Release date: April 17th, 1937
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Tex Avery
Starring: Mel Blanc (Porky, Daffy), Billy Bletcher (Drunken Fish, The Guy from Upstairs), The Sportsmen Quartet (Singing Fish), Jackie Morrow (Joe Penner), Ruth Cavert (Fish Giggles)
Disney has Steamboat Willie. Warner Bros. has Porky’s Duck Hunt. The moment we’ve all been waiting for… the fated day is here at last: the world is introduced to the enigma that is Daffy Duck. Animation history is a funny thing, because there are so many chain reactions. Without Daffy, there would be no Bugs Bunny. No Woody Woodpecker. Daffy was essentially the first of his class--he was the first screwball character, which has since spawned generations and generations of lovable, wacky characters.
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| Lobby card. |
Not only does Daffy make his debut, but Mel Blanc also debuts his Porky voice. With Joe Dougherty gone, Mel has gotten his feet increasingly wet in cartoons, and now he has his big break, voicing the stuttering pig (and others) all the way until his death in 1989. As we saw in Picador Porky, Porky is considerably slimmer here.
While Daffy is a Tex Avery creation, he only has 3 Tex cartoons total. He’s unnamed in this cartoon (model sheets label him as “that crazy darn fool duck”), earning his title in his second entry, Tex’s Daffy Duck & Egghead. Bob Clampett would seemingly “adopt” Daffy from Tex, pinning him as Porky’s sidekick. While Clampett carried on Tex’s vision of Daffy’s daffiness, he also calmed him down as well. By 1938, Daffy wasn’t a caricature of himself anymore. Maybe not the most sane, but he was capable of coherent thought and conversation. In this cartoon, Daffy is just a heckling little pest (though he fulfills that role quite often). Porky and his dog Rin Chin Chin embark on a good ol’ duck hunt, but Daffy has other plans—saving his own skin.
The introduction of the cartoon is deceitfully mild. The cartoon’s theme, “A Hunting We Will Go”, scores the opening pan of duck hunting essentials: a book on how to hunt ducks, a “sure fire” shotgun, one “wear-well” hunting suit, duck decoys, and shotgun shells. Some nice multi-plane camera work as we settle in on the happy hunter: Virgil Ross animates a triumphant Porky posing in front of his mirror, donning his hunting garb and shotgun, obviously pleased with himself, fancying himself as some sort of revolutionary soldier.
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| A rare, Fleischer-esque shiver take. Animation by Virgil Ross. |
Eager to get a move on, Porky practices his aim, aiming straight at his napping dog (this time named Rin-Chin-Chin. Porky will have many a dog with many interesting names.) The terrified pooch wakes from his nap and yelps, seeking refuge in a cabinet. Carl Stalling’s musical touch accents the anxious blinks of the dog very nicely.
Finally, we hear Mel Blanc’s first ever lines for Porky as he laughs it off. Mel’s stuttering is especially profuse in this cartoon, still testing the waters with his new character and attempting to imitate Dougherty. “D-d-d-d-d-do-do-don-do-don’t worry, it’s n-n-n–ne-ne-n-no-n-no-not l-l-l-lo-loaded. Eh-w-we-w-watch!”
Since Porky says it’s not loaded, the gun is absolutely loaded. He fires a big, gaping hole right in his ceiling. There's a wonderful, slow, creeping realization that Porky has as he finally registers what just happened. Lots of gears turning in his head, some great acting. Perhaps this is just the excitement from Mel Blanc's presence, but Porky seems to have the most personality in this cartoon yet.
The musical timing is wonderfully whimsical. There are 8 beats in the music, and 8 angry knocks on the door in conjunction with the music. This being one of the first cartoons I watched on my Looney-venture back in September 2019, musical timing was still a relatively foreign concept. Needless to say, I rewound this scene multiple times, floored at how something so simple could be so effective.
