Un lindo señuelo

There is only one racist joke in this Daffy Duck short, which is basically, when Daffy rides Black Beauty, it is a black woman. I can understand partly why this joke was included, as at the time few people did not know how rude it was to be racist and it wasn't even illegal to discriminate black people yet.

Aside from this point, "A Coy Decoy" is basically a fun, interesting short where Daffy meets characters in books and does things in books. I liked this short quite a lot (despite the other reviewers on here). The way Daffy is so in love with the clockwork duck is vaguely disturbing, yet highly amusing at the same time. Porky is a nice edition to the episode, though it was not vital for him to be there. The wolf is an example of how people thought of wolves in those days as well, blood-thirsty, terrible animals, which of course they never really have been (unless they are very hungry). I also liked the style of animation used - and the theme of the episode.

For people who are totally into Daffy Duck and for people who do not mind the occasional racist joke in cartoons, enjoy "A Coy Decoy"!

Available on YouTube.

When I was very young, my mother had a series of four Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts on tape and I watched them all several times. A Coy Decoy was one of these shorts, and I was truly shocked to read in another comment that it had been banned. When I was young I probably did not even understand the Black Beauty gag to begin with. Still this is probably why it was banned, though until I watched this on a video site, I did not even remember the gag. Upon viewing the video I did remember certain shots - in particular the shrinking of Daffy's hat and Daffy's eyes becoming clockworkish as the decoy circled him in The Lake. I was not bothered by the gag that was most likely the reason the gag was banned. Instead I was flooded with childhood memories of watching this short. Because of how much I liked this short as a child, I rate it 7 out of 10.

Not even cartoons are immune to remakes. Five years after making 'A Coy Decoy', Robert Clampett would remake this cartoon as the better (and better-known) 'Book Revue'. Both toons have the same premise: a wolf chases Daffy Duck through a bookshop, with the titles of the books supplying gags.

We get here one of Clampett's typical racist jokes: Daffy falls into a copy of 'Black Beauty' and emerges riding a kerchief-headed 'mammy' stereotype.

One thing that bothers me about both this 1941 cartoon and its remake 'Book Revue' is that most of the so-called 'book' titles in both toons -- such as 'The Wolf of Wall Street', seen here -- are actually movie titles. In cases where a title could apply to both a book and a film (such as 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey' here, or "Dante's Inferno" in 'Book Revue'), it's obvious that the audience were expected to think of the movie rather than the book. Either the Warners scriptwriters didn't know many book titles, or else they wouldn't give their audience credit for being literate. In 'A Coy Decoy', I was pleasantly surprised to see references to 'The Yearling' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', best-selling books which (as of 1941) hadn't yet been filmed.

'A Coy Decoy' gets its title from a plot development here which wasn't used in the remake: the wolf uses a clockwork female duck to entice Daffy. This is a running theme in many Clampett cartoons, continuing right into his 'Beany and Cecil' era: a male protagonist is lured by an artificial female; either a male in disguise, or else a mechanical surrogate (a fembot?). Clampett seemed reluctant to put genuine female characters into his toons.

There's a nice tinkling music-box motif for the she-duck (Warners cartoons almost always had excellent music tracks), and there's a cheeky final gag, one of Clampett's less obvious sexual entendres. That final gag is the only place where this cartoon surpasses its remake 'Book Revue', which is superior all down the line until it ends in a weak 'cissy' joke (another of Clampett's predilections). I'll rate 'A Coy Decoy' five points out of 10. Take out that unnecessary racist joke, and I might bump it up to six.

1940's cartoon, banned nowadays probably because of the 'Black Beauty' gag, in which Daffy rides a black person as if it were a horse.

The whole story takes place in a bookstore, where the characters of the books come to life every evening. So we have, among others, the Ugly Duck (Daffy) and the wolf of Wallstreet. They wind up in a chase after the wolf tricked Daffy with a phony duck (hence the title).

And chase is all there is in this little cartoon, that doesn't have any real appeal nowadays. Only fun if you're a true fan of the Looney Tunes I guess...

4/10.

Bob Clampett's precursor to his more famous "Book Revue" starts off looking like a Porky cartoon, but turns out to definitely have Daffy as the star. It's a more low-key portrayal of books coming to life, with Daffy caterwauling. But then, The Wolf of Wall Street (aren't all Wall Street types wolves?) sets a trap for him.

"A Coy Decoy" was probably one of the placeholders that the Warner Bros. animation department cranked out in between the really famous cartoons, especially since 1941 saw Bugs Bunny's undeniable ascension to super-stardom. The cartoon is really obvious as a Bob Clampett cartoon when Daffy is unwittingly hugging the wolf, and the wolf's snout starts looking rubbery. But without a doubt, the really fine phase of Clampett's, Daffy's and Porky's careers began in 1942, and was fully evident in Clampett's 1943 cartoon "A Corny Concerto".

So, this one is OK, not great.