I don’t think anyone will disagree with the statement that Daffy Duck is the least formulaic character in cartoon history. Unless you count the Jones ‘Rabbit/Duck’ trio (I don’t), all of the character’s cartoons are different. There may be reused gags or concepts once in awhile, but all of the directors seemed to find it easiest to come up with new, un-rehashed cartoons for the duck.
Freleng’s His Bitter Half is of the the handful of cynical shorts that shows Daffy as a married man. For my money, it’s probably the funniest, neck-and-neck with Tashlin’s also excellent Stupid Cupid. (Daffy was also married in Clampett’s Wise Quacks and Henpecked Duck, Davis’s Quackodile Tears, and Freleng’s Stork Naked, in which Daffy basically tries to perform the first animated abortion.)
This is one of the best cartoons written by Tedd Pierce, the ‘weak sister’ of the Termite Terrace writing trio. I’ve written before that I find his period with Freleng (1946-49) to be particularly unexceptional, but this and his other classic Daffy (Golden Yeggs) are probably Freleng’s two best with the character.
There’s some really funny timing solutions in this cartoon, like the one below with Daffy getting punched in the face (Gerry Chiniquy), or Daffy’s take not even fully registering before the explosion (Virgil Ross). These sort of things are what separated the Warner guys from the rest.
I ID’ed the animators of this short in hopes of further educating the Internet on proper animation ID’ing.
(I faked the Merrie Melodies logo too, so the copyright and production number notices are incorrect. I could have corrected them if I had more time…)
Hi, T. I tihnk that’s Verna Felton doing the loudmouth battle-axe duck’s voice.
I LOVE this one, thanks for breaking it down (I especially love Davis’ and Blanc’s timing on “I see ya…”)! By the way, where was Manuel Perez during this time? He’s in McKimson’s Dog Collared, but other than that, he dissapears from the credits during this time.
I love this cartoon. Art Davis’ animation in the opening lovers quarrel scence is great. Thanks for giving us a proper ID’ing.
That first image you posted of Daffy pointing to Wentworth. Jesus, kills me everytime.
About Pierce being the WB’s “Weak Sister” Warner writer…. why does everyone pick on him so much? I’ve always kind of been his biggest defender. I don’t find anything to be that much wrong with his stories, he wrote some pretty strong entries such as “The Draft Horse”, “The Dover Boys”, “Super Rabbit”, this short (as observed), “Mouse Mazurka”, “Each Dawn I Crow”, and even a few of the stronger earlier shorts for McKimson such as “Oily Hare”, “Rabbit’s Kin”, “Fool Coverage”, “Muscle Tussle”, “Cat-Tails for Two”, and “Easy Peckin’s”. There’s still a good one once in a while after that too such as “The High and the Flighty” and “Barbary Coast Bunny”.
If I had one complaint with Pierce, it’s that he tended to favor gags over stories and storyline; in many of them, the gags (some of them funny, some of them a bit too outrageous) are plentiful but the storyline is a bit too thin. He also seemed to peter out before the others but I can’t help wondering if McKimson’s mutual lack of effort as a director might have had as much to do with that as well.
Freleng must have loved this story, because he reused it not once, but twice: one with Yosemite Sam in Daffy’s role (“Honey’s Money”), and another that came out years later at DePatie-Freleng, with Rattfink in the role (“A Taste of Money”, actually directed by Art Davis).
Tedd had his up and down periods — along with this, “Canary Row” with the debut of Granny was also a strong cartoon, and Pierce seemed to get a burst of energy — or a kick in the butt — when Friz jilted him for Warren Foster (after bringing Ben Hardaway and Cal Howard back for test drives). His early cartoons with Bob McKimson were also pretty good, before he flatlined again around the end of 1952 (Sid Marcus’ efforts of the same period for Bob were generally stronger). Getting dumped by J.L. and then rehired in 1953 also seemed to do him a world of good, as his cartoons in the mid-50s for both Jones and McKimson are pretty decent, before going off the rails again around the end of 1957.
What’s fun about this cartoon is it takes the self-centered Daffy Freleng already had played with in “You Ought to Be In Pictures” and throws in greed as a motivator that gets him into trouble, in the same way greed got Daffy into trouble in the Pierce-scripted “You Were Never Duckier”. But at the same time doesn’t make him perpetually angry, as that Daffy would develop into by the late 1950s (Money-hungry-but-non-angry Daffy would also show up during this period in the Jones-Maltese “Daffy Dilly” and selling Porky the gun to shoot him with in Davis’ “Riff Raffy Daffy”, all of which used greed without making him into a two-note character).
