Duck Amuck (1953)

Very Cool!!!

terrible... so disappointed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A few people think that Daffy Duck is annoying, including me sometimes, but at the same time he is lovable and fun to watch. This is one of only a few cartoons in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies collection where the main character argues with the animator and makes it a hilarious surreal experience. It starts with Daffy playing a Musketeer ready to do some fighting, but then all the sudden the background disappears, and when Daffy asks the scenery, the animator paints him a farm. Daffy accepts he has to do a farm sketch, until he sees an igloo and changes to a skier, and then some tropical trees changing to a Hawaain music player. The background disappears, and when Daffy tries to reason with the animator, he is erased, and redrawn as a cowboy with a guitar, with no sound. Sound is restored, but all the wrong sounds are occurring as Daffy plays the guitar, and then gets out of the clothes and tries to reason again. Daffy gets his voice back again, and asks for some scenery with no colour, and when he demands some, the animator paints Daffy. He loses his temper, gets his body erased, and the animator draws him a ridiculous new flower, chicken leg and "screw ball" flag body, which he sees in a mirror. After being erased and redrawn again as a sailor, the animator gives him a sea background, where Daffy falls in the sea, swims to the near island, and demands a close-up, which he does eventually get, but too close. Daffy tries to reason with the animator gently, before being interrupted by the above falling black background, and after stopping the "The End" sign appearing, he says he'll let the animator go his way, while he goes his. Daffy decides to entertain with some dancing, until the picture is lifted to the next slide, with another Daffy coming on to have a quick argument with the other, until one is erased and the other is put in an aeroplane. After going through a crash and falling with an anvil parachute, which becomes an exploding bomb, Daffy has had enough and demands to know the identity of the animator, and when he is shut behind a drawn door, it zooms out to see the animator, Bugs Bunny, ending with his laugh and the words "ain't I a stinker". Daffy Duck was number 30, Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies number 20, and Bugs Bunny number 10 on The 100 Greatest Cartoons. Very good!

Duck Amuck is a brilliantly done cartoon. Too often cartoons are just seen as a bunch of random wacky jokes, but Chuck Jones adds another level: character driven comedy. To be sure, this cartoon is VERY wacky. But but what makes this cartoon really work is the exploration of the character of Daffy Duck. Chuck Jones was the driving force behind Daffy's change from a hyperactive, insane character who harassed others for no apparent reason into the scheming, easily angered, self centered character he is best known as today. In Duck Amuck, Jones crystallizes his vision for Daffy's new direction, showing him as a character who wishes to put on a good show for his audience, but is so easily frustrated that everything seems to be working against him. Instead of going with the flow, he flies off the handle at everything that goes wrong, which in turn is worsened by whoever is doing all of this stuff to him. In his best characterization, Daffy manages to be sympathetic enough that the audience still roots for him, even though he probably deserves whatever he has coming to him. In his worst characterization, his greediness and anger take over to the point he becomes completely unsympathetic. This cartoon and the so-called "Hunter's Trilogy" feature Daffy's best characterization, the cartoons featuring Daffy and Speedy Gonzales made in the mid 1960's have the worst.

Duck Amuck is Daffy's frustrations of being trapped in an animated short that keeps changing scenery, has him playing a guitar with shooting sounds, fighting with himself in another frame, gets drawn in different sizes and colors, and basically is at the mercy of an unseen animator. This is Chuck Jones' and Michael Maltese's masterpiece of abstract animation. One of my favorite parts was at the changing scenery sequence when, after Daffy changes into a farmer outfit singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" in front of a barn background, it changes into a winter scene with a snow-house as the duck then sings, "And on this farm he had an igloo..." LOL! At the end, the duck demands to know who is behind the whole thing. All I'll say is that person says, "Ain't I a stinker?" Duck Amuck is definitely worth seeing again and again.

This is an exceptionally strange cartoon in that Daffy Duck's character knows and acknowledges that he is a cartoon. In fact, you see him on the drawing board being drawn into many scenes or having parts of him erased and replaced repeatedly--all resulting in Daffy angrily screaming at the animator! This is, essentially, the plot and the changes the unseen animator makes usually result in Daffy being severely injured or embarrassed. After a while, Daffy becomes so mad that he either demands to see who is doing this to him or that the cartoon should end. Ultimately the camera pulls back and you can see that it's been Daffy's old nemesis, Bugs, doing all the manipulating! I appreciate this cartoon because it is so different and takes some risks--an odd but thoroughly enjoyable flick.