Porky's Poor Fish (1940) User Reviews

Porky's second brush with the piscine world

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 4 March 2008]

If you've seen most of Porky Pig's early cartoons, you've probably observed that they mostly put him in a series of black and white Looney Tunes* portraying various walks of life: bullfighter, pilgrim, firefighter, etc. Most of these cartoons consisted of rather corny - but still really funny - spot gags and word jokes. Bob Clampett's "Porky's Poor Fish" is a prime example. The plot has a street cat sneaking into Porky's fish store with the aim of turning the piscine inhabitants into lunch, only to see them go all Rambo on him. But most of the cartoon has stuff like "Twenty Thousand Leaks Under the Ceiling" and "Tiny Shrimps with Giant Mussels".

I probably speak for most Looney Tunes fans when I say that Clampett's best cartoons made heavy use of his penchant for contortionism. Examples include the iron lung in "The Daffy Doc", the garbage can in "A Corny Concerto", and any scene in "Porky in Wackyland" and "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery". I suspect that this one was a place holder. But still, it provided its fair share of laughs during its few minutes. Worth seeing.

PS: the first time that Porky Pig had a run-in with fishes was in 1936's rare "Fish Tales", in which he goes fishing and dreams that the fishes try to cook him. In 1940, he also starred in "The Sour Puss", featuring a piscine who behaves like Daffy Duck.

*At this time, the Looney Tunes were filmed in black and white and usually featured stars Porky and Daffy, while the Merrie Melodies were filmed in color and usually featured miscellaneous characters. After the Looney Tunes went color, the series became indistinguishable except for the opening songs.

Well animated and fun to watch, though a case of too many puns and not enough Porky

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 27 July 2013]

The Looney Tunes cartoons are the sort that you love as a child and still love an adult, perhaps even more so when you understand what may have gone over your head as a kid(think Foghorn Leghorn and particularly Pepe LePew). There were some misses in the late 50s and through to the 60s, but when they were at their best they were classics and among the best cartoons ever made. Porky's Poor Fish is not one of the cartoons that comes across as a classic, but it is a good one and entertaining. It is beautifully drawn in crisp black and white with detailed backgrounds and quite cute character designs, and it fits the gags very well. The music, always a high point with Looney Tunes, helps give Porky's Poor Fish its energy, as always with Carl Stalling it is very well orchestration and has great character to it. The puns are somewhat corny in an endearing way and are funny, though there are a few instances where it felt like there were too many of them. The dialogue is fresh and witty as you'd expect. There are also a couple of gags that felt rushed and not very memorable, but most of them are cleverly timed and make for great entertainment value, the ending was very nice. Porky is underused here and it is one of his blander solo outings, he's always comes across as being better with somebody with a stronger personality(especially Daffy) which makes for a great dynamic. The cat takes the laughs well though and you do feel some sympathy for him, while the fish are very colourful and work with the cat very amusingly. Mel Blanc can do no wrong with the voices, he is a huge part of the Looney Tunes cartoons' success, few other voice actors can do multiple characters in one cartoon and pull them off as seamlessly as Blanc, and never disappoints. In conclusion, well-animated and entertaining with good gags and dialogue but less puns, though they were fun, and more Porky might have helped it a little bit more. A solid 7/10 for now. Bethany Cox

So-so Porky Pig short. with Porky not doing much-the focus is on a cat

[llltdesq · 6/10 · 21 November 2006]

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.

Not much of Porky, but a truckload of fish

[slymusic · 10 February 2007]

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.

Porky's out to lunch while the fish carry the story...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 23 February 2008]

Some ingenious but corny gags involving flying fish that look like bomber planes and electric eels that light up to spell out warning messages play a huge part in the success of PORKY'S POOR FISH, but the pig himself is out to lunch.

The shenanigans of a hungry cat with his eye on the fish store sets the pace for a fast-moving B&W cartoon with a number of sight gags (all pretty corny but fun to watch). The animation is good, although one misses seeing these sort of things in the vivid color used throughout most of the '40s and '50s cartoons.

Not the funniest Porky the Pig, but it'll have to do--as seen on the Errol Flynn Signature Collection No.1.

Where's Porky?!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 16 January 2022]

"Porky's Poor Fish" is an oddly named cartoon, as you really see very little of Porky and he's not really involved in the story at all.

