Line #36 WesternAnimation/DuckAmuck


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4	[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/duckamucktitle.png]]
5	[[caption-width-right:299:[[BlatantLies Just an average day at the office for Daffy, right?]]]]
6
7	"Duck Amuck" is a [[PostModernism postmodern]] ''[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Merrie Melodies]]'' short directed by Creator/ChuckJones in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1953]], in which WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck finds himself [[RageAgainstTheAuthor tormented by a sadistic animator]]. Seen as a large pencil or paintbrush coming into frame to make alterations, the animator screws around with the backgrounds, erases Daffy, paints him absurd colors, replaces his voice with random sound effects, redraws him as a bizarre four-legged creature, and generally messes with the duck's perception of reality over and over again.
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9	The short was an audacious experiment to see if animation could screw with certain recognizable characters. Could Daffy Duck still be Daffy if every part of him -- appearance, voice, environment, personality, etc. -- was taken away? Can a cartoon still be enjoyable if it has no discernible story and only exists to be a visual experiment?
10
11	This experiment paid off. The short has since come to be regarded as one of the all-time great cartoon shorts. A couple years later, Jones would direct a somewhat less successful SpiritualSequel in "WesternAnimation/RabbitRampage", this time with WesternAnimation/BugsBunny as the victim. The cartoon even spawned a [[VideoGame/LooneyTunesDuckAmuck game]] for the Platform/NintendoDS in 2007 in which the player could take the role of the animator and torment Daffy, though Daffy would do his best to fight back.
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13	Compare "WesternAnimation/{{Manipulation}}", an award-winning 1991 animated short that uses a similar premise of an animator screwing with a cartoon character.
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16	!!TROPES PLEASE!:
17
18	* AmusingInjuries: Daffy gets an AnvilOnHead, falls from a great height, and gets blown up by hitting a bomb with a hammer. Every time, he's just fine moments later.
19	* AnvilOnHead: Happens as a result of ChuteSabotage, where the animator erases Daffy's parachute and replaces it with an anvil.
20	* ArtShift: At one point Daffy asks for scenery, and the animator obliges by penciling an [[StylisticSuck extremely crude town with stick drawings]].
21	* AuthorAvatar: The animator acts as one for director Chuck Jones.
22	* AuthorCatchphrase: A variation. Daffy's line, "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin," is an expression stolen from ''Looney Tunes'' animator Ben Washam.
23	* AuthorPowers: Although Daffy continues to exercise his free will, the animator repeatedly demonstrates godlike powers over the environment, backgrounds, sounds, and even Daffy's body, able to change anything they want without any real way for Daffy to resist beyond screaming at them.
24	* AuthorsRetaliation: Daffy accidentally leaves his own background, [[NoFourthWall asks for some scenery]], and has his environs and his own body continually redrawn by a sadistic animator, over his loud complaints.
25	-->''(A pencil quickly draws a sketch of a crude cityscape)''\
26	'''Daffy:''' ''(sarcastically)'' That's dandy. Ho-ho, that's rich, I'll say. ''(to artist)'' [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Now how about some color, stupid?!]]\
27	''(Daffy's head is painted bright blue...)''\
28	'''Daffy:''' Hey!\
29	''(...followed by the rest of him painted a myriad colors.)''\
30	'''Daffy:''' ''(screaming)'' Not ''me'', you '''slop-artist'''!
31	* BaitAndSwitchCredits: The opening titles borrow fonts and music from Jones' earlier Bugs Bunny short ''WesternAnimation/RabbitHood'' to suggest a rather conventional "Daffy as swashbuckling would-be hero" cartoon to follow, like ''WesternAnimation/TheScarletPumpernickel''. Daffy would explore this scenario in 1958's ''WesternAnimation/RobinHoodDaffy''. The short even starts out this way, but it's FakeOutOpening that quickly descends into post-modernism when Daffy moves past the background.
32	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Daffy responds to the StylisticSuck background by screaming at the animator for some color. The animator obliges by painting Daffy a myriad of strange and bizarre colors.
33	* BehindTheBlack: Daffy doesn't notice the scenery ends to the left until after he's already in front of the white background.
34	* BigNo: Daffy pushes away a premature 'The End' card, screaming '''"NO! NO!"''' at the top of his lungs and pushing it off to the side.
