Release Date:

March 27, 1954

Main Character(s):

Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd

Summary:

Future-antic salesman Daffy Duck installs Elmer Fudd’s house with various work-saving gadgets, which only succeed in annoying Elmer as they all work against him.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1283 and was released as a Looney Tune.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue. In December 2021, a 16mm print with the original opening rings was found.

The cartoon was restored for the Looney Tunes Super Stars Daffy Duck Frustrated Fowl DVD set in 2010, but was cropped to widescreen. The corrected full frame version was made available in the late 2010’s and then on HBO Max and Tubi in the 2020’s. It is currently not on disc in its proper aspect ratio, but hopefully it will one day (it was a real missed opportunity for them to not include this and all of the other widescreen cropped cartoons on the first two Super Stars sets in their corrected full frame formats on the second discs of the first two Collector’s Vault sets, since a few people somehow count those as having been put out officially on DVD already, and that could have been a perfect spot for these).

This is the last time where Daffy is portrayed as a salesman.

The title is a pun for the 1932 comedy play, “Design for Living”.

The cartoon was originally titled “Future Antics”.

The animator draft for the cartoon can be viewed here.

Elmer’s mouth doesn’t move when he says, “What is this!?” during the scene with the “Hat and Coat Remover”, once again implying that the scene was animated before the extra line was added in.

Favorite Scene:

After Elmer notices Daffy has disposed of his stairway, Daffy shows him that in a push-button home, they “bring the upstairs downstairs” by means of bringing it down like an elevator. Elmer wanders what happens to the downstairs, and finds out that this results in everything on the downstairs level getting crushed.

What Happens in This One:

Putting on his hat and coat, Elmer begins to leave his house, “Gwacious! I’ve gotta get started for the office or I’ll be wate!” Someone knocks on his door, which is revealed to be Daffy who addresses him as “Mr. Fudd?” Daffy walks in, shakes Elmer’s hand, and talks very fast, “Congratulations, Mr. Fudd. You’re a fortunate man. I represent the ACME Future-Antic Push Button Home of Tomorrow Household Appliance Company Incorporated. My company has authorized me to install your home, it will absolutely no cost you, for ten days free trial, a complete line of ultramodern, automatic household appliances” as Elmer attempts to talk, “But- But I- Yeah, but-”. Daffy continues while pushing him out the door and onto a bus, “Now you just trot right on down to your office and leave the rest to us. Don’t stop to thank me now, Mr. Fudd. Here’s your bus. See ya later!” Once on the bus, Elmer futilely explains, “But I have my OWN car!” as Daffy walks back into the house. As the bus drives down the road, it’s revealed to be the “Duluth Express Non-Stop” (animated by Herman Cohen). Daffy then motions to a van, “Alright, boys. Let’s get with it. Come on, come on”. The van backs up to the house and lifts up the back trailer to dump the stuff out into the house (animated by Keith Darling).

A while later, Elmer is brought back to his house by the driver of a “Duluth Van and Storage Co.” truck. He tells the driver, “Thanks for the wift!”, before walking up to his door angrily, “Ooh, am I ever fuwious!” Daffy opens the door for him and cheerfully greets him with, “Come in! Come in, Mr. Fudd!” “You!?”, Elmer asks in confusion as to why Daffy’s still there. Daffy then says, “Welcome, Mr. Fudd, to your new future-antic push button home! Remember?” Elmer begins to walk in and explain, “I’m not intewested in your cwazy-”, but then sees that his house looks remarkably different, “Hey! What have you done to my house? (animated by Darling) What are all these gadgets?” Daffy pushes a button labeled “Hat and Coat Remover”, where a robot stand takes Elmer’s coat off of him and also takes off his hat to put on top of the machine. “Hey! What is this!?”, Elmer exclaims when the robot does its thing. Daffy asks him, “Isn’t that something? Hmm? But you haven’t seen anything yet! Come on!” (animated by Phil DeLara)

