The Night of the Living Duck
The Night of the Living Duck is a six-minute 1988 Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Daffy Duck, directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon.[1] It was released to theatres as a part of Daffy Duck's Quackbusters on September 24, 1988 and precedes the film in all subsequent releases, including in TV broadcasts and home media.
| The Night of the Living Duck | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Greg Ford Terry Lennon |
| Story by | Greg Ford Terry Lennon |
| Produced by | Steven S. Greene |
| Starring | Mel Blanc Mel Tormé (singing voice) |
| Music by | Music from previous cartoons by Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn |
| Animation by | Brenda Banks Norm McCabe Frans Vischer Rebecca Rees Mark Kausler |
| Layouts by | Robert Givens Lin Larsen |
| Backgrounds by | Richard H. Thomas Alan Bodner |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates | September 23, 1988 (released at New York Festival) September 24, 1988 (released with Daffy Duck's Quackbusters) |
Running time | 6 min. |
| Language | English |
The title is a pun on Night of the Living Dead, although the cartoon has nothing to do with said film's theme of a zombie apocalypse.
This short was also one of Mel Blanc's final performances, as it was released less than a year before his death.
Plot
Daffy Duck, indulging in his comic book fandom in a sequence reminiscent of his earlier film The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, is reading a scary comic book called "Hideous Tales" (issue #176). The comic's "Noseman" story ends in a cliffhanger involving Schmodzilla and, noting that the story continues in the next issue, Daffy rifles his bookcase looking for it ("It's a veritable collector's item!"). While doing so however, a monster clock falls and beans Daffy, knocking him out.
In his dream, Daffy finds himself as the featured act in a nightclub where the customers are classic movie monsters consisting of Count Dracula and his two brides, Frankenstein's monster and his bride, the Wolf Man, Imhotep's mummy form, the Gill-man, the Fly, Medusa (who has a petrified man nearby her), Leatherface, the Invisible Man, the Headless Horseman, a cyclops, a slime monster (possibly the Blob), a two-headed man, some skeletons, and some unidentified monsters as well as Alfred E. Neuman. Daffy appears unable to sing, but there was a bottle of "Eau de Tormé" throat spray in Daffy's dressing room, which when applied makes him sing like Mel Tormé. After drinking the entire spray for maximum effect, he sings "Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives" to the room with a ghost named "Ghouley" playing the piano. The monsters love the song.
Then he goes around the room, greeting the patrons. But his good-natured ribbing of Schmodzilla does not go over well with the giant lizard when Daffy quips things like "Say, Schmod baby, leveled any major cities lately?", "You know, Schmodzilla's just like any unemployed actor, except when he pounds the pavement, it registers a ten on the Richter scale!", "Oh, what's the matter? The public not buying those cheap special effects anymore?" Schmodzilla then eats Daffy (with recycled screams from Boobs in the Woods).
Daffy wakes up to find himself stuck in a wastebasket along with the comic he was looking for (Hideous Tales issue #177) with "Schmodzilla" on the cover. Daffy scoffs and Schmodzilla on the cover comes to life saying "You were expecting maybe Calvin Coolidge?"
References
- Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 386. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