35	* ButtMonkey: Daffy has probably never been as big of one in any of his other shorts as he is here, since the point of the short is essentially "allow us test out how angry we can make Daffy because it's funny". The animators succeeded.
36	* TheCameo: And it's a real dandy. Turns out the animator tormenting Daffy is none other than [[spoiler:WesternAnimation/BugsBunny, who was messing with Daffy for the sake of a gag]].
37	-->'''The Animator:''' [[spoiler:Hee, hee, hee. Ain't I a stinker?]]
38	* ChuteSabotage: When the animator erases Daffy's plane from underneath him (via painting a mountain in his path suddenly), Daffy deploys his parachute. Then the animator erases that and replaces it with an {{anvil\|OnHead}}.
39	* CloseupOnHead: Inverted: A far-away Daffy wants a closeup, and he gets one... an '''{{extreme\|CloseUp}}''' one.
40	-->''(Daffy washes up on an island far in the background.)''\
41	'''Daffy:''' [--''(distant)'' Hey! C'mere... C'mere! Gimme a close-up! A close-up!--]\
42	''(The screen irises in (without zooming) to the volcanic island in the ''far'' distance, which Daffy is on.)''\
43	'''Daffy''': [--''This'' is a close-up?!! ''({{Beat}})'' ''A CLOSE-UP, YOU JERK! A'' '''''CLOSE-UP!'''''--]\
44	''(The camera then rapidly zooms in on Daffy, accompanied by a MusicalSting, until the camera is aimed right between Daffy's bloodshot eyes.)''\
45	'''Daffy''': Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
46	* ConcussionsGetYouHigh: Daffy Duck gets rather loopy near the end, reciting "The Village Blacksmith" while banging a hammer on the parachute-turned-anvil that the artist's pencil then changes into an artillery shell.
47	* DesertedIsland: Daffy briefly ends up stranded on one while arguing for a closeup shot.
48	* DoorClosesEnding: The animator ends the cartoon by drawing a door in front of Daffy and closing it.
49	* DrivenToSuicide: Not in the original short, but in the Nintendo DS game, where, [[spoiler:in the secret ending which can only be accomplished by 100% completion, Daffy gets so fed up with the player’s torment that, reprising the gag at the end of ''WesternAnimation/ShowBizBugs'', he kills himself by consuming gas, explosives, uranium, and matches to dispose of it.]]
50	* TheEnd: It shows up in the middle of the cartoon when Daffy tells the artist to get things started. Daffy pushes it away.
51	* ExactWords:
52	** When Daffy asks for sound, he gets [[SoundDefect sounds that aren't anywhere close to correct]].
53	** When Daffy asks for color, the animator obliges by painting Daffy in a myriad of weird colors.
54	** Daffy later screams at the animator to give him a close-up, which results in an ExtremeCloseUp on his DeathGlare.
55	* ExploitingTheFourthWall: The animator uses this trope to torment Daffy throughout the episode.
56	* ExtremeCloseUp: Infamously used when the camera zooms into Daffy's DeathGlare.
57	* EyebrowWaggle: The animator gives one to the camera after saying his only line.
58	* FakeOutFadeOut: Daffy tears the screen up, then tells the animator to "get this picture started!" The screen [[IrisOut irises out]] into "The End," only for Daffy to yell '''"NO, NO!"''' and push it out of the way.
59	* FakeOutOpening: Following up from the BaitAndSwitchCredits, the opening seconds see Daffy leap into frame in swashbuckler's garb. He lunges to the left, where the background disappears into whiteness, and the wheels fall completely off the cartoon.
60	-->'''Daffy:''' Psst! Whoever's in charge here... the scenery! Where's the scenery?
61	** This gag is replicated at the start of the DS game, where Daffy is in a platformer game only to come across the same problem. The animator then puts him in a ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' like setting and then a dance floor before removing the background again.
62	* ForcedTransformation: Daffy ends up suffering this following his attempt to explain where the colours go. The result is an odd creature with a blue body, a duck bill, a mane of flower petals, green hands and feet, and a screwball flag attached to his tail.
63	* GenreDeconstruction: This short was created in an attempt to take apart how cartoons work, as well as to explore whether or not Daffy would still be Daffy if he was changed beyond being recognizable.