Chuck Jones animates the next scene as Porky asks “Who’s there?” Billy Bletcher’s grow grovels behind the door. “It’s the guy from upstairs!” Ever good natured, Porky opens the door, receiving a big fat punch to the face. The payoff is great as we see the peeved neighbor turn around, a giant hole in the right butt cheek of his pants, revealing his underwear beneath. Great, drawn out timing.
Tex deceives us with his tranquility of the early morning as we approach the fated duck pond, a sweeping, beautifully painted pan of the surroundings, accented by “William Tell Overture”. Porky shushes his dog, uttering the future wisdom of Elmer Fudd as he whispers “Shhh… Shhhh! B-be-buh-be quiet. Buh-be v-ve-very, v-v-ve-v-ve-very, v-v-v-v-ve-ve-very, ca-ca-ca-c-ca-ca-c-q-qu-qu-quiet.”
Right on cue, Porky’s prayers are answered as the telltale quack of a duck rings from above. One of my favorite gags of Tex’s, relying wholeheartedly on deceitful timing as the duck floats on ahead. Porky aims his gun, alone with only his dog, his target, and his thoughts… when suddenly, an explosive cacophony of noise cracks through the entire pond as a gaggle of hunters pop up from their respective hiding places, firing mercilessly at the duck. So mercilessly, in fact, that Porky has to dive to the ground to save himself.
Perhaps even better than the sudden eruption of action is the peace that comes after it: the duck flies along out of the gun smoke, completely unscathed. The hunters yell “AW, SHUCKS!” in conjunction with the mocking underscore of "A Hunting We Will Go." A great scene.
Next, an appropriate score of “I Only Have Eyes for You” as we hone in on a dim-witted cross eyed hunter (in the same vein as the cross eyed hitchhiker in Porky the Wrestler), who spots the duck in the air. The hunter aims his double barrel shotgun, but because he’s doomed to a life of loony hi-jinks thanks to his character design, he misses with both shots from each barrel, or so we think.
Tex takes quite a drastic turn out of left field as we see that the hunter HAS struck a target: two of them. Two planes spiral towards the ground in black smoke, their pilots jumping out with the aid of their parachutes. A nonsensical gag that has little to do with the plot, but is hilariously unprecedented.
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| A star is born--er, hatched. |
More Chuck Jones animation as we spot our chipper hunter placing his duck decoys in the water. With that, we are met with stardom. Porky turns away, just in time for Daffy to fly down and land among the decoys, unidentifiable. Half of Daffy’s dialogue is limited to quacks and duck noises in this cartoon--there's certainly something funny seeing Daffy behave like an actual, feral duck. Daffy quacks, causing Porky to turn around. All he sees is a sea of decoys. Porky reaches for his gun, another quack. Yet the decoys are still there, no duck in (presumed) sight. A befuddled Porky scratches his head before hatching an idea, winking at the audience in reassurance.
To hunt the duck, you must become the duck. Carl Stalling’s fitting music score of "Let's Put Our Heads Together" is lovely, nice and quaint and homely as Porky ties a duck decoy around his head. He slowly submerges himself into the water, creeping across the pond, gun in hand. On the surface, it just looks like a regular, unblinking, plastic duck swimming. Take note of the trash littering the lake--a subtle yet amusing design detail.
Porky’s genius plan works in his favor as he slowly rises in front of Daffy, effectively startling the duck as he points his rifle. Daffy prepares for his fate, or lack thereof, shutting his eyes and closing his ears, but all that’s expelled out of the gun is a gush of water. While Porky investigates his gun, Daffy uses this as an opportunity to fly away, perching himself on top of a floating alcohol barrel a ways away from the potential crime scene.
Just as he thinks he’s outsmarted the idiot pig, a gunshot to the barrel below him proves Daffy wrong. Daffy flies into the air in an angry quacking fit, while we have some rather sloppy animation of the exposed alcohol spilling into the lake, the barrel sinking.
