Swooner Crooner is a 1944 Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin

Frank Tashlin

Frank Tashlin, born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, also known as Tish Tash or Frank Tash was an American animator, screenwriter, and film director.-Animator:...

, produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions

Warner Bros. Cartoons

Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...

 and released to theaters by Warner Bros. Pictures. The cartoon was nominated for the 1945 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) (the only Porky Pig

Porky Pig

Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...

 cartoon to do so), which it lost to the Tom and Jerry

Tom and Jerry

Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...

cartoon Mouse Trouble

Mouse Trouble

Mouse Trouble is a 1944 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 17th Tom and Jerry short produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with music by Scott Bradley . The cartoon was animated by Ray Patterson, Irven Spence, Ken Muse and Pete Burness...

.

Synopsis

Porky Pig is the supervisor of the "Flockheed Eggcraft Factory", where dozens of hens lay eggs for the war effort (in this case, World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 to the tune of Powerhouse

Powerhouse (song)

Powerhouse is a instrumental musical composition by Raymond Scott, probably best known today as the iconic "assembly line" music in animated cartoons released by Warner Brothers.-History:...

). The hens suddenly get distracted from their egg laying when a handsome rooster named Frankie (who sings like Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

) is heard singing outside. Frankie's renditions of "It Can't Be Wrong" by Dick Haymes

Dick Haymes

Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....

 and "As Time Goes By

As Time Goes By (song)

"As Time Goes By" is a song written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. It became most famous in 1942 when it was sung by the character Sam in the movie Casablanca. The song was voted #2 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs special, commemorating the best songs in film. It was used as a fanfare for Warner...

" (from Casablanca

Casablanca (film)

Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...

, 1942) causes all the hens to swoon.

Porky rushes to investigate. Soon, he's auditioning for a new crooner; those showing up are caricatures of Vaughn Monroe

Vaughn Monroe

Vaughn Wilton Monroe was an American baritone singer, trumpeter and big band leader and actor, most popular in the 1940s and 1950s. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording and radio.-Biography:...

  ("Shortnin' Bread

Shortnin' Bread

"Shortnin' Bread" is a song by James Whitcomb Riley.-History:...

"), Al Jolson

Al Jolson

Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....

 ("September in the Rain

September in the Rain

"September in the Rain" is a popular song by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, published in 1937. The song was introduced by James Melton in the film Melody for Two...

"), Jimmy Durante

Jimmy Durante

James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...

 ("Lullaby of Broadway

Lullaby of Broadway (song)

"Lullaby of Broadway" is a popular song with music written by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin, published in 1935. The song was introduced by Wini Shaw in the musical film, Gold Diggers of 1935, and, in an unusual move, it was used as background music in a sequence in the Bette Davis film...

"), Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

 ("Minnie the Moocher

Minnie the Moocher

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over 1 million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed lyrics . In performances, Calloway would have the audience participate by repeating each scat phrase in a...

", "Blues in the Night

Blues in the Night

"Blues in the Night" is a popular song which has become a pop standard and is generally considered to be part of the Great American Songbook. The music was written by Harold Arlen, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, for a 1941 film begun with the working title Hot Nocturne, but finally released as Blues...

"), and Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

 ("When My Dream Boat Comes Home").

Porky asks the Bing Crosby rooster (who introduced himself as "The Old Groaner") to be the crooner, provoking a competition with Frankie. Between the two of them, the overexcited hens' egg production is increased to a level beyond what Porky can handle, including a just-hatched hen chick laying an egg many times her own size.

Surveying literal hills and mountains of eggs all over his farm, an impressed Porky asks the two roosters, "How did you ever m-m-make 'em lay all those eggs." The roosters demonstrate their technique by crooning at Porky, who lays a mountainful of eggs himself as a result.

Theatrical, television, and home video reissues

Swooner Crooner was the first cartoon in the Looney Tunes series to be re-released as part of Warner Bros. Cartoons' "Blue Ribbon" reissue series, on February 12, 1949. It is available on the Bugs & Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons

Bugs & Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons

Bugs & Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons is a 1989 video containing 11 classic Looney Tunes cartoons, all of which are centered on World War II. Film critic Leonard Maltin from Entertainment Tonight tells trivia about each cartoon.- Features :...

VHS, Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 is a DVD box set from Warner Home Video that was released on October 25, 2005. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical short subject cartoons, 9 documentaries, 32 commentary tracks from animators and historians, 11 "vintage treasures from...

DVD, and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection

Due to the success of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection and Popeye DVD series, Warner Home Video issued a 3-DVD set on February 12, 2008 showcasing the various animation properties that they own including their home-grown product Looney Tunes...

DVD.

Censorship

Versions of this cartoon shown on Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network (United States)

Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...

, TNT

Turner Network Television

Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...

, and TBS

TBS (TV channel)

TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...

 cut out the part where the Al Jolson

Al Jolson

Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....

 rooster auditions with the song titled "September in the Rain".

Semi-remake

Part of the cartoon's basic premise was reused in the 2004 short Cock-a-Doodle Duel with Foghorn Leghorn. In it, Foghorn competes with a genetically-engineered rooster to make hens lay eggs.