Gold Diggers of '49 (1935)

"Gold Diggers of '49" is just an average black-and-white Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Tex Avery. The time is July, 1849. Beans the cat and Porky Pig (not really the Porky we know today) go prospecting, and Beans hopes to marry Porky's daughter Kitty (!). Of course, there's a bad guy in the mix.My favorite scenes from "Gold Diggers of '49": I love how Porky gobbles up a gigantic sandwich and then shouts "YeeeeoWHOOPEE!" I also love hearing cartoon characters sing, even if it's only for a few seconds; a barbershop quartet harmonizes the final bars of "Sweet Adeline" before departing for the big gold strike. AND I like how Porky's long arm reaches in his own back pocket and keeps retrieving the same gold coin he found."Gold Diggers of '49" is okay, but Porky Pig fans will most likely be disappointed with it because Porky simply doesn't have the voice, the looks, or the personality that we are all familiar with. It would take a little while longer for the character to develop, and thank God that directors Tex Avery and Bob Clampett admired Porky so much that they had the desire to work with him.

Porky Pig's second appearance (and Tex Avery's directorial debut) does feature a few racial stereotypes, but overall, "Gold Diggers of '49" made me laugh. Set at the time of the 1849 California gold rush, Porky and Beans are prospectors, and Beans wants to marry Porky's daughter Kitty (the three characters got introduced in "I Haven't Got a Hat" earlier in 1935, and Porky looks as if he needs triple bypass surgery). Part of this involves Beans guarding a little something of Porky's.If you've seen any of Tex Avery's cartoons, then you should know what sorts of things to expect here. The gags aren't quite as zany as I might have hoped for, but I try to imagine how hilarious they must have looked the first time that moviegoers ever saw them. If absolutely nothing else, this should be of interest to cartoon fans as a look into the Termite Terrace crowd's early days. Worth seeing.As for the question of how a pig fathered a cat...well, in cartoons things don't have to make sense.

This is not another of those Warner Brothers cartoons kind of promoting their "Gold Digger" musicals of the 1930s, but a story about the real gold diggers of 1849. It stars "Beans," and takes place in "Goldville." Beans, trying to woo Porky Pig's daughter (who is not a pig), is out on the mountain when he strikes gold (via pulling a slot-machine-like arm!). He goes back into town and tells everyone.From that point, we mainly see Beans and Porky out digging for gold. A bad guys is nearby and he snags a bag full of gold. Porky tells Beans that if gets the bag back, he can marry his daughter. Beans hops into his jalopy and races up the hill, firing with a shotgun! Beans isn't really a funny guy but the cartoon has some good moments and the car is a real hoot. In the end, the bag of gold is only Porky's lunch, but that's gold to him!It certainly looks dated, but that's the case with most 1930s black-and-white cartoons, and sometimes that's just fine with me. This was a fast-paced, inventive cartoon.

It's 1849 and prospectors are searching for gold in Red Gulch. Our hero Beans finds it by way of a slot machine and inspires a small town to join the gold rush. There are lots of captions to move the story along, although they never explain what kind of animal Beans is. I suppose he look a bit like Felix the cat, but then most of the characters in the thirties did. Still the Warner brothers must have had high hopes for Beans, as he gets the honour of saying "That's all folks" at the end. Lots of silly animals appear, including an unnecessary barbershop quartet and a big fat pig who seems to be in charge of things. Could this slob really be Porky? He has the stutter, but that is the only recognizable feature.Enter the villain employing an impressive lasso gun to steal Porky's most prized possession. If beans gets it back Porky tells him he can literally have his daughter. Luckily for Beans the girl does not look like her father but seems to be of the same unidentified black and white species as our hero. The chase scene features some early examples of the kind of lunacy that would make Supervisor Fred (Tex) Avery famous in later years, but the pace is much slower. The art of animation was so new at this time, that just seeing funny animals riding mules and horses, driving cars and playing racial stereotypes was good enough for a laugh. 4 out of 10