Swooner Crooner is a 1944 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin.
Porky Pig is the manager of the "Flockheed Eggcraft Factory". Every morning, a workforce of hens marches in and lays eggs in support of the American war effort, popping out eggs in an assembly-line manner. However, the hens are distracted by a very skinny rooster named "Frankie" who bears a notable resemblance to Frank Sinatra. The hens are so besotted by the charming Frankie that they stop laying eggs. Porky, who needs to get his hens back egg-laying, then has to find another crooning rooster who can charm the hens back to work. He finally gets help when he hires a Bing Crosby rooster.
Swooner Crooner includes examples of:
- Bowdlerization: Versions of this cartoon shown on most American TV channelsnote cut the part where the Al Jolson rooster auditions in blackface with "September in the Rain", going from the Vaughn Monroe rooster tiring himself out while singing "Shortnin' Bread" to the Jimmy Durante rooster singing "Lullaby of Broadway."
- Clock Tampering: One hen, late to clock in for work, sets the time back before punching her card.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: As one hen faints and lies on her belly in reaction to Frankie's crooning, her feathers fly up and she's briefly seen in her pink bra and matching, short, frill-trimmed bloomers before the feathers fall back on her, and she's covered with them again.
- Down on the Farm: Porky, running a chicken ranch. (A real one!)
- Lustful Melt: One hen melts into a puddle in classic style while watching Frankie.
- Groupie Brigade: All the hens leave their positions en masse to watch Frankie sing.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The titular crooner is a caricature of Frank Sinatra. When Porky auditions rivals, they turn out to be rooster versions of Vaughn Monroe, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante, Cab Calloway, and, finally, Bing Crosby.
- Serial Escalation: When the Crosby rooster gains the affection of the hens, the Frankie rooster competes with him over who can get the hens to lay more eggs as they sing. Leading to a ludicrous mountain range of eggs across the farm.
- And at the end, when Porky asks them how they did it, Frankie and Crosby both sing to him and Porky lays a mountain of eggs.
- Something Else Also Rises: A very obvious sexual metaphor when the hens start laying lots of eggs when they get a look at the handsome Bing Crosby rooster.
- The way the hens act to Frankie earlier on appear as variations of Immodest Orgasm.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: Porky puts out an ad for a crooning rooster. He suffers through a montage of terrible rooster interviewees that includes a rooster Vaughn Monroe, a rooster Al Jolson (uncut version only), a rooster Jimmy Durante, and a rooster Cab Calloway. Finally, the Bing Crosby rooster arrives and fixes Porky's problem—sort of. By the end, everyone else on the ranch is laying eggs...including Porky.
- Wartime Cartoon: An analogy, of course, to American civilian war workers (a lot of whom were women) making munitions, airplanes, tanks, and ships for the American war effort.
