Western Animation / Drip-Along Daffy

Have a drink!

"She's the flower of G-G-Gower Gulch,

A cowpuncher's sweetheart t-t-t-true.

And her looks don't amount to m-much

'Cause one of her eyes is b-b-b-blue.

She's got skin just like prairie dog leather.

She cooks nothing but ch-chuckwagon st-st-st-stew.

And her name is Minerva Ulch.

She's the flower of G-G-G-Gower Gulch."

— Porky Pig

"Drip-Along Daffy" is a 1951 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and starring Daffy Duck. Daffy is a "Western-Type Hero" who, along with his "Comedy Relief" sidekick Porky Pig, wanders into The Wild West town of "Snake-Bite Center" and resolves to clean it up and stop all the violence and mayhem. Unfortunately the residents are entirely indifferent to Daffy, and when he finally finds a villain who will pay attention to him in the form of murderous bandit and square dance caller Nasty Canasta, things do not go well.

Conceived as a satire of all sorts of cliches of The Western and The Wild West. Even the backgrounds look like the Monument Valley made so familiar by John Ford films.

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Tropes:

• Adventure Town: Even the horses have shootouts.
• Alliterative Title: Drip-Along Daffy.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Canasta's wanted poster lists his crimes as "rustler, bandit, square dance caller."
  • The latter was actually an Inside Joke, as square dancing was a favorite activity at Termite Terrace.
• Aside Comment: Daffy pulls this when confronting Nasty Canasta:
  Daffy: Hankering for trouble, eh? Well, I would like...[aside] I would like? I would like a trip to Europe...[back] I would like to introduce myself!
  • Moments earlier, Daffy also does this when Nasty Canasta, held at gunpoint, bites down and eats his gun barrel.
    Daffy: Probably didn't have his iron today...
• "Awkward Silence" Entrance: Subverted, then played straight. Daffy bursts into a saloon with guns drawn, daring anyone within earshot to challenge him, but no one pays any attention to him. But then everyone stops when bad guy Nasty Canasta makes his entrance, leaving immediately as Canasta approaches Daffy.
• Bowdlerise: When this cartoon aired on ABC, the following scenes are cut and/or shortened:
  • Several scenes of characters exchanging gunfire in the lawless Western town.
  • A cowboy mannequin holding an Indian mannequin at gunpoint, followed by an actual Indian being robbed in a teepee.
  • A cowboy getting shot and carted off to "Rigor O'Mortis: The Smiling Undertaker".
  • The bartender mixing the noxious drink that Nasty Canasta orders for Daffy and Porky.
  • Versions of this cartoon shown on Cartoon Network and Boomerang^note which airs it uncut as of 2019 cut off after the reveal that Daffy is the town's new sanitation person, removing Porky's line, "Lucky for him, it is a one-horse town."
• Butt-Monkey: Who do you think?
• Clean Up the Town: Daffy resolves to do this, and at the end he does...as a street sweeper.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Daffy accidentally pulls off his chaps while drawing his guns in the saloon.
• Delayed Causality: After Porky shows no ill effects from Nasty Canasta's favorite cocktail, Daffy then guzzles one himself. Daffy immediately suffers reactions to it, while Porky is now also having the same.
• Extreme Omnivore: Nasty Canasta eats half of Daffy's revolver in a single bite when Daffy pulls it out and points it to his face.
  Daffy: [looking at the audience, deadpan] Probably didn't have his iron today...
• Fair-Weather Friend: When faced with having to drink Nasty Canasta's preferred poison (literal and figurative), Daffy passes it on to the oblivious Porky. (Not that this helped Daffy any, due to Porky's Delayed Causality.) At the cartoon's end, when Daffy gets his new job, Porky's smug expression shows he's no different.
• Gargle Blaster: Nasty Canasta orders two of "the usual" (one for him, the other for do-gooder Daffy, whom Canasta was holding at gunpoint) from a saloon bartender: a drink made with such ingredients as "cobra fang-juice", "hydrogen bitters", and "Old Panther whiskey". It's prepared with asbestos gloves, welding mask, and tongs. He then drops two ice cubes in it... which immediately jump out as if on fire and head for the coolness of the fire bucket.... All the effect the drink has on Nasty Canasta is to make his cowboy hat lift off his head and spin around, but that's it. On Daffy and Porky, on the other hand, it makes them bend their hats into bonnets, recite "Mawy had a widdow wamb / its fweece was white as snow / And ev'wywhewe that Mawy went / The wamb was sure to go!", then turn green and walk around like wind-up toys, ending with Daffy's guns shooting a hole in the floor, which he falls into and then rockets out of.
