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Moby Duck is a 1965 Looney Tunes short directed by Robert McKimson.

Title[]

The title is a pun on the book Moby Dick.

Plot[]

A ship has crashed into an island. Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales are sitting sadly on a pair of rocks. Daffy complains he's all alone on a deserted island. Speedy points out he's here too and offers Daffy his company, but the duck spurns him, complaining Ducks can't eat mice and kvetches that Speedy can barely speak English.

Daffy paces as he wonders how he's going to get food. When Speedy says he can run, Daffy demands Speedy find some food for him. Speedy however is just as clueless as Daffy is, and instead decides to pace along with him.

While pacing Daffy stumbles across a box on the shore. It is filled with canned goods. He runs over and is happy that he is finally going to have some food. Speedy is also happy that there's food for him and Daffy, but Daffy greedily tells the mouse that he's not to going to share any of the food with him. Speedy begs him for at least a crumb, but he still refuses.

Daffy notices that the food is all in cans. He learns that Speedy has a can-opener inside his pocket. He begs Speedy to give it to him, and Speedy offers it, if the duck will give him a few cans of food. Daffy however refuses, walking away saying "I never saw such a selfish mouse." He opts to open the can the old fashioned way, with a rock. Daffy then attempts to open it with a boulder, but this backfires, and it hits Daffy. Speedy continues to offer Daffy his assistance, lowering his price down to one can, but Daffy stupidly refuses, saying that he'll starve to death before he trades with him.

While walking Daffy sees an Axe and attempts to open the can with it, but it backfires as the ax blade falls off the handle and into the ocean. In response Daffy throws a temper tantrum, whacking the can with the handle. In a gag that is likely recycled from Rabbitson Crusoe Daffy attempts to open the can by putting it up near his but, and asking a swordfish to run near it, only for the can to fall off, and instead Daffy is stabbed by the swordfish, which he heals with a cast.

Speedy returns and gives the can-opener to Daffy, apologizing for being selfish. Daffy however still refuses to give Speedy the food, and he fights him for the can opener, all the while the food is washed near the shores of a rock. Daffy attempts to get it, but a group of angry sharks force him back, which upsets him.

Speedy reveals the real reason why he offered Daffy his can-opener so easily. He happens to be dining with Robinson Crusoe at a restaurant on Friday, which is located around the deserted island.

Daffy rushes to the restaurant, but when he learns of its special, pressed duck, he's scared off, and swims into the ocean.

Notes[]

  • This cartoon's plot is a semi-remake of "Canned Feud" (1951) and "Rabbitson Crusoe" (1956), both of which were directed by Friz Freleng fourteen and nine years earlier. However, unlike the well fed mouse who was starving Sylvester purely out of sadism in the former short, here Speedy Gonzales is starving and repeatedly offers to give Daffy the can opener, if he can have at least one of Daffy's hundreds of cans, which the greedy Daffy refuses to do. Additionally, the cartoon ends differently with Speedy giving Daffy the can opener for free because he had found another source of food.
  • This is the first Daffy and Speedy cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. From this cartoon onward, McKimson would direct the rest of the cartoons which feature Daffy Duck and/or Speedy Gonzales (save for only two Road Runner cartoons, "Rushing Roulette" and "Sugar and Spies", and one Daffy/Porky cartoon, "Corn on the Cop", which is instead directed by Irv Spector) throughout the DePatie-Freleng era, while the directing duties of the Road Runner shorts (except those two) were handed over to Rudy Larriva via Format Films.
  • This was also the second short to pair Daffy and Speedy together.
  • Not counting "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House", this cartoon marked a change in Daffy's personality when he is paired alongside Speedy, where Daffy appears to be an extremely grouchy, nasty and bitter character with his mean spirit taken to extremes, and in these cartoons he heavily disregards others in favor of only getting what he wants. Though these traits were previously seen in "Stork Naked" and "The Iceman Ducketh" in 1955 and the previous year, but by this cartoon, these traits have been exaggerated and made permanent throughout the rest of his appearances until the late-1960s (except for a few exceptions like "Skyscraper Caper") before they have been dropped for good in the more recent Looney Tunes revivals since the 1970s.
  • This was the final Warner Bros. cartoon Treg Brown worked on as a film editor, and the only time he worked alongside Lee Gunther.
  • Coincidentally real ducks do indeed sometimes attempt to eat mice. [2]
  • MeTV aired a previously unreleased restored print of the cartoon on Toon In with Me.

