You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Daffy Duck’ tag.
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: July 7, 1956
Stars: Daffy Duck
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Stupor Duck’ is a spoof on the Fleischer’s Superman cartoons, a series that had ended 13 years before, and was earlier parodied by Chuck Jones in ‘Super Rabbit’ (1943), starring Bugs Bunny.
This time Daffy is “Stupor Duck”, who, overhearing a television program, seeks for the non-existent villain Aardvark Ratnick, seeing his deeds in everything. Daffy, for example, rescues a submarine from ‘sinking’. The best part of the cartoon is its opening sequence which perfectly parodies the Fleischer’s opening sequence. The rest of the cartoon is unfortunately hampered by mediocre timing.
Watch ‘Stupor Duck’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/82993447/
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 75
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Rocket Squad
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: A Star Is Bored
‘Stupor Duck’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: July 25, 1953
Stars: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Marvin Martian
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century’ is a spoof of the popular pulp magazine science fiction series Buck Rogers, which was made into a television series in 1950-1951. This makes this short one of the earliest theatrical cartoons parodying a television series.
Daffy “Duck Dodgers” and his sidekick “the eager young space cadet” Porky have to claim planet X for planet Earth. Unfortunately, Marvin Martian wants to claim the same planet for Mars. This starts a feud, which ends in both blowing up the entire planet.
Although the story of the cartoon is rather similar to the Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Haredevil Hare‘ (1948), Daffy’s unique performance gives it an entirely different feel, leading to new and great gags. More than being a typical science fiction cartoon, this short can be regarded the second cartoon in a series which pairs Daffy as a misguided hero to Porky as a more sensible straight man (the first being ‘Drip-along Daffy‘ from 1951). ‘Duck Dodgers’ must be the highlight of the series, as well as a peak in both Daffy’s as Chuck Jones’s career.
Unhampered by conventions, Jones, his layout-man Maurice Noble and background painter Phil DeGuard went totally berserk with the science-fiction theme, creating wild and lushly colored backgrounds, which make ‘Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century’ one of the most beautiful cartoons ever made at Warner Brothers.
Indeed, so great is its fame, it spawned sequels in 1980, 1996 and 2003. From 2003 to 2005 Cartoon Network even broadcasted a Duck Dodgers series.
Watch ‘Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/Looney-Tunes-Duck-Dodgers-In-The-24-5-Century/aTflTNIyAr/
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 142
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Fool Coverage
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Claws for Alarm
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 65
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Muscle Tussle
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Duck! Rabbit! Duck!
‘Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’ and on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: February 28, 1953
Stars: Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny (cameo)
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
One of the most self-aware animated cartoons ever made, ‘Duck Amuck’, more than any other cartoon, plays with the conventions of animation and with the frustrations of Daffy Duck.
This cartoon shows how good the character is, because even when drawn awkwardly, even without sound, and even when animated as a small speck in the distance, we know it’s Daffy. His struggles with the off-screen animator (who in the end turns out to be Bugs Bunny) form the zenith of his new frustrated personality, which had replaced his zany personality of the thirties and forties three years earlier. Furthermore he’s the sole character in the entire cartoon, but so strong is his unwilling performance that we become hardly aware of this fact.
The poor Daffy has to deal with disappearing and constantly changing backgrounds, with absent and inappropriate sounds, with deformations of his own body etc. In this cartoon he’s the victim of an omnipotent ‘cartoon god’ whom he cannot escape. In this sense ‘Duck Amuck’ questions the relationship between creator and creation and the responsibility of the creator to the things he created. This makes ‘Duck Amuck’ also one of the most philosophical cartoons ever made. And amazingly, it’s funny, too.
Watch ‘Duck Amuck’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ofats
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 63
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Fool Coverage
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Muscle Tussle
‘Drip-along Daffy’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’ and on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: March 26, 1949
Stars: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
With ‘Daffy Duck Hunt’ Robert McKimson returned to the subject of Daffy’s very first cartoon, ‘Porky’s Duck Hunt’ (1937).
Like in the original cartoon Porky Pig is hunting ducks, and Daffy in particular, to no avail. He’s now accompanied by a dog (a typical McKimson design). To trick Daffy, the dog convinces Daffy that he will be tortured if he doesn’t retrieve a duck, so Daffy allows the Dog to take him to Porky. Porky takes Daffy back home and puts him into a particularly cold fridge. From now on almost all the action takes place around the fridge in a wonderfully loony cartoon (penned by Warren Foster) full of wild gags and zany animation.
