JEEPERS CREEPERS (1939)
Article 4611 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-24-2014
Directed by Robert Clampett
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Pinto Colvig
Country: USA
What it is: Porky Pig cartoon

Porky is a cop who is ordered to investigate noises in a nearby haunted house. There he encounters a ghost.

This isn’t quite a top-of-the-line Warner Brother’s cartoon, but it is very solid and has a few really good gags. One of my favorite moments has Porky trying to slam the door on the ghost only to discover the door passes right through the ghost. The gag itself is a bit on the obvious side, I suppose, but it’s a wonderful example of the studio’s split-second timing; you’re given just enough time for the joke to happen and to register before the action moves on. Another gag involves the ghost sliding down a banister in a rush to answer a knock at the door; he gets almost all the way to the bottom, stops, slides back up, and informs the viewer that there’s someone at the door, the joke being, of course, that we already know that. It’s these types of gags and the exquisite timing that was already beginning to set Warner Brothers apart from their animated competition. I do have to wonder, though, why the ghost (which, being what he is, is scary enough) decides to concoct an elaborate gag involving frogs placed in empty shoes in order to scare Porky.