Gallery[]

TV Title Cards[]

References[]

Daffy Duck Cartoons
1937 Porky's Duck Hunt
1938 Daffy Duck & EggheadWhat Price PorkyPorky & DaffyThe Daffy DocDaffy Duck in Hollywood
1939 Daffy Duck and the DinosaurScalp TroubleWise Quacks
1940 Porky's Last StandYou Ought to Be in Pictures
1941 A Coy DecoyThe Henpecked Duck
1942 Conrad the SailorDaffy's Southern ExposureThe Impatient PatientThe Daffy DuckarooMy Favorite Duck
1943 To Duck .... or Not to DuckThe Wise Quacking DuckYankee Doodle DaffyPorky Pig's FeatScrap Happy DaffyA Corny ConcertoDaffy - The Commando
1944 Tom Turk and DaffyTick Tock TuckeredDuck Soup to NutsSlightly DaffyPlane DaffyThe Stupid Cupid
1945 Draftee DaffyAin't That DuckyNasty Quacks
1946 Book RevueBaby BottleneckDaffy DoodlesHollywood DaffyThe Great Piggy Bank Robbery
1947 Birth of a NotionAlong Came DaffyA Pest in the HouseMexican Joyride
1948 What Makes Daffy DuckDaffy Duck Slept HereThe Up-Standing SitterYou Were Never DuckierDaffy DillyThe Stupor SalesmanRiff Raffy Daffy
1949 Wise QuackersHoliday for DrumsticksDaffy Duck Hunt
1950 Boobs in the WoodsThe Scarlet PumpernickelHis Bitter HalfGolden YeggsThe Ducksters
1951 Rabbit FireDrip-Along DaffyThe Prize Pest
1952 Thumb FunCracked QuackRabbit SeasoningThe Super SnooperFool Coverage
1953 Duck AmuckMuscle TussleDuck Dodgers in the 24½th CenturyDuck! Rabbit, Duck!
1954 Design for LeavingQuack ShotMy Little Duckaroo
1955 Beanstalk BunnySahara HareStork NakedThis Is a Life?Dime to Retire
1956 The High and the FlightyRocket SquadStupor DuckA Star Is BoredDeduce, You Say
1957 Ali Baba BunnyBoston QuackieDucking the DevilShow Biz Bugs
1958 Don't Axe MeRobin Hood Daffy
1959 China JonesPeople Are BunnyApes of Wrath
1960 Person to Bunny
1961 The Abominable Snow RabbitDaffy's Inn Trouble
1962 Quackodile TearsGood Noose
1963 Fast Buck DuckThe Million HareAqua Duck
1964 The Iceman Ducketh
1965 It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the HouseMoby DuckAssault and PepperedWell Worn DaffySuppressed DuckCorn on the CopTease for TwoChili Corn CornyGo Go Amigo
1966 The AstroduckMucho LocosMexican MousepieceDaffy RentsA-Haunting We Will GoSnow ExcuseA Squeak in the DeepFeather FingerSwing Ding AmigoA Taste of Catnip
1967 Daffy's DinerQuacker TrackerThe Music Mice-TroThe Spy SwatterSpeedy Ghost to TownRodent to StardomGo Away StowawayFiesta Fiasco
1968 Skyscraper CaperSee Ya Later Gladiator
1980 The Yolks on YouThe Chocolate ChaseDaffy Flies NorthDuck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century
1987 The Duxorcist
1988 The Night of the Living Duck
1990 Box Office Bunny
1991 (Blooper) Bunny
1992 Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers
1995 Carrotblanca
1996 Superior Duck
2003 Attack of the Drones
2004 Daffy Duck for President
2012 Daffy's Rhapsody
Speedy Gonzales Cartoons
1953 Cat-Tails for Two
1955 Speedy Gonzales
1957 Tabasco RoadGonzales' Tamales
1958 Tortilla Flaps
1959 Mexicali ShmoesHere Today, Gone Tamale
1960 West of the Pesos
1961 Cannery WoeThe Pied Piper of Guadalupe
1962 Mexican Boarders
1963 Mexican Cat DanceChili Weather
1964 A Message to GraciasNuts and VoltsPancho's HideawayRoad to Andalay
1965 It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the HouseCats and BruisesThe Wild ChaseMoby DuckAssault and PepperedWell Worn DaffyChili Corn CornyGo Go Amigo
1966 The AstroduckMucho LocosMexican MousepieceDaffy RentsA-Haunting We Will GoSnow ExcuseA Squeak in the DeepFeather FingerSwing Ding AmigoA Taste of Catnip
1967 Daffy's DinerQuacker TrackerThe Music Mice-TroThe Spy SwatterSpeedy Ghost to TownRodent to StardomGo Away StowawayFiesta Fiasco
1968 Skyscraper CaperSee Ya Later Gladiator
1979 Fright Before Christmas
1980 The Chocolate Chase
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