  Daffy: (parachuting down) I hate you.
• Green Around the Gills: Both Daffy and Porky after drinking Nasty Canasta's "usual".
• High Turnover Rate: Exaggerated for Black Comedy. The town is such a Wretched Hive (frequented by criminals like Nasty Canasta) that it has a separate cemetery just for all of the killed sheriffs.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Porky turns out to be far more competent than Daffy, defeating Nasty Canasta himself. And Daffy provided his own plucky comic relief anyway.
• Kill on Sight: Implied with wanted outlaw Nasty Canasta, who is standing right next to a "Wanted!" Poster that reads "WANTED: DEAD" on his Establishing Character Moment.
• Leitmotif: "She's the Flower of Gower Gulch" for Porky, which was actually written for this cartoon by Carl Stalling and Mike Maltese. Gower Gulch is a nickname for the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street in Hollywood.
• Limited Animation: Canasta's entrance is done by only animating his legs while the upper half of his body remains totally still.
• Little Useless Gun: That little gun the little toy soldier is toting isn't as useless as it looks.
• Metal Muncher: Canasta eats Daffy's metal guns.
• My Little Panzer: At the climax of the episode, Porky interrupts a Showdown at High Noon between Daffy and Nasty Canasta by sending a little wind-up toy soldier towards Canasta. Canasta picks up the toy and mocks it, only for the figure to blast him at point-blank range with its teeny-tiny musket with a bang so powerful it knocks Canasta (who up to that point had demonstrated to be almost unstoppable) out.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Porky. He's actually identified as "Comedy Relief" via a caption.
• Population: X, and Counting: At the start, a gunshot is heard, the population sign goes down one number and a sign reading "Sheriff Wanted" pops up. Pan over to the cemetery, where the population (listed as all sheriffs) goes up one number.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Nasty Canasta's pupils are visibly red.
• Road Apples: Daffy ends up as a pooper-scooper.
  Daffy: I told ya I'd clean up this one-horse town!
  Porky: Lucky for him it is a one-horse town.
• The Sheriff: As noted, many of them have been killed. Porky triumphantly becomes the new occupant of the office at the short's end.
• Showdown at High Noon: Spoofed. Daffy is walking down the street for his showdown with Nasty Canasta when Porky defeats Nasty with a toy soldier. Porky's being carried away on the shoulders of the townspeople when Daffy finally figures out what happened.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Daffy's incredibly confident in his "heroism," despite his blatant incompetence and everybody else's indifference towards him.
• Standard Snippet:
  • The introduction of the "Lawless Western Town" is accompanied by "Cheyenne".
  • When Drip-Along declares himself the new sheriff, he and the Deputy ride to the William Tell Overture, best known for being the theme song to The Lone Ranger.
  • When the Deputy winds up his toy soldier, it marches to Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet".
• This Banana is Armed: Nasty Canasta is felled by a tiny wind-up soldier… whose rifle packs a mighty wallop.
• Through a Face Full of Fur: Daffy turns green after drinking Nasty Canasta's Gargle Blaster.
• Undertaker: They have the tallest building in town.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Nasty Canasta is standing in front of his own wanted poster.
• Wretched Hive: Snake-Bite Center is depicted as a town where there are shoot-outs or hold-ups on every corner and the Sheriff is shot so frequently, the town welcome sign has a smaller flip-down sign on it indicating when they need a new one.
  • Even the horses carry a grudge and begin shooting each other at first sight.
  • Another horse is seen holding up the local smithy.