Saturday, November 10, 2007

Drip-Along Daffy 1951 ( dir Chuck Jones)

Drip-Along Daffy is one of those cartoons that never fails to provide laugh. It's just a non stop barrage of gags flowing thick and fast. I could also say it's the best western I've seen.

The opening minute sets the scene and the tone of the whole cartoon. Daffy is riding on a white modelesque mare with 'Western type hero' written on the screen and trailing after him is porky on a donkey and the words 'Comedy Relief' pop up.

on their travels they come across a town who's population is decreasing on account of the amount of gunfire and crime that goes on ( and there are tons of visual gags emphasising this). As soon as Daffy finds out that the town needs a Sherriff, he pulls out a badge from his waistcoat ( and there's a badge for every occaision) says that he is going to clean up the one horse town and zooms off on his horse tinfoil ( lone ranger parody) while Porky's donkey is trying to keep up the pace.

Daffy then bursts into a saloon in the typical Western cliche pose but as he's drawing his guns he pulls off his trousers as well and he hops out saying that he needs to arrange his 'acoutrements' ( that line makes me crack up)

Upon ordering a milkshake at the bar, the villain of the picture enters. Nasty Canasta. A brute who's ten times larger and stronger than Daffy. When daffy brandishes his gun, Canasta just bites it off ( and Daffy says offhandedly that he needed his dose of iron) .

Canasta then challenges Daffy to a drinking contest. The bartender whips up a drink so toxic and hot that the ice cubes jump out yelping. When Canasta drinks it nothing happens to him. Daffy being the foul fowl he is, tests his drink on Porky and when he finds out nothing happens he orders the drink and downs it.

then ensues both daffy and porky reciting mary had a little lamb and then pacing across the floor, skin green and tongues moving in and out like party toys.

when things reside Daffy challenges Canasta to a typical western duel at dawn. Canasta arrongantly knows he is going to win.

when the pacing starts, Porky winds up a toy soldier in Canasta's direction. Canasta picks it up and the bullet form the toy's gun floors him and Porky becomes sheriff.

the cartoon ends on a double joke. First it focuses on daffy and he said that he was going to clean up the one horse town and the camera moves back and we find out that Daffy is now the sanitation engineer.

we then focus at Porky, who looks at the camera and says 'lucky for him that it is a one horse town!'

and the cartoon ends.

Drip-Along Daffy, besides it's blink and you'll miss it humour also focuses on the underdog winning. In most Chuck Jones' Daffy/Porky collaborations you'll find this a common theme but it's at it's best in this cartoon. In other words Jones likes to protray Daffy as some type of Looney Tune version of Charlie Brown - a loser who tries to overcome his circumstance but falls prey to it. In this aspect one can compare Bugs to Lucy ( dominant and the winner, no matter the situation) and Porky is Linus ( the helper who comes up trumps through accidental means). Technically speaking the name Daffy is a total misnomer now as there is absolutely nothing eccentric or crazy about him . Despite this factor I find that the majority of the late Jones cartoons and depiction of Daffy have more depth and are more interestign in the long run.

1 comment:

olaf675 said...

I like this Daffy/Porky cartoon the best of their film parody collaborations. It has more laughs per minute than the other ones.

I just wonder if 'Boobs in the Woods' (1950) from the previous year was one of the last cartoons where Daffy lives up to his name. It seems that Daffy gets the best of Porky as his daffy self, but in most of these later parodies Daffy invariably gets the best of himself (in his self-absorbed manner) with Porky winning in the end.

I just hope that 'Daffy Doodles' (1946) will come out in the next 'Looney Tunes' collection, along with the earlier Frisky Puppy cartoons - 'Terrier Stricken' and 'Two's a Crowd', since 'No Barking' is in volume 3.

A lot of times I'd rather see lesser characters great cartoons than major characters lesser cartoons....