Porky’s Garden 1937

In this lighthearted farmside short, Porky competes with a rival neighbor to win the prize for the largest homegrown project. Porky carefully plans a box of seeds, one by one, while the neighbor tinkers with a wild mixture he feeds to his chickens. Porky goes to retrieve something as the man pours the brand-new mixture into the feeding bin for his chickens. When they try it, the chickens spit the food out and head off in search of something tastier.

Porky discovers a bottle of quick-grow, a hair tonic he hopes will boost his garden. To his amazement, it works, but he keeps quiet about it and heads inside his house. The neighbor inspects the results, lets his chickens roam, and they gobble up all of his fruits and vegetables. A little chick and a bigger chicken squabble over a watermelon until the chick is shoved aside; the chick then spots spinach, nibbles it, returns, and delivers a decisive punch to the mean chicken before finishing the watermelon. The chick’s spinach-to-stronger-action moment lands as a sly nod to a Popeye reference.

With his garden nearly stripped, Porky notices the chickens and tries to drive them away. The neighbor claims he doesn’t know how they got onto Porky’s property, then attempts to coax them back before leaving. A long vine leads to a giant pumpkin, and when the chickens spot it, Porky weaves through them to guard it. He accidentally drops the pumpkin but catches it as he dashes through his house, and he races to the country fair to enter.

As the neighbor leads his fat, fed chickens toward the prize area, a worker demonstrates a peculiar pill and offers it to his elephant, turning the elephant into a mouse. One of the pills spills and the chickens gobble them up, growing twice their size. When the time comes, Porky is initially awarded first prize, but the judge quickly shifts the prize to the Italian neighbor. Then the chickens shrink back to eggs, and Porky seizes the moment to reclaim the prize money from his shocked rival, bringing the tale to a clever, comic close.