PORKY THE WRESTLER (1937)
Article 5308 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-28-2016
Directed by Tex Avery
Featuring the voice of Joe Dougherty
Country: USA
What it is: Early Warner Brothers cartoon, Tex Avery style

Porky is mistaken for a wrestler and thrown in the ring to battle a huge foe.

There are several anthropomorphic animals in this one, and if this weren’t a Tex Avery cartoon, that would probably be the total fantastic content here. But since this is a Tex Avery cartoon, there’s always a chance that the jokes could become so outrageously strange that it turns into a virtual fantasy. That moment happens here after the huge wrestler swallows someone’s pipe, and then proceeds to go into an imitation of a locomotive, a gag that starts sending its tendrils in some positively surreal situations. It’s not Avery at his best (he had to leave Warners before that would happen), but it’s still very good for a thirties Warners cartoon, and it was certainly a lot more fun than the previous Porky Pig cartoon I saw. Outside of the train gags, the best gag is a running one involving one wrestler’s unpronounceable name.