64	* GravityIsAHarshMistress: Downplayed. When Daffy is painted into a sailor's uniform, he asks for some scenery. The animator quickly draws an island with a volcano. But when the animator has finished, Daffy realizes that he hasn't been given anything to stand on, and falls into the water. However, the fall is very short, and he swims to the island moments later.
65	* HumiliationConga: From beginning to end, the entire short is Daffy being subjected to constant torment by an unseen animator. The entire short is Daffy trying to get a picture started, only for the animator to constantly yank the proverbial rug out from under him and torment him further.
66	* IJustWriteTheThing: What Jones and writer Michael Maltese were aiming for -- the writing was one extended process of repeatedly yanking the rug out from under Daffy and "letting" him react.
67	* ItAmusedMe: The animator seems to be tormenting Daffy for no reason at all other than fun.
68	* JackassGenie: Daffy [[GenreBlindness should know better]], but his demands to the animator are ''always'' going to be met in this fashion (justified - Daffy, a trouper, is determined that TheShowMustGoOn). A demand for "some color, stupid!" (prompted by a crude black-and-white background) gets ''him'' painted with loud colors and polka-dots, a demand for a "close up" zooms the camera in until all we can see are his (bloodshot!) eyes, a demand for "sound please!" causes machinegun noises to be inserted instead of normal guitar sounds, and on and on it goes.
69	* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Bugs gets away with tormenting Daffy here. [[WesternAnimation/RabbitRampage Of course karma gets to him in the sequel]].]]
70	* MediumAwareness: The basis of the short's humour, from beginning to end, is Daffy being aware that he's in a cartoon, and routinely trying to get one started like a normal ''Looney Tunes'' short. He even pushes away title cards, and tries to fight with the screen going black.
71	* MickeyMousing: Parodied. When the sound briefly turns off, Daffy attempts to play a guitar, only to have it play sound effects that aren't even close to a guitar's strum, like a machine gun and a car horn.
72	* MindScrew: By the animator to Daffy, as the animator continuously puts him in more and more bizarre situations.
73	* NamedByTheAdaptation: ''Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal'' calls the mixed up Daffy "Scramble Daffy" while ''VideoGame/LooneyTunesWorldOfMayhem'' calls him "Duck Amuck".
74	* NoFourthWall: The FourthWall is utterly ''demolished'' in this cartoon. The sad and sorry remains are washed away the moment the ''animator'' addresses the audience, revealing them to be [[spoiler:Bugs Bunny, who was messing with Daffy purely because he thought it was funny]].
75	* NonSequiturEnvironment: Daffy frequently transitions from one environment to another with no warning.
76	* NonSequiturThud: Not quite played straight because it actually makes sense, [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext but not within the context]]: Daffy bangs an anvil with a hammer and quotes ''The Village Blacksmith'' after the artist turns his parachute into said anvil. And then the artist turns said anvil into a missile.
77	* NotHisSled: The ending of the LicensedGame reveals that [[spoiler:not Bugs, but ''another Daffy'' has been behind Daffy's woes all this time.]]
78	* ObliviousTransformation: Daffy gets redrawn as some... ''thing'' that has four legs, a flower-like head, and a flagpole flying a flag with [[VisualPun a screw and a ball]] for a tail. Daffy remarks he doesn't [[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/looneytunes/images/1/16/DaffyFlowerface.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130218054119 "quite feel like myself"]], but it's not until the animator draws [[MirrorReveal a mirror for him to see himself in]] that he notices the change.
79	-->'''Daffy:''' Oh, I feel all right, and yet, I... ''(animator draws mirror in front of Daffy, Daffy looks in the mirror)'' ...I, uh... '''''EEEEEEKKKK!!!''''' YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT!
80	* OhCrap: Daffy's expression when the animator changes his parachute into an anvil.
81	* OminousObsidianOoze: In the Nintendo DS adaptation, the game may start a minigame based on the section where the screen frame is used in an attempt to crush Daffy. However, as it would be impossible to move the DS' screen frame in such a way, a thick black ooze instead is used to crush Daffy.
82	* [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil Posters Always Spoil]]: The lobby card for this cartoon shows Daffy in his sailor outfit, being erased by [[spoiler:Bugs' gloved]] hand.
