The Scarlet Pumpernickel

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The Scarlet Pumpernickel Looney Tunes (Daffy Duck) series
The title card of The Scarlet Pumpernickel.
Directed by	Charles M. Jones
Produced by	Eddie Selzer
Story by	Michael Maltese
Voices by	Mel Blanc
Music by	Carl Stalling
Animation by	Phil Monroe Ben Washam Lloyd Vaughan Ken Harris
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date(s)	March 4, 1950 (USA)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	7 minutes, 2 seconds
IMDb profile

The Scarlet Pumpernickel is a 1948-animated Warner Bros. Looney Tunes theatrical cartoon short released in 1950, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese.

Although the title (invoking a type of bread instead of a flower) is an obvious pun on The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Pumpernickel is given a portrayal closer to Robin Hood. (Indeed, after Daffy fails to perform a stunt, he mutters that "I'd better check with Errol".)

In 1994 it was voted #31 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.^[1]

1 Synopsis
2 Production details
3 Censorship
4 Influence
5 References
- 5.1 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Synopsis

The cartoon is a story-within-a-story. Daffy Duck is fed up with comedy and wants to try some more serious roles. He offers a script to the WB executive "J.L" (obviously Jack Warner), called The Scarlet Pumpernickel, which he wrote himself (under the joke author name "Daffy Dumas Duck".

As Daffy reads the script to J.L., the cartoon cuts away to various scenes and then back to J.L.'s office. Each time, Daffy announces a page number. By the cartoon's end, the script has exceeded 1,000 pages.

In this script, the Zorro-esque but clumsy Scarlet Pumpernickel (Daffy) must save the Fair Lady Melissa, from being married to a man she does not love (the Grand Duke Sylvester) under the Lord High Chamberlain's (Porky Pig) orders. Toward the end, the Grand Duke and the Scarlet Pumpernickel engage in an intense duel, but no conclusive ending is given as the script devolves into random and accelerating natural disasters (including skyrocketing food prices!) at the end.

The characters Daffy and Sylvester both speak in a similarly slobbery lisp, with Blanc's recordings of Daffy sped up as usual.

[edit] Production details

This is one of the few Looney Tunes shorts to feature almost all of the Looney Tunes main cast. This cartoon's cast includes Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, Henery Hawk and the Mother from The Three Bears. The only well-known characters to not star in this cartoon are Bugs Bunny and Tweetie Pie. The only reason for that is that Bugs Bunny would not fit very well in the short, because Daffy Duck is fruitlessly trying to be like Errol Flynn, hence the comedy out of what is supposed to be more dramatic in content, whereas Bugs's more reserved personality might have stolen the show.^[2]

This is only one of two cartoons that Melissa Duck stars in. She is Daffy's girlfriend in both. She has survived, however, and has become a regular on Baby Looney Tunes, the 2002 series that tells about the childhood of the Looney Tunes characters.

This short was one of the few times that Mel Blanc voiced Elmer Fudd. Elmer is usually voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan. But since Elmer had only one line in this film, Mel Blanc was told to go ahead and imitate the voice of the character. Mel Blanc did not like imitating, however, believing it to be stealing from another actor.^[3]

This is one of the few cartoons that are set on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California (its depiction here would also appear in the television cartoons Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Histeria!). This is also one of the few cartoons that have numerous references to the Warner Bros. co-founder, Jack Warner, who is called J.L. in this short.

There are several ethnic references in the cartoon. For example, the kreplach, featured at the end of the cartoon, is shown to have skyrocketed to a price of $1000.00.

Daffy identifies himself as "Daffy Dumas Duck", a reference to Alexandre Dumas, who wrote several swashbucking novels. The title of the episode is actually a pun on the "Scarlet Pimpernel" series by Baroness Orczy.

As a Looney Tunes cartoon, the opening card indicates a Merrie Melodies "Blue Ribbon" release (normally used for older, already-released shorts), and the original "That's all, Folks!" end card is Looney Tunes.

[edit] Censorship

The ending of the cartoon after Daffy pitches the scene where the price of food skyrockets (where Daffy acts out the suicide of The Scarlet Pumpernickel) is almost always edited on TV, but in different ways:
- On ABC, CBS, The WB!, and the syndicated run of "The Merrie Melodies Show," the part where Daffy pulls out a gun and says, "There was nothing for the Scarlet Pumpernickel to do but blow his brains out, which he did," cuts to a frozen shot of the outside of the office so the viewer doesn't see Daffy actually shooting himself, then cuts back to the end where Daffy says, "It's getting so you have to kill yourself to sell a story around here" before passing out again.^[4]
- On Nickelodeon, the scene is cut similarly to how ABC and The Merrie Melodies show did it, but what was superimposed over the gun-to-the-head gag was a repeat shot of the outside of the office, only shown in reverse.^[4]
- Cartoon Network's version had two ways of editing the ending. On a 1998 special about "The 50 Greatest Cartoon Shorts of All Time", the cartoon abruptly ended on the shot of the kreplach costing $1000 after Daffy is heard saying, "Is that all?" On normal showings on installment programs (Bugs and Daffy, The Looney Tunes Show, The Chuck Jones Show, subsequent ToonHeads showings, and The Acme Hour), the suicide gag is edited by showing an extended shot of the kreplach costing $1000 when Daffy says, "Is that all?", then the cartoon jumps to the scene where Daffy is on the floor dead, then rises up and says his final line.

[edit] Influence

The Scarlet Pumpernickel's basic premise would be replicated fifty years later in an episode of the Duck Dodgers television series, "The Mark of Xero".

[edit] References

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