When the story begins, a cat is frustrated in his attempts to eat a cutesy mouse. So, after Porky leaves his aquarium business to get some lunch, the cat sneaks in...hoping to get a quick and easy meal. However, the fish work together to defeat the cat...and Porky wanders in after it's all over and there's nothing for him to do.

The story is okay, though there are a lot of bad puns instead of good laughs. Not a bad cartoon but a bit of a disappointment and poorly named as you'd expect more of the Pork-ster.

"Oh boy! When it comes to eating . . . "

[tadpole-596-918256 · 6/10 · 6 September 2016]

" . . . I'm a little pig," the swinish Porky tells viewers as he departs the screen halfway through this animated short, which can be found labeled as PORKY'S POOR FISH STORYBOARD REEL in the "From the Vault" section of the "Special Features" on Disc 4, Volume 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection. We learn in the "Deleted Sequences" section appended to POOR FISH that catfish, dogfish, a turtle, and a crab all were axed from the final version of this Looney Tune (probably for use in some sort of gumbo dish). With all the creatures of the sea collaborating here to keep a cat from consuming a defenseless minnow, Warner Bros. seems to be anticipating the battle to save the World's Whales and Dolphins from Japan's Death Culture. (This recalls the scene from Oz in which the Wicked Witch of the West fails to electrocute Dorothy, so she orders Dot's dog Toto to be drowned in the river; Japan lost its quest for Asian Domination in World War Two, so it turned on Humanity's friendly Sea Mammal Friends and said "At least we can wipe you out!"). Japanese "scientists" outdo the Holocaust, Evolution, and Climate Change Deniers by alleging that that Star Trek flick that documents their assassination of the World's Last Whale is a Hoax. The only way that Porky Pig, with an assist from Captain James T. Kirk, can save our Mammals of the Seas it to Take the Pledge to only drive vehicles made by America's Big Two car companies.

In Real Life, feral cats have decimated . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 9 July 2015]

. . . 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.

Overpopulated by puns

[phantom_tollbooth · 3/10 · 19 February 2009]

Bob Clampett's 'Porky's Poor Fish' is a so-so cartoon populated by appalling puns and one or two nice moments. Set in Porky's Fish Shoppe, 'Porky's Poor Fish' occupies an uncomfortable area between a standard black 'n' white Porky cartoon and one of the books-come-to-life Merrie Melodies that were popular at that time. Typically of many of the early Porky cartoons, Porky is far from the star, appearing only in a rather stilted opening musical number and the climax of the film. For the rest of the time the star is a scraggly cat who sees the fish shop as an opportunity for a free meal but gets more than he bargained for. Unfortunately, the audience gets far less than they bargained for. As was sometimes the case in the books-come-to-life series, the spotlight is thrown on punning signs which could have worked just as well in a non-animated medium. Laughs are scarce and, while the cartoon is just about saved by Clampett's energetic direction, there is very little at all to recommend 'Porky's Poor Fish' over any of the other below-par early Porky cartoons.

A Very Fishy Story

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 14 March 2007]

Boy, the humor was corny back around 1940 but if you silly puns and such, it will make you laugh.

Before this cartoon begins, we read that "This Screen Play is an adaptation of the World Famous Book "Twenty Thousand Leaks Under The Ceiling." Then we see a cat unsuccessfully chase a mouse followed by the graphic "Meanwhile -- The Shoppe Around the Corner." (Yes, it helps to know the movies of that day.)

We see "Porky's Pete Fish Shoppe - Under New Mis-Management." Yup....the humor is strictly cornball. These corny signs are everywhere (i.e. ("Today's special: Little Shrimps with Big Mussels," "14-carat Goldfish," eels named "A.C. and D.C.," etc.) Actually, some of the puns with all the different kinds of fish are quite funny.

The story occurs halfway through when that aforementioned cat walks by the fish show, after Porky leaves for lunch, sneaks in and thinks he's going to have a nice lunch himself. However.....

In all, a pleasant cartoon that won't evoke a lot of big laughs but will have you smiling numerous times. It's a misnomer calling it a "Porky Pig" cartoon because he isn't in it for long. It was a feature on the Errol Flynn movie, Sea Hawk" DVD.