PORKY’S POPPA (1938)
Article 4788 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-25-2015
Directed by Robert Clampett
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Robert Clampett
Country: USA
What it is: Warner Brothers cartoon

When Porky’s father gets a mechanical cow, Porky tries his best to get the old cow on the farm to produce more milk so she won’t be turned into hamburgers.

Warner Brothers hadn’t quite hit their stride yet, and this isn’t one of their better known Porky Pig cartoons, but it’s one of those cartoons where you can see where the studio was going. The most interesting thing about this one is the speed with which it trots out its various gags; you’re barely through with one gag and they’ve already started on the next, starting with a parody of “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and ending with a furious chase scene where both cows vie for all the hay on the farm. I quite like that some of the gags are unexpected and rather bizarre. It’s also nice that the mechanical cow adds some further fantastic content on top of the usual anthropomorphic animals. There’s a duck who bears a little resemblance to Daffy, though his voice (Robert Clampett) sounds more like Donald. All in all, this was a fun watch.