Well, I guess I asked for it...
Now that the voting is closed in our Gottfredson Guessing Game, and the results will be posted soon, I volunteered, as a lead-in to the Big Event, to offer up "My Favorite Looney Tunes Short", followed by "My Favorite Carl Barks Story"...
...So, here they are! Looney Tunes today, Barks maybe in another day or three, and finally the glory of Gottfredson!
As I mentioned in the previous Comments Section, these things often come grouped in "Top Threes", and Looney Tunes and Barks are no exception. I'll run 'em all down with explanations as to why they fall where they do. Good fodder for your comments too!
FAVORITE LOONEY TUNES SHORT: "Rabbit Seasoning"! Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, and Mel Blanc are ALL at the top of their game in this one! With Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer as the most perfect, textbook versions of the characters as we know them best!
This is the second of the "Duck Season, Rabbit Season Trilogy" and far and away the best, in terms of character design, character movement, witty dialogue (...which you all know that I LOVE), and voice performances!
But for me, as a writer, what REALLY sets "Rabbit Seasoning" apart from its predecessor "Rabbit Fire", and its successor "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!", is that it has the strongest ending of the three, paying off a gag bit expertly laid earlier in the cartoon by Michael Maltese! The now-immortal "Would you like to shoot me now, or wait 'till you get home?"
In comparison, the "Elmer Season" closing gag of "Rabbit Fire", and the "Baseball Season" closing gag of "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!", despite these cartoons' other fine moments, cannot help but fall flat!
Those who know me in real-life know that "Rabbit Seasoning" is chock full of go-to quotes for me:
"You keep outta dis, he doesn't have to shoot you now!" (from Bugs).
"Let's run through that again!" (lisping like Daffy Duck).
"Pronoun trouble!" (from Daffy).
"Well I say he DOES have to shoot me now - so SHOOT ME NOW!" (from Daffy)
"Yaess?" (from Bugs).
"Ohhh no you don't! Not again! Sorry!" (from Daffy).
"Yeah, you're so smart! If I was a rabbit, what WOULD you do?" (from Daffy).
"Right-o!" (from Daffy).
"No more for me, thanks! I'm drivin'!" (from a dazed Daffy).
David, Thad K., and Jonathan Gray, for instance, have heard most, if not all, of these at random moments in different and unrelated conversations!
And, while not a quote, I must also cite Elmer's "hat-erection" when kissed by Bugs in drag!
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Rounding out my "Top Three" at #2 is something as opposite from "Rabbit Seasoning" as a Warner/Schlesinger short can get... "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" (1939, Chuck Jones).
In the stone age, a primitive, manically wild version of Daffy Duck, heckles a put-upon Jack Benny-inspired caveman and his clumsy pet dinosaur literally to death! And it IS that unexpected death of our three main characters that makes this one of my three favorite endings in cartoons! (I'll exclude modern things like "Rick and Morty" - Thanks, Thad! - from this list, because the "unexpected ending" has become more of a norm!)
Daffy has "died" at the end of at least two other cartoons, "Draftee Daffy" and "Show-Biz Bugs", but the novelty and execution of the triple-demise makes this one the best!
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Daffy has the honor of appearing in ALL THREE of my favorite Looney Tunes shorts... and this one just happens to have my *second-favorite* ending in all of cartoons... #3 is "Yankee Doodle Daffy" (1943, Friz Freleng).
Talent agent Daffy mercilessly hounds theatrical empresario Porky Pig into giving the lollipop-licking, almost silent, diminutive duck, Sleepy Lagoon, an audition.
What wins it a place in my "Top Three" is the ending of Sleepy not just unexpectedly demonstrating a shockingly beautiful operatic voice - that's great enough! But, what REALLY puts it over the top is the last-second addition of Sleepy CHOKING as he sings his last line!!!
It's that "going back for one more gag, once you think it's over" that truly appeals to me as a writer! Not seeing the originals of many of the stories I translate, you may not notice this, but adding an extra gag to compliment the one that precedes it is something I try to do whenever possible! ...and it just might have been this cartoon that would eventually inspire me to do so!
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Something I just realized at this writing... While Bugs Bunny is my favorite Looney Tunes character, it is Daffy Duck who stars in all three of my favorite shorts!
And a DIFFERENT VERSION of Daffy in each one, to boot! Primitive Manic Daffy, Obnoxious Huckster Daffy, and Jealous and Resentful Daffy! I'd say the duck has had quite an evolution over the years!
Drop some comments on us, and let us know what you think!
