A Cynical Take on The Grasshopper and the Ants - Porky's Bear Facts (1941) - Looney Tunes Review

[00:00:00]This 1941 short has a punchline writer Michael Maltiz would keep using for the next two decades. He figured it out early.

[00:00:10][music] [music] Hello and welcome to another Looney Tunes review video. If you are new to the channel, make sure you subscribe to follow my journey to review all 10,00 classic Looney Tunes shorts and give this video a like as well. So, this is a review for Porky's Bear Facts released in 1941. It's the 321st of the series and it's directed by Fris Freeling. As far as physical media goes, you can find this on the Porky Pig 101 DVD set which has all of the black and white Porky Pigs on there along with two color shorts. I have a link below to that set.

[00:00:48]It is unrestored there. It has since been restored, but at the time of this recording, it is not on physical media yet. It is in the public domain, so I'll have it playing for you at the end of this review. So, lucky you. But in case you haven't seen this one, this is pretty much a parody of the Grasshopper and the ants. So, you got Porky on one side with his farm. He's doing everything right, preparing for the winter, and you've got his neighbor who is a lazy bear, and everyone, including the animals, is lazy. Winter comes, and I'm sure you can realize what to expect.

[00:01:19]Again, you can see this at the end, but I do these synopsises for every review I do. So, a few bits of trivia. This one doesn't really have that much. It is your, I suppose, stock standard cartoon of the era, so no one's going to group this short in with what's opera do or anything like that. With that said, there is a few things here. You'll notice in the title cards the credit for Manny Perez, and this is the first time he is credited. In case you're not aware, during this period of time, they will just have one animator listed and it will be on a rotational basis. After this, they'll do different versions of title cards where they'll show multiple animators. There'll still be animators uncredited, like if they've only done one scene or something along those lines, but for now, you just have one animator that's rotated around on a single title card. Now, there is some misinformation around some credit Ted Pierce as voicing the bear. And I'll be honest with you, I can hear it. I thought it might have been him, too. So, I can understand how that mistake would have been made.

[00:02:16]>> Boy, is it freezing in here. This is the coldest I've ever been. Oh, pardon us.

[00:02:23]Were you having dinner? [snorts] Smells good. Now, don't don't let us, buddy.

[00:02:29]>> But according to Keith Scott's wonderful cartoon voices book, and I will link below in the description, Mel Blank actually provides all the voices in this short. And you do get Georgia Stark who did a lot of special Vex voices doing the whistling that you hear when the winter comes. So this is a short that I'm quite familiar with. So it's public domain. I've seen it so many times but in the colorized format. So a lot of you may have seen this one, but you might not have seen this one in its proper black and white format. And that's how these should be. They're made in black and white. They should stay in black and white full stop. I can understand nostalgia if you grew up with a colorized version, but really we've got the proper version right now. But I watched this one quite a bit and re-watching it again, I do get an absolute kick out of it. At this point in time, the main writer for Fris feeling is Michael Maltiz. And it's kind of an interesting mix. There's no question that the better director for Michael Maltiz was Chuck Jones, and that's pretty evident. But for now, we get a few of these interesting cartoons where you've got Michael Maltiz's way of writing, but mixed with Fris feelings direction. While I agree that Warren Foster was ultimately the best writer for Fris Freelink, at least here we get some stuff that's actually quite interesting to see. And what we'll do now is we'll go through the short from start to finish and I'll point out other references as we go along, including musical references and just some observations of Maltiz as a writer even at this period of time and how it compares to his later career writing for Chuck Jones. So yes, as we start off, we do get that direct satire of The Ant and the Grasshopper. If you aren't familiar with that, you have the ants. They're working very hard to prepare for the winter and you got the grasshopper saying, you know, hey, why are you working so hard? Life should be about play. But then the winter comes and the grasshopper, well, I'm sure you know what happens there. But the ending of this short is very interesting in that regard when it comes to the whole thing about the grasshopper and the ants, but we'll get to that soon. So, we see that Porky Pig is this hardworking farmer.

