Swooner Crooner (1944)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Frank Tashlin

Writers:

(more)

Release Date:

6 May 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Family | Short | Comedy | Music

Plot:

Porky Pig's egg faces production problems when a crooning rooster distracts the hens from their jobs.

Plot Keywords:

Egg | Egg Production | Porky Pig | Cab Calloway Spoof | Cartoon Chicken

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Mel Blanc	...	Porky Pig (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sara Berner	...	Chickens (voice) (uncredited)
Richard Bickenbach	...	Bing Crosby Rooster (voice) (uncredited)

Directed by
Frank Tashlin

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Warren Foster		uncredited

Produced by
Leon Schlesinger	....	producer

Original Music by
Carl W. Stalling		(uncredited)

Sound Department
Treg Brown	....	sound effects editor (uncredited)

Animation Department
Izzy Ellis	....	animator (as I. Ellis)
George Cannata	....	animator (uncredited)

Music Department
Carl W. Stalling	....	musical director
Milt Franklyn	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Frank Tashlin	....	supervisor (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Leon Schlesinger Studios
• Warner Bros. Pictures

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (1944) (USA) (theatrical)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1998) (USA) (DVD)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1998) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (2005) (USA) (DVD)

Runtime:

7 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #9707)

Company:

Leon Schlesinger Studios

Trivia:

The only Porky Pig cartoon to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Porky goes to stop the assembly line, the boxes on the conveyor belt disappear at the point where Porky was picking them up before.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Toonheads: The Lost Cartoons (2000) (TV)

Soundtrack:

I'll Pray for You

Sooner or later, "Powerhouse" had to get mixed with the Rosie the Riveter culture.

In the only Porky Pig cartoon to receive an Oscar nomination, filmdom's most famous swine owns a farm and has the hens lay eggs all day - to the tune of (what else?) Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" - but the hens get distracted by a crooning rooster. But when Porky hires another rooster to woo the hens back, the whole ordeal really turns into a battle of wits.

An obvious aspect of "Swooner Crooner" is that it's truly a product of WWII, what with the clear allusion to Rosie the Riveter. But of course, they parody singers like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Yeah, those guys may have been really popular in those days, but I just bet that most people in my generation believe that BC and FS deserved to get mocked as brutally as possible.

OK, so I don't know whether or not I can speak for every member of my generation. But I can say that this is a really funny cartoon. It got included in Leonard Maltin's "Bugs and Daffy: Wartime Cartoons".