Deconstructing Daffy Duck

Daffy-blogging, essay 15 of 15 blog entries on

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Deconstructing Daffy Duck

 

Victory at what cost?  The irony
in this concluding scene runs as
strong as any of the anti-war
satire in Stanley Kubrick's
famous Dr. Strangelove (1964). 

A friend at the International Move Database (IMDb) Classic Film message board responded in dismay when I proposed launching this Duck Dodgers series.  He said he saw no value in deconstructing Daffy Duck.  I completely understand that sentiment.

Viewed simply as a comedy, Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century (1953) is one of the great animated shorts.  It succeeds in delivering the laughs.  And it looks fantastic while doing so.

But I’m diving into the deeper waters nevertheless.  I’ve read enough of Chuck Jones’ writings to know that this guy was no intellectual slouch.  In addition to being very funny, Jones was politically aware, artistically sensitive, and philosophically astute.  He wanted his movies to have resonance.

A Political Interpretation

The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.  Four years later, the Soviet Union detonated a nuclear bomb in 1949.  Then the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb in 1952.

To quote the final line of
The Bridge on the River Kwai,
"Madness! Madness!"
Mutually assured destruction
in Duck Dodgers.

With these contemporary events in mind, it’s difficult not to see an arms race subtext in Duck Dodgers.  As Duck Dodgers and Marvin (the two Planet X superpowers) face off, their weapons get progressively more destructive.  With these two at the controls, there is no deterrence effect from an assumption of mutually assured destruction.  They blithely destroy the world, with Daffy cackling as he pulls the lever.

I think we can assume that Acme Products continues to receive billions of dollars in no-bid contracts from the Pentagon to this day.

A Metaphysical Speculation

Dangling from the Statue of Liberty
Liberty in Alfred Hitchcock's
Saboteur (1942).

I love literal cliffhangers—movies that build to a climax where the lead characters literally hang from a great height, dangling over an abyss.

This image is one of the great existential metaphors.  It reminds us that we’re all hanging over a metaphorical abyss—it’s the nature of life. 

This metaphor is operating when a villain 

Clinging to the side of Mount
Rushmore in Hitchcock's
North by Northwest (1959).

clings to the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur (1942) and when Eva Marie Saint clings to Cary Grant’s hand on the edge of Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest (1959), but I don’t think you can surpass the latent power of the image than when you place the characters dangling over infinite space.  And to work most effectively as a metaphor, you leave them there with no resolution, suspended forever.

This is exactly what Duck Dodgers does.  It’s double-edged.  Close one eye to the comedy, and you’re left with a bleak and frightening vision.

Iris out on Porky, and the carnival music roars back reminding us that it’s all just good cartoon fun.

That’s all there is, folks!

Above him, Duck Dodgers proclaims, "This
planet is hereby claimed for the Earth!"
"B-b-big deal," says Porky.

Reference Sources

Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones

Chuck Reducks by Chuck Jones

Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Jerry Beck

Warner Bros. Animation Art by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald

7 Minutes by Norman M. Klein

That's All Folks by Steve Schneider
Stepping Into the Picture by Robert J. McKinnon

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set, Duck Dodgers commentary by Michael Barrier

Friends at the IMDb Classic Film message board including Rollo Treadway, Chloe Joe Fassbender, Illtdesq, and Fish Beauty

... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but always double-checking everything!)

Watch Duck Dodgers...

Purchase Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Rent Disc Two of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2011 Lee Price

24 1/2th Things I Love About Duck Dodgers

Daffy-blogging, essay 14 of 15 blog entries on

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Maurice Noble's sleek rocket design in Duck Dodgers in the
24 1/2th Century (1953).

Part One, 24 1/2th Things I Love About Duck Dodgers

1.  24 1/2th—I love that 1/2th

Following the taxi, the camera
pulls up and up in the opening
crane shot in Duck Dodgers.

2.  The opening crane shot that introduces the space city

3.  The office is on the 17,000th floor

4.  The giant eye

5.  The “Unknown” cloud where Planet X is located on the map

6.  The way Daffy says, “Indubitably”

7.  The Evaporator that leads “To Studio”

8.  The floppy antennae on Daffy’s and Porky’s head coverings

9.  Porky calls Dodgers “Your heroship, sir.”

10.  Daffy’s sheepish expression after he puts rocket in reverse

11.   “South by downeast” in Daffy’s directions to Planet X.  Downeast???

