This is Chuck Jones’ ultimate “characters know they’re in a cartoon” cartoon, and another one of Mike Maltese’s stories with a perfect ending.
Jones was the Jack Benny of directors. Like Benny, his characters would stop and pose for the audience. Here are some examples from Duck Amuck. The background artist keeps changing the scenery. Daffy carries on until he realises something is wrong, turns around, looks at the audience, then stalks off stage left.
I love Daffy’s “The show must go on!” attitude. The 1950’s Daffy realised he was a trouper and developed a huge ego because of it. Jones and Maltese (and Friz Freleng and Warren Foster) used Bugs, Porky and other characters to take him down a peg because of it.
Thad Komorowski says the backgrounds are provided by layout artist Maurice Noble, screen credits notwithstanding, with animation credited to Ken Harris, Ben Washam and Lloyd Vaughan.
The official release date of the cartoon is February 28, 1953. This is yet another cartoon that showed up in theatres well before that. The ad to the right is from a Vermont newspaper of January 18, 1953.
The Exhibitor of February 11 that year rated it (and Freleng’s A Mouse Divided) as excellent. And gave away the ending. Well, today we all know what the ending is but watch the cartoon regardless for its fun and humour.
And who remembers "Steel Trap"? You have to wonder how many films have been overshadowed by the cartoons that were shown with them.
ReplyDeleteThe follow-up "Rabbit Rampage," in which Bugs is put through similar paces (though Bugs is physically attacked rather than merely placed in disorienting settings), doesn't work not so much because audiences don't like it when Bugs loses; or that, unlike Daffy, Bugs sees his tormentor; but because Bugs doesn't rise to the occasion. He's defensive and hostile from the very beginning, which is ironic considering who his foe turns out to be.