Quackodile Tears (1962)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Arthur Davis

Writers:

John W. Dunn (story) &
Carl Kohler (story)

Release Date:

31 March 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Family | Short | Comedy

Plot:

Daffy Duck is ordered by his loud mouthed wife to sit on their egg in a nest. When Daffy adjusts the nest to make it more comfortable...

Plot Keywords:

Egg | Crocodile | Daffy Duck | Marriage | Ugly Duckling

Cast

Mel Blanc

...

Daffy Duck (voice)

Runtime:

6 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

This was Arthur Davis' last cartoon as director for Warner Bros. Many printed sources erroneously credit Friz Freleng with directing this cartoon.

Quotes:

Daffy: Eeney, meeny, miney, mo. Where'd that stupid little old egg go? Oh well, what's the difference? An egg is an egg.

Movie Connections:

Edited into The Bugs Bunny Mother's Day Special (1979) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Brahms' Lullaby

Amusing but quite poor animation

When Daffy is forced by his wife to sit on their egg for a while, he makes the mistake of ruffling the nest and causing the egg to run away down the hill. When the egg runs into the middle of an alligator's nest, Daffy has to take his best guess as to which one is his. However the alligator sees him take one of `her' eggs and sets out to get it back.

I'm a really big fan of Daffy Duck and always feel that he is at his best when he is in his early persona of being manic and wacky. Even when he becomes more cynical and greedy he still manages to be one of my favourite Warner Brothers characters. Here though he is put upon and hen pecked and not really himself for much of the time. The cartoon (and Daffy) only really improves in the brief chases over the egg, although these are still a little lacklustre at times.

Part of the problem is that the cartoon doesn't look like a lot of effort was put into it. The backgrounds are generally two or three colours and the characters are very basic. This feeling fed into the rest of it for me and it did feel like the routines had just been thrown together. Daffy being a fairly characterless beast here was also an issue as I never saw it as him. The alligators make for good support and are quite funny but I just didn't like Daffy's wife at all.

Overall this has amusing moments but it is quite lifeless and just feels like they were treading water rather than putting a lot of care and attention into the process of making this film. Also, Daffy fans will likely be put off by just how lacking in character he is here.