Porky's Garden is a 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Tex Avery starring Porky Pig. It is the last cartoon to use the "Fat Porky" opening and "Porky Signature" theme. Originally black and white, it was redrawn in color in 1967, with another digital colorisation made in 1992.
When a county fair has a contest for largest homegrown project, Porky decides to enter with his garden while his rival neighbor plans to enter with his chickens. While Porky manages to successfully make his garden grow big, his neighbor has less success when he tries to give his chickens a new feed. Deciding to eliminate the competition and fatten up his chickens at the same time, his rival turns his birds loose in Porky's garden. As the chickens feast on Porky's produce, Porky has to act quickly to save his crop, lest he lose to his cheating neighbor.
Tropes:
- Big Eater: The neighbor's chicken eat everything in Porky's garden besides a large pumpkin, and seemed pretty set on that too if Porky didn't tackle it off them. Their gluttony backfires on them when they devour a spilled bottle of reducing pills.
- Early-Bird Cameo: "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is heard in the soundtrack, one month before it became the official Looney Tunes theme song.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: At the fair, a man is selling reducing pills, which he tests on an elephant, turning him into a literal mouse. The neighbor's chickens get fat on the pills, and when he's about to get the prize, the chickens shrink down into baby chicks, then turn back into eggs, disqualifying him.
- Iris Out: After the end of the cartoon when the neighbor gets the prize but his chickens shrink into eggs, the screen irises out; then two irises form, one around the neighbor, another around Porky. Porky reaches through the iris to take back the prize money, then the final iris out.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- After Porky's neighbor nearly sabotages him by having his chickens eat most of his garden and nearly wins, karma comes back to bite him when his chickens turn into eggs after eating reducing pills.
- One of the chickens bullies a watermelon off of a baby chick. The latter discovers a patch of spinach and, in a Popeye Shout-Out, hard uppercuts the bigger chicken.
- Phlebotinum Pills: The reducing pills, apparently meant for losing weight, but work more like a combination Shrink Ray/Fountain of Youth.
- Shout-Out: A chick eats spinach and turns into a poultry version of Popeye.
- Snake Oil Salesman: Averted with the man selling the reducing pills, as the pills not only work, but are very effective.
- Taxman Takes the Winnings: The 1st prize in the Podunk County Fair is $2,000. A tax of $1,999 is listed under, reducing the prize to one dollar. Regardless Porky and his neighbour still seem plenty motivated to win.
