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The Ducksters is a 1950 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones.
Title
The title is a pun on The Hucksters, a 1947 film.
Plot
Porky Pig is on a radio quiz show called Truth or AAAHHH!!, a parody of the popular quiz show Truth or Consequences, hosted by a sadistic Daffy Duck and sponsored by "Eagle Hand Laundry" in which the object is answer near-impossible questions (such as "Who, mind you WHO, was the referee for the New Zealand heavyweight title fight in 1726?" or "At what latitude and longitude did the wreck of the Hesperus occur?") or "pay the penalty". These penalties include Porky being crushed by the Rock of Gibraltar, rained upon by Niagara Falls, tied up and blown up with dynamite, severe pounding with a mallet, thrashing by a gorilla, threatened by a buzz saw, crushing by safes, and other forms of abuse.
However, Porky wins $26 million and three cents which he uses to buy the Ajax Radio Network (costing exactly $26,000,000.03!), takes over the entire Truth or AAAHHH!! radio game show and then submits Daffy to the same "penalties" that he had received earlier as revenge. Daffy is then tied to a long plank being cut by the same buzz saw Porky was on previously. Daffy screams at his studio audience, "Have you got a doctor in the balcony, lady?!" (This line was a takeoff of another radio quiz show, Doctor IQ, where the announcer would note "I have a lady in the balcony, doctor" to introduce a new contestant.)
Availability
- VHS - The Looney Tunes Video Show, Volume 1
- LaserDisc - Ham on Wry: The Porky Pig Laser Collection
- DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, Disc Two (1998 dubbed print)
Censorship
When this short aired on Nickelodeon (as part of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon), the part after Daffy asks Porky if he'd like to continue the game, in which an off-screen audience member yells, "You'll be sor-ry!" and Daffy blasts him with a shotgun, was cut.[1]
Notes
- This cartoon was used in the TV Special, Bugs Bunny's Mad World of Television.
- The boulder that falls on Porky appears in the Boulder Museum.
- On the game show Porky Pig won the following prizes:
- The Rocky Mountains
- A 17-Jewel half Nelson
- The La Brea Tar Pits
- The Rock of Gibraltar
- 600 gallons of genuine Niagara Falls
- $26,000,000.03 worth of cash
- The "Miss Shush" Porky is asked to identify by the sound of brushing her teeth is actually, as Daffy tells the audience, "Mamie the 600-Pound Gorilla who appears in Obnoxious Pictures' Jungle Jitters. Both the character and film are fictitious; as the cartoon of the same name did not feature a gorilla.
- There are several references to well-known people in this cartoon, such as Eli Whitney, George Washington, and even Lauren Bacall.
- The identification of the Ajax Broadcasting Company was an unusual name for Warner Bros.; Ajax was a name more commonly used by rival studio Disney, whereas Warner Bros. would more commonly use Acme Corporation in its later productions.
- This cartoon may have inspired a Tiny Toon Adventures episode featuring a game show called Win, Lose, or Kerplowie because that game show also greatly harms the losing contestant.
Gallery
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External Links
- The Ducksters
- The Ducksters
- The Ducksters on the SFX Resource