Daffy walks Elmer to a mechanical yellow contour chair, “This you’ll love! The very latest in automatic contour-type chairs. Try it. Comfy?” Elmer finds that he likes it, “Why, yes, it is! (laughs)”. Daffy pushes a button on the chair, “First, the relaxer. Presto!” This causes the chair to wiggle around, lean backward and cause Elmer to hit the back of his head on the floor, fold and scrunch him up, straighten out and leave Elmer lying on his back still on the chair, and wrap up on him like an embrace, before stopping and leaving Elmer dazed from the experience (animated by DeLara). Daffy next offers, “Now, thoroughly relaxed, a mellow cigar” where he pushes a button that causes a mechanical hand to pop out of the chair and put a cigar in Elmer’s mouth. He presses another button that lights a match and then his cigar for him, “Match. Automatic, of course”. The smoke from the match triggers the alarm for the “Fire Extinguisher” robot, that wears a fireman helmet and always carries a bucket of water, to come out and splash its bucket on Elmer, who after coughing and spluttering from the water dumped on him, wonders, “What was that?” Daffy lets out a somewhat embarrassed chuckle, “It’s, uh, very sensitive to heat. Uh, probably needs adjusting”, before getting Elmer down from the chair and walking with him to the kitchen, “But come on. Let’s have a look at your beautiful push-button kitchen” (animated by Rod Scribner).

Once in said kitchen, Daffy comments, “What a treasure trove of work-saving appliances. For instance-”, and turns on a “Knife Sharpener” that only reduces knife blades down to little bitty triangle-shaped ones, rendering them useless. Daffy chuckles awkwardly, “Eh, heh, heh. Uh, yeah”, before shifting Elmer’s attention to the next thing, “Uh, here’s the very last word in garbage disposal units. It’s actually ten years ahead of its time!”, as he dumps the contents of a trash can into the sink’s disposal. Elmer is impressed, “Say! That weawwy does the twick alwight!” Daffy adds, “Heh, heh. And it’s SO simple. Only has one working part. Regardez-vous” (pronounces the latter two words how they’re spelled). He opens the doors at the bottom of the sink to reveal a pig underneath eating the trash (animated by Charles McKimson).

Daffy and Elmer then go into the living room as Daffy pushes a button that reveals a wide array of buttons, “Now this is the main control panel. Now, suppose you’re a housewife”. Since he’s a man, Elmer tells him in annoyance, “But I’m NOT a housewife!”, to which Daffy clarifies, “Just for the sake of argument!” Daffy then asks a hypothetical, “Now suppose the walls are filthy dirty?” Elmer answers, “I’d scwub ‘em!”, but Daffy reveals this is not the correct answer, “Eh, eh. Watch!” He pulls the “Wall Cleaner” button, but the wall-cleaning robot only scrubs the paint off the walls, and also the paint from a painting of a pirate captain, stripping said captain down to his polka-dotted underwear amidst a white background. When Elmer gives Daffy a suspicious look for this, Daffy realizes, “Hmm. Heh. Needs a slight adjustment”. Daffy “fixes” it by turning a screw in the robot with a screwdriver, but this only causes the robot to now brush against the walls with such force that it ends up tearing them apart. Elmer is very dismayed at this, “Oh, my walls are wuined!” Daffy then pushes the button for the wall-cleaning robot to return to where it came out of (animated by Charles).

Daffy makes another hypothetical, “Say! I’ll bet your tired of looking at those dirty windows”. Elmer attempts to answer, “Well, I, uh…” Taking this as a “yes”, Daffy confirms, “We can take care of that” and pushes another button. A brick-laying robot comes out and cements a brick wall in front of one of the windows. Daffy assures him, “There. Now you’ll never have to look at those dirty windows anymore!” Elmer walks up to him even angrier, “Ooh! I’m so angwy I’m burning up!” His face turns bright red before electrical heat waves emerge from his head and head towards the Fire Extinguisher robot’s base as Daffy attempts to shush him (animated by Charles). The Fire Extinguisher robot comes out and again splashes Elmer with a bucket of water. “I tried to warn you!”, Daffy says before deciding, “Well, let’s get on with the demonstration!” Not wanting to get the short end of the stick again, Elmer stops him, “No! Wait! Evewy time you push one of those buttons, something happens to ME!” Daffy decides to be reasonable, “Well. I tell ya what. This time, you push a button”, so Elmer gladly agrees. “Alwight! (laughs) I think I’ll push this wed one!”, but Daffy immediately stops him, “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Not the wed one! Don’t ever push the wed one!” Elmer decides to try another button, “Well, I’ll push this one then!” He ends up pushing the “Burglar Alarm”. Out comes a robot dog that goes up to Elmer and bites down on his leg, causing Elmer to jump around and exclaim, “Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuch!” (animated by Scribner)

