Release Date:

January 5, 1946

Main Character(s):

Daffy Duck

Summary:

It’s another books coming to life in a book store after closing hours cartoon, this time with Daffy Duck donning a zoot suit and imitating Danny Kaye while also being pursued by the Big Bad Wolf of Little Red Riding Hood.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 8-15, the 8th Looney Tune in the 15th release season.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue (misspelled as “Book Review”, missing the point of the pun as “revue” means a performance). When it was restored for the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 DVD set in 2004, the original titles were put back in.

This is one of Jerry Beck’s all-time favorite cartoons and it was actually this very cartoon that inspired him to go on his decades-long search for the original titles of the Warner cartoons (which are also my most highly sought-after pieces of Looney Tunes lost media).

This is the last cartoon to use the books coming to life plot and it ends out on a high note as this is easily the best of them all.

The cartoon was ranked number 45 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons and is in the 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons book.

This is also the last cartoon where Robert McKimson is an animator as he became a director a few months later. McKimson would do animation for four of his own cartoons in the mid-1950’s: “The Hole Idea” (1955), “Dime to Retire” (1955), “Too Hop to Handle” (1956), and “Weasel Stop” (1956).

The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies comic book that Daffy steps out of also has Bugs, Porky, and Elmer on the cover.

The opening is similar to “A Coy Decoy”.

Clampett’s name is referenced as the author of “Famous Paintings”. In addition, the names of Clampett, Jones, Freleng, and McKimson are seen listed on a book behind three mice when they cheer, “Yay, Benny!”

This is the only Daffy cartoon without Porky released as a Looney Tune from this period to not feature the Daffy Duck headshot.

What I Like About This One:

The serene opening of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” is interrupted with a drunk cuckoo warbling, “It’s 12 o’clock!” and hiccuping instead of cuckooing (animated by Manny Gould).

As “Young Man with a Horn” (Harry James) plays “It Had to Be You” (animated by Robert McKimson), several characters go wild over “Cherokee Strip” (an Indian woman stripteasing), including “The Whistler”, “The Sea Wolf”: a sailor who wolf whistles, “The Complete Works of Shakespeare” which pops a spring, and “Henry the VIII” who barks like a seal. His mother of the “Aldrich Family” calls him over and spanks him for being a “naughty, naughty boy” (animated by Bill Melendez) only for her to hear Frank Sinatra of “Voice in the Wilderness” singing “It Had to Be You” (animated by Gould) causing her to exclaim in excitement, “It’s Frankie!” (animated by Melendez)

Several other women swoon to Sinatra’s singing such as a country bumpkin girl (animated by Rod Scribner), “Little Women”, “Freckles”, “Girls’ Dormitory” (animated by Melendez), “Mother Goose” (animated by Scribner), “Whistler’s Mother” on “Famous Paintings”, and “Lady in the Dark” (animated by Melendez).

A jam session version of the same tune then ensues with “Brass” being Tommy Dorsey playing the trombone (animated by McKimson), “Drums Along the Mohawk” being Gene Krupa drumming wildly (animated by Gould), and Benny Goodman as the “Pied Piper”. At one point, Dorsey plays his trombone slide across WC Fields’ nose (animated by McKimson).

Daffy steps off the cover of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics and heads over to the “Saratoga Trunk” to don a zoot suit and blond wig. He stops the jam session to yell, “STOP!” (animated by Gould) and protests the swing music in Danny Kaye’s Russian accent: “Swing music, jazz! Ptooey! Ah, bublichas, how difference in my native village. Soft music, violins, the happy peoples sitting on their balalaikas, playing their samovars. And then, there was Cucaracha. Ah, Cucaracha. So round, so firm, so fully packed. So easy on the draw. They would sing to me a little gypsy love song like this. Listen” (animated by McKimson).

Daffy then goes into a wild version of “Cucaracha” while dancing on his rear end hoo-hooing (animated by McKimson).

Next launching into a flawless version of “Carolina in the Morning” in the same accent, Daffy wanders into the cover of “Little Red Riding Hood”, and after singing the line, “Listening to snappy stories, I long to hear once more”, he gets the Big Bad Wolf snapping at him. Daffy sheepishly dances away with each line before he sees Red heading towards Grandma’s house (animated by McKimson up to here) and in a Kaye scat routine tries to warn her about the wolf, ending with him warning her about the wolf planning to eat her up by means of gnawing on her leg. At the same time, the wolf is pouring salt on Daffy’s leg. Red gives a scream like a murder victim and runs off. Daffy turns, does a fantastic double-take with just a large eye, before running off (animated by Melendez).

After a brief chase on pogo sticks via “Hopalong Cassidy”, Daffy hides in a tree in a forest. The wolf spots him and attempts to chop this tree down, but he only gets a vibration because this is “The Petrified Forest”. Shocked at the wolf doing this, “Police Gazette” announces, “Calling all cars! Calling all cars!” where a police car shows up and the literal “Long Arm of the Law” saves Daffy from being done in by the wolf (animated by Gould).

The wolf is brought to “Judge” who announces his punishment in tune to “Sextet” from “Lucia di Lammermoor”: “You are guilty and the sentence is ‘Life’” “NO!” “YES!” “NO!” “YES!” “NO!” “YES!” “You can’t do this to me; I’m a citizen see!” After singing that last line, the wolf is hit on the head by an offscreen cop’s billy club (animated by Scribner) before tearing through “Escape” (animated by Melendez).

Appearing on the cover of “So Big”, Jimmy Durante turns in the wolf’s direction, so the wolf ends up tripping over his nose, slides on “Skid Row” and nearly falls into the fiery “Dante’s Inferno”. The wolf runs back up (animated by Melendez) but swoons when a Sinatra doll singing “It Had to Be You” is put in front of him (animated by Gould), so he falls into “Dante’s Inferno” after all (animated by Melendez)

The book characters, Daffy and Red included, all cheer over the wolf’s defeat and jitterbug (animated by Melendez). The wolf pops up to protest, “STOP THAT DANCING UP THERE!- ya sillies” (animated by Scribner).

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