[00:04:25]He's plowing his land. And if you're wondering what song he's singing, it's as he sow, so so shall ye reap. Now try saying that fast 10 times. I mean, I certainly can't. And what Porgi sings is a parody of a real song. And that song is called The Girl with the Pigtails in Her Hair with music by Saul Chaplain and Sammy Khn. But here already we can see something that Malcolm Maltes would eventually do. If you watch a lot of the shorts he does with Chuck Jones, he actually takes a long time to establish things, but then the shorts become faster and faster paced. So the opening establishing scenes take the longest to breathe and then the chaotic gag heavy elements ramp up. The most famous example, just watch the hunting trilogy and that's exactly what happens. It starts fairly slow and the gags ramp up and it happens here too. Also, Porky's scene is relatively quick compared to the time we spend with the bear in the beginning. But if you listen closely to the music cue of Old McDonald, it's Kyle Stling having some fun here. So when we see Porky's Farm all nicely done up, getting worked on, we hear a very peppy rendition of Old McDonald.

[00:05:34]But then after the scene ends and we pan over to the farm next door, we get a very somber, lazy version of the tune.

[00:05:49]>> [music] >> But as far as directing goes in this beginning scene, you can definitely see elements of Fris Freeling's wonderful timing, especially when the chickens hatch those eggs and when Porky is stacking his shelves with those jars.

[00:06:01]And as a nice, beautiful little touch, we see the dog actually burying his bone in glass jar. And as a kid, I for some reason I got a kick out of that. I don't know why. It's not the funniest thing in the world, but hey, it's cute. But let's go over to the lazy neighbors. So, it's a lazy bear who seems to spend his summer loafing on his front porch with his equally lethargic dog. So, the bear is strumming a guitar singing working can wait. And that is actually a parody of the song Heaven Can Wait, which you might have heard in a few musical cues around this time. But yes, it is actually based on a song just like what Porky sings. But this scene is very slow. But thankfully the way it's directed and written, even though yes, it is slow, it is still done very well.

[00:06:44]We see a few literary references. So we see this mouse who will be part of a gag later on. He's reading a book that was very popular that was made into a movie around this time of mice and men and it was parodyied Looney Tunes as well, like in titles such as of Rice and Hen and that sort of thing. But I love the voice that Mel Blank picks for this mouse.

[00:07:00]I've always thought it was hilarious.

[00:07:02]>> Darling, it's true.

[00:07:05]This is paradise. But my favorite bit maybe in this whole short, I don't know.

[00:07:10]I've got a few bits I really enjoy in this, but just how lethargic this dog is. So, we see this cat who's equally lethargic just walking past and the way Mel Blank does the bark at this cat walking past. My goodness, that just kills me, man. I would love to be a fly on the wall on the recording for that particular bit, you you know, and even things like the dog also eyeing a fly and he's just so lazy. He just uses his ears. He's just too lazy. I love that. So, we see a few more gags. We see the chickens play a game. Some might look at this and go that it's Scrabble, but Scrabble wouldn't be actually trademarked in terms of its name, at least until 1948.

[00:07:53]I'm actually not even sure what this game is. If it is Scrabble, it'd be known as Chris Crosswords. But if you guys are more familiar with what this game would be, definitely let me know.

[00:08:02]And then we see a cow reading Ferdinand the Bull. Maybe that's her equivalent of a romance novel. I don't know. But Fernand the Bull, it's another tale. And funnily enough, a year or so before this, Disney released their own short on Ferdinand the Bulls. That's a great one to watch if you haven't seen it. But we've established each farm and how they're both preparing or not preparing for winter. And we're nearly halfway.

[00:08:23]That's how long this whole scene takes.

[00:08:26]But I don't know. I think it's quite fun. I have seen some reviews where people don't like this short as much.

[00:08:32]Maybe nostalgia playing part of it. I don't know. But I think the structure works pretty well. So we see that the winter arrives, the season change, and we're now going to see the harsh consequences of laziness. And this winter looks absolutely brutal. And you got to wonder, how has this bear never experienced a winter in his life? But then again, as we get to the end of the short, maybe this is a cycle thing that he does this every winter, I don't know.

[00:08:55]So while Porky is snug, he's got plenty to eat. The bear and the hound, they're trapped in their rundown freezing shack with absolutely no food. There's a nice little animation flourish here that you guys may not have noticed, but as the bear is pacing forward saying, "Hey, I've never experienced a winter this bad." And so on, the dog's walking around, but then he's trying to keep himself warm by using his front two legs to hug his chest. It makes no sense whatsoever. And yet, the animator makes it look so easy, and it's fantastic. But one of the underrated moments of this short is actually Mel Blank's performance. Is it his finest performance in Elon short? No. But it showed that even in these quote unquote lesser shorts, he does a phenomenal job.