A tree on Planet X.

12.  The X trees on Planet X

13.  The cloud X on the mountain behind Marvin’s spaceship

14.   “Little does he realize that I have on my disintegration-proof vest.”

15.  Daffy’s vest turns from green to red during the disintegrator blast

16.  Porky’s Acme Integrating Pistol

17.  Daffy gets so angry at Porky that he sticks his hand through his head

18.  Porky doesn’t mind that Daffy’s hand went through his head

19.  Daffy’s disintegrating pistol that disintegrates

20.  Porky calls Marvin, “You thing from another world”

Marvin stands on
a pile of books.

21.  Marvin standing on a pile of books to reach his weapon of mass destruction

22.  The bedraggled uniforms of our heroes after the explosion

23.  The roots that dangle off the bit of dirt left of the planet at the end

24.  Final iris-out on Porky

24½.  All this in 6 minutes and 55 seconds

Part Two, Return to Space

Chuck Jones returned for more science fiction comedy on at least
five occasions after Duck Dodgers, but these later efforts never
reached the heights of Duck Dodgers, The Hasty Hare (1952),
or Haredevil Hare (1948).  In 1955, Jones teamed Porky and
Sylvester for a UFO trip into space in Jumpin' Jupiter. This short
introduced the bird-like alien shown here.  He turns up in several
later Jones' cartoons.

Rocket Squad from 1956 had an excellent script by Tedd Pierce that
parodied 1950s  TV detective shows like Dragnet.  Background
artist Ernie Nordli provided a number of imaginative designs
but the short also borrows backgrounds straight from Duck Dodgers,
as in this shot.

Rocket-Bye Baby, also from 1956, was an unusual effort for Chuck
Jones who was working without most of his usual collaborators.
Ernie Nordli provided the very UPA-like background art and Daws
Butler and June Foray did the voices (no Mel Blanc involvement!).
The story concerned an alien baby mix-up.

Bugs Bunny fought Marvin the Martian again in Hareway to the
Stars (1958).  Background artist Maurice Noble provided a memorable
floating space city and the bird-like aliens from Jumpin' Jupiter
returned to torment Bugs.

Coming at the very end of Chuck Jones' long run at Warner Bros.,
Mad As a Mars Hare (1963) boasted an imaginative design,
courtesy of co-director Maurice Noble, but the story and the
animation were much weaker than the standard in the golden days.

Reference Sources

Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones

Chuck Reducks by Chuck Jones

Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Jerry Beck

Warner Bros. Animation Art by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald

7 Minutes by Norman M. Klein

That's All Folks by Steve Schneider
Stepping Into the Picture by Robert J. McKinnon

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set, Duck Dodgers commentary by Michael Barrier

Friends at the IMDb Classic Film message board including Rollo Treadway, Chloe Joe Fassbender, Illtdesq, and Fish Beauty

... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but always double-checking everything!)

Watch Duck Dodgers...

Purchase Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Rent Disc Two of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2011 Lee Price

Science Fiction Maps and Martians

Daffy-blogging, essay 13 of 15 blog entries on

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Part One, Directions to Planet X

The Mapquest directions:  "Starting from where we are, we go 33,600
turbo miles due up..."

"Then west in an astro-arc deviation to here..."

"... then following the great circle seven radiolubes south by
downeast..."

"... by astro-astrolab to here... here... then to here..."

"... and here..."

"... by thirteen point strato-cumulus bearing four million light-years...
and thus to our destination."

Part Two, My Favorite Martian

Marvin the Martian from his
introductory shot in
Haredevil Hare (1948).

I used to think Marvin the Martian was a parody of aliens in 1950s science fiction movies but I was wrong.  Marvin predates them.  Marvin came first.

A 1951 alien: Klaatu in
The Day the Earth
Stood Still.

As I wrote in an earlier blog entry, the Chuck Jones Unit anticipated the Hollywood science fiction boom by two years when they made Haredevil Hare in 1948 (two years before George Pal released Destination Moon, Hollywood’s first modern-style science fiction hit).

In the old-style science fiction serials and pulp magazine stories, intelligent aliens were usually human.  For instance, Flash Gordon’s nemesis Ming the Merciless is your typical evil human mastermind who just happens to live on another planet.

Another 1951 alien from
The Thing (From
Another World).

