You Ought to Be in Pictures (1940)

Why so much hype?

Fresh and Exciting

As Good As It Gets

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Warner Bros' "You Ought to Be in Pictures" is what Daffy tells porky in this mix of live action and animation we have here. But of course, Daffy wants Porky's place and Porky, naive as he is, believes him right away. This film runs a couple seconds under 10 minutes, so it is 3 minutes longer than these films usually are. It is in black-and-white and the most interesting thing here for me was not really the slapstick comedy, but how they mixed live action and animation. As a result of this we have the only acting credit for the influential Leon Schlesinger, who plays himself in here. And the funniest thing about it is how it actually turned out so true. Poor Porky. His star was fading quickly, even if he stayed somewhat relevant for a long time still. But the stardom of (Bugs and) Daffy is something he never managed to achieve. I feel kinda sorry for him. This film has its good and bad moments, but overall it's a really interesting take in terms of film on film. I recommend it. Oh yeah the voice acting is strong too of course, but that's a given with Mel Blanc on board I guess.

. . . more Real. From HER to EX MACHINA, film history is full of one- or two-dimensional screen personalities yearning to strut around in full 3D. (A few actually made the difficult transition, such as John Wayne, who phased from eight flicks as "Stony Brooke, the Cowboy with a Magical Horse" to a fully-functional Horse's Rear.) In Warner Bros.' animated short YOU OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES, Daffy Duck prods Porky Pig to ask Real Life Looney Tunes Producer Leon Schlesinger, who plays himself, "What's Errol Flynn got that I Ain't got?" When this cartoon first came out, many answers to that question sprang to the tips of viewers' tongues (and not all of them were G-rated). Cartoon physics prove a tougher nut to crack than Quantum String Theory, full of brain-twisting conundrums. Though one of Porky's sneezes proves stronger than any Real Life "Achoo!", it's no problem for studio bouncers to toss the wayward porker around (car and all, when necessary). Though Daffy Duck has the versatility here of any framed portrait at Hogwarts, as of this writing there's been no word of Warner Bros. suing J.K. Rowling for copyright infringement (something that Disney certain would, in a similar position).

I realized before I watched this cartoon it would have a live action appearance of Fred Schlesinger, but I did not realize there were other filmed characters and that the very new art of live action and cartoon together would be done so well in this episode! I was expecting to see quite a lot of Daffy Duck in this episode, but Porky Pig is definitely the main character here. In the Warner Brothers studio, Daffy, who wants to be as high as Porky is right now, does his best to convince his cartoon companion to rid himself of his cartoon contract and go to the "features". Well, if you know Porky, you know he'll do pretty much the persuasive Daffy will tell him to and he goes off to ask Fred Schlesinger if he could leave the cartoon studio. Porky feels very nervous, but is pushed by Daffy and Fred seems to accept Porky is going...I really enjoyed the characters of Daffy and Porky in this cartoon (even though Daffy was a meanie), the plot, the premise of the cartoon and the way the cartoon was funny even though there were no real jokes. The whole thing was very entertaining and very well done, with good moments from the three main characters. :-) If there was anything I felt even slightly iffy about the cartoon it was the fact that everyone was unnecessarily mean to Porky, but it is a "film thing", the way it happened.I recommend this to people who love old Looney Tunes and to people who just enjoy and entertaining cartoon. Enjoy "You Ought to Be in Pictures"! :-) P.S Both LeeEisenberg and ccthemovieman said in their reviews that they thought it was amazing how they managed this cartoon with live action while Roger Rabbit was nearly 50 years away. That is what I was thinking as well!!

This is a really cool cartoon. It begins with Daffy trying to convince Porky that he's too good to remain with Looney Tunes and he should try for bigger things! So, Porky walks out of the cartoon and into real life--similar to what you later saw in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. Porky first goes to Looney Tunes chief, Leon Schlessinger, and asks if he can have his contract. Mr. Schlessinger agrees and Porky is now a free agent. However, he finds that life outside of cartoons is a lot tougher than he thought and he finally returns to Mr. Schlessinger to beg for his job back! This cartoon is so inventive and shows so much behind the scenes material that it is a must for old movie buffs. A delightful film and way ahead of its time.