Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies

Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies is a 1972 animated one-hour TV-movie (with a live-action segment near the end) that was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. In this Filmation-produced movie, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and other Looney Tunes characters interact with the characters from the Filmation series Groovie Goolies.

This movie is notable for being the one and only time that Warner Bros. "loaned out" their famous Looney Tunes characters to appear in a Filmation production (otherwise they were a silent partner). Warner Bros. had shut down their animation studio in 1969. While Warner Bros. had outsourced production to other companies since the 1960s, it was usually to studios run by former Warner Bros. alumni (such as Friz Freleng and later Chuck Jones), something that was not the case with Filmation.

Synopsis

Daffy Duck is in Hollywood producing a movie about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, starring himself; also appearing in the film are Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Charlie Dog.

At Horrible Hall, the Groovie Goolies are watching a television interview in which Daffy is talking about his new movie, when their program is interrupted by a ghoulish being calling himself The Phantom of the Flickers; he announces his intention to destroy every film that Daffy Duck and the company ever made, including their current King Arthur film. Being a huge fan of Daffy, Frankie goes to Hollywood to offer his help, and the other Horrible Hall residents go along with him.

Mayhem ensues when the Looney Tunes and the Goolies first meet, but they eventually settle down and continue filming the movie. But when the Phantom disguises himself as each of the Goolies, Daffy and the others then think that they are in league with the Phantom and run off. The Phantom suddenly grabs the film and, disguised as Hauntleroy, tries to escape from the Goolies by running through a magic mirror into "Mad Mirror Land" (i.e., the real world). Frankie, Drac, and Wolfie chase after him, and after a cartoonishly slapstick pursuit they bring (or more rather sneeze) the Phantom and the film back to their world.

The Phantom turns out to be Drac’s long-lost uncle Claude Chaney, a formerly famous silent film actor who was acting out of anger over black-and-white films being replaced by color films. Daffy gives Claude a job, the movie wins an award, and the Goolies head for home.

Notes

• The Phantom of the Flickers is an obvious parody of The Phantom of the Opera, a novel which has been made into movies and plays; Lon Chaney, Sr. played the title role in the 1925 film, and Claude Rains starred in the 1943 version. The name "Claude Chaney" is derived from these two actors’ names.
• The live-action segment uses pixilation to enable the actors to move like cartoon characters; e.g., when the Goolies drive imaginary cars down the road.
• Bugs Bunny was not present in the special, a notable absence considering he is one of the biggest stars of the Looney Tunes cast. Bugs had not been seen since the closure of the Warner Bros. studio in 1964; he did not appear in any of the WB-branded shorts produced by other companies up to this point.
• This special marks Petunia Pig's first "official" color appearance (since she never appeared in any color cartoons in the "classic" era), and her first appearance on-screen since the 1930s.
• Despite that Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Tweety are voiced by Mel Blanc in the special, they sound a little different from the classic shorts; Daffy's voice is pitched higher and sped up faster than normal (to the point that he sounded a lot like his early "screwball" incarnation by Tex Avery and Bob Clampett or Woody Woodpecker), Porky's voice isn't pitched up and is slowed down, and Tweety's voice is sped up faster than normal.

Voices

• Mel Blanc: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer J. Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester J. Pussycat, Tweety Pie, Wile E. Coyote, Pepé Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, Charlie Dog
• Howard Morris: Franklin "Frankie" Frankenstein, Wolfgang "Wolfie" Wolfman, Mummy
• Larry Storch: Count Tom Dracula, Claude Chaney/Phantom of the Flickers
• Jane Webb: Hagatha, Petunia Pig