Marvin the Martian has the build of one of Warner Bros. trademark short human villains but—except for the expressive eyes—his face is an otherworldly black void.  He has no mouth and only the barest suggestion of nostrils.  (Incidentally, he must have been the easiest character to animate since the animators never had to match a mouth to the dialogue!)

In his book Chuck Reducks, Chuck Jones suggests that the source of Marvin’s face was something very un-humanlike indeed.  He writes:  “Then, I figured, black ants are scary, so I put an ant-black face and a couple of angry eyes inside his helmet.”
The perfect roundness of Marvin’s head suggests an ant as well.

Approached realistically, this would be a radically creepy alien.  So that’s where all the light touches come in, allowing Jones to play up the comedy.  Marvin gets decked out with a scrub brush on his helmet and over-sized sneakers on his feet.  Above all, the large anime-sized eyes are able to vividly convey his most frequent mental activities—conniving and confusion.

K-9 as seen in Haredevil Hare.

In Haredevil Hare (1948) and The Hasty Hare (1952), Marvin travels with a pet alien dog/assistant called K-9.  But in Duck Dodgers the cast is kept to a minimum, dispensing with the presence of the cute but unnecessary K-9.

Perhaps Marvin can also be seen as a precursor of Star Trek’s iconic Mr. Spock in his comically unemotional responses to all setbacks.  While Marvin sometimes says that he is angry, his emotions remain under tight control when compared to characters like Daffy and Bugs.  The pragmatic Marvin simply goes back to work, diligently planning the destruction of Daffy or the Earth or anything else that he’s irritated by.  Putting aside his destructive tendencies, there really does seem to be something Vulcan-like in Marvin’s eminently practical approach to dealing with life’s unexpected obstacles.

Marvin the Martian and K-9 in Haredevil Hare.

Reference Sources

Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones

Chuck Reducks by Chuck Jones

Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Jerry Beck

Warner Bros. Animation Art by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald

7 Minutes by Norman M. Klein

That's All Folks by Steve Schneider
Stepping Into the Picture by Robert J. McKinnon

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set, Duck Dodgers commentary by Michael Barrier

Friends at the IMDb Classic Film message board including Rollo Treadway, Chloe Joe Fassbender, Illtdesq, and Fish Beauty

... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but always double-checking everything!)

Watch Duck Dodgers...

Purchase Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Rent Disc Two of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2011 Lee Price

Also Starring Porky Pig

Daffy-blogging, essay 12 of 15 blog entries on

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Porky Pig in Drip-Along Daffy (1951).

Also Starring Porky Pig

The Space Cadet in
Duck Dodgers (1953).

In Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century (1953), Porky plays the “eager young space cadet,” looking very young for his years.  In his introductory shot, he looks downright baby-ish.

In reality, Porky was the oldest, most-seasoned member of the cast.  Marvin the Martian was a newcomer (first appearing in 1948), Daffy Duck was a long-term dependable star (first appearing in 1937), but Porky was the very first Warner Bros. cartoon superstar, with his initial screen appearance dating back to 1935.

Porky and Daffy as friends in Porky's Pigs Feat (1943).

Porky was an odd candidate for stardom.  His only distinguishing characteristic was his stutter.  Aside from that, his age varied, his weight shifted wildly, and his character changed to fit the short.  But, somehow, stardom was his destiny.  When the Warner Bros. team started having him stutter “Abba-de, abba-de, abba-de, Th-that’s All Folks!” at the close of every
Looney Tune, his immortality was assured.

Porky was always a different kind of star.  Both Daffy and Bugs could easily carry a picture—they had “leading man” personalities.  As parts for Daffy and Bug grew, Porky receded into supporting roles under directors Tex Avery, Frank Tashlin, and Bob Clampett in the 1940s.

Chuck Jones struggled to find a comic personality for Porky that he could identify with.  Through trial and error, Jones eventually decided to stress the role of Porky as an “observer.”  Jones explained this new identity for Porky in his book Chuck Reducks:

“The role became significant in Duck Dodgers, in which (Porky) acts as Daffy’s assistant.  The film’s leading man could not appear heroic unless he had somebody to bounce off of, and a character such as Daffy required someone relatively meek for the role.  Porky, responding on behalf of the audience, makes us realize the true craziness of what we are seeing.”

Marvin the Martian meets his match in Duck Dodgers.

