Monday, 2 December 2019

Duck's All, Folks

One of the most famous pieces of animation to end a Warner Bros. cartoon must be in Porky's Duck Hunt, where Daffy Duck twirls, slides, somersaults, bounces, flies through letters, bangs up against the side of the picture frame and finally gives a v-for-victory sign.

The animation is by an uncredited Bob Clampett. Here are some frames.



This short also has the best singing drunken fish in animation, and the great gag of Porky pulling out the cartoon’s script. Top work by director Tex Avery in one of his best at Warners.
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4 comments:

  1. J Lee2 December 2019 at 08:25

    Avery and Clampett actually had to revive the "That's all Folks!" end titles from the previous 1935-36 release season for this gag, to give Daffy a better grip to swing around on the capital 'F'. Both the Looney Tunes and the Merrie Melodies series used a lower-case 'f' in 'folks' for the 1936-37 release season, which apparently was less useful for crazy darn-fool ducks trying to maximize their mobility.

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  2. top_cat_james2 December 2019 at 09:48

    "V for Victory"? In 1937?

    I think Daffy here is giving us the "two-fingered salute", the foreign equivalent of "the finger", thereby avoiding the scrutiny of the Hays Office.

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    1. EOCostello2 December 2019 at 15:17

      The two-fingered salute, though, is more a British thing than an American thing; it allegedly goes back as an insult to when British archers demonstrated to the French the two fingers they used to draw bows and beat the hell out of French armies (many sources discount this, but it's a persistent legend). Odd for a Texan like Avery to use it. V-for-Victory handsigns date from ca. 1941 on.

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    2. Yowp3 December 2019 at 01:51

      It certainly was popularised in the American media reporting on occupied Europe and other places in WW2; my impression was it had been around in WW1.

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