Africa Squeaks Review

Africa Squeaks is a 1940 animated short film from the Looney Tunes series. It is a very flawed entry.

This short is another travelogue where we follow Porky’s exploits in Africa where he meets another white man who is a parody of Spencer Tracy. We also see various animal interactions which are all odd and unusual. Now, those interactions most definitely saved this film and are a lot of inventive fun. I liked the elephant bit quite a bit, the continent waving at the end was fun and the standout gag was the deer shooting the vulture scene which was hilarious and perfectly delivered.

However, the film still is problematic for being racist in caricaturing Africans. It is a Looney Tunes entry because it’s done in black-and-white and Porky Pig is the star, but he isn’t the star here and is entirely underused. The movie is more a Merry Melodies entry as it is very much a travelogue with different characters. This mix did not work for me and I think it is high time to use Porky Pig properly or get rid of him entirely.

Africa Squeaks has memorable, very funny animal gags, but Porky is underused and the entire film is an odd mix of the two Warner’s series.