While Daffy and Porky were sometimes teamed as partners in the 1940s, Porky’s new role as a wiser observer appears to have debuted in Drip-Along Daffy in 1950.  Daffy plays the western-type hero and Porky is the stubble-bearded comic relief, riding behind on a donkey.  As with his space cadet in Duck Dodgers, Porky plays the character who can actually read the unfolding situation correctly and win a confrontation with the villain.  In Drip-Along Daffy, Porky defeats villain Nasty Canasta by sending a toy soldier out to fire a gun at him.  In Duck Dodgers, Porky hands a stick of dynamite to Marvin the Martian and the ruse works.

The new Daffy-Porky relationship continued to develop through at least two more excellent Jones Unit cartoons, Deduce, You Say (1956) with Daffy as Dorlock Holmes and Porky as Watkins and Robin Hood Daffy (1957) with Porky as Friar Tuck.

Daffy and Porky in Deduce, You Say (1956).

Daffy and Porky in Robin Hood Daffy (1957).

Reference Sources

Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones

Chuck Reducks by Chuck Jones

Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Jerry Beck

Warner Bros. Animation Art by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald

7 Minutes by Norman M. Klein

That's All Folks by Steve Schneider
Stepping Into the Picture by Robert J. McKinnon

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set, Duck Dodgers commentary by Michael Barrier

Friends at the IMDb Classic Film message board including Rollo Treadway, Chloe Joe Fassbender, Illtdesq, and Fish Beauty

... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but always double-checking everything!)

Watch Duck Dodgers...

Purchase Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Rent Disc Two of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2011 Lee Price

Crazy Colors and Designs

Daffy-blogging, essay 11 of 15 blog entries on

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Crazy Colors and Designs

These aren't crazy colors and designs.  This particular background,
from Chuck Jones' Old Glory (1939), shows the Disney-influenced
realistic approach, with landscape details delicately rendered in
watercolor.  The stylized backgrounds discussed here were a
reaction against this approach to animation.

Space column in
Duck Dodgers (1953).

Watching Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century (1953), few people complain that the ground of Planet X is pink and purple.  Or that the sky is more green than black.  We sense that Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Marvin the Martian naturally fit into this off-kilter world and we go with it.  It took time for Hollywood to realize that audiences would accept a non-realistic approach to cartoon backgrounds.  More than anyone, Maurice Noble pushed background stylization into the mainstream.

The characters of Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer were well-understood by the time that Noble arrived at the Warner Bros. Studio in mid-1950.  But while the characters were fully formed, the background landscapes that they moved through were less firmly established.  At first, Warner Bros. strived for the realism of mid-1930s Disney backgrounds, albeit with fewer resources and lower budgets.  Then, in the 1940s, 

Planet X in
Duck Dodgers.

Chuck Jones and others began experimenting with more stylized backgrounds.

In his essential book Hollywood Cartoons, Michael Barrier recalls the instructions that Chuck Jones issued to his background artist Earl Klein in the mid-1940s.  According to Klein, Jones requested the following approach toward background art:  “Look, use exaggerated perspective, and think of it as a flat two-dimensional design instead of trying to get fake aerial perspective.”  Furthermore, Klein said that Jones encouraged the use of “way-out color.”

In later years, Noble would sometimes downplay the influence of previous Warner Bros. animators and the UPA cartoons on his work.  However, his boss Jones was always keenly aware of innovations emerging both within their own studio and at their rivals.  Jones embraced the idea of greater abstraction and he hired Noble because he sensed that Noble could do these new striking backgrounds better than anyone.

Great artist though he was, Maurice Noble didn’t arise from a vacuum.  Artists were putting their unique signatures on backgrounds since the beginning of animation.  Experimentation bloomed in the 1940s, with some of the most envelope-pushing ideas arising from the Chuck Jones’ unit.

Here’s a selection of some great backgrounds from cartoons of the 1940s and early 1950s that paved the way for the work of Maurice Noble at Warner Bros.

Note the stylized mountains, clouds, and cliff face in Chuck Jones'
The Dover Boys (1942), with background work by John McGrew
and Eugene Fleury.

Yellow sky, pink ground, and purple tree:  Chuck Jones plays with
color in The Case of the Missing Hare (1942), with background
work by John McGrew and Eugene Fleury.

Eugene Fleury left Warner Bros. for military service and his wife
Bernyce Polifka filled in, quickly and radically widening the palette
of the background artist.  In Wackiki Rabbit (1943), Polifka liberally
uses fabric patterns, bright colors, and all sorts of strange designs.

