Daffy Duck & Egghead

Daffy Duck & Egghead
Merrie Melodies (Daffy Duck/Egghead) series
Directed by	Fred Avery
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Story by	J.B. Hardaway
Voices by	Mel Blanc (uncredited) Danny Webb (uncredited)
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Virgil Ross Irven Spence (uncredited) Paul Smith (uncredited)
Studio	Leon Schlesinger Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	January 1, 1938 (1938-01-01) (U.S.)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	7 min, 37 sec
Language	English
Preceded by	Porky's Duck Hunt (1937)
Followed by	What Price Porky (1938)

A director's note seen at the beginning of the film, just after Daffy and Egghead are introduced.

Daffy Duck & Egghead is a 1938 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Tex Avery. The short subject features Daffy Duck and Egghead, hence the title of the short.

Plot

The story begins with Egghead (in a voice imitating radio comic Joe Penner) who is annoyed by a silhouetted man in the theater audience who refuses to sit down. After he sits down 2 times (and finally gets shot at by Egghead when he won't stay down), out comes Daffy Duck biting his nose (just like he did to Porky Pig in Porky's Duck Hunt.) While fighting, a tortoise (with a voice imitating radio comic Parkyakarkus) comes and tries to give Daffy and Egghead new weapons. When the tortoise goes away, Egghead uses his real gun and Daffy tries to make him shoot the apple on his head. Egghead misses every time, so Daffy puts a blind sign, a cup of pencils, and disguise glasses on Egghead. ("Too bad, too bad," as Daffy says.).

Daffy then walks away and sings his own variation of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by himself five minutes into the cartoon, in a set-piece drawn in a different style from the rest of the cartoon, and also containing the subdued, early form of Daffy's lisp, which is absent in the rest of the film. Daffy then shakes hands with his reflection from the lake and they both dive back into the water.

Later, Egghead finally manages to capture Daffy by shooting a pair of gloves from his gun, knocking Daffy out and allowing Egghead to place him in a net. Just as Egghead celebrates, a duck from the mental ward comes to claim Daffy. He thanks Egghead for helping to catch Daffy, and tells him that Daffy is 100% nuts. "Yeah?" Egghead asks. "Yeah!" answers the duck warden. At that moment, both he and Daffy beat Egghead up before woohoo-ing out into the distance. Egghead becomes fed up with the antics and decides to join them as the cartoon ends.

Availability

• VHS – Daffy!
• VHS – The Golden Age of Looney Tunes - Vol. 2: Firsts
• LaserDisc – The Golden Age of Looney Tunes - Vol. 1
• DVD – Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3^[1]
• DVD – The Essential Daffy Duck

Notes

• Daffy Duck & Egghead features the early, zany version of Daffy Duck, who spends the film harassing Egghead (later to become Elmer Fudd), marking the second appearance of Daffy Duck (after Porky's Duck Hunt), his first in color, and first where he is given his current name. It includes a set-piece song-and-dance number by Daffy, doing his own variation of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" (later the theme for Looney Tunes).^[2]
• This cartoon was re-released into the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program on April 20, 1946. The original opening, credits, and closing tile cards were found and restored with the release of the third volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection in 2005.

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1929–1939)

References

External links

• Daffy Duck & Egghead on IMDb
• Daffy Duck & Egghead at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Daffy Duck & Egghead (Blue Ribbon) on the Internet Archive