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The Daffy Duckaroo is a 1942 Looney Tunes short directed by Norman McCabe.
Title[]
The title is a play on both Daffy Duck's name and the word "buckaroo."
Plot[]
On a donkey pulling a trailer, Daffy moves from Hollywood to the American West while signing "My Little Buckaroo", where he comes upon an Indian encampment. He is about to run away when he is wooed by an Indian girl. He serenades her and follows her into her teepee.
The Indian girl says she would love to be Daffy's girlfriend, but her boyfriend Little Beaver will never allow it. When Little Beaver arrives, Daffy hides in a dresser and emerges disguised as an Indian girl himself. Little Beaver attempts to kiss him until he discovers the disguise.
Little Beaver chases Daffy through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest until he calls for aid with smoke signals. The Indians surround Daffy's trailer and remove the tires. One Indian promptly returns them saying the tires do not fit his vehicle.
Caricatures[]
- Red Skelton - Little Beaver's voice is based his character Clem Kadiddlehopper and the character Daisy June shares the same name as Clem's girlfriend.
Music Cues[3][]
- I Can't Get Along, Little Dogie (by M.K. Jerome)
- Played during the opening credits
- Hooray for Hollywood (by Richard A. Whiting)
- Played during the shot of the newspaper
- My Little Buckaroo (by M.K. Jerome & Lyrics by Jack Scholl)
- Sung by Daffy as he's riding the donkey
- Would You Like to Take a Walk? (by Harry Warren & Lyrics by Mort Dixon and Billy Rose)
- Sung by Daffy Duck when he serenades the girl
- Always in My Heart [song "Siempre en mi corazón"] (by Ernesto Lecuona)
- Played when Daffy attempts to seduce the girl
- She's a Latin from Manhattan (by Harry Warren)
- Played when the girl first speaks
- Iola (by Charles L. Johnson)
- Played when Little Beaver applies paint to his face
- The Sun Dance (by Leo Friedman)
- Played when Daffy first dances with tomahawk in hand
- Who Calls? (by Johnny Marks)
- Played when Little Beaver attempts to seduce Daffy
- Western Scene (by J.S. Zamecnik)
- Played when Daffy runs from Little Beaver and hops on the donkey
- Indian War Dance (by J.S. Zamecnik)
- Played briefly when Little Beaver starts riding the bicycle
- Western Scene (by J.S. Zamecnik)
- Played again when Daffy is pretending to fire his pistol
- Western Scene (by J.S. Zamecnik)
- Played again when Daffy runs into the Painted Desert
- California, Here I Come (by Joseph Meyer)
- Played during the shot of the Los Angeles City Limits sign
- Indian War Dance (by J.S. Zamecnik)
- Played again when the Indians attack and when the Indian drops the tires on Daffy
Censorship[]
- In all available prints, Daffy singing "My Little Buckaroo" is cut short. In the original version, the camera pans left to his little trailer which has a sign on it indicating he's a Warner Bros. star. It was removed when the cartoon was licensed to Sunset/Guild in 1955. Even though Sunset productions were affiliated with Warner Bros., Jack Warner himself was reluctant to enter the television market at first, because he thought it was an inferior form of media. So any references to Warner Bros. were ordered to be removed from any theatrical films shown on television. The cut version was used for both the 1968 and 1992 colorized versions of this film. Thus, the uncut original version is extremely rare, but not considered lost.[4]
- Somehow the computer-colorized version features a cut line of dialogue from the original but plays it over the wrong visual, dubbing over the line that is heard in the Sunset/Guild prints.[5]
- This cartoon seldom airs on American television due to heavy stereotyping of Native Americans, although it did air on Nickelodeon during the 1990s up until the last installment of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon in 1999. It also aired on Cartoon Network at least a few times after they acquired the shorts in Nickelodeon's package, with the last airing being in January 2004.
Notes[]
- The newspaper reads "I want to be a lone... ranger," playing on a famous Greta Garbo quote.
- The Native American at the end sounds similar to Marvin the Martian, who did not debut until "Haredevil Hare" (1948) and did not use this voice until "The Hasty Hare" (1952).
- This was the first black-and-white Looney Tunes short to open with the "bulls-eye" titles similar to the ones in Merrie Melodies but (usually) with thicker rings. This would continue for the rest of the black-and-white Looney Tunes shorts up to "Puss n' Booty" (1943).
- This is the final Daffy Duck short to be directed by Norman McCabe.
- This cartoon entered the public domain in 1971 due to Warner Bros. failing to renew the copyright in time.
