See Ya Later Gladiator

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See Ya Later Gladiator

Directed By: Alex Lovy Produced By: Bill L. Hendricks Released: June 29, 1968 Series: Looney Tunes Story: Cal Howard Animation: Ted Bonnicksen Laverne Harding Volus Jones Ed Solomon Layouts: Bob Givens Backgrounds: Bob Abrams Film Editor: Hal Geer Voiced By: Mel Blanc Music: William Lava Starring: Daffy Duck Speedy Gonzales Mexican Scientist "Fathead" Gladiator Lion Emperor Nero Preceded By: Feud with a Dude Succeeded By: 3 Ring Wing-Ding See Ya Later, Gladiator

See Ya Later Gladiator is a 1968 Looney Tunes short starring Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.

Plot

Daffy is an assistant to a Mexican scientist who has just built a time machine and gone to take a siesta. Daffy is annoyed by Speedy and his band playing music right outside the laboratory window so he hatches a plan to send him back in time to be rid of him. He lures the mouse into the machine by telling him it's a recording booth, but when he activates it he accidentally sends himself too and they both wind up in ancient Rome. Daffy yells at a passing gladiator who doesn't take kindly to it and promptly throws both of them into the Colosseum. Emperor Nero and the rest of the audience laugh as a lion also enters the arena. They fight back and forth until the lion flings them into Nero, breaking his fiddle. He chases them through the streets of Rome. Meanwhile, the scientist wakes up and reverses the time machine to bring Daffy and Speedy back, but he accidentally brings Nero to the present too. Nero doesn't know what he's going to do here, so Speedy lets him play fiddle in his band, outside the lab window.

Notes

• A slightly different arrangement of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by Bill Lava is only heard in this cartoon and in "3 Ring Wing-Ding".
• This was the last cartoon to feature Daffy and Speedy in the Golden Age of Animation (1928-69).
• The official WB Kids channel has included 4 and a half minutes of this cartoon in their "Best of Speedy Gonzales" Compilation

Reception

"See Ya Later Gladiator" has been widely considered by fans as the worst cartoon Warner Bros. has ever made (although some consider other W7-era shorts of the late-1960s to be worse). Criticisms include its inferior quality animation, extremely limited animation, William Lava's canned musical score and uncharacteristic plot.

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