Thursday Minute
No. 140 | July 29, 2010

Merrie Melodies Tribute

Our theme this week
Selected shorts from Merrie Melodies

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931)
Tuesday         —   “A Wild Hare” (1940)
Wednesday    —   “A Tale of Two Kitties” (1942)

“Duck Amuck” (1953)

Notes in brief
Daffy Duck debuted in 1937 in a Tex Avery short, and the lisping, loony toon has been a regular in the Merrie Melodies stable ever since.  He often played the arch-rival of Bugs Bunny, and more often than not he got the short end of the stick.  In “Duck Amuck,” he’s the star of the show, (almost) the only animated character in the cel.  He fights a battle with his off-screen creator, who plays one mean trick after another on the helpless Daffy.  Who is his creator?  In one sense, it’s Chuck Jones, one of the grand masters of animation.  But there’s another—and funnier—answer to that question, and it comes at the end of the six-and-a-half minute short.

“Duck Amuck” is one of about two dozen animated works to be inducted into the National Film Registry.  In a poll published in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, as voted by 1,000 people who work in the animation field, “Duck Amuck” ranked #2 all-time.  It gets my vote for the most brilliant cartoon short ever.

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“Duck Amuck” (1953)
Chuck Jones, director
Michael Maltese, writer
Mel Blanc (Daffy Duck), voice

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 Quote of note
“We are all God’s animated cartoons.”
—Steven Gold (Tom Hanks), Punchline (1988)