Favorite Porky Pig shorts director?

[Stumpos]

As one of the big 5 Looney Tunes characters and not being exclusive to just one director, thought we'd talk about Porky Pig next.

Among the following directors, who would you all say was the best with Porky Pig between:

• Friz Freleng
• Tex Avery
• Jack King
• Frank Tashlin
• Bob Clampett
• Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton
• Chuck Jones
• Norm McCabe
• Robert McKimson
• Art Davis

I excluded directors who only did 1 or 2 shorts with Porky like Ub Iwerks and Irv Spector since they didn't get enough time to do much with him.

Between those ten directors, who would you all say were the best with Porky? And who was the weakest with Porky?

And as a bonus and knowing that directors did have their own interpretations of the characters, how would you describe Porky's characterization under Freleng, Avery, King, Tashlin, Clampett, Hardaway/Dalton, Jones, McCabe, McKimson, and Davis? This is gonna be interesting with how often there is a divide between how each director interprets Porky. Thoughts on how they used Porky?

 

[Pooky]

I'll go with Tashlin, his Porky cartoons have a unique 30s Screwball energy that really makes them stand out from anything that came before or after, and my reflexive answer when I consider what my favourite PP cartoon would be Porky Pig's Feat.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Another hard one to choose. All did fine work with him. My personal favorite Porkys:
-You Ought to Be in Pictures (Freleng)
-The Ducksters (Jones)
-The Awful Orphan (Jones)
-Riff Raffy Daffy (Davis)
-Kitty Kornered (Clampett)
-Thumb Fun (McKimson)
-Porky the Wrestler (Avery)
-Baby Bottleneck (Clampett)
-The Prize Pest (McKimson)
-Fool Coverage (McKimson)
-Curtain Razor (Freleng)
-Porky in Wackyland/Dough For the Do-Do (Clampett/Freleng)
-Duck Dodgers (Jones)
-Claws For Alarm (Jones)
-Rocket Squad (Jones)
-Brother Brat (Tashlin)
-Dog Collared (McKimson)

The weakest Porky shorts are the ones where he's just an incidental character amidst a variety of blackout gags. Most common in the late '30s/early '40s era.

 

[Stumpos]

While not the favorite Porky director, I'd also give some flowers for Art Davis for genuinely trying to reinvent Porky, leaning more into him being a bit grumpier in the Porky shorts he directed and making him more flexible as a result. Notably, there was an increase in shorts with Porky as a leading man during Art Davis' run as director (1946-49) compared to 1942-45 with 6 out of 19 from Davis (Clampett doing 2, Jones doing 4, Freleng doing 2, and McKimson doing 5), more than the other directors during that time. It's telling Porky's shorts again fell after Davis got demoted to animator and was relegated to just Daffy's sidekick by 1951.