[00:09:32]Just like when he's yelling out, "Boy, am I hungry.

[00:09:37][screaming] Am I hungry?"

[00:09:41]>> Another wonderful delivery. There's a funny little side gag here where the bear is searching for food. He opens up the cupboard and he reads a note from Mother Hubbet and says, "Now you know how I felt." For the few of you that aren't aware, that's just referencing the classic nursery rhyme and how her cupboard was bare and so on. But here's a bit that's interesting and it kind of foreshadows what Michael Matise would do later on. For starters, the musical cue that you hear in this scene is all this in heaven too, which is a nice little musical pun. They're talking about all that wonderful food. And the bear is describing this lavish feast of a dog who's drooling over them except for spinach. Kind of interesting though, being a frising short, I would have expected it to do with onions because there's a lot of shorts where Fris is like, "Hold the onions." But anyway, doesn't really matter. Maybe Maltes doesn't like spinach. I don't know. But the hint that Maltes like to use quote unquote bigger words like in the hunting trilogy, especially in the third entry, he mentions a dessert with gobs of whipped cream and a deitassie.

[00:10:36]>> Strawberry shortcake topped off with gobs of whipped cream and a deer tassel.

[00:10:43]And if you don't know what that is, there's a small cup of espresso or coffee that's served after a meal, which yeah, is an unexpectedly big word for goofy bear. But the dog smells something because hey, he's a dog and you know dogs can smell things humans or in this case bears can't for whatever reason. I don't know. There's no logic here. But the dog ends up going through their pile of cans and both the dog and the bear eventually find a bean. Again, another wonderful delivery that from the dog.

[00:11:12][clears throat] They're about to eat it, but the bear wanting to be extra thankful for this bountiful meal says, "Yep, we need to say grace." And as they do so, that mouse from before snatches it away. And by the way, later on, Frisfilling would echo this exact gag in Along came Daffy, where a mouse keeps on stealing food from two starving you said Sam look alikes or you said to be Sam and his brother. I don't know, but it's a similar type of gag. So, the bear tries to get the mouse, but can't seem to catch him. I mean, the mouse might have made a decent meal. I don't know.

[00:11:41]He is a bear after all. But this delivery here by Mel Blank, my goodness.

[00:11:45]This is the one thing I remember from this short even all these years later where the bear suffers a nervous breakdown. So he goes from crying to maniacal laughter and then back to crying. It's absolutely top tier.

[00:11:59][laughter] [laughter] [crying] But then we find out the dog can talk all this time. I just thought it was kind of random. It's like, oh, he's actually a talking dog. Okay, sure. But he even breaks the fourth wall saying, "Huh, imagine the bear is going to try and eat me now, right?" But the bear seems to be well ahead of that. And the dog tries to get away from the bear while trying to convince him, "No, no, don't eat me." But it's wonderfully leads them to Porky's house. And we can see that wonderful dinner from Porky. So that turkey actually looks kind of delicious if I'm being honest. I'm recording this before lunchtime where I am. So maybe I shouldn't do shorts involving food before I got to eat. But anyway, they see this food and they end up going to the front door saying, "M, you're having dinner? Looks delicious."

[00:12:48]So, of course, expecting a freebie and Porky initially rejects them, as I think he should anyway, saying, "You buttered your bread, now sleep in it." And some of you might have heard that phrase from Pinocchio, by the way. I know I have. It was a common saying at the time. But I'm guessing that both Porky and the bear are both religious folk because Porky's got a love thy neighbor sign in his house. So Porky has a sudden change of heart. And by the way, say bye the Porky cuz I didn't really notice this until I watch this now, but Porky lets them in.

[00:13:17]And you can see the bear just absolutely gorgeing himself. And to be fair, that food looks awesome. And the animation here is wonderfully executed. So we now fast forward to first day of spring. The timing is kind of interesting. Was them going to Porky's house the last day of winter? I don't know. But anyway, the bear is now heavily proportioned from Porky's generosity. So, did they just crash at his place for the entire winter? But yeah, you don't see Porky at all. You would have thought that you might have seen maybe a reaction shot of Porky being upset and frustrated that this lazy person is reaping all the rewards without doing any of the work.

