Vol 1, Disc 2 : Duck Amuck 1953 ( dir Chuck Jones)

Disc 2 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection series starts with a bang with the all time classic Cartoon 'Duck Amuck' To summarise the plot briefly Daffy Duck is constantly sabatoged by a unknown artist. Throughout the short's seven minutes Daffy goes through many mutations, background changes, gets duplicated and in the end ( yes there's a false ending as well) gets blown up. Also there are experiments with close ups, sound effects and even silence being a major contributor. In the last few seconds we find out the the artist who has been putting Daffy through these tortures is none other than Bugs Bunny, who finishes off the cartoon winking at the audience and declaring.

Ain't I a stinker?

Just why is this cartoon so important. Most of the time if you read up on Duck Amuck you'll find out that it breaks the invisible border between audience and actor ( the fourth wall). Daffy is losing his temper, screaming and sometimes bargaining with the artist or animator. Thus Daffy is not just a artistic drawing but an actor yet he cannot quit as he is a slave to the pencil at the same time. Notice throughout the cartoon that whenever Daffy rebels the pencil crops up and makes him helpless and even more angry.

this is not the first time this has happened in cartoons. Disney's 1930 Alice movies, protrayed a non animated girl interacting with both the artist and her cartoon situation. For Warner brothers breaking the fourth wall was done from the very start as the first cartoon, Bosko the ink well kid had a character squirting ink at his animator and going through all types of mischief, tormenting his artist ( sort of the opposite of Duck Amuck). More famously the cartoon 'You Ought to be in Pictures (1940-Friz Freleng)' had Porky Pig jumping out of the drawing board and tearing up his contract ( incited by Daffy) and Tex Avery's 1941 short 'Tortoise Beats Hare' had bugs reading and mispronouncing all the credits.

but none of these achieved the inspired lunacy of Duck Amuck and here's the reason why

none of these characters had the extremist personalit that Daffy has. When Daffy loses his temper he goes all out. Funnily enough his other duck counterpart Donald is an extremist as well but Donald lacks wit and the evil streak that Daffy embodies. In fact if you notice Bugs is able to bully Daffy precisely because of his extremist behaviour, which makes it apt that it is Bugs who turns out to be the artist teasing Daffy. In other words Daffy's distinct personality makes this cartoon work so well. No matter how many changes he goes through, he still is the screaming, shifty eyed duck. So daffy, in this aspect is well and truly an actor in every sense of the word but a paradoxical one as he lacks the freedom of the actor and cannot interpret his lines in a unique fashion cause the pencil will come and change everything.

Duck Amuck is one of those cartoons that stick out, has different interpretations and will be under scrutiny for years to come. Already it's more than 50 years old and yet it's still way ahead of it's time and if you want to talk about influence, well wasn't Zemeckis' 1988 film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit all based on this idea of cartoons as distinct personalites? And how many times do we see cartoons and a pencil pops up and redesigns everything in one go? A amazing cartoon through and through