The Worst Film Ever

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Blistering performances.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

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.

The Blow Out (1936)*** (out of 4) A mad bomber is terrorizing the city by blowing up various buildings. Also in town, Porky Pigg wants an ice cream soda but he's five pennies short. He notices that doing good deeds gets him a penny so he goes around town being nice but soon he runs into the bomber.THE BLOW OUT is certainly the best film that Porky Pig appeared in up to this point. The idea of a kid's cartoon having a terrorist bomber might seem odd today but it was perfect for the time and there are actually a lot of nice gags here. The highlight of the film is certainly watching Porky do the various good deeds to get the penny. I thought it was rather funny seeing how excited he got when he was one penny closer to what he wanted. The animation was extremely good as well and the short ends on a high note with a great action sequence.

. . . 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!

The Blow Out was an early Warner Bros. cartoon that was the second made by "supervisor" Fred "Tex" Avery as director. It also starred Porky Pig in his early incarnation with original voice Joe Dougherty (who stuttered in real life). Other voices featured were Sara Berner who was later gossipy switchboard operator Mabel on "The Jack Benny Program", and Lucille La Verne who later voiced the Queen on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She voices the bomber here. Porky is a kid here trying to buy an ice cream soda but finds he's five pennies short. So when he accidentally picks up a misplaced item from a passerby, he gets awarded one cent. After this gets repeated a few times, the pig finds the bomb-which he thinks is just an ordinary clock-and proceeds to give it back to the one who dropped it who of course keeps running away. Soon the cops follow. You may be able to guess what happens from here on but I'm not going to tell you. Needless to say, the ending is one you've probably expected from Tex Avery if you're familiar with his subsequent cartoons for both Warner Bros. and M-G-M. On that note, I definitely recommend The Blow Out.