9 comments:
Ah, I'm more of a Late Daffy than Early Daffy guy, but 'Dinosaur' and 'Doodle' did both leave strong impressions on me from childhood! I suppose I've never actually seen those two in their original undubbed version, I should really check them out… The ending of 'Dinosaur' reminds me of the similar twist ending to the 1967 Blake-Edwards-esque 'Casino Royale'!
(Speaking of final twists, I note that a strong ending is a recurring theme through a majority of this ranking! I guess it's true that you gotta end on a high note.)
Oh, and the end of "Rabbit Seasoning" is indeed hilarious, but I can't have you badmouthing Elmer Season, which has always had me hollering in its own right. I just love the breakdown of logic that it entails, the Lewis-Carroll-esque impression that by "resetting reality" too many times, Daffy and Bugs have managed to throw up a "glitch" of sorts. But then, I did say I liked "Duck Amuck"; I love it when the Looney Tunes go meta.
Yikes! I have a "best of Warner Bros.--50 cartoon collection Looney Tunes" DVD, and not one of your top three is included! It does, however, include my two faves, much more common choices than yours: #1 What's Opera, Doc and #2 Duck Dodgers. The cartoon lines most quoted in my childhood home: "Oh, Bwunhilde, you're so wuvwy / Yes, I know it, I can't help it!" Sung-quoted, of course.
Achille:
Early, mid, or late, I liked Daffy in ALL his incarnations (…or might that be RE- incarnations, given the number of times he’s “died”)! You must admit that, for a cartoon character, he’s had an extraordinary journey of evolution!
All the more so because all of it came within the SAME MEDIUM, animation, unlike Donald Duck whose equally extraordinary evolution occurred on the various stages of classic animation, comics, costumed walk-abouts, television animation, CGI, and let’s assume AI…if it hasn’t happened already!
Bugs Bunny may have become more sedate, sophisticated, charming, and even urbane at times under Jones, but he remained a trickster at heart. Not Daffy, though HE probably had to change so as not to be more-or-less a duplicate of Bugs.
I’m assuming you’re saying that you’ve seen “Dinosaur” and “Doodle” only in their French dubbings. Funny I never really thought much about it, but surely there must be some differences vs. the original Hollywood versions.
For instance, in “Dinosaur”, was “Casper Caveman” portrayed as a prehistoric version of Jack Benny? Not in appearance, but certainly in voice! I’ve always believed this was purposeful on the part of Chuck Jones as, instead of Mel Blanc, he employed specialty voice actor JACK LESCOULIE to nicely simulate the unmistakable voice of Jack Benny!
I’d imagine Jack Benny was not simulated in the French dub. Was a French celebrity parodied instead, or was Casper just generically voiced?
Same goes for all the songs in “Doodle”. Were more popular French tunes substituted, or were equivalent French lyrics just laid over the music track?
GOOGLE SAYS WE MUST BREAK HERE! MORE FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY!
GOOGLE NOW GIVES US PERMISSION TO RESUME HERE! We return with a quote from Achillie...
“(Speaking of final twists, I note that a strong ending is a recurring theme through a majority of this ranking! I guess it's true that you gotta end on a high note.)”
As a writer (…and even as a KID, when I only *imagined* myself writing stuff like this – before life had other plans for me), strong endings were always big for me, and the very few writers that “had names” back then were the names I first noticed since around age 9. I memorized the name of Michael Maltese before the name of Charles M. Jones!
Maltese always seemed to be associated with things I liked in animation (WB, H-B, and others) and only in the last few decades did I come to realize his sizable body of work for Western Publishing’s Dell and Gold Key Comics – often on the same characters he wrote in animation!
Note that, of the seven “influences” listed on MY GCD CREATOR PAGE , you will find Michael Maltese as well as Warren Foster – in my view, the two greatest cartoon writers who ever lived – along with the other “usual suspects! …Also, the ORDER of the influences did not come out in the order I submitted, and that’s why Carl Barks isn’t #1 and Warren Foster precedes Michael Maltese. But the influential folks are quite obvious if you know me or my work!
Finally, I’d never “badmouth” “Rabbit Fire” or “Duck! Rabbit, Duck!”! Bookending “Rabbit Seasoning” they make up perhaps the greatest trilogy in the history of theatrical animated shorts – or, so I say!