83	* {{Postmodernism}}: One of the best-known examples in western animation, if not media as a whole, being an extended battle between Daffy Duck and one particularly {{troll}}ish animator bent on critiquing, parodying, and downright demolishing damn near every possible convention of the animated medium.
84	* RageAgainstTheAuthor: Or animator, in this case. For all of the HumiliationConga that the animator puts him through, Daffy continuously yells at the animator, tells them to get the picture started, and criticizes anything they deem worthy enough to put in the cartoon.
85	* RecordNeedleScratch: Inverted. When Daffy asks for sound, the first sound effect is a record starting to play (the quiet "static" would be dust and small scratches on a record, a sound anyone familiar with records would recognize.)
86	* RedEyesTakeWarning: Just before his (first) [[BerserkButton tirade]], Daffy's eyes turn red with anger until he finishes saying his piece.
87	* RogerRabbitEffect: Subtle, but the background during the last shot [[spoiler:of Bugs animating the cartoon]] is a photo of a real animation desk.
88	* TheShowMustGoOn: No matter how blatantly the animator is screwing with him, Daffy is committed to seeing the cartoon through. When it looks like the animator has finally pushed off to leave him alone on a blank screen instead of finishing the cartoon, he settles for entertaining the audience with some dancing instead.
89	* SillyAnimalSound: Daffy makes a kookaburra call ([[JunglesSoundLikeKookaburras a sound usually associated with jungles]]) during the SoundDefect scene.
90	* SoundDefect: What the animator does in response to Daffy holding up a "Sound please!" sign. The animator gives Daffy sound, but all the wrong ones. Daffy's attempts to play a guitar make it sound like a machine gun, an old-timey car horn, a bullet ricocheting off of something, and a donkey braying. When Daffy attempts to yell at the animator for it, his voice changes to a rooster's crowing and a kookaburra's mating call.
91	* SpecialEffectFailure: In-universe examples, of sounds (strumming a guitar and getting the sound of gunfire), backgrounds (which randomly blend into one another and/or disappear entirely), IrisOut (comes about halfway through the cartoon, after Daffy pleads with the animator to "get this picture started,") and Voice Acting (random animal/jungle noises replace Daffy's speech.)
92	* StylisticSuck: The animator responds to Daffy's demand for scenery with some crude, uneven line sketches.
93	* SureLetsGoWithThat:
94	** After erasing Daffy, the animator redraws him dressed as a cowboy with a guitar. Daffy shrugs nonchalantly and tries to play a song -- but sound wasn't included.
95	** Later on, Daffy is genuinely interested in being redrawn as a sailor and then a pilot, but none of those go the way he wants.
96	* TalkingWithSigns: Daffy attempts to play a guitar, but there's no sound, so he holds up a sign saying "Sound please!"
97	* {{Troll}}: The animator goes out of his way to antagonize Daffy. It's [[spoiler:Bugs Bunny, if you haven't realized by now. And the only reason Bugs appears to be tormenting Daffy in this way is because he thought it was funny]].
98	* VisualPun: When Daffy is redrawn as a weird creature, the flag on his tail has a picture of a screw and a ball ([[DontExplainTheJoke an illustration of the phrase "screwball"]]).
99	* VoiceChangeSurprise: During the SoundDefect spot, Daffy prepares to [[RageAgainstTheAuthor rant at the offscreen animator]], but crows like a rooster instead. Eyes widening with surprise, he clams up. He tries again, only to cackle like a kookaburra. Stopping himself, he briefly opens his beak, producing a kitten mew. He then starts seething with rage, before screaming in {{Angrish}} and declaring, "I've never been so humiliated in all my life!"
100	* WhamShot:
101	** Both in-universe and (at the time) out of it, the background disappearing at the start.
102	** At the end, when the animator draws a door in front of a ranting Daffy and closes it in his face. Specifically that it's [[spoiler:''Bugs''' hand holding the pencil]].
103	** In the DS game, right after Daffy demands to know who is responsible for the torture he had to endure, the GameOver screen drops down, and it was revealed that it is [[spoiler:Daffy ''himself'']] who was playing on the DS itself.
104	* WrongParachuteGag: Daffy's parachute works just fine, but the animator erases the chute and replaces it with an anvil.
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Context WesternAnimation / DuckAmuck