Awful Orphan 1949 ( Dir Chuck Jones)

One thing I noticed about The awful Orphan is it's similarity to Bob Calmpett's 1941 cartoon, 'Porky's Pooch'. Same story and sometimes the same movements. As jones was Clampett's animator for a spell i'm not surprised that he carried on where his unit supervisor left off.

Awful orphan stars Charlie, the annoying persistent dog who featured in the above mentioned Porky's Pooch and his first appearance under Jones' eye ( or pen?) 'Little Orphan Airedale (1947)' All Charlie shorts are the same. The dog wants to be adopted and stops at no means to be accepted by the owner he latches on to.

The cartoon kicks off with Charlie trying to convince a group of people that he is the IDEAL pet. Obviously he fails so he resorts to his usual guerrila tactics and smuggles himself into a canary cage that's being delivered to Porky. Once Porky finds out that he has recieved Charlie, he tries to make every effort to get rid of him by literally kicking him out of the door and sending him to Siberia but Charlie always finds his way back and is Porky's doorstep in a milisecond.

Finally after a fight ( set up by charlie) with a neighbour, Porky decides to keep the dog (even though now Charlie decides to change his mind) and forces him to wear human clothes. The picture ends with the dog dressed as a human and Porky near his feet like a dog. Every time Charlie moves Porky starts to snarl.

I have a soft spot for Charlie cartoons. The fact that he takes full advantage of a situation that he puts himself into is amazing. He's also a very deceitful and nasty character on the whole but gets away with it by looking cute or stupid. Even though I like this Charlie short, my personal favourite is 1950's Dog Gone South, which is genuinley funny (and maybe will be on the sixth volume of the Golden Collection series?)