Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur
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Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur is a 1939 Merrie Melodies animated cartoon short directed by Chuck Jones and produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions for Warner Bros. Pictures. The cartoon is notable as being the first Daffy Duck cartoon directed by Jones. Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur is set in the stone age featuring Daffy Duck, a caveman named Casper (a caricature of Jack Benny) and his pet dinosaur, Fido.
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[edit] Overview
[edit] Jones' direction
Most of Chuck Jones-directed cartoons from this era (such as the ones featuring Sniffles the Mouse), were very heavily inspired by Walt Disney's cartoon shorts, placing more emphasis on story and animation than gags. Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur shows the faintest hints of deviation from such cartoons, which would eventually lead to the fast-paced Jones cartoons of the 1940s, such as The Dover Boys and The Draft Horse.
This is also an important milestone in the evolution of Daffy Duck's personality. While Tex Avery and Bob Clampett had depicted Daffy as completely insane, irrational, and uncontrollable in their previous cartoon with the character, Jones depicted Daffy here as being more rational and somewhat saner than in Avery and Clampett's cartoons. Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng would continue to develop Daffy's personality in this direction throughout the 1940s and 1950s
[edit] Uses in pop culture
This short was featured (albeit with altered sound effects and music) in the "Memorial" episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres constructs an antique television set for Lieutenant Tom Paris and programs into it the entire ship's database of old television programs. As Paris flips through the channels, he excitedly discovers Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur and exclaims, "CARTOON!"
Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur is today one of several Merrie Melodies shorts in the public domain, and is freely available for purchase and download from many sources.