THREE is the right number for anything like this, as proved by both the “Duck Season, Rabbit Season Trilogy” and what I call the “Cowardly Sylvester and Stupefyingly Oblivious Porky in Danger Trilogy”, with “Jumpin’ Jupiter” being my favorite of the latter. Anything more can get tiresome and too repetitive (…I’m talking to YOU, “Giant Mouse”!) As I said deep into THIS POST, it should have stopped at a “Giant Mouse Trilogy” because “…the first three were all excellent, and provided just enough variation on the theme to form a trilogy”!
…But even though I love meta humor too, I just think the ending of “Rabbit Seasoning” is the best of the three due to it’s being expertly set up midway through the short!
Elaine:
FIFTY CARTOONS is hardly adequate to represent the best of that amazing body of work known as “Looney Tunes” (…and “Merrie Melodies”, if ya wanna be technical about it!) …Say, maybe THAT’S why none of my Top Three were included! …Finally, a “rigged-election” we can believe in! :-)
“What's Opera, Doc” and “Duck Dodgers” are absolutely all-time greats! And it probably comes as no surprise that they both were creations of Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese!
“What's Opera, Doc” might have even been part of a more-encompassing “Opera Trilogy” with Bugs and Elmer playing different operatic roles. Or perhaps add “Rabbit of Seville” and one more to round-out the three. Sorry, but “Long-Haired Hare” and “Baton Bunny” don’t quite count enough to manufacture a true opera trilogy.
“Duck Dodgers” *could* have been a trilogy, but didn’t need to be because it stood perfectly well on its own. It certainly didn’t need 1980’s “Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century” and, frankly, neither did we! …Though I think its failings had more to do with the TIME in which it was made (the flat, animation-lifeless 1980, as opposed to the more sublime 1953 and prior). WB wasn’t exactly the animation powerhouse it would become in the 1990s back then, alas.
Besides, while not the equal of the original 1953 theatrical short (…what could be?), the early 2000s “Duck Dodgers TV Series” was a sufficient thirst-quencher for those who wanted more! …Too bad they had to wait FIFTY YEARS to get it!
There was a REALLY GREAT Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian 3D short that played in a specially created mini-theatre in what was the Manhattan Warner Bros. Store during the mid-later ‘90s! I saw it several times and sure wish I could see it again! Anyone else ever see it?
Why did it never find its way onto DVD/Blu-ray? The 3D technology for home video is now better than ever! …Double alas.
While I still think that Bugs Bunny is the most iconic Looney Tunes character, Daffy Duck has proven himself to be the most versatile. Bugs is pretty much limited in the parts he can play and still feel like Bugs Bunny, but Daffy runs the gamut, from crazed slapstick, the born loser, miscast hero and greedy jerk. And he can sometimes be more than one of them in the same picture! (Lines like “I do this sort of thing to him all through the picture” have me calling them “pictures” myself).
“Duck Amuck” is probably my favorite Looney Tunes short. It’s surreal, yet if you remember that Daffy is just a drawing on a piece of paper, it has its own sort of logic to it. “Would it be too much to ask if we could…make up our minds? Hmm?” Is one of my favorite lines.
Another surrealist short, “Porky in Wackyland”, comes in at my number two spot. The Do-Do Bird takes the idea of Early Daffy-style humor to its bizarre limits. (The color remake “Dough For the Do-Do” is fun, too).
At number three, I think belongs to “The Stupor Duck”, Robert McKimson’s parody of the George Reeves Superman TV series. It’s hard to forget Daffy’s pursuit of the fictional Aardvark Ratnik and all of the comic mishaps that befall our somewhat-less-than-super hero in his misguided quest. It’s like someone mixed Superman with Don Quixote.
There are dozens and dozens of fantastic WB cartoons, and the list here will change frequently.
Non-canon Daffy Duck projects like the Duck Dodgers TV series and “The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” also show Daffy’s versatility, and both feature one of the most under-appreciated Looney Tunes character, Porky Pig. I hope we never lose sight of one thing…it all began w-w-with a p-p-pig.
Deb:
It certainly did “all [begin] w-w-with a p-p-pig”! Porky Pig and Mickey Mouse both had similar early trajectories. Each was their respective studio’s first “star” (…Sorry, Bosko and Buddy!) and each was overshadowed by subsequent wilder characters. But poor Porky didn’t get to become his studio’s omnipresent corporate symbol, and was relegated to secondary roles for the rest of his career. I can just imagine corporate symbol Bugs Bunny saying “Ain’t I a stinker!”
