I love it! it's my favorite (and only) Daffy Duck cartoon (I'm not too crazy about him), and I'm not to keen on parody too (in fact; I HATE IT PERIOD!); but I can make an acceptance with this great swash-buckling cartoon by Chuck Jones; with animation by Phil Monroe; I love Chuck Jones/Phil Monroe collaborated cartoons.

And since this short is based around the story "The Scarlet Pimpernel." I would like to point out, that I've seen the movie version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" from 1935 starring Leslie Howard on T.C.M. (I had even taped it too); and I'm even thinking of reading the book too (I'm crazy about literary movies).

One has to feel some sympathy with Chuck’s Daffy, even when he is the one in control his some kind of fate or karma lies against him; in this case the differences between what he believes is his big pitch and the slapstick version of it that we, the audience gets to see.

Of course it is what makes it work along of course Daffy’s self ego and his imperviousness to the fact that he’s the butt of the joke even when he the top bill star; or when he’s pitching himself as the star. The fowl is never able to steer himself away from comedy, Warner’s would never allow him to make such a mistake. Daffy was born from comedy and in comedy he truly belongs.

If memory serves me well we have, in this short, the largest ensemble of characters there has been in a classic era Looney Tunes short. The only time this would occur again would be in the hands of Greg Ford, with shorts like Carrotblanca.

I’ve always seen Sylvester as Warner Bros. greatest and most versatile “actor” because he can take on any part given to him and pull it off with gusto. With little of the drawbacks that Bugs, Daffy or numerous other characters developed over the years; he has been fortunate in that he was never became a typecast. Besides, it’s just great to see him use for something other than a foil for Tweety/Speedy: It also helps that he’s physically bigger than Daffy as well.

What drives this back from perfection is the intercutting between the cartoon proper and the narrative between J.L. and Daffy, which as lupercal says makes the whole thing a little disjointed. This gets more apparent towards the end, when the cuts back and forth become just a little bit faster.

Still this is only a slight problem and ultimately means that it just misses the top tier by a faction. But then there’s nothing wrong with WB’s second tier is there?

This is one of my favorite Chuck Jones toons. Excellent animation, funny the whole way there, and the jokes never fall flat.

A must see!

James

As a result of this cartoon, I spent many years as a child wondering what the hell a pumpernickel was, till I ate some and realised that it was a cross between bread and anti-matter.

In this short we see Chuck Jones really coming into his own, and shrugging off animation conventions, in a way which would lead to some of his great works later in the 50's.

Warner animators had long been aware of the artistic and comic potential of 'breaking the fourth wall' and drawing attention to the fact that this was a cartoon - a construction. Tex Avery's favourite method seemed to be to have a third-party hand hold up a sign which made some comment on the action.

Jones though, took things a step further, finding other ways to intertwine the imaginary and real worlds. Although this wasn't the first time it had been used, the extended pretext of this short - that Daffy is bored with his typecasting and tries to pitch an original script to the studio boss - keeps this gag running throughout the short. In fact you can see how this cartoon, and a few others like it, could be considered the origins of the idea of toons as actors, which was made the centerpiece of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' nearly forty years later.

Daffy's pitch is basically a retelling of the 'Scarlet Pimpernel' story (I also spent a period of my childhood wondering what a pimpernel was) with Daffy cast as the hero. Cleverly, writer Maltese introduces another level of reality by at the same time managing to have Daffy be the hero (a rare enough event except in Daffy's early cartoons), and still have him make mistakes and take falls, as if the script is really out of his control, even though he apparently wrote it. As if he can't quite keep in control of the situation even when he's its creator.

Sylvester fills the role of Daffy's adversary (a wise choice. Bugs, for example, wouldn't have been credible).

It's a somewhat disjointed short, cutting back and forth from the story to 'real life' scenes of Daffy in the producer's office, but overall it works splendidly.

Not one of the truly great Warner shorts, but getting there.