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Don't Axe Me is a 1958 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert McKimson.
Plot
When Elmer Fudd, who is a farmer, brings out a pan of food for the duck's breakfast, Daffy swallows the pan and all of the good. Elmer calls him a greedy pig and Daffy oinks at him. Then when Elmer brings out Rover's breakfast, Daffy barks and sits up and begs like a dog. Elmer shoos him away, but when he goes back in the house Daffy eats Rover's breakfast anyway, hence angering Rover which results the dog getting scolded by Elmer and get told off to go inside the house for chasing Daffy.
Mrs. Elmer Fudd is expecting company from Reverend Brown and asks Rover what she should make for dinner. He plays charades to suggest roast duck; though unsuccessful at first (she often guesses it wrong), Rover made it clear that he wants her to make roast duck. She hands Elmer an axe and tells him to prepare the black duck. Daffy uses psychology to talk the axe out of Fudd's hands and throws it down the well. Rover retrieves it for Elmer, but Daffy lassos it out of his mouth.
Fudd decides to use a straight razor instead. Daffy quickly tricks him out of it, but Rover brings Elmer the axe again. Daffy volunteers to sharpen the axe and grinds it all the way down to the handle. Fudd gets his shotgun and finally wins the battle.
Mrs. Fudd tells her guest, Reverend Brown, that the duck dinner will be ready soon, but he announces he's a vegetarian. A plucked Daffy spits the apple out of his mouth, hops out of the roasting pan, and indignantly says "Now he tells us, sheesh!"
Availability
- LaserDisc - Daffy Duck's Screen Classics: Duck Victory
- VHS - Elmer Fudd's School of Hard Knocks
- Streaming - Boomerang App
Notes
- Beginning with this Merrie Melodies short, it uses the 1957-59 blue Color Rings at both beginning and end times.
- The unseen character, Reverend Brown, sounds like Marvin the Martian. He has only one line of dialogue at the end of the short.
- This is the only time where Elmer Fudd is married; as all other cartoons depict Elmer (like other major characters) as a bachelor.
- Barnyard Dawg from the Foghorn Leghorn series is known as "Rover" in this cartoon.
- Barnyard had previously appeared outside the Foghorn Leghorn series twice: "One Meat Brawl" (with Porky Pig) and "Daffy Duck Hunt" (with both Daffy Duck and Porky Pig). Barnyard would appear one more time in a non-Foghorn cartoon later that year in "Gopher Broke" (with the Goofy Gophers).
- Although, "The Birth of a Notion" and "A Bone for a Bone" however do not count because those two shorts use the likeness of the character in terms of name (such in the case of "A Bone for a Bone", which uses a different-looking dog with Barnyard's name George P. Dog) or physical appearance (such as in the case of "The Birth of a Notion", which uses a dog resembling Barnyard Dawg but with brown fur and different voice known as Leopold).
- Barnyard had previously appeared outside the Foghorn Leghorn series twice: "One Meat Brawl" (with Porky Pig) and "Daffy Duck Hunt" (with both Daffy Duck and Porky Pig). Barnyard would appear one more time in a non-Foghorn cartoon later that year in "Gopher Broke" (with the Goofy Gophers).
- The gag where Elmer's face is disfigured (in this case pulled off like flypaper) from a hot towel by Daffy in this cartoon is a partial reference to a similar gag from "Wise Quackers".
- This cartoon is unusual for its time period (1958), as the short depicts Daffy as both a greedy, self-centered characterization and the "screwball" characterization, similar to "You Were Never Duckier" and "Daffy Dilly" which were released about ten years before.
- This short aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang with a horribly faded print as seen on The Looney Tunes Video Show VHS tapes in PAL speed (in both NTSC and PAL countries) since 1999.