They next go into Elmer’s downstairs bedroom as Daffy demonstrates a series of tie-adjusting buttons. “Say, here’s a little gadget you’re gonna love” and after he turns it on, removes Elmer’s bow tie, “Give me that!” to which Elmer exclaims, “Hey!” in surprise. The machine for the tie-adjusting comes down with a tie ready to put on Elmer’s outfit. Daffy continues as he goes through the options, “Tie it in any knot you want. ‘Bow’, ‘Four-in-Hand’, ‘Five-in-Hand’, ‘False Granny’, ‘Windsor’, ‘Smindsor’…”, and then decides to try an unlabeled one, “Well, let’s try this one” and pushes it. This one ends up wrapping around Elmer’s neck hard, choking him, as he demands to be put down. Daffy realizes as he frees Elmer by pushing the button on top, “Oops. Wrong button. Uh, that’s the ‘Alcatraz Ascot’” (animated by DeLara).

Elmer has had enough, “That’s the wast stwaw! Pack up all this push-button nonsense and wemove it fwom my pwemises!”, taking his bow tie back from Daffy and putting it back on. He decides, “I’m going upstairs and take an aspiwin!”, but then reacts in shock upon discovering something. “My stairway’s gone! What have you done with my stairs!?” Daffy walks him into the living room and explains, “Stairs, schmairs! Come here” (animated by DeLara). He walks Elmer onto a platform labeled “Elevator Area” and continues, “We don’t walk upstairs in the push-button home!” (animated by Darling) before he pushes the button on the platform with his foot, which brings the upstairs floor down like an elevator. “We bring the upstairs downstairs! Neat?” Elmer asks, “But what happens to the downstairs?” Daffy replies, “Say! That’s a good question! What do ya say we find out?” He has the upstairs go back up again, which reveals that this has caused everything on the downstairs floor to get crushed (animated by DeLara).

Sore, Elmer asks, “Have you any more cwever gadgets to demonstwate, Mr. Smarty-Salesman?” Daffy answers, “No, Mr. Fudd. That’s all. Is there anything we’ve overlooked?” Elmer tells him as he walks to the phone, “Yes. There’s one vewy important thing. And I’m taking care of that wight now!” He calls an unknown company to send him something, which Daffy is unable to hear clearly except for Elmer ending his call with, “And HUWWY!” His package arrives immediately as the offscreen delivery man asks, “Mr. Fudd?” and Elmer eagerly answers, “Yes! Bwing it wight in!” Daffy walks up to Elmer opening a tall package with the labels, “C.O.D.”, “Use No Hooks”, and “Handle With Care” as a strange-looking robot rolls out. Daffy wonders, “What in the world is THAT!?” Elmer tells him in a gleeful manner, “It’s a future-antic push button salesman ejector! (laughs)” The robot picks Daffy up by the neck and repeatedly kicks him before they both exit by means of the robot rolling out of the house all the while carrying Daffy and still kicking him (animated by Cohen).

After they leave, Elmer wonders, “Say! I wonder what that wed button IS for?” Elmer goes over to the control panel and pushes it. It’s revealed to be “In Case of Tidal Wave”, which causes Elmer’s house to lift high into the air on a hydraulic pole (animated by Scribner). Elmer opens his door and is surprised to find that his house exits in mid-air. Daffy arrives in a helicopter and offers, “For a small price, I can install this little blue button to get ya down!” (animated by Charles)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