Daffy Duck's Quackbusters

Another quick cut-and-paste job by Warner Bros. to generate some quick bucks, "Daffy Duck's Quackbusters" is just a wide selection of cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Porky Pig and others. The whole thing is glued together by new animation that features Daffy in some odd situations as he tries to fight paranormal entities that are terrorizing others in the real world. The old cartoons can be caught at most anytime on the Cartoon Network or just about any place else now. Watching the productions as shorts are much better than watching a series in a 90-minute string. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

During the 80s and early 90s, Warner Bros. produced a number of "clip-show"

movies, consisting of our favorite Looney Tunes facing new challenges, but the majority of the footage was taken from classic cartoons. Some of the others

included "Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island", "The Looney Looney Bugs

Bunny Movie", & "Bugs Bunny's Third Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales". However, this one tops them all as best, using the clips to their full potential.

The show starts with the cartoon "Daffy Dilly", in which Daffy is selling novelty gags on the side of the road and hears over the radio that ailing millionaire J.P Cubish will pay a fortune to anyone who can make him laugh one more time

before he passes on. We watch the cartoon, which would normally end with

Cubish throwing pies at Daffy, but the movie picks it right up, and shows that Daffy has inherited the bulk of Cubish's fortune (he died laughing). However, the will says Daffy must use the money to help the community and provide the

service... yeah, right. After all, it's not like Cubish can take him with him, right?

Well, as Daffy finds out... he can. Cubish's ghost returns and starts to take the money, and every time Daffy starts acting up, more money disappears. Finally, the message sinks through and Daffy decides to open up a ghost-catching

business, ala Ghostbusters. He hires Porky (using the popular cartoon "The

Prize Pest"), and Bugs, who only agrees when he hears of the travel

opportunities ("You mean I get to go to Palm Springs?"). However, any time

Daffy threatens to fire his staff or gets greedy, more money vanishes from his vault.

The movie uses some of the "creepiest" Looney Tunes cartoons ever created,

including "Transylvania 6-5000", "The Abominable Snow Rabbit", "Scaredy

Cat", "Hyde & Go Tweet", "The Duxorcist", and others. While it's great to see these classic cartoons, the real fun is watching Daffy try to keep his cool... and his money. Though some younger kids may get scared off whenever Cubish

returns (everything goes dark, clap of thunder and lightning, and the music gets a little creepy), I highly recommend this cartoon for the whole family. Be sure to watch the opening cartoon of "Night of the Living Duck" for a real Halloween- themed treat.

Another cartoon compilation?! Yes, and this one's pretty clever. It features Daffy Duck opening a business to battle supernatural forces, a la "Ghostbusters". Probably the funniest part was the cartoon where Bugs Bunny stays in Count Dracula's castle and upsets the count's (after)lifestyle, but it was also really something when the sick millionaire threw all the pies at Daffy, and when Daffy scared Porky. Still, I never quite understood the whole part about the money disappearing.

So, "Daffy Duck's Quackbusters" isn't quite the same as the classic cartoons, but it's still worth seeing. Don't be surprised if, after watching this, you go around saying "abracadabra" and "hocus pocus".

If I may add something, the two segments with Sylvester were also neat.

There were quite a few of these "movies" made during mainly the 1980's and they were all basically the same thing. A bunch of the original shorts tied together by some new animation featuring those crazy characters. However, some of the shorts are not fully in there, and the new animation sequences are quite weak compared to the old shorts which makes one probably want to just watch the old shorts again. This movie's theme is basically a ghostbuster kind of theme with Daffy Duck taking the helm. I would enjoy this except it is not the old really Daffy Duck, but the newer less daffy and more smartaleck one. The new stuff is basically copying the "Ghostbusters" movie especially the scene where the female duck is possessed. Still, the shorts are funny as we have some involving Porky pig and Sylvester and Bugs and that Snowman dude. All in all a rather boring effort on their part creating new stuff that just is not all that good. However, you are still treated to some rather good classic shorts anyway.

As you are fully aware, I am a huge Looney Tunes fan. I can't help it, when I was little, it was an all-time favourite in the household, and at 18 I still love to watch these cartoons. Some are better than others, that I agree with, it's the same with Tom and Jerry pretty much too, but when you watch Looney Tunes you are guaranteed to have great animation, energetic music, wicked humour and amazing vocal characterisations from the one and only Mel Blanc.

As for Daffy Duck's Quackbusters it is a real treat. True, it has one or two slow moments and one or two weak links, particularly the link before the Duxorcist(one of about two cartoons I knew nothing about before I watched this compilation film), where I wasn't completely sure whether the cartoon had started already or not. That said, out of all the compilation films this one has the best premise and I think overall storyline. Plus it is the overall best paced, as it does move swiftly in general.

The animation is in general very nice, more in the cartoons than in the edited bits, but the film does have some nice colourful backgrounds and also some atmospheric and spooky ones. The music is playful and energetic as well, though the song Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives from the beginning short Night of the Living Duck was very interesting and beautifully sung by Mel Torme. The cartoon itself was an interesting start to the film.

I loved the humour too. All the Looney Tunes films have good to great humour, that sticks relatively close to the cartoons, and this is no exception. I loved the material in 1001 Rabbit Tales, I liked it even more here, in both the dialogue and sight gags it was fresh and witty like Looney Tunes humour should be. This is evident in the cartoons especially, Transylvania 6-5000 has really great dark, subtle humour particularly from the Count, and in The Abominable Snow Rabbit with the Abominable Snowman when he mistakes Daffy for a rabbit and starts naming him George. The Duxorcist was also interesting, and it was nice to see Water Water Every Hare and Hyde and Go Tweet(although that had a concept that had been done to death I was impressed how fresh and clever it was), while Claws for Alarm was very creepy and atmospheric almost as creepy as Scaredy Cat, which creeped me out big time. Daffy Dilly is a lot of fun, and is very relevant to the story, I especially loved it for the ending, while Prize Pest was also very well done. In fact, the weakest one was Punch Trunk, I still liked it don't get me wrong it was very sweet with an adorable tiny elephant but it was on the undemanding side and not as memorable as the others.

The characters are wonderful. Daffy of course is the star, like Bugs was in 1001 Rabbit Tales, while Bugs is impressive too. It was also nice to see Porky, Sylvester and Tweety, while the Count in Transylvania 6-5000 is also very memorable. The voice work is spot on, particularly with Mel Blanc who is superb in his final set of vocal performances. I can't help mention Mel Blanc constantly when praising these cartoons, it's just that his voices are a big part of their success and I think it is right to think he is one of the greatest voice actors who ever lived, he was that amazing and very rarely disappointed. Yes even with lacklustre material(like it was in some of the Speedy Gonzales cartoons) he put 100% into everything he did.

Overall, a slightly uneven but on the whole delightful compilation film. 8/10 Bethany Cox