Kasey: I believe Perez was on leave, and then in a trial run in the McKimson unit to take a ‘break’ from Freleng. He was always getting screamed at and got the title of “Friz’s whipping boy” around the studio. (Greg Duffell please confirm this.)
Woah. If Greg indeed confirms this as fact, I can’t say I didn’t learn anything new today! Now I’m curious as to what Friz was like with other members of his crew (other than this, I only know Friz considered Chiniquy his favorite. I especially wonder how he got along with Davis).
And all this time, I thought this was completely due to the animator mix-ups going around during this period since Davis’ unit was disbanded (like John Carey moving from from Friz’s unit to Chuck’s for Hound for Trouble, then McKimson’s unit, same with Emery Hawkins).
Not to question the proper animating ID’s (;D), but I think Daffy doing the dishes and laundry at the beginning is Ross’ work. The way Daffy sweeps the dust under the carpet just looks a little too “subtle” to be Champin.
The Cowboy scene wasn’t by Gerry Chinniquy?
It’s true that Friz absolutely did not care for Ted Bonnickson’s animation, right?
Great cartoon. Very funny animation and great character dynamics. I love Art Davis’ animation the most.
Aside from Robert McKimson and maybe Alex Lovy on the Daffy-Speedy cartoons he did (Bonnicksen was the only animator he had with any prior WB experience), I can’t think of anyone who DID care for Bonnicksen’s animation!
I generally like Tedd Pierce’s work up until the shutdown, but I think his stuff was perhaps a case of the right writer in the wrong era. The stuff he preferred doing would probably have worked better in the TV era than on short cartoons.
Warners had the best “pre-dynamite explosion” timing of any studio. This cartoon is easy proof of that.
Thanks for the animator identification. From what I can gather, Ken Champin’s work seems to be the most… I hesitate to say “normal”, but it doesn’t seem to have the instantly identifiable quirks that most of the others in Freleng’s unit have:
* Virgil Ross= graceful; cheek indents are common
* Gerry Chiniquy= jerky but well-timed and does a great job with facial expressions
* Art Davis= loose and rubbery, but also snappy when necessary. His work seemed more snappy and quicker-paced before the ’53 shutdown for some reason.
* Manny Perez= sort of a less extreme version of Chiniquy. This one’s a little harder for me to pinpoint than the above three, and that’s probably an inaccurate description, but I’m getting a little better at identifying it.
nah, that ain’t Verna Felton. it does sound like the actress doing the voice is trying for that unique Felton bluster, but, having just finished going through listening to all the jack benny radio shows that are available at http://www.archives.org, in which Felton appeared innumerable times as Dennis Day’s mother, I’m fairly certain that this voice bears none of the trademark characteristics of her voice.
One the all-time great Daffy Duck cartoons. That scene in which Daffy gets punched in the puss rocks!
I’ve always felt this is an excellent cartoon (and a terrificly funny one) and I really doesn’t know why is a less-known one. STORK NAKED is also a good and misappreciated one for as I remember…
Hi Thad: About Manny Perez being Friz’s “whipping boy”- I think this may well be true. I met Manny in 1975 at San Rio Studios when he was working on a feature film financed by the Japanese company better known later for owning the “Hello Kitty” franchise. The film was called “Metamorphosis”, but was released under another title or two later.
Friz was known to be irascible. When I met Mr. Perez I was very surprised and extremely familiar and enthusiastic about his animation career, his credits going back to the late 30’s at Warner Brothers. At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what animation he had done (I was 19 years old) but knew if I could get him to reveal ONE scene he had done, I would know almost every scene he had ever done. Manny was elusive. I said, “You worked for Friz for a long time…”. Manny had this uncomfortable smile on his face, and responded: “Ya…you know, I reached the point where… I got to hate that little guy…”
Manny stopped working for Friz in the early fifties, and then virtually disappeared from Warners. He did end up working for Friz again in the mid-60’s on many of the Inspector cartoons and other Depatie Freleng shows.
Greg Duffell said…
“I met Manny in 1975 at San Rio Studios when he was working on a feature film financed by the Japanese company better known later for owning the “Hello Kitty” franchise. The film was called “Metamorphosis”, but was released under another title or two later.”
That film was later released as “Winds of Change” (In Japan, it was called “Orpheus of the Stars”). It’s pretty much a train wreck, even for a Japanese company to embark into at all (especially one like Sanrio who was just starting to make it’s presence known in the world through Hello Kitty), but it’s quite an interesting story to tell. It’s pretty notable for a number of Golden Age folks who were on staff for that film.