The first cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin for Warner Bros. This is pretty cutesy for the first few minutes, then when Porky fires up his cool-as-hell plane, his battle against the hawks really cranks up the action. There are some really interesting camera angles here. This one is in B&W.

After “The Blow Out”, Porky became Warner Bros’ new big cartoon star, and so the pig starred in a huge amount of cartoons throughout the rest of the 1930s and into the early 1940s. This was one of the earlier ones. This Frank Tashlin cartoon suffers strongly from an identity crisis. It can’t decide if it wants to be a cutesy farm short, an action adventure, or an absurdist comedy. So it tries to be all three, succeeding most at the comedic bit towards the end. The first three and a half minutes of this short are excruciatingly boring. Then we’re introduced to the fact that chicken hawks have been nabbing a bunch of Porky’s chickens (who are framed more as his friends than his livestock). Soon thereafter, a chick is nabbed, and it’s Porky to the rescue. The short really takes a turn towards the absurd when the hawks start acting as though they’re aerial football players, huddling up and tossing the baby chick to each other. The rooster even narrates as though it’s a football game! A very uneven short, but with some surprising comedic gems toward the end. Looney Tunes is slowly but surely turning into the sort of series we remember it as.