‘Daffy Duck Hunt’ is one of those Warren Foster/Robert McKimson cartoons that celebrate Daffy’s looniness perfectly. Highlight is a gag in which Daffy jumps out of the fridge in a Santa suit making Porky and the dog believe it’s Christmas. This gag is a nice and equally hilarious variation on a classic gag from Freleng’s ‘The Wabbit Who Came to Supper’ from 1942, in which Bugs Bunny made Elmer believe it’s new year’s day.
Watch ‘Daffy Duck Hunt’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3tb1w8
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 125
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Paying the Piper
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Curtain Raizor
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 49
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Holiday for Drumsticks
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Boobs in the Woods
‘Daffy Duck Hunt’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: March 4, 1950
Stars: Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Henery Hawk, Mama Bear, Porky Pig, Sylvester
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel’ starts with Daffy Duck being tired of comedy.
He proposes to one of the Warner Brothers (who remains off-screen) to make an Errol Flynn-like swashbuckler film based on ‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel by Daffy Dumas Duck’, with, of course, himself in the starring role. This leads to an all-star cartoon with roles for Porky Pig, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd (with Mel Blanc’s voice), Henery Hawk and Mama Bear. Never before were so many Warner Bros. cartoon stars seen in one short, and we had to wait until ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit‘ (1988) to see the exercise repeated.
‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel’ is both an excellent parody on and a faithful homage to the Errol Flynn adventure films. But more importantly, this short is important in the evolution of Daffy Duck, for it marks the birth of Daffy’s final incarnation. In this film Daffy is more of a frustrated and misguided character than downright loony. This new role is still a bit out of Daffy’s element: at times his eyes and behavior are similar to that of Charlie Dog, especially in the opening scene. Nevertheless, in the following years the frustrated Daffy would completely replace the loony one.
‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel’ is also the first of Jones’s Daffy cartoons in which Daffy serves as a misguided hero, starting a great series of shorts, with highlights as ‘Drip-along Daffy‘ (1951) and ‘Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½ Century‘ (1953).
Watch ‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/20-Daffy-Duck-Sylvester-The-Scarlet-Pumpernickel-1950/KJRkZjBcaE/
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 131
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Boobs in the Woods
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: An Egg Scramble
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 51
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Boobs in the Woods
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: The Bitter Half
‘Boobs in the Woods’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: August 7, 1950
Stars: Porky Pig, Daffy Duck
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In ‘Boobs in the Woods’ Porky wants to paint in a forest, but he’s bothered by a particularly loony Daffy.
This cartoon is a typical example of Warren Foster-penned zaniness. Daffy makes no mistake about his zany character, which is similar to the one in the Foster/McKimson outings, like ‘Daffy Doodles’ (1946), ‘Daffy Duck Slept Here‘ (1948) and ‘Daffy Duck Hunt‘ (1949): in the opening scene he introduces himself in a loony song.
Nevertheless, ‘Boobs in the Woods’ is one of the last cartoons featuring this loony version of Daffy. Two months later Jones would introduce a different type in ‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel‘.
Apart from the excellent gags, ‘Boobs in the Woods’ is noteworthy for its extremely stylized and surprisingly flat backgrounds by Cornett Wood and Richard H. Thomas.
Watch ‘Boobs in the Woods’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6egzhi
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 130
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Bye, Bye Bluebeard
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: The Scarlet Pumpernickel
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 50
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Daffy Duck Hunt
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: The Scarlet Pumpernickel
‘Boobs in the Woods’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: March 6, 1948
Stars: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Porky Pig tries to find a room in a town in which all hotels are full due to a convention.
When he finally finds one, he has to share it with a room mate, which turns out to be Daffy at his looniest. Daffy certainly is your worst nightmare of a room mate: he arrives singing loudly, talks to an invisible kangaroo, awakes Porky just out of curiosity, hiccups, steals blankets, puts his cold feet against Porky’s back and spills his glass of water over him. Porky, naturally, throws the looney duck out, but Daffy returns and makes Porky believe it’s morning already, and that he has to catch a train, which Porky eventually does, defying all logic.
This zany Warren Foster-penned story undoubtedly is one of Robert McKimson’s finest cartoons. The gags come fast and plenty, and are as insane as they are familiar. ‘Daffy Duck Slept Here’ is one of the last Warner Brothers cartoons to feature the looney Daffy. The result is a cartoon to laugh your head off.
On a side note: The elevator gag in this cartoon was reused in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit‘ (1988) starring Droopy as the lift boy.
