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!
28 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?!
Joe:
I have seen “Rabbit Seasoning” and “Daffy and the Dinosaur.” Both are great picks! I can’t recall if I’ve watched “Yankee Doodle Daffy.” In the coming days I intend to (re)watch all three shorts… and a part of me hopes I haven’t seen “Yankee Doodle.” There are so many looney tunes shorts that I don’t know if I’ll ever see all of them. But part of the fun is that an old classic is always waiting to become a new(to me) favorite!
The Jack Benny inspired caveman highlights how much Looney Tunes riffed on the popular culture of it’s time. The other day I read a tweet that said that Bug Bunny is essentially a fusion of Clark Gable and Grucho Marx. Last year I watched Clark Gable in “Arsenic and Old Lace” and his double takes/reactions absolutely made me think of Bug. I need to watch more old live action screwball comedies. There is so much shared dna between them and golden age cartoons.
Now, I don’t know if I have a favorite Looney Tunes short but I will say that my favorite moment in a looney tunes short is from “Daffy the Commando” when Daffy hits Hitler in the head with a mallet.
Did you ever see the new Looney Tunes movie “The Day the Earth Blew Up”? I really enjoyed it. It captured the spirit of the original shorts with an adventure-oriented plot that reminded me of the old dell comics.
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!
My all time favorite WB cartoon short has got to be "One Froggy Evening." Not only is it a parable about greed but also about being misunderstood. And my favorite Bugs Bunny moment isn't from one of the shorts but rather from "The Bugs Bunny Show" later reprised on "The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour" when Bugs presents a mini-dissertation on the nature of an animated cartoon. It's always great when Bugs breaks "the fourth wall" and talks directly to the audience--which happens frequently if you think about it. Anyway, in this particular instance he manages to wax quite eloquent on the subject. It's a "lesson' I never forgot!
As for "surprise endings," some of my favorites are "Rebel Rabbit," "Rabbit Trouble" (it won't allow me to misspell it as it is in the original title), and "Rocket Squad." There's something hilariously ironic about pulling for a hero all the way through to find him ending up incarcerated as a criminal at the end. Even when the character has "earned it" as in "Rebel Rabbit" but even more ironic when the character is supposedly working for law and order as in "Rocket Squad." I guess my fascination with jail stems from my childhood when through no fault of my own I was often "vilified" by my teachers who decided without cause that I was "a bad kid." This led to my hanging out with the other "bad kids" and actually doing a few things to "justify" my already-wrecked reputation. Point is, once you are in disgrace, you can't really win your way back. Thus, my empathy with someone who finds himself on the "wrong side of the law" especially when it's undeserved.
My all-time favourite would have to be “Duck Dodgers.” I’m a sucker for parables. When I learned about the Cold War arms race in high school, I immediately thought “Duck Dodgers” was a commentary on the dangers of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. As part of a senior class project, I actually showed “Duck Dodgers” to my AP US history class. It was quite a hit! (That said, I've never said any hard evidence that the short was intended as a commentary on the arms race.)
When I first saw it at the age of 11, “Duck Amuck” made such an impression on me that I drew a two-page comic strip roughly adapting the plot of “Duck Amuck” to the general concept of the MasterCard commercials that were airing at the time. ("There are some things money can't buy; for everything else, there's Mastercard.”) And, yes, my strip ends with the "stinker."
My favourite Bugs Bunny short is “Operation: Rabbit.” Bugs’s response to Wile E. Coyote’s “sales pitch” for eating him is a classic. “Sorry, Mac, but the lady of the house ain’t home, and, besides, we mailed you people a check last week!”
Someday, I’ll use that line on a telemarketer.
My favourite Freleng short is “Bugs and Thugs.” The fact that by the end, the gangsters would rather be arrested than deal with Bugs is priceless. I also enjoy the reference to Jones’s “Hunting Trilogy” at the beginning.
My favourite McKimson short is “Devil May Hare.” Gotta love Bugs’s trickery of the Tasmanian Devil.