Thus, the cartoon diverges in the same vein as the buggy chase from The Village Smithy or the train scene in Porky the Wrestler: a few fish come across the alcohol. They swim into the barrel sober, and emerge hiccupping and inebriated. The gaggle of drunks walk onto land (the wonders of alcohol!), a fitting, tipsy accompaniment of “When My Dreamboat Comes Home” scoring the fish giggling and helping each other into a spare rowboat lying on shore.
Then comes a beautiful, drunken rendition of “On Moonlight Bay” sung by the drunken fish. Billy Bletcher voices the lone fish slurring “Now don’t you ever go away!”, the fish staring right at the camera in the same manner as the drunks from Picador Porky. The song is lovely, as is the banjo accompaniment. Certainly worthy of a listen.
What other way to top off such a great moment than a Ben Hardaway level pun of Porky muttering “There’s something fishy about that.” While the animation is appealing and cute, Porky's acknowledgement of the gag brings it a little too down to Earth--some things are best left unsaid to let the absurdity really sink in.
I digress. Porky’s frustration melts as he hears the all too familiar call of a duck. Cautiously does he pull apart the reeds that blocks him and his duck foe, attempting to get a good look… and Daffy retaliates by biting Porky square in the snout. The Daffy nose bite gag would be a running gag with him, long after the Tex Avery days. What’s not to love? Porky doesn’t appreciate the gag nearly as the audience--instead, he reaches for his rifle, fires, and actually gets a shot in. Daffy’s lifeless body flops into the water. Oh joy, oh rapture! Porky’s hard work has finally paid off.
Porky is completely overjoyed, now an excited, stuttering mess. “I ge-ge-ge-gu-guh-guh-got ‘im! I ge-ge-ge-gu-guh-guh-got ‘im! Eh-g-g-go-go ge-get the-the-the duck, Rin-ch-Chin-Chin!”
Bobe Cannon animates this great bait and switch of a gag as the dog dives into the water, tackling Daffy’s body and swimming back underwater, now just a black blob. We finally think that Porky has emerged victoriously, the music crescendoing in triumphant anticipation, when Daffy emerges from the water, haughtily tossing the unconscious body of the dog on the shore in a huff. What a great gag!
Meanwhile, Bob Clampett animates the next iconic scene that would shape the entirety of Daffy’s character for decades to come. In perhaps one of the strongest fourth wall breaks yet to come from a Looney Tunes cartoon, Porky pulls out a script from the recesses of his hunting suit and flips through it calculatingly. Finally, he just lets the talking get to the bottom of the conundrum. “Hey, that wasn’t in the script!”
Daffy laughs in a lispless, hayseed guffaw. His first words are “Don’t let it worry ya, skipper. I’m just a crazy, darn fool duck!”
With that, Daffy makes his iconic exit, HOOHOO!ing into the horizon as he does his signature Stan Laurel hop and Hugh Hubert laugh, cartwheeling and ankle clicking and bounding into the horizon.
On animating this scene, Clampett says: “Tex told me, ‘Make him exit funny.’ I asked, ‘Can I do anything I want?’ and he said ‘Yes—anything.’ So I had Daffy cross his eyes, do a Stan Laurel jump, and then do cartwheels, and do a ballet pirouette, and bounce on his head, and so forth. Now, at that time, audiences weren’t accustomed to seeing a cartoon character do these things. And so, when it hit the theaters it was like an explosion. People would leave the theaters talking about this daffy duck.”
The scene after is rather meaningless and random, inserted possibly to fill up time or just as a declaration for Tex’s love of gags, yet it brings some amusement nonetheless. Tex works his sign gag magic as we spot a long, stringy fish making its way through the pond, an offscreen hand holding a sign that reads THIS IS AN ELECTRIC EEL, FOLKS. Confirming our suspicions, the eel jolts with electricity, turning into a literal lightning bolt, a physical metaphor for its deadly touch.
