Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "The Blow Out" is an American black-and-white cartoon from 1936, so this one is already over 80 years old and to put it into perspective, this one is from the year that Hitler held the Olympic Games in Berlin. This shows better how old it is than just there mere numbers. It runs for 7.5 minutes, is a Schlesinger Studios production and the director here is the young Tex Avery early in his career before his 30th birthday. And while I was pretty underwhelmed today by the man's perhaps career-defining propaganda cartoon Blitz Wolf, I really enjoyed this one we have here. The Porky you see here has nothing really to do with the Warner Bros' Porky that played second fiddle all the time, but instead it is a cartoon from the era where Porky is still lead character material. The introduction to him as well as the main antagonist was as good and funny as these scenes from when their paths cross. The constant "helping hand" joke reference never gets old at all and stays hilarious from start to finish as Porky's need for money keeps resulting in the bomb guy constantly getting his explosive back against his will. Maybe it is not a title with relevant references about its time, but it doesn't need to be to be really funny and witty. It's a story and approach that really feels all by the books, but this doesn't take away any quality here in my opinion. Even without color, this is among the very best cartoons the year 1936 has to offer and it really was a great year for cartoons, so that means quite something. I highly recommend the watch here, go check it out.

Vimacone Tex Avery's early directorial shorts barely resemble the zany MGM shorts he's known for, but a lot of the gags and ideas are present in his earliest shorts but in embryonic form. Porky chasing the bomber foreshadows Droopy's ubiquity with the wolf in the short Dumb Hounded (1943) right down to the staging.I've always held the Technicolor Merrie Melodies in higher regard than the black and white Looney Tunes in the 1930's. Yet, in Avery's black and white shorts, he was able to inject more comedy than in his Merrie Melodies. This was due to the Merrie Melodies having to plug a popular song, which hindered gags. This short has held up pretty well over time. The WB cartoons didn't really get their edge until the 1936-37 season. Considering, this is one of the first cartoons Avery directed for Schlesinger, this would have been a strong indicator that the studio was heading in a great direction.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . exactly WHAT is Tex Avery prognosticating about as he leads Warner Bros.' primary warning division, the Animated Shorts Seers (aka, the Looney Tuners) during THE BLOW OUT blast into America's (Then) Far Future of the 21st Century? Instead of making the obvious choice of tapping 1930s voice artist Billy Bletcher to provide a soundtrack for the Trench Coat Mafia Man bringing his city to a standstill, Warner recruits a lady named Lucille La Verne to make her Looney Tunes debut in THE BLOW OUT, because she's a total sound-alike for the Red Commie KGB Chief's Puppet in the White House, Don Juan Trump. Anyone exposed to the American media during this past month--including CNN, USA Today, the NEW YORK TIMES, the WALL STREET JOURNAL, MSNBC, and TIME Magazine (but EXCLUDING such Racist Chaos-sowing Unamerican Putin organs as Fox "News" and Breitbart)--knows that most Americans (those on Medicare, the U.S. Jews, Medicaid recipients, U.S. Moslems, the LGBTQ community, women relying on Planned Parenthood, seniors struggling on Social Security, any woman possessing female genitalia, Journalists, Handicappers, teachers, immigrants, and anyone with a brain in their head) have felt totally threatened by the Putin-appointed Terrorist in Chief. It's like Don Juan has taken issue with BOYS DON'T CRY and dug up Brandon Teena to rape and kill him all over again by forcing him to Pee amid a mob of Confederate Flag-patched chortling bully jocks! While he's at it, don't be surprised if Putin orders Trump to let THE STATES decide whether Black people should be cotton-picking slaves, whether election ballots may list more than one party, and whether XL pipelines are allowed to spew oil into EVERY lake, stream, and aquifer--as long as it's less than 90% by volume!

Lee Eisenberg Osama bin Laden, you may consider yourself the cleverest terrorist on earth, but you've got nothing on the bomber portrayed in the early Porky Pig cartoon "The Blow Out". The thug here goes around town planting bombs, and no one can catch him. But when Porky - doing good deeds so as to get enough money to buy a milkshake - gives back the bomb, the bomber isn't a bit happy.Still listening, Osama? You've got nothing to worry about in the real world. While George W. Bush doesn't know jack about how to catch you, Porky catches the bomber without even trying.OK, I'll stop pretending that I'm talking to Osama bin Laden. But the point is that while this is a very early Porky cartoon (at this time, he looked like a walking heart attack and Mel Blanc wasn't yet providing his voice), it's still fairly entertaining. I presume that at this this point, the Termite Terrace crowd was still trying to figure out exactly what path their work would take, so we needn't expect the sorts out completely wacky gags that characterized the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons in the '40s and '50s. Worth seeing. As it's not available on video or DVD - that I know of, at least - you can find it on YouTube.