Credits

• "Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies"
• Copyright © 1972 Filmation Assoc.
• Directed by: Hal Sutherland
• Written by: Chuck Menville, Len Janson
• Supervising Animator: Amby Paliwoda
• Production Manager: Rock Benedetto
• Storyboard: Dale Hale
• Art Director: Don Christensen
• Key Assistants: Mike Hazy, Bill House
• Layouts: Alberto de Mello, Dick Hall, Herb Hazelton, Wes Herschensohn, Lou Kachivas, Les Kaluza, Carol Lundberg, John Perry, Virgil Raddatz, Louise Sandoval, Cliff Voorhees, Kay Wright
• Director of Color: Ervin Kaplan
• Backgrounds: Boris Gorelick, Maurice Harvey, Bill Loudenslager, Tom O'Loughlin, Paul Xander
• Animators: Jim Brummett, Bob Carlson, Zion Davush, Otto Feuer, Ed Friedman, Lee Halpern, Laverne Harding, Lou Kachivas, Les Kaluza, Marsh Lamore, Larry Miller, Bill Nunes, Casey Onaitis, Jack Ozark, Anthony Pabian, William Pratt, Eddie Rehberg, Len Rogers, Virgil Ross, Louise Sandoval, Larry Silverman, Hank Smith, Ralph Somerville, Reuben Timmins, Russ von Neida, George Waiss, Kaem Wong
• Checking Supervision: Jane Philippi, Marion Turk
• Xerography and Paint Supervision: Betty Brooks, John Remmel
• Camera Supervision: R.W. Pope
• Camera Operators: Sergio Antonio Alcázar, Thane Berti, Frank Parrish, Joseph Ponticelle, Fred Ziegler
• Editorial Supervision: Doreen Dixon, Joseph Simon
• Film Coordinator: June Gilham
• Voices: Mel Blanc, Howard Morris, Larry Storch, Joanne Louise, Chuck Menville, Len Janson
• Background Music by: Yvette Blais, Jeff Michael
• Music Publisher: Shermley Music Company, ASCAP
• Music and Sound Effects: Horta-Mahana Corp.
• Color: Technicolor®
• Produced by: Lou Scheimer · Norm Prescott
• A Filmation Production · A TelePrompTer Company
• Copyright © 1972 Filmation Assoc.

Availability

This movie has never been officially released on home video (due to various rights issues), but traders on the Internet have been recording and selling DVDs of this film, most of which were originally black-and-white kinescopes of the original broadcast. Non-official copies of the original color production have also emerged. However, in the UK, it was released by Select Video in late 1983, and was on sale at Woolworth's. In this instance, the live action sequence was not present, and it was replaced by an out-of-shot collision before rejoining the original animated sequence. In this case, the title card was simply called Groovie Ghouls.

Another notable feature of the UK release was that the Select Video ident was shorter, and had no jingle. In addition, the end credits were different, as they had to edit out the names of the actors in the live action sequence which was not included, and also had other credits, presumably for UK-based post-production at Select Video.

NBC broadcast the movie as a Halloween special in the late 70s or early 80s.

A German version of the movie was released by Select Video in 1983 as Muntere Monster in Hollywood ("Groovie Goolies in Hollywood"), and Comic-World in 1986 as Duffy Duck und Co. ("Daffy Duck and Co.") and 1990 as Duffy Duck und Co. in Hollywood ("Daffy Duck and Co. in Hollywood"). The original laugh track from the movie was removed for those releases.

The USA Network broadcast the movie as a Halloween special in the mid to late 90s shortly before it stopped broadcasting cartoons altogether.

In later years, Cartoon Network broadcast the movie on Cartoon Theater.

A restored two-part version of the movie known as Monsterparty auf Schloß Blutenburg: Daffy Duck und das Phantom Der Seifenoper ("Groovie Goolies: Daffy Duck and the Phantom of the Flickers") was broadcast on Junior in Germany. The first part, Monsterparty auf Schloß Blutenburg 01: Daffy Duck und das Phantom Der Seifenoper  – Teil 1 ("Groovie Goolies: Daffy Duck and the Phantom of the Flickers – Part 1"), was broadcast on February 23, 2002 and January 18, 2007, and the second part, Monsterparty auf Schloß Blutenburg 02: Daffy Duck und das Phantom Der Seifenoper  – Teil 2 ("Groovie Goolies: Daffy Duck and the Phantom of the Flickers – Part 2"), was broadcast on February 24, 2002 and January 19, 2007. On October 29 2013, the first part of the movie was broadcast on Anixe. This part can be found on Dailymotion.

The UK release of the movie was uploaded on YouTube on February 23, 2017, only to be replaced by a "2018 restoration" of the movie on May 5, 2018, followed by a version of the movie with Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Tweety's voices corrected on June 8, 2018.

References

• Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies on IMDb
• Jim's Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies page
• Cartoon Research FAQ-2

External links

• Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies on IMDb
• "Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies" at TV.com