Daffy spots the eel, completely unaware of its caveat. The animation and acting for Daffy is very nice—the way he hides behind a log to “sneak” up on it, peering his little head out to get a good look. The duck strikes, swallowing the eel in one big gulp, swallowing and gleaming at the camera with his best “Ain’t I a stinker?” grin. As he carries on his duck duties, swimming away contentedly, he receives a startling jolt of electricity from the eel inside him. Once calm and content, Daffy now skitters across the pond in a fit of terrified quacking, receiving jolts of electricity all the way. The gag has no relevance to the plot really—it just fades out and that’s the end of it, but remains amusing regardless.
Elsewhere, a different plight on a different character: hunger. Porky sits in his boat, rifle in hand, waiting for his next fateful visitor to fly across, but the giant sandwich perched next to him is all too tantalizing. He licks his lips in anticipation—interesting to note that the past two cartoons to feature Porky as a glutton have been Tex Avery cartoons, Gold Diggers of ‘49 and The Blow Out.
Unable to stand it, Porky reaches for his sandwich, discarding his rifle for the time being. Just as he reaches for his lunch, a gaggle of ducks land right on the boat, quacking at him mockingly. The animation of Porky scrambling to reach his gun is great. He doesn’t just reach for it, he swats around aimlessly for a few beats, trying to collect himself and grab at the ducks.
Porky finally grabs the gun, preparing to shoot, but all the ducks have flown away. Oh well. Porky goes back to his lunch, and his visitors fly back down again. In the midst of his scramble, Porky grabs the gun the wrong way, nearly killing himself as he shoots the rowboat instead, collapsing into the water. All hopes of a delicious sandwich lunch is gone.
No matter! A caricature of comedian Joe Penner is hiding in the pond to bring solace to Porky, holding out a duck and giving his garbled catchphrase of “You wanna buy a duck?” Porky doesn't seem entirely enthused.
Fade out and in to Porky's trusting hunting dog Rin-Chin-Chin signaling for his master to come over quietly. Porky marches out of the pond, swapping his duck decoy for his hunting cap and seeing what the matter is. I do have to wonder if this scene was swapped around last minute, or maybe to indicate the passing of time (and more failures), seeing as Porky didn’t have his duck decoy hat on in the last scene. Nevertheless, magically changing hats aren’t on the top of Porky’s mind: Daffy swimming tantalizingly right in front of him is.
Porky prepares to fire, and Daffy once more anticipates his doom… but all he receives is a series of malfunctioning clicks. Today is not Porky’s day. However, Daffy is pleased. So pleased that he marches onshore to help a very irate Porky, furiously clicking his gun to no avail.
Daffy shakes his head and tuts in disapproval. In a great moment of half baked camaraderie, Daffy haughtily reaches his hands out, signaling for Porky to give him the gun. Porky obliges hesitantly, observing as Daffy clicks the gun once and fires. A success. Daffy’s expression of disapproving indifference is the cherry on top of the entire gag.
With the duty done, Daffy returns the gun to Porky, who scratches his head in befuddlement. And, as if we could possibly forget, Daffy guffaws his short lived catchphrase: “Huh-huh, it’s me again.”
The timing is lovely: Avery could have opted to make Daffy preface the interaction by saying “It’s me again”, but waited until the last possible moment to let the absurdity sit on. The line serves as a segue for Daffy to make his heel clicking exit in a chorus of HOOHOO!s, once more bounding away from Porky.
Porky’s determined to get that damn duck if it’s the last thing he does. While Daffy flies off, Porky fires rapidly. In a homage to the previous airplane gag where the pilots were shot down, Porky fires so quickly that he ends up decimating the ground beneath him, digging himself into a physical (and metaphorical) hole with each shot. A few overhead quacks, and Porky pulls himself up from his homemade trench.
The V of ducks floating so tantalizingly above Porky is like pure gold. Figuring his gun wouldn’t be much use as of right now, Porky opts to use a duck call instead. He gives it a hearty blow. The duck call is certainly convincing, but hardly in the way Porky wanted it to be. The reeds and marshland around him is shot to pieces, the crowd of hunters from earlier mistaking Porky for a duck instead. Porky shields himself as the fire eventually stops.
