| Night of the Living Duck | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies series | |
title card |
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| Directed by | Greg Ford Terry Lennon |
| Produced by | Steven S. Greene |
| Story by | Greg Ford Terry Lennon |
| Voices by | Mel Blanc Mel Tormé (singing voice) |
| Music by | Music is from Previous cartoons which was conducted by Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn |
| Animation by | Brenda Banks Norm McCabe Frans Vischer Rebecca Rees Mark Kausler |
| Layouts by | Robert Givens Lin Larsen |
| Backgrounds by | Richard H. Thomas Alan Bodner |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | September 23, 1988 (released at New York Festival) September 24, 1988 (released with Daffy Duck's Quackbusters) |
| Running time | 6 min. |
| Language | English |
Night of the Living Duck is a six minute 1987-animated, 1988-released Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Daffy Duck, directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon. It was released to theatres as a part of Daffy Duck's Quackbusters on September 24, 1988.
Daffy Duck, here a horror fanatic, is reading a scary comic book called "Hideous Tales" (issue #176). The story ends in a cliffhanger, and Daffy rifles his bookcase looking for the next issue ("It's a veritable collector's item!"). A monster clock falls, and beans Daffy, knocking him out and causing him to have a dream where he's the featured act in a nightclub. All the customers at the nightclub are classic movie monsters. Daffy appears unable to sing, but fortunately there was a bottle of "Eau de Tormé" in Daffy's dressing room, which makes him sing like Mel Tormé. He sings "Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives" to the room, and they love it. Then he goes around the room, greeting the patrons, but his good-natured ribbing of "Smogzilla" doesn't go over well with the giant lizard ("Say, Smog baby, been any major cities lately?", "You know, Smogzilla's just like any unemployed actor, except when he pounds the pavement, it registers a ten on the Richter scale!", "Oh, what's the matter? The public not buying those cheap special effects anymore?"), who eats Daffy. Daffy wakes up, to find himself stuck in a wastebasket, along with the comic he was looking for (Hideous Tales issue #177), with "Smogzilla" on the cover. Daffy scoffs, and the Smogzilla on the cover comes to life, saying, "You were expecting maybe Calvin Coolidge?"