PORKY’S ROAD RACE (1937)
Article 5302 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-19-2016
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Featuring the voices of Elvia Allman, Dave Barry, Billy Bletcher
Country: USA
What it is: Porky Pig cartoon

Porky enters a road race. Will he win?

Porky Pig = Anthropomorphic animal, but he’s the only one in this cartoon. So who are the other racers? They’re a wide assortment of stars of the period, and though I can’t name them all, we get Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo (her feet, anyway), Charles Laughton (as Captain Bligh), Clark Gable, etc. However, to up the fantastic content, we get a character named Borax Karoff as the Frankenstein Monster, and he’s the villain of the piece (as you might expect), so we get a little horror into the mix as well. Actually, it’s a good thing this one is swimming with stars to add to the fun; the jokes aren’t particularly inspiring this time round. In fact, the best joke may be the opening blurb, which emphasizes the fact that the cartoon is pure fiction and that the characters within have no connection with real people.