Plane Daffy
| Plane Daffy | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes (Daffy Duck) series | |
 | |
| Directed by | Frank Tashlin |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc (uncredited) Sara Berner (uncredited) Robert C. Bruce (uncredited) |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by |
Cal Dalton Art Davis I. Ellis |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | September 16, 1944 (USA) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Slightly Daffy |
| Followed by | The Stupid Cupid |
Plane Daffy is a 1944 Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin, starring Daffy Duck. It's a World War Two propaganda short that depicts Daffy as a messenger battling a female Nazi spy and eventually being confronted with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring.
Synopsis
One after another of a company of carrier pigeons fall prey to the seductive wiles of "Queen of the Spies": Hatta Mari. The alarm is raised at pigeon headquarters when Pigeon 13 (a Mortimer Snerd-esque yokel similar to Beaky Buzzard) goes AWOL with the female Nazi spy bird. He reveals all his secrets (after she slipped him a mickey). In shame, Pigeon 13 departs to commit suicide, although after an off-screen gunshot is heard, he briefly returns to note "I missed."
Later, self-described woman-hater Daffy Duck volunteers for the next mission. Hatta tries to seduce him by hiking up her skirt to reveal her shapely leg and kissing him full on the lips twice. The first kiss electrocutes Daffy and melts him like butter, but the second kiss electrocutes Hatta Mari having the same effect on her. Daffy ultimately resists her charms, but swallows his secret message when the temptress corners him. After a frenetic battle, she x-rays Daffy and broadcasts the supposed secret ("Hitler is a stinker") to Hitler himself. Outraged, Hitler declares "Dat ist no military secret!" Goebbels and Göring concur -- "Ja. Everybody knows dat!"—then shoot themselves in the heads after receiving Hitler’s angry glare. Daffy Duck then concludes the cartoon by saying "They lose more darn ‘Nutzis’ that way," and then going into one of his famous bouncing fits whooping.
Cultural references
- Hatta Mari is a parody of Mata Hari
- According to DVD commentary on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Hatta Mari’s blond hair and cartoonishly top-heavy body figure would later become a reality in the 1950s with actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield (who, in turn, was one of many inspirations for Roger Rabbit’s femme fatale Jessica Rabbit).[1]
- The quote "Something new has been added" was a catchphrase by Jerry Colonna and a slogan for Old Gold (cigarette)s.
Edited versions
The ending when Hitler’s henchmen agree with the "military secret" that Hitler is a stinker cuts to Daffy saying "They lose more darn ‘Nutzis’ that way!" to remove the part where the henchmen shoot themselves in the head when shown on Cartoon Network and TNT.[2] However, the cut scene was shown during the “ToonHeads” special in a montage near the end, with a voiceover explaining that many of the outdated references and offensive stereotypes have prevented a lot of World War II cartoons from being seen on television since the war. The unedited version where Goebbels and Göring shoot themselves has also been aired (as recently as 2015) on the Canadian cable channel Teletoon Retro.
See also
References
- ↑ Daniel Ira Goldmark; Charles Keil (21 July 2011). Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood. University of California Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-520-95012-2.
- ↑ "Censored Looney Tunes: P".
- Cynthia Lucia; Roy Grundmann; Art Simon (25 June 2015). American Film History: Selected Readings, Origins to 1960. Wiley. pp. 319–. ISBN 978-1-118-47516-4.