Watch ‘Daffy Duck Slept Here’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7kee7v
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 117
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Little Orphan Airedale
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Nothing But the Tooth
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 42
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: What Makes Daffy Duck?
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: You Were Never Duckier
‘Daffy Duck Slept Here’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: January 5, 1946
Stars: Daffy Duck
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Book Revue’ is the last of the book-covers-come-to life cartoons, a series started by Harman and Ising in 1932, with ‘Three’s a Crowd’.
These cartoons, in which the book titles provide the gags, were mostly plotless, relying on puns and sight gags. ‘Book Revue’ is no exception, but it has the most swinging take on the formula one can wish for.
Set in ‘ye olden book shoppe’, ‘Book Revue’ contains caricatures of some famous (white) jazzmen of the era: Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa. There’s a scene resembling ‘The Swooner Crooner’ (1944), and foreshadowing ‘Little ‘Tinker’ (1948), in which several female characters swoon as soon as Sinatra starts singing. There’s a strong sense of sex here, as in an earlier scene involving ‘Indian strip’, affecting male characters. This places ‘Book Revue’ at the end of the World War II cartoon trends, for these allusions to sex would soon be discarded.
At a certain point Daffy Duck (jumping from a Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes magazine cover) dresses himself as Danny Kaye (with a blonde wig). He interrupts the swing music to tell about a nonsensical tale of some Russian youth and a girl called Cucaracha. In this sequence Daffy imitates the Russian accent Kaye sometimes would explore. When ‘singing’ cucaracha the background suddenly changes into a startling monochrome red.
This absurd sequence is followed by Daffy singing ‘Carolina in the Morning’. Daffy immediately exchanges the song for some superb scat singing to warn Red Riding Hood for the Wolf. These two sequences form a highlight in Daffy’s career, and a real tour de force from voice actor Mel Blanc. The ‘story’, if there is any, involves Daffy being followed by the wolf from Red Riding Hood. In line with the book-covers-come-to-life tradition several personas from book covers come to help to get rid of the villain, sending the wolf to Dante’s inferno.
The animation of Daffy is extremely flexible in this cartoon, especially when animated by Rod Scribner and Manny Gould, who really push the limits here. At one point Daffy even converts into one big eye – probably the most extreme deformation of a major cartoon star ever put to screen.
‘Book Revue’ makes no sense at all, but it is a cartoon full of sheer joy, and a crowning achievement of the book series.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Book Revue’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 31
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Nasty Quacks
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Baby Bottleneck
‘Book Revue’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Two’ and on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: February 14, 1942
Stars: Conrad Cat, Daffy Duck
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Conrad the Sailor’ is the third and last cartoon featuring the early Chuck Jones character Conrad Cat, who also starred ‘Porky’s Cafe’ and ‘The Bird Came C.O.D.’, all from early 1942.
Conrad’s most distinctive trait was his voice, provided by Pinto Colvig, who also voiced Goofy. Indeed, Conrad’s and Goofy’s voices are very similar. However, in ‘Conrad the Sailor’ his voice is rarely heard, as most of the comedy is silent.
In ‘Conrad the Sailor’ Conrad Cat works as a sailor on a battle cruiser (a setting reflecting the war time), where he is nagged by Daffy Duck. Their chase is stopped several times by a small captain who pops up at unexpected moments, a type of gag typical for early Chuck Jones cartoons (see e.g. ‘Inki and the Minah bird’ from 1941 and ‘The Dover Boys‘ from 1942).
‘Conrad the Sailor’ is not a very funny cartoon: neither Conrad nor Daffy behave sympathetically, and the origin of their conflict remains unknown. The Daffy-Conrad-encounters appear to be nothing more than a string of unrelated events. Moreover, Jones’s pacing is still rather slow at times, wearing the comedy down. Conrad’s personality is rather undefined, and after this cartoon he was shelved.
Notwithstanding its weaknesses, the cartoon is noteworthy for its remarkably stylized and surprisingly angled backgrounds, courtesy of lay-out artist John McGrew, who collaborated with Jones on a number of cartoons, before joining the navy himself in 1942. The backgrounds in these cartoons are often the real highlight of the short, and look all the way forward to UPA’s cartoon modern style of the early fifties. McGrew would push the limits even further in ‘The Aristo-Cat‘ (1943).
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 12
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: The Henpecked Duck
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Daffy’s Southern Exposure
‘Conrad the Sailor’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Four’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 