Porky’s Garden (1937)
Article 5496 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-9-2017
Directed by Tex Avery
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc, Earl Hodgins, Charles Judels
Country: USA
What it is: Porky Pig cartoon

Porky gets into a competition with his Italian neighbor as to who is going to win first prize at the county fair for the largest product.

This one is pretty marginal when it comes to the fantastic content, but when the cartoon came up with three moments that pushed the envelope a bit, I went ahead and decided to review it. The first moment has Porky using hair tonic to make his garden grow huge vegetables. The second moment has a baby chick eating spinach and getting super-strength; yes, I know that I rejected that in the Popeye cartoons themselves, but I was amused enough by the fact that the chick turns into a miniature version of Popeye (thereby having the cartoon parody a character from another studio) to let it pass in this case. The third item is when a huckster hawks weight loss pills that are powerful enough to turn an elephant into a mouse. On a side note, I can’t help but notice how the neighbor looks like a big version of Mario. It’s nice to see one of Tex Avery’s earlier works here, but he didn’t really hit his stride until he moved to MGM. All in all, this is an okay Porky Pig cartoon.