Vintage Image of the Day: Duck Amuck
Filed under: Animation, Classics, Vintage Image of the Day
Animator Chuck Jones was born on this day in 1912 and directed nearly 300 short and feature length cartoons for film and TV before his death in 2002. You've probably seen many of them even if you don't know who Jones is, unless you've been living in a cave with no access to Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He was one of the top animators during the golden years at Warner Bros -- you'll find his name on What's Opera, Doc?, The Rabbit of Seville, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, and other classic WB cartoons. I didn't realize until I checked his filmography that Jones also directed several of the made-for-TV animated films I enjoyed as a child, such as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and The White Seal. I did not, however, forget that he animated The Grinch Who Stole Christmas back in 1966, long before Ron Howard ever got his hands on the character.
The above image is from one of Jones' most memorable WB shorts, Duck Amuck, from 1953. It was a groundbreaking cartoon in terms of story structure: the animator is present in the film, getting involved in a duel of sorts with his creation, Daffy Duck. You can argue whether the film is postmodern, deconstructionist, ahead of its time ... but it's inarguably hilarious. I love watching cartoon shorts before a feature film (unless they're DVD ads in disguise) and wish that films like Duck Amuck, or any of Jones' shorts, would be shown before movies these days.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-21-2006 @ 2:35PM
Seighton said...
I agree that these shorts should be played before movies. I was surprised to find that my niece had no idea who any of the "Looney Tunes" characters were! Then I realised that classic WB cartoons aren't shown on TV or in movies and most parents think they are too violent to buy the DVDs for their kids.
It's sad that these shorts will be lost to Barney and Wiggles and other crap that brainwashes kids instead of sparking their creativity.
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9-21-2006 @ 5:32PM
Jandy said...
I totally agree. Duck Amuck is one of the best films I've ever seen, regardless of length. When I was little (maybe fifteen years ago), they showed Looney Tunes multiple times a day on Cartoon Network, and other cable channels. Now no more Looney Tunes, and I feel sad for all the children who will completely miss out on Looney Tunes. Putting shorts before features in theatres seems like a natural...Pixar does it, and it works. Why shouldn't other studios?
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9-21-2006 @ 8:26PM
Dani Leo said...
Props on picking Daffy for the vintage image! While I'm partial to Duck Dodgers and the 24th 1/2 century (or Daffy's battle with the big red hairy monster), Duck Amuck is really creative for its time, without being all ADHD like the Metro stuff from Tex Avery coming out at the same time.
Used to be you could catch the really off-color Looney Tunes on TVLand, but I think most of them have been censored for un-PC-ness. (Whoopi Goldberg has a little disclaimer about it at the beginning of the Golden Collection).
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