…Perhaps Porky’s final indignity was the WB Water Tower becoming a greater corporate symbol than he! Oh, well… At least he fared better in the Dell/Gold Key/Whitman comics, probably ending up with more NEW STORIES than Mickey – all the way up to the bitter end in 1984, as The Mouse’s title was practically all-reprint in its near-last-decade-or-so despite a run of new short stories in WDC&S!
“Duck Amuck” was – and STILL IS – absolutely amazing! I can’t say definitively if the concept had been oft-done in animation’s paleolithic days (…meaning that they had just developed “tools” to do wondrous things with cels) using characters such as Felix the Cat or Koko the Clown but, what I’ve seen of these characters, would seem to bear this out. No doubt Casper Caveman’s pet dinosaur was a not-so-distant descendant of “Gertie the Dinosaur”! Anyway, this sort of surrealistic scenario probably reached its height with “Duck Amuck”!
Daffy was the perfect victim of the unseen animator (…I can’t imagine said animator’s identity could *still* be a spoiler for anyone inclined to visit this humble Blog – but, in case some unwitting soul took a “wrong turn” while trying to find Albuquerque on Google Maps, I won’t take that chance), while inflicting such indignities on Bugs, in Jones’ later “Rabbit Rampage”, just didn’t seem quite as funny.
In my opinion, Warner Bros. did *just enough* surrealistic entries to be “fun, but not overdone”! (…I’m STILL talking to YOU, “Giant Mouse”!)
…And that doesn’t even begin to encompass such wonders as “You Ought to Be in Pictures” done in 1940 (!), no less – and with Leon Schlesinger and Michael Maltese among the live-action cast! Oh, and it was done 48 years before “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”! And before that, though less elaborate in overall scope, was Koko the Clown wreaking havoc upon poor “Uncle Max”! Great stuff, looking backward *and* forward!
And, hey… The Porky and Daffy “picture”, “You Ought to Be in Pictures”, brings us nicely back around to Deb’s opening thought… “(Lines like ‘I do this sort of thing to him all through the picture’ have me calling them ‘pictures’ myself).” How ‘bout that?!
Favorites by Warner director…
Jones: DUCK DODGERS
Clampett: THE GREAT PIGGY BANK ROBBERY
Freleng: BACK ALLEY OPROAR
Tashlin: TALE OF TWO MICE
McKimson: BIRTH OF A NOTION
Davis: TWO GOPHERS FROM TEXAS
Avery: HOLLYWOOD STEPS OUT
McCabe: DAFFY DUCKAROO
This clearly excludes Bugs most emphatically… so here are my favorite Bugs shorts by director…
Jones: RABBIT OF SEVILLE
Clampett: BUGS BUNNY GETS THE BOID
Freleng: This changes day by day between the first four with Sam, but right now it’s BUCCANEER BUNNY, because the powder keg sequence is one of the all-time comedy greats ever filmed.
McKimson: RABBIT’S KIN
Avery: TORTOISE BEATS HARE
Tashlin: HARE REMOVER
Davis: BOWERY BUGS (yeah he only did one, but what a one!)
Thad:
All great choices! What leaps out at me, not just in your choices but in the overall response, is how well DAFFY fares… and how um, er… “less so” BUGS fares!
I’d bet the vast majority of fans would name Bugs as their favorite character, but Daffy has a way of worming himself into so many lists of favorite Looney Tunes shorts. …It’s as if his wish from “Show-Biz Bugs” and “A Star is Bored” has finally come true!
As for “Buccaneer Bunny”, the powder keg sequence was reused by Michael Maltese for the ending of Quick Draw McGraw’s “Treasure of El Kabong”. Let’s assume Maltese as the writer of Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Har-Har’s “Sea Saw”, where he ported over the snitching parrot bit. Amazing how many Maltese and Foster gags traveled to H-B along with them!
Despite FOUR COLOR #420 presenting Sam as a western bad guy (per “Hare Trigger” and “Bugs Bunny Rides Again”), I’d say it was “Buccaneer Bunny” and “Captain Hareblower” that set Sam’s characterization as a PIRATE (reformed) in the Dell/Gold Key/Whitman comics.
…And whaddya know, Warren Foster “sailed” a few pirate ship gags from “Captain Hareblower” right into the harbor of Huckleberry Hound’s “Jolly Roger and Out”!
Finally, my favorite Bugs and Sam cartoon is “High Diving Hare”. At one point in the proceedings, you don’t even NEED TO SEE the gag Bugs pulls on Sam to send him off the high diving board and into the tank of water! He just goes UP, and comes RIGHT DOWN, with the camera not even changing its position of focus on the ladder! THAT, to me, is VERY FUNNY!
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