Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Golden Yeggs
From Eccentric Flower
Golden Yeggs
1949
Summary: Rocky the gangster demands that Daffy lay golden eggs for him.
Director: Friz Freleng
Writer: Tedd Pierce
Featuring: Daffy Duck; Porky Pig.
Onreel
0:16 Sound cue in titles and opening scene: That old classic the "Chicken Reel."
0:33 "The Egg and Eye Chicken Ranch" is a reference to The Egg and I, a best-selling book (and later a movie) about the author's experiences on a chicken farm. In addition to its own fame, the film eventually inspired the Ma and Pa Kettle series.
0:56 Sound cue: A rather odd variation on "We're In the Money" (a more obvious one is later when the newspaper headline is shown). Porky's eyes fill with numbers like old-fashioned cash register flags.
1:39 Sound cue as the chickens hoist Daffy: "Freddy the Freshman."
1:59 Being on the cover of "Life" magazine in that era was a shorthand cue that you were a national celebrity. The robe Daffy is wearing is meant to look like a prize-winning boxer.
2:00 Sound cue: "Jimmy Valentine" (AKA "When Jimmy Valentine Gets Out"). Vintage performance. "Hey ... dat's better den da numbers racket."
2:14 Sound cue: The gangsters drive out into the country to the tune of "Die Erlkönig."
2:27 "They talked me into it." Porky has not only been handed cash and hit with a shovel, but has been given a hotfoot. On both feet! Those villains!
3:08 Sound cue: "It's Magic." (For probably the most famous use of this cue in a Warner cartoon, see Transylvania 6-5000.)
3:37 Nick's bullet acts like a torpedo. Daffy surfaces wearing a life vest, and his description is as if he was on a ship that had been sunk in battle ("the deck seemed to lift up under my feet ...").
4:58 Sound cue: "Call to the Post" as we see Rocky reading a racing form.
Offreel
A "yegg" is slang for a burglar. The same pun on "eggs" would be used again in Easter Yeggs.
Fans of Rocky the gangster and his various accomplices (and there are such unfortunate souls), can check the Lost and Found for all his appearances, only two of which are in the Golden Collection - this cartoon and Bugs and Thugs. (The far better cartoon that originated proto-Rocky as an Edward G. Robinson caricature, "Racketeer Rabbit," is unfortunately not included.) Freleng reportedly invented Rocky because he wanted to give Bugs an antagonist that at least had a fighting chance at being as clever as he was. He didn't seem to realize that we like watching Bugs dispatch morons.
The voice of the goose is almost certainly Stan Freberg.
