Tease for Two

The final Goofy Gophers short has the pair teamed up with Daffy Duck. Daffy's got a treasure map that tells him gold is buried where Mac and Tosh live. Daffy tries to get rid of them but they don't go quietly. Lackluster cartoon made during the DePatie-Freleng era when Looney Tunes was a pale shadow of its former glory. The animation is flat and unimpressive but at least it's colorful. Bill Lava's canned music is about what you would expect. Mel Blanc's voice work is OK. He did the voices for both gophers in this one, in place of the missing Stan Freberg. The gags are not that funny, although one bit with a Russian cosmonaut made me laugh because of its sheer weirdness. If you're a Looney Tunes fan, you likely know how bad the shorts were during this period. This is far from the worst I've seen but that isn't to say it's any good, either.

Daffy Duck goes gold mining, only to encounter a gopher hole at the spot where he's supposed to be digging. The gopher hole happens to be inhabited by the over-polite Goofy Gophers, who do everything they possibly can to keep Daffy from finding his fortune.

This was the last of three cartoons during the DePattie-Freling years where Daffy was not paired with Speedy Gonzales. Unfortunately, the fact that it doesn't have this oft-maligned pairing does not necessarily make it a great cartoon. Most of the jokes are underdeveloped (how did the Gophers manage to pull Daffy's jeep apart like that anyway?), and Daffy is the same nasty/reckless character he was in his pairings with Speedy Gonzales. Really, this is essentially a Daffy/Speedy short with slightly better animation and Speedy replaced with the Goofy Gophers. Somehow, I still found the cartoon reasonably amusing because it does retain that classic WB charm (hence the 6-star rating), but it's certainly a good example of why the DePattie-Freling and Alex Lovy years are considered the worst in WB Cartoon history.

Watch it out of curiosity.

Seven of The Goofy Gophers' nine cartoons were great and in the case of 1947's 'The Goofy Gophers' and 1951's 'A Ham in a Role' outstanding. 'Gopher Broke' was a touch disappointing, but still quite good.

'Tease for Two' is the swansong of the two gophers, and sad to say that even with the involvement of Daffy Duck it is by far their weakest. It is not as bad as the worst of the Daffy/Speedy Gonzales series or the worst of the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, and it's better than something like 'Pre-Hysterical Hare', 'Conrad the Sailor' and 'Devil's Feud Cake', but it's nowhere near classic Looney Tunes at their best.

Getting the good things out of the way, some of the dialogue is very amusing, with the best of it once again coming from the over-polite interplay between the Gophers though Daffy has the odd witty line too. Mel Blanc do fine with the voices (this time taking over from Stan Freberg as Tosh, as well as voicing Mac and Daffy), voicing with lots of energy. The Russian cosmonaut and ordinary rocks painted like gold moments fare the best, and are also amusing, though with the Goofy Gophers the humour was often more than just amusing.

While not great as such, the animation quality is not as limited as the worst of Daffy/Speedy and Roadrunner/Coyote and other cartoons made around the time (being made around a time where quality in animation, music and writing were vastly inferior thanks to tighter deadlines and lower budgets amongst other things). The colours are flat and unimaginative, but the backgrounds are more detailed and less simplistic and hurried than a lot of cartoons made around this period and the character designs not quite as scrappy, Daffy has been drawn much better granted but the gophers are not too badly affected. 'Tease for Two' does have energy and doesn't feel too repetitive or tired, despite the story being unoriginal and that there are definitely consistently funnier cartoons made by Looney Tunes.

Bill Lava's music however is just as ill-fitting, cheap-sounding, misplaced and repetitive as it was in the worst of Daffy/Speedy and Roadrunner/Coyote. Daffy and the gophers' pairing is not quite as odd as that of Daffy and Speedy (that pairing rarely did make sense, apart from in the few instances where Daffy's pursuit of Speedy was given a reason) but at the same time it doesn't quite gel, despite Daffy being one of my favourite characters of all time in animation the intellectual dog, the machinery, Elmer and Barnyard Dog gelled with the gophers much better to me.

Daffy, while not as badly as with Speedy, is shown in his greedy, bitter and nasty personality than in his manic, razor-sharp thinking and energetic one and it is not near as funny or as interesting. The gophers however are still entertaining, and are cute also, their over-politeness working really well. There are some amusing moments, but it could have been funnier and more consistent, some of the jokes also could have been more developed.

In summary, neither a good or bad cartoon, instead bordering on the average. The Goofy Gophers deserved a better swansong generally than this. 5/10 Bethany Cox