Former Warner Bros. animator Robert Cannon helped launch United
Productions of America (UPA) and made his mark there with the
extremely stylized Gerald McBoing Boing (1951), with backgrounds
by Bill Hurtz.  It received the Academy Award for best Animated
Short and was very influential on subsequent animation. 

John Hubley's UPA production Rooty Toot Toot (1952) pushed
background stylization even further.  The background art was by
Paul Julian, a former background artist for Warner Bros. whose
work there had been fairly traditional in nature, mainly for director
Friz Freleng.

Reference Sources

Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones

Chuck Reducks by Chuck Jones

Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Jerry Beck

Warner Bros. Animation Art by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald

7 Minutes by Norman M. Klein

That's All Folks by Steve Schneider
Stepping Into the Picture by Robert J. McKinnon

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set, Duck Dodgers commentary by Michael Barrier

Friends at the IMDb Classic Film message board including Rollo Treadway, Chloe Joe Fassbender, Illtdesq, and Fish Beauty

... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but always double-checking everything!)

Watch Duck Dodgers...

Purchase Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Rent Disc Two of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2011 Lee Price

Backgrounds by Maurice Noble

Daffy-blogging, essay 10 of 15 blog entries on

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Backgrounds by Maurice Noble

The landscape of Planet X, designed by Maurice Noble and painted by
Philip De Guard.  The planet surface is pink, the sky a deep sea green,
and the trees and clouds form giant letters X.

The eye was Maurice Noble's idea.  It's probably the
single most famous design element in the cartoon.

Maurice Noble’s background artistry floors me every time.  Consistently across dozens of cartoons, his background layouts are wonderfully playful and beautifully designed.  Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century offers a thrilling series of futuristic alien landscapes, perfectly supporting the comedy in the forefront while capable of 

being viewed as remarkable stand-alone works of art.

Here’s a sampling of eye-boggling art that was designed by Maurice Noble and, in most cases, painted by Warner Bros. background painter Philip De Guard.

Who needs 3D when perspective is used this effectively?
Haunted houses recede into the background in Claws for Alarm (1954),
designed by Maurice Noble and painted by Philip De Guard.

Another Maurice Noble background from Claws for Alarm (1954).
I love the purple shadow of the staircase, falling diagonally
across the bright pink wall (and Door #13 of this haunted house,
of course!).

Daydreaming youngster Ralph Phillips imagines that he's a fighter
pilot who captures a squadron of UFOs in Boyhood Daze (1957).
For this heroic moment, Maurice Noble frames the action inside a
dreamy cloud with the same type of radiant aura that Noble employs
when Duck Dodgers announces his name.

Another image from the delightful Boyhood Daze (1957).  The
strong colors and lines of Maurice Noble's background perfectly
complement the tiger in the foreground (he's something of a
Calvin and Hobbes precursor, as he transforms from a
stuffed animal into a jungle tiger in Ralph Phillips' dream).

Maurice Noble cleverly plays with perspective in Bewitched
Bunny (1954).  The fire is flat on the floor, the mirror hangs impossibly
from the ceiling, and the sofa is an image on the wall.  This cartoon
featured the first appearance of popular Chuck Jones' character
Witch Hazel.

Modern art meets Warner Bros.  Art doesn't get much more abstract
than this background that Maurice Noble slipped into the climax of
the classic Duck Amuck (1953).

Frequently regarded as Maurice Noble's masterpiece (and I'm not
about to argue with that), What's Opera, Doc? offers one startling
landscape background after another.  This magnificent image is
just one among many.

(Both this entry and tomorrow’s blog entry are particularly indebted to Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age by Michael Barrier and Stepping Into the Picture: Cartoon Designer Maurice Noble by Robert J. McKinnon, two of the finest works written on classic Hollywood cartoons.)

Reference Sources

Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones

Chuck Reducks by Chuck Jones

Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier

Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Jerry Beck

Warner Bros. Animation Art by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald

7 Minutes by Norman M. Klein

That's All Folks by Steve Schneider
Stepping Into the Picture by Robert J. McKinnon

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set, Duck Dodgers commentary by Michael Barrier

Friends at the IMDb Classic Film message board including Rollo Treadway, Chloe Joe Fassbender, Illtdesq, and Fish Beauty

... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but always double-checking everything!)

Watch Duck Dodgers...

Purchase Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Rent Disc Two of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One DVD set at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2011 Lee Price