Title: Wise Quacks
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 8/05/39
Credits:
Supervision
Robert Clampett
Animation
I. Ellis
Story by
Warren Foster
Musical Direction
Carl W. Stalling
Series: Looney Tunes
Running time (of viewed version): 6:59
Synopsis: Daffy reproduces, and he and Porky must protect the sissiest of his offspring.
Comments: Mrs. Duck sounds lots like Donald, and is somewhat non-verbal (in that she does not use words much of the time, just makes sounds). Daffy lives in a bird pen on a farm; I do not recall Porky living in a sty. Presumably Daffy will one day be eaten by Porky. Daffy's children are not turned into tasty tasty baluts tho. The walking ducklings display the incessant dance walking that's coming out of the Clampett unit. The characters display the Clampett signature head lean back several times. The buzzard's (condor? eagle?) feet pulse for no reason while abducting the duckling. There is drunkenness. And yet another silhouette shot (two if you count the buzzard shadow). Cartoon opened on a moving shot of an establishing background. The unit really used the same tricks over and over. Peaceful Neighbors, Ugly Duckling, Barnyard Egg-Citement, and this all feature hatchlings in peril (tho IN Peaceful Neighbors it's their own fault). Porky goes through some weird little motions after reading the pregnancy announcement. Mel Blanc's very brief deadpan dog delivery is fun. The buzzard's "hello, bud!" sounds like a stolen catch phrase. (Not exactly Andy Devine's.) The dumb duckling and Daffy both consistently say the opposite of what their head motion is saying. There's a human skull with the clutch of buzzards. The buzzards aren't appealing (except the one in the "hello, bud" closeup and the drunken group shot).
The following is the paper text; note the right column has a letter or two cut off form every line:
Masthead:
"BARNYARD BULLETIN
HONEST NEWS THAT IS
REG. NAT. PATENT OFFICE
TELEPHONE [scribbledygook]
VOL. IIIXI
ONE [heatlow?]
MONDAY MAY 35
[ASSO] PRESS
5 CENTS"
-
Left column:
"HAM AND EGGS
Bolshevik Revolution struck, it was Finland's moment. In bitter fighting she resisted Russia's attempt to hold her, and on July 17, 1919, Finland was declared a republic.
The patriots of this northland are a silent folk, hard and unsmiling. Ceaseless struggle for existence against a cruel climate does not breed levity. Even about the women there is a touch of iron.
The lust for hardiness carries over into their very indulgences. There is, for example, the sauna - the Finnish bath. Imagine a windowless hut, hermetically sealed except for a small opening in the roof, containing a lot of big stones, heated red-hot by a fire underneath them. Imagine a naked Finn blithely pouring dippers of water on those stones, until he and other Finns are enveloped in clouds of hot steam. All of them lie serenely on their backs in this stifling atmosphere or belabor each other with small branches until their skins are tingling. Then - if you can - imagine them racing out of the blinding, suffcating steam [xxx], and plunging, with shrieks of joy into an icy lake or snow bank! The FInns think the sauna helps explain their athletic prowess. Even when they put modern plumbing"
--
Middle column:
"TATTLE TALE
BY JIMMY PIDDLER
---
MR. BALD EAGLE
EXPECTING HEIR
---
FLASH
---
MR. & MRS. DAFFY DUCK
ARE EXPECTING
A BLESSED EVENT
ISN'T THAT DUCKY?
---
BOBO CUTS NEW TOOTH
---
Bunched like hounds on a scent [in wheel and fighting]"
---
Right column:
"SALES DONE
Rent for these homes, cluding water, sanitary facilit and daily garbage disposal, rang from $2 to $4 a month.
The six-room Tagus school w built by the Merritts and is lea to the countyfor a dollar a ye Any youngster whose shart sho malnutrition gets cod-liver oil un he is up to normal.
Many of the workers h lived on corn meal and sow-beans all their lives. So, three years a the ranch established a domes science school for mothers, to tea them food values and cooking.
A revolving fund is admin tered by the superintendent labor, who is authorized to lend any family facing an emergenc The borrowers pay back a fe dollars a month. It's not deduct from their pay and there is [] pressure, but surprisingly few f to pay up.
A Tagus Ranch family can about $1500 a year. Monthly i come varies from $80 when on the father is working to as much as $400 when the women and old children join in the fruit or cott picking. Two weeks' vacation w pay is provided. There is no doc ing of pay for sickness.
The Merritts never hire outside... for the executive ..."
(The Tagus Ranch would become a prisoner of war camp in WWII)
Also of note here is the really ugly gray eye-ring design Clampett gave Daffy, a design shared with the missus and the babies (it almost like Jones took the better Daffy layouts with him for "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" when he moved to his own color Merrie Melodies unit, and left Bob to come up with his own layouts). Daffy would be fixed a year later when Freleng had Daffy redesigned into pretty much his 'modern' look (and voice) for "You Ought to Be In Pictures", but the eye rings would make one last appearance a year later, on the hatchling at the end of "The Henpecked Duck".
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