[00:13:53]So, if I had to give criticism to this one, that's probably what this short actually needed. I think this short would have worked better with Porky being kind of angry, but it is what it is. You know, over time, Maltese actually gets better as a writer. And speaking of which, the bear reflects on how he's learned his lesson. And this is a great example of Maltiz's cynicism. If you ever watch a lot of the shorts he writes for Chuck Jones, but he sees that it's spring despite saying he's going to change. Nope. He ends up running back to his home, going back to his porch, grabbing his instrument, and just continues to loaf on the porch to squander another year. So, I mentioned before that the bear is saying he's never experienced winter this bad before. Maybe the short is just a cycle.

[00:14:33]Porky does all the work and he does nothing and he reaps the rewards. So, yep. This is a textbook case of Mike Maltiz's cynicism. So, is this short a masterpiece? No. But I think it's an interesting one. And a lot of people, as I said, growing up would have seen this because of his public domain status. I know I certainly watched this one a fair bit as a kid, but this is a great example of Maltese's earlier days as a writer cuz he had only joined the studio just a couple of years prior, but with him teamed up with the now veteran director for his freeling, you get some interesting results and you got some hints of what to come in the future.

[00:15:04]Again, is this going to be compared to masterpieces like what's opera do or anything like that? No. But it's a solidly made cartoon and it shows off Michael Maltese's wonderful cynicism.

[00:15:14]So, it's 7 half out of 10. is a fine short for what it is and part of my score, yes, is going to be clouded by nostalgia, but you be the judge. Take a look at this short for yourself. And until next time, guys, take care.

[00:15:43]>> [music] >> For your long winter needs, you just plant a few seeds. You must get up and work, not sleep. Dig and ho. Watch them grow. As you sow, so shall yeap reap.

[00:16:25]Better work while you can. Be a diligent man. Yes, but it's better to earn your keep. Did it do not do your work? As you s so shall yeep weep.

[00:16:47]working.

[00:16:51]This is paradise.

[00:16:53]Having no work to do and taking can wait.

[00:17:06]Let it wait.

[00:17:08]Darling, it's true.

[00:17:12]This is paradise.

[00:17:23]Working can wait.

[00:17:33]Milking can wait.

[00:17:36]This is Paradise gazing at all your charm.

[00:17:43]Workings a false alarm working can wait.

[00:18:11]Boy, is it freezing in here. This is the coldest I've ever been.

[00:18:18]Gee, is it cold?

[00:18:25]THERE MUST BE SOMETHING TO EAT around here.

[00:18:37]>> [screaming] >> Am I hungry?

[00:18:45]Would you like to have a nice big juicy steak smothered in onions?

[00:18:50]Sho string potatoes, corn on a cob with melted butter, spinach, strawberry shortcake topped off with whipped cream and a dematazzle.

[00:19:22]Food receive here. Where's your manners? We should be thankful for all this. Now, don't you think we should say grace?

[00:20:07][laughter] >> [crying] >> Say the guy's out of his head. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to eat me.

[00:20:24]>> No. No. Don't. It's me. I'M YOUR DOG.

[00:20:29]REMEMBER, SOMEBODY TELL THEM IT'S ME.

[00:20:34]You can't get away with it. I'm warning you. You'll hang.

[00:20:39]They'll get you for it. No. No, don't.

[00:21:03]Oh, pardon us. Were you having dinner?

[00:21:06]Smells good. No, don't don't let us butter it. You see, we were just passing by and >> you buttered your bread. Now, sleep in it.

[00:21:25]>> Oh, pardon us. Were you having dinner?

[00:21:29]And don't let us buddy.

[00:21:31]>> Well, uh, won't you fellas come in and have dinner with us? We We have plenty to [music] go around.

[00:21:45]Yes, sir. Pokey, I certain you learned my lesson.

[00:21:51]You won't catch me cold and hungry next winter. No, sir. What's that?

[00:22:02]Why spring?

[00:22:05]Working.

[00:22:12]This is paradise. Having no work to do and taking it easy, too.

[00:22:18]Working can wait.

[00:22:26]>> That's all, folks.

[00:22:29][music]