Porky and Teabiscuit (1939) User Reviews

Not As Impressive At The Real 'Seabiscuit'

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 23 May 2007]

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.

Decent short with a few good moments, but only average

[llltdesq · 7/10 · 9 August 2006]

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.

Folks today might not appreciate this one as much as people did back in 1939.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 2 January 2022]

"Porky and Teabiscuit" is a parody of the real racehorse, Seabiscuit...the winningest horse of the 1930s. The film was made a year before this horse was retired and at the time, practically everyone knew who Seabiscuit was....so a cartoon parodying the horse isn't surprising.

When the story begins, some crook cheats Porky...or thinks he does...by selling him a broken down horse. However, this was similar to Seabiscuit's early life and by the end, he of course, proves his worth.

This is just an okay. Cartoon. While it's animated well, it has one gaping problem...there are very few laughs. Because of this and that most people don't remember Seabiscuit, I'd consign this to the category of a time-passer...worth seeing but also worth skipping.

Warner Bros. argues for the Redistribution of American Wealth . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 18 August 2016]

. . . in this Great Depression Era Looney Tune, PORKY AND TEABISCUIT. Every American is born with an equal ownership stake in the First Necessity of Life, Air. When you divide the current U.S. Population of around 333.3 million into the 2016 estimated cumulative value of all OTHER American Assets (now $997 trillion), it makes each citizen's air share worth about $3 million. Since the Greedy Trumpsters have diminished the quality of each normal citizen's birthright by about 97% with their money-grubbing pollution smokestacks, their lucrative fuming freight trucks, their natural gas vented burn-offs, their reeking chemical plants, their tankers full of liquefied manure fertilizers, and the full spectrum of Death Rays radiating out from their monopolies on poorly-insulated power lines, cell phone towers, and satellite TV broadcasts, every Genuine American needs to be presented with a $2.91 million compensation check on their 18th birthday. Otherwise, TEABISCUIT tells us, our $10,000 (before adjusting upwards for inflation) Life Race Prize will be reduced by $9,989 (or 99.9%) by the time the Trumpster Cheats deduct "their cut," simply because they're second, third or tenth generation Robber Barons and they own the U.S. Government.

The second half was better than the first half

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 19 September 2016]

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

pretty much no one would have understand this for years

[lee_eisenberg · 5/10 · 8 May 2008]

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.

Picks up towards the end but largely feels like a pedestrian cartoon aimed squarely at children

[phantom_tollbooth · 3/10 · 4 November 2008]

Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton's 'Porky and Teabiscuit' is an utterly pedestrian cartoon which, after Bob Clampett's barrage of amazing Porky Pig cartoons the previous year, seems like a step backwards. Casting Porky in his original role as a child, the clichéd plot unfolds slowly and uninterestingly as we follow Porky on an errand for his father which results in him being conned out of eleven dollars in exchange for a dishevelled old nag of a racehorse. Porky must enter a steeple chase to win back the money. The cartoon only picks up pace when the race begins and by then the cartoon is nearly over. It's far too little, too late and 'Porky and Teabiscuit' emerges as a misfire that seems unsure whether to go for cuteness or gags and ends up skimping on both. Unlike the majority of the Warner Bros. catalogue which is noticeably adult orientated, 'Porky and Teabiscuit' feels like a short made specifically for children and easily entertained children at that!

An entertaining cartoon about horseraces

[slymusic · 18 April 2007]

"Porky and Teabiscuit" is a very good black-and-white Warner Bros. cartoon starring our favorite sweet-natured pig Porky. Porky's father Phineas (who stutters just as profusely as Porky does) sends Porky to a racetrack to deliver some feed and collect eleven dollars, which he inadvertently blows on a broken-down, half-starved horse named Teabiscuit. But Porky is determined to recover his money by entering Teabiscuit in the steeplechase and being the jockey.

Although nothing about this cartoon really makes it stand out, "Porky and Teabiscuit" is still an entertaining film with at least a couple of memorable moments. Teabiscuit becomes fed up with a competing horse's rear end blocking his path, so he bites the horse's tail! And Teabiscuit has a peculiar attraction to trombones as he observes & listens with a funny smile on his face; when last seen, Teabiscuit tries to play a trombone himself!

In closing, Carl Stalling's excellent music score for "Porky and Teabiscuit" bears mentioning. The popular song "Jeepers Creepers" can be heard when Porky delivers the feed to the racetrack and collects his money. (This may have been a direct reference to the live-action feature film "Going Places" [1938], in which the great Louis Armstrong sings "Jeepers Creepers" to a racehorse.) In addition, "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter" can be heard during the auction scene.