His happy-go-lucky attitude from the exposition is completely gone now as we spot a rare (for this time, anyway) display of over-boiling emotions. Beyond frustrated, Porky slams the duck call to the ground in defiance. Physics defies his defying, and the duck call bounces right into his dog’s throat.
Rin-Chin-Chin hiccups, and a duck call is emitted instead. Porky and his dog ogle at each other, fearing what this could possibly mean. Without any more hesitation, they both flop to the ground, taking cover. Surprisingly, gunshots are sparse. That doesn’t stop Porky from fashioning his own white flag to indicate his surrender. And, in an act of Averyism, the gunshots pour in once Porky raises his white flag. The animation of Porky flopping around helplessly is very nice and rubbery—he’s like a rag doll. Tex Avery would reuse this gag in his MGM entry Bad Luck Blackie 12 years later, the violence much more nonsensical and to the point
Duck season is completely out of the question: it’s pig season now. Porky and Rin-Chin-Chin run for the (beautifully painted) rural hills, both trying to dodge the flurry of bullets that follow. It’s like a war zone.
Finally, they both make it out alive… but miserable in the process. They both sulk as the woefully trudge back home, Porky shooting furious glares at his hiccupping/quacking dog, who stares back at him in remorse. The mood is drastically different from the one we saw at the beginning.
Finally, Porky is in the comfort of his own home, free to mope and sulk as much as he pleases. Just as he’s about to get his wallowing on, a cruelly familiar noise sounds out the window. Seeing as it was the last cartoon released, it’s only fitting for “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter” to underscore the gang of ducks outside Porky’s house, mockingly frolicking and playing, just waiting to be pierced full of holes.
We get our first Porky stutter switch gag as he repeatedly attempts to fire, but to no avail. He’s pissed now. “D-duh-d-d-duh-du-duh-doggone it! Nuh-nuh-nn-n-no more bu-buh-buh-b-bu-bu-bul-bull-bulle-buh—eh-shells!”
As they say, luck favors the prepared, and Porky was certainly prepared in the beginning. Bad luck strikes Porky once more as he tosses his gun away in a huff. In fact, there WAS at least one more bu-buh-b-buh-bul-bulle—shell in the gun. The gun fires, creating a giant hole in Porky’s ceiling, parallel to the beginning.
A continuity error all in the name of a gag as we hear angry pounding on the door. Porky opens the door and gets another punch to the snout from the same guy before, now marching upstairs with TWO holes in the back of his pants. A funny gag for sure, but the fact that he’s marching upstairs when just previously we saw the outside of Porky’s house, ducks flying in his yard, raises a bit of a question. Iris out.
That’s not all, folks! The end of this cartoon has a special visitor: instead of the script writing “That’s all, folks!”, we instead have Daffy zooming and zipping around on the lettering, HOOHOO!ing all the way, waving goodbye at his audience.
As wild as this cartoon is, it’s strangely comforting at the same time. Carl Stalling’s musical score is out of this world on this one. The wild, zany moments are much more exciting than the exposition, but the exposition is very endearing and perhaps even a little sentimental, at least in my eyes. Not only that, but there was actually a picture book adaptation made from this cartoon, so I suppose that adds to my view of its sentimentality.
This cartoon feels like one, big, twisted Norman Rockwell painting to me. I’m always put in a good mood when watching this cartoon, because I don’t pay much mind to the continuity errors or animation errors or what have you. It’s just a plain fun cartoon. It's also important put yourself in the mindset of a 1937 moviegoer. This cartoon may seem like nothing in comparison to the mayhem we’ve seen in future cartoons, but as of April 17th, 1937, it was an absolute game changer. People had never seen this before. So, thanks to the direction of Tex, this cartoon has shaped what Looney Tunes is today.
I love this cartoon, and I’d urge you to watch it anytime, but its historical significance is another pivotal reason why you should watch it, at least once. Definitely a recommended, if not required viewing if you're an animation history nut like I'm. Watch history unfold before your very eyes!
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