Often an Orphan (1949)

Often an Orphan Review

Often an Orphan is a 1949 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is a pretty solid flick.

Charlie Dog wants to stay in the country so he tries to trick Porky Pig into adopting him. Let’s first get the negatives out of the way. I did not care for its ending where Porky starts acting like a dog because he’s lost it. I’ve seen it before, and I’ve seen most of this flick before to some degree, and that hurt it in the long run.

However, it’s still hugely entertaining and actually very funny at times thanks to reliably hilarious Charlie. The entire flick is quite amusing, but that sequence where the rascal pretends to be breaking down and sobbing in tears was so damn funny with most of those lines being absolutely hilarious how manipulative they are.

Often an Orphan is familiar in many scenes, but it’s hilarious in the sobbing sequence which took it up a notch to a pretty solid quality.