Quick correction to my comment:
Cary Grant is in Arsenic and Old Lace. Not Clark Gable. Opps
Ryan:
If you haven’t seen “Yankee Doodle Daffy” I’m sorry to have spoiled it, on the other hand, you have a fun Daffy-Porky romp waiting for you! I’d imagine there are lots of people who’ve not seen every Looney Tune and Merrie Melodie (yours truly included), though my gaps are relatively few and encompass both the earliest and latest extremes of the LT spectrum! Lack of TV and home video exposure being the cause. But I’ve seen enough of them at either side to figure that no major surprises await me. 1945-1953 being the prime period, and that’s well-covered, exposure-wise.
Once I got into “old movies” (…better than current ones in almost every conceivable way, led by far more distinctive actors and no CGI), I began to get the jokes that “I *knew* were jokes, but didn’t quite get them” and that enhanced my enjoyment of both “classic-era-movies-and-the-theatrical-shorts-that-love-them!” Groucho Marx as an influence on Bugs was obvious from the start, but it took a while to uncover the connection to Clark Gable! And, not being a rom-com fan, I actually learned this from the 1975 Clampett-centric documentary film “Bugs Bunny: Superstar” which played theatrically at ‘70s at midnight shows!
Just imagine how the adult movie audience must have howled when Daffy whacked Hitler over the head with a mallet! And, no matter how much it appears to be downplayed, the German bird colonel and Sgt. Schulz are clearly the inspiration for the two lead German characters on “Hogan’s Heroes”!
I have not seen “The Day the Earth Blew Up” for the simple reason that nothing done with those characters this century (save "Duck Dodgers", maybe)has impressed me – either by “nothing” plots” or with bizarrely redesigned characters! I can’t help but wonder WHY do modern producers need to put their own inappropriate stamp on characters that were perfect, or near-perfect, to begin with! Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, etc.
But, if “The Day the Earth Blew Up” follows the Clampett/Jones/Freleng character designs – and is reminiscent of Dell Comics, as well – I may break down and give it a look!
Scarecrow:
“One Froggy Evening” is in a class completely by itself! It defies being awarded a “place on a list”, because there’s simply nothing like it! It *could* be classified as “The Greatest Looney Tune of All Time”, possibly even the “The Greatest Cartoon of All Time - Period”! It is literally peerless!
It is certainly “The Most Cynical Cartoon of All Time”, and right up my alley as (perhaps until recently) a near-lifelong cynic! The only thing I feel comes close to it on the cynic-scale would be Quick Draw McGraw’s “Chopping Spree”, where the villain gets away with (off-screen, implied) murder and on-screen sabotage, gets the girl and her lumber camp to boot, and the hero (Quick Draw) runs off at the end with an axe in his back!
It *might* even beat “One Froggy Evening” in cynicism, because no one in “Froggy” actually did anything criminal… unless you broaden your definition to include walking off a construction site with a frog in a box! Greed, unfortunately, is not criminal as our times prove again and again! In some circles, I daresay it's perversely celebrated, alas!
This, as opposed to the out-and-out villain getting EVERYTHING his foul deeds were intended to get him! And with not even an ironic twist at the end where the girl turns out to be a real nagging bitch (…that *did* happen in Ricochet Rabbit) or, unknown to the villain, the lumber camp was in bankruptcy and owed a staggering amount of taxes for which he was now responsible! Nope! He just got it all, exactly as he wanted it!
And it is no small coincidence that both “One Froggy Evening” and “Chopping Spree” (and most likely the Ricochet Rabbit) were written by Michael Maltese, in my humble writer’s opinion, the greatest cartoon writer who ever lived – and one of my two “writing heroes” along with Carl Barks!
Your “empathy with someone who finds himself on the wrong side of the law", indicates that you would enjoy classic era Film Noir as much as I do! …Do you?
Sergio:
All great choices! In 1953, I’d say “Duck Dodgers” was indeed a Cold War parable! Naziism was vanquished, only to soon be relaced by Communism. Why is it that, whenever we overcome some adversary or adverse condition, it is always replaced by something bigger, badder, and often worse? Yes, I’m talkin’ to YOU, today’s repugnant politics!!!
