Boom Boom

It has been a very long time since I've posted so the way I see it I'm long overdue. Today we're gonna leap  back to February 29th, 1936 (pun intended) when Warner Brothers released Boom Boom starring Bean the Cat and Porky Pig.

Beans the Cat was the third Looney Tunes cartoon character star after Bosko and Buddy. He was created by Leon Schlesinger. Beans is most likely modeled after Waffles, a feline from the Van Beuren Studio, as both characters are black-furred cats in overalls.

Beans made his first appearance in the 1935's I Haven't Got A Hat, along with Porky Pig who would have a much longer run in the series. He then made a cameo in The Country Mouse, another Merrie Melodies release that year.

Finally, six months following his debut film, Beans starred in A Cartoonist Nightmare which would be his first solo cartoon, followed by Hollywood Capers. Beans then began appearing with characters from the cast of I Haven't Got a Hat.

Featured on screen in only a couple of years, Beans appeared in just 9 shorts. His swan song was Westward WHOA in 1936. Before being retired completely, he made a brief appearance in Plane Dippy.
Beans was voiced at first by Billy Bletcher and sometimes by Tommy Bond.

Porky Pig's first appearence was also in I Haven't Got A Hat, but unlike Beans the Cat, Porky would go on to be the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power. While Beans appeared in only 9 shorts, Porky appeared in 153.

Porky was designed by animator Bob Clampett and named after animation director Friz Freleng's childhood friends who were nicknamed Porky and Piggy. Porky was first voiced by Joe Dougherty, who actually did have a stuttering problem. Because Dougherty could not control his stutter, however, production costs became too high as his recording sessions took hours. Mel Blanc became the voice of Porky in 1937 and carried on the stutter although to a much lesser extent. 

As I was watching this short I wondered why did Porky become such a success while Beans met his demise after just 9 cartoons. The Porky we see in the short Boom Boom is not the Porky everyone came to love. Porky was developed over time. Beans never developed into anything and I'm guessing the animators felt it wasn't worth the effort to develop Beans. To be honest they were right. There's just nothing that stands out about Beans. Porky had the stutter but he needed time to be developed and be drawn correctly. The early versions of Porky aren't very good in my humble opinion.