Watch Porky's Poor Fish For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

Sick Product of a Sick System

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Robert Clampett's "Porky's Poor Fish" is a point in Clampett's career where you can tell he just didn't care about what he produced anymore, and it really shows in this cartoon. A generic cat villain, loads of really bad, predictable puns (guess what pun they used for "Mussels"...and they used it twice as well), and a song number that just seems to pad out the cartoon to fill the time limit.Porky is also at his worst here. His only lines suffer from being the same bad, predictable puns like a lot of other things in the cartoon. He appears for a total of about 30 seconds! I'm guessing Clampett did this just to fulfill a contract or something similar.I'm only giving this 2 stars because I like Carl Stalling's score and there's some good animation in here as well. Otherwise, I'd say you should definitely skip watching this.

. . . America's wild birds (not to mention several endangered small mammal populations), but the hapless feline protagonist of PORKY'S POOR FISH gets cut down to size by fish and rodent alike. Whether it's the "little shrimp with big mussels," the flying fish, or the electric sign eels, the denizens of the not-so-deep more than hold their own against their Fritz-like foe. (During WWII, cartoons often used cats as stand-ins for Nazis, while canines were drawn to bring to mind the Allied Cause, epitomized by the English bulldog.) The nameless cat featured here looks so fearsome with claws out in full-on attack mode that little kids may well have gone home to nightmares. However, it's the twice-stalked Incredible Hulking Mouse who elicits the last laugh here, as Mr. Cat shrinks inversely to the growth of this rodent-on-steroids (an obvious precursor to MIGHTY MOUSE of the 1950s). Reduced to a whimpering puddle, the animated cat comes to the end much of the American public wished for Hitler at this time.

In "Porky's Poor Fish," directed by Bob Clampett, our good friend Porky Pig owns a pet fish shop, where the inventory is a potential target for an alley cat who hopes for an easy lunch. But, as the cat learns over the course of this film, trying to capture just one tiny fish in Porky's shop is no easy task.My favorite moments from this black-and-white cartoon include the following. First and foremost, my hat is off to Carl Stalling for his orchestration of the wonderfully swinging jazz number heard during the opening credits and during the first scene of the mouse whistling & skipping (followed by the cat). Porky likewise has a nice song/recitation as he introduces the audience to his shop. The two "filet of sole" fish become a pair of tap shoes, a lone "mussel" develops muscular arms that look EXACTLY like Popeye's, and all the flying fish resemble bomber airplanes as they take to the air.Porky Pig himself is not prominently featured in "Porky's Poor Fish," but the fish in his shop are loaded with jokes, gags, and puns associated with their names. This film may not exactly be the most popular Warner Bros. cartoon ever directed by Bob Clampett, but it is still worth seeing for the amount of work that Bob and his animation unit exerted into it. Catch this cartoon on Disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4.

This is a black and white Porky Pig short which doesn't really have a whole lot to do with Porky himself. As I want to talk a bit about the cartoon and some of the gags, this is a spoiler warning: This short has Porky Pig as the proprietor of a pet store which specializes in selling fish. It opens, though, with a cat following a mouse, with the intent of having lunch. Failing (rather unceremoniously) at accomplishing that, the camera then switches to the store and we see Porky break out in song while a bunch of rather marginal fish-related sight gags go by, the best of which involves some electric eels. Then the noon whistle blows and Porky goes out to lunch, placing a sign on the door. The cat, perhaps in the mood for some sushi, seizes the opportunity and goes into the store (turning around Porky's sign, which then reads, "in to lunch" instead.The bulk of the remainder of the short is the cat attempting to get a free meal and the efforts of the various fish to ruin his appetite for him. Again, the best bit involves the electric eels, though there are very nicely animated sequences involving an oyster, some flying fish and a mussel which figure prominently. While some of the bits are inventive and very funny, a lot of this is just a bit off the mark. The timing seems to be a bit off of a lot of the jokes here, or maybe I just didn't find it funny.The closing gag, where the cat sees the mouse again and goes after it when denied a fish dinner is fairly nice and a good way to close what is a very uneven short. This is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and the collection itself is marvelous. This short is certainly worth a look at least once. Worth watching.