this rapid "seesaw" effect between Porky and the uncooperative camel, with Porky eventually breaking the ladder."Little Beau Porky" is a nice, enjoyable little cartoon. In typical fashion for director Frank Tashlin, the final battle sequence features a lot of rapid camera-cutting and a conglomerate of wild sight gags. Everything happens almost TOO quickly during this finale, but no matter. The battle scene is full of Tashlin's energy and spirit, which is just what this cartoon needs in order to end with a bang!

This short has Porky as a military man, with the job of scrubbing camels and not much else. Because I want to discuss this in a little detail, this is a spoiler warning: Porky Pig is a soldier in the Foreign Legion, though he isn't a terribly good one. He's given the assignment of scrubbing the Commandant's camel and the camel outwits him badly! When the command is ordered out to track down and capture the dreaded Ali Mode, Porky is contemptuously left behind as a "camel scrubber".Naturally, once the command rides out, where do Ali Mode and his men decide to attack? If you said "The fort where Porky is", you get a gold star for your paper. Ali Mode first tries to trick Porky and when that fails, starts issuing orders in Pig-Latin to his followers.What follows is a very well animated series of combat gags, including a few repeat gags (one poor guy really needs to move away from his spot next to the well) and culminating in the capture of Ali Mode by Porky and the camel, who work in tandem for once. The dialog coming from Ali Mode is hilarious! The cartoon ends with Porky and the camel getting their well-earned reward. This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is well worth having. Recommended.