Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century (1980)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

. . . as well as the lame "bridging sequences" with which the Warner Bros. cartoon editors try to connect them, DUCK DODGERS AND THE RETURN OF THE 24 1/2th CENTURY is the only new part of the 24-minute 1980 television special, DAFFY DUCK'S THANKS-FOR-GIVING. Those who've already seen all of the Classic Looney Tunes of the 1940s and 1950s may want to fast-forward THANKS-FOR-GIVING to 14:17, where the 8-minute, 19-second DUCK DODGERS sequel begins. Or not. Since the original writer and director of DUCK DODGERS have a hand in this 27-years-in-coming follow-up (albeit on an obviously shoestring budget), along with some of the now (or then) geriatric Classic Era animators, this DUCK DODGERS is light years ahead of something like THE GREEN LOONTERN of 2003. That isn't saying much, as the artwork on the latter was farmed out to the losers of an American war, as some sort of Goodwill Project (and by that, I'm referring to the company which puts out those metal collection bins for your old clothes in strip mall parking lots--NOT to our deplorable White House Resident Elect's Goodwill Patty-Cake Games with the newly installed U.S. Czar, Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin, a seventh cousin thrice removed of the infamous Russian RasPutin).

Chuck Jones' mediocre follow-up to his classic Duck Dodgers short from the '50s. This was originally part of the made-for-TV special Daffy Duck's Thanks-For-Giving . Given that it was made for television and that it was made decades after the classic Looney Tunes shorts, you can imagine that this is inferior stuff. Surprisingly, the animation is not terrible. Compared to a lot of other stuff from the same era, it's quite good. However, it's not the least bit funny. It's dialogue-heavy with no good gags. Mel Blanc does provide the voicework and that automatically makes this better than any of the Looney Tunes stuff that came out after he died. So, it's not as good as the original short it follows up on, but it is watchable. More forgiving fans will likely rate it higher. After all, it's still Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, and Mel Blanc. That's nothing to sneeze at.

Chuck Jones made his mark on the world of animation by ignoring current conventions and writing his own rule book. In his later work, however, perhaps in response to an audience that could no longer appreciate subtlety, he ignores the principles that made him the innovator he was. 'Return of the 24½th Century' featured a clumsy plot driven by stilted dialog. Dialog-driven cartoons figured high on his list of gripes about latter-day cartoons. He maintained that if you couldn't follow the action with the sound turned off, it wasn't a real cartoon. By that standard, this isn't.

In honor of the 34th anniversary of, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", I bring forth a comment on Duck Dodgers. Daffy matches wits (?) with both Marvin the Martian and Gossamer and is found largely wanting. Porky virtually steals the show, but the best line is actually Daffy's. While fleeing as only Daffy can flee from certain dismemberment (as well as duck feathers flying everywhere) at the paws of Gossamer (the large, hairy and very orange monster), Daffy comes upon Porky and first tries to bribe him with a meagre promotion and then, in the true fashion of cowards everywhere, declaims, "Back, underling! How can I be a craven, crawling, cowardly poltroon with you in the way?As a past President (three times running-they caught me each time) of the Cowards Guild, that line fair brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it issue forth from his yellow beak (either that, or I have a rock in my shoe-I can never tell which) but I digress. Not the best ever done, but I like it well enough. Well worth watching. Recommended.