ChikPapa
Very disappointed :(
Teringer
An Exercise In Nonsense
ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
TheLittleSongbird
Porky Pig, while with a tendency to be overshadowed by funnier and more interesting adversaries or supporting characters, is still a likable and amusing character. 'Porky and Teabiscuit' is not one of his best cartoons but is decent enough and passes the time amiably.The second half is better than the first half. The second half is dominated by the race, which is where 'Porky and Teabiscuit' really does come to life, with the wildness, insane looniness, imagination and razor-sharp wit one expects from Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies being hugely entertaining and thrilling. The first half is less good, the draggy pacing doesn't have the lustre as seen later on and it does try a little too hard to be cute and it feels a little mawkish. Porky is likable enough if also a bit bland.Animation on the other hand is great. The black and white colours are lovingly done, the drawing is fluid and smooth and the backgrounds have some very nice detail. The music score by Carl Stalling is bursting with lively character, beautiful orchestration, clever instrumentation and an unmatched ability to enhance the action and elevate material to a greater level.While stronger in the second half, 'Porky and Teabiscuit' is fun and witty enough and Mel Blanc as ever does a fantastic job with the voice work in multiple roles, all given completely different identities and voices from one another.On the whole, not one of my favourites and somewhat uneven but still worth watching. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Lee Eisenberg
Following his debut in the 1935 Merrie Melody "I Haven't Got a Hat", Porky Pig mostly starred in hokey Looney Tunes until the early 1940s (Chuck Jones's "Old Glory" may have been Porky's only cartoon during this period that constituted anything more than a series of childish gags; I think that it was also Porky's only appearance in Merrie Melody during this period)."Porky and Teabiscuit" was one of the hokey ones. While it did follow the theme of casting Porky as the underdog, it doesn't have much clever. Not that it isn't worth seeing (there are a few neat gags). But I suspect that most people will agree that if Leon Schlesinger Productions hadn't started giving Porky roles with greater complexity, then that would have quickly been all for him, folks. This one is OK, not great.PS: directors Cal Dalton and Ben Hardaway headed what had been Friz Freleng's unit. Freleng worked at MGM from 1937 to 1939, returning to Warner Bros. when MGM canceled the series that he had been directing. Ben Hardaway's nickname was Bugs, and he submitted a drawing of a rabbit titled "Bug's Bunny". You can probably guess what happened from there.
ccthemovieman-1
Little did these animators know how famous "Seabiscuit" would become almost 70 years later, thanks to a best-selling book and feature movie about the great horse of the '30s.Anyway, we see a fairly young Porky Pig in this cartoon, a kid who works for his dad Phineas (who stutters the same as Porky). The "kid" loves horse racing and races his little toy horse - yet he's old enough to drive a car! Oh, well.He goes into town to deliver feed to the stables at the track and collect $11 for it. Then, he accidentally winds up purchasing an old, broken-down horse, "Teabuscuit" for the 11 bucks. Oh, man, his pop is going to kill him when he finds out.However, you just know something will work out, that the old beat-up but face-liking likable horse will do something good to bail out Porky.This winds up being a "cute" cartoon, more than it is funny. The actual race was wild and insane, but not really anything that would provoke a big laugh. It's a passable animated short, decent but nothing great.
Robert Reynolds
This short is one of the earlier Porky Pig shorts and falls into the "Porky as a kid" category, which was a fairly frequent gimmick in the first few years. There may be spoilers in my remarks below: In a few Porky shorts featuring Porky as a child, the plot device of "Porky is given money by his dad, with strict orders to do something specific, but something goes haywire" was used. This was one of those shorts, which are fairly predictable. Our hero winds up buying (by Standard Accident # 43 in the Cartoonist's Handbook) a horse which would fail the physical at a glue factory. Given that our hero doesn't relish the idea of returning home for a trip to the woodshed, he decides to enter a race to win the prize money, so he can go home covered in glory rather than fertilizer.Our hero lucks out, in spite of troubles, travails and trombones, passes "Go", collects his $11 and his horse is happy in the end as well and on his way to audition for John Philip Sousa.This short is on Looney Toons Golden Collection, Vol 3. Though it's largely a routine and by-the-numbers cartoon, it is worth seeing and the Collection is excellent. Recommended.
