Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Duck Amuck
From Eccentric Flower
Duck Amuck
1951
Summary: The mechanics of a Daffy Duck cartoon go haywire, with unexpected changes of scenery, camera issues, etc - to Daffy's frustration.
Director: Chuck Jones
Writer: Michael Maltese
Featuring: Daffy Duck.
Onreel
0:20 We are led to believe this will be some sort of Olde English film, or something involving lots of derring-do, by the lettering and the musical cues (both similar to the ones used in Rabbit Hood). Daffy's appearance as a musketeer reinforces this ...
0:38 ... but that's not where this film is going.
1:11 Sound cue: "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." ("And on that farm he had an igloo ...")
1:30 Sound cue: "Jingle Bells."
1:42 Sound cue: "Aloha Oe" (which Daffy performs as "Farewell To Thee").
2:18 I'm going to count this under the "Character holds up a sign for the audience" score, even if it's not strictly the audience Daffy means it for.
3:31 Sound cue as the "screwball" Daffy walks off: Raymond Scott's "The Penguin."
3:52 Sound cue: "The Song of the Marines" ("We're Shoving Right Off Again").
5:00 Sound cue ("Let's get this picture started!"): The usual Warner cartoon end sting.
5:06 Sound cue ("Listen, Pal"): "Can't We Talk It Over." There have been several songs with this title, but this is the one Bing Crosby (among others) recorded.
5:26 Sound cue: Daffy dances to the tune of "Old Folks at Home" ("Way Down Upon the Swanee River" to those who don't know its real title).
5:49 Sound cue: "Captains of the Clouds," Harold Arlen's song for the 1942 Warner film of the same title (sometimes used as an official song of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which the film was about).
6:18 Daffy is quoting "The Village Blacksmith," by Longfellow (speaking of chestnuts).
6:40 I seem to remember an interview somewhere (Jones or Maltese) where they said they added this ending because "they couldn't think of any other good way to end the film."
Offreel
This cartoon was named one of the "fifty greatest cartoons" in a vote of 1000 animation professionals in 1994. The cartoon has also been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
This is definitely another cartoon that would only be possible in the later years of Warner animation - a post-cartoon cartoon, as it were. (See also comments in What's Opera, Doc?.) The sort of wall-breaking and meta-humor that is the basis for this cartoon might have been possible in the 1930's, but very unlikely. It's not so much that Daffy is aware he's in a film - that was relatively commonplace in Warner cartoons well before then - nor that he's aware of how the film process is failing him, but that the animator and the writer expect the audience to be aware of what's breaking down and why - the expectation that when Daffy fusses about the lack of soundtrack, or when the film goes off frame so that there are multiple Daffys onscreen, we are in on the joke.
Jerry Beck's "fifty greatest" voters seemed to favor this sort of post-something cartoon humor, as do I; but I think there is an age barrier, and that a sincere cartoon from the 1930's which we would today find corny, far too obvious, and a little tedious did not seem that way to a 1930's viewer, just as one of these post-whatever cartoons would be far too bizarre for the humor to succeed to a 1930's mind. Thus fashions change.
Chuck Jones reportedly said of this cartoon that it proved animation could create characters with a distinct personality, even when divorced from their usual appearance, voice, or setting. If he did say that, it seems an odd remark to make, given that by 1951 animation had more than proved that many times over - or am I seeing this through latter-day eyes which consider it a far more obvious thing than viewers of the time would have?
The cameo appearance at the end of the cartoon is a cameo, and thus this is not listed as a cartoon featuring that character. Besides, to say more would spoil the surprise for the five people in North America who have not yet seen this cartoon. (Incidentally, studio boss Ed Selzer objected to having that character make such a brief appearance in the cartoon, saying he was too big a star for that.)
The plot of Rabbit Rampage is extremely similar to this cartoon, which may be why Warner relegated it to "bonus features" semi-obscurity on the Golden Collection 6 DVDs.
This cartoon inspired the title of Jones' autobiography, Chuck Amuck.
This is only saved from being Chuck Jones' most bizarre cartoon by the fact that he also made Now Hear This.
