It's All There Folks

Historians have widely noted that Frank Tashlin, the late director famous for outlandish 1950s Technicolor send-ups of consumer culture, began his career in animation. This unquestionably influenced the exaggerated style of Tashlin's features, but his contributions to the Looney Tunes saga are buried under the reputation of legendary animators like Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Tashlin himself was a principal auteur of Porky Pig.

His dynamic creative input is illuminated in "Looney Tunes a la Tashlin" (September 6 at Film Forum), a program consisting of 13 Warner Bros. shorts-seven featuring Porky-directed before Tashlin committed to live action. The lineup, selected by scholar Greg Ford, demonstrates artistic consistency: The hotel farce "Porky Pig's Feat" (1943) features klutzy chemistry between Porky and Daffy Duck that resembles the other half of the evening's double bill, the 1955 Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin vehicle, Artists and Models.

If these timeless achievements illustrate Tashlin's penchant for sight gags, they hardly address the director's historical relevance. Although the racy "Private Snafu" military-produced cartoons-which leave no question toTashlin's role in the '40s war effort-will not be screened,the Hitler-hating "Scrap Happy Daffy" (1943) will be shown. And culturally-infused gems like the elated books in "Speaking of the Weather" (1937) convey his prodigious insight.

"Tashlin's major premise may be a shade dubious," scoffed the New York Times in 1951, "he thinks we all have too many luxurious items in the lavish gadgetry of sin." That single rebuke retroactively confirms his place as a uniquely American prophet of doom.