#i go a lot more deeper in on this Bugs and Porky dynamic i have in my head on my @dafpork blog the 💭 🎭 and 📓 tags are probably your best

[ducktracy]

Were there any shorts that paired Bugs and Porky? Like the the only ones I can think of are from New Looney Tunes/Wabbit and I just know there had be shorts that starred just them before that.

OH MAN!!! OKAY. i'm going to preface this right now with: the answer is simple (tl;dr: barely, i'd say only one truly counts during the classic era) but the Porky and Bugs dynamic has become a side obsession for me within the past year or so, and i don't really have many opportunities to talk about it on this blog. so i will probably end up giving you way too much info than what you asked for. so there's the tldr above! and to reiterate it further...

SO. YES. to answer your question, they were occasionally paired together in the classics, but nothing really meaningful. Porky's Hare Hunt, which is a self-admitted rip on Porky's Duck Hunt, births a prototypal Bugs Bunny who could not be further from his fully realized counterpart... but there is a direct lineage.

this is the only short in the classics to have them actually talking to each other, and even then, proto-Bugs sounds nothing like how he would. i both count this one and don't, really... it's more interesting to count it, but, this isn't really Bugs. but as the title implies, it's all about Porky's attempts to hunt this screwy rabbit who keeps heckling him and slipping out of his fingers. it also births the Groucho Marx-ism of "of course you realize, this means war!" associated with the real Bugs, so there is that going for it!

interestingly, this model sheet surfaced a few months ago--Bob Clampett had said something in an interview about him helping out with the story for this one, and i always dismissed that as one of his "exaggerations" since he had a knack for making many mountains out of molehills, including his involvement in the origins of Bugs... but this does look like a Clampett or Clampett unit drawing, and the short was directed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, whose style was markedly different... so, just thought that was interesting! never got to talk about this yet. this model sheet is more appealing than the whole cartoon!

there's also this from Hare-um Scare-um, which is another proto-Bugs short... very prophetic honestly

there's also Any Bonds Today, where Porky appears in the background alongside Elmer and has at least one line to help shill war bonds, but it's really Bugs' thing first and foremost and he's just sort of there to look pretty and rouse jingoism through being a recognizable and "reliable" face

BUT! the next true Porky and Bugs short in 1943, which is more relevant to your question. A Corny Concerto is really only the "true" short that pairs them together... and it's for half the runtime of the short, and neither of them say a word to each other LOL. but they're together in the Tale of Vienna Woods segment, and i HIGHLY recommend watching it if you haven't yet--extremely entertaining and charming, and paints a very interesting glimpse of what a Porky and Bugs dynamic would look like, had that been a thing. very antagonistic! Porky is hunting Bugs again, who's heckling him (again), coming to a climax where he fakes Porky out by pretending to die and then slaps him in a gag that makes it look like Porky is being a masher. normal stuff.

and thanks to this short i've fostered the headcanon that i think Porky and Bugs would absolutely detest each other if they were ever to interact and it gives me great joy to think about, and has been something i've been thinking about and concocting in my mind palace very much lately.

AND THAT'S REALLY IT FOR MAJOR APPEARANCES.. i talked about it in this ask, but the end of Porky Pig's Feat does make history by being the only time all the flagship stars appear together--Porky and Daffy are held prisoner in a hotel since they couldn't pay their rent, and they start reminiscing on how Bugs Bunny, the great cartoon star, would be able to get out of such a mess... and they try to get his help, only for it to reveal that he's stuck in the same situation! Porky doesn't say anything to Bugs/hardly regards him, but he does start the "gosh, if Bugs Bunny were only here" discussion... Bugs is really more like a godlike cartoon figure here rather than an actual character, and i see it more as a loophole for Frank Tashlin to work with Bugs, since he was very vocal about his disappointment in not getting to direct him often due to being low in the studio hierarchy and being "stuck with the damn pig" (rude!!)

and the last instance of them together that i can think of is a very brief part in the 1964 Dumb Patrol short (clarifying the date since there's a 1931 Bosko short by the same name): Porky in a silent cameo is slated to take down Yosemite Sam's warplane, but Bugs knocks him unconscious and steals his place because "he's got a wife and six piglets at home!" (...or, it's just a slightly more creative way of concocting exposition for what's a subpar Bugs and Yosemite Sam short)

and that's it for the shorts! ...so, surely, you're asking "okay, but why the long winded anticipatory introduction?" and to THAT! i say... because Porky and Bugs had a sort of double life and were very frequently paired in merchandising together.

Bugs was Porky's Daffy-figure in the comics, to the point where they were often the face of the comics together. usually a lot of stories revolving around Bugs trying to stir up Mr. Moral Goody Two Shoes Porky and get him in trouble, the two going on adventures together, or them just being buddies. it's... weirdly fascinating? the comics were often drawn and written by many of the same figures who worked on the cartoons, so it's a very interesting "what if" scenario that might give insight as to what it'd be like if we got more Porky and Bugs shorts

one of my all time favorite comic stories is an entire story about a big, convoluted misunderstanding where everyone things Porky wants to kill Bugs and they all try to stop him. the comics have been excellent fodder in fueling my "Porky just hates Bugs' guts" headcanon that i kinda just thought was me being funny, but has a weird amount of "evidence" for it LOL.

i mean Porky just goes straight for the ankle breaker here!

SO! they have been paired together in the past, but in a sort of strange, convoluted way. in terms of shorts there's very little, and the only time they ever talk to each other one on one is when Bugs is in his most primordial form. the comics and merchandising of the era paint more of a picture of what that dynamic could be like, but maybe a bit of a dubious one, since the characterizations and writing and general style of the comics are a bit different and more sanitized than the irreverence of the shorts, in both tone and format