The movies of the 1950s were rife with Cold War paranoia. Such was even the thinly-veiled case in the Sci-Fi / Monster movies of the time! Invading creatures, spawned by forces let loose by weapons of war. From the 1930s-onward, Warner Bros. made its name as the “Ripped from the Headlines” studio, rarely letting us down in that regard and becoming my favorite studio – for films and cartoons – in the process! Why would they not take on the Cold War in the guise of a space opera?!
If your AP US history class ever has a reunion, you can tell them that “Duck Dodgers” was very much a commentary on the arms race of the Cold War! I got'cher back, if challenged!
I’d love to know the details of your melding “Duck Amuck” with those MasterCard commercials that I also remember! …If you don’t wish to go into it on the Blog, you can email me privately! The e-addy has been the same since 1996… resistant to change much? That goes for anyone, whether or not you’ve ever melded “Duck Amuck” with MasterCard!
...And wouldn't we be surprised if someone did?!
I don't remember the details very well. The drawing still exists. It's floating around in my attic somewhere. Next time I come across it, I'd be happy to send you a copy. Though given that it was made by a 12-year-old, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out not to make as much sense in retrospect as it did to me at the time. :)
By the way, thanks for the context re: Warner Bros. and the Cold War. Now I know for sure it was a commentary on the arms race! (I'm somewhat surprised Jones and co. got away with it, i.e., no negative political or social repercussions.)
Sergio:
Happy to have helped with Warner Bros. and the Cold War! …Now, I can apply to get this humble Blog an E/I Rating!
“I'm somewhat surprised Jones and co. got away with it, i.e., no negative political or social repercussions.”
People were much less sensitive in 1953 than they are today! In some ways I liked that (in this case, for instance), and in some ways I didn’t! Why can’t we just hit that sweet spot between “bigots” and “snowflakes”? It can’t be THAT HARD, people!
When I judge or rate movies, my Golden Rule is “Judge it by the time in which it was made!” That would carry over to your (or anyone’s) age-12 drawings!
Having unearthed some stuff from its long hibernation as part of our moving experience, I’ve found a number of absolutely hideous grade-school-era drawings of Disney and Hanna-Barbera characters… which I thought were pretty good then! …They weren’t! I got better during junior high and high school but, by about 1981, I sadly realized that the absolute best I could do was just about approach Kay Wright – so I gave it up to focus more on writing!
…I’d like to think that turned out for the best!
As a quick response to your question, yes, I am a huge fan of film noir, especially classics like The Maltese Falcon. Hitchcock's Saboteur and The Wrong Man are also ones to which I can relate. Not too long ago I wrote a play which is somewhat of a parody of Falcon but also of noir in general, titled "The New York Adventure" in which the sets and costumes are to be as monochromatic as possible and the dialogue is similar to that of Chandler, Hammett, or Runyon. Though it's set in modern times the characters have inexplicably morphed into 40's mode. Only because it's suitable to the mood and theme of the play. So, yes, I relate to the underdog and especially to one who is falsely accused. Accounting for my quirky tastes!
The Day The Earth Blew Up is actually in the art style of the classic shorts, (so is the HBO Max Looney Tunes Cartoons series)
Ah, then that might indeed be worth checking out! I'm sure you can understand my disappointment with other LT "product" of the last decade or so that fueled my reluctance!
Forgot to mention that the HBO Max Looney Tunes series will be available on DVD next week.
Well, that just made it more interesting! I've just added both to my cart! May pull the trigger (apologies to Elmer Fudd) next week! Is it really the entire complete series? Please let me know!
Joe:
Everything but the unreleased shorts are on all 6 discs
Sounds good, but tell me about the "unreleased shorts". I'm not plugged into modern animation, except for RICK AND MORTY which my Fantagraphics writing colleague Thad Komorowski got me hooked on in 2015!
There were shorts that never came out that because they weren’t in the final batch of released shorts
So they were planned, but never made? That happens a lot in TV.
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